Let's Talk About POI Overall

The Great Review Continues (Part 2: An Overall Analysis)

Person of Interest tells two stories: the days before Samaritan's activation, and the days after. There's no denying that POI's watchability, intrigue and writing quality increased exponentially in the days after Samaritan's activation, but I want to review everything about the show, not just its storylines. So behold Part 2: An Overall Analysis [of Person of Interest].

PLANNED FROM THE START

Jonathan "Jonah" Nolan.
POI was his brainchild

My main goal of "Part 2" is to display just how immensely complex but well-written POI truly was, and there's nothing I need to look at to show that than the writing.

   In all honesty, the simple, number-of-the-week procedural format would have been perfect for POI. Stick a few arcs in each season and continue it like that it could have gone on for ten years given the superior ratings it was drawing. But the writers never wanted to go that way and I think most POI fans will be glad, and the further along the show went the more serialised and gripping it became.

   But the salient point is that every step was meticulously planned by the writers. They knew the beginning, they knew the middle, they knew the end (they even knew the past and its immeasurable relevance to the present) - like Greer tells Collier in the season 3 finale "Your grassroots movement has been meticulously planned from the beginning".

As we know, the writers always planned for six seasons. I generally consider this a major risk, because it's hard to get things off the ground and keep the momentum going in TV's hardball climate (look at Firefly, which Whedon planned to span 7 seasons and got chopped after one). But everything that was to happen in those six POI seasons was known and plotted and mindmapped from the off.

I can talk about examples of this incredible writing for ages, so I'll just talk about one example: flashbacks, since technically they do come first. In season 1 and 2's flashbacks, we see how Finch and Reese are linked (the laptop into which Finch downloaded a virus to protect the Machine if anyone should try to harm it was sold on by his first helper monkey to the Chinese, and China is where Reese and Kara were sent to recover a mystery laptop, only for them to be betrayed and have the CIA to attempt to murder them both. That went alarmingly wrong when both survived and, in the present, Kara then gets a job for a Chinese company, Decima, who use that laptop to try and destroy the Machine so they can bring down Samaritan's competition before it comes online.)

   And this was revealed slowly across the first three seasons, until in the finale Decima brought Samaritan online. The complex story, the slow reveals, the build-up, it all worked perfectly to reach that stage of the story - and there were no plotholes, no loose ends left untied.

   But that's not everything that can be said about flashbacks.

   In the first two seasons, the flashbacks used a season-long arc to answer questions about Reese and Finch. Reese's mission to China took priority in season 1 so we could be introduced to the laptop early on - season 2 then focused on Finch's building the Machine and revealing to us it was he who sold the laptop that led to Reese's fateful mission, all while building to the reveal of how Finch was crippled.

   And the order of these flashbacks is key: if Finch's flashbacks come first, we don't learn about the laptop in a timely manner, and if Reese's come second, well, by that point there is nothing about his CIA past that would be relevant to the plot. So the writers knew what they needed to write in the flashbacks - and in what order, and the timeframes they had to do it - before they started.

   Flashbacks in seasons 3-5 became episodic mostly, relating to the individual plots since the two big flashback arcs had now concluded.

But the point is that the show knew everything it needed to happen. Like it knew the virus Kara uploaded would be subverted by code Finch hid in a secret laptop, like it knew that Vigilance needed to come into the world just as Decima were getting closer to activating Samaritan, like it knew how to handle big anti-heroes like Elias and Control. Everything fitted like a glove in the writers' plans, even if I personally thought some things were done to a lower quality than was possible. And that's what was the truly exceptional thing about this show.

CHARACTERS

When we start we have four main characters: Reese, Finch and Detectives Carter and Fusco - and they provide the four characters we need for this story. Reese is the morally shady ex-CIA hitman who provides the brawn for helping the people identified as POIs by the Machine that Finch, a very morally centred but private billionaire with an enormous guilt complex, created. Fusco provides support, albeit unwillingly at first, from the knowledgeable position of homicide detective, whilst his partner, Carter, upon whom Fusco keeps a wary eye, provides the other moral compass in the show as she tries to take Reese down for his vigilante actions.

   Later on we see the addition of Root - a pyschopathic hacker-cum-contract-killer with an unhealthy obsession for the Machine - as an analogue interface for the Machine, and Shaw - the ex-government assassin who unknowingly worked at the Machine's behest - as a partner for John.

And in terms of all the show's characters, POI loved its parallels.

   Where Finch is a steadfast believer in controlled ASI, Greer is a steadfast believer in allowing ASI to improve humanity by whatever means necessary and both are unflappable in their convictions. They also provided the heads for their respective teams. Reese and Lambert were the brawn and Root, the analogue interface, was paired with Martine, the Terminator-style Samaritan asset. I suppose LeRoux in season 5 could be considered Fusco's evil parallel, kind of, although Shaw doesn't really get one because she leaves early in season 4.

   But the show went further than that.

   And it also loved its philosophers.

   Elias and Dominic, the warring mob lords in season 4, were prime examples of another pitting of philosophical characters. Collier, as the head of Vigilance, was another philosophical thinker slotted into the role of villain. Even Quinn, the head of HR, was similar, although to a lesser extent.

   All of these deep viewpoints were constructed using complex and intriguing characters to tell a specific story, long or short, that clashed with our heroes - and each of them was introduced when necessary.

   Root became an analogue interface for the Machine in season 3, when threats to it became more of a focus. Shaw was introduced at the end of season 2 as the government became a threat, and was upgraded in season 3 for the same reason as Root was. Carter was killed at the explosive end of the HR storyline to make room for the Samaritan storyline and make space for Reese's cover identity as a homicide detective in season 4. Collier was a main character in season 3, when Vigilance emerged to create mayhem that would allow Decima to convince the government to bring Samaritan online. Quinn was introduced in season 2 to show that HR wasn't gone yet, and went out when the whole HR plot ended. Greer was introduced slowly in season 2, becoming a bigger part in season 3 until he made appearances in over half the episodes of season 4 as the main villain, alongside a now necessary major field agent Martine, before her death at Root's hands in revenge for Shaw. Elias was a main part of the mythology of season 1, and provided his own storylines and acted as an obstacle for the HR and Dominic storylines until his attempted murder at the end of season 4, after which he appeared as an outside member of Team Machine in the fight against Samaritan.

Caleb Phipps, a suicidal
student in s2

Caleb Phipps, tech entrepreneur s4.
Did his jaw get wider in two years?

   The list goes on. No character was introduced for no reason that didn't need to be an episodic POI.

   Except Caleb Phipps - and this needs stating. Introduced in season 2 as the one plot that didn't need to involve Reese (and therefore timed to be included while Reese was imprisoned in FBI custody), he was an episodic POI and a brilliant coder creating a revolutionary data compression algorithm for the Internet. In season 2 he was a suicidal student. But at the end of season 4 Root gets a job working for Caleb's now-massive tech company. Why? So she can steal that compression algorithm and save the cornered Machine from Samaritan.

   That kind of writing is fucking superb. To plan one episode in season 2 that provides the one get-out clause for our heroes two seasons later, and get the actor back again ... Truly incredible, inspired writing.

Even when things didn't go as the writers originally intended, it never felt like plans had been altered. For example, Root was apparently never originally intended to be the villain in the first season finale, but I genuinely don't see how things would have gone if she hadn't been. Where would she have returned and how would she have fit in around everything else?

   And Sarah Shahi's pregnancy before season 4 started filming meant she was written out early on, but it led to a great breakdown from Root and an intriguing if time-consuming return arc in season 5. What would have been Shaw's use in season 4 had Sarah Shahi not got pregnant? Who knows, but there's no doubting it set up great TV for the fans.

   (The only exception to this rule is the shortened season 5 and early cancellation. That screwed with the writers' plans quite considerably and it was noticeable.)

NUGGETS

If you've built a world so immersive you can throw in the following nuggets and still have some of them pass by people's notice, you've built an incredible world.

Fusco's Doll (s1-5)

• For example, journalist Maxine Angelis is a POI in 2x05, but prior to that her name can be seen on articles in episodes 2x02 and 2x03, and afterwards in 2x07. I'm also certain I heard/read something about her being referenced in MPOV (Machine POV) in season 3/4.
• The radio show episode "QSO" (5x07) airs an advert for the hotel that Finch buys after saving the POI in 2x15 "Booked Solid".
• The POI in 1x04, Dr. Megan Tillman, is referenced at least twice in later seasons as someone who offers sporadic aid to Finch and Reese, although she is never seen again.
• FUSCO'S DOLL. This is by far one of the best comic relief offerings. Sent to Fusco by Reese in early season 1 (episode 9 to be precise), it has a camera inside it that Finch and Reese used to keep eyes on Carter while she investigates the Man in the Suit. It is never explicitly mentioned again until episode 4x09, exactly 3 seasons later, but appears in all shots of Fusco's desk that are caught by the cameras (filming crew and Machine). In 5x08, Fusco throws it in the bin as he quits Team Machine, bringing the doll's epic character arc to an undignified close.
• The password to activate the Ice-9 virus in 5x12 was "Dashwood", the surname of a lead character in the Jane Austen novel "Sense and Sensibility", which Finch gives Grace as a present when they get engaged.

THE LIBRARY v THE SUBWAY

Team Machine had two secret locations throughout the show, the Library (1-3) and the Subway (4-5), and both were as multi-faceted as each other. The Library offered many different rooms, from the main workspace of the round circle and glass workboard, the room in which Root was held captive, another in which Leon was kept and the corridor where Finch and Reese find books to identify the numbers. It's a main feature of seasons 1-3, and there were only 6 episodes out of 68 across those 3 seasons in which it didn't appear.

   Contrastingly, the Subway is a huge open space underground. The subway car (which is a genuinely real, abandoned subway car, not a set-made one) provides a workspace, but the outside area provides good discussion space. And the architecture and period features of it are just interesting: the arched ceiling, the colours, the brickwork and the lighting. It was just so much more aesthetically pleasing than the Library and that made every scene more enjoyable. Plus for two episodes it had Root's makeshift bedroom, which was epic.

   I couldn't tell you how many episodes of the 35 from s4-5 it featured in, but for me -

The Subway > The Library.

THEMES

There are a lot of themes throughout the show, philosophies that are respected and messages that the writers try to convey, and it would be remiss of me not to look at a few and show how strongly they are presented.
   Privacy has to be the main overall theme. Having built a Machine that can spy on everyone, Finch questions was it the right thing to do? Had he opened Pandora's Box? And we see all sides of the argument. Finch is one side, with his belief that what he is doing is right, and that he is doing it in a way that no abuse can befall his creation or the information it gleans from watching people. Collier, of Vigilance, is another side, an extreme side who believe any form of mass surveillance amounts to treason. Greer is another, who believes people would be better served to be run by ASIs, never mind keep their privacy. Root presents a fourth opinion, that ASI should be free, just as humans are. The question of how far should protection from national threats go is one that permeates the show, but is such a hard question to answer that it never is.

   Alongside it is the perceived need for redemption, which has a strong hold over some characters. Notably Fusco, who after time spent as a corrupt cop is paired with Carter and eventually begins to work for Team Machine. He arrests his old boss in HR and pretty much just turns up wherever Reese or Finch ask him to without question because he trusts they are doing the right thing.
   But redemption is also important for our two main characters, Reese and Finch. After a lifetime of black ops CIA work, and the cold-blooded murder of his ex-lover's abusive husband, Reese sees working with Finch as the ultimate way to right some of his wrongs. That's why he refuses to let Carter or Fusco near him when his bomb vest is counting down, that's why he chooses to die to save Finch in the end. Because John knows that's what his life was coming to, but that in death he could redeem himself in his own eyes.
   Finch is even easier to analyse. Guilty over creating the Machine, due to the ramifications for American citizens and also because it led to the death of his friend Nathan, he continues Nathan's work with the irrelevant list. That's why he hires John, but that's why he, like John, was ready to sacrifice himself at the end and many times before that. Although, unlike John, I don't think Finch believes he can ever redeem himself.
   Those also link in to the theme of sacrifice, but also look at the emphasis that is put on equality and the importance of life. Finch fervently teaches his Machine that not only must it protect people, but it cannot assign one person more value than another, and he uses chess to demonstrate this - in a paraphrased quote "a queen is equal to a pawn". That's why they save the perpetrators as well as the victims, that's why Finch has coded the Machine not to search for him if he is captured, that's why he is appalled when it asks him to kill the congressman who could prevent Samaritan's activation, even though he knows that if the congressman lives thousands more will die instead.
   In the end, the Machine makes a final conclusion about how important everyone is:

Everyone dies alone. But if you mean something to someone…

if you help someone or love someone, and even a single person remembers you… then maybe you never really die at all?

And I think it's spot on.

MAIN CHARACTER RANKING

This was actually surprisingly easy. Root > Finch > Reese > Fusco > Shaw > Carter. So I'll explain.

Carter ... shooting at Quinn, I believe

6. Carter was easily the dullest of our six main characters. While she had a direct bearing on the hugest arcs of the first two and a half seasons, and the emotional growth of Reese, she didn't really offer much that can be memorialised as some of the show's best work, besides the HR trilogy. When she came up as a POI in 1x09 I had high expectations but the episode was actually quite boring, as were the flashbacks of her past in season 3. She provided some good entertainment, some good moments and I'll forever enjoy Carter's character, but she was never a part of the team and was instead just part of the slow build-up to Samaritan that wouldn't need her once it got going. I'll explain this more in the "Best and Worst Of ...", but overall, Carter was easily the most forgettable POI main character of the lot.

Shaw gets ironed by Root

5. Only because Carter was so useless does Shaw not get bottom spot. Shaw's past as an agent working for the government stopping relevant crimes made her an instant hit with fans, but not with me. In season 3, when she was upgraded, she took a lot of the focus away from our remaining original cast without ever really surpassing their worth. She became important in the Samaritan fight in season 4, but Sarah Shahi's pregnancy saw her written out as being taken captive. When in season 5 she returned, time that could have been dedicated to some of the other plots the writers had wanted to address was spent on Shaw instead.

   Now of course, I like Shaw. Her character's deadpan humour was hilarious, as was her love for violence and the devouring of horrifyingly crafted sandwiches (pickles and mustard? Yuck), but she was really nothing more than a second Reese and, while that support was important, it didn't make her more interesting than anyone else.

Lionel Fusco as Abraham Lincoln

4. Fusco. This is where it starts to look bad for the best characters, because there is no way in a just world Fusco should be this low. But he can't overtake any of the top three, so here he's stuck.

   As a corrupt cop turned good guy, Fusco was forever underutilised. He had a HR focus in season 1, and was sort of in between HR and making real moves to be a good guy in season 2. But in seasons 3 and 4 he kind of lost his way as a character, and it's astonishing he never knew about the Machine before 5x09, since the team specifically mentioned it in front of him at least twice before then (the third season finale and that highly praised simulation episode "If-Then-Else"). He had great moments in those early seasons, however, but it was his arc in season 5, condensed because of the shortened episode order, that made us cheer Fusco on again.

   He was more flawed than Carter and that made him the better of the two detectives before her death, and he provided the majority of the comic relief despite being absent for fifteen episodes across the 5 seasons. Everyone loves the comic relief guy.

   Lovable, cuddly and hilarious, ladies and gentlemen I give you Detective Lionel Fusco.

Reese just looking suave as fuck

3. Reese. For all of Jim Caviezel's brilliant portrayal of the broken John Reese, he's just not that interesting of a character. His plot-relative history is played out in flashbacks across season 1, but it's one of the less gripping arcs of the show and he doesn't get more interesting later on. If we exclude the complete flashback episode that was 3x16's "RAM", Reese had 9 episodes with flashbacks devoted to his character and one episode where he, Shaw, Finch and Fusco got a flashback scene each. To put that into context, 6 of those episodes were in season 1, and after that there was nothing that needed to be said about him. Season 5 did make moves to revisit Reese's past in a new dynamic way, but it never got off the ground.

   Despite that, Reese is still our kick-arse main. He's the loyal hitter, good-looking with the silky, threatening-but-sexy voice, perfect for the red-blooded lady viewers. The main focus of his development is shown through his interactions with Finch, Fusco and Carter, until Shaw and Root change that dynamic and we see a little less of Reese.

   I realise I am way underselling Reese as a character, so let me just add that for all his uninteresting past, Reese didn't need to be developed in the same way as Finch or Fusco. He was a great hero without that And he was there from the start until the end, where his death scene became one of his best scenes, and he will always be the hero of the show.

Finch teaching the Machine about equality through chess

2. Harold Finch. The enigma that is Harold Finch. We learned more about his past than any other character (across 14 flashback episodes and the one they all shared a scene), but still he remains the most mysterious. Unbending in his beliefs about equality and the advent of ASI and unwavering in his loyalty, Finch was also brave, clever, a deep-thinking game-player, a moral compass, a generous employer, a realist, accepting, understanding and more. He was everyone's anchor in the sand, and never ceased being intriguing.

   Michael Emerson brought to Finch all of those qualities, but also a superbly depicted spinal injury that Emerson actually settled on himself. The character was the epitome of every theme I've spoken about, and was unquestionably up top for best character. I imagine for most, he would be the best of the lot, but for me he was genuinely outdone by one other.

The ultimate Root image

1. Root. Now if Finch was the anchor in the sand, Root was the sand. A villain at first, in season 3 Root became the most gripping of all characters. She was the analogue interface for the Machine, its human agent, and as such she was sent off on mysterious missions, sometimes ones that were not explained until a much later stage (case in point while everyone's trying to stop Samaritan coming online, Root's bandying about doing who knows what until she reveals she was creating airtight cover identities for them for when Samaritan did come online).

   With a system of rotating identities, we saw Root play so many different characters throughout the show's run, some just for humour and others for purpose, but she was the one who tied everyone together from season 4 onwards. She had a great rapport with Fusco, she was able to tame Shaw and fell in love with her, and she became that niggling voice in Finch's head when she would supply him with logical reasoning that opposed his own conclusions. She and Reese even had an understanding in season 5.

   Root was the most unpredictable of all characters, and though she had no flashback relevance, she was the one that provided the most surprises from episode to episode.

The f**king dog

   And of course, it helps that Amy Acker is gorgeous.

Oh, and can I just add a #7? Bear? The dog? He was useful when there was space for regular scenes involving pet management, but as the seasons went on he became more useless but paradoxically more loved. It got to the point that whenever Bear wasn't used, it was presumed he was left in the Subway. All right then, so where was he in the season 5 finale when the Subway was under attack? The f**king Federal Reserve with Finch and Reese? I don't think so. F**king Bear.

SEASON RANKING

This was unimaginably hard. Actually, on second thoughts no it wasn't. Although overall it's hard to pick out which season I find more watchable (since that all depends on my mood at the time), in terms of the ordering, 3 > 4 > 2 > 5 > 1 seems logical to me.

5. SEASON ONE
Whenever else will you find a show that improves so much across a decent amount of seasons that its debut season is its lowest in quality? That's not to say season one was a bad season because it wasn't, but it just didn't have any of the high stakes, tension-raising, edge-of-your-seat intrigue that came later on. And that's really the main reason for season one being as lowly rated as it is.
   Because, despite some decent arcs in Elias, HR and the Man in the Suit investigation, season one slotted mostly into the usual CBS procedural format. The premise makes that format perfect, but because of how later seasons developed it's hard to look back and compare them all now without realising season one doesn't have more than four or five episodes that stick out as being really high quality, memorable ones. The cast were still melding together and that was really the main focus of it all, and while that happened season one just didn't attempt to scale any real heights. Admittedly, it never needed to, so it rightly didn't try.

4. SEASON FIVE
Season five is perhaps lucky to be fourth on this list, especially since its shortened episode order gave it no time to develop a full (and fully coherent) story (unlike season one, which had 23 episodes to span its plots). But it had two things in spades: firstly freshness.
   Examples of plot devices we hadn't seen used before were the Machine being an open system,;locking Finch and Root out and trying to kill Reese; the Machine built into the Subway base; Root dying and returning as the voice of the Machine; flash-parallels to an alternate universe showing our heroes' lives if the Machine hadn't been built ... Basically, season five was a very Machine-centric season, and its numerous uses after being physically integrated into the team's world made for new and exciting plots. Added to that you had plenty of Root, a gripping if time-consuming arc that brought Shaw back, a truly relevant arc for Fusco, three truly cinematic scenes that after four years the show had earned ... it was just full and different in a great way.
   And secondly tension. Since the show was concluding, the writers had to wrap up Samaritan completely. That meant some hell-raising was coming and, although most was understated, there were some big, big episodes this season.
   Given that it had to cram so much into thirteen episodes, it did a great job. The problem was that it just didn't have enough room for everything, so plenty of stuff went unanswered or hinted at that leaves fans niggling for resolution. And then there was Blackwell.
   Deservedly fourth.

3. SEASON TWO
Season two basically follows on from season one, but what it does better than its predecessor is deepen the mythology of the show exponentially. The laptop's importance is expanded on as Greer is introduced; Kara returns with a mysterious mission that involves kidnapping Reese and Snow; HR rebuild, have Carter's boyfriend killed and then frame Carter for a bad shooting; the Man in the Suit investigation concludes; Shaw is introduced and recurs; the government become a bigger threat; the Machine develops a virus that slows it down and directly affects the following POIs; Root returns with a bang at the end as the Machine moves itself ...
   I think I've covered most of the high stakes stuff that occurred in season two, but there was even room to introduce Bear and have Ken Leung recur as comic relief Leon Tao in four episodes. Given all that, it's probably the busiest season of the show, and it's definitely in the top 3 for seasons.

2. SEASON FOUR
With Samaritan now online, season four raises the stakes even higher. It's probably the darkest season of the show. Team Machine is stretched trying to protect the POIs, protect the Machine and hide from Samaritan, all while dealing with the brewing Elias/Dominic conflict and the capture of Shaw. Nearly every episode is a big one in some way or another and, while that led to a lesser focus on numbers-of-the-week as in seasons one and two, season 4 was considerably better because of it. Case in point, Greer, the face of Samaritan, features in 13 of 22 episodes, a show-high for a recurring villain in a season.
   More Root, the Subway was an even better base of operations than the Library (aesthetically speaking), and the introduction of small recurring characters in Gabriel, Claire, Grice, Harper and Elizabeth Bridges (and the return of Caleb Phipps from season two) fleshed out an already heavy season.

1. SEASON THREE
Season three takes top spot and rightly so. It had its blips along the way (the over-use of Shaw was a heinous move and Samaritan's introductory two-parter could have been more interesting), but from the moment the HR trilogy opened, the stakes were raised for the entire season. Decima's endgame was revealed: to activate an ASI to rival and overthrow the Machine, and from that point on it was all hands on deck to try and stop that from happening. All while dealing with the prominent threat of the privacy terrorist group Vigilance.
   The reveals across the whole show were brilliant and ever-unguessable, but those in season 3 of Samaritan's existence, Vigilance's purpose, Control's identity, Carter's death (after some serious promo about a character dying) ... they were the best. Root was never more intriguing than season 3, when she acted as the analogue interface for the Machine without really being a trusted member of the team, and it just felt like high-octane drama at every turn.
   The weekly POIs that existed weren't as good as the ones in the previous two seasons, but no show is perfect.
   I give you season three, ladies and gentlemen, the best POI season of them all.

Final thoughts

Person of Interest lost a lot in being cancelled early, especially with only a 13-episode order. A full final season of 22/23 episodes would have served it better, but I wanted my final word to be an answer to everyone who has been trashing CBS for its decision to cancel. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the show should never have been cancelled, but we need to remember that CBS only cancelled it because it didn't make the network any money anymore: Warner Bros had all the rights to the show and its merchandising. Both companies were just following through on sound business decisions.
   So we can dispense with all the CBS hate acronyms - Corporate Bull Shit, Can't Be Serious, Crappy Broadcasting Service, Cancels Best Shows and my personal favourite, Could Be Samaritan (that's fucking inspired) - and while we lament we can remember that this was undoubtedly the best and smartest show television has created thus far.

Thanks for reading, see you all next time!

Sam