In the fifth episode of the second season of Person of Interest, an investigative reporter risks her life to get closer to the identity of HR’s boss. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest.
I LOVE SO MUCH ABOUT THIS EPISODE, LET’S TALK ABOUT WHY.
Perpetrator or Victim
Still. STILL. This show is STILL finding new ways to twist our perception of who is a perpetrator or a victim within each of these cases. “Bury the Lede” provides us with something we’ve not seen: a perpetrator who is unknowingly leading someone to their death. At the center of this episode is Maxine Angelis, an investigative reporter who is rather ruthless in pursuing the truth. Well, even that is questioned by this script. What counts as the truth? Who is peddling it? Who benefits from the truth that’s being told?
And those are big questions for this show to ask, but it still plunges into the at-times bleak and harrowing world of HR and journalism. Given what we’d seen of HR in the past, it made sense that Maxine’s reporting had put her in the crosshairs of… well, someone. I never bought the theory that someone other than a member of HR was targeting her, but I also made the assumption that this was obvious. Her reporting style was over-the-top and cunning, so she’d made a ton of enemies over the years. Seriously, look how she treated one of the mayoral candidates! So we get the sense early on that Maxine is truly fearless, at least in the sense that she’s willing to expose the seedy underbelly of modern politics, well aware that she’s taking a risk in doing so.
But the tragic power of “Bury the Lede” is in the way it examines complicity. Maxine gets an anonymous tip about the real identity of the boss of HR, and unfortunately, her confirmation bias leads her to believe that the tip was real. After all, a guard at his property saw Christopher Zambrano arguing with Agent Donnelly of the FBI; another FBI confirmed that Zambrano was a suspect; Zambrano’s father was in the mob; and Zambrano himself was furious at the very suggestion that he was the head of HR. Thus, Maxine connected the dots – the ones that the real boss of HR wanted her to connect – and wrote a story naming him as the lead suspect. In doing so, however, she became complicit. She took the crosshairs off herself and placed them on Zambrano, and less than a day later, he was dead, killed by members of a cartel who despised HR.
It’s one hell of a twist, and I didn’t expect it because shows like this are all about saving the innocent. But this isn’t even the first time that Reese and Finch were too late! THIS SHOW DOESN’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT US AND MAKING US FEEL GOOD AT EVERY TURN. While that may be deeply uncomfortable, it’s also good storytelling. The show doesn’t ignore the fallout from Maxine’s actions, and it doesn’t exonerate her from her poor reporting. One of the things I love about this is that the solution to Maxine’s guilt isn’t wallowing or absolving her of responsibility because she simply didn’t know. It’s action. With Reese tailing her, she does what she can to prove that Zambrano was innocent and implicate the real members of HR in the process. SHE ACTIVELY WORKS TO REPAIR SOME OF THE DAMAGE SHE HAS DONE. That is better than feeling guilty or trying to dodge accountability, and I respect it a lot.
First Date
I’m also coming to admire that Person of Interest seems willing to toy with itself and its very serious nature. Look, this is an unnerving show by default because it addresses things like state surveillance and state violence openly and critically. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect, but it’s certainly doing a lot more than most other fictional narratives are. That means that there are moments where this show is dark. Where I’m consumed by the existential dread of our own universe. Where this show isn’t escapist, but a bitter, horrifying mirror image of our world. So I love that there are moments where the writers take a step back and comment on the sheer absurdity of this arrangement. There’s a lot of humor and entertainment taken from the delicate nature of this case, namely in that this is the first time where John cannot intervene directly. Maxine has been trying to track down the truth of The Man in the Suit, so he can’t arouse her suspicion.
So Finch’s solution is to alter the algorithm on a dating website so that it serves up Reese’s profile, and IT IS 100% COMEDY GOLD. ALSO: FINCH TAKES IT SO SERIOUSLY, AND I LOVE THIS ABOUT HIM. He prepared study notes! The profile was very detailed and specific!!! BEAR FEATURED PROMINENTLY!!! Oh my god, please tell me there was intensely detailed fanfic written of Finch constructing Reese’s profile. Wait, there’s got to be fanfiction of Finch’s scene where he is LITERALLY in Reese’s closet. Like??? Closet full of weapons??? THE FIC IS WRITING ITSELF.
The Boss
Can I just state once more that I hate Simmons? Just unequivocally hate him? Cool. It helps distract me from the fact that the real head of HR was totally on screen right before I said, on video, that I didn’t think we’d met them. And that he quite literally threatened Maxine and said he was throwing her under the bus, yet I didn’t understand the full meaning of that. I’m glad Clarke Peters is on this show because he’s such an incredible talent, and HIS CHARACTER IS THE ACTUAL BOSS. So Donnelly was right in assuming that the head of HR was not in the NYPD. Except that not one person has suspected the real culprit!
Will Fusco find out the truth? I’m worried, y’all. Simmons and HR are pulling him away from Reese, Finch, and Carter, and with his son’s life on the line, it’s possible he may continue to sabotage these cases. I’M SCARED.
The video for “Bury the Lede” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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