Mark Watches ‘Person of Interest’: S02E18 – All In

In the eighteenth episode of the second season of Person of Interest, Reese and Finch uncover a bizarre money laundering scheme, and Carter’s questions have ramifications. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest. 

The pacing in “All In” is a little odd at time, but as a whole, it’s still a touching story about grief and moving on. I certainly didn’t expect it to get as sad as it did towards the end, and that’s mostly because I didn’t catch onto the way the script was giving Finch a chance to reflect on to his own “lost” wife. IT SNUCK UP ON ME, HELP ME EVERYONE.

So while I don’t think this is one of the best episodes this season, it’s really solid, and I appreciate how many different kinds of people we get stories about. The people in “All In” are able to be undetected when they’re forced into money laundering specifically because people find senior citizens to be unassuming. Not only that, but they’re forgotten. A case like Lou Mitchell’s could have easily fallen through the cracks, and if wasn’t for the Machine, he probably would have. He would have died alone in Atlantic City, and that sentence is a tragedy all by itself.

Thus, part of what Reese and Finch do in this episode is provide closure for Lou, rather than just save his life. Granted, that’s something we’ve seen in a lot of these episodes, and there’s a great example of it in “Booked Solid” from this week’s batch. But that stuff matters just as much as the revenge or the heist! Lou’s wife’s death played a huge part in why he fell into Makri’s laundering scheme. It also felt very much like an Atlantic City story. From the diner to the cheesy decor in that casino, I believed that this was possible, that a casino owner would exploit desperate people and people who had little to no other recourses in life. And it fit for a story about a man who promised his wife he would live life to the fullest, yet found that was a lot harder to actually do.

And, of course, this episode had a strong effect on people like Reese and Finch, especially Finch. How do you move on from someone you love so much? Both Reese and Finch had to do that. For different reasons, yes, but on a very general level, they understood what Lou was struggling with.

While this episode jerked up and down a bit too much for my tastes, I still enjoyed it. That’s also because of the HORRIFYING subplot that Carter deals with, and CAN THIS SHOW JUST CHILL ON ESCALATING EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Look, as you could probably tell from the last review, I wasn’t expecting anything else from Beecher. I thought Carter would drop him, and that would be the last we’d see of him. Instead, he’s gradually making his way back into Carter’s life. I still don’t quite know what to think. He could actually have a genuine interest in Carter, but it’s hard to trust him when HR is so insidious and awful all the time. Naturally, I’m suspecting Beecher of the worst: that he was put in place to keep an eye on Carter.

But the events of “All In” make me question that. Because now it seems like Detective Terney’s role is to spy on Carter and Fusco! Or is HR so worried that they’ve got two people in her life??? I want the best for her, and there’s so much potential for her in a relationship with this man. BUT I CAN’T TRUST ANYONE. Terney got Szymanksi and the prosector for Peter Yogorov murdered, and if HR is willing to do that, then I can’t help but worry that Beecher is doing something similar.

The video for “All In” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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