In the fifth episode of the third season of Person of Interest, I was truly not ready for this episode. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest.Â
I just… I just love so many things in this episode, y’all. The performances, the writing, the tension. HOW IS THIS SHOW SO CONSISTENTLY GOOD.
Flashbacks
I actually want to start with this because I hope to open a discussion on Sameen Shaw and representation. Even more so than when she was first introduced, I’m realizing that I’ve never seen a character like Shaw on television. Men are usually given roles like this! But now, we’ve got a flashback that expands Shaw’s characterization beyond what we saw in “Relevance.†Here’s what I want to talk about: does this count as representation? See, one of the things that matters when you’re talking about representation for marginalized communities, specificity plays a huge part in that. We find out here that Shaw might be neuroatypical, or she might have something else going on. She experiences emotions differently than other people, and she’s known since she was young that this made her weird, that people reacted to her negatively because of it. Now, I was initially worried that that paramedic just didn’t understand grief? Because grief doesn’t always manifest immediately, and many people who have experienced it can speak to the fact that it can pop up out of nowhere much, much later on.
Thankfully, the show was more explicit than that: Shaw says she’s not wired to experience emotions like everyone else. And even when Gen “figures out†Shaw, it’s not a negation of this! Shaw really is different. But without a name to it, I could see people either identifying strongly with Shaw’s character or feeling like it’s a cop-out. I don’t experience difficulty with emotions or empathy like Shaw does, so I feel like it’s not my place to comment on this beyond the superficial. I do enjoy that Shaw is so different from all the other characters on the show, but I’d love to know what others think of her.
Gen
So, I kinda have a soft spot for characters like Gen, who was cast into a terrible situation but found creative ways to deal with it. She’s plucky, funny, and resourceful, but the show always lets her be a kid. Of course, she’s almost like a foil to Shaw, and she’s definitely here to remind Shaw of who she was when she was Gen’s age. Y’all, there’s just so much DEPTH here!!! FOR A TEN-YEAR-OLD CHARACTER.
But I tend to love fiction that deals with people who have fallen into the margins. Gen’s story is an extreme example of that, given that I doubt there are many kids who have picked up surveillance techniques that they used to spy on their entire building, but STILL. Gen was forgotten by immigration services. She was more or less supporting herself as a child because her guardian, Vadim, was addicted to bath salts and saw her as nothing more than a nuisance. Even though Shaw didn’t want to admit it, she felt protective of Gen after seeing her living state and her little listening station. There’s a bit of idol worship going on here, too, since Gen basically wants to be Shaw when she grows up.
Yet on top of this all, the writers found a way to tie Gen’s story into the existing HR plot, and IT WAS SO FUCKING GOOD. Y’all, I can’t get over this: a ten-year-old girl was able to push this case forward. It was with those tapes that the team finally got information on Yogorov, Simmons, Terney, and others, that implicated HR in a despicable scheme to push an addiction on the streets of New York in order to make a profit. Which: EVIL. Clearly. However, this episode deals with Shaw’s own moral dilemma. Does she do what she can to save Gen or save the tapes Gen made? She quickly comes down on the side of saving Gen, which was amazing to me because at the start of this episode, Finch kept having to remind Shaw to protect Gen. AND HE DIDN’T HAVE TO ANYMORE AT THE END.
I doubt we’ll see Gen again, but it would be a treat if we did.
Carter
I JUST LOVE HER SO MUCH AND OH MY GOD, I AM SO PLEASED THAT SHE WASN’T BEING IGNORANT AND FOOLISH THIS SEASON. Look, I distrusted Laskey from the start, especially since he appeared in the same episode as the one where Terney said Carter might still be a problem. Yet my main concern was that Carter was being written as missing all the obvious signs that Laskey was a plant. I AM GLAD THIS IS NOT THE CASE. This re-contextualizes literally ALL of their interactions because she always knew what he was doing! She purposely acted shady in front of Laskey so she could see his reactions.
AND HOW ABOUT THAT SCENE IN THE BAR IN THE END? IT’S A WORK OF ART, PLEASE PUT IT IN A MUSEUM. OH MY GOD, SHE IS GOING TO HAVE LASKEY WORKING FOR HER? I LIVE FOR THIS. IT IS EVERYTHING I EVER WANTED.
The video for “Разговор†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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