In the fifth episode of the fifth season of Person of Interest, a number sets a grim pallor over the war with Samaritan. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest.
Trigger Warning: For brief mention of suicide.
I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. It’s dark and sad but IT’S DONE SO WELL. Let’s chat!
ShotSeeker
It’s been a delight (and, admittedly, kind of creepy) watching this show address so many forms of surveillance, from the things that people aren’t aware of, to the ones that people openly accept. Thus, it seemed obvious that there must be something in the ShotSeeker system or program that Samaritan wanted. Wouldn’t it provide a new means of spying on people in public, perhaps when they were in places with cameras or cell phones?
Yet even if this is the case, “ShotSeeker†deliberately obfuscates its own endgame. Ethan is targeted after he realizes that the program lied to him. (Which I assume Samaritan manipulated in the hope that no one would notice.) Through a simple coincidence, though—Ethan went to high school with Krupa Naik—Ethan noticed. It put him on Samaritan’s radar, which in turn triggered the Machine, and then… well, it’s a twisted, complicated journey that unfolds over the course of this episode. Just watch the video for evidence of me being unable to figure out ANYTHING AT ALL. Part of the problem is that I, too, fell for Samaritan’s frame job. It was so easy to believe that Krupa had been targeted, that she’d been killed by a vindictive CEO who hated that she didn’t sell her research to him, that the team he hired to take her was now going after all the loose ends. IT’S LITERALLY THE EXACT KIND OF CASE THAT TEAM MACHINE WOULD TAKE. (Which brings up an uncomfortable issue: Can Samaritan properly manipulate other people through its study of them? Because holy shit, I’m pretty sure the answer is a resounding YES, and that terrifies me.) They all take the bait. They all fall for this… up to a point.
I can’t possibly provide you with a theory as to what actually happened here, and that’s where “ShotSeeker†excels. Ambiguity within the Person of Interest world generally means that it’s part of a larger story. That being said, I still want episodes that feel like their own entities, and the writers find a way to make the big mystery a moral struggle rather than offering us plot closure. Root and Harold are faced with a terrible choice and very little time to decide it: Do they subvert Samaritan’s plans to kill Ethan and bury Krupa’s research? That’s their general mission! Saving lives! So it seems to be the ethical choice, but what if Samaritan is manipulating them into that decision? What if Samaritan tricked them because it WANTED them to disseminate Krupa’s research? That mystery is a way of building up the sheer impossibility of fighting Samaritan. How can you fight against an entity that is everywhere, all of the time? That can manipulate reality so effectively that you don’t know if you’re doing good? That is eight million steps ahead of you? It’s vital that this happens while the AI simulations play out because it’s all part of creating believable stakes and challenges. It hurts a little to watch this, of course, because this doesn’t give us much hope. The Machine lost BILLIONS of battles with Samaritan, and Samaritan is still out there, rapidly changing the world, killing innocent people and kidnapping others, and y’all… I don’t know what the path to victory is.
Bruce Moran
This is such a clever script because there are just SO MANY little twists and turns that I bought into. (I generally fall for everything, so maybe I’m a bad example here.) For instance, I completely believed that John had been kidnapped by Samaritan agents, not Bruce’s men. But this plot is SO NECESSARY. It’s a thread left unaddressed after the end of last season, and it helps push Fusco into a much more active role in Person of Interest. Bruce wants the truth, but that truth is REALLY FUCKING HARD TO EXPLAIN TO SOMEONE IN LESS THAN A SOLID 24 HOURS. Seriously, how is anyone going to be inducted into Team Machine at this fucking point? There’s just so much that they need to know, and there’s no easy way to do it. Yet Bruce’s desire for the truth about the assassination of Elias pushed Harold and John to finally admit that they had to give him something or he wouldn’t ever stop.
So they give him Elias.
First things first: I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THE CONVERSATION HAROLD AND JOHN HAD WITH HIM ABOUT SAMARITAN. It’s clear he knows! He knows what they’re up against, and it’s why he begs Bruce to go back into the shadows. But exactly how long can that last? How long until Bruce is in Samaritan’s crosshairs? How long until Fusco pieces together all the loose ends he’s been collecting this season? We are reaching a critical point here, and Bruce shoved everything into the light as much as he could. We now know that Elias is alive (!!!!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T EVEN QUESTION THIS !!!!!!), that he is aware of Samaritan, and that Fusco has noticed the uptick in suicides and missing persons cases in New York. It’s only a matter of time, right?
The video for “ShotSeeker†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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