In the seventh episode of the fifth season of Person of Interest, the Machine guides Root to an unorthodox method of sending a message to Shaw. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest.Â
I grew up steeped in creepy lore. My family watched Unsolved Mysteries and The X-Files. We actually had one of those Unsolved Mysteries anthologies that were put together by Reader’s Digest. (I think? I am not entirely sure that is where it came from, but it seems right.) I read Goosebumps, I devoured Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson, and if I managed to stay up late enough, I would listen to Art Bell’s Coast to Coast. You never quite knew what you were going to get with the show, and indeed, there’d be week after week in which most of the callers just rambled on about something that never seemed all that interested.
But if you were lucky, you got to hear some creepy stories. I’ve listened to the Area 51 call more times than I can count; I’m pretty sure I heard the story about “Mel’s Hole†in real-time; and that show fueled some intense beliefs that the two military bases I lived between in Riverside (March and Edwards) were hiding something from the general public. So, at a young age, I learned to love two things: a healthy distrust of the government and creepy storytelling. THEY ARE INTEGRAL TO WHO I AM TODAY, OKAY. (And whew, I could have traveled down a dark path and become a libertarian. ALAS, I AM SAFE.) I say all this because it was a trip to watch Person of Interest make reference to something that was a huge part of my life growing up. Max’s show, Mysterious Transmissions, taps into a very specific element of American culture for a lot of us. What’s fascinating about that, though, is that it is invoked within a show about an actual conspiracy, one being enacted out by Decima and the US government, one that most people are unaware exists. (The furor around Northern Lights disappeared pretty quickly, didn’t it?) Within the framework of Max’s show, it’s a goldmine, especially since he is the first person to discover how Samaritan operatives receive secret communications. So yes, there’s a slightly humorous element to this: Max’s work is finally verified by an outside source, but it’s in such a bizarre way.
Yet the sheer creepiness of the events in “QSO†isn’t unexplored. How do you fight an enemy that can activate wave after wave of operatives willing to do anything they’re ordered to? How do you live with the knowledge of a being like Samaritan? That’s the basis of this show, obviously, but it’s not Max’s life, even if he does surround himself with conspiracy theories. What happens when he actually knows something that he can prove?
It’s interesting that this happens in the aftermath of Fusco surviving the demolition, since both these characters are facing the reality of Samaritan, albeit in different ways. Harold and John are desperate to keep the truth away from Fusco, despite that Samaritan harms him in demonstrable ways. But Root is forced to tell Max the truth when it becomes impossible to do otherwise. And what comes of that? Exactly what John and Harold worry about: Max is killed by Samaritan. But it’s not that simple, is it? Is it just a matter of free will? Because Max chose to go back on the air and tell the truth, does that mean the Machine is still doing what it’s programmed to do? And if this is a matter of free will, then why the hell don’t these people give Fusco the choice to be a part of Team Machine or not? (Granted, it is Root who argues for free will and she does seem pretty set on letting Fusco in on the truth.)
I found it more satisfying that this was messy rather than easy, that knowing what to do with Max did not come easy to these people. At the same time, I was so thrilled by Fusco’s rejection, as it has been a long, long time coming. The man has been lied to and treated like a child at times, and in the end, John and Harold still couldn’t protect him. He still got hurt. So, was it all worth it?
Well, I’d argue that Root successfully reaching out to Shaw was worth it, both because of the content and the timing. Y’all, Decima is flat-out fucking evil, and I would say I can’t believe what they did here, BUT I BELIEVE IT. They want to exhaust Shaw, to make her question reality so much that she just gives up. And now, they’ve manipulated her into murdering a promising scientist because of a prediction Samaritan calculated. WHICH… LORD, THAT IS SO FUCKED UP.
The video for “QSO†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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