Mark Watches ‘Person of Interest’: S03E04 – Reasonable Doubt

In the fourth episode of the third season of Person of Interest, the team deals with doubt and uncertainty when they can’t determine if a target is a victim, a perpetrator, or both. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest. 

This show keeps finding new ways to mess with the audience and it’s own stories and IT IS SO FUN. And messed up. Let us not forget that because this is like the more evil version of “‘Til Death.” RIGHT? Because oh my god, this couple are almost made for each other.

Well, let me establish that Jeremy Watkins is WAY worse than Vanessa is, so if there’s any outcome that I hoped for, it was that he definitely didn’t escape unscathed. At the same time, Vanessa is complicit in a lot of terrible things, and streaming $20 million from a charity devoted to helping the innocent find justice is pretty damn evil.

Of course, it is a long journey to that point, and the show switches up their normal operating procedure by creating a new conflict for the team to deal with: what exactly is Vanessa’s role in all of this? Throughout “Reasonable Doubt,” Vanessa appears to straddle the line between victim and perpetrator. It seemed obvious that she killed her husband, but then it looked like a racist cop was retaliating against her. So, she was set up and was trying to prove her innocence while avoiding capture.

By the time John finally apprehended her (after she plants cocaine on the main who was paid to frame her, mind you!), this case was a MESS. I genuinely didn’t know if she was telling the truth about her husband or not! In hindsight, I can see the clever way in which the writers designed this mystery so that people like me would fall for it. She passed Carter’s test! Vanessa looked sincere when she was surprised that her best friend had had sex with her husband, and she seemed sincere when she said she loved him. Well, that’s because she wasn’t lying. It’s true! It’s just that hidden within all of this was her true motive: she had helped her husband fake his death so he could pay off a mob debt. But that motherfucker DOUBLE CROSSED HER and framed her for his fake death! Like, how evil and self-centered do you have to be to DO something like that? Especially after Vanessa was willing to throw away her whole career for Jeremy????

In the end, I understood why John left them to their own devices. Neither of them were a threat to anyone but each other, and whatever the outcome of that shootout, the police could handle it from there. It’s not often that John does something like this, but this case was HOPELESS, and both of the people in it were terrible.

Speaking of terrible: I KNEW CARTER’S NEW PARTNER WAS A PLANT. FUCK HIM, I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL HE IS GONE. She’s observant, though, and I won’t be surprised if she hasn’t already considered this to be a possibility. HR was willing to get her demoted, so this is way less intense than that.

I’m also very pleased with the dynamic between the group and Shaw, who has been seamlessly folded into Person of Interest without making this feel weird. Plus: SHE IS SO FUNNY AND SHE LOVES BEAR. What else could I ask for?

The video for “Reasonable Doubt” can be download here for $0.99.

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About Mark Oshiro

Perpetually unprepared since '09.
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