In the first episode of the fourth season of Person of Interest, the team is scattered about New York, uncertain how they’ll work together, when the Machine finds unique ways for them to cross paths. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest.Â
Trigger Warning: For talk of racial stereotypes
I just want to state that Link was played by Jamie Hector, who was Marlo Stanfield on The Wire. (Garrison’s actor was also on that show!) I WAS NOT WRONG, I SHOULD NOT SECOND GUESS MYSELF.
Anyway, now that this totally important fact is out of the way, help??? This is what season four is going to be like, and I’m not ready at all. It’s such a bold opening episode, and it sets the stage for the complicated battle that’s to come. If I thought the earlier episodes this week reversed the core concept of Person of Interest, then this is an extreme version of that. The writers—once again!—commit to what they’ve set up, and the four members of the team are stuck in alternate identities… well. Wait. That’s not right, is it? At no point do we find out what it is that Root does aside from talk to The Machine.
Out of the four of them, she probably has it the best. Shaw certainly has the worst identity, but as Root said, there’s got to be a reason the Machine stuck her in a department store. (I’m a little confused about the dating app and the van she jumps into, but I guess it’s part of the plan, too???) It makes sense that John is working for the NYPD, since it allows him access to some resources he wouldn’t have had otherwise. Harold’s identity as a professor is a little more complex, and I wonder if it wasn’t a clue from The Machine about the role it wanted him to play. It wasn’t lost on me that he was teaching a class on Ethics, and it’s also obvious that the dissertation was the Machine’s way of pushing Harold to where he needed to be.
More on that in a second. I am not sure if there will be much of the Brotherhood in this season, and I’m also not sure how I feel about them. They’re used here to introduce Ali Hasan’s VHF network, which allows the team to communicate with one another without Samaritan listening to them. That’s a big deal, and I love the way these subversive technologies are being used to fuel the plot. The team has to get creative, and that in turn means the writing team has to do so, too. How will they subvert Samaritan’s panopticon?
Which is why the invocation of Brotherhood feels a little stale. At this point, they’re nothing more than a street gang, and every single member of that gang is black or brown. They either have no lines, shitty lines, or are one-note characters, and I am suspicious of this show after their treatment of plenty of other non-white characters. (Most especially their treatment of black characters.) If Person of Interest is going to do this, I need for this storyline to have the depth granted to all the other characters. Look at Elias, for instance, who is contracted by John in “Panopticon†to work against the Brotherhood. The mob storyline in this show has been remarkably complex and fascinating. Granted, it has had three seasons to develop, and the Brotherhood storyline has only been around for a single episode. I want it to be great, but I’m being cautious at this point.
As for Decima… good fucking god, they wasted no time going STRAIGHT FOR EVIL. The execution of the journalist at the start of this episode is all the evidence anyone needs that national security doesn’t matter; Samaritan is protecting itself. That makes people like that journalist collateral damage. How many more people will be targeted by that machine? Will dissidents and protestors end up on its list? Will Decima or Greer even care about who gets caught up in Samaritan’s need to protect itself?
That’s why I am so thrilled that Harold was directed to a possible new headquarters. That’s totally what that abandoned station is, right? At this point, the five people working for the Machine are the only ones who have the capacity to stop Samaritan. (I do wonder when Lionel will finally be shown the truth. Doesn’t he deserve to know by know?) Despite all of Harold’s doubts and second-guessing, this war cannot possibly be won by forgetting why the numbers matter. This whole case was a reminder for Harold, and I’m glad he’s back in.
The video for “Panopticon†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
Mark Links Stuff
– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT, is now available for pre-order! If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter! DO IT.
