{"id":6630,"date":"2017-11-10T13:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T21:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6630"},"modified":"2017-10-22T18:27:42","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T01:27:42","slug":"mark-watches-person-of-interest-s03e20-death-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2017\/11\/mark-watches-person-of-interest-s03e20-death-benefit\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Person of Interest’: S03E20 – Death Benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the twentieth episode of the third season of Person of Interest<\/i>, I AM SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Person of Interest<\/i>.<\/p>\n

This got SO real, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s such a deeply unsettling moment in this show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mythology. AND THEY DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T EVEN LET THE AUDIENCE OFF THE HOOK.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite things to talk about and write about is the idea of complicity. What do we allow<\/i> to happen, even when we aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the direct perpetrators? What do we profit from? What do turn our gaze away from? For the most part, the Person of Interest<\/i> cast of characters has had to deal with this head-on. These people killed others; they followed orders that were fraudulent and terrible; they built systems that caused suffering and misery. And the show doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let them forget that! Yes, they are all now struggling to do good, but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re shown that this is a long path, one that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been on for years<\/i>, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no single solution to this sort of struggle. You do this shit for life<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And now, the Machine has thrown them all<\/i> for a loop, and the decision they have to make here is… well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intense. Which still sounds like an understatement, you know??? More so than any<\/i> number the team was given, the target in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Death Benefit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is utterly perplexing. He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem to have any enemies, and every possible threat turns out to be evidence of the fact that Congressman McCourt just GETS ALONG ALL THE TIME. With everyone!!! A huge joke in this episode is that every perceived threat that John uncovers ends up being benign. NOTHING. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ALL NOTHING.<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sort of the point. How does a US Congressman end up so agreeable<\/i>? That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen in a vacuum, and it certainly doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen within a system as corrupt as the US Legislature. Thus, this is about complicity<\/i>. How does a company like Decima gain access to the feeds they need to run Samaritan properly? How does a government turn attention away from a life-changing new story, like the one where it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discovered that the government has been spying on its own citizens? IS THIS STARTING TO FEEL WAY TOO SIMILAR TO OUR OWN WORLD?<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doubt that this is intentional. It has<\/i> to be. Men like McCourt traded away civil liberties and a right to privacy to help enact a massive surveillance network in the United States, and they most likely made a profit from it. And hell, I bet a large amount of them believe in it, too, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not shocking that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the ones least<\/i> affected by the ramifications of a surveillance network like that. The decision is so much easier when you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to worry about your own<\/i> life, right?<\/p>\n

Yet \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Death Benefit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d turns the heat on the main characters and<\/i> the audience, too. After struggling to piece this together, John realizes that the Machine reported McCourt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s number because there was a high probability of his death… at the hands of the very people who got the number in the first place. Theoretically, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible: What if the Machine saw McCourt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work to give Decima what they wanted as an act that would kill other people? To act to save those people, it would ask the team to eliminate McCourt. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clever bit of math, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one that Harold ultimately refuses to do. This whole project of his was meant to save lives, not take<\/i> them. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been incredibly consistent on this front, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not surprised that he walked out of that house before he could even learn the fate of McCourt. Does it matter to him that John didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take the shot? Maybe, but the point is that he was driven to a line he refused to cross, and HE LEFT.<\/p>\n

And what does this all mean for us? McCourt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s justification for why he would approve Decima\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s necessary legislation is chilling, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those moments that stretched beyond the show itself. He did it because we would forget<\/i>. We might cry out in revulsion and shock, but do we really<\/i> want to challenge how we are protected? I have known people who think the greatest enemies of American history were Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. They were perfectly fine with their privacy being violated \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and with the violation of others \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if they were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153safe.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What does that mean? What does safety look like in 2017? Those aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the questions that are being asked, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point. What do we allow to happen?<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M SO UNCOMFORTABLE.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Death Benefit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"