PERSON OF INTEREST SEASON 3 EPISODE 12

Things have been hotting up for Finch and company with the black ops mob catching up with them as well as Vigilance, a sort of home grown terrorist outfit. The episode before Christmas saw  Harold trying to rescue his old colleague Arthur, who has a brain tumor which is rapidly stripping him of his memories.  Finch and Shaw are with him and are trying to get him to remember what he has that Control wants (is it control in POI? I may be confused. I mean Nikita had "Division" and another program recently had The Company. It seems that the black ops in fiction have to have a scary but innocuous name.)
As for Vigilance, I think that they are supposed to represent Anonymous. Forget about the war on terror, the people that western governments fear the most are its own citizens. Just look at the NSA scandal, I mean, who weren't they spying on?

Anyhow, I seem to have got off the point. This episode follows the tried and tested formula that has had me hooked from episode one. The direction is always excellent, moving between scenes that build to the climax of the story. Technology plays a major part and in between scenes that cut from one team members activity to another's there are always flashbacks that  fill out the characters biographies. In this episode I thought that the story in the flashbacks was top notch. We see Harold way back in the mid seventies, in his teens building what his father refers to as a memory machine. Harold father has Alzheimers and is slowly fading out as the unfortunate sufferers of this disease do. Harold tells him that it is much more than that, and one day may watch over and protect us all. This could be a nod to the span of time that the powers that be have been developing this: essentially for as long as there have been computers. Harolds Dad ends up in a home and Finch is on the run, having hacked the CIA database.

In the main story Harold, Shaw and Arthur are held captive. The situation looks hopeless but you just know Root will appear any time now to rescue them. In doing so, however she gets shot and captured. Reece and Fusco are in a jail cell following their fisticuffs. Lionel is trying to get Reece to snap out of his depression, brought on by the death of Carter. He doesn't bite so Lionel leaves after telling him that Finch needed his help. Meanwhile Arthur is lucid long enough to recall where Samaritan, his version of the machine is and they go there to retrieve it. Just after they arrive Vigilance show up. At this time control have root and are trying to get information about the machine by drugging her. When drugging doesn't work torture is used.

Arthur and Finch are in the vault of a bank waiting for rescue from Shaw, who times an explosion to go off when vigilante detonate a device at the vault door. She achieves this but they are cornered when Lionel and Reece show up and help them out. They have destroyed the discs that were stored. Reece announces that he is done with it all and exits broodily. It looks like it is Shaw and Harold from now on as in the other strand of the story the machine helps Root break free and escape. She phones Harold to drop the bombshell that someone else had switched the discs in the Samaritan cases, so someone has Samaritan. It turns out to be the creepy upper class English dude that turns up from time to time. Yes, Britannia still (covertly) rules the waves, and the USA.

Person of interest brings up issues of interest. Finch creates a machine, a super computer that is wired in to everything. Unlike any other computer this one learns from what it observes and the information it processes. It has become sentient. Not only that it has become independent and will not work for the government agency that commissioned it. It prefers to work with independent people like Root and Harold who are different in personality and approach but are both outsiders. The machine gives Finch a small amount of information, a social security number. He then has to decide are they a victim or a perp. If it is the former they get saved if the latter persuaded to rethink. Root likewise gets very little information but the people she is tracking are mostly potential murderers that she always dispatches. In the past Root and Finch's paths have crossed. The machine seems to be playing a game. Her aides are like two sides to the same coin. Harold keeps people on the straight and narrow whilst Root takes out the trash. It is a funny situation. There are black ops and other government agencies chasing around looking for a machine that technically belongs to them. Every time they get near though, the machine has itself moved.

The machine has turned away from its original programming which was to gather and interpret data which would lead to the prevention of terrorist attacks. Did the machine decide for itself (if it is sentient it could be argued that it has a self ) that it had other priorities? Perhaps the machine worked out that 9/11 was a false flag event. After all, it not only won't work with the government it has never intervened to save an agent apart from Fusco and Carter. The machine appears to have deduced that it was too dangerous to be in the hands of the government and trusts no one apart from Finch and Root.

I was really pleased to see the program back after the xmas break but I am a little sad that Jim Caviezel is leaving. I hope it is temporary. It is bad enough that Carter, played brilliantly by Taraji P henson was killed off recently, probably a writers decision to stop she and Reece becoming too close. The story calls for an edgy loner. Perhaps Reece will return in a vengeful mood. Yet Shaws inclusion this season suggests that he is out of the picture for now. Thats not so bad as Shaw is a great character who's inability to socialize is always amusing. There is also an air of suspense as we all wonder what the way forward will be.

I'm looking forward to finding out.