I don’t know where to start with this recap. It was a good episode over all, and I enjoyed watching it but for some reason the ending made me really angry and all I want to do is write about that. But I’ll go in order and leave my rant for the end, that way you can skip it if you don’t want to read the rant.
The episode began with a few flashback reminders of Harold’s trip to China to plant the Trojan Horse on Elizabeth Bridges laptop since Samaritan had shown interest in her algorithm. Harold meets her for coffee and we learn that her algorithm is almost complete and ready to be put into action. Harold then asks her out to dinner the next night to celebrate which is for two purposes with him: To activate the algorithm and plainly because he likes her. It was nice to see him potentially getting involved with someone even though technically he can’t really get involved with anyone. But his Professor cover has allowed him a bit more freedom lately, which has been interesting.
The POI of the day though is Frankie, who is a bounty hunter, but we don’t learn that until a bit later. She’s pretty good at her job though and is similar in general to how John and the team works. She can handle herself in a fight and manages to even swipe John’s badge from him. But since John knows who she’s after, Ray, he’s able to track her down even after she gives him the slip.
Meanwhile Root has shown back up and is conveniently available to help Harold with his new number, who is worryingly Elizabeth Bridges. They assume it must be her ex-husband because he’s been stalking her around the world apparently and has shown up in New York to confront her.
During this time Root starts getting very personal with Harold. Mentioning how they’re friends, how far they’ve come from when they first met which is very odd for her in general. Harold doesn’t seem to notice anything off with her at all though. They return to his office at the university and find it has been broken into and things are everywhere. Harold assumes that whoever did this may be onto his side endeavor with the Trojan Horse.
John manages to track down Frankie and she gives him the reasons why she is there and then Ray shows up. There is a small chase and Ray gets away with Harper (the pot girl from an earlier episode). John takes in Frankie and they begin the search for Harper, because finding her means finding Ray.
Before this though Iris had told John she could no longer see him. Most of us right then and there knew why. Although I actively hoped there was a better reason. Either way John is angry and took not seeing her to heart and refuses to talk to her now.
John and Frankie track down Harper, who I think is still going to the same nightclub – girl really needs to change where she hangs out. Harper is obviously not going to give any info so they decide to follow her, which turns out to be a trap. Both Frankie and John are captured by a Mr. Worthy who we are to assume is a mob boss of some sort. He’s looking for Ray as well because he stole money from him.
Mr. Worthy takes John and Frankie to a butcher shop. I’m sure there is a bunch of symbolic threats in this shop as to their fate if they don’t talk. They’re given a little time minutes to get their story straight before bad things happen. Luckily that’s enough time for them to get free and kick some ass. But Frankie isn’t about to let John help her anymore so she cuffs him to the freezer by surprising him with a kiss.
Root begins acting suspicious to Harold, beyond her typical ways I guess, so he decides to follow her and finds her in Elizabeth’s hotel room. She explains that she has to kill Elizabeth because if he does manage to activate his Trojan Horse he will die as a result because Samaritan will know he was connected. Root can’t allow that to happen.
It was very interesting to see her obvious love for him. And it’s not a romantic type, she looks up to him, I think almost in a fatherly way. He’s family, just like Shaw was, and although losing Shaw was hard for her, it seems that losing Harold would be too much for her. She’s not going to allow it anymore.
What’s surprising is we learn that this isn’t the Machine that has told her to do this, which I do think Harold was surprised about. I think he assumed it was the Machine who was trying to protect him, but it wasn’t. The Machine wanted to go through with the plan and potentially have Harold die as a result, mainly because it was a good plan. But Root couldn’t allow that so she was acting on her own.
Harold in an effort to stop Root decides to drink the entire vile of medication, which was to make Elizabeth have a major heart attack and die. He makes Root promise not to kill her if he goes in to get treatment so he doesn’t die. Root promises of course. We’ll only have to guess how he got treatment so fast and why after having what was probably a major heart attack he was out of the hospital by the next day.
But he is out of the hospital the next day and goes to Elizabeth’s hotel room only to find that she’s extremely mad at him. Apparently some of the work she’s done in the past isn’t up to snuff and he wrote an email to say that. Of course we know he didn’t and that Root did, but it’s a way to deal with the situation without risking anyone’s life. Of course this meant he couldn’t activate the Trojan Horse at all because he couldn’t get close enough.
In the end, Root is obviously very sad about what has happened because she knows he’s angry, but with Harold, we know he’s very forgiving, especially when it comes to her. And although he says he doesn’t want to see her for a while, I bet that “while” is just a few days.
While all that was happening with Harold, Reese had tracked down Frankie who we had learned is actually tracking Ray to kill him because he killed her brother. Harper is with Ray when Frankie shows up to kill Ray. She sets up how she’s going to do it but of course Reese arrives just in time to stop it. Of course everyone forgot about the gun that was laying on the floor and Ray takes it and holds Harper hostage.
Then Mr. Worthy shows up and he wants Ray for obvious reasons, besides being stolen Ray holds documents that could put Mr. Worthy in jail for a long time.
A shoot out happens but Harper knows a way out. She offers everyone a deal. Mr. Worthy gets the USB drive with all the incriminating data on it, Reese gets to arrest Ray, and she gets to walk free. It takes some convincing but Frankie agrees to it. Of course Ray isn’t willing to just go quietly so we get to see Reese cap him in the knee in the end.
Reese then talks with Harper about how she got involved in this and we learn that the Machine actually set her up to do this which is very interesting in itself. They said they wouldn’t be bringing anyone new into the team but obviously the Machine isn’t in on this. Of course does Harper know this is the Machine, no, but obviously the Machine finds her to be useful to it.
Now on to the part I absolutely hated, the confession of Iris that she has feelings for John. We all knew it, and most of us thought this would be a horrible idea only because as a professional she’s violating every sort of ethic there is for her job. Of course John isn’t taking no for an answer or respecting her want to not be involved due to ethics and her job and says he can keep a secret pretty well.
This whole thing is wrong on so many levels. She’s just bad at her job if she can’t control herself and gives into this.
So the thought process goes one of two ways, she’s just horrible at her job or this is a set up. Because I haven’t trusted her from day one, I’m still going with set up. Whether she works for the Brotherhood or somehow for Samaritan and they know of John’s cover, I don’t know but I think that whatever happens with this Iris thing will not end well.
It’s great to see him be able to open up and “love” someone, but it seems really wrong that it was his therapist. It’s not real love in my opinion. It’s him seeing her as someone he can trust to keep him emotionally sane basically and this has resulted in feelings, and for whatever reason has had her develop feelings for him as well. But it’s not entirely uncommon for a patient to “fall in love” with their doctor, with someone they pour their soul out to. She should know better than to get involve with him. She should know that it’s unhealthy, especially for him.
As people like to tell me though, “It’s just a TV show! Stop being so critical.” And I hope that this is just a TV show and this won’t turn out bad, but I can’t help that this is a set up to some serious things happening for John.
No new episode next week. Take the time to get some sleep and rest up because after that we have only four more episodes left!
