Well, the season finale is finished and has left us wondering what’s to come for the team? I enjoyed the finale and think it’s opened up a few new ways. Today I’m going to try to do more than just a recap since it’s the finale and I won’t be doing one of these recaps until the new season starts. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, don’t read this.
The show started out by letting everyone know that Samaritan was successfully tracking down the Machine. Later they talked about sabotaging the power grid to disrupt the Machine and shut it down. I have to say I didn’t catch this at the beginning and was a bit confused but I’m pretty sure others did catch on right away that they were telling us the Machine was in the power grid. Luckily for those of us who aren’t quick, they gave us more clues and then finally just outright told us later in the episode.
Harold and Root had made it back to the subway station and were searching for the Machine themselves because they didn’t know at that time where it was. Communication was very limited due to the power issues, which Harold did know about but didn’t seem to understand fully what the plan was by Samaritan. Then suddenly a phone rings, a hidden phone (which I’ll just ignore why they would wall in a phone during a remodel rather than remove it) and Root sledges her way through the wall to get to it. It was a great scene for the simple fact that we were able to watch her beat the crap out of a wall.
The Machine is giving off a distress signal and then gives the code to the bulletproof case Root had obtained earlier in the season. She knows what has to be done but Harold isn’t sure they can do it without John and he’s also concerned because he’s not heard from him. Of course, they don’t have time to worry about John and they both head out to save the Machine.
Dominic is still holding John, Fusco and Elias and Dominic really wants to have John’s resources work for him and tells him he’s going to start killing people off until he gets what he wants. Of course Fusco is the first person to be threatened but Harper has freed him and Fusco has escaped. Dominic, while pretty stupid a lot of the time, is smart enough to figure out Harper is playing both sides of the coin. Now she’s in trouble as well. Dominic seems to understand that John will protect people, even at the cost of himself and uses this to his advantage.
Control in this episode just rocked. She’s grown on me over the last season because although she’s a killer, her priority has been protecting people. Sow while she may do bad things in order to protect people, her goal has never changed. And this episode showed that she wasn’t willing to allow an organization to harm people in order to gain total control and, in her opinion, more money as well. While trying to determine where the attack will occur, she finds out that apparently she sent out a memo telling people to avoid a home in Columbia Heights. Control is very concerned about this memo seeing as she didn’t send it – and she should be.
Meanwhile Root and Finch are on their mission to save the Machine and are lead to the penthouse of a building where they take a pair of night vision goggles. What I’ve always loved about this show is even though it’s high action and very serious there are lighter moments in it, like the doorman fighting with the fire department over whether the alarm went off or not so that Root could steal the fire key for the building. It also showed that the Machine was helping out in whatever way it could.
While escaping the Penthouse Root finally just flat out made the Machine help out a bit more proactively, hacking the elevator to help them escape. Of course this means that all this access to the Machine will lead to better tracking of it by Samaritan’s goons, but in the end it’s worth the risk if it means they accomplish their task.
Next on the list of things to do is borrow some items from Caleb so they break into his company. Of course things aren’t as easy as Root had thought and she was having trouble getting into the system.
Then Caleb shows up which leads to a wonderful reunion scene between Caleb and Harold. What was interesting during this scene is that Caleb commented that Harold had saved his life and Root looked surprised to hear that. She knew that there was a connection between the two, perhaps the Machine had told her? But she was surprised to hear that Harold had saved his life. Either way it was a great reunion and just as Harold was disappointed the reunion couldn’t have been longer or on better terms, I was saddened that we got so little time with Caleb and Harold.
Back with Dominic, he’s finally forced John to call Harold for him. Harold answers the phone by stating “Mr. Reese I’m so glad…” and of course Dominic is then like, “Well I knew that wasn’t his real name!” Bright guy there, so proud of learning John’s real name, which honestly isn’t even his real name. Gold star for Dominic everyone! Dominic, though, tells Harold he needs to meet with him in 15 minutes or else John is dead.
Harold of course is willing to drop everything for John if he has to and I liked that. As much as I like the Machine, I really like more the personal relationships between the characters and this one showed that Harold has more care for the living than an AI. I know Harold’s distrust of the Machine really plays into why he cares more about humans than computers, but I also think it has to do with Harold having been with John for so long now, he’s a friend, family, and they can’t just not help him. Of course, Root convinces him that the Machine will not abandon John and that it needs John too, so there was no need to worry.
Dominic now decides since he has the guy in charge, (i.e. Harold), he doesn’t need Harper or Elias so it’s time to go with John and kill the other two. But first a fax arrives (we’ll ignore why an old fax that’s probably gone unused for years was still plugged in and had any useable ink in it – it’s TV after all!). What does the fax say? It’s the Machine telling John how to disable the guy who’s guarding him.
During the scenes with Dominic, John had looked pretty sickly, like he had given up and was resigned to his fate. But this communication with the Machine, well that just revives him. The change from depressed and down to “I’m going to kick your ass” mode was very cool to say the least. I particularly enjoyed when he took a ear piece and the Machine said, “Can you hear me?” and John’s response was “Hell yes!” Then he puts a few bullets in some knees and Fusco shows up and everyone in the house was clapping ’cause, screw you Dominic, you’re not all that smart after all!
Then we transition over to Control entering the house in Columbia Heights she had told everyone to avoid where they discover bomb-making materials. So now Control and Grice know there is a bomb in play and, of course, have to stop it.
Since Fusco showed up with the SWAT team to arrest Dominic, this sadly means Elias has to go back to jail as well because, remember, he’s technically a fugitive who escaped from prison. Before heading out, though, John thanks Fusco for a job well done and this is what I really started worrying. I think the writers know how to mess with the fans because a lot of shows when someone is going to die have that character start making amends or being overly nice and this is what John has been doing. For the past few episodes, it’s as if he’s saying goodbye to everyone. So I fully believe the writers wrote it this way to make us worry that he will not survive this whole thing.
Fusco decides to ride in the van with Elias and Dominic because we all know the FBI sucks at holding prisoners, they tend to lose them a lot of the time, at least on this show. While driving away, John notices a weird looking man in a beanie watching the scene. I originally thought this man was there as a result of contact with the Machine, but we’ll later find out he was there because of Dominic and Elias.
There was another short scene, which was supposed to help you figure out that the Machine was in the power grid by showing some guys putting up boxes made by Thornhill Electronics. Now what was more interesting is that one of the workers was trying to open the box and his boss told him not to do so because the last guy that did was never seen from again. Knowing that Thornhill is the Machine, I’m not sure what to make of that statement? Did the Machine kill the guy who opened the box or did it just fire him from his job?
Control knows there is an attack coming. She doesn’t know exactly where but she’s not willing to sit by and let it happen so she tries to convince that idiot Congressman to shut down Samaritan and use the Machine again. He wants nothing to do with that leaving her with only one other option to stop this attack.
Reese shows up at the police station and tells Iris she needs to get out of town as soon as possible because she’s in danger if what he is doing doesn’t work out. Of course, she’s not exactly keen on that idea without knowing exactly what’s going on so John promises to tell her everything once he gets back from what he’s doing. Of course she asks if she will see him again and he can’t promise her she will which once again had me screaming in my head “HE BETTER NOT DIE!” She agrees to go to a safe place for a little while even without an explanation of why.
Back with Control, we see that she’s confronting Greer in which I was screaming the entire time in my head “JUST SHOOT HIM!” Of course, no one ever listens to me. She still is trying to stop this attack and realizes that the numbers on the paper are a court case in front of the Supreme Court. She sends Grice to check it out.
Finally Finch and Root arrive where the Machine has directed them to go and John arrives just in time to which there is a very heartwarming welcome by Harold. I love Harold by the way – just had to throw that out there.
Of course, it’s not long before Samaritan goons show up. Like 30 of them, with guns, lots of guns, and a blow horn of some sort. There’s a massive shoot out in front of this building and the team gets inside quickly. And no one in the neighborhood calls the police? Maybe Samaritan blocked 911 calls? I mean that’s the only rational reason you wouldn’t call 911 when there’s 30 guys with big ass guns outside your home, right? RIGHT?
Back with Fusco, Dominic and Elias, there is a conversation going on between Dominic and Elias where Dominic is proving once again that he isn’t all that damn smart. He’s telling Elias how he has guys on the inside that will make Elias’s stay hell. Elias is like “I don’t intend to go back to Rikers” and Dominic is thoroughly confused. And as always with the Feds, they managed to get crashed into and Elias tries to escape. Of course Dominic wasn’t killed in the crash, so he tries to stop Elias and then Fusco comes to try to save the day. But there’s nothing Fusco can do because that weird creepy beanie dude from earlier shoots Dominic in the head (finally!) and then shoots Elias. He packs it up and leave without harming Fusco which means Samaritan hasn’t made the connection between Fusco and John yet in my opinion.
Dominic is dead, which I was thankful for, but Elias is not looking good. One thing to remember, if they don’t actually die on screen, it probably didn’t happen. Dominic for sure died on screen, Elias was still breathing and even the actor on Twitter stated that he never received a call from Greg to inform him that they were killing off his character. So Elias may in fact still be alive.
Back at the power station, the Machine has taken the team and Harold learns where the Machine has been hiding all along, in the power grid. Thank you for explaining that outright to those of us who honestly still hadn’t caught on by this time.
There are at least by John’s count nearly 30 guys with guns outside (no police have been called either still) so they need to figure this out quickly because those 30 will not be staying out there for long. Harold explains that what they will need to do is transfer the core of the Machine (it’s core code) into the RAM cards in the case. I’m no IT person so I’m going to assume all this makes perfect sense and can actually be done. Either way it’s the only way to save the Machine.
There is a big showdown between Root and the Samaritan guys who show up out back and between John and the 30 guys out front. It’s actually a very cool scene in my opinion and you get to see some of the inner workings of the Machine again, like when it first talked with John.
There also was a very emotional conversation between the Machine and Harold. The Machine explains that it couldn’t figure out how to win, how it let Harold down and how perhaps it should die. The Machine referred to Harold as Father. I think Harold, even though he doesn’t fully trust the Machine, never really wanted it to die and he says so to the Machine.
Back with Control, you realize that she’s still doesn’t understand. She doesn’t get that Greer is not working with someone rather for something. But she soon finds out that this was a test and she frankly failed. Grice is killed because he wasn’t loyal to Samaritan and also Control’s second had person is killed. Greer explains that the Correction is simply put, just killing off the outliers, the people who cause too many problems, aren’t loyal or can’t be trusted by Samaritan. Control is one of those people that Samaritan can’t trust but she isn’t killed, so we will see what comes of her.
Finally the team has loaded the Machine into the bulletproof box and they’re off. Of course more Samaritan agents show up and the show ends on a spectacular shoot out between Root, John and the Samaritan agents (once again with no police anywhere to be found).
So the question is where do they go from here? I imagine the subway station is still a safe place to be. All the network and off the gird stuff is still in place, but the Machine is no longer up and running. So the main focus in my opinion of the beginning of next season is going to be on rebuilding the Machine, perhaps perfecting it a bit so that it has a chance against Samaritan? Perhaps Finch will work out some of his conflicts with how the Machine worked? Or maybe just let the Machine do it’s own thing.
We’ll have to see where this relationship between John and Iris goes, I still don’t trust her at all, but perhaps she will prove to be John’s saving grace in all of this, his normalcy?
Will Shaw come back (the belief is not next season because she had mentioned that she likes to spend at least 2 years with the new babies and they’ll still be less than 2 years old next season) and work against the team?
Where are all the Machine’s assets? Will they help in any way? Perhaps Caleb will play a larger role in rebuilding the Machine?
What will become of Fusco and Riley? According to Greg and Jonah, John’s cover is still in tact as well as Finch’s.
So many questions and such a long wait. So what do we do in the meantime? First and foremost we wait for renewal announcement. They have yet to announce it’s renewal even though the writers talk as if it’s been renewed and there was a rumor leak that it was. May 13th is CBS’s UpFronts where renewals will be announced. So watch for that then.
Then there is ComicCon San Diego coming up in early July, and ‘Person of Interest’ will be there, so watch for that. Filming routinely begins mid-July so that’s not all that far away, so keep an eye out.
