Person of Interest 2.18: "All In"

“I think you owe Harold some answers.”
- Reese

Overall I wasn’t a huge fan of “All In”. It’s not that the POI of the week wasn’t interesting but I’m just not that into gambling. W4e do start off the episode though with a repeat performance by Leon. He’s in a hotel with some pink haired woman who cuffs him to the bed. Things seem to be going well until two Nigerian scammers (who are actually Nigerian) show up demanding their money back. It would appear Leon hasn’t learned to stop scamming dangerous people. As soon as Leon figures out these guys want to kill him, he expects Reese to show up. And of course, he does. Bear’s along for the ride too and takes down one of the guys. Lucky for Reese, he gets to part ways with Leon quickly. He’ got to deal with a number down in Atlantic City.

Reese is doing some recon on our number, Lou Mitchell. Things don’t seem to be going too well for him. He’s losing a lot of money and he doesn’t have much money to lose anymore. He’s been living off social security checks for the last six months (since his wife died of cancer). Reese follows Lou the next day to the pharmacy and a diner. He notes that based on Lou’s hands, he had all of his fingers broken. Finch enlists Carter’s help and she gets some other cops to do some of her legwork. Detective Shamanski gets her info on Lou’s record from back in the day. It seems he was a mob guy himself. It turns out there’s a drug problem around the casino. Beecher shows up hoping to win Carter over. She says she’ll think about it and wants to get his help investigating the case.

Finch has been having some problems getting access to the casino’s security system but manages to trick one of the electronic blackjack games to let him in. He accesses Lou’s member card and finds he’s almost $320,000 in the hole and counting. Now the real question becomes where is Lou getting all this money to lose in the first place. Finch takes his turn following Lou and thinks he’s doing a good job until he gets to the diner. But Finch’s time wasn’t wasted prior to being spotted. He suspects something fishy is going on at the pharmacy since Lou is back there and several of the older regulars at the casino are there, too. He reaches out to Leon who determines the pharmacy is owned via a shell corporation by the same guy who owns the casino. Finch lies to Lou, saying he’s from the IRS looking into the casino. Lou decides that he’ll answer Finch’s questions if Finch win’s at baccarat. It turns out Lou is much luckier outside the casino than in. And I suspect he was cheating. He nabbed Finch’s keys and drops them in a lobster tank to curb any further following.

I’ll get through the other plot of this episode because I was rather annoyed with it. HR is trying to get a leg up in the world again and dirties up Detective Shamanski right as he’s about to testify against the Russian mob. Carter is pretty freaked and Lionel tells her to be careful because HR is still active and they could go after her next. I’m sure that he wouldn’t let that happen if he could do anything to stop it. He’s turned over a new leaf (though he’s been sadly absent from the show the last few weeks). Anyway, Carter proves that Shamanski was set up with money taken from a drug bust. By the end of the episode, Shamanski is free and he and the ADA are meeting with the head of HR (though they don’t know it). He ends up killing them both and one of the cops Carter was working with shows up and shoots the HR boss in the shoulder to make it look good. I was sad to see Shamanski go but I’m sure Carter will be all over this.

Pretty quickly, Reese and Finch put together what’s going on at the casino. Lou isn’t the only senior citizen losing big at the casino. And Reese finds a trash can full of empty pill bottles. The casino owner is using them to launder dirty drug money. Great, this guy is a real slime ball. Time for Reese to take down his sorry ass. And it seems that the Machine gave them Lou’s number because our trickster is skimming from the laundered money. That will make the owner less than happy. In fact he sends his goon to off Lou. It wouldn’t be POI if Reese didn’t swoop in to save the day.

Lou explains that his wife died and he promised he wouldn’t get back into gambling. But the casino owner didn’t give him much choice. He said it would be a short time but Lou’s not stupid. He knew it would be a long time. Finch puts him on a bus out of the city and enlists Leon to create a distraction at the casino so he can break in and get the real books that the owner keeps of all the dirty money. Unfortunately, Lou doesn’t stay lost. The owner is going to make a move as Lou is winning huge (he wants all his money back) when Reese levels a gun. It seems things are going well. Finch finds the real books and sends a copy to Reese. This helps keep the owner in line to let Lou win over $20 million dollars. That has to be insane. He deposits it in his casino account and things are looking up. Well only until the owner nabs him, Finch, Leon and Reese. The owner is not pleased with Lou for messing with him and so they’re going to play Russian roulette. He thinks he’s covering his tracks by forcing Lou to load the gun but he gets scammed. Lou palmed the bullet and knocks him out. I figured the gun wouldn’t work. I mean sure, pistols don’t misfire often but they weren’t going to kill off anyone. Leon is too hilarious and our heroes are not expendable. Plus the story wouldn’t have been served by killing Lou. So it would appear Lou can settle down and age in peace. He gets his watch and wedding ring back (he had to pawn it to get some money) and he’s happy that the owner won’t be hurting anyone ever again.