Person of Interest 2.22: "God Mode"

“Come on, Harold. It’s time to meet God.”
- Root

We’ve made it to the second season finale. As I write this, I can tell you our boys will be back next year. Upon first watch of this episode, I was kind of disappointed and underwhelmed. The season 1 finale was so crazy, with Finch being taken and not knowing what was happening. But this time, I was expecting the storyline to go one way. But it went the complete opposite. And now I’m not sure what they’re going to do next season.

We start in 2010 in media res (if that’s even possible). Finch is injured and he gets back to the library and asks the Machine if it knew something was going to happen. We aren’t entirely sure at this point what it was but I’m sure we’ll find out. In the present, both Root and Reese are getting instructions and help from the Machine. Root drags Finch off and manages to escape, as do Reese and Shaw. Unfortunately, Root figures out Reese put a bug on Finch’s glasses and smashes them on the sidewalk. They’ll have to find another way to track Finch. They need wheels and so the Machine points them in the right direction. Well, it turns out it was sending them on a side mission to save a guy’s life. So I guess it is still doing what it was programmed to do. And they get a sweet new ride out of the deal to evade the cops. Shaw is pretty damn excited to drive it. Have I mentioned how fun she and Reese are together?

Back in 2010 we have two storylines running right now. The first involves the enforcer guy for Special Counsel interrogating a suspect that they caught before he could do something bad. As the flashbacks continue, we learn that he was going to blow up the ferry as a suicide bomber. This is where Finch and Nathan get caught up in things. Nathan knows Finch shut him out of the system. But he’s going to talk to a reporter and blow the story wide open on what they did. Finch is worried that the government might find out and take drastic measures. Nathan doesn’t seem concerned. He wants Finch to meet him at the ferry the next day to go with him.

Finch hems and haws but does go to meet Nathan. Before they can do more than nod at each other, the suicide bomber wakes up tied to the steering wheel of a car. The government did find out about Nathan’s plan and are going to take him out. The other people at the ferry are just collateral damage. Unavoidable. So the bomb goes up and Nathan ends up dying. Finch wakes up with injuries to his neck and lower back (I guess we know how he got his limp). And we see the heartbreaking scene where Grace shows up, knowing Finch was supposed to be at the ferry. But Finch realizes the danger Grace could be in if the government found out about him. So he lets her think he died in the blast. How awful. I mean I understand why he did it, he wanted to protect her. But with all of his skills, couldn’t they have just disappeared. He’s so good at hiding himself, he surely could have done it for the two of them. I do hope somehow he and Grace manage to reconnect in the present. They are just such a cute couple. The flashbacks for the season end with Finch back at the library where we first saw him, asking if the Machine knew about Nathan. I guess we also see why he picked up dealing with the irrelevant numbers again.

Carter is not having much luck with IAB. She tells them again that the suspect had a gun and she used lethal force. She doesn’t know where the gun went. IAB doesn’t believe her obviously. WE know HR is trying to jam her up. The cop who was with her stops by for a chat. She makes note of one of the uniforms that was on scene, whom she remembers was questioned during the HR investigation. The cop lays it all out for Carter. She either takes the hit lite a good little girl or they are going to kill her and her son and Fusco and everyone she cares about. She just sits there and says nothing.

But she manages to clone his phone and overhears some news. Elias’ top man was shot and he’s sent his body guards from prison to watch over him. HR has orchestrated a transfer for Elias so they can take him out where he doesn’t have influence. In a mirrored scene to when his own father tried to kill him, he’s not afraid to die. The Russians want him dead and he gets that. Hell, he even accepts that. Carter intervenes and gets Elias out of there. I’m not really sure what she’s going to do with him. Return him to prison? That would be the smart move but HR is still out there and Elias still has a target on his back. This was the storyline I was hoping they’d wrap up this season, leaving us with the bigger mystery of Decima and the Machine.

So now it becomes a race to find the machine’s physical location. Special Counsel is hunting Root and Shaw now. So inevitably they will find the location of the Machine once one group does. The Machine leads Root and Finch to a professor who build a nuclear reaction containment facility out in Oregon. Unfortunately, before they can learn any more, he’s shot. Reese and Shaw are pointed to him in a more circuitous way. They get sent back to the library where they find pictures of people Finch and Nathan failed to save, including Reese’s former girlfriend. They then make it to the park where Root and Finch have met with the professor. So now everyone heads to Portland. Root and Finch borrow a rich guy’s private jet while Reese and Shaw end up crashing the car they steal from a woman and taking a helicopter. The looks on the helicopter guy’s faces are just priceless as both Reese and Shaw climb out of the flipped over car. They all get to the facility and Root is devastated to find the place is empty. She whines that Finch lied to her but he tells her that the Machine was already set free. In another info dump (once Reese and Shaw show up) we learn that the laptop Decima found in China purposely had source code from the machine. Finch built a virus within a virus so he would always have control. And he has in a way set it free now. And the Machine moved itself piece by piece to a new location as a safety measure. I’m guessing it spoofed Special Counsel’s voice somehow because the tech guy there told the government that it was authorized through them. Once Reese and company leave (after Shaw shoots Root in the shoulder), everyone except the enforcer gets shot. Their superior is also a woman it would seem. I thought her voice sounded a little like Grace but that wouldn’t really make sense.

So I guess we have set up some new storylines going forward. We have the new layer of government control and Decima is still in the game I would imagine. The Machine does give up a number to Reese and Finch. Reese also seems to forgive Finch for orchestrating his assassination by the CIA and driving Stanton crazy. Finch apologizes for not stopping the death of Reese’s former girlfriend. But Reese says it was his own fault for walking away from her in airport seven years earlier. And in a mental institution, Root gets a call as well. It’s hard to tell whether it is real or in her head or if the Machine is just screwing with her. I’m sure eventually all will be revealed.