Person of Interest 3.05: "Razgovor"

“We’re…I’m not sure what we are. To be honest, I’m only in it for the dog.”
- Shaw

This week is supposed to be a pretty intense episode and push some storylines forward. We start with Shaw saving a transplant driver from getting offed over a liver. I think they’ve been playing up Shaw’s surliness and antisocial tendencies just for this episode. They get a new number and it turns out to be a 10-year-old Russian girl. Shaw is not very well suited to dealing with people, children in general but it seems they may be stuck together when the girl, Jen, almost gets kidnapped on her way to school. Reese and Shaw come to the rescue obviously but it’s going to put Shaw in an interesting situation.

Elsewhere, Carter is covertly checking out HR. She follows Simmons and another cop to a meeting with the head of the Russian mob and overhears talk about a big meeting where the head of HR is going to be present. Reese offers his help but Carter says she’s got it. Though she doesn’t necessarily turn him down if it turns out she’s in over her head. I like that we’re getting some movement on this plotline. Though, I would have preferred they end the HR storyline last year but sadly, I’m not a staff writer on the show.

It becomes pretty clear that the guys hunting Jen are somehow linked to HR. Carter runs a search but doesn’t have any luck ID’ing one of the suspects (with a hand tremor). She does learn that the area where Jen lives is an impact zone with zero camera coverage. So it’s a pretty sketchy place to live. Carter’s newbie partner is still spying on her and she ends up confiscating a new gun he bought in New Jersey. I’m skeptical as to whether he’s trying to set her up with an unregistered gun that crossed state lines illegally or not. Anyway, back at the building, Shaw and Jen end up hiding out in her little listening post. She’s wired up most of the building to look for drug dealers. Unfortunately, their pursuers figure out they’re hiding in the walls and gas them out.

We have our first flashback of the season tonight to 1993. A car is on fire and some firefighters discover a young girl in the back of the car named Samine. Something tells me we’ve just met a young Shaw. This would make sense since before she and Jen get gassed, Shaw explains she was about 10 when she realized she was different and didn’t really have feelings (psychopath much?). The firefighter rescues her from the car but he doesn’t have much luck engaging her in distracting chatter. She doesn’t really watch TV and her dad is military so he travels a lot. He tells her that her dad didn’t make and her face goes blank for a few seconds before saying she’s hungry. Yeah there is definitely something wrong with Shaw.

Things are getting complicated for our heroes when the guy who kidnapped Shaw gets orders to kill her. She bests him with a tire iron but she’s started to connect with Jen. It seems a little sudden to me but they have to fit in the plot in 43 minutes so I’ll forgive the writers. Finch insists she a doctor (she’s been shot at least once) but once she sees the guy she took out has the same drugs as the third cousin who has custody of Jen, she’s on the war path. Turns out the Russian mob figured out what Jen was doing and wanted the tapes she’d made of everyone she bugged. And it would appear Carter’s hunt for HR and our current case are about to intersect. Reese is tracking the tremor guy while Carter is following Simmons (she ditches her partner at a taco truck).

Reese and Carter nab tremor guy while Finch listens to a bunch of Jen’s tapes. They implicate a plan and a joint venture with HR and the Russians. So while Reese and Carter follow the HR angle, Shaw hunts down the head of the Russian mob and while she’s taking blood, she makes him call Simmons to set a meet to exchange the tapes for Jen. It turns out HR is peddling a new drug that’s so toxic it can really mess you up. They’re using it to get all the other drugs off the street. Lovely. In a little switch that was pretty brilliant, Carter leaks the location of the meet to her rookie partner who feeds it to Simmons while Shaw rescues Jen. Reese gets to beat the shit out of Simmons and Carter ends up confronting her partner. I guess she’s not as naïve and clueless as she seemed at the start of the season. The rookie gets really arrogant and cocky saying he’s got the authority from Simmons to kill her if he wants. She isn’t impressed with his bravado and she kills the bartender/dirty cop and says now she and her partner need to sort things out. It thought it was rather clever that Carter used his sketchy gun so she’s got some serious leverage over him now. He’s going to work for her to avoid the blackmail. I kind of like this new, badass Carter.

Shaw seems to have bonded with Jen enough that the kid gives up her grandfather’s medal as a KBG operative. And she’s now under Finch’s protection from one of his aliases so she’s got a great school and they can keep an eye on her. Shaw thinks she’s blown it with Finch since she disobeyed all his orders. But Finch thinks she’s finally figuring out what they do and why. Now she just needs to take the bug out of the library. It’s nice to see Shaw a little more human. Not sure how long that’s going to stay that way. That night as she’s sleeping, Root shows up and nails her with a Taser. Oh my God! I did not see that coming. Now I can’t wait to see their reunion since the last time Root planned on torturing Shaw with an iron.