What I’m Watching: Person of Interest

Person of Interest: Season 2, Episode 20 “In Extremis” (B+)

This show often feels very dated, particularly when it portrays happenings in the New York Police Department. When compared with other shows, its vision of the NYPD is relatively simplistic in one sense, while HR manages to pull plenty of strings so that the truly good cops who figure out what’s going on have no chance of staying alive long enough to rat out the ones who are pure evil. Tracing Fusco’s steps, as seen through flashbacks and interpreted by Carter, was effective, since it showed just how quickly and unintentionally he became a corrupt cop. I’ve always felt that everyone is too mean to him, and therefore it was reassuring to see that someone, especially someone who didn’t know whether to trust him, opted to help him out. Reese’s work in this hour felt awfully personal, and he was assisting a man who was already dead while he managed to keep breathing and get revenge on the man who wanted to take care of him so that he could continue to live more than comfortably. TV veteran Dennis Boutsikaris, who played Dr. Nelson, has appeared on a handful of series recently, including “Shameless” and “The Good Wife,” while “Warehouse 13” fans should have recognized Allison Scagliotti, who portrays the fiery Claudia on that show, as his rebellious daughter, Molly. It’s definitely concerning that the machine didn’t help Finch and Reese save Dr. Nelson and Beecher and Szymanski, and it’s infinitely more worrisome that it appears to have shut down all together, which is sure to make for a stressful final two episodes of the season.