What I’m Watching: Person of Interest

Person of Interest: Season 5, Episode 2 “SNAFU” (B+)

This was a cool episode that managed to recap the entire show so far and attack the question of whether these characters are really good at their core. At first, the machine was being very trippy and comically mixing up the main characters’ faces, which enabled the cast to do great impressions of each other. After that, it was exciting to see the machine start to spit out numbers, but the thirty it came up with all seemed like false positives than showed just how jumbled it really was. Trapping Finch and Root and then weakening Root showed just how dangerous the machine can be, and that was before Finch put it together that it was the machine and not Samaritan who hired the hitman trying to kill Reese. The machine showing them all the awful things that Root and Reese did was intriguing and thought-provoking, and then Finch got grouped in with them because he destroyed and rebooted the machine forty-two times. Root knocking herself out so that she couldn’t be used as a bargaining chip was a smart idea, and ultimately it was Finch showing the machine all the people they had saved that managed to get it back on their side. Now things should be back to normal, with the team having a nice picnic out in the park and Fusco getting commendation for dealing with his number, the one true threat that he was able to stop. Unfortunately, Reese didn’t keep an eye on another number who has now been hired for a foreboding job that seems a lot like it’s going to be to hunt down those who just brought the machine back to life.