Contributor: John Keegan
Written by Dan Dietz
Directed by Richard J. Lewis
“Shadow Box” ended with the surprising twist of Reese in custody, albeit surrounded by three other men in suits. Agent Donnelly was as close to getting his hands on Reese as anyone has been since the first season finale, and Carter was the only one in a realistic position to do anything about it. The main question was not if Reese would escape this situation, but rather, how easily and quickly it would be accomplished.
I, like many, assumed that this episode would be dedicated to the process of getting Reese back in the field. It’s the expected thing to do; one can probably find it listed prominently in the Stock Plot Device Handbook. I should have known better. The writing staff for “Person of Interest” seldom falls into such a narrative rut. Instead of making Reese’s liberation from custody easy, they make his fate a lot more ambiguous. Even if Donnelly doesn’t manage to identify him as the Man in the Suit, it’s possible that Carter will need quite some time to get him back on the streets. (Could a meeting with Elias be in the works, I wonder?)
Meanwhile, removing Reese from the board presents a compelling opportunity to get Finch out of the library and back into the world. Finch is hardly the action hero, so while there is a bit of action here and there, the story is centered more on his kind of expertise: strategy and information gathering. In this case, the Machine has identified a high school student who has been playing a very dangerous game, and is likely to get himself killed without intervention.
Caleb is not the walking cliché that most “hidden genius” characters tend to be; he has a lot more going on in his head, including a dose of survivor’s guilt. Caleb is also a bit of a loner and a skilled hacker, so it doesn’t take long for Finch to identify with Caleb. It’s a logical type of resonance that feels organic, which definitely helps. Things could have easily been boring or overly convenient otherwise. (It doesn’t hurt that the Machine has already demonstrated, at this point, a penchant for manipulating people for their own good.)
The revelation that Finch is, quite possibly, an infamous former hacker that was “repurposed” to the apparent betterment of society could have been cringe-inducing, had it been revealed earlier in the series. At this point, however, we’ve seen the kind of skill and creativity that Finch possesses, so it actually makes a lot of sense. Who else would be the perfect candidate to work on something like the Machine, other than someone who was already adept at circumventing security protocols? It also hints at a reason why Finch maintains a system of aliases, and perhaps why he would have been considered expendable once the Machine was online. After all, if it took a particular individual to create the Machine, eliminating that asset makes it that much harder to replicate.
One of my favorite moments in this episode was Finch’s monolog about the number pi. I have no idea if the writers lifted it from some other source or not, but it doesn’t matter; Michael Emerson’s delivery was pitch perfect. I’m not entirely sold on the notion that all those students would have perked up during that lesson, but it really doesn’t matter. The target was the show’s audience. The episode gained a point on that scene alone, in my estimation.
Two things worked in the favor of the episode, when all is said and done. First, this proves without a doubt that the cast is strong enough that Reese can be relegated to the background, taken out of the action entirely, and the show hardly misses a beat. Having a talented ensemble is a huge benefit to any series. Second, anytime an episode scenario is built this well around the purpose of character exploration, it’s going to be a winner. This was a far better way to provide insight into Finch than any amount of dry exposition.
Writing: 2/2
Acting: 2/2
Direction: 2/2
Style: 2/4
Final Score: 8/10
