A woman named Maria Martinez looks clean cut, but she’s stealing GPS locators and having secret meetings. Is she the victim or the perpetrator? Seems like standard fare for Person of Interest, however, with this myth-arc, nothing is as it seems.
***SPOILERS BELOW***
Maria Martinez. That name seems familiar, and it is to all those who put the end of last week’s episode on freeze frame when the Machine was breaking out who would be in danger if Samaritan came online. Maria was at the top with an 80% chance of being killed. That took a lot of the mystery out of the beginning of the episode since she was obviously a victim based on this information. It does not ruin the episode since there are plenty of other twists and turns along the way.
The team dynamics this week were refreshing with Reese and Finch together again in the library with sarcastic banter. Finch is frustrated with Bear’s ability to find his treats (put them in a locked cabinet, Harold), and Shaw’s lack of communication skills. Shaw and Fusco are paired up on surveillance of Maria and get into an interesting discussion about cultural diversity. At first it seems like the joke is on Fusco for being unsophisticated, but by the end of the episode it’s a nod to New York City’s cultural melting pot. It was actually moving when Fusco celebrated the Persian New Year with Shaw.
And wait, what’s this? Root randomly calls in to give Finch information he needs for the case. It almost seems like cheating since Finch set the parameters that the Machine can not contact him directly. Instead it’s telling Root the information and she passes it on to Finch. So does that make Root part of the team? She thinks so when she commandeers Bear. More on that later.
When the team finally realizes that Maria is the victim and in danger, Shaw asks for back up. Enter “Captain America,” also know as Reese, and he makes an entrance by grabbing an assassin then jumping out of the window. If you were surprised by that, so was the rest of Team Machine.
Speaking of which, Reese has been increasingly reckless of late. Someone needs to sit down with him and remind him he is not expendable (looking at you Harold).
Root is on a separate mission tracking down Greer of Decima fame. She wants kill him before Samaritan goes online, but he has figured out how to defeat the Machine’s surveillance. Root’s brilliant idea is steal Bear and use it to track him. Her hubris has always been that by having the Machine in her ear (literally), she can make no mistakes. For a minute there, it looked like she was going to get Bear killed because the trap she was setting for Greer was really one for her. Eating humble pie will really do a lot to make Root able to join any kind of team effort to defeat Decima.
Another great episode on the road to a big season finale. Do you think Team Machine can stop Samaritan from coming online? Do we really want them to, or do we want to see two sentient machines duke it out?
