DEM

Bringing this over from the Unpopular Opinions thread because I don't want my reply to be misconstrued as an attack on an unpopular opinion... If it helps, I don't think that's what the show has been saying. I think the narrative has been showing The Machine and Finch as the main catalysts. If Root's change and Shaw have been tied together in any way, it's more that wanting a 'real' relationship with Shaw is a consequence of Root's changes. I do agree that the relationship between Root and Shaw has been, er, not particularly well-written, and certainly not well enough that when "Shaw, who has no feelings, plants one on Root and in the moment right after that gets a sudden hit of, ‘Wait a second, I did feel something.'" No, Plageman, no.

"He wants her to divulge all of the information about her life ever since she met Red. It becomes this cat-and-mouse [game] in which she tries to keep as many secrets about the task force that she can.... It becomes a very interesting psychological thriller between Liz and the judge as to how she's going to get herself out of this." Come again? I think she saw a different edit than I did.

Yup. When Fusco got weird, I threw my best Grishin-from-Relevance impression at him, "Who you supposed to be? Some kind of Sameen Shaw?" I guess since there was no Shawdition this week, Fusco had to fill in. (Surely though there must have been a way to involve Fusco in the debate that was truer to his character.)

kwnyc, the press release for this episode included Nick Dawson, the Samaritan pawn who was placed in the Governor's office at the end of Prophets. It could be that there was supposed to be a (flashback?) sequence showing the legalisation of medical marijuana. The Samaritan POV graphics that displayed a cost-benefit analysis of full legalisation would fit such a scenario. See, Samaritan is not so bad! It just wants a happy, mellow populace (generating a lot of tax revenue)! Is that so wrong?

stealinghome, I think Dominic was referring to Dani Silva as the other Shawdi--, er, "pretty brunette" (see: Point of Origin).

1. Seems like, yeah? They were laying it on thick with this particular one. 2. A Bontoni shoe. A very, very expensive shoe. kwnyc, I am adopting Shawdition. Sorry, PoI, there's only one Shaw for me.

Point of clarification, Netfoot. VAL worked directly from the audio, and the transcribers checked VAL's work. As Finch said, "So the transcribers create a record of each user's questions and check VAL's responses -- a human intelligence backing up an artificial one."

She was at the meeting because: a) she was the CEO of the company, and b) the company was facing financial ruin due to the CTO's nefarious shenanigans. She was over a barrel, and Greer/Samaritan swooped in like the vultures that they are to acquire (and control the future direction of) the company.

When Root said, “Someone didn’t join the Mickey Mouse Club,” (referring to Chief Wicker) what did she mean? I know what the Mickey Mouse Club is, but I don’t understand how it related to that scene. Does the Mickey Mouse Club teach one not to put one’s feet on the furniture, or…?

4x14 JUDGE REGINALD: Professor Whistler, your number is up.

My problem with the poisoner theory is that Joan was looking down at the cups during that entire exchange. I don't see how that could be handwaved away.

Dr Enright, the cardiologist and trauma surgeon featured in S2's Critical.

These and the motif that played when Shaw argued with Finch and packed her gear in 4x10 were all Shaw's theme. In fact, nearly every single frame of Shaw in 4x11 was accompanied by her theme.

My problem with Root & Shaw is that they started out with intriguing scary team possibilities (a sort of dark-mirror-image Reese & Finch) but devolved into rather empty pablum. The writers never did anything of substance with them beyond the ~romance, so at the end it became "Root's been flirting with Shaw for a long time and somewhere along the way Root's taunting turned into real feelings, so Shaw's big mandate in her ~death episode is reciprocate." Say what? So. Much. Wrong. There was so much potential and it was squandered and mishandled. Back in mid-S3 on TWoP I was "Hey! Arc! Is anyone seeing this?! Intriiiiguing!", but by the end that had become, "OK, Root needs to cry when Shaw goes MIA; let's get this over with."

Wait, are you talking about Finch, Reese, and Shaw? Because Finch, Reese, and Shaw very definitely and very clearly had cover identities that Samaritan could access. In fact, we see those identities each week in the title sequence. Panopticon was chock full of Samaritan seeing and listening to the team members. In Nautilus, Reese had to arrest Finch because Finch acted out-of-character, and we saw Samaritan add that data to "Harold Whistler's" file. They couldn't hold jobs if they didn't have identities. I am very confused.

So essentially what you're saying is that the hack to the servers would allow Samaritan to mark Team Machine as deviants whenever they stepped out of line (which it did for both Finch and Shaw earlier in the season), but if an agent (e.g., Martine) tried to apprehend them, then Samaritan would encounter a 404 error. Once Greer discovered something was up, he told Samaritan, and Samaritan wrote code to recursively override the 404 on Sameen Gray. But for some reason no one has thought to hold up a picture of Finch and tell Samaritan to find a match for that face and then do its 404-correction on that identity. Or have agents posted outside the church to take photos of whomever might have accompanied Root. All of that hurts me.

How is that? She was still 'hidden' in the department store, right before Martine started shooting. That also didn't make sense to me, by the way.

Here is an issue I'm struggling with. It seemed to remain a big priority that Shaw stay hidden ("She's gone! GASP! SHOCK!"), and I'm not clear why that is. What does it matter at this point? The only thing that should matter is that Team Samaritan know she's alive and kicking in NYC. They also know that Root is around, and so is Reese (though from surfing around it appears that the question of whether Martine got a good look at his face is up for debate [though why one would need to see his face clearly in order to guess that the large man with dark hair wearing a dark suit was very likely John Reese, I don't know]). Would someone take a stab at this, please?

Pastrami, extra mustard -- spicy and yellow -- enough pepperoncinis to create digestion issues in even the strongest constitution, lettuce, and no mayonnaise, please.

I agree with this. I understood and appreciated the sentiment (loyal comrades have one another's backs, etc.), but the cards were mis-played. Shaw did a complete 180 from Panopticon where she knew that one cover blown meant risk to the entire team. Smart agents, esp. ones who have lasted as long as Shaw, know when to fall back, re-group, and get a complete assessment of the total situation. Shaw in this ep seemed hopped up on amphetamines or as if she had been cooped up for weeks rather than just discovered.

I was replying to that comment and referring to this episode. And when I said discontinuity, I was referring to 4x01 vs. 4x08. In this episode, when speaking to Martine, Romeo said neither Sameen nor Nadya. The only reference to her name was in the Angler app on his mobile phone -- which said 'Nadya'.

Regarding Sameen's name: There was a discontinuity. In this ep Shaw's Angler profile said Nadya (which is what it originally was in Lady Killer). It seems likely the writers realised belatedly that the Angler profile should have used an alias. (Or The Machine erred and Shaw had to fix it.) Romeo never spoke Shaw's name or alias. I thought Greer was simply entertaining the idea that the virus heist could be related to Team Machine.

There was a camera at the entrance. The date stamps on the various camera feeds are how I was able to determine how much time had passed. I don't follow. How does that preclude giving Shaw a heads-up?

Sure, but this is the same machine that routinely generates numbers in advance of victims doing whatever it is that will make them targets. In this very episode, it generated Silva's number on the basis of the fact that she was searching for the mole; Silva hadn't even identified the mole yet. If The Machine hadn't figured out Martine's agenda based on her visit to Katya, it almost certainly should have once Martine visited Romeo -- giving it plenty of time (30 hours) to alert Shaw.

But it can see Martine, right? I had assumed based on Prophets that TM would know who Martine is. Wouldn't it notice Martine visiting Katya and Romeo, and draw some conclusions from that?