DEM

I agree that Martine's (Samaritan Inc.'s) methods are bizarrely over-the-top and brazen. However, she was hunting 'Nadya', the woman who took the vials of the virus. It hasn't been specified whether or not Martine knows what the members of the Team look like. If she did know, I would have expected more of a reaction when she asked for an updated photo ("Two-fer!") and possibly an urgent phone call to Greer, but I guess that will be clarified next week. Now that I think about it, though, if she wants to retrieve the vials, shouldn't she be more discreet simply because she needs to, you know, LOCATE THE VIALS before termination? Odd.

I agree with all of that, stealinghome. I saw Shaw's line to Root as an invitation to hang out together (whatever that entailed). Also, regarding recognising MARV, I think unless one has that topic on-the-brain, so to speak, in the context of a jewel heist, one probably wouldn't think, "In that grey strongbox are infectious disease samples."

Scarface's real name is Anthony Marconi. It was revealed in 2x09. Closed-captioning made a mistake.

This I cannot believe. It's got to lead somewhere to her knowing or suspecting. However, it has been shown she's a follow the orders kind of gal, so...maybe. But lately she does a LOT more thinking things through. Mini coming out on top wasn't to show that Shaw is cognitively limited (which is what I assume "follow the orders" is meant to suggest); it was to show how very, very good Dominic is. The DEA hasn't been able to identify him, Elias's network hasn't been able to identify him, a large majority of his organisation doesn't even know Mini is Dominic, and Dominic is the only one (out of Finch, Fusco, and "hell, even Reese") who has found one of Shaw's trackers. Even so, Dominic had to reveal (lose) one of his stash houses to Shaw. I hope their encounter pays off down the road; i.e., that the Brotherhood/Dominic story is not handed over solely to Reese.

Starchild, Romeo was played by Andreas Damm.

FurryFury, it's funny you mentioned Last Call in the context of having fewer episodes per season. Last year, someone at the dearly departed TWoP worked out that Last Call would have been written right around the time CBS asked for an additional episode. If it was in fact the 'extra episode', that would account for how ill-fitting it was. On Shaw/Root: I didn't mind the rescue at the Samaritan site for two reasons. 1) It was a nice bookend to S2's finale when Root was all about antagonising Team Machine, and Shaw's mission was to hunt her down (and shoot her not in the kneecap). 2) Having Shaw there demonstrated that Root can't single-handedly save the world, so to speak. In addition, I'm one of those rare people who doesn't believe that just because ROOT flirts, that means that SHAW is/should be interested. That said, the one-sided flirting every. single. time they are together is getting tiresome. Last year around mid-season I was intrigued by the possibility of them willingly working together by season's end because that much crazy could be a wild ride. Sadly, their partnership didn't quite meet my expectations.

Ah, but she was driven by anger, which she has never denied feeling. By way of analogy: The opposite of happiness is not sadness; rather it is simply the absence of happiness. Happy and Sad are two separate emotions. My sense is that Shaw connects to people with whom she's been around long enough AND who pass the trust test, but only to a certain degree. Some of the writers, OTOH, seemed to think that the next inevitable step after killing bad guys is caring about good guys. That's simply not true for everyone. Moreover, Shaw stated and showed her emotional limits in the very same episode in which she sought vengeance for Cole. Thus, I never took her description to Genrika about her emotions as being statements of absolute. I saw them as relative. That is, if my maximum amount of Fear is a 3/10, does that actually 'count' as feeling fear in the way that most people would reckon? Clinically speaking, the answer is 'not really.' That would be marked as 'lack of fear.' Another analogy: The military (or intelligence operatives) are not the police and the police are not social workers. It seems to me that Finch is not clear or consistent on those distinctions but Shaw very much is. These conflicts, especially as they pertained to the operations of Team Machine, were ripe for exploration with Shaw. Some of the writers delved into that, whilst other writers took Finch's conflation as the gold standard. The latter approach doesn't make much sense to me because I don't see the point in bringing in a character who is distinctly different from Reese and Finch if you're not going to use that character to broaden the discussion, so to speak. Yes, this is so very true.

bringing this over from the All Seasons thread because it's only about Shaw. stealinghome, I don't have much substantial to add, but I felt compelled to reply to this because I strongly agree with all of what you wrote. By the end of the season I'd come to believe that all important Shaw moments should be reviewed by Amanda Segel: She's the only writer I trust to have a clear vision of the character as created. Normally I would add Nolan to the list, but the fact that the inconsistency is getting past him makes me doubt that he can see the problem. Some of the writers seem to view Shaw's personality, psychological history, and ethics as Reese-like and, therefore, amenable to a standard 'redemption arc' when, in fact, Shaw is closer on those facets to Root and, as such, any changes she makes should be driven more by rules than personality development. Thus, one episode would have Shaw giving parenting advice or talking about wanting to get better at being nice to people, and another ep she'd be, well, Shaw. That said, I did see evening out by the end of the season, so perhaps someone on the writing staff finally noticed the problem. I would add that I thought they did a better job illustrating Shaw's unique contribution to the team when she was on the edge of it in early S3. The downside of those early eps was that they focussed too much on the "hulk smash" angle, rather than on ethics and tactics.

I don't know what the original poster had in mind when titling this thread, but for me it's a pretty accurate description. I haven't seen much support in the show for alternatives like "deep well-springs of emotion that she doesn't know how to understand" or repression. Having psychopathic personality doesn't make someone 'not complex'. IMO, all of the main characters are complex. Shaw and Root share some clinical traits, but they also differ in several ways. Shaw and Reese may share a profession, but their emotional "terseness" comes from very different places. Independent Mind, Acker was reacting specifically to the Samaritan idea, not darker Shaw in general. I take heart in Nolan's comment about S4 that Shaw "still isn't crazy about the knees."

I don't get Buffy Summers vibes from Shaw at all, but I agree with everything else you said. Based on comments she made at Comic Con last weekend, it seems like Sarah Shahi wants to push Shaw back in a darker direction. Bring it on, I say!

Until her first flashback, I was sure Miss Rosa was Romanian. I was very confused!

1. Hersh couldn't see Root, so he would have no idea where she is, and thus no reason to suspect that she would be limited by the power outage in NYC. Heck, the Machine could have called her by sat-phone. 2. Root's motives for collaborating with Team Machine would be irrelevant. The last time Hersh saw Root -- that we know of -- she busted in unexpectedly to rescue Finch & Shaw. Even if Control and her minions had no further information about their activities since then, based on Aletheia alone it wouldn't be some weird, complicated thing to find out Root still collaborates with them. JoeSchwike, Control and then Hersh knew that the team were receiving numbers. Shaw confirmed that to Control, and then Reese & Shaw confirmed it to Hersh. It's not a big deal; it just struck me as odd. ETA: After my 3rd? 4th? 12th? time watching the ep, it finally clicked that Reese did, in fact, mention Root to Hersh once they got to that designated intersection. Ha! Never mind then!

Here is something that has been bugging me, and it confuses me every time I watch this ep. There were a couple of times when Reese and Shaw got intel/instructions from the Machine via Root, and when asked about said intel by Hersh, they responded as if the source was a secret. Except, Hersh knew that Root is in direct contact with the Machine and he knew that they all work together. I laughed off "It's complicated," but then there was another exchange, and it really seemed like a continuity gaffe. Thoughts?

Syme, the man gunned down in the police station was the Vigilance member who unwittingly told Reese and Hersh the location of the court house. The woman was the Vigilance 'judge'.