DeepRunner

I think I could handle "this wasn't real" if...IF...all the characters knew each other in "real life"...I don't want a Roseanne-at-the-typewriter ending, but it would almost be sorta, kinda, in a roundabout way, cool if this had really been Finch's online game that he had developed. The question would be who the gamer is on the other side. But I think the ending is going to be something different from a simulation or a game.

I agree here. I doubt Finch was a "regular" of the place. Someone who even goes once a year is not a "regular" although he or she may have a regular pattern of doing something. I doubt the waitress would have remembered Finch from so many customers. I can maybe see the possibility that Samaritan pulsed the info to her through the signals that Max Green found.

So...the penultimate episode is called ".exe". As you all probly know, that's the extension for an executable. So, who will be .exe'd in this installment?

I want Blackwell to kill Mona, the operative who recruited him. I want Shaw to kill Blackwell. Anyone's guess as to who kills Greer. Shaw is the likely candidate but don't rule out Finch as 1A.

I have wondered that over the last couple of days. That would make it somewhat of a "St. Elsewhere" kind of ending. If that's the case, make it at least believable, and not like a kid with a snow globe, or, worse, Roseanne at a typewriter...

Return 0 is a successful operation, as you likely know. I have wondered if it's a double entendre, meaning NO ONE returns.

I think Finch lives, Shaw lives, and Bear lives. I think Reese and Fusco die. If the showrunners leave the door open a crack for future installments, instead of sealing off all the exits, I can't see it without Finch. Reese would be incredibly hard to replace, and Fusco has earned his stripes, but Finch is the one constant. He is the one who built it. Shaw you can keep in case she runs into Samuel from South Africa.

It would be sort of cool if it ended with Reese and Finch, like it began. I don't want to see Shaw or Fusco die, but it would be full circle. Unfortunately, I think Mr. Reese is a goner by season's end. Can't decide if he will die protecting Harold or die in a gunfight with Zachary or Blackwell. Or while protecting Finch in a gunfight with Zachary or Blackwell.

The scene with Fusco, Reese, and Shaw, after that human travesty Blackwell shot Root...Fusco had to know Root was already dead when he told them he would go to the hospital. He wanted to spare Shaw the grief. My hope is Finch goes all Will Munny on Samaritan, releasing his inner Michael Corleone for sheer vengeance. But I want Shaw to give Blackwell what's coming to him.

Oh. My. Goodness. This episode took a lot out of me. Root knew she was going to die. She knew it. Her last words to Harold were a farewell. And now the machine has her voice. Which makes the season opener clear as to who was really talking. Shaw will put a bullet in Blackwell's brain. And, I would guess, several hundred in other parts of his body. Elias got it, as I expected he would. Michael Emerson was excellent in his searing statements. Harold's rage is now boiling over. His journey to the Dark Side is almost complete. Three to go.

Yeah. Even so, I think the ride over the final four episodes will be exhilarating, heart-wrenching, adrenalizing, soul-crushing, and, finally, make us long for characters who have stood the test of time. What began as Reese and Finch, and grew to add Carter and Fusco and Root and Shaw and Zoe and Elias and Leon and, yes, Bear, has grown into characters PoI fans care about. I will miss this show when we reach the two worst words in English: The. End.

Woulda been great if Lambert right before Greer.

Here is what I think will happen tonight: * Elias dies. For real this time. Before they start killing off members of the "PoI Justice League," they are going to have to kill off a secondary but important character. Enough to be a gut punch, but not enough to anger the audience. If any of The Big Five die tonight, there will be some pretty supreme unhappiness among the fan base. If one of them has to go, I am betting on Fusco * Jeff Blackwell gets closer to getting his. Not sure if he will end up becoming a double agent working for Team Machine (highly doubtful), or if he will get caught in Root's crosshairs, Either way, an unsympathetic character will get closer to his perilous end. FWIW, although it was good seeing Shaw put a bullet in Lambert, they offed Lambert too early. It would have been more satisfying in the final episode * Will we see Claire Mahoney (or some other Samaritan puppet)?

Excellent episode. Elias was able to exact his wrath on The Voice while saving his friend Harold (even if Finch was horrified). (Side note--That opening line in this post almost read like Elias was a contestant on "The Voice.") Although it was evident that Elias wasn't going to let Eaton get away and predictable that the car would blow-up, it was still cool. And finally, finally, F-I-N-A-L-L-Y, Fusco now knows about The Machine and Samaritan. It was fitting that Reese was the one who told him. With 4 episodes to go, will the knowledge save him, or get him killed? The stare-down of guns between Root and Shaw (with the callback to the playground in "6,741", that Shaw couldn't bring herself to kill Root) was good, if only to prove to Shaw that she could trust that she was in the world of reality, although, one could argue that Samaritan could have run a simulation with a similar scenario. The final scene of the team together, facing NYC on a deep camera shot, made them look small against the landscape. Great to see them together. But a sense of foreboding. Four to go.

I want to see Finch make it to the end of the season, and I think he will. I want them all to. But I am wondering if this when we start seeing members of Team Machine dropping...

@Shura, I understand your point, but Samaritan has never been presented as a benevolent tool so much as a malevolent corrector and enforcer, cleansing the human race of elements it has been programmed to believe are threats to what Greer considers to be balance. Even Greer's "Mini-Me" Lambert notes that "elliminating key people" brings balance to The Force, so to speak. Samaritan gets rid of human agents it "foresees" introducing things "into an ecosystem that's moved on." Samaritan gets to decide what the Garden of Eden looks like. It doesn't appreciate and can't allow for human agency disrupting Greer's vision of perfection (thinking now of the three-parter that ended Season 3). Simple concept; evil is evil. That's why Team Machine is presented as The Good Guys, and The Machine as the better of the two options.

Thanks. I obviously missed that. Still, even with blanks, the sheer sound level would be enough to do some serious damage in close quarters.

This was a GREAT episode. High on the truly-strange-and-really-creepy factor, with Root at the center. Everyone seems to have gotten "their" episode in this final season, Root, Reese, Shaw, Fusco...what will Finch's be? It's going to involve Grace, I'm betting. Since I don't read other people's posts, someone may have already pointed this out, but...QSO is part of something called the Q-code. The letters themselves translate to mean "Can you communicate with (someone or something) directly or by relay?" The whole episode turned on that premise. Root trying to communicate with The Machine, Max Green having a show called Mysterious Transmissions, Green discovering Samaritan's signal, Samaritan taking over the station studio board, Samaritan communicating with its operatives, and Root using Samaritan's signal to send Shaw a message. Root doing Betsy Ross in the butter churn, ballet dancer, and as a UFO crazy was just perfect. (Not sure how many historical re-enactment places would actually have a loaded musket in a building, but, OK, this is the final season, so a high suspension of disbelief has been earned.) Max Green was a nod to the overnight radio host named Art Bell, who hosted a show on the paranomal. Of COURSE, he was going to break his promise to not tell the world about the Samaritan signal. And Samaritan put him down like a dog in the street. The Machine's point about Max Green's death--that he exercised free will after being told about the danger facing him in disclosure--highlights a key difference between The Machine and Samaritan (and much philosophical discussion about free agency vs. destiny), and is a very subtle callback to "4C" in Season 3, that the human element remains in play, even with an ASI being able to foresee possible outcomes. The Machine allowed Green to make the fatal error, on the chance that he would NOT make the fatal error. Samaritan would have simply killed him without hesitation, because of what he MIGHT do. Great episode.

Just watched this episode online. Elias was right. It's Finch who's the darkest. He has always been afraid of the power The Machine could give anyone, but mostly he has been worried about himself. He understands hubris because he built the ultimate machine. Use all your assets. Don't lock anyone out. Now Fusco is "transferring" (he'll be back, I'm sure). But they should have read him in. Failing to trust or include the most reliable person outside the inner circle is always a bad thing. The creepy Samaritan operative working (not working with) Blackwell...he's beginning to see the downside of the overlord. Might be too late. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY for Shaw's escape. Bonus points for putting a bullet into Lambert. Hope she sees the South African convict again. Five to go. Bring back Leon. And let Elias exact his revenge on Samaritan for Bruce's death. And let Fusco be on the team as a full member and not just an errand boy doing someone else's bidding.

As a case of the week, it wasn't necessarily top shelf, but the stuff in the background was good. Bonus points for Finch singing "We're Not Gonna Take It." Would have been better if there were a rock band and Finch had been thrashing. But it WAS funny. Also, John Reese as "Stripper Security." Root convincing Finch to give The Machine more offensive tools was a needed if much-delayed progression. The bourbon at the table scene had a very strong feel "We who are about to die salute you" feel. The field trip between Greer and Shaw was an interesting extension of the simulation. It was a good demonstration of the lengths Greer will go to to get Shaw (or anyone, really, but particularly Shaw) to become more than a "potential" asset. Samaritan being presented as a benevolent overlord instead of a predetermining slaughter king is a good exploration of using logarithms to predict criminal or outlier behavior as a means to "save" society from future unhappiness. Samaritan Kid being used as a prop was a good callback to "Cold War." I was expecting the reveal to be Control instead of Son of Samaritan. I look forward to Shaw's real escape. Bruce Moran, we hardly knew ye. The Creepy Corpse Corridor that Fusco found, with Krupa and Bruce and Contractor Guy and All Those Missing Persons, was a good reveal. Fusco and his bulletin board of pictures was like Finch with his bulletin board of pictures. Fusco and Bear...good team. All in all, a decent episode, but as the season makes the turn, I am getting eager for the end game.

One Word: E-L-I-A-S!!!!!!!!! The coolest bad guy in a long time is alive. Excellent reveal. When last season ended, Dominic was shot in the head, but Elias was only shot, albeit with a high-powered rifle. Bonus points for his being saved. I imagine, if he really is in the land of the living, in Finch's safe house, that, for all his talk of remaining in and returning to the shadows, he will end up avenging someone's death. Maybe Reese's. Fusco was great trying to find Reese. This is the mini-season of Lionel. Also, Root having the machine look for Reese and then going out to save him from Samaritan was a nod to the season opener, when Reese saved Root from Samaritan soldiers. Each one understands the stakes and knows that the whole team must survive if they are to win. Jeff Blackwell didn't seem to be served much by the plot in this episode (seemed a bit dopey), but maybe he will return. The simulated battle between AI's that Finch was running, showing the 10-billion-to-none results, was window-dressing for the coming final battle. I can't imagine The Machine won't find a way during the simulation to discover a vulnerability and exploit it. All in all, a good episode.

Overall, a good episode. Although there were some signs that it was a hoax early on (Finch and Reese seemed pretty robotic, and that might be Greer's view of them coming into play), it became very obvious roughly halfway through (in the catacombs below the church) that it was some sort of simulation or dream state that Shaw was in, a sort-of Total Recall flavor. The escape sequence was what we would have expected of Shaw. It was great to see her get Lambert. (I'm sorry, but for a bad guy, Julian Ovenden just doesn't have it. I get that they are trying to save him for the final battle, but it would have been great that Lambert be the first really big Samaritan soldier to be taken down. He's more Bland than Bond. It's a shame that Martine had to go at the end of last season...that would have made for a fascinating scene if it had been Martine vs. Shaw, even if only a simulation.) Everything from there went through progressions that seemed increasingly like a scenario, an homage to If-Then-Else. At the end, the guy running the simulation noted that it took Shaw a full hour to try to kill Greer, so at least some of her instincts are still intact, if losing their place in her overall psyche. And now we know where the title of the episode came from. Now, on to tonight's installment.

A good episode. We got to see what the Machine saw in SNAFU, which is Reese as a coldblooded assassin. It was good to see Kara Stanton back. They have untethered Reese from Iris. Mixed feelings, because, on the one hand, it would be nice to see Reese have some happiness. OTOH, this makes it easier for this season's endgame, if something happens to Reese; at the very least, he wouldn't be distracted by needing to protect Iris while also protecting Finch, Fusco, Root, Shaw...and Bear. Not sure we've heard the last of Reese's old boss.

This episode seemed a bit throttled-back after last week's speed. Interesting that the Machine hired a contract killer to kill Reese and label Finch and Root as threats. Very Samaritan-like. The ending was a spooky callback to the pilot..."More than a purpose, you need a job," with Samaritan co-opting the Finch line to Reese, making the HR person seem like a zombie while assessing the likelihood that the former criminal would use violence. Bonus points for Fusco shooting the Lithuanian mafiosi in the kneecaps. Now, on to tonight's episode.

I am eager to know about these possible Easter Eggs in this episode: * Code 3141 which opened the vending machine passage to the subway/base of operations * F2 key which either put Finch and Reese on mute or Fusco on hold (this is the first time I can remember them showing the key that Finch would push on his keyboard) Any others?