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S05.E01: B.S.O.D.

FormerMod-a1

By FormerMod-a1
in Person Of Interest [V]

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Gigi43

Gigi43

No offense to Shaw but it occurred to me only when the credits rolled that she wasn't addressed at all, I was too worried about the Machine. I think I had more of a reaction than Root when Finch said "She." Damn.

 

Fusco has had one hell of a character arch on this show from how he started until now and by the end of this, and though I fear how it could end for him I can't wait to see how this will play out no matter what. 

 

Reese pulling that drill out absurdly cracked me up. Did he find out about Bear and the fire extinguisher (which, GO BEAR!) and had to top him with the Nitrogen?  

 

Using Playstations to store "God"? I love this show.

  • Love 5
stealinghome

stealinghome

(edited)

Before anything else, let me just say that I am so, SO glad that this show is back! Seeing the team again is like seeing old friends you didn't know you missed but suddenly realized you missed terribly.

I thought this was a really solid premiere, probably the best season premiere they've ever done (the only other one in competition would be The Contingency imo). An really effective reboot--which can be hard to do--that broadcast what this season will be about. It was certainly jam-packed--at the half-hour mark it felt like they'd already gone through an hour's worth of stuff! You can tell that if they had had a longer season, this material would have been stretched over 2-3 episodes; it felt a bit compressed (no pun intended!)--but still very solid. The character beats suffered a bit more than the action (which was great). So, not amazing, but very good. Side note, it's so weird seeing flashbacks NOT from The Machine's pov, but of course it makes total sense.

Speaking of, the flashbacks were all lovely. I always love Finch and Nathan, and tonight was no exception; the Grace scene was a bit extraneous, but I adore Carrie Preston so I can roll with that, and I figure it was for Michael Emerson anyway. The one where Finch deleted The Machine and then pretty instantly regretted it tugged at my heartstrings pretty hard, though I'm not entirely sure I think it's consistent with what we've seen of Finch and The Machine before. But either way, only Emerson can make dialogue with a screen so affecting.

I really liked all the different combinations of characters tonight, and how all three came together at the end to get The Machine up and running again (and each with their own special talents). One of the things last season really lacked was a cohesive sense of the team working together so I was pleased that that was like the first thing we got tonight. This episode also did a much better job of involving Reese in the AI stuff than like all of last season combined--someone woke Caviezel up from his two-season nap, this was the most fun, and most energetic, Reese has been in ages. Team Rocket continues to be a pleasant surprise; I love that Reese and Root probably still don't LIKE each other much, but have come to a detente and totally have each other's backs (Reese charging off to save Root, Root refusing to leave Reese to fight). Somehow that duo really works well together. Reese and Finch bickering as they tried to open the case with an increasingly large series of gadgets made me laugh. And the Finch/Root stuff, while short, was a good prelude to what I'm assuming will be the debate of the next 1 or 2 episodes, which is how badass should they make The Machine? SUPER pumped to see them explore that more.

The character I'm most nervous for right now is definitely Fusco. He's going to be in real danger if he keeps investigating, and I get why he won't let it go, but man, when bodies start dropping.... They'll have to read him in sooner rather than later or he really will get himself killed.

The opening montage was EXCELLENT. The song at the start was No Wow by The Kills, for anyone else who wanted to run out and re-listen. I also loved how the opening montage showed each member of the team getting away with their own special talents--Reese by just kicking ass, Finch by being elusive, and Root by manipulating two parties against each other.

Can't wait for the next episode.

Oh, by the way, I agree that something about the sound was a bit off tonight. The music was way too loud at times. Also, for anyone wondering, apparently the PlayStation thing is real(ish).

Edited by stealinghome
  • Love 11
Syme

Syme

1 minute ago, Gigi43 said:

Reese pulling that drill out absurdly cracked me up. Did he find out about Bear and the fire extinguisher (which, GO BEAR!) and had to top him with the Nitrogen?  

 

Using Playstations to store "God"? I love this show.

The nitrogen tank is for real. Reese was mostly correct; while post-1970's cable is plastic insulated [called "icky PIC"], old telephone cable [aka "pulp"] has a lead outer casing, and each wire inside is insulated with paper. As long as it is dry inside, it lasts almost forever. To that end, it is normally pressurized with dry air from the Central Office, but when the casing gets cracked and leaks, they use nitrogen as a short-term stopgap. NYC is full of pulp cable going back to the 1920's. When Sandy hit, flooded the Central Office basements, and the air pumps failed, lots of pulp was ruined.

As for clusters of Playstations, look up  Beowulf Cluster. Note that gaming video is the most computing intensive operation done on consumer PC's. The GPU's in consoles are often the highest performance processors to be found. And they are cheap. They make clusters out of those GPU's, sometimes 1024 or 2048 of them.

So in short, Reese and Harold [or rather the writers....] had these parts dead-bang-on.  Someone did their homework. I am impressed by my favorite show.

  • Love 6
Netfoot

Netfoot

(edited)
43 minutes ago, stealinghome said:

Also, for anyone wondering, apparently the PlayStation thing is real(ish).

They simply built a Beowulf cluster.  Any computer hardware with networking capabilities could have been used.  But the new consoles were touted to have special properties, resulting in a more powerful cluster.

 

ETA: Ooops! @Syme just beat me to it.

Edited by Netfoot
  • Love 1
DEM

DEM

(edited)
2 hours ago, Gigi43 said:

No offense to Shaw but it occurred to me only when the credits rolled that she wasn't addressed at all

Reese mentioned her.

Glad to have the show back!  Good episode, though I was surprised at how linked it was to the S4 finale and how it was mainly setup for the remainder of the season.

The single best scene to me was the conversation between Finch and 2006!Machine about death.  Very effecting, and immeasurably better than "Father, I've failed you scene" from 4x22. 

I really liked how this ep put Finch front-and-center and left no doubt that The Machine story in S5 would be primarily his.

The team really does need to figure out a way to bring Fusco further into the fold.  He's a police detective -- a damn good one -- a colleague and a friend. The arms-length paternalism is counter-productive at this point.

The Machine-less flashback transitions were really cool.

Edited by DEM
  • Love 5
ppl

ppl

What a fantastic premiere. You have been sorely missed.

A minor criticism that I had with the episode was the tone felt slightly different than normal but it was probably because the season has been shortened in half so they had to cram a lot of plot and action into one episode. I'm sure I will warm up to that in no time but Person of Interest is the only network show that I actually look forward to with a 22-23 episode order per season. Most will disagree but I love the slow burn with this show. They take pride and care and every little nugget feels bigger than it is because of how Nolan/Plageman and the writers have approached the show.

It was definitely gutsy of Plageman/Camerino to start B.S.O.D. with a flashforward but dang, did it really set the episode up.

Nice to see Brett Cullen back. He's only been in 1/10 of the episodes so far but he remains such an integral part of the show. The flashback scenes were really wonderful. I loved the Finch/Machine interaction about death and that line about the Machine asking Finch "How will I remember you?" got to me.

I enjoyed Grace being back and Chumley making his first appearance. It's really nice to see a married couple in real life actually play a couple on TV. Their chemistry elevated that scene for sure.

Team Rocket was back and in a big way. The action scenes were strong. Loved Root's line to Samaritan. If you see a crazy person running around going up to cameras and saying "You can call me _______, bitch.", that will be me.

Fusco was the weakest part of the episode for me probably because CBS had the audacity to censor the word fustercluck. You don't mess with The Fusco. I did like that Reese did not tell him about Samaritan. Now we get to explore how well of a detective Fusco really is. Fusco has been largely in the background for much of the show so it will be nice to see if and how he can evade Samaritan's prying eyes while still learning the truth.

How nice is it that this show actually researches things before putting it in the show? Say what you want about the other parts of the episode but the PlayStation supercomputer and leaving the nitrogen gas tanks out there on the sidewalk are true and you cannot fault them on that.

  • Love 2
thuganomics85

thuganomics85

Playstation 3 for the win!  Didn't know that was a real thing, but the video game nerd in me loved it and did think it was the best choice out of the last-gen consoles.  Not to start a console war or anything, but I do remember that the Xbox 360 had major issues with overheating (leading to the infamous "Red Ring of Death"), so if I was going to trust any console to help The Machine, it would be the PS3!

Glad that the show is finally back, even though I know that this is the beginning of the end.  I'm just glad Reese, Finch, Root, Fusco, Bear, and hopefully Shaw will get a proper send-off, even if it's a tragic one.  I've just missed these characters and I want to see it through.

No surprise that Samaritan has this much reach, and pretty much has put the team on the defense.  It seems to be pretty much everything.  No one is safe from him.  Really hope The Machine figures a way to bring it down when all this is said and done, because that much power is pretty scary.

Always enjoy Finch flashbacks; especially when it has Grace and in particular Ingram.  Bret Cullen really does wonders with that character.  But as usual, it's Michael Emerson that blows my mind.  He's one of the few that can actually make me feel for the "death" of a computer, and buy that Finch would still be gutted over that decision and regret it.

Reese and Root continue to have the amazing abilities to walk away from gun fights like the Terminators they apparently are.

Fusco!  Still love him, and I'm glad it looks like they are setting things up to have him play a huge part in the endgame.  I just hope he has eyes in the back of his head, because Samaritan is not going to like him snooping around. 

Certainly sounds like Elias is officially dead.  It was fun while it lasted, buddy.

I wonder whatever returning players will pop up.  I'm assuming Shaw is the big one, but I wouldn't be surprised if Zoe pops in for at least one episode.

Glad the show is back!  So, it looks like next week is when they begin doubling up on episodes.  Still kind of wish they just made it available for binging, but I'll take what I can get!

DeepRunner

DeepRunner

That. Was. E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T.

Fast pace, the sense of the hunt by Samaritan, the battle scenes between Root and the Samaritan operatives and regular citizens, the flashbacks (good to Nathan and Grace again, even in flashback mode), the fighting between Reese and Zachary, Samaritan killing the IAB cop by messing with his pacemaker, Harold having the philosophical tugs that came with creating The Machine, and thus crippling it by wiping its memories (The "What is Death" sequence was an excellent callback to last season's ending exchange between Finch and The Machine)...Nolan and Plageman are taking no prisoners. If this is how the rest of the episodes go, this will be a perfect last season.

FWIW, I believe Zachary will be the one to kill Reese. 

Princess Lucky

Princess Lucky

6 hours ago, stealinghome said:

I thought this was a really solid premiere, probably the best season premiere they've ever done

YES.

I was a little worried that an entire year later I'd be "over" the show or the show itself would have lost its magic but nope. The magic was intact.

I mean, I sat down and pressed play, anxious I'd feel indifferent, and then the first thing we got was that "flash-forward", if you will, and it took me a few seconds to realize that what we were seeing wasn't set after the S4 finale, it was after the S5 finale(possibly?), and then I FLIPPED OUT. Took me under a minute to get those chills and think "my show is back".

The writing was tight as ever and this really was the strongest season premiere I can recall. It didn't drag for a second, the pace was unreal (hopefully indicative of the pace for this entire, shortened season), there was a little more action than usual (which should be the case for a premiere), we got solid plot developments (the Machine trying to decompress itself, almost frying, and then possibly decompressing successfully) and we also got some amazing acting out of the deal (especially Michael Emerson). Perfect in every way.

I especially loved how all the character dynamics were honored, like @stealinghome said. We got almost all the main pairings. There was so much Reese/Finch (Reese protectively hugging Finch the entire time, and trying to calm Finch down, and trying to be positive), we got Root/Finch (having those conversations about the Machine, Finch using female pronouns, Root feeling humbled, again moments which I hope are indicative of the conversations we'll see in the next few episodes, as they rebuild the Machine), we got Reese/Root (which was AMAZING) and also Reese/Fusco (poor Fusco). And it all felt so poignant (even the Reese/Fusco moments, because you know Reese was just trying to protect Lionel by keeping him in the dark).

And speaking of the team:

6 hours ago, Gigi43 said:

No offense to Shaw but it occurred to me only when the credits rolled that she wasn't addressed at all, I was too worried about the Machine. I think I had more of a reaction than Root when Finch said "She." Damn.

Did you miss the part where Root said she "fell in love"? That was a direct Shaw mention in my heart.

This was such a great episode for Reese. Jim Caviezel was really fantastic. When he said "we don't leave our comrades behind", it was like you could see "I miss Joss Carter" stamped on his forehead. In that moment, you could see how that loss still resonates with him. And you could also see his doggedness to get Root back as a sign he feels guilty for letting Samaritan get a hold of Shaw (even if he had no way of stopping that, he feels he sould have gotten her back by now). Reese's guilt was off the charts, but he wasn't wallowing in it, he was kicking ass and trying to make things right. He was like "we're gonna find Root and then we're gonna get Shaw back and then we're gonna fix the Machine and everything will be FINE. Get it, Harold?" Reese was done. In a good way.

Especially that moment, when he told Harold the world needs the Machine, and "we'll fix it, we have to", that was so emotional. Slightly desperate (as desperate as someone like Reese can get). Reese wasn't just talking about "the world". Reese needs the Machine too, Reese needs to keep getting those numbers, because that's what keeps him going. Saving lives. Beautiful work by JC.

And then when Reese told Root to find Finch and basically go on without him? Even though he had just said "no one left behind"? Because he knew that Root is invaluable and will be able to help Finch both with the Machine and with gunfights, but Reese himself is "useless there"? Sigh.

Fortunately, Root wasn't going to do that. And I thought I saw something in Amy Acker's performance in that moment, maybe a thought like "don't say that, Shaw is 'useless' with computers too but she's still valuable to me, and so are you, you big lug". Sigh. Reese/Root interactions are my favorite because they always have so many layers.

And I did love that Reese was the one to "save the day" in the end, with the nitrogen. It was a little predictable, but I still loved seeing it. Especially after Reese's "I don't speak nerd" earlier (one of many hilarious one-liners, by the way). You don't need to speak nerd to be able to help.

Lastly, Michael Emerson.

DIVINE.

How does he do that? Staring at a screen and pouring out all that emotion? How?

I did love seeing Nathan again, by the way. Brett Cullen always does wonders with this role. He brings such humanity to it, such decency. I always love seeing him as Harold's conscience, and I love seeing the subtle way he looks at Finch, almost with pity sometimes (mixed in with awe and respect, of course). Nathan can see that Finch is too rigid, too determined to play it safe, that he's missing out on greatness just because he's afraid. Oh and I do always love Nathan/Reese parallels. Nathan was the original Reese, after all. The first one to try to use the Machine to save a number.

But back to Finch. That moment, when he was deciding whether or not to erase the Machine's memories? You could feel his anguish. It was beautiful. I loved the turning point, when he realized the Machine had been watching him with Grace and he thought "oh my God I need to stop this". But then? When the Machine was pleading? Asking "how will I remember you?" When Finch managed, for a moment, to see the Machine as an individual? Maybe as his child? But he hit "enter" anyway?

Magic.

And then, when Finch started hyperventilating and panicking (the way he practically sobbed "wait" destroyed me)? And then, when he was so hopeful to see the Machine speaking to him? And then his expression, as he realized his Machine was gone? Dead? And he was looking at another Machine? One that didn't know him? Like his own father probably "forgot" him in the past? Asking "are you my son," maybe?

MAGIC.

You know a show is good when it has you tearing up about what is essentially the unzipping of, like, a very large .rar file.

  • Love 13
fastiller

fastiller

7 hours ago, stealinghome said:

Speaking of, the flashbacks were all lovely. I always love Finch and Nathan, and tonight was no exception; the Grace scene was a bit extraneous, but I adore Carrie Preston so I can roll with that, and I figure it was for Michael Emerson anyway. The one where Finch deleted The Machine and then pretty instantly regretted it tugged at my heartstrings pretty hard, though I'm not entirely sure I think it's consistent with what we've seen of Finch and The Machine before. But either way, only Emerson can make dialogue with a screen so affecting.

<SNIP>

The character I'm most nervous for right now is definitely Fusco. He's going to be in real danger if he keeps investigating, and I get why he won't let it go, but man, when bodies start dropping.... They'll have to read him in sooner rather than later or he really will get himself killed.

But we needed the scene with Grace and the ice cream so that we'd know that the machine had been listening to Harold all those years back, and was showing 'boundary issues' from the start.

3 hours ago, Bobbin said:

The series-long redemption of Fusco is to be lauded. But let's not forget Root's complicated development over the seasons. 

FUSCO: Truly one of the best redemption arcs in fiction.  Love Kevin Chapman.  Hope he lands a great new role!

4 hours ago, ppl said:

What a fantastic premiere. You have been sorely missed.

<SNIP>

Team Rocket was back and in a big way. The action scenes were strong. Loved Root's line to Samaritan. If you see a crazy person running around going up to cameras and saying "You can call me _______, bitch.", that will be me.

I think this'll become my email sign-off. You know? for the NSA?

41 minutes ago, Princess Lucky said:

This was such a great episode for Reese. Jim Caviezel was really fantastic. When he said "we don't leave our comrades behind", it was like you could see "I miss Joss Carter" stamped on his forehead. In that moment, you could see how that loss still resonates with him. And you could also see his doggedness to get Root back as a sign he feels guilty for letting Samaritan get a hold of Shaw (even if he had no way of stopping that, he feels he sould have gotten her back by now). Reese's guilt was off the charts, but he wasn't wallowing in it, he was kicking ass and trying to make things right. He was like "we're gonna find Root and then we're gonna get Shaw back and then we're gonna fix the Machine and everything will be FINE. Get it, Harold?" Reese was done. In a good way.

You know a show is good when it has you tearing up about what is essentially the unzipping of, like, a very large .rar file.

I hadn't thought about that while watching but now of course it makes total sense.  And re, the emotion of the unzipping of the file: yep! 

Emerson was wonderful - he does have very expressive eyes.

  • Love 2
pcta

pcta

In regard to the sound issues, it could be that the loss of Maciek Malish could have affected the mix we are used to.

From the zap it article:

 

Quote

Malish was a sound editor whose credits included “The X-Files” and “Lost,” in addition to “Person of Interest.” He was killed while riding his bike in September 2015 when a driver struck him and another car.

This was a packed episode. I'm off to do a rewatch

shura

shura

Could someone remind me the details of what happened to Elias? I am blanking completely. I didn't remember exactly what happened to Dominic either (thanks for the ages-long break, CBS), but the episode filled me in on that. And while we are at it, what happened to Greer? Thanks in advance!

I take it that declaring Fusco a hero and giving him a commendation was an attempt by Samaritan to cover up The Correction, right? I wonder why Samaritan is concerned about that. It seems to be pretty much all-powerful at this point, and it's always been arrogant, so what if a few more people not even know, just suspect that something is amiss?

Also, was the FBI guy in on the cover up or was he just reading what was put into the ballistics report by Samaritan and honestly thought Fusco had shot Dominic? I liked that Samaritan apparently has human (or was it civilian?) assets it can activate by a text message. Wonder if they knew they were Samaritan's agents or if that was some kind of the Manchurian Candidate type of thing.

Agent Dark

Agent Dark

10 hours ago, Gigi43 said:

No offense to Shaw but it occurred to me only when the credits rolled that she wasn't addressed at all, I was too worried about the Machine. I think I had more of a reaction than Root when Finch said "She." Damn.

 

Sarah Shahi has actually been out of the main cast credits since Ctrl-Alt-Del (ie the very episode after Shaw's "death") and even went uncredited for that surprise scene at the end of MIA.   

9 hours ago, Syme said:

As for clusters of Playstations, look up  Beowulf Cluster. Note that gaming video is the most computing intensive operation done on consumer PC's. The GPU's in consoles are often the highest performance processors to be found. And they are cheap. They make clusters out of those GPU's, sometimes 1024 or 2048 of them.

So in short, Reese and Harold [or rather the writers....] had these parts dead-bang-on.  Someone did their homework. I am impressed by my favorite show.

I like that Root even mentioned that she was using the PS3 because it's explicitly a last generation console, ie the hardware design is from well before Samaritan's time.  Ie Samaritan is all up in your PS4/XBones ;)

  • Love 2
StarBrand

StarBrand

(edited)

Great premiere. There's really nothing that didn't belong in there.

I am a tad confused though-if Samaritan gets the "classification error" messages when seeing Resse and co, on camera, how does it classify Root as a threat if Samaritan does not know her identify? (before she explicitly said so, of course).

It just occurred to me, though, that Root's identify was fluid and provided by the machine-all the others had pre-programmed ones put into the servers that Root stole. Do I have it right?

Edited by StarBrand
Gigi43

Gigi43

(edited)
4 hours ago, Princess Lucky said:

 

And speaking of the team:

Did you miss the part where Root said she "fell in love"? That was a direct Shaw mention in my heart.

 

 

Actually, I didn't catch that! What scene was it? I kept seeing it on Facebook beforehand that Michael Emmerson, Amy Acker and Kevin Chapman would be live chatting and even though this is a show you actually have to watch, I was curious, so I was looking for it for a time during the show... only to discover it was probably taking place on Twitter and the posts were just to let Facebook people know. Clearly, I'm not a "Finch" when it comes to technology! Good thing I always plan a rewatch anyway.

 

11 hours ago, benteen said:

Damn it, I thought POI was coming back next week.  I completely missed this episode.

Will it be up On Demand soon?

My Cable (Fios) already has it up, so it might be up for you, but I have no idea if all cables are the same.

Edited by Gigi43
Terrafamilia

Terrafamilia

2 hours ago, shura said:

 I liked that Samaritan apparently has human (or was it civilian?) assets it can activate by a text message. Wonder if they knew they were Samaritan's agents or if that was some kind of the Manchurian Candidate type of thing.

I took it that they were ordinary concerned citizens who had signed up to get text/e-mail alerts, like Amber alerts and other law enforcement whatnot, who Samaritan just co-opted.

  • Love 2
basiltherat

basiltherat

Adding my kudos to Finch with his baby machine, wanting to "kill" it every midnight, only for it to ask its daddy:  "How will I learn from my mistakes?"  Indeed. Machine, that is true of all of us.

Didn't need to see Ol' Pruneface quite yet.  Samaritan has death squads that just fire at will with no repurcussions, as well as some sneaky ways to get its "work" done, by weaponizing the commuters in Root's subway through their cellphones.

Bear looked very skinny -- did anyone feed him, now that "Lady Hammer" isn't around?

Also, does anyone know what B S O D means?

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