S05.E02: SNAFU

[Driad]

Yes, and presumably Team Machine has unlimited money (as does Samaritan) because they can transfer funds from any account to any other.  OK, maybe not at this moment, but recently and soon.

[Gimmick Genius]

Boy, I wish the glitchy Facial Recognition problem in the teaser had shuffled Bear in there once or twice. Doesn't the machine consider him an asset??

 

Also, I think the info on house-painter was that he killed a person after a car crash. Not simply drunk driving but homicide after the crash was over and done.

[Camera One]

This episode was much better than last week, so finally, I feel like I have the show back.  There was a nice mix of humor with the interesting scenario of The Machine being all screwy.  Though it's been awhile since last season, so I need some brushing up.

Why was The Machine able to shield Reese and Finch from Samaritan, but not Root?

I didn't catch the time jump?  I assumed this episode just continued from the last episode.

Was the painter guy being recruited by Samaritan at the end?  I was confused since the pop-up said "Asset" and it looked like The Machine's interface.

I didn't realize the show was on such a weird schedule, so it looks like there's another episode I can watch.  Yay.

[bros402]

3 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

It doesn't even have to be a team really. Just hiring people to do things like hire a reliable delivery boy to deliver a package to a building that the team is about to assault with some supplies or a timed smoke bomb or something in it, a hacker to a server and implant a virus to shut off security, someone to deliver a getaway car, that sort of stuff. Samaritan has basically the whole planet in it's pocket, it's ridiculous that The Machine never did anything to even the scales even a little bit. Heck, if it had done crap like that Samaritan would never have come into being in the first place.

The end of the episode showed the guy as something like asset #750 when he was acquired, so less than 1000 people. The temp hiring lady was #503 or something

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

This episode was much better than last week, so finally, I feel like I have the show back.  There was a nice mix of humor with the interesting scenario of The Machine being all screwy.  Though it's been awhile since last season, so I need some brushing up.

Why was The Machine able to shield Reese and Finch from Samaritan, but not Root?

I didn't catch the time jump?  I assumed this episode just continued from the last episode.

Was the painter guy being recruited by Samaritan at the end?  I was confused since the pop-up said "Asset" and it looked like The Machine's interface.

I didn't realize the show was on such a weird schedule, so it looks like there's another episode I can watch.  Yay.

The machine was creating root's identities every day to put her in a useful position for that day - Reese and Finch's were created as long term identities.

 

Reese said that it had been 2 months.

 

He was being recruited, it was slick like Samaritan

Edited May 12, 2016 by bros402

[jhlipton]

On 5/10/2016 at 4:54 PM, HawaiiTVGuy said:

T]he way that Samaritan seems to be recruiting human operatives, unless they are going through psychological brainwashing, and not just using each recruit's own personal biases and beliefs to lead them to follow Samaritan's orders, it would seem to open the door to some recruits questioning their orders and possibly causing the crack in the organization Team Machine needs.

 

7 hours ago, HawaiiTVGuy said:

I missed the graphic about violence as well, I was going off of his behavior shown (looking to get honest work, not shirking in manual labor even when his pal wants to blow off) that it was weird that he would seem like a good recruit for Samaritan.  Overall he seemed like a moral, good person who made a bad decision and faced the consequences.

At least for short-term assets, like the ones on the train Root was on, Samaritan finds some "key", like a propensity to make citizen's arrests, to activate recruits.  Each of those people thought they were doing a Good Thing.

[HawaiiTVGuy]

On 5/12/2016 at 9:42 PM, jhlipton said:

 

At least for short-term assets, like the ones on the train Root was on, Samaritan finds some "key", like a propensity to make citizen's arrests, to activate recruits.  Each of those people thought they were doing a Good Thing.

I feel that actively recruiting someone at a job agency is different than just sending out fake texts regarding a dangerous fugitive, which is how I read the subway scene.  The former seems almost like they are looking at him to be an active operative, compared to the subway people who were more just passive operatives that were being taken advantage of unwittingly.

[Netfoot]

2 hours ago, HawaiiTVGuy said:

The former seems almost like they are looking at him to be an active operative...

Certainly, I do expect him to turn out to be the new Martine.  Perhaps not immediately, but as the season progresses...

[jhlipton]

4 hours ago, HawaiiTVGuy said:

I feel that actively recruiting someone at a job agency is different than just sending out fake texts regarding a dangerous fugitive, which is how I read the subway scene.  The former seems almost like they are looking at him to be an active operative, compared to the subway people who were more just passive operatives that were being taken advantage of unwittingly.

True, but the paradigm would be the same -- see what characteristics and tendencies he has and work with those to recruit him.  How much to tell him and when would also be determined by his file.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Finally catching up, and I loved the hurmor, and just like @aquarian1, I can watch Reese in his "suit" or that horrid "bowling" shirt that only he could make look sexy.

And there is nothing, nothing, let me repeat, absofuckinglutely NOTHING that would make me feel sorry for tha psycho-ass Root, and I cheered when the Machine attacked her. Boo-hoo, hoo, she can't find Shaw. Cry me a fucking river.

It never occured to me that Finch was having signs of early dementia--I just figured it was the machine messing with him, even if she "said' she didn't, I figured she did. Or maybe he was just hallucinating, what with everything else that was going on.

[Terrafamilia]

So, murders are down but suicides are up.

Hmmm, either these suicides are covered-up Samaritan sponsored murders or Samaritan knows how to push the right buttons to drive certain people to to do it themselves.

[ABay]

That is what the search engine company Greer bought was doing. I don't remember the name of the episode.

[Terrafamilia]

Ah, that would be Q&A. I had forgotten that plot.

[stealinghome]

I think it was in Q&A last season, the one that also featured Claire trying to capture Finch.

But yes--I read that line as indicating that probably both are happening. Samaritan is nudging vulnerable people into suicide, but is also having its operatives kill people and then make it look like suicide (or even just preventing investigations and calling it suicide).

ETA: great minds, Terrafamilia!

Edited May 15, 2016 by stealinghome

[HawaiiTVGuy]

23 hours ago, Terrafamilia said:

So, murders are down but suicides are up.

Hmmm, either these suicides are covered-up Samaritan sponsored murders or Samaritan knows how to push the right buttons to drive certain people to to do it themselves.

Totally what I was thinking.  And how about "unattended deaths" like the mysterious heart attack on the IAB Detective due to the pace maker.  The Terminator Franchise had it all wrong, SkyNet didn't need to create Terminators or other killing machines, all it had to do was kill passively and humans would never be the wiser.

On 5/13/2016 at 0:06 PM, Netfoot said:

Certainly, I do expect him to turn out to be the new Martine.  Perhaps not immediately, but as the season progresses...

 

On 5/14/2016 at 2:22 PM, jhlipton said:

True, but the paradigm would be the same -- see what characteristics and tendencies he has and work with those to recruit him.  How much to tell him and when would also be determined by his file.

It will be interesting to see if the situation is re-visited considering how few episodes we have left.  Again, I missed whatever background he had that made him a prime candidate to be an active asset, but it will be interesting to see if Samaritan fails to take into consideration with human morals and emotions may lead to its downfall.  Claire (that is the hacker runaway that was recruited and betrayed Finch right) seemed to already have her own doubts about Samaritan when she expressed her dismay that she was actually shot when they were trying to trap Finch.  And Samaritan seemed to underestimate Control's own independent sense of morality and what is right and wrong in not eliminating Control immediately, and that almost caused some major issues for the at the end of last season.

Wasn't the uniqueness of humans and what humans could teach the machines central to the discourse and disagreement between Samaritan and The Machine when they had the sit-down between Root and the creepy boy?

[mtlchick]

I don't know what made me laugh more: Root's list and the snark it provided, the "Fusconator's" outgoing vm message or Reese's bowling shirt that only he can pull off. 

 

Then I see the top badge on Root's sash: "Citizenship Award."  HA!