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S05.E07: QSO

ElectricBoogaloo

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

NOTE: In May, Person of Interest will be airing two episodes a week, the first on Monday and the second on Tuesday. In June, the show will revert back to one episode a week on Tuesdays.

Quote

Root goes undercover at a radio station to protect the host of a conspiracy theory show who stumbles upon information that could get him killed. Samaritan's agents try to convince a member of the team that their goals are noble.

 

Netfoot

Netfoot

For the uninitiated, QSO is one of a number of three-character Q-Codes, developed for brevity during radio communications.  Formally, it declares (or asks, with a question mark) the ability to communicate with another station.  Informally, it has come to describe a "contact" or communication/exchange of information between two stations.  

There are, of course, other meanings for the letter-group, but...

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stealinghome

stealinghome

(edited)

OH MY GOD ROOT'S MESSAGE TO SHAW. 4 alarm fire! I just! I can't! Ack!!!! My Shoot feels are out of control. :)

Shaw is so fucked up. Oh man. It's killing me to see. I totally knew that wasn't going to be a simulation...will Shaw EVER be able to be sure she's not in a simulation ever again? Just so painful.

Shit just got REAL! This episode was one of those stealth ones that starts slow and then halfway through gets so, so good. We're clearly climbing toward the endgame now. I loved the hilarity of Root going undercover with the conspiracy theorists--because of course, the team revealing the truth about the ASIs never gets old--but then it got unexpectedly serious.

Also, they need to tell Fusco. It has become utterly, ridiculously inexcusable that they won't tell him. There is literally no reason not to. Argh.

Sigh. Max. So noble, but so dumb.

The team fighting over The Machine is more of what I want to see! Throw down, team, throw down. I like that the writers haven't forgotten that Root has an edge and certainly will prioritize the people she cares about over randoms. Let's cut The Machine loose already and duke it out with Samaritan.

Edited by stealinghome
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AimingforYoko

AimingforYoko

10 minutes ago, stealinghome said:

The team fighting over The Machine is more of what I want to see! Throw down, team, throw down. I like that the writers haven't forgotten that Root has an edge and certainly will prioritize the people she cares about over randoms. Let's cut The Machine loose already and duke it out with Samaritan.

I love how John just turned around and left. He knew he had nothing to offer in that argument.

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StarBrand

StarBrand

It took me a second or two to clue in on the message Root sent Shaw-4 alarm fire. It was good though-left her with do doubt about who sent it.

I guess they tricked Shaw into killing someone for real. Even if she gets out of this, she's still going to be a tad fucked up.

I totally thought the way Root would get to Shaw would be to surrender and get taken herself-and almost did-until Reese showed up. She looked like she was going to strangle him for that. Totally worth it though, because she got through to Shaw-although I'm sure how she could know that for sure. I liked Root's increasing impatience with the machine not telling her where Shaw is-until she realized why she was at the station in the first place.

Now Shaw knows they're still looking for her. That little grin on her face at the end said everything...

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DrScottie

DrScottie

2 hours ago, StarBrand said:

It took me a second or two to clue in on the message Root sent Shaw-4 alarm fire. It was good though-left her with do doubt about who sent it.

 

I just re-watched the last conversion Root and Shaw had in If/Then/Else. "Root, you're hot, you're good with a gun. Two things I greatly admire, but you and me together would be like a 4-alarm fire."

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bros402

bros402

4 hours ago, kariyaki said:

The list of Root's learned talents grows longer. Hand to hand combat and sharpshooter skills we knew, she can also dance? Where did she learn all this? This is backstory we're never getting, is it? 

Also? I burst out laughing when I saw Root in her tutu. 

We knew about the sharpshooter skills since she was introduced - H2H combat sort of goes with that. Lets just say that she did some dancing as a child, maybe sme when Harold had her in the psychiatric facility :P

Agent Dark

Agent Dark

What a fantastic episode.  Person of Interest might have been forcefully pushed out the door by CBS, but its' definitely leaving a lasting impression with these final episodes. 

Loved basically everything about this episode - the adventures of Root and The Machine, her desperation in her search for Shaw, the Finch and Root philosophical debates, Shaw's complete lack of interest in Samaritan's efforts to recruit her, the 'noble sacrifice' she was about to make for real just so she wouldn't be tricked into harming an innocent life, the hail-mary broadcast of Root's love for Shaw across the airwaves, everything with Fusco.  It's like I couldn't have even dreamed up a more fulfilling episode.  

 

btw Samaritan, what do you have against Tasmanian Tigers lol?  That was a pretty cool insert, mainly because I know there's a decent amount of research in Australia going into the possibilities of bringing back Thylacines from extinction.

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shura

shura

59 minutes ago, Agent Dark said:

btw Samaritan, what do you have against Tasmanian Tigers lol?  That was a pretty cool insert, mainly because I know there's a decent amount of research in Australia going into the possibilities of bringing back Thylacines from extinction.

Well, they better stop that, because, according to Samaritan, bringing them back will have severe consequences for the ecology. So severe, in fact, that Samaritan thought it better to kill the scientist instead of, say, destroying the research.

I don't get it. Samaritan wants to run a harmonious society, right? And to achieve that, it chooses to eliminate certain people rather than handle what those people are doing? With this logic, to maximize the harmony, it would be best to eliminate everybody in the world and leave just a handful of people (one, ideally). And Greer doesn't see that? He still thinks Samaritan's approach is what's best for mankind?

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fastiller

fastiller

Just now, shura said:

Well, they better stop that, because, according to Samaritan, bringing them back will have severe consequences for the ecology. So severe, in fact, that Samaritan thought it better to kill the scientist instead of, say, destroying the research.

I don't get it. Samaritan wants to run a harmonious society, right? And to achieve that, it chooses to eliminate certain people rather than handle what those people are doing? With this logic, to maximize the harmony, it would be best to eliminate everybody in the world and leave just a handful of people (one, ideally). And Greer doesn't see that? He still thinks Samaritan's approach is what's best for mankind?

Yes, I thought the same thing.  The airline manufacturer employee, the A/C company executive: these will all be replaced by other suits who will continue their respective companies policies and procedures.

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benteen

benteen

I really enjoyed this episode.  The radio conspiracy guy was a fun number and it was great seeing an episode so focused on Root.  I laughed at the image of Root churning butter because she looked exactly like one of those marionette things at Disneyworld.

It was tough leaving that guy behind at the end but they made the right call.  He didn't want to go into hiding and they believe in free will, unlike the Machine.  Reese and especially Finch are annoying the living hell out of me with how ridiculous they are being withholding this information from Lionel.  They are putting his life in danger because they know he's not going to stop.  At least if they tell him the truth, he could at least go about his investigation more carefully.  I don't want to be this annoyed with Reese and Finch but I'm actively rooting for Fusco against the two of them.

I knew that Shaw had killed a real person but an effective scene nonetheless.  Just curious, what animal did that scientist want to bring back?

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Dagny

Dagny

2 hours ago, shura said:

Samaritan wants to run a harmonious society, right? And to achieve that, it chooses to eliminate certain people rather than handle what those people are doing? With this logic, to maximize the harmony, it would be best to eliminate everybody in the world and leave just a handful of people (one, ideally). And Greer doesn't see that? He still thinks Samaritan's approach is what's best for mankind?

Yes, Greer does.  Marvel Studios should be getting a small cut of the past two of season. Big overseeing computer program goes out and targets people for elimination. No heli-carriers, just some low tech stuff and other obscure packaging.

If Samaritan can manipulate package routing and voices, Is the Machine actively countering her moves to make sure Samaritan cannot cover up her tracks?

DeepRunner

DeepRunner

(edited)

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.

Edited by DeepRunner
word correction, changing "with" to "without" to clarify meaning of the last sentence about Samaritan.
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Netfoot

Netfoot

1 hour ago, DeepRunner said:

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

Just so you know, a firearm, even loaded with blanks, can be lethal at close range.  There may not be a bullet in the weapon, but the blast of hot gasses and burning propellant powder leaves the barrel with such tremendous force, that it can tear flesh and smash bone.  More than one idiotic commedian has killed himself by cleverly shootng himself with a firearm loaded with blanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum

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elle

elle

On 5/24/2016 at 9:40 PM, whatsatool said:

Root is kinda like Nancy Drew.

 

On 5/24/2016 at 10:23 PM, Netfoot said:

^^^ No, it's Shaw that's like Nancy Drew...

It has been years since I've read the  Nancy Drew books, I can not imagine that they have changed *that* much.  But this comment made me realise something about the team.  Part of the Nancy Drew trope is that she is the only child(daughter) of a single father, neither Root nor Shaw have any living parents (that we know of for Root).  In fact, the main four are all orphans.  I wonder how that plays into the myth-arc.

 

16 hours ago, DeepRunner said:

Root doing Betsy Ross in the butter churn, ballet dancer, and as a UFO crazy was just perfect

Though I missed the episode, I did see the first two scenes in the sneak peek videos.  I was struck by how much they reminded me of they way Reese spoke to the Machine when Finch was missing the first time how Root was saying the Machine should be helping her to find Shaw and she would not take on POI missions.

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Camera One

Camera One

It is awesome watching Root inhabit different identities.  Her interpretation of a historical house actor was hilarious.  

I hate watching innocents die, so it was sad to see Shaw tricked into killing the scientist.  The body count has been high among innocents this season, which is a bit of a downer for me.

The radio show guy was so hardheaded... I suppose he did make his choice.  So the receptionist was there to monitor him?  Wouldn't every radio station host/DJ be hearing the static?  Or is it just their radio frequency?

The only thing which frustrated me about this episode was Harold not realizing that he needed to tell Lionel the truth.  Enough is enough... I don't want to them to jam every major development into the penultimate episode.  

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thuganomics85

thuganomics85

30 Rock's Pete Hornberger as a radio host of a conspiracy theory show.  Yep, I can see what!  It was great seeing Scott Adsit again.  Too bad Max doomed himself at the end, but I could buy why his character would do that.  A rare moment where the gang ends up not saving the POI's life. I did see the twist of the assistant being a Samaritan agent coming, since her introduction seemed a bit random.

It was fun seeing Root get the focus on this one, and especially seeing her perspective when she has to keep swapping identities so many times, and it isn't just the normal "Root shows up wearing a random outfit, that make Reese and Finch do a double-take" deal.  Really thought they were going to go through with her turning herself in, in order to save Max and try and get to Shaw.  Kind of surprised they resisted the obvious route of finding a way to have Root and Shaw break out together.

Shaw though, is going through some shit!  Basically got tricked into shooting an actual woman, because she just assumed it was another hallucination.  I imagine what she went through really would fuck you up that way.  Samaritan's just a dick, to say the least.  It wasn't like the scientist knew her experiments could effect the world in a negative way.  But, nope, in Samaritan's mind, she needs to get capped.  Ouch.

At least Fusco is still alive, but Finch and Reese continuing to not tell him in the truth is lame, and I'm glad Fusco seems to be done with their shit. Get it together, you two!  Team Fusco!

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MYOS

MYOS

Samaritan doesn't look for solutions the way the Machine does. Its "solution" to a problem is "kill the human", vs. solve the problem (ie., if 10 years from now there'll be an environmental catastrophe due to this animal, skew the research or make sure the scientist includes the environmental risks in the reinsertion program, etc.) The new intro speech makes that clear: to Samaritan, we are all either irrelevant or obstacles to be eliminated.

The Machine is keeping its team in the dark the way the team is keeping Fusco in the dark. Root and FUsco threatened to quit, and the machine was smart enough to provide the needed accomodation for Root, when Finch was too inflexible to do that for Lionel.

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HawaiiTVGuy

HawaiiTVGuy

I found it interesting how Shaw was not noticeably affected by the revelation that she inadvertently killed the "innocent", but it is actually pretty understandable, she has probably a long history of bodies in her wake, and although she has switched sides, her psyche is already one that can overcome any guilt she may feel over the killing pretty quickly.

I am surprised by Finch's attitude about not being able to save the DJ, considering they lost another number to Samaritan a couple seasons go, for the exact same reason, free will, he decided to run away from them and try to strike out on his own and was caught.  Sorry Finch, you are wrong, you always programmed the machine to respect human emotions and decision making, thus the fact that you have the Machine spit out numbers of "Persons of Interest" to you or to Control and leave it to humans to decide what to do with the numbers.  The job of the Machine isn't to control human behavior, but to try its best to put them in the best situation possible, the fact you cannot see that is odd.

9 hours ago, MYOS said:

Samaritan doesn't look for solutions the way the Machine does. Its "solution" to a problem is "kill the human", vs. solve the problem (ie., if 10 years from now there'll be an environmental catastrophe due to this animal, skew the research or make sure the scientist includes the environmental risks in the reinsertion program, etc.) The new intro speech makes that clear: to Samaritan, we are all either irrelevant or obstacles to be eliminated.

The Machine is keeping its team in the dark the way the team is keeping Fusco in the dark. Root and FUsco threatened to quit, and the machine was smart enough to provide the needed accomodation for Root, when Finch was too inflexible to do that for Lionel.

My previous reply to this topic was eaten yesterday, but I would respectfully disagree that Samaritan's default is to kill.  Unless you believe Greer's henchman was lying, he said they tried their best to lead the scientist astray by messing with the research somehow, but it wasn't successful.  Also I think the fact that the DJ said they found the transmissions 3 weeks before Root got involved and had been discussing them with the listener the whole time, the fact it took Samaritan 3 weeks to move on them seems to show some restraint on its part.

MYOS

MYOS

Oh, I totally believe that Greer'minion lied when he said that they'd tried to alter the scientist's research before and she always returns to it.... to make the act of killing more "justifiable": he ways saying, in essence, that they'd tried everything, so killing was the last resort. It was a test to see if Shaw would see their point and kill someone if provided with a "greater good" justification in addition to a "last resort" justification. In the previous simulations we saw, she resisted the "greater good" only reasoning (she didn't want to kill the traders in her last "field trip"). Now, she's moved to the point where she does their bidding to "get rid of the simulation".

Of course, there's also the fact they messed up with her head and let her know she'd killed someone for real. - therefore hoping to control her by making her doubt what's real and what's not.

But that doesn't work (or not as well as it should have) because 1° they don't know that she got a "real" message (4AF) to help her see not everything is simulation.  2° she didn't care all that much about the dead scientist because it was a good brownie point to win and for them to feel good about, while she was planning her escape... her escape plan clearly wasn't born and executed in a minute, it must have taken a while for her to get through the wall.

The DJ hadn't discussed the transmissions publicly, and it's possible it hadn't registered with Samaritan since it was on a notebook?

mad_typist

mad_typist

(edited)

Great episode, really loved how it all came together. It also answered the question of why Root could have so many disposable personalities, while the rest of the POI gang was locked into one. Because Root is the only member of the group willing to obey the Machine instantly without question (for 99.9% of the time), she's the only one capable of staying out of danger - as we saw, the risk factor escalated on her personalities so rapidly, that only her ability to transition into new identities without needing spin up time/explanation saved her. The rest of the group need personalities they can learn and settle into - I can't see Reese (or even Shaw) blindly accepting having to be a ballerina one minute and a butter churning colonial person the next.

I also had a good laugh at the Russian guy's "Marry me" line - felt like he was the audience surrogate there. :)

Edited by mad_typist
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shura

shura

3 hours ago, HawaiiTVGuy said:

My previous reply to this topic was eaten yesterday, but I would respectfully disagree that Samaritan's default is to kill.  Unless you believe Greer's henchman was lying, he said they tried their best to lead the scientist astray by messing with the research somehow, but it wasn't successful.

Hey, Samaritan, have you tried this: (1) destroy the scientist's records and any bio materials she uses, (2) if she does not give up and keeps working, go to step 1? No need to kill anybody.

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DeepRunner

DeepRunner

6 hours ago, shura said:

Hey, Samaritan, have you tried this: (1) destroy the scientist's records and any bio materials she uses, (2) if she does not give up and keeps working, go to step 1? No need to kill anybody.

@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.

MrWhyt

MrWhyt

21 hours ago, DeepRunner said:

@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.

When talking about the danger of ASIs Finch gave the problem of world hunger. An ASI could develop new farming/food distribution techniques to grow and distribute enough food to support the human population or it could make the decision to reduce the population to levels that can be supported by the current food supply. Samaritan seems to default to option B.

Kendall

Kendall

On 5/27/2016 at 2:09 AM, Camera One said:

The radio show guy was so hardheaded... I suppose he did make his choice.  So the receptionist was there to monitor him?  Wouldn't every radio station host/DJ be hearing the static?  Or is it just their radio frequency?

The only thing which frustrated me about this episode was Harold not realizing that he needed to tell Lionel the truth.  Enough is enough... I don't want to them to jam every major development into the penultimate episode.  

I don't know if she was there to specifically monitor him, but I would venture to guess that each asset has a specific code/signal to respond to and then the instructions are given. Since she was a willing asset, that was probably in their orientation package or something.

But, truthfully, I rarely try to figure out the Sci Fi parts on this show, I just watch it with captions as to not miss what was said.

As for Lionel, I can understand why they haven't told him. Consider Max, who already had wrapped his mind around an AI and what it could do, combined with seeing the danger of it, and he still had no chill. His life was spared, but he just couldn't resist telling everyone he could.

Despite Lionel having worked with John and Finch all this time, he would still have to really wrap his mind around what Finch is intellectually capable of, of what Root is able to do, of what John has been willing to do to facilitate them. And, there still isn't enough time for him to ask questions to fill in the rest of his blanks. The time that he would need to get over seeing the world completely different, to not look at every camera that's looking at him, to consider what the heck has happened to Shaw ... it would be a lot to ask someone to take in, especially when you don't know what they'd do once it was all revealed.

Even Carter had figured out that it was a computer, but still didn't know the full magnitude of it all.

Elias doesn't know what it is either, but he does know people and when Harold told him that he couldn't tell him on that Subway car, he was willing to trust. Elias has a kind of intelligence that gives him a patience to see what the next move is, but still successfully operate with whatever information he has until then.

Lionel has a kind of intelligence that he trusts will bring more knowledge once he gets a chance to pick it apart through an investigation, but he doesn't have the needed cloak of invisibility to Samaritan to do his kind of investigating.

ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

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Root as a ballerina? It's like Nolan and Plageman knew exactly what I wanted before I did.

I was really hoping we would get to see Root actually dance because Amy Acker danced when she was younger. But I'll take Root in a tutu! I also loved seeing her at the historical reenactment place just halfheartedly churning butter in the corner.

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