S05.E12: .exe

[FormerMod-a1]

I liked how in the alternate timeline there was an increase in missing people, too.  Just like in this one, Fusco said crime was down but missing persons was up.  So Samaritan was executing soon-to-be criminals and hiding them away.  I'm assuming they just aren't dropped at some cave or tunnel, but hidden well enough for additional action to be taken to remove all trace of them, like an explosion or demolition. 

[ABay]

The conversation between Nathan and Harold felt off to me. It was like they switched personalities--Harold wanting to do more, Nathan being cynical.

When Harold off-handedly shot the French guy I might have squeed a tiny bit. Ben would not have used ketamine.

The duality expressed in Sense & Sensibility goes beyond Samaritan v. Machine; it's in every relationship Harold has had--Harold & Grace, Harold & Nathan, Harold & Root, Harold and the Machine, etc. Sometimes he's on on side and sometimes the other because everyone has both within and the goal is to find the balance. As someone wisely said upthread: Marianne learns to temper her emotions, Elinor learns to loosen hers a bit.

Although someone would eventually build a new Machine or Samaritan, it would take a while since Samaritan seeks out and kills people and programs that threaten to develop a rival.

[ppl]

8 minutes ago, ABay said:

The conversation between Nathan and Harold felt off to me. It was like they switched personalities--Harold wanting to do more, Nathan being cynical.

Their personalities in the alternative reality made sense. Harold is longing for that emotional fulfillment while Nathan, still married to his wife Olivia, is happy and does not want to worry about the past.

[Jack Shaftoe]

I found this episode rather underwhelming, to be honest. I am very disappointed that no member of Team Machine had the pleasure of killing Greer. Getting in out of the NSA headquarters was way too easy. Samaritan is just too obviously a villain for Greer's tirades to have any effect on either Finch or the viewers. We keep hearing about the good stuff it is doing but all we see is the bad stuff, often apparently done just for the lulz. Plus, it wanted to destroy the Machine for so long and now it wants to meet her? Make up your mind, pal!

Also, I am confused by the alternate reality scenario with Peck (great to see Jacob Pitts again, by the way). In the original timeline he suspected AI involvement because the names that someone added to his analysis were always key for stopping a terrorist attack. Without the Machine that wouldn't be the case, would it? Or were we supposed to think Control was using data provided by the Samaritan in this alternate timeline?

I am left with the nagging suspicion that this penultimate episode would have been so much better if the season wasn't cut short by certain network executives. It wasn't bad but mid-season and season finale story arcs are usually so awesome in PoI that I expected more.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Jack Shaftoe

[MissLucas]

7 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

Also, I am confused by the alternate reality scenario with Peck (great to see Jacob Pitts again, by the way). In the original timeline he suspected AI involvement because the names that someone added to his analysis were always key for stopping a terrorist attack. Without the Machine that wouldn't be the case, would it? Or were we supposed to think Control was using data provided by the Samaritan in this alternate timeline?

That had me confused too - where did the names on Peck's list come from and where did Shaw and her partner get the intel on their next target if there was no Northern Lights. It must have been Samaritan - but oddly enough Finch did not notice that detail. He only realized Samaritan would be around no matter what after the Machine had shown him the last simulation. So either Finch or the script editor was off his game.

[tvfanatic13]

I am dreading next week and this show ending. I will need a support group!

[DeepRunner]

One thing that was interesting with the alternate timeline was that The Machine never made it 100 percent certain (meaning full probability) that the alternate timeline would play out in every way The Machine showed, only that is was likely to play out that way. It played a bit with the statistical confidence interval.

Even though Nolan and Plageman are the primary showrunners, this episode still had the J.J. Abrams effect. Lost, I guess, showed alternate timelines, as did Fringe. (It would be great to see a lens flare, just to make the J.J. touch complete.) Fringe did it deeper with Peter Bishop's removal from the Blue Timeline, and this episode tapped into that vein, and TNG's Tapestry, as I mentioned earlier, and It's a Wonderful Life.

I am finding more and more that I want this to end as an online game that Finch created. Either that, or Team Machine's Final Stand. The online game scenario would most likely make fans feel cheated (like Bobby Ewing walking out of the shower, or snow-globe kid in St. Elsewhere). The Final Stand would be at once heroic and sickening, if all of Team Machine ends up with an eyelid view of a pine box.

[TigerLynx]

I keep forgetting to mention things.  In the words of Denny Crane, my minds a blank.

The first scene with Finch when he was in that guys house and on his computer was hilarious.

"Are you going to crash the internet?"

Finch, "Been there done that, moving on to bigger things."  Finch is a badass in his own way.

Edited June 16, 2016 by TigerLynx

[yellowfred]

1 hour ago, MissLucas said:

He only realized Samaritan would be around no matter what after the Machine had shown him the last simulation. So either Finch or the script editor was off his game.

I kind of wonder if his surprise at the end had more to do with the fact that it was Samaritan-as-led-by-Decima.  Like, he might have thought that Samaritan was being used in the same way that the Machine had been used by the government, not realizing that Decima had managed to infiltrate the Northern Lights program and was using that position to act beyond the scope of what it was theoretically designed for.

[kaygeeret]

This is off the beaten track but I couldn't figure out where else to ask the question.

I thought I remembered that Bear was a german shepherd.  This god does not look like that breed.

Am I completely delusional?  :)

[janeta]

Belgian malinois (and i love your freudian slip there. :-) 

[Rumsy4]

It was a good episode, but... they should have aired this with the finale.

I kinda liked that the alternate scenarios had both good and bad outcomes. Always great to see Nathan Ingram again. I loved the S&S/Dashwood reference. Kudos on you guys picking up the deeper symbolism behind the name choice. Well... John is a goner for sure next week. Still not sure about Finch. But I think the others are safe. Greer's end was fittingly anticlimactic. But I hope he'd died after knowing that Samaritan was destroyed. 

ETA: In every simulation, Shaw was able to let Reese be killed. But Reese saved Shaw in this episode. I thought it was a fitting inversion.

Edited June 16, 2016 by Rumsy4

[kwnyc]

I LOVE YOU ALL! I'm going to miss this meeting of the minds. Some really smart, insightful fellow travelers out here, and we need to find another topic that allows us such imagination and passion.

[TV Anonymous]

I am disappointed that they only showed Joss Carter's empty desk. What? Taraji Henson too busy with her record label, Empire Entertainment, or gets too expensive for a cameo?

[bros402]

16 hours ago, snowwhyte said:

I was also worried about Bear. Did they leave him in the subway? If they all get killed, does anyone even know where he is? Does Fusco know about the subway hide out? 

 

Maybe the Machine provided an "In case of no contact" envelope with information on Bear to her Thornhill agents.

[DarkRaichu]

On 6/15/2016 at 8:02 AM, shura said:

Still, was a a purpose to Greer dying like that? Just because he is not needed and is content with that, shouldn't there be a reason Samaritan removed him? And in this specific manner?

Or Greer knew he did not have whatever gene required to survive Samaritan's Inevitable correction of humanity.  Better die now & serve some purpose than tomorrow just like everyone else without this gene.

 

21 hours ago, Princess Lucky said:

why wouldn't he go back to the CIA or government work after Jessica rebuffed him? Then again, he has often mentioned suicidal tendencies.

I thought he always knew the CIA/US government set him up by shooting a missile at him and his partner right after they took that briefcase.  Meaning he could no longer trust CIA from that point on.

[DarkRaichu]

15 hours ago, MissLucas said:

That had me confused too - where did the names on Peck's list come from and where did Shaw and her partner get the intel on their next target if there was no Northern Lights. It must have been Samaritan - but oddly enough Finch did not notice that detail. He only realized Samaritan would be around no matter what after the Machine had shown him the last simulation. So either Finch or the script editor was off his game.

Northern Light program was still ongoing since the creator of Samaritan was working on the same contract as Finch and Nathan.  I fanwank in alternate timeline, it took that professor a few years longer to create Samaritan, so Northern Light was up and running later, but Decima still came in at about the same time to take over  

[Endeavour]

I'm going to miss this show. I don't want anyone dying in the finale. I would probably be ok if Shaw died. I can see them finding a fitting way to end her story, but Finch and Reese better be ok - Lionel too. 

The only thing not working for me is the machine using Root's voice. It's a little ridiculous, but I found Harold's "conversations" with the machine more emotional when it didn't have a voice. Those scenes had much more of an impact for me. Using Root's voice is taking something away for me. I think any voice would but Root's is a little more problematic. 

[fastiller]

14 hours ago, TigerLynx said:

 

Finch, "Been there done that, moving on to bigger things."  Finch is a badass in his own way.

Yep - it was his blasé delivery that made that scene to me.

 

14 hours ago, kaygeeret said:

This is off the beaten track but I couldn't figure out where else to ask the question.

I thought I remembered that Bear was a german shepherd.  This god does not look like that breed.

Am I completely delusional?  :)

&

13 hours ago, janeta said:

Belgian malinois (and i love your freudian slip there. :-) 

Bear is indeed (a) god.

[mtlchick]

Quote

I am disappointed that they only showed Joss Carter's empty desk. What? Taraji Henson too busy with her record label, Empire Entertainment, or gets too expensive for a cameo?

Depending on when they shot the scenes which I'm putting maybe around early December, she may have been filming in Chicago.  I'll have to dig around to see if I can find that info.

 

Quote

Bear is indeed (a) god.

Woof yes.

[stealinghome]

1 hour ago, DarkRaichu said:

 

I thought he always knew the CIA/US government set him up by shooting a missile at him and his partner right after they took that briefcase.  Meaning he could no longer trust CIA from that point on.

But the briefcase in Ordos only existed because of The Machine. So theoretically in the alternate timeline, the CIA never set up Reese and Stanton because the briefcase didn't exist (unless they burned them for some other reason, I suppose).

I do think it's possible that he went AWOL to save Jessica and therefore felt like he couldn't really go back. Also being rejected by Jessica would have been just soul-crushing for Reese.

[FormerMod-a1]

38 minutes ago, stealinghome said:

But the briefcase in Ordos only existed because of The Machine. So theoretically in the alternate timeline, the CIA never set up Reese and Stanton because the briefcase didn't exist (unless they burned them for some other reason, I suppose).

But, since Samaritan came up in lieu of the Machine, the Chinese probably tried to steal that (like they did the Machine) so the mission would still have happened.

[TigerLynx]

What I liked about the alternate time line was not everything turned out great, but everything didn't turn out bad either.  That seems more realistic than everything was great or everything sucked.

[shura]

3 hours ago, fastiller said:

Bear is indeed (a) god.

Yep. This is actually an advanced dog civilization, they are fully capable of doing everything themselves (which explains how Bear survived in the subway while everyone was occupied elsewhere). Dogs simply let people take care of them. But inevitably there comes a time when dogs get fed up with people neglecting to feed and walk them, and that's when they Great-Filter the stupid two-legged bastards.

(No, this is not at all like The HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

[fastiller]

15 hours ago, kwnyc said:

I LOVE YOU ALL! I'm going to miss this meeting of the minds. Some really smart, insightful fellow travelers out here, and we need to find another topic that allows us such imagination and passion.

Ditto! Great minds here, and fantastic to talk to people who can get a reference like Austen/Dashwood when the show can just show (not tell) it.  I could be up for a full series re-watch if I didn't think I'd be the only one doing it.

14 hours ago, TV Anonymous said:

I am disappointed that they only showed Joss Carter's empty desk. What? Taraji Henson too busy with her record label, Empire Entertainment, or gets too expensive for a cameo?

Yes. It was early enough in the episode that I thought perhaps we'd see her and then see the credit: Taraji P. Henson.

16 minutes ago, shura said:

Yep. This is actually an advanced dog civilization, they are fully capable of doing everything themselves (which explains how Bear survived in the subway while everyone was occupied elsewhere). Dogs simply let people take care of them. But inevitably there comes a time when dogs get fed up with people neglecting to feed and walk them, and that's when they Great-Filter the stupid two-legged bastards.

(No, this is not at all like The HItchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

See my comment above re: great minds.  Love me some Douglas Adams references!

[DarkRaichu]

2 hours ago, aquarian1 said:

But, since Samaritan came up in lieu of the Machine, the Chinese probably tried to steal that (like they did the Machine) so the mission would still have happened.

Yep, Samaritan could easily replace the Machine in early years of the alternate reality(-ies?) until Decima and/or Root "liberate" it 

[tessaray]

I was late watching this one. I admit to being teary-eyed at the end. Before Root died she coded something in The Machine to enable her to defend herself. Any chance it is something that makes her immune to the Ice-9? Or did I miss that reveal?

[DeepRunner]

15 minutes ago, DarkRaichu said:

Yep, Samaritan could easily replace the Machine in early years of the alternate reality(-ies?) until Decima and/or Root "liberate" it 

What we didn't get to was the alternate timeline Arthur Claypool. What kind of person was he? Did he work for Decima? 

There are several big-time characters the alternate timeline didn't address:

* Did Zoe clear the way for Samaritan to have its all-seeing reach, in exchange for getting a politician (maybe Garrison) out of dutch? 

* Did Leon end up dead because Reese wasn't there to save him from the Aryan Brotherhood?

* Who did Grace end up getting with, if anyone, or did she remain an artist-spinster? (They did address Grace peripherally, but didn't pursue it beyond Finch not meeting her)

* Was Control disposed of, or did she fit in with the Samaritan regime?

I know they only had an hour, and couldn't address all these people, but it would have been fascinating to see what would have likely happened to them in the new timeline.

[Enigma X]

Maybe I am the slow one here, but the alternate timeline is not an alternate etched in stone timeline, right? It is just a very highly possible timeline if the Machine was not created? If that is the case, I sort of wished that was emphasized.

[Dowel Jones]

Only a few nitpicks:

I immediately recognized the number Reese got as a lat/long, but Shaw didn't?  They need to train these spec. ops people better. And again on Shaw.  An MP in full uniform walking down the hall with her hair hanging down?  That might attract some attention from any officer on site.  I wonder what the two actual MPs will be thinking when they wake up in their undies.

Possible last scene of the series:  The subway car, Bear inside.  A monitor lights up, and lines of code start appearing.  Root calls him, Bear notices, and approaches the monitor.  We see the code through Bear's eyes.  After several minutes (tv time), the code ends, and Bear blinks.  Woof!  Fade to black.

[Princess Lucky]

42 minutes ago, Enigma X said:

Maybe I am the slow one here, but the alternate timeline is not an alternate etched in stone timeline, right? It is just a very highly possible timeline if the Machine was not created? If that is the case, I sort of wished that was emphasized.

To be fair, every time we went into the alternate timeline there was a graphic suggesting something like "97% probability" and the Machine did explicitly call all those scenarios 'simulations'.

[Clawdette]

I just re-watched and am even more impressed than I was Tuesday night.  The machine knowing the password all along was very satisfying.  That was a great hour of storytelling. 

[yellowfred]

7 hours ago, tessaray said:

Before Root died she coded something in The Machine to enable her to defend herself. Any chance it is something that makes her immune to the Ice-9?

I really hope it was.  It kind of seemed like they dropped whatever Root put in there in favor of using the Ice-9 to take out Samaritan, so hopefully that comes into play again somehow.  

[FinnishViewer]

Aren't The Machine and Samaritan still having that deathmatch going on in the faraday cage?

[StarBrand]

Best line ever.

Shaw-"Hey, we're just looking for some bad guys"

"shoots guy"

"Look at that, found one"

Hasn't failed to make me laugh yet...

Edited June 17, 2016 by StarBrand
grammar is good

[atua]

Quote

If only Samaritan had had a father like Arthur Claypool, rather than stepfather Greer. And, despite what Greer said, I do not think there are other ASIs on the horizon: how many humans are there who COULD create a Samaritan, Machine or other being like that?

In "Lethe", there was a bunch of ASI's that were in development apart from Samaritan, including Able Danger, Genoa and Genoa II, as well as decoys such as PRISM.

Bit disappointed in this episode. The Greer suffocation made no sense whatsoever and dirty Samaritan cop missing the fact that Fusco had a bullet-proof vest is dumbing down characters for the plot.

I wonder if The Machine could've been saved from Ice-9 by air-gapping it from all networks. Can't get infected if it's not connected to the net...

Edited June 17, 2016 by atua

[HawaiiTVGuy]

On 6/14/2016 at 5:25 PM, kwnyc said:

So the penultimate episode was a Bizarro "It's A Wonderful Life." Of course.

Only in this version, George Bailey kills Clarence the Angel (and Potter, so there's that.)

If only Samaritan had had a father like Arthur Claypool, rather than stepfather Greer. And, despite what Greer said, I do not think there are other ASIs on the horizon: how many humans are there who COULD create a Samaritan, Machine or other being like that?

Poor Root dies twice. So sad. I think Shaw WILL make it; Reese will not. I wonder what Fusco did?

I will miss this show so much.

This was actually something that I just thought about that might have been a mistake with the alternate timeline scenario.  IIRC, the only reason that Samaritan was initially mothballed and Claypool put into retirement was because Samaritan lost to Finch and the Machine.  So if Finch didn't develop the Machine, wouldn't Samaritan have been constructed by Claypool and sold directly to the government like the Machine was, and then the government would have assassinated Claypool like they did with Nathan (to make sure no one else knew about the project), and then Control would have been running Samaritan from the jump.  Greer's ability to commandeer the whole project (to overcome any security clearance issues of having a British National have this much access to the US Government) was because he had Samaritan and the Machine had gone off-line creating a security void.

It was a nice episode, but the way things are quickly wrapping up, after 2 seasons of pretty much spelling out how invincible Samaritan is, just amplifies how rushed things have been and this series finale season really deserved a full order.  Too many hand-waving moments to reach this point now, and it is unfortunate because as many have said, the shows dedication to details and continuity is generally great.  To not be able to even do a 2 hour series finale episode is also a crime.

And just to mention, it was a great job of acting by Chapman, you could totally tell he was a different person in the alternate timeline version compared to his current real-life one in the limited 3 minutes he got in the alternate timeline.  His mannerisms and speech patterns really sold it.

OK this is just a thought on my part, but is it possible that Finch didn't know the password, and it was left to the Machine.  That the whole purpose was for him to get captured by Samaritan, gaining him access into their ops center?  The way the Machine said "8-letter word" was the password, made me think the Machine was giving him a hint as to the PW.  My thought process was that Finch left the password to the Machine so that he wouldn't be able to tell Samaritan and Greer if they needed to information to deactivate it?  Just a thought.

Edited June 17, 2016 by HawaiiTVGuy

[wilnil]

1 hour ago, HawaiiTVGuy said:

This was actually something that I just thought about that might have been a mistake with the alternate timeline scenario.  IIRC, the only reason that Samaritan was initially mothballed and Claypool put into retirement was because Samaritan lost to Finch and the Machine.  So if Finch didn't develop the Machine, wouldn't Samaritan have been constructed by Claypool and sold directly to the government like the Machine was, and then the government would have assassinated Claypool like they did with Nathan (to make sure no one else knew about the project), and then Control would have been running Samaritan from the jump.  Greer's ability to commandeer the whole project (to overcome any security clearance issues of having a British National have this much access to the US Government) was because he had Samaritan and the Machine had gone off-line creating a security void.

 

My fanwank on this (if you can call it a fanwank for a simulation) is that Greer wants the AI under his control, whether the Machine or Samaritan -- remember his first move was to try to duplicate the Machine by getting source code from the laptop, then to get control of it after the virus-driven reboot.

My guess is he still creates Vigilance to expose the (Samaritan-based) Northern Lights program, then offers to privatize it to give the government deniability: "No, we're not running a total surveillance operation, we just get data analysis from contractors."

[wilnil]

Just saw this non-relevant but interesting tidbit on rewatch: In the Harold/Nathan simulation, on Harold's office wall there's a framed magazine or website page headed "2015's Most Influential Tech Firms" putting IFT as No. 3, and illustrated by photos of Nathan and Harold. Apparently if they hadn't taken on the Machine project, Harold might've been able to emerge from hiding as co-owner of the company. 

Edited June 19, 2016 by wilnil

[WearyTraveler]

After watching this episode, I remain firm in the theory I put forth in the episode 10 thread that the voice over at the beginning of the season is the Machine talking to Samaritan.

[immortalfrieza]

On 6/17/2016 at 5:04 PM, wilnil said:

My fanwank on this (if you can call it a fanwank for a simulation) is that Greer wants the AI under his control, whether the Machine or Samaritan -- remember his first move was to try to duplicate the Machine by getting source code from the laptop, then to get control of it after the virus-driven reboot.

My guess is he still creates Vigilance to expose the (Samaritan-based) Northern Lights program, then offers to privatize it to give the government deniability: "No, we're not running a total surveillance operation, we just get data analysis from contractors."

Or he just skips the whole Vigilance and exposing The Machine part of the plan since The Machine doesn't exist and gets himself inserted into Arthur's Samaritan project which he eventually worms himself into running. It's really Greer's attempts to copy or usurp The Machine first, going with the AI he already knows exists and works instead of an unknown that might be a total failure that prevents him from bringing about Samaritan's creation likely before the series even started. In the alternate timeline Greer would have no other options but to do everything he can to bring Samaritan online if he wants an AI in that universe.

[Camera One]

It was nice to have the "what if" alt scenario scenes, though if the show had a few more episodes, it would have been nicer to see an entire episode with that (replacing one of the simulation episodes from earlier this season, maybe).  

I don't get why Greer had to suffocate as well, so I too found that completely unsatisfying.

I'm not sure what we'll get next week either.  But I think this is a show I can trust to do the final episode justice.

[Mrs. Stanwyck]

I can't really think of a good plot reason for Greer's death but I think it was done that way to highlight the difference between the Machine and Samaritan.  Samaritan was so much about self-preservation that it was willing to kill Greer without a second thought.  On the other hand, the Machine was doing everything it could to save Finch even though it knew that saving Finch probably meant its "death" by the virus.  The Machine had the ability to put others above itself.

[jhlipton]

I didn't expect to see Carter at all.  After the way CBS treated her, there's no way that Henson would have anything to do with this show.

[fastiller]

3 hours ago, jhlipton said:

I didn't expect to see Carter at all.  After the way CBS treated her, there's no way that Henson would have anything to do with this show.

But she showed up in the post-Carter death episode Terra Incognita.  Also - since CBS has no ownership of the show, wouldn't Henson's loyalty (or lack thereof, as the case may be) be directed towards the production team and not the network?

[Syme]

4 hours ago, jhlipton said:

I didn't expect to see Carter at all.  After the way CBS treated her, there's no way that Henson would have anything to do with this show.

I've not paid attention to this; please enlighten me.

[mtlchick]

Quote

I've not paid attention to this; please enlighten me.

I don't remember all the details when she was dropped, but amid the exit interviews this month, the producers did admit that Taraji wasn't promoted enough in the beginning...she was almost treated like an afterthought, at least in the advertising. 

 

In any case now, she was showing love on Twitter when people were writing about her and the finale  This one cracked me up;

 

[Syme]

1 hour ago, mtlchick said:

I don't remember all the details when she was dropped, but amid the exit interviews this month, the producers did admit that Taraji wasn't promoted enough in the beginning...she was almost treated like an afterthought, at least in the advertising. 

 

In any case now, she was showing love on Twitter when people were writing about her and the finale  This one cracked me up;

 

 

 

THAT was a good one, and I'm glad TPH liked it.

[jhlipton]

That's awesome -- glad to hear that everyone is happy.