Person of Interest

Person of Interest

Episode 4: Cura Te Ipsum

By: Carlos Uribe

Person of Interest is a drama about preventing planned crimes before they happen.

Spoilers Ahoy!

Most crime dramas have it easy. Their about solving crimes that already happened, so usually the cops don't have to deal with the morale grey area of whether a crime should happen. This show is about preventing crimes. But there's nothing to say that preventing a crime is necessarily a good thing. This show lays out that argument.

The person of interest this week is a doctor. At first we think she's going to be a victim of rape. The show slowly reveals though that she plans to kill the sexual offender for having raped her sister, which led to her suicide. The rest of the show is Reese trying to stop her from enacting revenge. At first it seems he fails, but in the end he manages to succeed.

The show doesn't make stopping her an easy choice. For one thing, this is a person who has been driven to revenge. This is a person whose life crumbled as the sex offender got away it. Worse, the sex offender was content as her world shattered. This is a sex offender who manages to get away with rape every time-and he's a constant offender. This is a real dirtbag, someone who frankly deserves to die. Reese stops her from killing the sex offender because Reese knows that would devastate her even more than if she doesn't. The show manages to cleverly walk to morality line-this is not a show content with being black and white.

Then there's the ending. In the ending Reese is talking to the sex offender. There's part of the conversation where you think Reese is simply trying to scare him straight. Then there's a part of the conversation where you think Reese might simply kill the guy. Which should he do? The show never answers that as we don't even see what Reese choses to do. The show lets Reese make a compelling argument to kill him, but he also makes a compelling argument that maybe he can change. It depends on which side you're on.

There's also a sub-plot going on about the dirty cop. The dirty cop is apparently being threatened by the drug cartel for some reason. He tries to get Reese to help him but this sort of backfires. The dirty cop then back stabs Reese, but Reese manages to get out of the pickle but he keeps the dirty cop as his inside man. I get that this dirty cop we're not exactly supposed to cheer for, but I don't get why it's such a big deal to help ensure he stays alive. If you're not going it to keep an asset alive, then at least do it so that his kid doesn't lose a father.

Person of Interest is a show that is trying it's best to deal with a grey area. It manages to succeed because it doesn't give you the answer. Instead, it laid out the argument for both sides. At the same time, it managed to remain interesting and a good hour of television. I'm seriously enjoying this show and I hope it gets the back-nine.