Person of Interest
Episode 20: In
Extremis
By: Carlos Uribe
Person
of Interest is a drama about preventing planned crimes before they
happen.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
This
week's number belongs to a famous doctor who is on the top of his
career. He does have a troubled family life because he wasn't always
there for his daughter. He gets poisoned by special radiation which
only leaves him with twenty-four hours to live. There is no way to
save him as the writers quickly rule out an antidote. I think a great
way to show how the machine has been acting strange is to have the
number come too late for Reese to save him. It also presents an
opportunity for Reese to help the doctor find the man who killed him
to get some well-deserved revenge. It might not be the most original
concept, but it is a change for this show. The formula for this show
is to have Reese come in and save someone from dying. To not be able
to do anything to save this character basically means that the
formula has to be adjusted. Reese still has to find out who the bad
guy is but there is a time limit because the weekly person of
interest doesn't have long to live. They do manage to figure out who
it is relatively quickly. It turns out that he had given some
information to his friend, a stockbroker. Insider trading happened
and the friend's boss had the doctor poisoned. Reese now has to take
the doctor to meet this boss only it's a long drive. They have to
head all the way to a resort upstate and the doctor actually almost
died on the way there. It's a good thing Reese had some adrenaline to
ensure he made it. They get their revenge. The evil investor boss is
given the same kind of poison and the doctor soon passes away.
Does
the change completely work? It sort-of does for me. The AV Club will
notice how this plot isn't original as Phil Nugent will point out
that he's seen this before. I haven't seen the movies he's seen so it
was a more fresh experience for me. I think the problem is that I
didn't have to have seen it to see what was going to happen. The
premise was a little new to me but I started to catch on once the
doctor started to show symptoms. He had been poisoned and they have
to find the killer. A neat idea except the search for the killer is
just a little bit too predictable. They basically went with the first
guy they suspected at the beginning of the episode. The show tried to
increase the stakes by having the drive last too long to the point
where the doctor almost doesn't make it but he got to live to see his
killer's face. There was nothing that really caught me off guard. The
twists weren't really able to engage my attention. It all felt so
trite. On the other hand, I really liked the emotional journey of the
doctor as he had to repair his relationship with his daughter and
find the man who killed him. The character beats all worked fine and
the episode was just exciting enough for me to be interested. The
weekly case might not have been the strongest, most action-packed one
but it had strong enough character beats to save it. I just wish it
wasn't so forgettable.
The
real meat of the episode has to do with Fusco. Internal Affairs has
gotten more evidence to suggest that Fusco was helping HR. They
believe that he used his status as a homicide cop to allow the other
cops to get away with murder. They're tightening the nose as they
plan to dig up the body where Fusco had buried it. Fusco is worried
but he's willing to accept his fate. He might not have killed the cop
they're accusing him of but he feels like he deserves it. It's all
promising material but the show really doesn't do much with Fusco. He
feels like he's doomed but he doesn't really get to do much about his
situation. That's where Carter comes in. She has to finally confront
that her partner is not only dirty but that he's killed people
before. She tries to process the person that she now knows to the
person that he used to be. It really tests her claim that once a
dirty cop, always a dirty cop as he's been on a path of redemption.
A
decent part of the episode is the flashback where Fusco is shown how
he joined the HR. It's because of his friendship with Stills. Stills
helped provide Fusco a place to stay when he needed one. They were
close so Stills used that to get Fusco to help them. They peer
pressure Fusco into becoming a dirty cop. He's not exactly happy
about it but he's basically dragged down with the rest of them.
That's not entirely true as he could have backed out at any moment
but it's understandable why he didn't. That doesn't justify his
actions just like how peer pressure doesn't remove the responsibility
of them. Fusco became a dirty cop until Reese saved him from that
life. In the same way that Fusco got gradually deeper into HR, Carter
is showing having to give up her principles in order to help her
friends. She moves the body so that Internal Affairs wouldn't have
any physical evidence to back up their theory. Even the confession
that they got ends up getting recanted. Fusco is safe for now but
Internal Affairs is going to continue to investigate him. I do wish
they had been able to do more with Fusco's character since this
episode's core revolved around him but the actual plot concentrated
more on Carter's actions to save him.
In
Extremis is a good episode of Person of Interest. The weekly mission
is passable due to the character beats but it felt too formulaic to
really pull it off. The sub-plot with Fusco could have been better
served if the episode was actually about Fusco rather than the
characters around him. Having Carter help him is one thing but she's
the only character who really had an arc and whose actions influenced
the plot. Overall, it doesn't stand out from other episodes but it's
not really a bad one either.
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