Person of Interest: Point of Origin Recap

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElGU5tOkrik]

Person of Interest: Point of Origin (04×08)

Synopsis: While Reese is stuck on desk duty, Root, Finch, and Shaw are tasked with protecting a political analyst who stumbles onto one of Samaritan’s plans. We also get a look back in time to the development of the Machine.

Rating: ★★★★☆

This week brought us another episode that was lackluster due to the fact it needed to propel the plot forward. Or else I’m just tired. This week’s Person of Interest was fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but I felt like it was really plot heavy to the point the story got a bit lost. Nonetheless, it is an episode worth raving about because even my least favorite episodes of Person of Interest manage to far outpace a lot of shows on television today.

Reese was teaching at the academy, specifically doing a tactical course. One of his recruits, Silva, proved to be a lot more than he had been expecting. She was also the number of the week. When Team Machine found out she was tailing her fellow academy classmates, they thought that she would be the perpetrator. Instead, it turned out she was the victim. Surprise surprise, she was also an undercover cop working with Internal Affairs to try to track down a mole. It took a while to finally come to that conclusion, but once they did the whole thing went from tracking her down as an enemy to protecting her from the people who wanted to kill her.

Unfortunately, the mole she was looking for was directly tied into the infamous Brotherhood. That’s right folks, Dominic (Winston Duke) was back in this episode and more on fire than ever. He’s making his moves to take over the city and he is definitely not pulling his punches. Viewers got a chance to see inside his operation. For the longest time we’ve gotten a chance to see Team Machine, Elias, and even the insides of Samaritan’s team. Yet the Brotherhood, being a new force in New York City, is still relatively mysterious and far less predictable.

I adore the character of Dominic, if only because he is truly ruthless. It is so rare, I think, to find a character on television who holds his own while managing to have absolutely no redeeming qualities. He doesn’t protect his own, because if his own screw up he kills them. He doesn’t protect people outside of his sphere of influence because they are screwing up by not joining his cause, therefore he can kill them. Dominic doesn’t care about women or children, from the interactions he’s had with people. All he cares about is his soldiers doing what they’re told in order to further his hold on the heart of New York City.

Elias we root for because he does have redeeming qualities. There’s only so far he’ll go to further his cause and he is not without moral boundaries. Even Samaritan’s crew tries to stick toward dealing with threats and generally works to protect the public. Dominic, on the other hand, is such a contrast because I think he’d be happy to have any part of the city that isn’t his torn apart and rebuilt. He doesn’t have morals. He’s an existentialist who has come to terms with the fact that all men must die and has decided to use the life he has to establish as much control as he possibly can.

So the Brotherhood is bad news and Silva, the number of the week, gets tangled up in it when she goes after the mole they have in the police academy. Since she’s trying to bust one of their people, they put a hit out on her. Thanks to Reese and the rest of Team Machine, the hit is unsuccessful and under the guide of the NYPD Reese takes up her cause and works to protect her. Her handler got shot, which left her with no proof that she was an NYPD officer until after everything was cleared up. Really, Reese ended up killing two birds with one stone in helping her out because he not only saved a number, but made a friend in Internal Affairs.

He needs friends in IA, especially considering his therapist is still following him around insisting he has a hero complex that needs to be addressed. Lady, I get it, but leave the man alone. He’s got people to save because he is a hero. Period.

While the whole issue with Silva and the Brotherhood is going down, Samaritan continues to try to track down Shaw. It was documented that the agent let Shaw and Thomas go in last week’s episode and they managed to get a blurry picture of her. The agent who works for Samaritan, whose name I never remember and just refer to as ‘frighteningly beautiful blonde lady’ goes looking for Shaw by backtracking. First she talked to the lady who worked for Thomas and got caught on drug charges to get Romeo’s name. Then she talked to Romeo, shot him to get the answer she wanted, and found out about using the Angler app in order to contact Shaw. Finally, she tracked Shaw down to her day job.

So in summation: the Brotherhood is making some serious moves, the number of the week is caught in the middle of their nonsense, Samaritan is making very rapid gains on Shaw, and Team Machine has no idea what is coming. Thankfully the number of the week was saved by some quick action on Reese’s part. Even though the Brotherhood managed to steal the files they wanted using the young man at the police academy, Silva got away alive and well.

All the while, Finch hung out in the bat cave and did his best to figure out what the files were. Toward the end of the episode he revealed that the files were the NYPD’s database of criminals. In one single move, the Brotherhood managed to get data on most of the criminals in New York City and they definitely planned to exploit it. Unfortunately that’s bad news for Elias, because he and his crew have a target on their head now and Dominic is willing to do anything to take them down. Elias, according to Dominic, is the last one to fall. All of the other gangs and criminal groups in New York City have opted to join forces with the Brotherhood.

Elias, however, in his old school ways still manages to provoke loyalty in those who work with him. None of his people have faltered, though I’m worried that might not last forever.

At the end of the episode we’re left with Elias as the number of the week and Shaw in the crosshairs of Samaritan’s ace agent. What will happen? I don’t know! But we’re in for one heck of a wild ride.