Person of Interest: The Devil You Know Recap

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MH1TlTuLBM]

Person of Interest: The Devil you Know (4×08)

Synopsis: Shaw’s cover is blown, the Brotherhood is after Elias, and everyone is just trying not to die. Except for one person. I’m still crying.

Rating: ★★★★★

At the end of last week’s episode we left Shaw in the crosshairs of Martine’s gun (hey, I remembered her name finally). Of course Shaw’s boss picked the perfect moment to critique her counter, just in time to nearly get shot. Thankfully Shaw had a gun stashed away and used it to get away, getting picked up by Root as they rode off to safety. After taking refuge in the back of a moving truck they’re assisted by Fusco who was able to get them out by making a drug stop. Finally, Shaw and Root go on the run as they use the dark map to try and navigate their way back to the bat cave.

With Shaw out of commission for the foreseeable future given her identity has been compromised, Finch and Reese are left to handle the Elias situation on their own. Last week Elias’ number came up because the Brotherhood is hankering to take him out. He’s the last thing standing between the Brotherhood and total domination of New York City. Reese heads out on his own to help take care of Elias and tracks him down to a boardwalk where he’s taking a business meeting with a questionable fellow named Bruce. In broad daylight it becomes obvious that the Brotherhood is indeed tracking Elias, so Reese is quick to follow Elias and Scarface to try and warn them.

At first Elias seemed uninterested in what Reese had to say. Certainly he’s used to being threatened often and doesn’t take it very seriously. He decided to finally take Reese seriously after one of Dominic’s soldiers tried to take him out from behind as he walked away. After that, Elias finally agreed to Reese’s plan and pointed out that he was going to need some backup. Unfortunately that backup came in the form of Gino, a longtime business associate of Elias’, who ended up turning his back on him and joining the Brotherhood. With that ally extinguished, Elias had no choice but to regroup and he told Reese they had to go pick something up at his accountant’s place.

Apparently at some point Elias had bought an old, broken building and hoped to turn it into something good for the community. Later in the episode he mentioned using it to try and improve the neighborhood as a way to leave his legacy. In the end, we found out that the building was actually the group home Elias was brought up in and a place he wasn’t particularly fond of. There’s a lot of memories and significance to the building.

They manage to get out of the direct shot of Dominic’s men and up into the penthouse suite where there is a safe that Elias is insistent he must open. Whatever it is, Reese tells him it isn’t important as he drags him backward toward a secret in-the-wall exit just in time to avoid some serious firepower. They try to make their escape but Scarface gets clipped and therefore stuck behind as he tells them to keep going. Elias’ “Anthony!” was heartbreaking as they retreated further into the building and Scarface was left to his fate.

While all of this is going on, the rest of the team are dealing with their own trials. Finch is stuck trying to assist Reese because no one else can. Fusco has to stay under the radar because Martine is investigating him and Shaw, even though she believed she was going to act as backup, ended up getting knocked out by Root for her own protection. Everyone is at risk. As Samaritan threatens the team, the Brotherhood threatens to take down the Brotherhood.

As always, Reese managed to get Elias to relative safety. They were almost out of the building, ready to run, when Elias pointed the gun at Reese’s head. He was going to go back in for Anthony. As it had been revealed, Scarface and Elias were longtime friends. Scarface had been transferred into the same group home as a child after getting out of juvenile dentition where he’d been after murdering his father. They became fast friends and probably each other’s best allies. Nothing brings people closer than shared trauma, and from what Elias said about the group home they definitely had their shared traumas.

So he went back into the building and turned himself in after making a deal with Dominic. If he turned himself in they would let Anthony go. From his knees Elias insisted that Dominic let his guy go, even though Dominic was insistent that he wouldn’t until Elias gave him the code to the safe in the penthouse suite. Of course Elias did everything in his power to get Anthony out of the situation, only to have Anthony tell him to end it. The scene was heartbreaking.

I don’t normally cry but when I realized what was coming, I cried. The intense emotion portrayed during Anthony and Elias’ conversation over the phone was honestly too much for me. They were the best of friends and one was offering to sacrifice himself for the other. Inside the vault was a bomb, the entire building was a failsafe. Elias tried to get Anthony out but it failed. Scarface, loyal and true, took one for the team and died with a bang, taking out a number of Brotherhood soldiers along the way. Thankfully the distraction gave Reese enough time to get Elias out of a tricky situation and to safety.

I’m still really upset they killed Scarface. There’s a little part of me that is holding out because we didn’t see the body, but he’s dead. It is a shame considering he was one of my favorite reoccurring characters on the show. There’s something about a smug Italian kicking ass that does it for me, I guess. Nonetheless, major props to David Valcin for his portrayal and to both him and Enrico Colatoni for their performance in tonight’s episode. The writers did Anthony’s final scene so much justice and I’m glad he went out the way he did.

Though I’m still hoping we’ll get to at least see him in a flashback.

So Elias is freed, though not without great cost. Reese returned to the bat cave to monitor the Shaw situation. The episode ended with a scene between Elias and Bruce, where it is revealed that Bruce was also in the same group home. They were old friends. Three troublemakers who tried to make a different, albeit a criminal one, in New York City. He ends the episode with the saying “Invictus maneo,” or, “I remain unvanquished.”

The war is just getting started.