I never learned how to write about my softest places,
I never learned how to define them.
Maybe if I could define them,
They could feel less scary,
They could let a little light in.
I never thought I would need so much again.
I never thought I would need. I never wanted to need.
I wanted to just… want.
Optional, disposable. Replaceable.
I long wondered how I would know,
When I had found home,
When home had found me.
I no longer wonder. I just
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Home is where darkness has heard of you.
Home has pictures of you and knows when you take your pills.
Home has heard about your softest places,
But your softest places know nothing about home.
Home feeds on your aching bones.
Home is with you when you try to sleep.
Home is with you when you try to sleep.
Oh how I love episodes where we get a lot of Root. Here we get a little unhinged all around, too. Good times.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
We open at the exact spot we left off, with Control having the upper hand, and our two AI masterminds – Claypool and Finch – in trouble.
I’m so gay.
Just as the scary boss lady orders two shots to Shaw’s head, though, Root barges in, shooting everybody, freeing Sameen and instructing them to flee. But! Hersh shoots her, incapacitating her. What will happen to our favorite lesbian??!
Finch, Arthur and Shaw make it out of there, and Arthur confesses he “played the tumor card” pretending not to know anything about any drives containing Samaritan code with Control, but he knows. Sneaky, sneaky pal.
[1979] Harold has packed his dad’s bags to take him to a facility, and he (the dad) says something about going there and bragging about how his son is going to change the world. Awh.
Root gets a black hood taken off her, and she is in a cage with Control. Control seems to think Root works for Finch et al against her will, hence her previous stay at a mental hospital
Root: Seems everybody wants to lock me up.
Control wants Root to give her administrative access to the Machine, as if Root can (or would) hand over her god mode badge or something. Since Root wont do that and basically calls them incompetent, Control brings in the torture props.
What are these props, you ask? Needles. One with downers for one arm, and for uppers on the other. Fun, fun, fun. Root at least seems to be having some, impending possible heart-attack and all. Root: You think you’re in charge? It’s adorable just how wrong you are.
I love unhinged Root. Have I said that already? I really, really do.
Arthur Claypool takes Shaw and Finch to a safe deposit at a bank, where he put the drives under a fake name. But it’s a fake name that the Vigilance interrogator lady got out of him on the previous episode, so of course my favorite privacy activist babe Collier is there too. So now Harold and Arthur are locked inside the vault, and Shaw is outside, thinking of what to do to get them all out of there. And Hersh – bless his stupid ass face, I swear – is there now too.
We travel to Colorado, where Reese is in jail with Fusco, being all broody about how they weren’t helping anyone with the numbers, just delaying the inevitable. Lionel insists that losing someone isn’t an excuse to be a little bitch, tells John that Finch is probably in trouble, but what the hell, right? And leaves John there.
Sameen is talking with Finch about possible ways to leave, and Finch tells Shaw to be careful, as if this was the time for prudence. Finch: I urge you to consider what Mr. Reese would do. Shaw: Brood? LMAO. Exactly right, my dearest wife. Exactly right.
Arthur and Harold talk about AIs, about Samaritan being an open system which can be targetted and controlled, and Arthur realizes that he figured out how to make his AI work right before he got shut down by the government back in 2005.
Control keeps drugging Root, and asking her stupid ass questions like what her username and password is to access The Machine. Root tells her that she is the interface, so all she needs is a phone. One of her dudes brings in a phone to the cage, and Root tells Control that she works for the Machine, not the other way around. The Machine is her god, her motivation, her power. So that’s not intense. Root’s absolute belief that this AI protects and looks out for her, that this AI is the future, that she needs to be a good soldier for this AI…. it’s fascinating. I live for this shit. Control believes her, and tells her she will remove her stapes (one of the little bones inside the ear), right then and there, so she can’t hear the Machine anymore.
And then, one of my many favorite things happens. If you’re under 40 something, dear one of three people who read this, you may hear a buzz. You’re not going crazy (or maybe you are, but this isn’t why). It’s an anti-boomer frequency – I’m calling it that, I don’t care – which Root can hear, and Control can’t. It’s The Machine! Telling Root she’s sorry for what’s about to happen, which is a stapedectomy sans anaesthesia. Fun, fun, fun.
[1980] Harold is trying to do something with a computer, and he plugs in all sorts of things to get more power to it. Or something. I don’t know how that works. The computer turns back on and it becomes apparent that he is weaseling his way into Arpanet. Harold: If they don’t want people to get inside, they oughtta build it better.
Harold and Claypool keep debating about what life is, what beauty is, as if Collier wasn’t about to blow their testicles up. Finch insists the drives must be destroyed, Arthur insists that his child could be good. If you’ve seen the rest of the show, you’re probably begging Finch to just grab the drives and burn them himself instead of debating the matter to death. Anyway.
Arthur destroys the drives at the last minute, or so it seems, and Vigilance blows up the vault door, captures the three of em. And just as they’re about to kill Shaw and Finch and kidnap Arthur, look who the fuck decided to show up at last? John, at the last exasperating minute. He isn’t back back, but he came back to save Daddy for now.
On another side of town, post- unnecessary surgery, Root tells Control that she’s an idiot, that the Machine has been talking to her in the very high frequency I was telling y’all about, telling Root that Control had a knife in her pocket, which she grabbed when Control was playing doctor sadist with her. She gains the upper hand with a deliciously deranged look in her eyes, grabs the phone and says hi to her AI bestie. Root: So, what do you want me to tell this bitch?
Root then starts speaking verbatim what the Machine says to her, effectively giving her a voice. She/they tell Control how nobody controls baby, baby is the boss of everyone, baby watches over Control’s daughter. The Machine instructs her not to question her judgment or come after her agents, to trust her. And all of this, with Root’s recently-tortured slightly unhinged but straight face. I love all of this. I love how the Machine calls the humans her agents, and I love how Root doesn’t edit or paraphrase or embelish. She’s a human avatar with a knife, and I love it so very much.
Root calls Harold while he is visiting Arthur in a sort of hospital with monitors and all. She tells him they were supposed to help Arthur together, because now bad people have the drives. But how? You ask. They were destroyed, right? Nope. Apparently someone locked up the bank employee lady before they arrived, and this other random woman took the Samaritan copy and took her place, pretending to help the cute-but-naive engineers. Now the drives and the lady are “Root’s problem”.
Root, and the Machine, have a last gift for Arthur, though. A carousel of footage of Arthur and his deceased wife, so he remembers her to the very end. That’s so dark, and wholesome, and sad.
[1980] After the Arpanet breach, baby Harry visits his dad at the home where he is staying at. He tells him that some people might visit him to question him about his son committing treason. His dad merely looks at him and asks him who he is. Ooof. Harold asks him about the birds outside, and gifts him a book about birds. Which is why all of Harold’s fake last names are species of birds! That is very depressing too, but sweet.
There are two people meeting up at a rooftop in New York City, and one of them is Ominous British Man! Oh, how have we not missed him. And the other is the fake bank lady who stole the drives! We thought it might have been Vigilance, but nope! It was Decima Technologies. Ominous British Man thanks the woman for her services, and shoots her dead. Now Decima has a copy of an open-system artifical intelligence. that’s great.
This episode reaaaally kickstarts the serialized, cyberpunk feel of the rest of the show. Root was right, the future is here, and they’d better get ready.
John goes off on his own after what happened to Carter and how he couldn’t prevent it, and Team Machine gets a number that Harold seems to know but isn’t telling. We also finally meet the woman in charge of the Relevant side of things! And we get some more face time with my privacy activist boyfriend.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
We kick off with the knowledge that John left as soon as he could walk, and isn’t reporting back to Harold or to Sameen, who asks Harold if they’ve gotten a number, and he says they haven’t. They both look like shit. They hang up and a payphone rings, then another, probably with another number, and Harold passes them by, deliberately ignoring the mission, it seems. Grief can do that, yup.
Root gets the number, too, though, and tells Harold that they need to work on the number together. Why would she get an irrelevant number, though? INTRIIGUE.
Sameen Shaw is covering as a doctor, because the new number, Arthur Claypool is in the hospital, in the terminal illness wing. So, uh, probably a victim.
Fix me up, doc. Please.
Harold is acting weird about the number for some reason, but we let it slide, cause Sameen looks hot in a lab coat. They notice Claypool has some security dudes looking out for him, which Sameen clocks as Secret Service. Why would the SS be watching an old man who is dying?
[1969] A 10yo kid is looking at birds, and his dad tells him that if the kid helps him fix the car they’re working on, he will tell him more about the birds. The phone rings and the kid stays there staring at the car. Dad comes back and the kid has taken a bunch of different parts out, uncovering something that was making the car malfunction. All the different screws and pieces are out there on the table.
Dad: You’re not supposed to take things apart like that. You understand, Harold? Harold: Well, if they don’t want you to get inside, they ought to build it better.
So that’s kiddie Harold! He is absolutely adorable. And what he says is so him, he will get into any system that lets him, and built his so nobody could! Precious.
Back at the hospital, Arthur Claypool has a visitor, his wife it seems. He doesn’t recongize her, so he is possibly losing his memories. He talks about how he cannot talk to her about work, and to not bother him since he is on a deadline on his Samaritan project. He doesn’t seem aware that he is in a hospital.
Shaw talks to the wife, who mentions Claypool was NSA, and is now losing it. He would know all sorts of top level stuff and now his brain is just letting them out whenever, which might be why he is in danger. Or maybe not, who knows.
He’s in radiology and somebody is interrogating him without his security there! And then the security comes in and thinks Shaw is the danger here, since the interrogation lady fled before she could catch up.
[1971] Baby Harold is building some kind of contraption, and shows it to his dad. His dad is forgetting things a lot, and so he is starting to build a very rudimentary memory machine. Where he will type something in morse code and then turn a switch and the lightbulb will remember it and “say it” back. He tells his dad that he is working on it so it will eventually remember all the things his dad is forgetting. My heart!!
His dad reassures him that what’s happening to him (probably Alzheirmers) can’t be fixed by his son. Harold replies that one day he will be able to make a machine that thinks and can help him with everything.
We follow Reese to Colorado, where he is for some reason. He’s at a bar, and Fusco is there too, incredibly not subtle in his tailing of John, LOL. Fusco says he isn’t leaving so they’ll just have to hang out there, in the same bar. Fusco tells John he quit drinking when John and Carter forced him to reevaluate his life and choices, and John is being all broody and tells him everything is pointless. Then Fusco invites John outside to fist-fight in the rain. Because men. Aaand then the cops show up.
Back at the hospital, Harold is in the parking lot and he spots Peter Collier and the vigilance dudes, and find out the mystery interrogating lady is with them. Vigilance spiked the secret service dudes’ food, and so now it’s all on Shaw. She tells the wife to grab their things, and urge Claypool to go with them, but he doesn’t know them and is refusing to go.
Then Harold shows up, and Claypool recognizes him!! WTF? Well, Harry is a very private person, friends. So how do they know each other, then?
They leave before Vigilance can get to Claypool, but only because Shaw is extremely hot. And efficient.
What a star.
[1979] Teen Harold is hanging out with some friends, and shows them a trick of his where he uses a whistle a certain way and then types some numbers, to trick the phone into calling Paris. Now, this is really a thing you used to be able to do, somehow. Fun fact. Man, pre-internet teens were reaaaally bored, weren’t they? A cop car stops and tells Harold he needs to come with him, something about his dad. Ruh-roh. He got lost somewhere, and the cop suggests sending the dad to a professional care facility. His dad laments that Harold is stuck there taking care of him, when he is so smart and so great and he should be going to college. To which Harold replies that a system connecting universityes online is being built, implying that he’s just gonna hack himself into a degree, or is thinking of doing it at least. His dad asks him to be careful with that.
Harold: If they don’t want you to get inside, they ought to build it better.
Arthur is very happy to indulge us and say exactly how and where they met: they were star engineers at MIT, trying to change the world, and Arthur mentions that, if anybody was gonna do that, it was probably going to be Finch. Oh, Arthur, you have no idea how right you are. Yet. In turn, Harold tells his friend that the people shooting at them back at the hospital were after him for information about the work he did for the government.
Harold asks Claypool about what Samaritan is, and Arthur tells him its a system created to prevent terror attacks through analysis of large data sets, preventing acts of aggression and violence. His is also fully autonomous, can heal and upgrade itself. A “true artificial intelligence”.
So, uh, he built another Machine. Dun dun DUUUUNNN.
He tells Harold he was super close to making Samaritan operational, but then the government shut them down. Prooobably because Harold gave them his faster, and for $1.
Claypool tells his wife, Diane, to get away from him, and Harold reassures him that it’s just his tumor talking. But how come Claypool remembers all the things about Samaritan and when it was closed down, and about Harold, but not his wife.
Arthur: But that’s not it. Diane is dead. I buried her two years ago, June 12, 2011.
Whaaaaaaat?
Fake Diane signals “Now”, and some highly trained dudes jump in and disarm Shaw, and then Hersh shows up! I like Hersh!
So Fake Diane iiiiis…. Control! She is Control! We are finally meeting this terrifying boss lady. And now she is meeting Harold too! Goddamnit. She tells them both to give her both the Machine back, and the Samaritan drives, or they’re both dead. Oh joy.
The episode ends with a screen of the Machine’s internal predictions based on what just happened. About 50% chance of Harold and Claypool dying, a 90% chance of Shaw dying – since she is now mostly just getting in the way, 12% of Control dying, etc. And then she jumps to the files she has on other systems that were in the running back when she was chosen by the government, and Samaritan’s status appears first as deactivated, now as ‘UNKNOWN’. And so now the chance of operational conflict is rapidly increasing.
The Crossing may have shattered your heart to pieces, and that’s unfair. Fortunately The Devil’s Share comes in strong, and dark, and ready to avenge my dearly departed queen of my heart.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
The show begins with a cold open, with a heart monitor hooked onto John after Simmons shoots him non-lethally but still, pretty good. The now iconic first few chords of Hurt by Johnny Cash start playing. I mention the song because the score of this show is something I’ve gushed about before and will continue to do so, but also because I have heard this song cover on many shows. And none absolutely rip through my entire body like it does here. As the lyrics start, we are shown Joss’ funeral, with Finch and Shaw in the background, and Shaw leaving early. Then it takes us to a shot of every newspaper cover with Simmons’ face on it, as the most wanted guy in New York. And soon enough, of course, Harold gets his number. As the song starts picking up, we are transported to a bar, where a head is suddenly smashed against the counter by, well, Shaw, of course, who makes me cry as we see her holding Simmons’ photo with the same fist that repeatedly punches a dude (who probably knows something about him), her face angrier than we have ever seen her, blood splattering all over. The song still playing, Simmons gets a fake Canadian passport from some dudes. Next thing we know, a large truck crashes right onto the fake ID dudes, and we see John interrogating the dude who’s inside the car which is now on fire and he is bleeding badly.
So of course Simmons number came up, because our beautiful babies, the great Mayhem Twins, are on a rampage that will sure lead to his head on a pike. Hell, I want his head, and I am fully aware that he is fictional.
What an excellent start to a very dark episode that has earned its right to be grim and rogue and vengeful
[2010] Harold is at a psychologist’s office, using a wheelchair. So, shortly after Nathan died. He wants to talk about grief, and wonders if it has a purpose. He is feeling some clarity, feels like doing something radical. He feels like Nathan’s death is his fault, which the shrink assures him isn’t true. Harold: Does survivor’s guilt pass when everything that has happened has in fact been your fault?
Root once agains offers to help, because John is still in trouble, and she can help. She also warns Harold that whatever the Machine was trying to prepare Root for, it’s coming. So this is great, because they don’t have enough problems as it is.
Meanwhile, Finch and Fusco are where John t-boned the car with the sleazy ID guys. They also want to find Simmons, but in legal, proper ways. Psht, now is not the time for proper. They go find the forger in charge of those fake IDs, and find him with broken legs and hanging by his arms to the ceiling, with Shaw questioning him. Finch reminds Shaw that regardless of the morality of wanting to kill Simmons or not, John’s injuries are pretty bad, so they gotta find him. They figure, of course, the best way to do that would be to find the asshole themselves. The forger tells them the only one who knows where Simmons is headed is Quinn, who the feds have holed up somewhere, no idea where. Quinn has a lawyer, though, so that’s their next lead.
They get to the lawyer and somebody used his face as an ashtray and then shot him. John? Nah, that’s too much drama for him. They see through a security camera that it was the Russians, who of course are also looking for Quinn. Everybody wants everything, they should team up or get in line or something. So now that both John and the bratva have Quinn’s location but Team Machine doesn’t, who they gonna call? Shaw once again mentions they have an option, and that option is Root. Shaw is game for it, and finally – an avoidable death later, fucking coward – Harold accepts.
[2005] Shaw is in a lab coat, so probably during the time she was a military doctor, and she is also talking to a therapist. The shrink questions Sameen’s lack of emotional investment in caring for her patients. He tells Sameen that she knows she has ASPD, and that that’s why she isn’t fit to be a doctor. Which is bullshit. Poor Shaw, my sweet wife.
Root guides Shaw as she rides a car in the dark with no headlights, and Shaw trusts! She trusts the Machine, not Root necessarily, but still! Fusco questions the logic behind trusting Harold’s kidnapper, which is fair, and so Root tells him all these random details about his routine and his childhood, in a calmly creepy way. He is not less confused by this, of course. But we are more entertained, and that’s all that matters sometimes. They enter the building across the street from where Quinn is, and just as Fusco wonders if Reese is there too, a car outside is lit on fire and some of the marshals guarding the exits get out to check it out. Which of course is what John would do to get inside. Classic Reese.
[2007] It’s John’s turn to go to therapy. He seems to be new in the army, though from the dates we know – or I do, because I’ve watched this many, many times, and know the timeline pretty well – he is not. This shrink-type is assessing whether he is ready to do Bad Things for the Good Guys (TM). John reassures the shrink that he knows he’s just doing his job, that he’s been through this process before. Ah-HA! He tells him he was tasked with finding out a traitor among the army, and he found him. And then he shoots the therapist dead.
The marshals are checking out the fire, and just as the landlord is complaining about all the troubles to hide Quinn, John is already inside, looking really pale and really determined. The guy who is in charge, who is in the room with Quinn, brushes it off as some nuisance from some schmuck or another who is trying to get to Quinn, and then the marshals call him to tell him they’ve been locked out of the building from somebody already inside. Classic Reese. The power is cut off, and the score kills me once again. The boss marshal tells his team to secure everything and to get ready to move Alonzo. But Alonzo knows who he fucked over, and tells the marshals there is no point in even trying. And sure enough, John incapacitates most of them with his usual badass shenanigans and gets to Quinn in no time. He isn’t doing well at all with his gunshot wound.
Quinn refuses to give Simmons’ location, because loyalty. John tells him very calmly that he’s gonna kill him no matter what. But he’s learned to kill quickly and painlessly, and he is learned to kill at an excruciatingly slow and painful pace. So that’s Quinn’s choice.
In the meantime, the rest of Team Machine are accessing the building. Root asks for two guns please, which Shaw points out is kinda absurd. But then the russians arrive, and she goes all baddass in god mode and Shaw points out she stands corrected, and that it was very hot. Hell yea, it was.
Oooof.
Just when John is about to shoot Quinn after he gives in and gives John the location of his buddy, Finch arrives. And John is bleeding very badly, and the gun doesn’t shoot properly. So he agrees to leave with TM.
They’re riding in the car back to get John patched up, and Shaw is mad that they aren’t gonna get to kill Simmons. But then!
Root: The Machine never said John was the only one trying to kill Simmons.
Who else, though? The rogue part of the gang is there in that car. Well…
Fusco stayed behind to make sure Quinn gets taken back to jail, and sees the note where Quinn wrote down the location for John.
[2005] Now Fusco’s in the (cop) therapist’s office. He’s there after an incident where he shoots a suspect, and the therapist reassures him that it’s a safe place, that nothing he says would leave that room, etc. So Lionel finally opens up: Lionel confesses it wasn’t at all a “good shooting” (what they call when it is justified, and in accordance to code, or whatever. That suspect had apparently shot an off-duty 24yo cop the year before and had gotten away with it. So a year later he runs into him and he was unarmed, with no muscle with him, and shoots him twice in the chest. And he sleeps like a baby. Lionel: He got the devil’s share. That’s what you call it when a guy like Jules gets his. (…) And, you wanna know how I’ve been sleeping? Like a baby.
Well, that was dark, but I dig it.
Fusco catches up with Simmons just as he was about to get on a private plane to fucking Canada. He gets into a fist fight with Simmons, for some reason. In an extremely unlikely turn of events, he gets the upper hand. It looks like he’s about to kill the fucking asshole. But instead he tells him about how Carter helped change him into a better man and better cop who isn’t a sleezeball and isn’t a killer, so he arrests the dude. Ruh-roh. Once again we are disappointed that nobody is properly avenging the queen of my heart.
But hey, the episode’s not over yet, my pals! Simmons is in the hospital being guarded by cops, and it seems one of the guards is leaving his post. For some reason. But Shaw isn’t there, John isn’t there, and Fusco isn’t there. So it should be fine, right? Wrong again.
It’s Carl motherfucking Elias, there for a friendly visit.
“I’m just gonna watch”. Ooof. Not gonna kinkshame.
A creeply, satisfying visit, indeed.
And where will Root go now that she is free? Back to being imprisoned at Harold’s base of operation. She reminds Harold that scary things are afoot, and theyd better stick together. Intriiiigue.
So it took me 4 years to accept what’s about to happen and continue to review this show LOL. But I do want to finish this project of mine even if nobody reads it.
Last we checked, Simmons predicted (or hoped) the Man in the Suit would die tonight. Carter and John have Alonzo Quinn but they still need to get him into custody, and every single criminal and cop – same thing! – is looking to kill them and save the king of the pigs. So, what will they do? Make me cry, is what they do.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
We open on another previously on, and right to Simmons and what last happened at the shitty judge’s house. Simmons sees that the judge is a coward (as Zoe Morgan once said, “if you’re going to do something wrong, do it right” and that means no taking backsies, asshole) and would probably testify against them, so he shoots him too. He also orders his men to shoot to kill when it comes to John. Say what you will about that fucking asshole Simmons, but he sure is consistent.
Harold gets what sounds like a lot of numbers, and Reese and Carter are taking Quinn to the feds via subway (for some reason?).They talk about the collossal mess they’re in.
John: What is it about you, Joss, that makes you want to do everything on your own? Joss: What is it about you, John, that makes you want to save everybody else’s life but your own?
She says this just in time for Harold to contact John to reveal who his new numbers are: all kinds of different aliases for one person, John “Mr Congeniality” (bless you, Fusco, never change) Reese. HR put a bounty on his head, which Elias and his crew have been kind enough to pass on. But nobody else is. Frankly I’m surprised it’s taking this long for his number to come up.
Quinn steps on John’s phone so Harry can’t find them. Shaw points out he could just ask the machine, or more specifically, Root. Harold doesn’t want to, which starts to get on my nerves. Your fucking hangups about Root can wait until after our favorite broody boy is out of danger, dontcha think? Anyway.
He goes visit Root, who eerily guesses that John’s number has come up. She tells Harold that while she doesn’t care about him much, Harry obviously does, so she offers to help John. Harold says no. She also mentions that John isn’t Harold’s first “helper monkey”, and asks him how many has he gone through. Which is unsettling for Harold to hear, and for us as well.
Harold also tells Root his theory about her speaking to the Machine: that she somehow altered the code. Little does he know, the Machine has altered Root’s “code” (of ethics, or at least methodology) more than the other way around.
John and Carter switch to getting to the feds by hijacking an ambulance, and just when HR spots them in it, Fusco shoots at them and the ambulance is able to bully its way into Manhattan. Unfortunately for Fusco, Simmons notices this, knocks him out and takes him. Finch retasks Shaw to help Fusco out instead of heading to help Reese. In the meantime, Simmons and his helpers start punching Lionel and trying to get info off him, like about the key that Carter gave him. He won’t say shit, so Simmons starts breaking his fingers. Then Simmons mentions Fusco’s kid, and tells one of his lackeys to go bump him off. Shaw tries to get a lead on where he is, with no much luck. Is our poor bb Fusco gonna die? Is his kid? This episode is so stressful, even now rewatching a 100th time.
John and Carter are only a few blocks from the feds but the city is full of assholes trying to kill them, so they break into a building: the morgue. So that’s not creepy or ominous. Simmons and his dudes learn where they are, and send in a bunch of them to kill them. Oh no, now these bbs could die too. John sends Carter to get supplies, and slips out of their hideaway through the vents. He’ll draw them out and kill as many as he can, while Carter takes Quinn to jail. Fucking John and his self-sacrificial shenanigans. Every season he has to pull this shit. It’s not good for the heart (mine, I mean), he should knock it off.
Carter and Reese discuss their closest calls. I love that they could both probably mention a thousand missions where they could’ve died, but Carter’s closest call? Childbirth. And John’s? When he was about to off himself before the pilot. And then an infuriating and unnecessary moment: he tells Joss that what stopped him was meeting her, and then kisses her. Now, in interviews, Caviezel says that the kiss was unscripted but felt right, and so I am officially calling it as a thing that didn’t happen. It is stupid and I will not allow it. In any case, HR goes in and so they get ready to roll.
Finch gets ready to leave the library to go help them somehow, and Root once again offers to help. Harry says no, again. And I hate him for it, every single time I watch this fucking episode. Root tells him she hopes someday he can trust her, and that she’s so very sorry for his loss. Fucking rude, Root. I love you, but that’s rude, even if true. Will it be true??
Now, a scene that makes me cry every single one of the thousand times I’ve watched this episode: Fusco is about to listen in as an HR dude is about to off his kid. He tells Lee (the son) to close his eyes, that it’s all gonna be okay, and he hears a shot. He is sobbing and then on the phone he hears a familiar voice: Shaw. She tells him that his son is fine, that he figured they’d wanna take the kid so she stops them, ’cause that’s what he would’ve wanted. Of course, that means that she cannot save Fusco. Oh my wife. What a heartbreakingly decent choice.
This doesn’t change the fact, of course, that this other dude’s about to kill Fusco, and just as he is about to, Fusco mentions that since they broke most of his fingers, it wasn’t that big of a deal for him to break his own thumb. He unties himself! And they struggle and fight some, and then Fusco grabs him from behind and chokes him with all his might. Kevin Chapman is such a stellar actor in this scene, you can see he is choking him with all the anger about almost losing his kid, his fucking eyes look like they’re about to pop off his head. Heck yea, Fusco!
Back at the morgue, John starts shooting bad guys, and he is doing pretty well, but one of the cops shoot him near the armpit, relatively good (or bad, for us). Meanwhile, Finch has entered the building and tells Carter she can leave with Quinn safely now. She takes him to the FBI headquarters. Finally! Now the only baddie they gotta catch is Simmons, but at least the big boss is behind bars.
Well that was a close call, a good episode with a relatively happy ending, right? Wrong. Fusco meets up with Shaw and they share a look, a “grateful beyond words look from Lionel”, and a “Im uncomfortable with vulnerable moments but I gotchoo” look from Sameen.Carter is a detective again! And tells Finch she figures they have some sort of supercomputer where they get the numbers – which is close enough, I guess – and catches up with John. Finch is about to meet with them, and the phone starts ringing.
Fucking Simmons comes out of nowhere and takes a shot at Reese but misses. Then takes a shot at Carter. And the entire fanbase gets extremely unlucky. Carter starts bleeding out fast, John can’t do anything. Finch just stands there, while the fucking phone – with Carter’s number, no doubt – rings, the soundtrack to all our hopes and dreams being shat on.
Now you know why it took me four years. I got no witty additions, no further analysis. I got nothing. What a great episode, but fuck, what a fucking knife straight to my heart.
Next episode is a relatively satisfying epilogue for this goddamn mess, though. I promise you, your now broken heart will appreciate it.
Ohhh boy. I am scared to rewatch and review this and the next few episodes. It’s a lot of feelings happening right now. But it’s also really really good, so I’m excited.
At the very end of the last episode, Joss finally discovers who the head of HR is, and has been fired up and ready to end HR for good for a while. But she knows they have all the tricks, money and power in the world, so she has to play smart if she wants to catch Quinn. ‘Endgame’ is precisely about that: the final objective (Alonzo Quinn) is now revealed, so how will he – and how will Carter – use the other pieces in the board?
The pursuit of HR by Carter is hitting very exciting and terrifying territory, we get some flashbacks that tell us a bit more about her family life, and her friendships with both John and Fusco are given more weight and color. It is a very Carter-centric episode and I am 110% here for it.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
We open with a brief “previously on” focused on the HR plot line and what we have learned so far, and her discovery of Quinn as the boss.
Right then we jump to footage from the MPoV (Machine point of view) of a burning car, a truck stopping to see what’s up, and someone shooting up said truck with a grenade launcher and stealing the truck.
What is John up to, even? I mean, it has to be John, right?
The number of this episode is not interesting at all, but it does tie into and pushes the HR plot forward in very stressful and exciting directions. In ‘The Perfect Mark’, Root and Harold have some more ominous, eerie conversations while she is locked up, Carter is closing in on who the head of HR is and how to bring them down, and everyone (except the number, who is another bland white boy) is kind of delightful in their own unique ways.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
‘Mors Praematura’ is a super entertaining episode! It moves a couple of big plots along quite nicely, gets real gay real fast, starts up some threads that won’t really be pulled until a while later, and is all around a great time. Let’s begin.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
We start off with Shaw getting kidnapped by Root, just like the last episode ended. And a little later, John is breaking into her apartment, on Harold’s orders, to figure out why she is missing.
John is trying to find clues, and all he finds at first are weapons in the fridge, which is pretty average, apparently. But then he spots taser confetti (some paper that is ejected, for some reason, when a taser gun is fired) on the floor. Harold: I suppose it’s too much to hope she tased herself. John: Knowing Shaw, it’s possible.
I mean, I’m not gonna kinkshame, but that would be an elaborate way to e-stim. But it’s true, it’s possible. And that is why she is my wife.
But the question remains… where did Root take her? What does she want from her?
‘Razgovor’ is very, very dear to my heart. The number is the cutest, it’s pretty much a Shaw-centric episodes with flashbacks to her cute-ass 8 year old self, we see a big bad being bigger and badder, Joss Carter continues to be a boss ass bitch, and the ending is very promising. An A+ episode to make up for the blegh-ness that was the last one.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
I don’t remember liking this episode AT ALL but, who knows, maybe there are treasures to rediscover. (Spoiler: there aren’t.)
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
We open at the tail end of a case we don’t get to see, and it is adorable. Bear pretends to be sick so they can get close to a veterinarian who is about to get mugged and killed. But the couple of “concerned dog owners”, and Bear, save the day! What a gift.
‘Lady Killer’ is not groundbreaking or special in any way, but it has some great Team Machine bonding times, and I live for those.
I have watched the whole show before, so SPOILERS MIGHT HAPPEN. Big spoilers will be blanked out but references and irrelevant spoilers are going to be out in the open.
Sameen and John are hanging out on a boat! And fighting for who gets to row it! Honestly the straights who had any theories on these two being romantically involved, I ask you: HOW? They are such siblings, the most sibling-y siblings to ever sibling. Look at them, fighting over driving and rowing, side eyeing and sassing each other out.
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