Person of Interest Season 3 Review "A House Divided"
Person of Interest, Reviews
Things aren't looking good for Finch. On last night's Person of Interest, we see that Decima is only one of his problems. He's also in the cross hairs of Vigilance, the shadowy group of privacy advocates who have been on a mission to stop the machine. After a systematic attack, Vigilance manages to capture Greer, Control and Finch. The end goal appears to be to expose the extent that people's privacy is non-existent thanks to the machine and Samaritan.
We finally learn more about Vigilance's internal motivations. In flashbacks, we see that the leader of the group, Peter Brandt, is driven by a personal vendetta. The government mistakenly accused his brother of terrorist ties, which triggered his suicide. The basis for the accusation was security surveillance of his brother meeting with a man whose family members were known terrorists. However, the man wasn't doing anything nefarious; he was simply attending AA and Brandt's brother was his sponsor. Considering the lengths that Vigilance has gone to, this is a solid explanation. It makes more sense that it's a personal vendetta rather than simple indignation on privacy violations.
For Reese and Shaw, they're desperate to find Finch, but Root convinces them that the machine wants them to do other work. Root has the dream team of techies that she's been gathering up in recent episodes. She uses them to help crack the Samaritan's servers to figure out where it is located. While she does this, she sends Shaw and Reese to try and intercept Vigilance before it can capture Control. It's a little surprising that Samaritan isn't keeping a closer eye on Vigilance. While the machines are blinded by the power outage, there should still have been surveillance of the group's preparations and Samaritan should have also known whose numbers were up.
Greer and Finch engage in a heart-to-heart about the meaning of creation. Greer seems to have a more libertarian view of Samaritan's technology and little concern for what the consequences will be if it is unfettered. Finch, on the other hand, has grave concerns about the machine operating unchecked. For the first time, we see that Finch is genuinely afraid of the machine. He acknowledges that it is exponentially smarter than him and has the potential to inflict great harm. I like the way that Finch remains completely stoic throughout their conversation. If he's scared or intimidated by Greer, he doesn't show it.
I like that we are gearing up for some kind of significant showdown in the season finale. It's time to get some resolution on Vigilance, Decima or both. In the previews, it looks like Finch is going to reveal himself as the creator of the machine. This will be a significant game changer is this information is revealed to the public. The premise of the show is that Finch and his team operate in secrecy. Without that, the dynamic of their operations will change significantly. I also think it's time to sever the link between Root and the machine. It's kind of irritating how she saunters around and announces what everyone needs to be doing.
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Courtney Vaudreuil