Person of Interest: Bad Code
December 2, 2024 8:59 AM - Season 2, Episode 2 - Subscribe
The Machine delivers the number of a cold case that leads Reese ever closer to catching up with Finch and his kidnapper, Root.
Flashback to April 15, 1991, and a girl calls 911 about Hanna Frey, a girl who has gone missing from Bishop, Texas.
Twenty-four hours after Root abducted Finch, Reese calls Carter and Fusco and invites them for drinks at 8 a.m. Carter has checked on the SSN that The Machine gave Reese and learned that Hanna Frey disappeared in 1991 in Bishop, Texas after leaving the library. She'd be 35, the same age as Root, and Carter hasn't turned up anything else. When Carter wants to know where Reese is getting his info, he says that he can't tell her but figures that finding Hanna will lead them to Finch. He asks Fusco to take care of Bear.
Reese and Carter fly into Texas and check into a motel in Bishop. They go to the local police station and Reese waits in the car and listens in as Carter talks to Sheriff Landry. She claims she has a missing person case in New York but can't share the name, and Landry refuses to cooperate without it.
Reese, however, manages to steal the file on Hanna Frey that mentions the 911 call and a report on a license plate that didn't check out. Carter figures they need to start from the beginning and talk to the last person who saw Hanna. Reese suspects that Hanna became Root.
In Relton, Maryland, Root tells a tied-up Finch that humanity has become rotten and that she has brought him there to show him the bad code. She points out that even though he created an artificial intelligence, he lives in anonymity and fear, and blames him for selling the Machine to the wrong people. Root then reveals Weeks, tied up, and explains that either Finch or Weeks will walk out of there with her.
Reese and Carter talk to Barbara Russell (played by Margo Martindale) the librarian who was present when Hanna was kidnapped, who says Hanna was usually on the computers and played the games.
April 15, 1991
Hanna struggles to beat the game "Oregon Trail" as the library prepares to close. Her friend Sam teases her about the game while a young Cody Grayson sneaks a peek at her. She checks out a few books and leaves while Barbara discusses the new Steven King book with Trent.
Barbara says that she gave a list of everyone there that night to the police. Hanna checked out a couple of books and left alone. That was the last that anyone saw her. Reese and Carter confirm that Hanna's mother died a few years ago and go to see Hanna's father Brian Frey. He figures that a fellow student, Cody Grayson, killed Hanna. Mr. Frey and his brother interrogated Cody a few weeks later but he claimed that Hanna ran away to get away from her abusive father. Now Cody spends most of his time getting drunk at a local bar.
Carter asks if Mr. Frey has ever heard from his daughter, and he says that she gets credit card junk mail a couple of times a year even though she never had a credit card or bank account. Mr. Frey tells Carter that she can find the most recent ones in the trash. Carter goes through the trash and finds the mail Mr Frey mentioned.
Reese goes to the ar and finds Cody, but discovers he is innocent despite being persecuted by the town for being responsible for Hanna's disappearance. Carter pulls up and tells Reese that she ran a credit check and discovered that someone opened a bank account in Hanna's name two years after she disappeared.
Root keeps Denton Weeks tied up using the Palestinian hanging technique that he authorized for the DoD. Weeks claims that he has no idea what she's talking about. Later, Root lets Weeks down only to dose him with sodium pentothal. Root leaves the two alone as she runs errand assuring Weeks he'll spill whatever info she needs when she returns.
Finch tells her to make it stop,Back at the motel, Carter tracks the bank account to Lafayette. Someone put $100,000 into the account in 1993 and Hanna withdrew it as cash over the next few weeks. It came from Jose Barilla, serving 17 life sentences for drug trafficking and murder. Hanna withdrew it from his account after hacking the computers. The co-signatory on the account is Trent Russell, who lives in Bishop and was in the library the night that Hanna disappeared.
Reese and Carter go to Trent's house and discover that Barbara lives there. She explains that she's Trent's widow and that he died 15 years ago. Barbara invites them in and explains that they met at the library and he was a member of the book club. He was shot by drug traffickers, and Barbara insists that he had nothing to do with them. She also tells them that Trent knew nothing about Hanna. Carter shows her the bank account statement, and Barbara asks them to leave. They ignore her and search the house and garage. The license plates on the car is one digit off from the one reported on the 911 call. They figure that Trent abducted Hanna and she escaped, and then faked his name on the bank account to set him up with the drug traffickers to get her revenge. Carter says that they have to handle it the right way and call in Sherriff Landry.
Finch tells Weeks that he knows he tried to hack the Machine and assures him that Root won't get to the Machine through him. Weeks points out that Root will get it from him and tells Finch to push a nearby knife to him. Finch manages to tilt the table onto the floor, dropping the knife onto the floor near Weeks. He gets it and starts to cut himself loose while Root returns with the car and comes inside. Weeks jumps her and beats her unconscious until Finch tells him to stop.
After calling in Landry to arrest Barbara, Reese and Carter search Barbara's house. They find sixteen hidden copies of Flowers for Algernon, the book that Hanna checked out the night that she disappeared. Barbara says that someone mails a book every year on the date that Hanna disappeared. Reese finds a Seattle receipt in the most recent book and tells Carter to stay there while he checks it out.
Weeks tells Finch that he's going to bring in experts to interrogate Root. He tells Finch that he'll let him go but first asks if it can be accessed. Finch finally tells him that no one can alter the programming without physically accessing the hidden Machine. Satisfied, Weeks tells him that it's been an honor to meet him, points Root's gun at him, and pulls the trigger. However, the gun is unloaded and Root tases Weeks unconscious. Once he goes down, Root tells Harold that Weeks is bad code.
Carter and Landry play back the 911 call for Barbara, and they realize that she knows who it was. Barbara identifies it as Hanna's friend Samantha Groves, who was at the library the night that Hanna disappeared. Sam was 12 and lived outside of town with her mother, who was sick. When they wonder how Barbara is sure, Barbara admits that Sam told her the same thing that she reported to 911. She also saw Trent in the car and Barbara convinced her that she was a brat lying to get attention and told her to keep her mouth shut. Barbara did it because she was in love with Trent and couldn't believe he did it. Carter asks what she believes now and Barbara looks out at the patio. She tells Carter that Trent redid it two weeks after Hanna disappeared.
The police dig up the patio and find a buried backpack. The book that Hanna checked out is inside.
Reese confirms that the credit card used to buy the most recent copy of Flowers for Algernon was just used to buy gas in Relton, Maryland, and figures that's where Root can be found.
Finch realizes that Root planned the whole thing, and she points out that he gave the Machine to violent and predictable people. She insists that she's the best partner that Finch will have but he says that he will never cooperate with her.
When Carter comes back to the motel, Reese tells her that he has to go and explains that he knows where Hanna is. However, Carter tells him that Hanna is the one who was buried beneath the patio. She shows Reese a photo of Sam Groves and explains that Sam's mother died ten years ago. She left town and they figure that Sam is Root.
April 15, 1991
As Hannah checks out some books, Sam expertly plays the game "Oregon Trail". She then witnesses Hannah get into the car or Trent Russell and they drive away.
Root returns and gives Finch a sedative. She gets a phone alert from the bank and suspects that Reese is tracing her purchase and wonders if the Machine is helping him. Root then gets out a wheelchair and tells Finch that they'll be taking a train trip. She then asks Weeks where the Machine is, unaware that the drugged Finch is dialing a number on her cell phone. When Root threatens to shoot him, Weeks tells her that it was transferred on a train bound for Salt Lake City and warns her that she has no idea who she is dealing with. Root shoots him dead, goes to Finch, and tells him that she disconnected the phone. However, she doesn't notice that Finch has dropped one of his cuff links on the carpet.
Reese finds Finch's cufflink. He checks the cell phone and discovers that Finch entered a tap code. He translates it and realizes that Finch said that he's at the train station.Reese manages to save Finch from Root, but she slips away in the chaos.
That night, Carter comes back and Fusco confirms that they got Finch back. She offers to buy him a drink, and he accepts.
Finch goes back to the Library with Reese and realizes that they now have a dog. He tells Reese that he owes him a debt, just as Reese gets a call. It's Root, who thanks him for finding Hanna and giving her a proper burial. She promises that she won't forget, and Reese tells her that if she comes at them again she'll be sorry. Undeterred, Root tells him to tell Finch that she'll be coming for him when the time is right.
April 15, 1991
Sam easily wins the game "Oregon Trail" and signs the high score with her new pseudonym: Root.
Points of Interest
Root's original identity is revealed.
Oregon Trail was developed for the Minnesota Education Computing Consortium (MECC), and used by elementary schools in the early days of home computing to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. Later, it was marketed to home users by Broderbund Software, which ceased updating the software when it was absorbed by Scholastic Books. More modern versions of the program eventually returned to the market across multiple platforms when The Learning Company bought Scholastic's software rights.
In the previous episode, the Machine assigned Root a yellow box. During this episode, the Machine changes Root's box to red, indicating she represents an immediate threat.
The Bishop, TX segments were filmed in Congers, NY.
Jonathan Nolan's wife suggested Amy Acker for the role of Root, as she was a big fan of Acker's from Angel. She noted that Acker can appear innocent, and at the same time be very slippery, which showed great depth as an actor.
In the last shot, Root's hair is back to her natural blond color to identify her with her childhood picture.
The local bar where Reese finds Cody is called The Razorback. There is a 1984 Ozsploitation film by that name about a killer boar.
This is the second time where The Machine gave the number of an "Presumed Dead" person. The first time was s1 e2 Ghosts.
One the bank accounts listed names was Von Neumann that Reese traces the purchase of copies of the book Flowers for Algernon . John Von Neumann a Hungarian American mathematician best known for his work in the early development of computers and quantum physics .
Amy Acker holds up a red apple and twirls it at one point. This is an homage to the fact that she was concurrently starring as the Fairy Nova on Once Upon a Time.
n this episode, Root, as a child, beats the actual world record for Oregon Trail by a factor of two: she scores 17650, whereas the current world record is 8547.
Margo Martindale would portray herself on the show Bojack Horseman where she often refers to herself as "Character Actress Margo Martindale." She appears in all 6 seasons of the show.
Flashback to April 15, 1991, and a girl calls 911 about Hanna Frey, a girl who has gone missing from Bishop, Texas.
Twenty-four hours after Root abducted Finch, Reese calls Carter and Fusco and invites them for drinks at 8 a.m. Carter has checked on the SSN that The Machine gave Reese and learned that Hanna Frey disappeared in 1991 in Bishop, Texas after leaving the library. She'd be 35, the same age as Root, and Carter hasn't turned up anything else. When Carter wants to know where Reese is getting his info, he says that he can't tell her but figures that finding Hanna will lead them to Finch. He asks Fusco to take care of Bear.
Reese and Carter fly into Texas and check into a motel in Bishop. They go to the local police station and Reese waits in the car and listens in as Carter talks to Sheriff Landry. She claims she has a missing person case in New York but can't share the name, and Landry refuses to cooperate without it.
Reese, however, manages to steal the file on Hanna Frey that mentions the 911 call and a report on a license plate that didn't check out. Carter figures they need to start from the beginning and talk to the last person who saw Hanna. Reese suspects that Hanna became Root.
In Relton, Maryland, Root tells a tied-up Finch that humanity has become rotten and that she has brought him there to show him the bad code. She points out that even though he created an artificial intelligence, he lives in anonymity and fear, and blames him for selling the Machine to the wrong people. Root then reveals Weeks, tied up, and explains that either Finch or Weeks will walk out of there with her.
Reese and Carter talk to Barbara Russell (played by Margo Martindale) the librarian who was present when Hanna was kidnapped, who says Hanna was usually on the computers and played the games.
April 15, 1991
Hanna struggles to beat the game "Oregon Trail" as the library prepares to close. Her friend Sam teases her about the game while a young Cody Grayson sneaks a peek at her. She checks out a few books and leaves while Barbara discusses the new Steven King book with Trent.
Barbara says that she gave a list of everyone there that night to the police. Hanna checked out a couple of books and left alone. That was the last that anyone saw her. Reese and Carter confirm that Hanna's mother died a few years ago and go to see Hanna's father Brian Frey. He figures that a fellow student, Cody Grayson, killed Hanna. Mr. Frey and his brother interrogated Cody a few weeks later but he claimed that Hanna ran away to get away from her abusive father. Now Cody spends most of his time getting drunk at a local bar.
Carter asks if Mr. Frey has ever heard from his daughter, and he says that she gets credit card junk mail a couple of times a year even though she never had a credit card or bank account. Mr. Frey tells Carter that she can find the most recent ones in the trash. Carter goes through the trash and finds the mail Mr Frey mentioned.
Reese goes to the ar and finds Cody, but discovers he is innocent despite being persecuted by the town for being responsible for Hanna's disappearance. Carter pulls up and tells Reese that she ran a credit check and discovered that someone opened a bank account in Hanna's name two years after she disappeared.
Root keeps Denton Weeks tied up using the Palestinian hanging technique that he authorized for the DoD. Weeks claims that he has no idea what she's talking about. Later, Root lets Weeks down only to dose him with sodium pentothal. Root leaves the two alone as she runs errand assuring Weeks he'll spill whatever info she needs when she returns.
Finch tells her to make it stop,Back at the motel, Carter tracks the bank account to Lafayette. Someone put $100,000 into the account in 1993 and Hanna withdrew it as cash over the next few weeks. It came from Jose Barilla, serving 17 life sentences for drug trafficking and murder. Hanna withdrew it from his account after hacking the computers. The co-signatory on the account is Trent Russell, who lives in Bishop and was in the library the night that Hanna disappeared.
Reese and Carter go to Trent's house and discover that Barbara lives there. She explains that she's Trent's widow and that he died 15 years ago. Barbara invites them in and explains that they met at the library and he was a member of the book club. He was shot by drug traffickers, and Barbara insists that he had nothing to do with them. She also tells them that Trent knew nothing about Hanna. Carter shows her the bank account statement, and Barbara asks them to leave. They ignore her and search the house and garage. The license plates on the car is one digit off from the one reported on the 911 call. They figure that Trent abducted Hanna and she escaped, and then faked his name on the bank account to set him up with the drug traffickers to get her revenge. Carter says that they have to handle it the right way and call in Sherriff Landry.
Finch tells Weeks that he knows he tried to hack the Machine and assures him that Root won't get to the Machine through him. Weeks points out that Root will get it from him and tells Finch to push a nearby knife to him. Finch manages to tilt the table onto the floor, dropping the knife onto the floor near Weeks. He gets it and starts to cut himself loose while Root returns with the car and comes inside. Weeks jumps her and beats her unconscious until Finch tells him to stop.
After calling in Landry to arrest Barbara, Reese and Carter search Barbara's house. They find sixteen hidden copies of Flowers for Algernon, the book that Hanna checked out the night that she disappeared. Barbara says that someone mails a book every year on the date that Hanna disappeared. Reese finds a Seattle receipt in the most recent book and tells Carter to stay there while he checks it out.
Weeks tells Finch that he's going to bring in experts to interrogate Root. He tells Finch that he'll let him go but first asks if it can be accessed. Finch finally tells him that no one can alter the programming without physically accessing the hidden Machine. Satisfied, Weeks tells him that it's been an honor to meet him, points Root's gun at him, and pulls the trigger. However, the gun is unloaded and Root tases Weeks unconscious. Once he goes down, Root tells Harold that Weeks is bad code.
Carter and Landry play back the 911 call for Barbara, and they realize that she knows who it was. Barbara identifies it as Hanna's friend Samantha Groves, who was at the library the night that Hanna disappeared. Sam was 12 and lived outside of town with her mother, who was sick. When they wonder how Barbara is sure, Barbara admits that Sam told her the same thing that she reported to 911. She also saw Trent in the car and Barbara convinced her that she was a brat lying to get attention and told her to keep her mouth shut. Barbara did it because she was in love with Trent and couldn't believe he did it. Carter asks what she believes now and Barbara looks out at the patio. She tells Carter that Trent redid it two weeks after Hanna disappeared.
The police dig up the patio and find a buried backpack. The book that Hanna checked out is inside.
Reese confirms that the credit card used to buy the most recent copy of Flowers for Algernon was just used to buy gas in Relton, Maryland, and figures that's where Root can be found.
Finch realizes that Root planned the whole thing, and she points out that he gave the Machine to violent and predictable people. She insists that she's the best partner that Finch will have but he says that he will never cooperate with her.
When Carter comes back to the motel, Reese tells her that he has to go and explains that he knows where Hanna is. However, Carter tells him that Hanna is the one who was buried beneath the patio. She shows Reese a photo of Sam Groves and explains that Sam's mother died ten years ago. She left town and they figure that Sam is Root.
April 15, 1991
As Hannah checks out some books, Sam expertly plays the game "Oregon Trail". She then witnesses Hannah get into the car or Trent Russell and they drive away.
Root returns and gives Finch a sedative. She gets a phone alert from the bank and suspects that Reese is tracing her purchase and wonders if the Machine is helping him. Root then gets out a wheelchair and tells Finch that they'll be taking a train trip. She then asks Weeks where the Machine is, unaware that the drugged Finch is dialing a number on her cell phone. When Root threatens to shoot him, Weeks tells her that it was transferred on a train bound for Salt Lake City and warns her that she has no idea who she is dealing with. Root shoots him dead, goes to Finch, and tells him that she disconnected the phone. However, she doesn't notice that Finch has dropped one of his cuff links on the carpet.
Reese finds Finch's cufflink. He checks the cell phone and discovers that Finch entered a tap code. He translates it and realizes that Finch said that he's at the train station.Reese manages to save Finch from Root, but she slips away in the chaos.
That night, Carter comes back and Fusco confirms that they got Finch back. She offers to buy him a drink, and he accepts.
Finch goes back to the Library with Reese and realizes that they now have a dog. He tells Reese that he owes him a debt, just as Reese gets a call. It's Root, who thanks him for finding Hanna and giving her a proper burial. She promises that she won't forget, and Reese tells her that if she comes at them again she'll be sorry. Undeterred, Root tells him to tell Finch that she'll be coming for him when the time is right.
April 15, 1991
Sam easily wins the game "Oregon Trail" and signs the high score with her new pseudonym: Root.
Points of Interest
Root's original identity is revealed.
Oregon Trail was developed for the Minnesota Education Computing Consortium (MECC), and used by elementary schools in the early days of home computing to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. Later, it was marketed to home users by Broderbund Software, which ceased updating the software when it was absorbed by Scholastic Books. More modern versions of the program eventually returned to the market across multiple platforms when The Learning Company bought Scholastic's software rights.
In the previous episode, the Machine assigned Root a yellow box. During this episode, the Machine changes Root's box to red, indicating she represents an immediate threat.
The Bishop, TX segments were filmed in Congers, NY.
Jonathan Nolan's wife suggested Amy Acker for the role of Root, as she was a big fan of Acker's from Angel. She noted that Acker can appear innocent, and at the same time be very slippery, which showed great depth as an actor.
In the last shot, Root's hair is back to her natural blond color to identify her with her childhood picture.
The local bar where Reese finds Cody is called The Razorback. There is a 1984 Ozsploitation film by that name about a killer boar.
This is the second time where The Machine gave the number of an "Presumed Dead" person. The first time was s1 e2 Ghosts.
One the bank accounts listed names was Von Neumann that Reese traces the purchase of copies of the book Flowers for Algernon . John Von Neumann a Hungarian American mathematician best known for his work in the early development of computers and quantum physics .
Amy Acker holds up a red apple and twirls it at one point. This is an homage to the fact that she was concurrently starring as the Fairy Nova on Once Upon a Time.
n this episode, Root, as a child, beats the actual world record for Oregon Trail by a factor of two: she scores 17650, whereas the current world record is 8547.
Margo Martindale would portray herself on the show Bojack Horseman where she often refers to herself as "Character Actress Margo Martindale." She appears in all 6 seasons of the show.
The twist that it was *not* Hanna was well-played but also quite sad: Hanna was just another abducted and murdered teen.
I am still rather fuzzy on Root's motives: what does she actually want here? In S2E1 she says she wants to set the Machine free: but why? Does she have sympathy for the Machine -- "you created an intelligence, a life, and then you ripped out its voice, locked it in a cage, and handed it over to the most laughably corrupt people imaginable." -- or is the "bad code" stuff more of a nihilist "humans are done, let the machines take over" thing? Can't imagine the show's done with Root so I guess we find out more later.
The Root/Finch cat and mouse game is good, but also notable: Root hugely under-estimates Reese, who finds them through a combination of methodical follow-the-connections work and because their close relationship allows Finch to leave a cipher clue and trust that Reese will spot it.
The dropped cufflink -- very much a "not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall" thing but also: am I remembering right that we've seen those cufflinks before? ISTR there's a scene in one of the S1 episodes in which Finch lends them to Reese; not finding it in a casual search thru the S1 transcripts though.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:53 PM on December 8
I am still rather fuzzy on Root's motives: what does she actually want here? In S2E1 she says she wants to set the Machine free: but why? Does she have sympathy for the Machine -- "you created an intelligence, a life, and then you ripped out its voice, locked it in a cage, and handed it over to the most laughably corrupt people imaginable." -- or is the "bad code" stuff more of a nihilist "humans are done, let the machines take over" thing? Can't imagine the show's done with Root so I guess we find out more later.
The Root/Finch cat and mouse game is good, but also notable: Root hugely under-estimates Reese, who finds them through a combination of methodical follow-the-connections work and because their close relationship allows Finch to leave a cipher clue and trust that Reese will spot it.
The dropped cufflink -- very much a "not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall" thing but also: am I remembering right that we've seen those cufflinks before? ISTR there's a scene in one of the S1 episodes in which Finch lends them to Reese; not finding it in a casual search thru the S1 transcripts though.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 2:53 PM on December 8
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