Person of Interest: Trojan Horse
December 24, 2024 8:13 AM - Season 2, Episode 19 - Subscribe
When the number of a leading tech executive comes up, Finch infiltrates her corporation to gather intel, but can't determine whether she is working in her company's best interest or planning to destroy it from the inside. Meanwhile, Carter continues to question Cal Beecher's character.
Finch and Elias are playing chess with each other. Elias communicates with Finch through the chess pieces what his plans are. Finch observes that the deaths of Detective Bill Szymanski and Assistant District Attorney Melinda Wright benefited his enemy, Peter Yogorov, and that a number of his associates inside have recently been transferred out of Rikers. Finch asks who he is playing against, and Elias points to Finch's King on the chess board and says he's playing against someone he hasn't identified, but would very much like to. Elias says he still has a few moves left. After he leaves the cell, Finch receives a call with a new number.
Monica Jacobs, senior VP of strategies and systems at Rylatech. Finch poses as an IT manager and enters the Rylatech building to spy on her. When he Bluejacks her phone, she walks over and talks to him about the new equipment he is holding, and is amazed at his knowledge of it. Afterward, a meeting takes place between the executives of Rylatech and a VP wondering why he should use their product.
Over at the 8th, Carter is talking to Detective Terney about Detective Symanski's homicide, and he says that they do not yet have a trail as to who did it. Finch then calls Carter and offers his condolences on Szymanski's death, when Cal Beecher comes and tries to talk to her, but she says that until he gives the name of the CI that framed Szymanski and later got him killed, they are not talking. She then asks Fusco to look into Beecher to see if he knowingly set up Szymanski to be killed.
That night, Finch is still in the building watching Monica while talking to Reese on the phone. She gets up to leave, and Finch follows her as she enters the R&D storage room, going out of her way to avoid Rylatech's security guards. She then starts copying files from a certain laptop onto a flash drive and leaves. Finch wonders why she would be stealing files, and Reese says that the CIA taught him that the best spy was the one you would least expect.
Shaw then appears behind Reese holding him at gunpoint, forcing Reese to hang up. He says he thought he would find Shaw here. The people they are spying on are Cole's parents. He says that he knows the government framed Cole as a domestic terrorist, and he knew Shaw would come to set the record straight. However, Reese also knows that Shaw will not actually go and talk to Cole's parents, as the government may kill them too. Shaw tells Reese to get some fresh air somewhere else and departs.
Fusco approaches Beecher in the bathroom and says that by him being quiet, it makes it look like he set Szymanski up to be killed. Beecher retorts that he knows about Fusco's past and that Fusco is being hypocritical to call him dirty. Fusco tells Beecher to stay away from Carter, and Beecher asks what will happen if he doesn't. Fusco just smirks and they glare at each other until Terney enters and asks what's going on. Fusco says that that's a good question and leaves.
Monica leaves the building and talks to Ross Haskell about the recent death of Justin Lee, one of his engineers. She says that something is wrong, because when she sent flowers to his parents, no one by the name of Lee was at his address. She says that everything about Lee from his contact information to his work history was a lie. She thinks he might have been a plant, and Haskell asks for whom, which she says it could be anyone, and hands him the flash drive she used to download Lee's information from the laptop she took, which contains encrypted e-mails that Monica was unable to open. They then depart, and Finch says he needs to see that flash drive, and will have to come up with a reason to get into Haskell's office. But Reese arrives and just pickpockets it from Haskell.
Beecher later meets up with Alonzo Quinn, who was his CI and gave the information about Szymanski. Beecher says he is worried about all the questions about Szymansk, and is getting concerned himself. He asks Quinn where the tip came from, because a dead detective's reputation is on the line. Quinn lies and says the tip came from one of Elias' men.
Back at The Library, Reese says that Monica was not a spy, but was hunting one. Finch says that the threat is most likely coming from whoever Lee was spying for, and says he asked Carter to look into his death. All of the sudden, Finch notices that Monica's phone is being flooded with fake information, and she tries to enter her office, but security will not let her. Rylatech CEO Martin Baxter and Haskell say it looks like she was conducting corporate espionage, and she is fired, effective immediately with civil and criminal charges pending.
Beecher meets with Elias in prison and asks questions while playing chess. Elias says that Szymanski was clean, and Beecher needs to play his next move wisely.
Finch then asks Carter if she has looked into Justin Lee's death, but she says that it was only a simple accident, so she looked into it deeper. She tried to get fingerprints from his body, but someone already took Lee's body and disappeared.
Quinn meets with Simmons who says Beecher is looking for answers, and Quinn says it's a "damn shame," Simmons asks if they should promote him to a desk job somewhere else, but Quinn says that he always told Beecher to be careful because being a policeman is a dangerous job.
When Monica confronts one of her accusers of being a spy on the street, Reese saves her from a sniper who also takes out the accuser who has been compromised.
Finch asks why Shaw is here, and she says that he gave her his number. He says he imagined she would call instead of paying him a visit in person, but says this can work out as well. He says that his offer still stands, but she shows him a news story regarding leaked CIA documents of Michael Cole being an undercover agent uncovering a domestic terrorism plot and hints that Finch hacked the agency and created an employee who previously didn't exist. She then sees a picture of Root, who previously threatened her in a hotel, takes a list of her known aliases and leaves.
Reese and Monica are at a hotel. Reese asks why Lee would be spying on Rylatech, and Monica says their proprietary designs keep them at the forefront of the industry Maybe he was trying to steal or sabotage their work. Finch then arrives at the room, much to Monica's shock, and says they need to get to the bottom of who is trying to kill her. Finch says they needed someone high in the chain of command, and Monica realizes that Haskell was in charge of Lee. She says she should go to the police or the FBI, but Reese and Finch reply that the spies are expecting her to and will destroy incriminating evidence as soon as she does unless they get to it first. They begin to hack into Rylatech. As they continue trying to get pass Ryalatech's firewall, they get hacked and their computer is sabotaged, causing it to overheat and explode. They realize that they need to break into Rylatech and access the servers manually.
They plant Monica's ID card on Bear and let him inside the building. The security guards see that Monica has come back and go after her, only to find Bear, who chases them into a room. Reese and Monica then enter the building, go to the server room, and install a transmitter on the catalog server. Finch then goes through the information and discovers that half of the senior staff are spies. Finch realizes that the spies are not spying on Rylatech, but are using its products to spy on the whole country. The spies become aware of Reese and Monica and attack them. Reese stops them, and they make their way to Haskell's office, only to find him murdered. Baxter, the CEO, appears behind them with a gun, and orders Reese to drop his weapon.
Monica asks Baxter why would he do this, and Martin says that he is only protecting what he built. He says that when the dot com bubble burst, the company went bankrupt, and Rylatech was a perfect takeover company. Reese realizes that Martin sold his country out to save Rylatech. Martin says that the world has changed, that patriotism is an outdated notion, and companies have to look forward to the future by controlling information. He prepares to kill Monica and frame her for Haskell's murder, when Finch calls and says that he has notified the authorities. Greer then calls Baxter and says that the time has come, and that his family will be taken care of. Martin says he understands, and then shoots himself. Finch asks if they are okay, and Reese says they are. When they are about to leave, Reese sees that all the guards are gone. A nearby pay phone then rings near Finch.
Carter asks Fusco what is going on. Fusco shows her a recording he made of Beecher talking to Elias, and says that Beecher was trying to find out what was going on as well, and that he was clean, and HR used him. Carter tries to send the recording to IAB, but Fusco says that it wasn't an approved wiretap and that he only did this so Carter would know the truth about Beecher. He says Carter should stay away from Beecher for her own safety.
Beecher is sitting in his car with his CI, about to make a drug bust. Carter calls him and says they need to meet. A drug dealer snatches Beecher's CI's money and starts running away, and the CI and Beecher chase after him. He finds his CI, who betrays him, and the drug dealers start shooting at Beecher, who calls for backup. Finch calls Carter and tells that Beecher's life is in danger, just before Fusco comes and says that a cop called for help (Beecher). When they arrive, they find Beecher and his CI dead.
The next day, news outlets talk about Martin Baxter and Ross Haskell's death, and that Rylatech's stocks plunged after hearing of spies in the companies ranks. A federal investigation is launched into the company, and it is shut down, and all government technology bought from Rylatech is replaced.
Monica and Finch wish each other the best and depart. Reese says that Finch is going to miss her, but Finch says he would if he had time. He says that when he was looking at Rylatech's information, he saw code signatures similar to that of the virus Kara Stanton uploaded onto the government network. Finch says he decrypted the virus's code and learned 2 things: first, only a fraction of the information made it to the Chinese government, the rest went to another organization. Finch believes they were the ones who sent the final call to Baxter. He dug further but could only find a name: Decima Technologies. Second, Finch says he believes they created the virus to find and infect a single target: The Machine.
Greer, on the phone, says that they unfortunately have to pull up stakes with Rylatech, but as expected, the US is focused totally on China's involvement, and not theirs. He quickly adds that there has been one small wrinkle; the breach of their encrypted network appears to be the work of a single individual, and that Greer will do everything in his power to determine that man's identity, and render him, irrelevant. (He is then shown from a nearby camera with a red box) He says that their larger operation is still on schedule, hangs up, looks at a countdown on his phone, and smiles.
Points of Interest
Sameen Shaw reappears. Her first appearance was in
Finch identifies the virus code as originating with Decima Technologies. Decima is the name of one of the three Fates responsible for the metaphorical thread of life (destiny) in Roman mythology. Decima controls the events and interactions in each life by weaving the thread into a tapestry.
The news article about Monica Jacobs was published by the New York Journal.
This episode has the largest number of embedded code appearances to date, showing the growing effect of the virus in the Machine.
Codes embedded in glitches:
The first code is an excerpt from "Balaam's Second Oracle" in the King James Bible.
The second code is an excerpt from a translated letter from Dr. Wetzel to Hinrich Lohse, the Reich Commissar for the East in 1941, confirming command's decision to use gassing devices in the elimination of all Jews "who are not capable of work".
The third code is an excerpt from "The Prince", a political treatise by Italian diplomat and theorist Niccolò Machiavelli.
The fourth code is an excerpt from "A Retrospective on Counterinsurgency Operations", a CIA report on the Tay Ninh Provincial Reconnaissance Unit and its role in the Phoenix Program from 1969-70.
The fifth code is an excerpt from an Informational Memorandum on the subject of potential threats to Information Management Systems by cyber-terrorists.
The sixth code is an excerpt from The Valley Of Fear, the final Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The seventh code is an excerpt from the Introduction To Codes, Ciphers, & Codebreaking, an article by Greg Goebel on the concepts, terminology and origins of codebreaking.
The eighth code is an excerpt from a version of the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse Sanskrit epic within the Mahabharata.
Finch and Elias are playing chess with each other. Elias communicates with Finch through the chess pieces what his plans are. Finch observes that the deaths of Detective Bill Szymanski and Assistant District Attorney Melinda Wright benefited his enemy, Peter Yogorov, and that a number of his associates inside have recently been transferred out of Rikers. Finch asks who he is playing against, and Elias points to Finch's King on the chess board and says he's playing against someone he hasn't identified, but would very much like to. Elias says he still has a few moves left. After he leaves the cell, Finch receives a call with a new number.
Monica Jacobs, senior VP of strategies and systems at Rylatech. Finch poses as an IT manager and enters the Rylatech building to spy on her. When he Bluejacks her phone, she walks over and talks to him about the new equipment he is holding, and is amazed at his knowledge of it. Afterward, a meeting takes place between the executives of Rylatech and a VP wondering why he should use their product.
Over at the 8th, Carter is talking to Detective Terney about Detective Symanski's homicide, and he says that they do not yet have a trail as to who did it. Finch then calls Carter and offers his condolences on Szymanski's death, when Cal Beecher comes and tries to talk to her, but she says that until he gives the name of the CI that framed Szymanski and later got him killed, they are not talking. She then asks Fusco to look into Beecher to see if he knowingly set up Szymanski to be killed.
That night, Finch is still in the building watching Monica while talking to Reese on the phone. She gets up to leave, and Finch follows her as she enters the R&D storage room, going out of her way to avoid Rylatech's security guards. She then starts copying files from a certain laptop onto a flash drive and leaves. Finch wonders why she would be stealing files, and Reese says that the CIA taught him that the best spy was the one you would least expect.
Shaw then appears behind Reese holding him at gunpoint, forcing Reese to hang up. He says he thought he would find Shaw here. The people they are spying on are Cole's parents. He says that he knows the government framed Cole as a domestic terrorist, and he knew Shaw would come to set the record straight. However, Reese also knows that Shaw will not actually go and talk to Cole's parents, as the government may kill them too. Shaw tells Reese to get some fresh air somewhere else and departs.
Fusco approaches Beecher in the bathroom and says that by him being quiet, it makes it look like he set Szymanski up to be killed. Beecher retorts that he knows about Fusco's past and that Fusco is being hypocritical to call him dirty. Fusco tells Beecher to stay away from Carter, and Beecher asks what will happen if he doesn't. Fusco just smirks and they glare at each other until Terney enters and asks what's going on. Fusco says that that's a good question and leaves.
Monica leaves the building and talks to Ross Haskell about the recent death of Justin Lee, one of his engineers. She says that something is wrong, because when she sent flowers to his parents, no one by the name of Lee was at his address. She says that everything about Lee from his contact information to his work history was a lie. She thinks he might have been a plant, and Haskell asks for whom, which she says it could be anyone, and hands him the flash drive she used to download Lee's information from the laptop she took, which contains encrypted e-mails that Monica was unable to open. They then depart, and Finch says he needs to see that flash drive, and will have to come up with a reason to get into Haskell's office. But Reese arrives and just pickpockets it from Haskell.
Beecher later meets up with Alonzo Quinn, who was his CI and gave the information about Szymanski. Beecher says he is worried about all the questions about Szymansk, and is getting concerned himself. He asks Quinn where the tip came from, because a dead detective's reputation is on the line. Quinn lies and says the tip came from one of Elias' men.
Back at The Library, Reese says that Monica was not a spy, but was hunting one. Finch says that the threat is most likely coming from whoever Lee was spying for, and says he asked Carter to look into his death. All of the sudden, Finch notices that Monica's phone is being flooded with fake information, and she tries to enter her office, but security will not let her. Rylatech CEO Martin Baxter and Haskell say it looks like she was conducting corporate espionage, and she is fired, effective immediately with civil and criminal charges pending.
Beecher meets with Elias in prison and asks questions while playing chess. Elias says that Szymanski was clean, and Beecher needs to play his next move wisely.
Finch then asks Carter if she has looked into Justin Lee's death, but she says that it was only a simple accident, so she looked into it deeper. She tried to get fingerprints from his body, but someone already took Lee's body and disappeared.
Quinn meets with Simmons who says Beecher is looking for answers, and Quinn says it's a "damn shame," Simmons asks if they should promote him to a desk job somewhere else, but Quinn says that he always told Beecher to be careful because being a policeman is a dangerous job.
When Monica confronts one of her accusers of being a spy on the street, Reese saves her from a sniper who also takes out the accuser who has been compromised.
Finch asks why Shaw is here, and she says that he gave her his number. He says he imagined she would call instead of paying him a visit in person, but says this can work out as well. He says that his offer still stands, but she shows him a news story regarding leaked CIA documents of Michael Cole being an undercover agent uncovering a domestic terrorism plot and hints that Finch hacked the agency and created an employee who previously didn't exist. She then sees a picture of Root, who previously threatened her in a hotel, takes a list of her known aliases and leaves.
Reese and Monica are at a hotel. Reese asks why Lee would be spying on Rylatech, and Monica says their proprietary designs keep them at the forefront of the industry Maybe he was trying to steal or sabotage their work. Finch then arrives at the room, much to Monica's shock, and says they need to get to the bottom of who is trying to kill her. Finch says they needed someone high in the chain of command, and Monica realizes that Haskell was in charge of Lee. She says she should go to the police or the FBI, but Reese and Finch reply that the spies are expecting her to and will destroy incriminating evidence as soon as she does unless they get to it first. They begin to hack into Rylatech. As they continue trying to get pass Ryalatech's firewall, they get hacked and their computer is sabotaged, causing it to overheat and explode. They realize that they need to break into Rylatech and access the servers manually.
They plant Monica's ID card on Bear and let him inside the building. The security guards see that Monica has come back and go after her, only to find Bear, who chases them into a room. Reese and Monica then enter the building, go to the server room, and install a transmitter on the catalog server. Finch then goes through the information and discovers that half of the senior staff are spies. Finch realizes that the spies are not spying on Rylatech, but are using its products to spy on the whole country. The spies become aware of Reese and Monica and attack them. Reese stops them, and they make their way to Haskell's office, only to find him murdered. Baxter, the CEO, appears behind them with a gun, and orders Reese to drop his weapon.
Monica asks Baxter why would he do this, and Martin says that he is only protecting what he built. He says that when the dot com bubble burst, the company went bankrupt, and Rylatech was a perfect takeover company. Reese realizes that Martin sold his country out to save Rylatech. Martin says that the world has changed, that patriotism is an outdated notion, and companies have to look forward to the future by controlling information. He prepares to kill Monica and frame her for Haskell's murder, when Finch calls and says that he has notified the authorities. Greer then calls Baxter and says that the time has come, and that his family will be taken care of. Martin says he understands, and then shoots himself. Finch asks if they are okay, and Reese says they are. When they are about to leave, Reese sees that all the guards are gone. A nearby pay phone then rings near Finch.
Carter asks Fusco what is going on. Fusco shows her a recording he made of Beecher talking to Elias, and says that Beecher was trying to find out what was going on as well, and that he was clean, and HR used him. Carter tries to send the recording to IAB, but Fusco says that it wasn't an approved wiretap and that he only did this so Carter would know the truth about Beecher. He says Carter should stay away from Beecher for her own safety.
Beecher is sitting in his car with his CI, about to make a drug bust. Carter calls him and says they need to meet. A drug dealer snatches Beecher's CI's money and starts running away, and the CI and Beecher chase after him. He finds his CI, who betrays him, and the drug dealers start shooting at Beecher, who calls for backup. Finch calls Carter and tells that Beecher's life is in danger, just before Fusco comes and says that a cop called for help (Beecher). When they arrive, they find Beecher and his CI dead.
The next day, news outlets talk about Martin Baxter and Ross Haskell's death, and that Rylatech's stocks plunged after hearing of spies in the companies ranks. A federal investigation is launched into the company, and it is shut down, and all government technology bought from Rylatech is replaced.
Monica and Finch wish each other the best and depart. Reese says that Finch is going to miss her, but Finch says he would if he had time. He says that when he was looking at Rylatech's information, he saw code signatures similar to that of the virus Kara Stanton uploaded onto the government network. Finch says he decrypted the virus's code and learned 2 things: first, only a fraction of the information made it to the Chinese government, the rest went to another organization. Finch believes they were the ones who sent the final call to Baxter. He dug further but could only find a name: Decima Technologies. Second, Finch says he believes they created the virus to find and infect a single target: The Machine.
Greer, on the phone, says that they unfortunately have to pull up stakes with Rylatech, but as expected, the US is focused totally on China's involvement, and not theirs. He quickly adds that there has been one small wrinkle; the breach of their encrypted network appears to be the work of a single individual, and that Greer will do everything in his power to determine that man's identity, and render him, irrelevant. (He is then shown from a nearby camera with a red box) He says that their larger operation is still on schedule, hangs up, looks at a countdown on his phone, and smiles.
Points of Interest
Sameen Shaw reappears. Her first appearance was in
Finch identifies the virus code as originating with Decima Technologies. Decima is the name of one of the three Fates responsible for the metaphorical thread of life (destiny) in Roman mythology. Decima controls the events and interactions in each life by weaving the thread into a tapestry.
The news article about Monica Jacobs was published by the New York Journal.
This episode has the largest number of embedded code appearances to date, showing the growing effect of the virus in the Machine.
Codes embedded in glitches:
The first code is an excerpt from "Balaam's Second Oracle" in the King James Bible.
The second code is an excerpt from a translated letter from Dr. Wetzel to Hinrich Lohse, the Reich Commissar for the East in 1941, confirming command's decision to use gassing devices in the elimination of all Jews "who are not capable of work".
The third code is an excerpt from "The Prince", a political treatise by Italian diplomat and theorist Niccolò Machiavelli.
The fourth code is an excerpt from "A Retrospective on Counterinsurgency Operations", a CIA report on the Tay Ninh Provincial Reconnaissance Unit and its role in the Phoenix Program from 1969-70.
The fifth code is an excerpt from an Informational Memorandum on the subject of potential threats to Information Management Systems by cyber-terrorists.
The sixth code is an excerpt from The Valley Of Fear, the final Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The seventh code is an excerpt from the Introduction To Codes, Ciphers, & Codebreaking, an article by Greg Goebel on the concepts, terminology and origins of codebreaking.
The eighth code is an excerpt from a version of the Bhagavad Gita, a 700-verse Sanskrit epic within the Mahabharata.
I believe the place that Reese took Monica was his own apartment, not a hotel? I think Finch said something like, "Take her to your new accommodations." I don't think it's the same apartment we've seen previously, but presumably Reese changes residences frequently.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:18 PM on December 26
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:18 PM on December 26
Reese still lives in the apartment Finch gifted him in Many Happy Returns (s1 e21).
posted by miss-lapin at 6:10 AM on December 27
posted by miss-lapin at 6:10 AM on December 27
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I was curious about lithium ion battery fires and found a compilation of examples split by categories.
posted by porpoise at 9:54 PM on December 24