Person of Interest: QSO
May 25, 2016 9:28 AM - Season 5, Episode 7 - Subscribe

After killing a bad guy with toe shoes, Root goes out on a mission to investigate a conspiracy theorist radio show that turns out to be on to something.

Fusco's fine, he's in the hospital, and Root provides him and his son with fake ID's if necessary. Fusco is getting cranky about not being in the know.

Root tries out more identities and outfits--some kind of traffic cop thing(?), ballerina, historical re-enactor, and radio producer--while she investigates how Samaritan is using radio waves--and that a conspiracy theorist radio show host is getting on to this. Unfortunately, the radio host refuses to go on the run or stop talking about The Truth, so he exercised his free will to get killed. Root and Reese are pretty much "well, what can we do, he picked that," but it upsets Finch. She's also begging The Machine to help her find Shaw already, and uses this whole thing to get her a message.

Shaw goes on another "field trip," for real this time, apparently. More attempting at escaping happens.
posted by jenfullmoon (11 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Wait, was the bad guy wearing toe shoes, or did Root kill him with toe shoes?
posted by Naberius at 9:44 AM on May 25, 2016


She choked him with the laces on a pair of toe shoes.

Interesting to see Scott Adsit in a dramatic role.
posted by pmurray63 at 10:12 AM on May 25, 2016


I'm still wondering why Fitch was so upset about that. I've seen it suggested that he knew the primary object here was to find Shaw, and he'd taught the Machine to opt against ever caring about or helping one person above others, or treating some like pawns in a game of chess. Otherwise, why would he expect the radio host to be dragged away, against his will?

Scott Adsit was distracting me for a few minutes, because I kept wondering where I'd seen him, and finally remembered "30 Rock."
posted by raysmj at 10:14 AM on May 25, 2016


My brain somehow classifies Scott Adsit and Enrico Colantoni as basically the same person for no real reason so this episode was a little off-putting in that regard. I agree that Finch being upset they wouldn't force that guy to not take a stand was weird and not really how I saw his character. I guess they needed someone to get upset by it and for some reason they chose him.

Shaw is seriously losing it. Even if she does escape it's clearly going to be A Thing, but at least Root got a message to her. Also, as horrible as it was to shoot that woman, I found Shaw's nonchallant attitude toward killing her just to move things along kind of darkly hilarious.

I also liked the take on how the people who believe in conspiracy theories really just care about their hobby horse conspiracies. Even the radio host wasn't immune to it, he was not at all on-board for the Chinese satellite mind control conspiracy. So of course everyone would just take his information about the signal and tack it onto their own hobby conspiracy. Samaritan doesn't care how ineffectual this is though. He spilled the beans so he had to go. Just further highlights how ruthless Samaritan is.
posted by Green With You at 11:17 AM on May 25, 2016


This episode made me want to go replay Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Shaw not being able to tell what's real anymore and what's a simulation, while completely logical as the next step for Samaritan, was still pretty horrifying to me. Poor Shaw.
posted by mstokes650 at 12:48 PM on May 25, 2016


I loved how Root can come off stage after wowing the audience in Swan Lake, strangle the guy with her toe shoes, kiss off her Russian admirer, and the next scene is her in a mob cap churning butter.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:04 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]


root and outfits. some good tag commentary: # i still can't believe this show had 90 thousand cover IDs for its characters and they send the lead white guy in to be 'stripper security' # while the super conventionally attractive lesbian gets a bear suit and a butter churning outfit # we are blessed.

elsewhere: #did the writers have some kind of competition over who could give root the most ridiculous cover identity this season or

i'm going to miss this show and the things i take for granted. not once did the queer ladies have to be prostitutes and root kicks the shit out of 3 guys who sexually harassed her (that i recall)--the UPS guy, the sheriff at the creepy samaritan-ville, and the prisoner on a prison transport bus.

re: this episode (from the AD)-- Here we go, QSO - female writer, female director, female producer, female editor, female lead, female first ad #PersonOfInterest #toofemale

toe shoes choke!

i also thought finch was weirdly wrong, and the comment that made sense to me was that he was projecting about having to protect fusco for his own good. which, poor fusco. bring everyone back together already! please! there's only a few more eps left :(

"four alarm fire"-- my heart. these writers i swear to fucking god.

i saw another good point that until killing the scientist, while the machine is getting its ass kicked all over trillions of simulations, shaw beat samaritan over 7000 times. so are the simulations taking into account the human element? obviously the machine needs some teeth for an AI fight but the only reason Team Machine has survived this long is because they rely on each other and are willing to sacrifice themselves for each other.

OR everyone dies because the power of friendship doesn't defeat samaritan.
posted by twist my arm at 4:32 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]


shaw beat samaritan over 7000 times
Samaritan v Shaw is a different competition than Machine v Samaritan. Shaw killing herself to avoid giving away the location of Team Machine is different than Machine shutting Samaritan down.
posted by Green With You at 4:49 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]


When Samaritan addresses Root directly, in that weird electronic voice like a 1970s speech synthesiser?

That's the voice of Colossus, from Colossus: The Forbin Project.

I think we are being dropped a very heavy hint about where this is all going.
posted by Major Clanger at 3:28 PM on May 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


That was Jeff Fischer from American Dad as the call-in guy, right?
posted by Servo5678 at 6:55 AM on May 28, 2016


I liked most of this episode but got pissed when Harold said "I'm not sure I am comfortable with all of this." I just wanted Root to grab him and be like "You're NEVER comfortable with this. You have never BEEN comfortable with this. It's not subtle. We know. But right now we don't have the time so please take your discomfort as already known and let's move along, shall we?"
posted by miss-lapin at 11:17 PM on July 19, 2018


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