- Title: Person of Interest – God Mode
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In the Second Season’s finale control of both The Machine rests in both the hands of Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Root (Amy Acker). To beat Root, who still has Finch (Michael Emerson) captive, to where The Machine is physically stored (which they believe is a secure U.S. Government nuclear site), Reese is forced to tell Shaw (Sarah Shahi) about its existence, make a few pit stops to save the latest people of interest, and do a little digging into Finch’s past and his connection to Nathan Ingram (Brett Cullen)
With his control over The Machine taken away the shadowy Washington insider (Jay O. Sanders) begins his own search for Root who has tracked down the only living engineer (Peter Friedman) from the project which assembled The Machine. After seeing the man gunned down in front of his eyes by Shaw’s former employers, Finch reassess the situation and agrees to take Root to The Machine.
In the episode’s other storyline Carter (Taraji P. Henson) faces pressure from both Internal Affairs and Detective Terney (Al Sapienza) and HR who want her to admit to crime she didn’t commit and stop looking into the murder of Beecher. With Reese and Finch busy, and the lives of her friends and amily threatened, Carter goes out on her own to save their next target from execution – Elias (Enrico Colantoni).
The season comes to a close with flashbacks explaining Finch’s injury, Ingram’s death, and the series of events that forced The Machine’s designer to leave his old life behind and dedicate it to saving as many lives as possible. Root gets her own wish as well as The Machine is loosed from its shackles, although not as she planned. “God Mode” has a nice twist when The Machine is gone before Finch and Root arrive, a process Finch put into place years ago doing exactly what Root wanted: freeing The Machine to look after itself.
As events settle down the show refuses to close the book on either Root or Shaw which means we might be looking forward to more episodes with both Shahi and Acker next season (YAH!). The episode also ends on an ominous note as Hersh (Boris McGiver) scrubs the scene by killing the shadowy Washington insider and the other agents on orders by an equally shadowy woman with plans to reacquire The Machine as soon as possible. We also get final scenes where both John and Root are contacted separately by The Machine, setting up the show’s return for it’s Third Season in the Fall.
