pofinterest_chat | Episode Discussion 3x05

Oh my gooooodddd I wanted to strangle Harold so bad this ep. At least it seemed like they finally settled it there, at the end? Sorta? Idk. It's so hard to tell with the two of them. Hopefully we will be done with his bullshit nannying, though.

CARTER IS THE MOST BADASS I FUCKING LOVE HER OMG. I'd seen gifsets of that scene but actually watching it was auuuugh, perfection. CAAAARTER. <3

I am glad that they avoided the "something terrible happened to make her like this!" trope, and also that someone called Shaw on the whole "having ASPD means you don't have any feelings besides anger" thing, even if that someone was a little girl, lol. Because no, that's not what that means. At all.

WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SHOOT SIMMONS, JOHN. COME ON.

THAT. FUCKING. ENDING. Just.

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YES.

Overall, quite pleased. It definitely picked up this ep.

Edited 2013-10-23 03:17 (UTC)

I am glad that they avoided the "something terrible happened to make her like this!" trope
Me. Too.
I was a little skeptical of how they were handling her with the car crash, but you know? I kinda dig what they did with Shaw this episode (at least post Jen "hug" which requires quotes and is perfect).... Which is a new and wonderful thing to be able to say!

THAT ENDING.
YES.

Harold just. He needs to STOP. This is perfectly awful of him, and I hope he's finally gotten it through his head that she knows and is good at what she does. I hope that little bit at the very end about, "On the contrary, Ms. Shaw, I think you finally got the job," means he'll get the fuck over it.

BUT OMG. HAROLD HAS A WARD.

I really, really loved Shaw throughout, and I loved how she was with Jen. Jen seems like a great kid; I hope we see her again. John and Harold both bugged me, Harold especially.

I love that Carter was onto the rookie the whole time, and I love that she turned the tables. I wonder if she planned it from the time she took the Jersey-licensed gun from him.

AND THE END. OMG.

Can the rest of the season be this good, plz?

I'm rewatching it now (fic purposes), and Finch's whole, "Not to be a stickler for etiquette..." and, "Your bedside manner still leaves a little to be desired," to Shaw really piss me off. He never once said a THING like that to Reese, not even when Reese looked like he wanted to set FINCH on fire. And then the tea thing--most awkward hitting on anyone ever. He does look really down when she shoots him down, but what did he expect? That he could be an asshole to her and she'd be all sunshine and roses over being invited to have tea with him? She's not REESE.

I love that Carter is after HR on her own, slowly gathering evidence. I wish she could have done it without Finch and Reese knowing/interfering, though.

I love how put out Finch is whenever someone doesn't have much of a digital footprint. It's great.

I adore that Jen locks her bedroom door. DOES NOT trust that cousin of hers.

HAROLD. STOP WITH THE SHIT LIKE, "Perhaps if Ms. Shaw had been a touch more solicitous..." John would have done the EXACT SAME THING as she did, and Harold would have said JACK about it. And then going on about how Shaw's going to terrify Jen doesn't seem like she scares easy, and John would probably scare her if she DID, so...

I like kid!Sam. She cares if her dad's okay, clearly; she's not a robot.

John's "on his way" involves walking AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE, apparently. And lol at Jen thinking Sam is a robot. Also love Sam's emphatic, "No," when Jen asks if John is her boyfriend.

HAROLD. WHY DO YOU STAND EVERY TIME SOMETHING HAPPENS? And if Sam DOESN'T take these guys out, then something WILL happen to Jen. Also he is not the one trained in tactics, she is. (Well, so is John, but he has no input here.)

Soooo they've been in the building for a while. They didn't leave a trail of footprints. So where did that ONE FOOTPRINT outside the grate come from?

Sociopaths are not emotionless robots. They are not Daleks. They have emotions; they're often extremely muted, but they're there. It's a lack of innate conscience that defines them. Shaw cares--we saw that with Cole. She also feels a clear sense of responsibility toward Jen. She might have ASPD, but she's not a robot.

Just noticed this, but... why does it look like the accident that killed Sam's father happened in a parking lot?

Sam ALSO clearly cares for Jen--she corrected Harold about her name. If she didn't care for her, she wouldn't care what Harold called her.

How the fuck can Bear tell whose blood it is.

Man, Carter looks nice in that jacket.

Can't say I feel too bad for Jen's cousin getting shot by Sam. Had it coming.

Simmons, you are scum. Holding a little girl prisoner.

Dude. Firefighter. Ickle!Sam's, like, eight. She's not four. She knows what death is (as she shortly makes clear). Don't blame him for being freaked out by her asking for a sandwich, though.

Harold. Stop being so paternalistic. She can make up her own damn mind about seeing the doctor and when.

... What kind of dealers would stop selling ALL drugs EXCEPT bath salts? That's a market ripe for Elias' picking if it happens. It's just STUPID.

I fucking love that Yogorav ran from a woman HOLDING SYRINGES. Amazing. And forever love that the Russians have standards and wouldn't kill a kid, but the cops would. Man, the NYPD must hate this show.

I love that we know Shaw's blood type. Just waiting for it to come up in fic.

Harold, if you hadn't pissed Sam off so much in the past--micromanaging, criticizing, overreacting--maybe she'd be less demanding about getting those tapes. Even if she did eventually go his way on it.

... John, how the hell did Simmons get behind you during that fight?

Lol, the way Harold said he knows "enough" chemistry.

Laskey, why'd you have to be an asshole? Albeit an asshole now owned by Carter.

I love, so very much, that Sam brought Jen to her new school, and Jen got her, and the HUG. Though I'm not 100% sure I like Harold's, "You finally got the job." Do love that he can't find Sam's bug, though! And I seriously love that Jen is Harold's ward, more than I can say.

And, once again, THE END.

Okay, sorry, had to recap as I rewatched. GAH, so much love.

XD I like your thoughts. Finch is a snippy little bastard towards Shaw, there's no denying it. But I'm really hoping that's mostly done with now.

ME's delivery on that "enough" line just about had me dying.
XDDD

Laskey, why'd you have to be an asshole? Albeit an asshole now owned by Carter.
I'm soooo excited to see her using him. So excited. She's now operating at a Reese-like level. It's gonna be fantasticcccc. I do hope that Laskey can maybe end up like Fusco...

And I seriously love that Jen is Harold's ward, more than I can say.
HOLY JESUS IKR.
I WANT ALL THE FIC. STAT.

Edited 2013-10-24 02:21 (UTC)

I rolled my eyes so hard at the tea set -- and then it set in motion a train of thought that actually made me understand Harold's behaviour towards Shaw a bit better. Because he's our resident genius, I keep forgetting his self-assessment that he is not good at human interaction and that people are a mystery to him, except Grace. And except John.
The main difference between John and Shaw is that Harold knows how John ticks and therefore trusts him, while he doesn't understand Shaw at all, and so they both grow increasingly frustrated with each other. He's also disconcerted by her, symbolized by the way she repeatedly sneaks up on him in his sanctuary. When Judge Gates thanks John in Judgement, John ends up thanking Harold for giving him a job/purpose. One of the first things Harold says to John is that he believes that all John ever wanted to do is save people, being there in time is his selling point for getting John on board. Shaw walks away in the middle of someone thanking her, and in Harold's perception she doesn't care about the number, or a purpose, and so he has no idea if he can trust her, and what her priorities are. Without that, he sees an uncontrollable risk, and being completely at sea with so many things this season, he ends up being a micromanaging idiot with her. Michael Emerson said something about how Harold just has to roll with it this season, because so many things are beyond his control now, and that really isn't something that comes naturally to him.

Yes! This is it; Harold is at sea, and floating familiar objects in front of him trying to get his bearings. And I can see, that after John, Shaw would confuse him - it's not that John and Shaw don't have much in common, including some of their tactics, but John is all about feelings (gratitude, guilt, love, fury) and whatever emotions Shaw is feeling are muted and suppressed and unreadable.

I'm also wondering if a) Harold overheard her talking to Gen and made some deductions (I can see him sitting there googling personality disorders (and getting sidetracked when he recognizes himself and John in some of the descriptions)), b) part of his worry about Shaw is that he fears she's affecting John's behavior.

OMG yes, I so much love your and

felis's thoughts on this.

It's kind of funny, because it's not like Finch was the touchy-feeliest guy when he hired Reese, but... maybe that's part of why he does value emotion so much now. Does he mistrust the coolheaded weighing of risk and reward that led him to dismiss the irrelevant numbers and Ingram's interest in them? Viewed in that light, Shaw really might have frightened him, as someone who embodied not only Reese's worst potential, but his own as well.

Yes. Yes.

Also, people like Finch who have trouble with human interaction lean heavily on the rituals of polite behavior to get by, and his civilized edge is well-polished (and well-dressed) - and that's not the angle at which Shaw goes at life, at all. He can probably see that he has things in common with her, but it's perplexing that their responses are so different.

I still think they belabored the point excessively, but I can understand what they were getting at.

I can see all this, but then... why recruit her in the first place? And, if his discomfort continued to such a degree, why keep contacting her? He didn't have to. It was made clear, very fast, that he had no control over her, so it's not as though she was going to consult him before potentially causing mayhem.

Really, I lean toward "he's attracted to her and has no clue how to deal, and also she scares him" to explain the first four and three-fourths episodes.

Well, he didn't control her, no, and his awareness of that fact was clearly acute. But her use of force wasn't actually that different from Reese's -- it's her attitude about it that made Finch so uncomfortable. So from a harm mitigation standpoint, continuing to work with her made sense: it was what she might do that was really frightening, and if he cut her loose, he wouldn't only lose all hope of influencing her actions, he'd also lose his best chance at having any idea what she was up to.

Like, it's one thing to send Leon Tao or that guy from "No Good Deed" out into the world with the advice to keep their heads down, but Shaw is like Corwin and Stanton combined into one terrifying package, and she knows everything; if she can't be trusted, she's a tremendous liability, and the danger only increases with distance. Keep your friends close and your unnervingly self-contained retired assassins closer, right?

So... *shrug* To me it makes sense. It's hard to say no to the idea of Finch completely failing to cope with the world's most inconvenient crush, though, so, I mean, I'm not arguing there! *g*

Viewed in that light, Shaw really might have frightened him, as someone who embodied not only Reese's worst potential, but his own as well.

Oooh, man, I really like this idea! That's an amazing way to look at it.

(For me, my problem isn't with Harold being at sea or being an asshole because of that; it's the show narratively treating it like it's justified or okay. Which it isn't. I think they could've shown that better. But at least headcanons like this help!)

Yeah. I feel like there's this creepy thing with female characters where there are the ones that are essentially non-violent, and there are the ones that are portrayed as hyper-violent, but then there are weirdly few that fall between. And like, fortunately on Person of Interest we've always had Carter occupying that middle ground, but she should never have been alone there. I mean, not unless they were going to divide up the male characters the same way.

Your post was very very entertaining. You expressed thoughts I didn't even know I had. :). Thanks for posting.

Asdfghjkl this episode!

Shaw makes sense again! Shaw is beyond epic! CARTER IS TAKING HR DOWN SINGLE-HANDEDLY, BUT SHE WILL CALL REESE IF SHE NEEDS HELP! Oh my gosh, I love them infinitely.

I love Reese having beers (or whatever) with Carter and being spy twins with Shaw and worrying about her; I love Finch directing Shaw to the doctor who stitched Reese up after "Number Crunch" -- right? -- and finally, finally warming to her at the end; I love Carter's poor awful HR partner being so terrified and out of his depth that she might actually be able to turn him around.

I love the way Shaw gives hugs like there's only so much you can learn about the technique through a sniper scope.

Maybe it's weird that this stood out to me in an episode of serious ethical violations (OMG, noncon blood transfusion!) and general mayhem, but I really disliked Reese's "nitroglycerin" interrogation; apart from my general distaste for threatening people with traumatic dismemberment, it seemed both unnecessary and mean-spirited to use the tremor in his hands the way Reese did, IDK.

But here's something I'm kind of giddy about: Sameen. Shaw's given name is Sameen. I think I need to edit some of my tags on Tumblr.

I may try to post something coherent later (for now just YAY OH YES YES SHOW IS BACK), but... Shaw's name. So... did she actually use "Samantha" on the show, or were we all just assuming from "Sam"? I can't remember, and I don't have time to check now. And is this a switcheroo based on fans saying "why are there two Samanthas?" or did they plan it from the beginning?

Also, your description of Shaw's hugs is so perfect. :)

~~SHAW~~ SHOW IS BACK!

I was wondering the exact same thing last night!, and I actually can't remember. I know someone called her 'Sam'--Cole or Root, or both?--but would have to rewatch Relevance to know about the full name. Which isn't exactly a hardship, but I don't know when I'll have the chance.

See, I thought the "two Samanthas" thing was intentional--a contrast between Shaw and Root, the ways they're similar and different. It still works with her name being Sameen (I'm 99.9% sure someone called her "Sam"), since kid!Root was called Sam. That said, I like the name Sameen, and I like having a canon name, rather than fans having to go with a presumed full name.

Even if Shaw was called Samantha earlier in the show, it's not necessarily a switcheroo. It's canon that Reese is not Reese's real name and he used it with colleagues and friends for a long time. So it makes sense to me that Shaw would use an alias, too. Actually, thinking about it, why didn't Cole? As an operative, having your real name out there, leading people to your family is a huge weakness. Anyway, Samantha is close enough to Sameen to make it easy ansering to it and, yeah. Watch me handwave.

Yeah, I was thinking it might be an alias - still not sure if it was used on the show, though (I'm pretty sure "Sam" was). However, the showrunners have been not-denying "Samantha" over several interviews, so either they've been keeping this name quiet (likely) or they changed their minds recently.

"Sameen" is uncommon enough that it could direct people to her family if she used it. And you're right about Cole; seems foolish.

Hmm, do you think Cole was ever in the field enough for it to matter? I guess he went out enough to get killed, so it isn't such a stretch to think he could have been made.

As for Shaw, if anyone ever called her Samantha rather than Sam, I haven't been able to find it in transcripts, although that doesn't rule out the possibility that it was shown in writing somewhere. IMDB does have her down as Samantha, but maybe they just assumed along with the rest of us?

Her POI Wiki page now has her as "born Sameen" but still called Samantha, implying that's her alias, though they offer no evidence for the name. I'm going with mass hypnosis.

YES.
Okay actual thoughts (but "yes" is happening on repeat in my brain. Full disclosure. XD)

Double yes with an extra side of yes: Disjointed thoughts

(*) JEN. I actually liked this number! I totally enjoyed watching her on the screen and I was horrified when she got snagged by Simmons. That close up on his face was terrifying. The end, with her as Finch's ward, YES. I'm dying for the fic where Jen takes on their mantle, becomes the Robin to their joint Batman, and she and Shaw take on the world as a Not Quite Mother Daughter Murder/Savior Team while Finch and Reese go play chess with Elias and Scarface and complain about their arthritis.

(*) Shaw! I loved how she was written this time around. It was engaging and a helluva lot less flattened out. I was a little worried about how they were gonna handle her past/flashback, but I kinda dug it. Her interacting with a kid was great. I'm glad we were able to see her not be... nurturing, because that's not the right word. But she cared about Jen. A lot.

(*) CARTER. YES. I JUST. YES. I love how they wrote a) the scene between her and Reese and b) HER FUSCOing ROOKIE. OMG. I was seriously getting concerned the HR/Russians/Elias arc would turn into Reese and Finch swooping in and plucking her from her badass vengeance, but this was perfect. She's capable. But she also knows what a valuable asset Finch and Reese are. And she'll call in their banners when the time comes, but SHE'LL make the call. BEST.
Seriously, Rookie, you never had a fucking chance.
5 to 1 he turns into a redemption character, but gets killed on his path.

I need to re-watch the ep because I was filled mostly with bubbles and not as many deep thoughts, but honestly I really enjoyed this one. It's the first one I'm openly excited about watching again!

Parting thoughts:

ROOOOOOOT AND SHAWWWWWWWW
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Unrelated: Still curious to see when in the season they pull out the Harold flashback.

she and Shaw take on the world as a Not Quite Mother Daughter Murder/Savior Team

Excuse please, Mother/Daughter/Dog. Although Bear will be old enough by then to join in on the arthritis complaining, so puppy.

And ha, I would not take your bet about Laskey, because Redemption Sacrifice is almost certainly his role. They'll make us care about him first too, damn them. (and oh, it's so nice to feel some confidence in that again)

First post here! I really loved this episode and this is the first time in a long while that Shaw felt like the Shaw we met in Relevance. I liked we get to see other facets of Shaw but somehow along the way they seemed to have lost what the character was about until this episode.

I'm also happy that her name is 'Sameen' that sounds like they're using Shahi's Half-Iranian heritage (just like in Life!). According to Google Sameen means 'Precious' and 'Loyal'. Someone in Tumblr also pointed out the value of names, Genrika wanted to be addressed as Gen and Sam Shaw became defensive when Finch called Gen Genrika.

I also have some half form thoughts about Shaw and loyalty, and the precious few she gives it too.

But also, I wanted to say: How badass was Carter? Pretty damned badass! I really love Carter striking out on her own and being awesome.

I'm also happy that her name is 'Sameen' that sounds like they're using Shahi's Half-Iranian heritage

Yes, I'm so happy they aren't erasing that. And I love the thought that when she insists on calling Gen just that, it's a sign not only of caring, but also of respect -- Gen deserves to be called what Gen wants to be called.

Carter is all the badass! I was a little worried that with two new female regulars, she might get shunted to the side, but instead, she just keeps getting more awesome. I love that she's doing her own thing now, not just running errands for Finch and Reese.

Episode Discussion 3x05

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