It almost seems like yesterday that the first season of Person of Interest stopped airing. Perhaps the fact that Person of Interest spanned 23 episodes in its first season while maintaining a very high level of quality that it seems that just a short while ago Finch was kidnapped. The first epsiode of the second season of Perosn of Interest will air next Thursday September 27th.
Now, as for The Contingency, below is the press release…
“The Contingency” – With Finch missing – kidnapped by his hacker nemesis, Root, in last season’s finale cliffhanger – Reese enlists Detectives Carter and Fusco to get his friend back, on the second season première of PERSON OF INTEREST, Thursday, Sept. 27 (9:00 – 10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Meanwhile, The Machine never sleeps, disseminating a new number to Reese. Ken Leung (“Lost”) guest stars as the latest POI, and Amy Acker (“Dollhouse,” “Angel”) reprises her role as Root.
Below is the preview trailer for the première of Person of Interest season 2 – The Contingency.
And here are the still pics for ‘The Contingency’…
The second episode of Person of Interest almost feels like a second pilot for the series. Not only is more background revealed but more questioned are asked, more rules are made (and broken) and the series defiantly declares that its off-beat and won’t use the machine that identifies crimes as a ‘deus ex machina’.
The episode is tightly written, alot happens in the space of 45 minutes and so its going to be a long read to fully understand the plot and even then I would say I left out details for brevity……
Finch as Harold
Reese starts the episode by saving a man from two hitmen after his wife has found he was having an affair. The shooting of the two hitmen alerts detective Carter (Taraji Henson) of Reese’s continuing activity. Finch (michael Emerson) meanwhile contacts Reese saying he has a new social security number of a potential victim, after Reese unsuccessfully tracks Finch they agree to meet at a graveyard where Finch rveals that the number belongs to a supposedly dead girl called Teresa Whitaker who had been murdered along with her parents and brother two years before. Finch and Reese delve into the murky history of her family, they had been in the construction business and the police suspected an murder/suicide by the father because of debts he accumalated during the recession. Reese on the other hand sees a hitman carefully covering his tracks and believes the murder might have something to do with the girls uncle. While Reese tries to track down Teresa Finch interviews the girls aunt who reveals she has split up with her husband.
While this cat and mouse game of finding the girl and her families’ killer ensues we see flashbacks of Finch as he was in 2002, this was the period after 9/11 when he and his partner (played by Brett Cullen, who played Goodwin on lost) built ‘the machine’. At first we see their amazement at how their invention works though its a number of years away from completion. Later on we see desperation as we find that ‘the machine’ also uncovers murder plots but that the government filters out this information. Finch is seen without a limp in his gait and of course this raises the question what happened between him and his partner before the events at the start of the series.
Reese and the Hitman
Meanwhile Reese once again contacts the corrupt cop Fusco who is still bound by extortion with helping Reese, together they find the Killer of the Whitaker family in jail but the man doesn’t know who his contractor was and obviously can’t be the potential killer of Teresa Whitaker. Meanwhile Finch’s cover as an employee at the company he owns allows him to research the whitaker fincial history and he uncovers a relation with Landale Finacials concerning a plot of land. Apparently the land was polluted and thus cheap to buy, after the goverment cleans up the land gives the all important ‘bill of health’ the value would skyrocket 40 to 50 times. However Landale CEO doesn’t want to share and ordered the killing of the Whitaker family. In the meantime Landale finacials has sent another hitman to kill Teresa. At a laundramat Reese tries to convince Teresa to trust but the hitman interferes. In an unsual twist for a tv-series we see the hitman really kick reese’s arse who only manages to escape with Teresa by a close margin. The hitman next tries to extract the location of Teresa by torturing the girls uncle, but he only succeeds in drawing attention from detective Carter by shooting the uncle. However, the hitman manages to locate Teresa by wiretapping her aunt and is determined to kill both her and Finch who was looking after her while Reese was putting the load on the CEO of Landale Finacials. Teresa and Finch manage to keep the hitman busy while reese rushes back to the hotel where they are hiding. In a close call he manages to shoot the hitman before he shoots Finch and Teresa.
Reese taking out the carbage
After the CEO of Landale Financials is arrested we see Reese contacting detective Carter and they arrange a meeting, Reese doesn’t show up but has instead left Teresa there to be picked up, after which finch and Reese watch Carter escort Teresa away they each go their seperate ways. Finch meanwhile is seen quitting his job as ‘Harold the programmer’ as his cover was blown by Reese, it appears he wants to keep his distance from Reese. As finch walkes out of the building we see the camera pan to a memorial of finch’s partner who died in 2010….
Detective Carter
conclusion…
The epsiode is quite gritty, with the major malice that ‘the machine’ uncovers being greed. The hitman in this episode seems to have considerable resources and almost seems to become the better of Finch and Reese and thus echoeing Finch’s warning from the pilot that they probably both would end up dead. Detective Carter’s character still only appears in a few scenes and is as of yet not an engaging part of the plot, the character of detective Fusco is still the same as in the pilot though he alludes that his fellow colleagues suspect him of being corrupt. Fusco as of yet doesn’t know the connection between Reese and Finch and doesn’t even know who Reese really is.
Score; 9/10.
Viewer rating; 12.42 million. Which is very good for the episode after the pilot.
This weeks episode Eureka sees Fargo and Holly making preparations for the trip to Titan, however, due to the level of mutual distraction they keep bungling their tests and deside the best way to keep working together is to ‘to eat their dessert’ which is a pseudonym for getting to third base just in case you were still wondering. However, Fargo, who should be delighted, seems to have second thoughts as he is wary of missing out the steps before eating dessert and sees him apply for advice from non-other than Zane.
Zane meanwhile has been given a repreive of his crimes from senator Wen and canleave Eureka whenever he wants to, but does he? During the last several episode we sam him getting back together with Lupo and suddenly things seems less than clear in this episode despite the two of them ‘eating dessert’ whenever they can.
Henry and Grace have decided to say their weddign vows again, with Lupo given some very odd advice which I havent been able to guess why? Henry is still having some second guesses about the wedding and this weeks disaster of the week makes for some interesting dialogue tie-ins.
Carter and Blake get a visit from a bureaucrat from the DOD who is to inquire whether there relationship is appropriate or not, as the episode progresses we their relationship in action and it seems to be working just fine, but not accoding to the bureaucrat’s advice.
In the end the disaster of the week (Titan’s atmospehere brought to Eureka) is solved by venting all the gasses into a botanical garden. The problems facing our Eureka characters also seem for the most part solved with Fargo and Holly deciding upon going steady and so do Zane and Lupo.
The viewer number’s for eureka seem to slipping still somewhat, with just 2.03 million viewers in the US left, but then again that could be a Syfy channel problem. Fans are still reeling over the sudden cancelation of season 6 and with the other shows also not performing well that just leaves ‘Ghost hunters’ and wrestling…. can Syfu sink any lower, wait until ‘Person of interest’ and ‘Alcatraz’ hit the air.
This weeks episode we saw another good attempt from the producers to force the mythology of Eureka full ahead. With the cancellation season 6 I can’t see that changing until the bitter season 5 end. Last weeks episode saw Dr Blake being mind-controlled by our former hot hostess Dr. Beverly Barlow. This week Dr. Blake is back at GD looking to resume her work as head of GD. However, Senator Wen is in town and she like most people (including Carter) can’t see Blake resuming her work just like that. This episode we thus see her working on the aftermath of last week’s episode and desperately trying to prove herself. Senator Wen’s character (played by Ming-Na from Stargate Universe) appears in this episode as more amiable to the Eureka characters though still tough and quite frankly hard-boiled. She decides against allowing Dr. Blake to resume as head and for the time being looks after GD herself, where she makes a few changes.
One brilliant quite from the episode is in a scene where Sheriff Carter asks what he should do after he enters a meeting in Senator Wen’s office. She reply’s, “Just stand there and look pretty” is just brilliantly delivered with a deadpan style.
As the episode progresses Sheriff Carter finds out that GD is under attack from mechanical Mites that were designed to create the hull of the ship intended for the Astraeus mission by eating tungsten. However it transpires Zane programmed them which means they do their job just a little too well and now are eating every bit of tungsten at GD and thus may cause the collapse of the complex.
As all this progresses the people that are being tested for the Astraeus mission to Titan find themselves tested by being put together in a small chamber and subjected to petty torment. Thus we see Dr. Fargo, Dr. Parrish, Lupo, Zane and Dr. Martin trying to both work together and sabotage each others efforts all at the same time. Dr. Parrish’s effort (played by Whill Wheaton) are quickly becoming an internet favorite though one questions how long the writers of this show can keep coming up with new sneering remarks before they come old, and I admit… perhaps that moment has already passed.
In the end Carter restores faith back into Dr. Blake who then manages to guide Carter to save the day by destroying the Mites, the episode thus brings us back to the things as they are of before the Beverly take-over of Dr. Blake and one might wonder what the entire point was of this short story arc.
Another week, another Eureka review! This week we see our crew train for the Astraeus mission to Titan, it is still too early to say whether the show will ever go to Titan but it seems suddenly that it has a goal to work towards to. Despite the fact that almost everybody is training for the mission (Blake, Lupo, Zane, Fargo, Henry and his wife) it is certainly not clear if anyone can go. In the meantime Carter has got his handful when a supposedly normal case of ‘bank robbery’ turns out into a suspected case where the entire ‘bank’ has been physically robbed. Quickly enough he manages to locate it and finds it floating in the air along with his own car! The cause is a ‘Higgs field disruptor’ which doctor Parrish (Whill Wheaton) tried to keep save with in the banks fault along with some other Eureka ‘graduate’s antimatter. Put together they disrupt gravity and make heavy objects float harmlessly to the tune of Eureka into the air. In the end Carter manages to put everything back together (not before some outrageous moves on his part).
In the meantime Blake’s condition is worsening, from the last two episodes we know she was implanted with nanobots that kinda make her fuzzy headed, now things take a turn for the worst when she suddenly starts to have memory lapses and things seemingly get done without any physical input on her part. This begs the questions whether the entire episode is just part of her imagination especially when she is later revealed to be strapped onto a table with Carter looking on and being sinister!.
This episode was good, but it could have been better. We see many storylines moving forward while Carter has to fix his usual problem of the week. It is in fact somewhat difficult to follow all the storylines especially that of Zane and Lupo who two episodes previous decided to hook up again but now show little evidence of affection.
Fargo’s attempts to get into a relation with Dr Holly Martin are as comical as it was the last few episodes especially with the troublesome mingling of Wheaton’s character, yet at the same time little progress is being made in their relationship and this banter between the three could quickly grow stale in the forthcoming episodes.
