Person of Interest Point of Origin Review

Person of Interest ‘Point of Origin” ended on a serious cliffhanger. Dominic, the leader of The Brotherhood, finally decided it is time to kill both Elias and ‘Riley’. Also Decima’s assassin and Greer’s number two Martine managed to catch up with Shaw. Both events mean that next week’s episode ‘The Devil You Know’ will be a real game-changer. Such a change of events has been hinted ever since the season’s première and is something that has been carefully worked towards. Sadly, this week’s episode ‘Point of Origin’ gets in the way. It is a classic ‘PoI’ of the week episode that although ties closely to the Brotherhood/Elias feud it can’t shake its rather too basic foundations.

Person of Interest Point of Origin Review

Although the episode manages to surprise its audience with as few twists, it is not very sophisticated. We learn that the PoI of the week, a police cadet (played by Adria Arjona), that Reese has to protect is actually an undercover cop. We also learn that The Brotherhood name Mini stands for Dominic, who is the gang’s very gifted leader. However, the audience already knew who Dominic was, so sadly it only came to a surprise to Finch and Reese. It was exciting to watch as our heroes uncovered the truth when Dominic was casually ordering one of his foot soldiers to be murdered for failing to kill the police cadet, but the scene was only saved by actor Winston Duke who plays Dominic. The first half of the episode did remind a lot of The Departed.

Talking about Dominic, he is seriously off the deep-end. He reminds me too much of Elias. When he corrects his foot soldiers that success doesn’t depend on turf or money, but brains. He tells them they going up against a man with brains who took down the five dons of New York. The police cadet Reese has to protect was sent undercover to infiltrate the Brotherhood members at the academy. Dominic reminds one of his foot soldier that he needed information from the police and hacking the academy was a lot easier than a police station. The reason why according to Dominic is that bureaucracies become so large they can’t protect themselves. He references Edward Snowdon and reminds his number two that Snowdon didn’t work at the NSA, but at a satellite office.

Dominic ends the episode with the files he needs to take down Elias. While he lectures a soon to die foot soldier on what is stopping him he states that one person continues to defy him, Detective Riley. The relationship between Finch, Reese and Elias has since the beginning been surprisingly cozy, but next week they will have to make a decision. Will they help Elias when Dominic is set to win the turf war. Meanwhile Reese has problems of his own, as Detective Riley he has become involved with his psychiatrist Dr. Iris. She doesn’t see him as Reese, but as a wounded Riley who is far too gung-ho to be set free on the streets. By the end of the episode she has mellowed somewhat but her conviction remains that Reese has a hero complex. Dr. Iris marks a change in Reese over the previous 3 seasons. It would be some real character development if he can finally make it work with a woman who has caught his eye.

As a side story to this episodes main plot we saw Decima assassin Martine (Cara Buono) try and track down Shaw. She first questions the female member of the gang Shaw performed a heist for. After this fails she flat-out blackmails her with threatening to kill her daughter. Slowly Martine finds the gang members and manages to connect the dots and get closer to Shaw. In the last scene we see how she catches up with Shaw at he day job as a make-up specialist. The two make eye contact before the screen fades to black.

Conclusion…

‘Point of Origin’ was a decent episode, even it was solely intended to set up the groundwork for next week’s event. The first third of the episode involving the police academy dragged a bit. But as soon as it become obvious the PoI was an undercover cop and that Dominic was involved the episode picked up the pace. Sadly there was no Root in this episode. However, I doubt she will have gone far, focusing on Reese for a change reminded me a lot of season 1 and makes me think the show needs to concentrate more on what made it a success. This was Person of Interest Point of Origin Review I hope you enjoyed it.

Score; 8.1 / 10. Not the bet episode of PoI but it does heat things up for the showdown next week between Dominic, Elias and Reese.

Source; http://www.cbs.com/shows/person_of_interest/

Below you can also the explosive preview trailer for Person Of Interest ‘The Devil You Know’…