Person of Interest’s Fifth Season Opens with a Bang (Review)

Person of Interest’s fifth season premiered tonight in an episode titled “B.S.O.D.” Team Machine is on the run from Samaritan operatives with their cover identities blown. God is reduced to a briefcase. The Correction is all but over, but four targets remain: Finch, Reese, Root, and the remnants of the Machine. Can things get any worse? It is fast-paced and an action-packed adventure in order to get the Machine back up and running once again. The music, as always, must be commended and is composed by Ramin Djawadi, who shows his versatility as a composer with his fast-paced themes and guitar motifs, in stark contrast to his work on Game of Thrones. With that being said, this is an excellent episode which kicks off what is shaping up to be an amazing send off for Person of Interest.

Every character had their moments in the first episode of Person of Interest’s fifth season. Reese, as always, kicked ass, putting his talents as a former spy to work and takes on numerous Samaritan agents and protects the Machine he once doubted at all costs. Root has one of the most defining moments of the episode, when she stared into the eyes of Samaritan and said, “The name’s Root bitch.” Shaw’s absence is profoundly missed, but the void she leaves still impacts our characters. When Root is in trouble, Reese refuses to abandon her, stating that they don’t leave people behind. This is a reference to when they left Shaw behind in the stock exchange after she sacrificed herself to essentially save the world.

Fusco, in usual fashion, is completely left in the dark, confused by the events that just took place. Dominic and Elias were assassinated before his very eyes, but he received a commendation for a good shooting by a Samaritan operative posing as an FBI agent to cover it up. Begging Reese to know what is going on, Reese tells him to shut up and he’ll explain later. Fusco still continues his investigation though and seems to have an inkling of what’s going on, which will be very interesting to see in upcoming episodes.

Finch’s story is a bit more complicated. It really focuses on his relationship with the Machine through flashbacks and references to his relationship with his father. His father died of Alzheimers, and ironically, he literally “killed” the machine every night at midnight by deleting its memories, a choice he is shown to struggle with. When the Machine loses power in the briefcase and is seemingly lost by way of a fire, Finch shows so much regret, and really doubts himself. Luckily, Root and Reese come to the rescue with a solution to fix the Machine and bring it back online. He even begins to call the Machine “her”, like Root, which shows that he may be seeing the Machine in a vastly different light.

Using 300 PlayStations (!!!), they create a super computer and use that to decompress the Machine and bring it back online. The episode ends with a computer screen blinking when Finch asks her if it knows who he is or if the Machine is even there. And yes, Finch now calls the Machine “her.”

I personally thought it would take all season to get the Machine back online, but they managed to bring it back in one episode. Person of Interest’s fifth season is off to a marvelous start, and as always, it’s Amy Acker who steals the show. The entire cast is great, but she has grown so much since her time on Angel as an actor and the character of Root is so interesting and so engaging. Her journey is the most dynamic of any character and it will be interesting to see how she evolves further. It will also be interesting to see if the Machine that is brought back is the Machine we all know and love, or if it has changed somehow, as Harold had hinted at as a possibility.

Person of interest’s fifth season’s first episode, B.S.O.D. was a fantastic start to the end of one of the best and most intriguing shows on television. Let’s just hope that the rest of the season is as strong as this episode.