TV Review: PERSON OF INTEREST - Many Happy Returns 1.21

Ok, so we should start by saying "Many Happy Returns" Mr Reese, for this week it was everyone's favourite kick ass hero's birthday and he was due to celebrate in some style as Person of Interest delivered one of it's most powerfully emotional episodes yet. In fact I will go out on one here and say again that this episode has been the best one yet, last week Ruben and I had a discussion in the comments about John Reese, is he good or bad? "Many Happy Returns" proved once and for all that he is a good guy who lost the love of his life to an abusive husband whom he swiftly dealt with. Person of Interest has delved into so many layers since it's "Pilot" and it's really done a great job of removing itself from the normal mondaying cop show, every character has a purpose, a backing story and even when there not involved in the weekly episode their story continues to fizzle in the back ground.

Reese going rouge was equally as satisfying as seeing him sitting in the dark watching the love of his life marry another man, the same man who accidentally killed her and then staged a car crash to make it all look legitimate. We never actually saw Reese kill him but it goes without saying that although we didn't see anything we know exactly what happened. What worked great this week was the fact that Reese himself became a Person of Interest to us and more importantly Detective Carter, who finally done some decent detective work after the the FBI found Reese's blood in the house of his ex-girlfriend, that story of Reese being careless enough to slip up and leave some evidence was the backbone for the POI story in the modern day as Reese got to grips with another abusive man who was treating his wife Kara (Dagmara Domniczyk) the same way Peter Arndt treat Jessica, behaviour like that just doesn't seem to sit well with John Reese and everyone got to find out just what he is capable of when he "loses it".

"Many Happy Returns" has to be one of the tightest episodes I have seen, what I mean by that is there really wasn't much else going on, it was indeed many happy returns to John Reese who was the centre of attention both in flashbacks and the modern day. Even when Finch gave him the day off, Reese couldn't help but tail him as he knew he was lying about the fact there was no number. And let's face it, Lionel wasn't exactly up to the job of tailing Kara, she was onto him in no time and Reese's day off lasted all of fifteen minutes.

This week kind of served up a little what would you do question, one of morality. Yeah, it's not right to kill people of course but "Many Happy Returns" allowed you to see that the abusive ex-husbands were in fact complete dicks, personally I didn't care that Reese killed Peter Arndt (that's how it looked), nor would I have cared if he had killed US Marshall Jennings because like Reese explained to Carter there are things he can do that she simply cannot and one of those things is make sure that Jennings gets the punishment he deserves. I was actually expecting another ass kicking here but Reese went that extra mile to prove to Crater and probably himself that he is a changed man, it was far more satisfying to see Marshall Jennings fitting up with 10 keys of Heroin and receive a lenghly prison sentence.

I remember saying a while back that we never see John Reese go home, where does he live? We got a little glimpse of his basic apartment in New York at the start of his day off, he really seems to like looking out of windows, doesn't he? Like "Many Happy Returns" wasn't good enough already we were treated to yet another brilliant ending one which I thought why are we going back to? We've already seen Reese in the hospital and bump the wheelchair. Only this time it was the reveal that it was Finch in the chair who replied to Reese's apology as "no, I'm sorry John",  brilliant finish before we saw Reese enjoying his birthday present of a brand new apartment thanks to Finch.

Really up there with the best of the best POI episodes, two left now and surely some answers to come as to who Finch really is, a great season cliffhanger possibly? Not only was the finale of the episode brilliant but as always POI ramps up the emotion with a brilliant soundtrack one which I know you will all be looking for this morning, for you the song is by Dangermouse & Sparklehorse and is titled "Revenge", I put the video below, enjoy and I'll be back with more POI next week.

One more thing, John Reese's Beard;

Did anyone think that Mr Reese looked a little like Jack from Lost with that beard of his?