TV Review: PERSON OF INTEREST - Contingency 2.1 - Finding Finch

Out of every TV show, new and returning this Fall for me Person of Interest is without doubt one of the most highly anticipated, during it’s first season J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan guided us through 23 episodes of gripping drama and kick ass action whilst all the while never loosing site of POI’s main story, what is the machine? It climaxed in the season one finale with Finch kidnapped by computer super hacker Root (Amy Acker) and Reese was left picking up a public telephone but to who? That was the biggest question on everyone’s lips last season and finally it’s answered, the machine can communicate with you, it can’t talk but it can cobble voices together from various sources and deliver a coded message which in this season two opener Reese was left to figure out on his own for the first time, proving that he is brains as well as brawn.

Even the beginning of this episode was brilliant with the season one recap being dealt with by way of CCTV, taking us right back to day 1 when Finch first fired up the machine, can you see me? Do you know who I am? “Admin”. Then it continued to roll through showing us how it found Reese, some of the scrapes they have been in together and then the discovery of Root and how Finch had designed the system so that it would never attempt to find it’s master should anything ever happen to him, just brilliant. What Finch probably didn’t account for was the machine becoming self sufficient, a form of intelligence with some sort of brain which enables it to learn and adapt. For me some of the best scenes in this opener where of Reese looking into the camera and making a deal with the machine, if it won’t help him find Finch then he will no longer be it’s contingency plan.

I loved the way in which Person of Interest stuck to it’s guns, it would have been far to easy to just go and deliver Finch’s SSN right from the off and have Resse track him down kill Root and save the day, instead the machine delivered another number, that of an Asian man (Lost’s Ken Leung) who has stolen some money ($8m) from the Aryan Brotherhood. However like last season the side line weekly story never lost sight of the actual goal, find Harold Finch, Reese was always certain that the number delivered by the machine was in some way designed to fit a part of the puzzle which would help him piece together where Finch was. Reese was quick to discover however that the guy was a bit of an idiot and really had no idea as to where Finch is, leading to “Contingency” ending with Reese making a deal with the Machine.

It was brilliant to see that Reese now has the full support of both Carter (Taraji P. Henson) and Fusco (Kevin Chapman), now that they all know what each other are up to they can ultimately work towards the same goal. Reese is as charismatic as ever delivering kick ass action whilst also keeping his witty humour, the scene about him only having one friend was very good, and also when he was explaining to Fusco about the gagging order. Reese was right back into it with the Aryan Brotherhood after dispatching a few of their guys in the local bar he found himself escorted to their warehouse, on purpose of course to save Fusco’s ass yet again, that glint in his eye just as he’s finished speaking Dutch to his new four legged friend, before the camera pans away to leave it all to our imagination was just brilliant. Also worth a mention was the head of the Aryan Brotherhood (Tim Holmes), he must have been at least 7ft tall, but hey he couldn’t beat Reese, he was only having a rest after all.

What is going to be brilliant is seeing how they develop the storyline, it looks as if Reese will at least get close to rescuing Finch in the next handful of episodes, maybe even next weeks “Bad Code” but what will become of Root? I can’t see them killing her off just yet as she wants the machine for more sinister reasons, does she even work alone? For all we know Finch might have his own plan up his sleeve about how he is going to escape, or even how he can manipulate what Root does to the Machine to work in his favour. Who are all of these new government officials trying to cover up the murder of Alicia Corwin? They clearly know about the existence of the Machine as they have dispatched their resident hit man to take care of “the man in the suit”, otherwise known as John Reese.

Season 2 looks as if its going to deliver on the same level if not higher than the first season did and I can’t wait to see how deep the story will continue to take us. Person of Interest is so much more than your weekly cop procedural and this is must watch TV on a weekly basis, keep up the great work, ala Jonathan Nolan, J.J. Abrams and Denise The.