“They are remaking the world in the image of their leader.”

“Q&A” sees the return of Claire Mahoney, the young hacker we met at the beginning of the season in “Nautilus”, and it expands upon her story by revealing that she’s now working as a Samaritan operative. It isn’t difficult to guess this twist early on in the episode, but that doesn’t prevent it from still being an entertaining and engrossing hour of television; after all, this is Person of Interest we’re talking about.

This is an episode that further divides Finch from Samaritan, and it does so by building up a foreboding mood throughout before tearing down a relationship near the end. It’s an episode permeated by death, whether it be through Anna Mueller’s sister’s cancer or through Paul Zimmerman’s death or through Charles Wynn’s death, and at one point, we even get the following quote: “Everything I did led to the death of ordinary people.” Note the use of the word ‘ordinary people’, a term used in the opening credits when Finch talks about “violent crimes involving ordinary people”. The very kinds of people that Team Machine exists to save are ending up dead, and this is all done under the influence of Samaritan. At this moment, it’s an incredibly bleak outlook for the world, and Anna sums it up nicely when she states: “I have something to hit, something I can actually fight. Why do I still feel so hopeless?”

Reese’s response is also essential. He talks about how the harder fights–the ones outside of the ring–are the ones that actually mean something, and he refers to everything else as a “waste of time”. This type of mindset helps because it’s the mindset that has been taken recently by Team Machine: if you want to win the war, you must bring the fight outside of the ring. If you stay passive, Samaritan will envelop everything.

The scary thing right now, of course, is that Samaritan is steadily improving its ability to manipulate people. By manipulating search results, it can, as Greer puts it, “simulate and manipulate emotion”. The fact that Claire takes Finch to the charter school at the end to show him all the good Samaritan is doing serves to highlight just how well she’s been manipulated. Sure, Samaritan can control you in any number of ways, but this is the most effective: having people actually believe in its cause and believe it’s doing good for the world. When Claire tells Finch that “beliefs can change”, she doesn’t realize that it is for that very reason that she was able to become manipulated. As Finch says: “If Samaritan was willing to shoot you to get what it wanted, how far will it go to get these children to do what it wants?”

At the same time, there’s reason to believe that Claire is beginning to realize what’s happening to her. When she asks Greer about whether the sniper shots were meant to miss, she has to, for the first time, confront the notion that she might have to die for Samaritan. You can see the uncertainty on her face, and Greer’s response–“It’s for a good cause”–is clearly unsatisfactory. This, after all, is just what Samaritan wants her to think, and once she gives herself over to this idea, then she will have fallen into its trap.

GRADE: B+

OTHER THOUGHTS:

-Always nice to see Fusco getting in on the action.

-Even nicer to see Root back. She returns as we expect her to return: with guns blazing.

-The MMA world is described as having a “lack of regulation” and being “overrun by crime”. A nice nod at the Samaritan themes with this.

– “That may have been true once…before I lost someone. I don’t want to lose anyone else.” Finch’s words here echo Reese’s words with Dr. Campbell, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that our characters are legitimately afraid. Usually, Finch can find something good to take out of a bad situation, but there’s not much of that in “Q&A”.

-Next week: Dominic returns. Seeing as the series finale of Parks and Recreation apparently airs at 10/9 central next week, that means that three shows I review–this, Justified, and Parks–will fall at the same time. Thanks for the wonderful scheduling, TV. Anyway, I have no guarantees about when reviews will be up next week.

Photo credit: CBS, Person of Interest