Lionel Fusco. A gruff New york City homicide detective who has no idea that The Machine or its rival AI Samaritan even exist, and yet has been an integral part of the Person of Interest hero squad for years. And on Tuesday's POI episode, "Wingman," he becomes Reese's go-to guy for infiltrating the big city dating scene so that Team Machine can protect a high-profile romance coach from getting taken our by an angry ex-client.

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Before appearing as part of the POI panel at New York Comic Con this Sunday, Fusco himself, actor Kevin Chapman, chatted with me about his upcoming Fusco-centric episode, the lighter-than-usual tone it was going for, Fusco's opinion of Root and Shaw, and what we can expect from the wise-cracking detective this season now that he and Reese are actual real world cop partners.Plus, Chapman revealed what the original plans were for Fusco's Season 2 romantic interest, Rhonda. And why nothing came of it.

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Kevin Chapman and Ryan O'Nan in the Person of Interest episode, "Wingman."

Kevin Chapman as Lionel Fusco on Person of Interest.

I think the goal of "Wingman" was to make a lighter episode of POI. According to the writers, you know. And there was a pitch on the table that involved Fusco at the heart of the piece. And what really excited me about the episode was that we don't often get to do stories on the show of this tone and temperament. So it was really fun to do this sort of personalized story. And "Wingman" was inspired by these social life coaches who exist throughout the country. It's always really nice to be able to mix up our serialized storylines with smaller stories of the week. And this episode specifically has Finch and Root on a mission for The Machine while the bulk of the story is centered on personal relationships. One of them being between Fusco and Reese and their new partnership. How Reese handles working with a real detective and whether or not he'll have issue with playing by the rules, which he's having a hard time doing now in his new life.This episode was just so much fun because if you've watched this series from the beginning it's always important for the show to connect with at least one of the characters on an emotional level during an episode. And this one's really all about Fusco's past and present relationships. Both romantic and professional. I'm really excited to see what the audience think about the whole thingIt's been great. Just seeing Reese and Fusco together is like looking at Laurel and Hardy. And for Fusco, it really is kind of cramping his style. Because here's a guy, Reese, who's basically been torturing Fusco for three seasons from the shadows, and now he's suddenly sitting across the desk from him. But even though Reese isn't the most law-abiding of partners, he may just the guy Fusco needs at his side right now. With Team Machine offline and the rise of Samaritan and all.You know, it's funny. Lionel had a girl back in Season 2. Sort of. Her name was Rhonda. And it was during the whole HR thing. And it actually came from a pitch I had made to [showrunner/EP] Greg Plageman. And our fanbase for the show is just so intelligent and so intuitive that they got ahead of the story. They pay attention to all the details. The pitch I made to Greg was that Fusco meets this woman Rhonda and he winds up going on a date with her. It was a two part story. He falls for this girl and then you were going to find out that she was a mole for HR. And she was going to draw information out of Fusco. And then Fusco goes to her house one day to surprise her and Simmons comes walking out of her apartment. But our fanbase was so bright that they picked up on it immediately. Before the episode ("Til Death") even ended. They were online like "I hope she's not a mole for HR." And so the whole thing went out the window. [laughs]So this coming episode is the next time we really see Fusco with some level of normalcy in his life. I think one of the things that Fusco brings to the show is that he grounds the whole story a bit. He brings a sense of gravity. Because you have these other characters who take us to this place of disbelief, and then I think when you see Fusco you think "Well he sounds like a New York cop and he looks like a New York cop, so the rest of the stuff must be real."I think Fusco is going to spend a lot of time covering for Reese. Or I guess I should say "Detective Riley." I think that's where we'll find a lot of Fusco's value this season. Since Reese has a hard time with authority, in terms of following procedure and protocol. He has a tendency to operate in his own fashion.I really don't think he has an issue with both of them. With Shaw, I think he's well aware of what he's dealing with and he just works within the parameters of her world. But with Root, he thinks she's just a complete wild card. You know, Fusco tried to confront her last year about a choice that she made that he didn't particularly care for and she proceeded to tell him a story all about how he was named Lionel and how his dad brought him to the zoo. And how his dad saw Linus and that's where the name came from. So Fusco doesn't really know what planet Root is operating from, you know? There's definitely a discomfort involved with her presence, but there's also an underlying fear of the unknown. Because Fusco likes to be in charge of what's around him and always well aware of his environment. And now there's this woman and he doesn't know what box to put her in. She's beautiful. She's kind of crazy. She has all this information that he doesn't know how she got about his personal life. So it's really fun for people to watch the two of them together.

The Person of Interest episode "Wingman" airs on Tuesday, October 7th, at 10/9c on CBS.And New York Comic-Con attendees, make sure to catch the Person of Interest cast during their Q&A panel on Sunday, October 12th, from 4:30 to 5:30 on the Empire Stage. Stars Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson, Amy Acker and Kevin Chapman will appear, along with executive producer Greg Plageman, for a fan event moderated by IGN TV's Eric Goldman.Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/Showrenity