Person of Interest 3x10 The Devil's Share
Spoilers!
The use of Hurt was TERRIBLE, oh god. I was cringing at the badness of the song choice and it ruined the entire opening. It's just, it's massively cliched, it wasn't ABOUT CARTER, it was about THEIR PAIN, and it didn't even WORK for their pain. It really would only have worked for a John POV manpain vid -- which I massively did not want and which I was GLAD they didn't give me until the last 3 seconds, but on the other hand, that made the song completely wrong. It didn't work for Harold, it didn't work for Shaw, it didn't work for the funeral and Carter's family. TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD SONG CHOICE.
Once the music stopped and I could uncurl from the fetal position, the rest was -- eh. I don't know. I'm glad they cleaned up the HR plot, I'm glad they've wrapped up the police-centric plots as a whole. I'm glad Root is now part of the team and they are signaling that exciting Machine-related stuff is about to begin. So on a meta level, I mostly like the set they've left on stage.
I loved Fusco's arc and how the focus ended up being on his and Carter's partnership instead of on the out-of-nowhere romantic thing with Reese.
I liked Shaw being angry about Carter and going on her own less-uncontrolled rampage, and letting Finch rein her in.
I liked them killing Simmons and not Quinn, and having Elias/Scarface do it.
I liked it NOT being about John's manpain for the most part. Or about John at all, mostly.
I didn't like:
- It not being about CARTER. The song, the opening montage, needed to be about HER. I wanted a tribute to HER.
- The fucking sexist asshole doctor lecturing Shaw on her lack of bedside manner, which FUCK YOU, not in a MILLION YEARS would anyone say any of that to a male doctor EVER, and if they were going to have that asshole doctor do it, they needed to have Shaw stand up and lean in and say just that.
- The warehouse torture scene, specifically Harold and Fusco ending up incidentally participating in the torture and just LEAVING him there, wtf. Also why was Shaw just hanging out sitting with him in the first place waiting for them?
- The Machine talking to Root and not to Harold once he's accepted her onto the team. Once Harold has opened the door and let her out, that is the moral and ethical equivalent of his calling up the Machine and saying, "Okay, talk to me please," at which point I want the Machine to talk to him! I don't want Root to have a deeper connection to the Machine than Harold does.
- I will retract the above if they have Root start creepily trying to seduce an increasingly alarmed and wide-eyed Harold at the Machine's direction and the reason the Machine is talking to her and not him is because it wants to LOVE Harold through her as an intermediary. :P
- But even if they do that, I still don't like that on a meta level they've left Harold nothing practical to do. The team now has the Machine actually talking to them via Root. There is no need for all the stuff Harold has been doing which effectively duplicates what the Machine can do. Are they going to have some bizarre arbitrary thing where he refuses to talk to Root except in special circumstances, or arrange endless artificial scenarios where Root is unavailable? I mean, I assume at some point she/the Machine end up as their enemy and Harold becomes critical again, but until then does he just sit around being ineffectual in nice waistcoats?
- John not letting Harold take the gun and trying to shoot Quinn instead, although I'm not super angry about this because as Ces pointed out to me John really was clearly signaled as out of his mind and just exploding with violence. Well and his flashback and his speech to Quinn also signaled as a reminder that John is in fact a crazy-ass killer all the time!
- Lionel beating up Simmons before arresting him. First of all, no, don't retcon Lionel into being a massive badass and Simmons into less of one. It was a bad movie-of-the-week moment and also police brutality is NOT LEGAL so nice to tarnish your tribute to Carter a bit there, Lionel.
- The four flashbacks didn't connect thematically well enough. They needed to really land on something, and they didn't. Each one dealt with death but they were in such different ways and none of them clearly connected to the modern day events except for Fusco's.
And fundamentally, this episode didn't make me any happier about Carter's death. There was nothing they did or set up for the future that required Carter dying. It wasn't even less awkward fitting people in. The bizarre party of Harold with Fusco, Shaw, and Root all going out together on a mission was particularly clunky.
(They continue struggling to handle Shaw in particular, she constantly ends up in scenes where she isn't needed and is duplicating part of the function of another character. This time she was duplicative of Root and Fusco and Reese all in one episode. And I *like* her, I want her around, but I want them to figure out what to do with her!)
It still looks like a bad choice to me and just about killing SOMEONE off.
That said, this episode didn't leave me frothing with rage like last week, and they didn't make it all about Reese's manpain, which was my main fear. I'm interested enough in the Root/Machine plot that I'll check in when they come back after the hiatus and see if they start doing more with Finch.
But ultimately, to take a step back, they've just blown half this season, including their mid-season big moment, on building up Carter just to throw her away.
Comparing to last year, when they spent this first half on Root, John rescuing Harold from Root, Harold's recovery, the increasing bonds among Team Machine, and then the John-in-prison/John-in-bomb-vest plot with the massive emotional high note at the end on the rooftop -- you know, that's how you build a fandom and emotional investment. This is how you smash it.
And I realize that they think they are telling some super sophisticated narrative which requires the emotional high stakes of believing that any character might die, but (a) it's not true because bullshit, John's not going to die; (b) all I now believe is that any other character might die in an unnecessary and unsatisfying way.
I want Carter back. :(
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The use of Hurt was TERRIBLE, oh god. I was cringing at the badness of the song choice and it ruined the entire opening. It's just, it's massively cliched, it wasn't ABOUT CARTER, it was about THEIR PAIN, and it didn't even WORK for their pain. It really would only have worked for a John POV manpain vid -- which I massively did not want and which I was GLAD they didn't give me until the last 3 seconds, but on the other hand, that made the song completely wrong. It didn't work for Harold, it didn't work for Shaw, it didn't work for the funeral and Carter's family. TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD SONG CHOICE.
Once the music stopped and I could uncurl from the fetal position, the rest was -- eh. I don't know. I'm glad they cleaned up the HR plot, I'm glad they've wrapped up the police-centric plots as a whole. I'm glad Root is now part of the team and they are signaling that exciting Machine-related stuff is about to begin. So on a meta level, I mostly like the set they've left on stage.
I loved Fusco's arc and how the focus ended up being on his and Carter's partnership instead of on the out-of-nowhere romantic thing with Reese.
I liked Shaw being angry about Carter and going on her own less-uncontrolled rampage, and letting Finch rein her in.
I liked them killing Simmons and not Quinn, and having Elias/Scarface do it.
I liked it NOT being about John's manpain for the most part. Or about John at all, mostly.
I didn't like:
- It not being about CARTER. The song, the opening montage, needed to be about HER. I wanted a tribute to HER.
- The fucking sexist asshole doctor lecturing Shaw on her lack of bedside manner, which FUCK YOU, not in a MILLION YEARS would anyone say any of that to a male doctor EVER, and if they were going to have that asshole doctor do it, they needed to have Shaw stand up and lean in and say just that.
- The warehouse torture scene, specifically Harold and Fusco ending up incidentally participating in the torture and just LEAVING him there, wtf. Also why was Shaw just hanging out sitting with him in the first place waiting for them?
- The Machine talking to Root and not to Harold once he's accepted her onto the team. Once Harold has opened the door and let her out, that is the moral and ethical equivalent of his calling up the Machine and saying, "Okay, talk to me please," at which point I want the Machine to talk to him! I don't want Root to have a deeper connection to the Machine than Harold does.
- I will retract the above if they have Root start creepily trying to seduce an increasingly alarmed and wide-eyed Harold at the Machine's direction and the reason the Machine is talking to her and not him is because it wants to LOVE Harold through her as an intermediary. :P
- But even if they do that, I still don't like that on a meta level they've left Harold nothing practical to do. The team now has the Machine actually talking to them via Root. There is no need for all the stuff Harold has been doing which effectively duplicates what the Machine can do. Are they going to have some bizarre arbitrary thing where he refuses to talk to Root except in special circumstances, or arrange endless artificial scenarios where Root is unavailable? I mean, I assume at some point she/the Machine end up as their enemy and Harold becomes critical again, but until then does he just sit around being ineffectual in nice waistcoats?
- John not letting Harold take the gun and trying to shoot Quinn instead, although I'm not super angry about this because as Ces pointed out to me John really was clearly signaled as out of his mind and just exploding with violence. Well and his flashback and his speech to Quinn also signaled as a reminder that John is in fact a crazy-ass killer all the time!
- Lionel beating up Simmons before arresting him. First of all, no, don't retcon Lionel into being a massive badass and Simmons into less of one. It was a bad movie-of-the-week moment and also police brutality is NOT LEGAL so nice to tarnish your tribute to Carter a bit there, Lionel.
- The four flashbacks didn't connect thematically well enough. They needed to really land on something, and they didn't. Each one dealt with death but they were in such different ways and none of them clearly connected to the modern day events except for Fusco's.
And fundamentally, this episode didn't make me any happier about Carter's death. There was nothing they did or set up for the future that required Carter dying. It wasn't even less awkward fitting people in. The bizarre party of Harold with Fusco, Shaw, and Root all going out together on a mission was particularly clunky.
(They continue struggling to handle Shaw in particular, she constantly ends up in scenes where she isn't needed and is duplicating part of the function of another character. This time she was duplicative of Root and Fusco and Reese all in one episode. And I *like* her, I want her around, but I want them to figure out what to do with her!)
It still looks like a bad choice to me and just about killing SOMEONE off.
That said, this episode didn't leave me frothing with rage like last week, and they didn't make it all about Reese's manpain, which was my main fear. I'm interested enough in the Root/Machine plot that I'll check in when they come back after the hiatus and see if they start doing more with Finch.
But ultimately, to take a step back, they've just blown half this season, including their mid-season big moment, on building up Carter just to throw her away.
Comparing to last year, when they spent this first half on Root, John rescuing Harold from Root, Harold's recovery, the increasing bonds among Team Machine, and then the John-in-prison/John-in-bomb-vest plot with the massive emotional high note at the end on the rooftop -- you know, that's how you build a fandom and emotional investment. This is how you smash it.
And I realize that they think they are telling some super sophisticated narrative which requires the emotional high stakes of believing that any character might die, but (a) it's not true because bullshit, John's not going to die; (b) all I now believe is that any other character might die in an unnecessary and unsatisfying way.
I want Carter back. :(
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