Person of Interest Review: Truth Be Told (Season 5 Episode 3)

In an interesting twist, Person of Interest chooses to take a break from its headlong sprint towards the finish line to flesh out some of John Reese’s past in “Truth Be Told.”

Honestly, it feels like an odd choice to place this very season one-era episode in the middle of the show’s final season.

We know almost all there is to know about Reese at this point — he had a father in the military, a girlfriend who was killed by her new husband, a rocky and bloody history with CIA and special forces, and an extremely messed up relationship with his former partner, Kara Stanton.

We’ve seen Reese’s story a number of times now. While this episode adds some complexity and serves as a reminder that Reese has always been more than just the muscle of the group (he is the heart in many ways), it feels like a rehashing of beats we as an audience have already hit with Reese.

KARA: “We don’t get real lives. You can’t miss what you never had.”

Regardless of its repetitiveness, it was lovely to take a moment to crawl inside Reese’s head and have his motives for what he does laid completely bare. His story is mirrored neatly in the tale of the two brothers, down to his lack of family (though we did learn that he was adopted by his mother, and has a deceased sister) and his devotion to his country.

His association with the two is made all the more painful when he discovers he killed one of them. Reese’s flashbacks with Kara Stanton (a welcome return, as Annie Parisse elevates Kara’s gleeful, bloody mind to charming heights) really show us how far Reese has come since working under Beal and Mark Snow only five years ago.

Where Reese differs is that he feels his country owes him nothing, even after his former bosses (including Beal, a truly fascinating character that I hope returns in the future) burned he and Kara and left them for dead. Reese is dedicated to helping others and has an uncanny knack to know exactly what they need at any given time.

Reese may have a monster inside him, but he fights tooth and nail to overcome it every day.

While Reese re-learns his own trouble with human connections outside of Team Machine, Finch and Root make a little progress on the Samaritan front. The Machine Arc is light in this episode, but we do get a declaration from Root that they cannot accomplish anything if they don’t take risks.

ROOT: “We have to be willing to do whatever it takes now, or we’re already lost. It’s no risk, no reward.”

Considering Finch’s need to keep both Root and Reese as safe as possible, Root’s seizing of the day and installing Samaritan malware on an air-gapped computer must feel extremely reckless. But Root is right: they can’t win a war by staying still — especially if they hope to ever get Shaw back from the hands of the rival AI.

Stray thoughts:

• RIP, iReese, we hardly knew ye. Reese’s relationship with Iris was always an awkward one (on account of her being his therapist, and all), and I can’t say I was upset to see it end. As Zoe once told him: people like them don’t really let people in.
• Root the delivery woman! Root the delivery woman who deals with creepy men by hitting them with packages! Never change, Root. I love you.
• Finch’s usual opening credit monologue was interspersed with some chilling words from Greer. That only means good things, right? Right, guys?

What did you think of this episode of Person of Interest? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Person of Interest airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 10/9c on CBS.

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