Person of Interest Series Finale Review: Return 0 (Season 5 Episode 13)
JOHN: In the end, we’re all alone. And no one’s coming to save you.
Person of Interest has always been one of the most unique shows on television. Carefully straddling the line between procedural programming and serialized storytelling, it crossed genres and barriers with an ease other shows only wish they could.
From the beginning, Person of Interest set itself up as a story about two things: technology, and partnership. Many themes came and went along the way, but those two remained constant. Through death, war, and the apocalypse, Team Machine grew to be a beloved, rag-tag bunch of misfits who would do anything to save the world.
And they did.
THE MACHINE: Can you hear me?
The most repeated phrase from the finale is one of apparent futility: everyone dies alone. This is an old concept for Person of Interest, however — it was one of the first beliefs that really defined John Reese as a character.
But Reese was wrong. Over five seasons, he, Finch, Shaw, Root, Fusco, Bear, and the dearly missed Carter formed a family, and that family stayed with Reese until the very end. Reese dies doing what he’d sworn to do since day one: protecting Finch.
Reese’s sacrifice is not unlike Root’s. Though I still firmly believe Root was taken out of play too early in the game, her end served the greater good that she came to believe in, just as Reese’s does. Whether that end was worthy of Root (it wasn’t, she deserved more) seems almost moot now. The story is over, and Root still continues on — after a fashion.
The use of Root’s voice by the Machine could have been hackneyed, but it is, in fact, a beautiful tribute to her character. The Machine keeps Root alive through her memory and her voice, and guides every one of the people Root loved to the safety (or end) they wanted.
THE MACHINE: There was something I think Root had wanted to say to you. You always thought there was something wrong with you because you don’t feel things the way other people do. But she always felt that was what made you beautiful. She wanted you to know that if you were a shape, you were a straight line. An arrow.
One of the most poignant moments between the Machine and her agents is when she passes along a final message from Root to Shaw: that Root loved Shaw just as she is, and that she was always the arrow guiding Root home. Root saw Shaw just as Shaw saw Root — as a home, a safe place, a destination worth fighting through the journey for.
In fact, though Team Machine loses both its hearts (as Reese and Root were, in my opinion, the real emotional core of their group), the show manages to maintain an air of utter hopefulness.
Yes, everyone dies. And yes, sometimes they die alone. But if someone remembers you (even if that someone is an all-seeing Artificial Intelligence), then can you really die?
The Machine stays with Reese until the end. The Machine stays with Finch as he escapes and finds Grace again, just as Reese wanted, and stays with Shaw and Fusco as they leave her subway home behind.
The Machine even brings herself back to life to tie herself firmly to Shaw forevermore. She will never let her agents be forgotten, just as her agents will never forget each other.
This is a fitting end for a show that could have been a grim, dark dystopia, but instead chose to find rays of light in a bleak future.
Five seasons of standout storytelling and hugely unique characters has undoubtedly been worth the investment. There has never been a show like Person of Interest before, and there likely never will again.
And who knows? With Shaw, Bear, and Root!Machine out there, their story may never really end at all.
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 aired Tuesdays at 10/9c on CBS.
Brittany Rae
Brittany is a writer and avid TV blogger hailing the infamous year of 1989. She trained at Vancouver Film School in screenwriting for television and film, and has gone on to become a graphic designer and blogger in her free time. When she’s not watching the Food Network, she’s trying to consume every bit of sci-fi television she can get her hands on (current favorites include The 100, Person of Interest, and Doctor Who). She’s always up for female-led dramas and, of course, a literal interpretation of the phrase “Netflix and chill."
One thought on “Person of Interest Series Finale Review: Return 0 (Season 5 Episode 13)”
Started out really liking it. Interesting premise, plots and characters, The show went off the rails for me when they wrote Carter out. Turns out she was the only character that was fully realized enough to balance out the others, who had fewer dimensions to their personas. After Carter, the show became a kind of live action comic book with ever-more-ridiculous shootout scenes that defied believability. I liked the Root character when she was an opposing figure. Once she converted to a good-guy, the show introduced a kind of cutesiness that took away from the dark tone the series had in the beginning.
I would have taken a different tack. I’d have kept Carter for sure and also would have had Root remain as an outsider, not part of the team. Fusco would have eventually been promoted to captain and gotten off the street and Carter would have made too many enemies, never gotten off patrol and eventually left the force to join with Reese and Finch. Shaw was consistently great, as was the dog,
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