Person of Interest - 'Mors Praematura'

Kirk Acevedo continues his bid for televisual ubiquity.

Reese and Finch are working a new number, that of Tim Sloan, an estate investigator (the man who tracks down heirs to unclaimed estates) who has run into trouble trying to solve his brother's murder. Meanwhile Shaw has been kidnapped by Root to undertake what at first appears to be a completely separate mission.

It emerges that Sloan's brother once worked with Vigilance, the anti-surveillance group introduced in the episode 'Nothing to Hide', but that he wanted out after they escalated to murder. The CIA offered him amnesty and protection if he turned evidence, then faked his death and moved him to a 'mobile black room', a sort of transient, double-secret domestic GitMo. It is to protect him from Vigilance that Root allows herself to be added to the black site's inventory, with Shaw as her minder.

Root and Shaw play to their strengths.

The dovetailing of the two story strands is nicely managed, with Roots compulsive secrecy and mechanically pragmatic release of information only as and when it is needed serving to maintain the separation for most of the episode. Root and Shaw make a fun double act - although stretching it for more than one episode might have been a step too far, so props for calling it quits - and it gets us away from the Reese*/Shaw snarkfest for a week.

Carter is on mostly detached duty this week, running down HR with the help of her tame rookie, and Fusco off the books. This leaves Sloan to fill in as support investigator, with the omnipresent Kirk Acevedo apparently gunning for another recurring credit.

The episode ends with Root held at the library, promising more philosophical platonic foreplay with Finch in future episodes. The big question, of course, is whether the Machine wanted her to be caught and what that means for its relationships with its various assets.

* Sarah Shahi was Dani Reese in Life; that's why I keep wanting to call Shaw Reese.