Person of Interest - 'Aletheia'

Unlike Shaw, Root's comfort zone seems to be pretty all-encompassing.

Person of Interest pulls a bit of a Commando Cody on us this week, resolving the cliffhanger of 'Lethe' with the reveal that actually Root broke out of her cage without us seeing (which also means no Bear this week) to come in guns blazing. She is captured, leaving Shaw to escort Arthur and Harold to collect the drives which hold the core of the Samaritan's program. With Arthur and Harold in the vault, Vigilance holding the lobby and Hersch and his goon squad outside, things are looking bad for the team, especially as the remaining cavalry, Reese and Fusco, are locked in a sheriff's cells for brawling.

Cards on the table, I've been a little bit in love with Amy Acker since Angel (does it make me more of a nerd that I kind of wish I could say I saw her first in the Northanger Abbey episode of Wishbone? Although, it was pretty messed up watching a smart-mouthed Jack Russell playing her love interest,) but I am worried that PoI has way too much of a crush on Root. She's smart like Harold,  precise like Reese and hard like Shaw, which sort of questions the need for the rest of the ensemble. I kind of want her to be wrong once or twice just to bring  her more level with the others. Sure, she got captured and tortured here, but she turns the tables on her attackers and successfully places the blame for everything that went wrong on Harold's lack of trust.

Taken on their own lights, however, the interrogation scenes are exquisite; the things that affect her, the things that don't, and her overriding disdain for Control, whose understanding of the Machine is so profoundly lacking that she can't accept that no-one knows where it is and still wants something as archaic as Root's username and password. Her turn as the voice of the Machine herself is chilling. Arthur (played beautifully by Saul Rubinek, who has the kind of wise and woobie face that was born to portray geniuses with degenerating faculties) gets it, calling the Machine Harold's 'child' ("Does it make you laugh? Does it make you cry?") and mourning the necessity of destroying the Samaritan to keep it from the wrong hands.

Notably, this episode brings in not only the entire team - with Fusco and Reese making an eleventh hour appearance - but also pretty much the entire rogue's gallery, beginning with Control and her agency, then Vigilance and finally the revelation of Decima's involvement, and eventual retrieval of the Samaritan operating system (and another display of their frankly cavalier attitude to the retention of reliable personnel.)

In a subtle twist, when Reese announces his intention to leave at the end of the episode, he explains that he feels betrayed by the Machine's failure to save Carter (although she did try to contact Harold moments before the shooting.) "We trusted blindly, but I'm not so sure he cares who matters and who doesn't." This makes two people who have attributed a gender to the Machine, and with Arthur, three who have ascribed it the qualities of life and intention.