Person of Interest - '/', 'Allegiance', 'Most Likely to...', 'Death Benefit', 'Beta', 'A House Divided' and 'Deus Ex Machina'

Okay, so clearly I've been binging, so there may be a little less in-depth analysis and more focus on the season overall in this set of reviews.

"I have a badge now. Badges are cool."

In '/' (aka 'Root Path') we focus on Root's special mission for the Machine, as she gets close to a janitor and puts him in danger as a result. The janitor used to be a wealthy businessman, and is now one of the only people allowed to clean the floor where a computer chip is stored that is critical to the birth of Samaritan. The friction between Root and Team Machine, and the intervention of Vigilance, ultimately results in Decima gaining possession of the chip. This will not be the only snafu in the team's immediate future.

In 'Allegiance', we're mostly back to number of the week, as the team work to save an engineer mixed up in dodgy dealing in the Middle East. 'Most Likely to...' begins the same way, with Reese and Shaw sent to a high school reunion to help the latest number, but the arc plot takes a bigger part of the episode, as Vigilance gain possession of evidence of the Northern Lights programme and disseminate it across the internet, exposing the government's part of the Machine's operations and forcing Control to shut down.

White on black is so last decade.

Things continue to go downhill in 'Death Benefit', as the Machine sets Finch and Reese onto a deal-making congressman while Root and Shaw pursue a relevant number in the absence of Northern Lights. Reese gradually becomes aware that the Machine has not sent them to save the congressman, nor even to prevent him committing a violent crime. Rather, he is in the pocket of Decima, and they have been sent to assassinate him before he can facilitate the activation of Samaritan. Although they choose not to do so, Decima use their other actions - including kidnapping - to get the go ahead for a test of Samaritan using the same NSA feeds which inform the Machine.

This leads into 'Beta', as Decima use Samaritan to try to track Harold Finch. Instead, they locate his former fiancee, Grace Hendricks, and despite the team's best efforts she is captured and Finch agrees to turn himself over to Decima, incidentally proving that there is more anger in him than he usually lets on.

Finch: "There's one more thing. I'd like you to avoid violence if at all possible. But, if they harm Grace, in any way, kill them all."

In the dock.

'A House Divided' finally gives us background on Vigilance's leader, Collier, whose brother killed himself when he was held without trial under the Patriot Act, and reveals that Vigilance has well-informed and anonymous backing. Its view occluded, the Machine sends the team to rescue Control and Senator Garrison from Vigilance, but they - along with Finch and Greer - are captured and brought before a kangaroo court to answer for the creation of the Machine. Before this, we learn from his discussion with Finch that Greer appears to accept that he can never control Samaritan, and instead to wish to be controlled, much as Root is by the Machine.

Root's Seven

In 'Deus Ex Machina' Hersh and Reese come for their bosses, Shaw helps Root and her geek squad to install a set of sabotaged servers into one of Samaritan's hundreds of server farms. As the show trial reaches its crescendo, Hersh discovers a bomb in the building. Decima agents rescue the accused and Greer reveals that he was behind Vigilance all along, using the as his catspaw to force the Government to shut down Northern Lights and then turn to him for a replacement.

As the season closes, Samaritan comes alive, sending agents to eliminate the rest of Vigilance, but blinded to Team Machine and the Root Squad by Root's tinkering. Samaritan asks for instructions, but Greer responds that, on the contrary, he awaits its commands.

Season 3 is arc heavy, but none the worse for it. Vigilance is an effective new adversary, the more so because of their eventual links to the existing and ongoing threat of Decima. The closing episodes also manage a neat job of making unlikely allies of Control and Hersh, at least for a time, and giving Hersh - for most of the series an unloveable sociopath - a genuinely heroic exit. Shaw, at first a bit of an intrusion, settles in nicely, and the distinction between her and Reese is a nice inversion of the more typical gender division.

The season's primary flaw, if it has one, is that Root is rapidly overtaking the other leads in terms of competence and cool moments; if Reese is a scalpel and Shaw the hammer, she is a smart, self-guiding Swiss army knife. This is especially telling with Harold, as Root is both his intellectual equal and overwhelming physical superior, whereas she might be qualitatively smarter than Reese or Shaw, but when push comes to shove they could kick her arse. Maybe it's just because he's such a wonderful woobie, but Harold is something of a whipping boy in this season, and I really want to see him do some brainy badassery next season.

And now I'm sad again, because I have to wait for Season 4.