Person of Interest - 'Ctrl-Alt-Del' and 'M.I.A.'

"This is weirdly familiar."

We switch perspectives this week, not just to the Samaritan cut screens, but to the point of view of Control, the reptilian uberpatriot shot-caller with the ISA, responsible for 'handling' the relevant numbers. Just to throw us for a loop, we open with Control dropping off her daughter at school, before being summoned to the ISA control centre by a text from Samaritan.

Samaritan has detected a terrorist threat: A Saudi and three US Muslims planning backpack bomb attacks on major tourist centres. Team 'Crimson 6', including Grice - the one who let Shaw walk once before - and his partner, hit their safe house, but only get six of their targets. Seeking to track the fourth, Control asks for access to the intelligence Samaritan is working and is denied. In the ensuing confrontation with Samaritan's smug liaison, Samaritan pulls the plug on research in an overt show of force.

Suspicious, Control sends her team to capture the fourth man and retrieve the laptop, only to discover that it has a self destruct device. Despite doing her best counter surveillance moves, Control receives another text message telling her to stop. The terrorist escapes again, and a further capture attempt is prevented when Reese and Root come out of nowhere with their rocket launcher and take Control captive.

Still creepy.

Root begins to torture Control, demanding to know where Shaw is. In the ensuing confrontation it becomes apparent that Harold believes Shaw to be dead, but has enough hope to support Reese and especially Root in their search, and that they aren't actually expecting any information from Control; she's just the bait for an ISA team including at least one Samaritan agent, allowing Harold to send a worm into Samaritan's secure network to look for information on Shaw.

During the fight, Reese spares Grice when he recognises Shaw's name. Control is rescued and takes out her terrorist, who insists he's just a software engineering student who was recruited to work on a piece of code after winning the Nautilus challenge, which they finished a few days before. Control shoots him anyway, unwilling or unable to consider that she might be wrong, but then goes to look for evidence of the shootout that Harold told her occurred under the Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, the Senator in charge is met by Samaritan's creepy avatar kid, who wants a meeting with the President.

Grown ups in mittens; always odd.

In 'M.I.A.', Reese and Root follow a lead from the worm which take them to a little town upstate, where everything is perfect except for what isn't. There they discover that Samaritan has twofold plans for the place: Revitalising a factory to produce neural implants with tracking transponders, and manipulating the town to create and then disrupt a perfect community in order to study human nature. Everyone is in on it to some degree and half the townsfolk were transplanted with new identities by Samaritan following near-fatal accidents. The ones who rocked the boat without directions have been killed or placed under house arrest. It's a creepy demonstration of Samaritan's growing muscle, even outside the ISA and its own hitters.

Partners.

Meanwhile, Fusco is put on a new number, and works with former IA cop Silva (whom I suspect is being dangled as the new Shaw to keep us guessing, as perhaps was Grice's blonde sniper partner last episode) to bring down an unassuming nobody who may have killed a dozen people without leaving evidence. Silva is antagonistic to Fusco, perhaps considering him still dirty or perhaps just unwilling to trust anyone, but ultimately learns to work with a partner again.

Finally, when the person they have been tracking turns out not to be Shaw at all, but a secretary caught in the crossfire at the Stock Exchange, Root begs the Machine for aid. Her god answers, not with a lead but with four words: Sierra Tango Oscar Papa. Unwilling to accept this, Root leaves Team Machine to set out on her own quest.

Apparently Shaw is alive and being held by Greer, but a recording glitch means I'm going on second hand reports for this.

The vast hand of Samaritan is all over these two episodes, with the world becoming a very scary place, although the return of former PoI Dani Silva reminds us that Team Machine are not alone and reinforcing the idea that the strength of Team Machine is not in intelligence or surveillance, but in people. It's a strength that Samaritan is beginning to tap now that the glitch in its awareness is known, but not identified, but its people are still more cogs than cognoscente, and if our heroes win this war it won't be due solely to the Machine.