TV Roundup: Person of Interest – ‘QSO’, ‘Reassortment’ and ‘Sotto Voce’, Timeless – ‘The Red Scare’, Agents of SHIELD – ‘Wake Up’ and ‘Hot Potato Soup’

Aptly enough, the them of the Shaw link in this episode is that Root wantsto believe.

Person of Interest gets heavy with 'QSO', when the team is given the number of a conspiracy theory radio host, one of whose listeners has stumbled on a Samaritan communication code embedded in AM radio signals. Reese and Root rescue the host, but he chooses to put himself back in the crosshairs by revealing the conspiracy on air. Tragically, he receives nothing in response but an ongoing parade of self-aggrandizing theories from his listeners, and a cup of poison from his producer. Root is, however, able to use the Samaritan system to send a message to tell Shaw that they are still looking. Shaw, having just been tricked into killing an innocent woman under the belief that she was in another simulation, takes heart. Fusco quits the team over Reese and Finch's refusal to tell him the truth of their situation.

There is a degree to which the show is just playing Root dressup, but it must
do wonders for Amy Acker's portfolio.

In 'Reassortment', Samaritan engineers an outbreak of a deadly flu strain to kill three medical professionals who have noticed its manipulations of an automated medical system to effect its adjustments. The team is able to provide a cure - thanks to the Machine's open system and a hastily conjured CDC alias for Root - but the outbreak still provides the justification for widespread flu vaccination, allowing Samaritan to create a massive DNA database. I wasn't clear if Samaritan was going for Worldwide, national or New York with that last one, because Person of Interest often conflates the three somewhat.

In Johannesburg, Shaw breaks out of her cell and shoots her chief jailor, Lambert before high-tailing out of the city in his car.

Elias is right; what did he expect?

In 'Sotto Voce', remote control killer the Voice returns and throws the precinct into chaos in an attempt to kill off a former associate. He is successful, but Reese and Fusco work together to survive, while Finch and Elias track his true identity. Finch confronts the Voice, and Elias kills him, challenging Finch to claim to be surprised by that outcome having asked for his help. Realising that he is in it regardless of what he knows, Reese opts to read Fusco into the Machine's existence. Shaw makes it back to New York, and after Root threatens to kill herself if Shaw decides to take her own life now, is reunited with the team.

Person of Interest remains quality TV, but more and more the deeper arc is less interesting to me than the earlier procedural set-up, delving more into human nature rather than the more speculative realm of ASI psychology. As a show that used the Machine to be about people it was excellent; as a show about the Machine, it's just pretty good, and the specifically New York setting makes less and less sense as Samaritan moves on global domination.

I never trusted her, but I only just realised that that's because she's Moira
Queen.

Timeless closed out its freshman year with 'The Red Scare'. Forced to jump with an injured Rufus and four people, Jiya – as the fourth passenger – began to suffer blackouts. Despite Flynn's machinations, setting Senator McCarthy onto them as Communist spies, they are able to contact Lucy's grandfather, Ethan Cahill, and gain access to the summit, offering Flynn an alternative path. They return to the present, where Mason assists them and Ethan provides all the records they need to set the US Government against Rittenhouse. Agent Christopher arrests Flynn before he can save his family, but promises Lucy a shot at saving her sister, but before she can take that trip, Lucy discovers that her mother is a high-ranking member of Rittenhouse and that they still have active plans for the time machine.

This has been an interesting series, and the twist with Lucy's mother gives a potential second season legs that it wouldn't have had otherwise, but something about its earnest tone has tended to make its fanciful incorporation of every famous figure in a twenty year radius into the plot of each episode seem laughable, where Legends of Tomorrow is actively improved by Einstein punching. I'm not sure I'll bother with Season 2, if it happens, given my reduced TV watching time.

When she actually wakes up, someone is in for a universe of pain.

Agents of SHIELD ploughs ahead with its LMD subseason. Agent May breaks out of her pod, only to discover that this is her new simulation, an ever expanding conflict created within a metacognitive space called the Framework. Ultimately, she finds herself captive in a recreation of Bogota in which she is able to save the Inhuman child she was once forced to kill. An attempt to bug Senator Nadeer is uncovered during a senate hearing to ratify Quake's registration under the Sokovia Accords. The team realise that someone is bugging them using LMD eyes and May realises it is her. She confronts Radcliffe, but can't turn on him. Fitz reveals he has been working on Aida as part of an investigation; they pick up Radcliffe, but Fitz realises that the real Radcliffe is already with Nadeer; this is another LMD.

The family Koenig (well, some of them.)

The Watchdogs go after Billy Koenig, who was given the task of hiding the Darkhold. The team taps Billy's brothers and big sister to retrieve the book from the Koenigs' vault. Coulson and Maybot make out - cross that off my list of things I don't really want to see in the series - but then they find the book, May's programming goes off, and while Fitz realises that Radcliffe could have used a brain scan from her treatment for ghost madness to duplicate her in time to save Coulson, Radcliffe and the Watchdogs end up with the Darkhold. The original Aida and Radcliffe LMDs are destroyed.

LMD is definitely proving a less engaging plotline than Ghost Rider, despite John Hannah's excellent turn as the slippery antivillain Radcliffe. Patton Oswalt's Koenig brothers continue to be fun, but every time they turn up I'm afraid they're going to explain them and that would ruin it. Easily the most engaging thing going on is the burgeoning relationship between Mack and Yo-Yo, which hit a bump when he started keeping things from her. Then he confessed he had to go and be with his ex-wife on the birthday of their daughter, Hope, who suffered from a congenital condition which meant that she only lived for four days and apparently Mack could be more of a huggable, vulnerable hard man woobie bear after all.