Person of Interest 1.16 ‘Risk’ Review

On last night’s Person of Interest episode, ‘˜Risk’, Reese went undercover into the high-risk, high-reward, and high-mortality rate world of financial investments. Adam Saunders, a young risk management trader found himself wrapped up in a short-sell scheme involving a company whose stock was soon set to be made worthless following the passing of a new national bill. We didn’t really get to deal with any of the show’s loose story threads this week, but fortunately the POI case was interesting enough to hold attention onto attention throughout the hour.

Matt Lauria of Friday Night Lights played Adam and he brought a nice level of emotional depth along with a thrill-seeking edge that someone who worked in that world could easily have. The scenes he had with Reese and with his uncle nicely balanced out the two sides of the character as the audience could see he definitely qualified as more of a victim in the spectrum of different definitions for a POI (sometimes they’re the bad guy for example). As a former Friday Night Lights fan it’s just worth getting excited about whenever anyone from that show pops up on my screen and it gives POI another notch on their very impressive list of first season guest stars.

The story also served as a means to get Reese back to where he was before Finch plucked him out of his chosen anonymity and gave him a new purpose. If you’ll recall how bedraggled John was back in the pilot episode then it’s no surprise to learn that he lived in an encampment of homeless people in an abandoned building. It was nice to see John have a little moment with someone he knew from back then and that he was able to help those people–Reese always proves himself to be very giving when he finds someone to be a person worthy of deserving it.

Throughout the case, Detective Carter was their sole police ally (as Fusco most likely had his own problems to deal with as he’s back with the corrupt faction of the force), as she participated in the investigation and helped Reese and Finch untangle the web surrounding Adam. Reese and Finch better hope that nothing happens to persuade Carter to stop helping them as she’s a very useful helping hand to have around on these cases. She also facilitated the very welcome return, at least in my eyes, of POI baddie Elias. He was apparently the man behind the curtain involved in getting the shale fracking bill (try to not think of Battlestar Galactica when you hear that word out loud), passed so quickly.

The man himself made only a brief appearance in the episode in the final scene as he spoke to Reese on the phone, but it was enough to get a little bit giddy over. I keep getting this growing feeling of dread that Elias is going to get bolder in his actions during the rest of the season, and it wouldn’t surprise me if his plans helped to fracture the always trust-sensitive partnerships between these characters. Our team hasn’t even begun to see the damage that one man can do in an increasingly corrupt city.