Person of Interest 2.06 Recap: John and Zoe play house in the ‘burbs

In the concrete jungle of New York City, John Reese is perfectly at home in his expensive suit and flashy car. But this week’s Person of Interest gives John a fish out of water experience as he goes undercover in the suburbs to try to figure out why the Machine chose family man and small business owner, Graham Wyler as its next number. But he isn’t going in alone as he and POI favorite Zoe Morgan play house together during the case in one of the best and funniest episodes of the season.

It was a welcome relief to take a bit of a step back from the mythology-driven episodes in order to tell a strong case of the week story while still giving us a glimpse of relevant information from the past in order to break the story up a bit. Seeing Nathan Ingram again in one of the flashbacks with Finch as he kept going about trying to teach the Machine to have instincts about human nature was a welcome return for one of the more intriguing POI characters. Ingram is very skeptical about what Finch claims the Machine is becoming capable of–using the wealth of information it can accumulate about a person in order to establish connections with others and know all of their dirty little secrets. Something happens during this scene that isn’t accounted for as the name of Grace Hendricks (Michael Emerson’s real life wife Carrie Preston as a character we first met last season) comes up urgently within the Machine’s database, but Finch considers it an irrelevant anomaly at the time. It isn’t until later on that Finch decides to introduce himself to Grace when the Machine keeps bringing her up to him during their training sessions.

Back in the present-day, John, Zoe and Bear all head to the land where all the houses look the same and there’s a barbecue every week. At first, nothing seems spectacular about Graham Wyler (David Denman). He’s happily married to wife Connie, has a soccer-playing daughter, and he’s the owner of the local hardware store. Soon, Finch helps crack the mystery of Graham Wyler when he realizes that the real Graham is a dead man and his identity is being used by former suspected thief Lloyd Pruitt in order to ghost his way to a better safer life. Things have been going well for the fake Graham until his former crew get out of prison where they wound up in after, say it with me now, the one job that Lloyd ditched them on. Unfortunately for Graham, all it took for his ex crew to track him down was an appearance in the background of some random woman’s Facebook photo. Ah, the dangers of social media. Of course one of Lloyd’s ex crew members shows up and pulls every page out of the coercion playbook stopping just short of kidnapping a member of his family in order to get him to do one more job with them in the city.

What makes Lloyd Pruitt so special that he’s worth all of the theatrics such his car being set on fire and his daughter’s necklace being stolen that his old crew can convince him to come back for this job? Well, Lloyd Pruitt is the master of a dying art of thievery, he can crack a safe purely by sound and touch. The safe his old crew wants to rob contains about $20 million in blue garnets and they won’t take no for an answer. Thankfully for ‘Graham’, John Reese just moved in next door and he helps the man navigate the job and keep his family safe.

Before the one last job scenario plays out we get to enjoy bits of John Reese and Zoe Morgan doing their best Mr. and Mrs. Smith act without the over the top violence. It’s funny, you’d think that this would have been the perfect scenario for John to do the kind of thing he does best but they both have a relatively quiet existence in the suburbs as they keep an eye on Graham and the Wyler family. John squirms restlessly in his Polo shirts and Dockers, but Zoe really seems to take to the quiet life while they play out their little charade. Jim Caviezel and Paige Turco continue to have a smoldering chemistry with one another and it truly is a thing of beauty that the best ‘fit’ with John Reese isn’t just some random silly pretty young thing–Zoe’s always had such substance and maturity that make her a perfect companion for Reese. It was a shame that we didn’t get see her kick any ass in this episode but she definitely pulled her weight as she used her charm without having to serve as some sort of physical distraction in order to get Reese into the building where the heist was taking place. We didn’t get to see Reese engage in his favorite pastime of bar fight bust-ups either so it was a relatively subdued night for John even if he did get to shoot someone in the leg. It was also entertaining to see arguably the two main women in John’s life, Zoe and Det. Carter, finally meet up for the first time.

Ultimately, Lloyd Pruitt turns himself in but he’s given the chance to turn state’s evidence and be put under house arrest instead. Loved how John took the chance to unmask himself after he got Lloyd to safety when the cops descended onto the building as it’s an ongoing theme this season with John not being afraid to form real connections to the people he helps. The world isn’t ready for John Reese to retire to the suburbs and neither is he, but it was nice for him to see that no matter what a man’s past might be he can always fight for the chance to start over.

Favorite Quotes

“I wouldn’t go there again.”– John after swiping a donut from an open dozen that Bear just licked at moments before he arrived.

“Maybe he met a reclusive billionaire.”– John’s snarky response to Finch when they were investigating Graham’s background.

“Let’s try not to shoot any girl scouts on our first day, okay?”– Zoe responding to John’s tense pulling of a gun though the sound was just their doorbell.

“Almost made it the whole day without you two asking me to break the law”– Det. Carter after Finch and Reese ask her to stall the cops heading to the heist scene.