Person of Interest 2.10 “Shadow Box” Recap

Another day, another case, and another happy ending–no, now wait a minute, it is the winter finale after all for Person of Interest. That means there was a cliffhanger ending that put John Reese in peril, albeit a different kind of peril than what he faced in last season’s winter finale when he was shot. This episode brought all of our key Machine team players underneath one roof as a pair of lovers tried to right a wrong on the behalf of American veterans cheated by a loan scam.

There was this underlying sense of dread throughout the episode that seemed to signal that something big was about to happen to someone in the Machine team. From the moment that John and Harold disagreed about whose turn it was to dry Bear off after his doggie bath you knew it wouldn’t be the only thing they’d face off about. No, in all seriousness Reese and Finch disagreed about how to handle things multiple times in the episode as John grew to be quite sympathetic toward the cause of Abby Morgan and Shayne Coleman while Finch just didn’t want anyone getting killed because of their actions. The duo had planned to use plastic explosives to break their way into a bank vault in order to retrieve valuable account information from Mr. Chapel, Abby’s former employer. Mr. Chapel accepted kickbacks from the bank, Merton Watts, which handled foreclosures on the recipients of his charity’s loans while the unsuspecting veterans found their interest rates going through the roof and themselves out on the streets. Abby’s brother was killed in action in Afghanistan and Shayne was a former Marine who lost his arm while overseas in addition to his home and fiancé when screwed over by Chapel’s group so they really are quite sympathetic figures for John Reese to want to help, even if it means putting himself and Finch’s entire operation in danger. Remember, John  Reese was a soldier long before he got involved in anything more complicated.

While this is going on, Detective Carter is distracted from the Davison tip that Simmons provided for her last week by the return of Agent Donnelly. He’s less interested in HR and more interested in resuming his hunt for the man in the suit. It’s a really a testament to how awful he is at his job that he doesn’t seem to even suspect Carter’s involvement with what Reese and Finch are doing. He even lets her make a phone call not moments after he says the key to finding John is by tracing a signal from the phone he uses. True, she calls Fusco to have him warn Finch about it not John directly, but I really hope Agent Donnelly is able to put the pieces together soon about Carter’s level of involvement just so John isn’t the only person taking the heat for everything.

Yes that’s right, Agent Donnelly is finally able to apprehend the man in the suit down in the basement of Merton Watts…along with three other men in suits. Det. Carter stays quiet about which one is the right one so all four men (three of whom were there on behalf of Chapel in an attempt to try to stop Shayne and Abby) are brought in. So it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with Reese in custody and Finch still out there. My guess is they’ll probably resolve it fairly quickly when Person of Interest comes back this January. I hope not however as I really want to see how John Reese handles interrogated. Maybe we’ll learn more about the mysterious man too.