History Recap / PersonOfInterestS03E11

* AirVentEscape: Shaw uses the false ceiling to enter the radiology lab.

--> '''Arthur''': Diane is dead. I buried her two years ago.

* DrowningMySorrows: Reese. Subverted when Fusco does it in club soda.

* DrowningYourSorrows: Reese. Subverted when Fusco does it in club soda.

* RealityEnsures: Shaw is a formidable former government assassin who can deal with almost all threats to Harold and Arthur. However, when a numerically superior force who have had the same training as her go up against her (Control's security detail), she is easily outnumbered and taken out of play.

* WhatTheHellHero: Root gives one to Finch about his deliberately ignoring messages from the Machine. No explanation was given as to how ''she'' got Arthur's number without leaving the Faraday cage. The next episode revealed that Root can hear messages from the Machine at a frequency many people can't hear, and knows how to pick simple locks like the one on the Faraday cage.

<<|Recap/PersonOfInterest|>>

** In the Bayesean probability tree The Machine is constructing at the end of the episode, there is [[FreezeFrameBonus a yellow box that reads "RETASKING ANALOG INTERFACE."]] In the [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E12 next episode]], Root rescues Finch, Arthur, and Shaw from Control.

** In the Baysean probability tree The Machine is constructing at the end of the episode, there is [[FreezeFrameBonus a yellow box that reads "RETASKING ANALOG INTERFACE."]] In the [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E12 next episode]], Root rescues Finch, Arthur, and Shaw from Control.

->''"There was a second Machine..."''
-->'''--Harold Finch''':

* AlmaMaterSong: Finch sings one with Arthur. Shaw snarks that Reese will be sorry that he missed that.

* AnimalMotifs: there's a birdcage in Finch's boyhood home, and as a boy he was always asking his father to identify birds.

* GambitPileup: Hoo boy. Vigilance attempts to kidnap Arthur, but are foiled by Finch and Shaw. At the same time, Arthur's wife Diane is really Control in disguise, who was keeping an eye on Arthur in an attempt to find Samaritan. Oh, and whatever Control is up to has earned her a red box, designating her as a relevant threat.

* IdiotPlot: Was it so hard for Arthur to say that his wife was dead?

* WhamEpisode: Just look at all of the spoilers.

After Carter's death has been avenged, Reese hangs up his suit and drops off the map to drown his sorrows, leaving Finch and Shaw behind to safeguard their latest number, Arthur Claypool, a friend of Harold's from college, now a retired NSA programmer whose terminal brain cancer does odd things to his memory - sometimes he can't remember things at all, and sometimes he blurts out what he now remembers (However classified it is) to whoever's around.

The flashback scenes of the episode show a young Harold (And yes, that really ''is'' his name, though a surname is never mentioned in those scenes) growing up in Iowa with his increasingly forgetful father (Mother not mentioned), demonstrating his talent for taking things apart, breaking into computer systems and expressing a desire to make a machine that can genuinely think.

* Understatement: Finch's reaction to finding out that Samaritan was one of the Machine's contenders:

** In the Baysean probability tree The Machine is constructing at the end of the episode, there is [[FreezeFrameBonus a yellow box that reads "RETASKING ANALOG INTERFACE."]] In the [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E12 next episode]], Root rescues Finch, Arthur, and Shaw from Control.]]

* TenMinuteRetirement: Finch debates quitting after [[spoiler: Carter dies and Reese runs off to Colorado.]] Only the prospect of [[SociopathicHero Shaw]] running around without supervision stops him.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: Look closely at the end. [[spoiler: Hersh's box is yellow (knows about The Machine), and not red (relevant threat).]]

* [[spoiler: TheBadGuyWins: Well, Control ''does'' end up with Shaw, Finch and Arthur at gunpoint.]]

* {{Cliffhanger}}: The episode ends with [[spoiler: Control holding Arthur and Finch at gunpoint, saying that the one who discloses the location of their MagnumOpus machine gets to survive.]] The Machine starts calculating some probabilities; specifically:
** Death, 46.18%: [[spoiler: Arthur T. Claypool]]
** Death, 43.68%: [[spoiler: Admin]]
** Death, 84.98%: [[spoiler: Sameen Shaw]]
** Death, 26.50%: [[spoiler: Robert N. Hersh]]
** Death, 11.65%: [[spoiler: Control]]

* DeadPersonImpersonation: [[spoiler: Control is Diane.]]
* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler: Diane Claypool.]]

** Right after the first 1979 flashback, [[spoiler: as Finch, Shaw and the Claypools exit the elevator, for less than a second, you can see [[FreezeFrameBonus a red square around Diane Claypool]], indicating she's a threat.]]
** Arthur remembers Harold, but not his own wife. [[spoiler: His wife has been DeadAllAlong...]]
** In the Baysean probability tree The Machine is constructing at the end of the episode, [[spoiler: there is [[FreezeFrameBonus a yellow box that reads "RETASKING ANALOG INTERFACE.]]" In the [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E12 next episode]], Root rescues Finch, Arthur, and Shaw from Control.]]

* GambitPileup: Hoo boy. [[spoiler: Vigilance attempts to kidnap Arthur, but are foiled by Finch and Shaw. At the same time, Arthur's wife Diane is really Control in disguise, who was keeping an eye on Arthur in an attempt to find Samaritan. Oh, and whatever Control is up to has earned her a red box, designating her as a relevant threat.]]

* ICouldaBeenAContender: [[spoiler: Arthur said that he only needed a few more weeks before the government shut down Project Samaritan, and he could have done what Finch did - created an ArtificialIntelligence of his own.]]
* IdiotPlot: Was it so hard for Arthur to say [[spoiler:that his wife was dead?]]

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: Project Samaritan's status is unknown.]]

--> '''Arthur''': [[spoiler: Diane is dead. I buried her two years ago.]]
* WhatTheHellHero: Root gives one to Finch about his deliberately ignoring messages from the Machine. No explanation was given as to how ''she'' got Arthur's number without leaving the Faraday cage. [[spoiler:The next episode revealed that Root 1: Can hear messages from the Machine at a frequency many people can't hear, and 2: Knows how to pick simple locks like the one on the Faraday cage.]]

<<|Recap/PersonOfInterest|>>

* FreezeFrameBonus[=/=]RewatchBonus: When Root puts the three books together to make Arthur's number, and admonishes Finch that he should stop ignoring The Machine, the green book in the middle is called ''Remembering the Tabulator.''

->''"[[spoiler:There was a second Machine...]]"''

After [[spoiler:Carter's]] death has been avenged, Reese hangs up his suit and drops off the map to drown his sorrows, leaving Finch and Shaw behind to safeguard their latest number, Arthur Claypool, a friend of Harold's from college, now a retired NSA programmer whose terminal brain cancer does odd things to his memory - sometimes he can't remember things at all, and sometimes he blurts out what he now remembers (However classified it is) to whoever's around.

->''"[[spoiler: There was a second Machine...]]"''

* {{Cliffhanger}}: The episode ends with [[spoiler: Control holding Arthur and Finch at gunpoint, saying that the one who discloses the location of their MagnumOpus machine gets to survive.]] Specifically:

-->'''Harold Finch''': [[spoiler: There was a second Machine...]]

** In one of the flashback scenes a teenaged Harold gets a pay phone to connect him to a random number in Paris for free using a plastic whistle. This was an actual method of phone phreaking during that time period, which was most commonly known to be used by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Draper John Draper]], AKA Captain Crunch.

* WhatTheHellHero: Root gives one to Finch about his deliberately ignoring messages from the Machine. No explanation was given as to how ''she'' got Arthur's number without leaving the Faraday cage.

** In the Baysean probability tree The Machine is constructing at the end of the episode, [[spoiler: there is [[FreezeFrameBonus a yellow box that reads "RETASKING ANALOG INTERFACE."]] Root to the rescue!]]