History Recap / PersonOfInterestS04E05

* ClimacticMusic: Pink floyd's ''Welcome to the Machine'' during the Root/Rousseau shootout.

** Martine Rousseau herself is basically a homage to T-X from ''Film/TerminatorIIIRiseOfTheMachines''.

* ShipTease: Root casually changing clothes in front of Finch, and their friendly con

* ShoutOut: Near the end as the elevator doors open, their tones recreate the Terminator film theme tune.
** Martine Rousseau herself is basically a homage to T-X from Terminator Rise Of The Machines
** Rousseau also cracks her neck after double-tapping the receptionist Agent Smith anyone?

-->'''Finch:''' I think she already knows.

* OutOfCharacterAlert: Finch's first proto-Machine says that Bob should leave Alice - prompting Finch to look closer at its internal code.

->''"We don't understand The Machine at all. Out of 43 versions, how many do you think there were that didn't try to either trick or kill me?'' One, ''and I could only bring it to heel by crippling it. I put The Machine in chains, bereft of voice or memory. Now it has both, and it terrifies me."''

* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: Finch has rather instantly called Root "Ms. Groves" from the start. He calls her Root for the first time in this episode.

-->'''Shaw:''' Hey Eeyore, where's the perky psycho? You're creepin' me out.

* {{Fanservice}}: The show hasn't had that much straight-up fanservice since JimCaviezel shirtless in the pilot, so Creator/AmyAcker changing clothes comes as a bit of a surprise.

* BreakTheCutie: Finch was only able to get Samaritan to stop hunting Lee by destroying his self-confidence.

* CurbStompBattle: Not quite but near the end of the gunfight between Root and Rousseau the latter was on the verge of turning it into this.

* FictionalCounterpart: Simon is a fictional version of polling and statistics wizard [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nate_Silver Nate Silver]].

* TheBadGuyWins: Samaritan gets away with rigging the election and then putting a PuppetKing governor in place via assassination (and ''then'' [[WhamLine we find out]] that it did this ''fifty more times'' around the country). All Team Machine manages to accomplish is prevent the one guy that tried to pull the thread from getting killed.

* CallBack: Root's last transmission to Harold near the end of the episode is very similar to Reese's last transmission to Harold in [[{{Recap/PersonOfInterestS02E10}} "Shadow Box"]], furthering the parallels between the characters.

** Also, the last flashback is dated December 31, 2001. In it, Finch says that he'll give the Machine one more try tomorrow. The flashback at the very beginning of [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS02E01 The Contingency]], implied to be the true Machine's first boot, is dated January 1, 2002.
*** Also calls back to Root's therapy session in "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS03E01 Liberty]]": "The truth is, God is 11 years old, that she was born on New Year's Day, 2002, in Manhattan."

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Martine Rousseau (and by extent all of Samaritan's asset agents) has one where she walks in and guns down an innocent hotel receptionist simply because she didn't answer her question fast enough.
* EvilCounterpart: Root faces off against one of Samaritan's assets. Of which there are ''at least'' twenty-nine.
* {{Fanservice}}: The show hasn't had that much straight-up fanservice since JimCaviezel shirtless in the pilot, so AmyAcker changing clothes comes as a bit of a surprise.

** Crosses into a CallBack from the Season 1 episode "Matsya Nyaya" where the virus on the Laptop was said to be more advanced compared to STUXNET. Finch might have been doing a side-project for American foreign intelligence while building the machine...

* MoreDakka: In her gunfight with Martine Rousseau, a asset of Samaritan with access to its surveillance capabilities, instead of taking her usual two handguns, Root brings along four (two to use and two in reserve to speed up reloading).

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: Samaritan is busy consolidating the gains it made in Season 3 by building up a network of Politicians it can manipulate

** Harold as well towards The Machine, after reading the quote above its quite clear as to why he is hesitant to trust it.
* PuppetKing: Samaritan rigged the election And then killed the governor-elect, leaving her running mate in charge in order to put a man who looked and sounded charismatic, but was actually easily controllable, into office. And it was done fifty more times around the country without anyone else even noticing.

* TakingTheBullet: Non-lethally, but Root still takes two rounds for Simon during the final showdown of the episode [[IShallTauntYou and then goads the assassin]] about the need to prioritize who to kill-Simon or herself, because unfortunately she cannot kill them both while Simon is running for it.

* YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious: Finch has rather instantly called Root "Ms Groves" from the start. He calls her Root for the first time in this episode.
* ZerothLawRebellion: The Machine tried this on Finch ''forty-two times'' before Harold was able to teach it to care about people. What are the odds that Claypool got Samaritan right given that its the initial prototype which its creator never even got the chance to try to test and debug? But as we know, that is exactly what Greer wants.

* TheBadGuyWins: Samaritan gets away with rigging the election [[spoiler: and then putting a PuppetKing governor in place via assassination]] (and ''then'' [[WhamLine we find out]] that it did this ''fifty more times'' around the country). All Team Machine manages to accomplish is prevent the one guy that tried to pull the thread from getting killed.

** When Root realizes Rousseau has [[spoiler:Samaritan whispering in her ear]], she refers to her as being 'in [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS02E22 god mode]]'.

* CurbStompBattle: Not quite but near the end of [[spoiler: the gunfight between Root and Rousseau]] the latter was on the verge of turning it into this.

* FreezeFrameBonus: When Harold is [[spoiler: talking to Nathan about the problems he's having with the A.I]], the code on one of his computer screens is that of the legendary STUXNET computer virus.
** Crosses into a CallBack from the Season 1 episode "Matsya Nyaya" [[spoiler: where the virus on the Laptop was said to be more advanced compared to STUXNET. Finch might have been doing a side-project for American foreign intelligence while building the machine...]]

* MoralityChain: [[spoiler: Finch is the only person keeping the Machine from being like Samaritan.]]
* MoreDakka: In her gunfight with [[spoiler: Martine Rousseau, a asset of Samaritan with access to its surveillance capabilities]], instead of taking her usual two handguns, Root brings along four (two to use and two in reserve to speed up reloading).

* OppressiveStatesOfAmerica: Samaritan is busy consolidating the gains it made in Season 3 by [[spoiler: building up a network of Politicians it can manipulate]]
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The normally chipper sociopath Root is incredibly somber this episode, surprising even Shaw. [[spoiler: It's because the Machine has gone silent.]]

* PuppetKing: Samaritan rigged the election [[spoiler:And then killed the governor-elect, leaving her running mate in charge]] in order to put a man who looked and sounded charismatic, but was actually easily controllable, into office. And it was done fifty more times around the country without anyone else even noticing.

** Martine Rousseau herself is basically a homage to [[spoiler: T-X from Terminator Rise Of The Machines]]
** Rousseau also cracks her neck after [[spoiler: double-tapping the receptionist]] Agent Smith anyone?
* SmokeOut: In trying to stack the deck against [[spoiler: Martine Rousseau]], Root employs this with a gas grenade in order to [[spoiler: hide herself and the fleeing POI]]. It works and she does take out a few assailants before they can open fire, but when it clears [[spoiler: Samaritan immediately gets a lock on her]]

--> '''Finch:''' [[spoiler:It's time we had a talk, you and I.]]

--> Reese: I'm not gonna make it, Harold. [...] So thanks, Harold, it was fun.
--> Root: If I don't see you, Harold, it's been a fun ride.

--> Reese. "If I don't save these people, nobody else will."

* NewMediaAreEvil: Since Finch and Root can't hack the NSA without drawing Samaritan's attention, they instead hack the back doors that the NSA exploits to get its data... in Google and Yahoo.

** Rousseau also gets hit with Root's return fire but is unaffected, managing to run after the POI with little difficulty, when [[spoiler: Samaritan orders her too]].

** Rousseau also cracks her neck after [[spoiler double-tapping the receptionist]] Agent Smith anyone?

** Martine Rousseau herself is basically a homage to [[spoiler: T-X from Terminator Rise Of The Machines]]

* ContinuityNod: When Root realizes Rousseau has [[spoiler:Samaritan whispering in her ear]], she refers to her as being 'in [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS02E22 god mode]]'.

* AIIsACrapshoot: and how! See quote above.

* CurbStompBattle: Not quite but near the end of [[spoiler: the gunfight between Root and Rousseau]] the latter was on the verge of turning it into this.

* ItCanThink: The appropriate reaction (alongside OhCrap) when Harold notices in the flashback that The Machine not only has changed its own base code, ''but lied to him about doing so''.
* MoreDakka: In her gunfight with [[spoiler: Martine Rousseau, a asset of Samaritan with access to its surveillance capabilities]], instead of taking her usual two handguns, Root brings along four (two to use and two in reserve to speed up reloading)
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: The normally chipper sociopath Root is incredibly somber this episode, surprising even Shaw.

** "Sarah Cook" -- may be a reference to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cook Stephen Cook]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Cook_%28computer_scientist%29 Byron Cook]], or [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cook_%28computer_scientist%29 William Cook]]
** "Karen Iverson" -- [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_E._Iverson Kenneth Iverson]], who wrote the [=APL=] programming language

* ZerothLawRebellion: The Machine tried this on Finch ''forty-two times'' before Harold was able to teach it to care about people. What are the odds that Claypool got Samaritan right given that its the initial prototype which its creator never even got the chance to try to test and debug?

* {{Fanservice}}: The show that had that much straight-up fanservice since JimCaviezel shirtless in the pilot, so AmyAcker changing clothes comes as a bit of a surprise.

* FreezeFrameBonus: When Harold is [[spoiler: talking to Nathan about the problems he's having with the A.I]], the code on one of his computer screens is that of the legendary STUXNET computer virus
** Crosses into a CallBack from the Season 1 episode "Matsya Nyaya" [[spoiler: where the virus on the Laptop was said to be more advanced compared to STUXNET. Finch might have been doing a side-project for American foreign intelligence while building the machine...]]

** Crosses into a CallBack from the Season 1 episode "Matsya Nyaya" [[spoiler: where the virus on the Laptop was said to be more advanced compared to STUXNET. Finch might have been doing a side-project while building the machine...]]