Characters / Person of Interest: Persons of Interest

Charlie Burton

Wallace Negel

Wallace Negel/Ulrich Kohl

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kohl_ulrich_5669.jpg

"For my country, I left my country and killed wherever they sent me. For that they called me a monster."

Played by: Alan Dale
Appeared in: "Foe"

A former East German Stasi spy who was betrayed by members of his unit, and planned to eliminate his former colleagues.

The Chessmaster: Has had a while to draw up a plan to track down and get rid of his former colleagues while in jail and executes it in a very efficient, methodical manner.
Cold-Blooded Torture: His preferred form is acupuncture needles to major nerves. Very clean and intensely painful.
Kohl: They laughed at me when I learned to use these needles. They didn't laugh long.
Combat Pragmatist: Kohl opts for the quickest method of disabling an opponent. Case in point with Reese where he hands his pistol to Reese while at gunpoint, using his other hand to deliver a well-placed nerve strike.
Cool Old Guy: He's an ex-German spy with a lot of experience who can outfight Reese.
Driven to Suicide: After he's informed that his wife is alive and meets with her, she informs him she's completely terrified by him and as he's got nothing else to live for, purposely makes Reese kill him by levelling his empty gun at his wife. As Kohl said he didn't have a tomorrow, it's implied that he would have killed himself once he'd finished.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The whole reason why he's back in New York, to take revenge for himself and his wife. And when his wife reveals she's utterly terrified by him, he decides to make Reese kill him as he's got nothing left to live for.
Evil Old Folks: Despite being well into his old age, he runs rings around the young German intelligence officer sent to take him down and has the honor of being the first person seen in the show who can go head-to-head with Reese, stay one step ahead of him and even incapacitate him with a well performed nerve strike.
Friendly Enemy: He is very friendly to John. They bond over discussing tradecraft and costs of being a professional killer while Kohl is taking breaks between torturing Reese. He's also highly regretful when he has to depart while at the same time is preparing to plug John in the head. Later after their final confrontation, they have a rather touching yet bitter-sweet conversation as Ulrich bleeds out on a park bench.
Genius Bruiser: Kohl isn't just a Professional Killer; he is also knowledgable in chemistry (he mixed the hydrogen cyanide he used on Wernick himself) and anatomy, which he uses to great effect on Reese by subduing him with a well-placed nerve strike and often used in his needle torture.
Heel Realization: He eventually realizes what he's become.
Kohl: You were right to fear me.
Jumped at the Call: Kohl went from being a Berlin Wall sentry to spy when his country needed him.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Against his former comrades in the Stasi, for collectively betraying him after having Heel Realizations.
Suicide by Cop: Variation. He makes like he's going to shoot somebody and Reese fatally shoots him, then it turns out the gun was empty.
Torture Technician: Tortures Reese for information, in a manner most technical.
Tragic Villain: Began to scare those around him due to his fanatical and bloody kill count, so they betrayed him when they defected. He wasn't pleased and flew to New York to get even—but then he meets the wife he thought was dead, and his daughter who he never met and then after realizing what he's become when his wife tells him she's utterly terrified by him, gets Reese to shoot him, killing him.
Underestimating Badassery: Kohl seized his chance to escape when the German government, believing him to be old and feeble, transferred him to a minimum security prison.
Worthy Opponent: Kohl has a great deal of respect for Reese as a professional killer, even apologizing before trying to shoot him. This also plays into his Suicide by Cop; he knew that Reese would not hesitate to shoot a gunman if lives were on the line.

Joss Carter

Claire Ryan

Played by: Helen Coxe
Appeared in: "Number Crunch"

An NYU lecturer and one of four persons who witnessed the car accident of a Congressman's son.

Posthumous Character: Of a sort. She gets killed before the episode's plot really begins.

Matt Duggan

Played by: Jeremy Beck
Appeared in: "Number Crunch"

A waiter and one of four persons who witnessed the car accident of a Congressman's son.

We Hardly Knew Ye: He appears in a single scene before getting blown up by a bomb.

Wendy McNally

Played by: Bridget Regan
Appeared in: "Number Crunch"

A hair stylist who was one of the four people who witnessed the car accident of a Congressman's son.

Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly Girl hair stylist to her Tomboy foster sister.
Trauma Conga Line: All she and her friends wanted after taking half a million dollars in laundered money was to take a modest finders fee and return it to the owners. The owner of the money hires a pair of professional killers to hunt them down, blowing one of her friends to smithereens and nearly ambushing her and Paula in their house. Later, Paula gets kidnapped and they nearly die in a hostage exchange gone wrong. Thanks to John's efforts, they live and even get to keep the money.

Paula Vasquez

Played by: Melonie Diaz
Appeared in: "Number Crunch"

The foster sister of Wendy McNally who also witnessed the car accident of a Congressman's son.

Damsel in Distress: Gets caught using the hospital vending machine and used as a hostage to lure Wendy out with the money.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Tomboy who buys a gun and tries to protect to her Girly Girl foster sister.
Trauma Conga Line: Goes through one with her friends after a congressman hires some professional killers to find his money.

Ernie Trask

Ernest P. "Ernie" Trask/Ernesto Machado

Played by: David Zayas
Appeared in: "Super"

"It seems like yesterday I was partying till dawn down in Miami. Used to own six nightclubs down there you know; I had a mansion in Coral Gables, a white Bengal tiger—had to give all that up. Bad for my health."

The building superintendent of an apartment complex in New York City.

Cassandra Truth: All his stories about once having a big fancy life when he is just the super of a low-level apartment are laughed at. He is actually in Witness Protection for testifying against Miami drug dealers.
Nice Guy: Cheerful, polite, affable, and generally gets along quite well with his residents.
Sympathetic Murderer: He was planning to kill a sleazy stalker.
Witness Protection: Why details about him living the high life in Miami and what happened to his ex-wife are hard to come by.

Andrea Gutierrez

Played by: April Hernandez Castillo
Appeared in: "Legacy"

"I believe everyone deserves a second chance."

A civil litigation attorney.

Action Survivor: Uses a telescoping baton to great effect and the drawers in a filing room to stall the man who's trying to shoot her before John gets there.
Clear Their Name: She is seeking to prove her clients are really innocent of their crimes.
Crusading Lawyer: Her primary goal is to help her clients.
Defiant to the End: Isn't begging when one of her colleagues (who's masterminded a scam which involves taking parolees' children into the foster care system for profit) is trying to kill her. She's rather angry, in fact.
Hello, Attorney!: Very pretty.
Married to the Job: Her clients are numbers 1, 2, and 3 on her priorities.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Even the man who tried to executes her points it out and in her superb Shut Up, Hannibal! to his self serving justifications about why he's going to kill her, she "would rather [her heart] bleed than stop beating altogether".

Scott Powell

Played by: Myk Watford
Appeared in: "Root Cause"

A dedicated family man and city construction project manager, who was laid off in the face of budget cuts advocated by Congressman Michael Delancey.

Frame-Up: Root framed him to look like an assassin.
Unconfessed Unemployment: He's been trying to find a job for months ever since he was laid off.

Darren McGrady

Played by: Astro
Appeared in: "Wolf and Cub"

"I figured it out. You're a Ronin ... that's a samurai who lost his master."

A boy whose older brother was murdered.

Child Prodigy: Has the makings of a great trumpet player, and a decent comics illustrator.
Hot-Blooded: Gets him into trouble multiple times over the episode and would have gotten him killed if Reese hadn't been there with a shotgun loaded with beanbag rounds.
Kid Sidekick: To Reese.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Wants to go on one for his brother's murder.

Michael Cahill

Michael Cahill/Daniel Tully

Played by: Michael Aronov
Appeared in: "Blue Code"

An NYPD narcotics detective working undercover with a smuggling ring led by Neil Vargas.

Determinator: He really wants to bring down L.O.S.
The Mole: An undercover cop.

Adam Saunders

Played by: Matt Lauria
Appeared in: "Risk"

"In the end, what Adam had instead of a father was cash in a shoebox. And what'd he do? He bought himself a future."

A proprietary trader with the Wall Street investment firm Baylor Zimm.

Dark and Troubled Past: Abandoned by his father.
Disappeared Dad: His father left him to find work...and then decided to start a new life without him.
Honest Corporate Executive: Is genuinely trying to do the right thing, and while he gambles of a sort on the stock market, it's all calculated risk, and when a company his uncle invested in is shorted, he does his best (with a good deal of help from Finch) to restore the stock price.
Missing Mom: His mother died when he was nine years old.

Leila Smith

Appeared in: "Baby Blue"

A six-month-old infant girl and a safe haven baby. She was named Leila Smith by Nurse Mary Abbot of St. Raymond's Clinic when she filed for her social security number. Her father's wife killed her mother and hired a group of people to kidnap her for sale in Eastern Europe.

Affair? Blame the Bastard: Her father's wife is trying to have her killed to "clean up" her husband's mess.

Gianni Moretti Sr.

Jordan Hester

Played by: Rhys Coiro
Appeared in: "Identity Crisis"

A barback and an ordinary man whose identity had been stolen by a female drug manufacturer named Tara Verlander.

Then Let Me Be Evil: After people started thinking he was a drug dealer, he eventually decided to go with it and steal the identity of the thief who stole his.

Gianni Moretti Jr.

Tommy Clay

Played by: Pablo Schreiber
Appeared in: "Matsya Nyaya"

"You get what you take—so I'm takin' mine."

A "hopper" for Grayling Armored Truck Services.

Asshole Victim: Is eventually betrayed and killed by his girlfriend, but he had it coming after he betrayed his partner.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems like a pillar of society with a perfect existence. It's all a lie. He takes part in robbing his own armoured car transport, executes and betrays a large number of people without a shred of hesitation over the course of the episode and really only gives a damn about himself.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Suffers a horrendous case of this.
Evil All Along : When he drops the seemingly angelic church going family act.
Laser-Guided Karma: Gets gunned down by his girlfriend who tries to take the loot for herself. Fitting, after he shot his driver and his partners.
No Honor Among Thieves: Kills his own partners just for a big payday.
The Resenter: Has finally had enough of transporting wealthy individuals' valuables and as the above quote shows has decided to take what he thinks is his.
Smug Snake: Which means he doesn't see his Bitch in Sheep's Clothing partner murdering him to take the loot for herself.
The Sociopath: On a horrifying scale.

Karen Garner

Karen Garner/Sarah Atkins/Jennings

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sarah_jennings.jpg

Played by: Dagmara Domińczyk
Appeared in: "Many Happy Returns"

An abused woman on the run from her husband, Brad Jennings. Sarah was living in New York under the alias Karen Garner working as a waitress.

Domestic Abuse: Is a victim of this, and has been on the run from her abusive husband.

Henry Peck

Henry L. Peck

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/peck_henry_8900.jpg

Played by: Jacob Pitts
Appeared in: "No Good Deed", ".exe"

"Oh, my God, they actually built it. After 9/11, the government wanted a computer system — a machine — That could watch everyone and everything, catch terrorists before they strike. They tried with Trailblazer, TIA, Stellar Wind. They, they all failed. If I'm right, then someone really built the damned thing... and it's watching us right now."

A former employee of the NSA, who, over the course of his own investigation of additions to a number of his reports, realized that the government had built the Machine.

Cassandra Truth: As he's thinking aloud in the police interrogation room, he realizes the truth about the existence of the machine. Fusco doesn't believe him.
Determinator: He once wrote a 78-page legal brief to get out of paying a ticket. This tips Finch off that he's not going to stop investigating The Machine and Northern Lights unless they interfere.
Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After he's arrested, he comes to his Cassandra Truth conclusion as he thinks out loud:
Peck: Someone was sneaking just as much data out as the NSA was taking in. To scan through all that, you'd need an organization ten times our size. It's more than any human— [Machine-POV of Peck looking suspiciously up at the interrogation room's security camera] Oh my God, they actually built it...
Faking the Dead: To keep him safe.
Get into Jail Free: To avoid the assassins after him, he throws a bottle at a police car so he'll wind up safe in custody.
He Knows Too Much: And worse, he doesn't even know what he knows.
Married to the Job/Workaholic: Peck has literally no life outside his job.
Properly Paranoid: Gets this way over the course of the episode.
Whole-Plot Reference: He's living out Three Days of the Condor.
You Remind Me of X: Peck reminds Finch of himself.

Caroline Turing

Season 2

Leon Tao

Hanna Frey

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/frey_hanna_8390.jpg

"Flowers for Algernon. You should read it. It's awesome."

Played By: Emily Robinson
Appeared in: "Bad Code"

Samantha Groves's friend who was murdered in 1991. She was described as a smart girl who mostly kept to herself. She looked out for her younger friend Sam, who was alone a lot because her mom worked. Hanna liked playing computer games, especially The Oregon Trail.

Dead All Along: Her revealed fate.
Finally Found the Body: Once Reese turns up, giving her family (and Root) some closure.
Posthumous Character: Sadly, she is.
Small Role, Big Impact: Her death and the events surrounding it pushed Samantha Groves to become the hacker Root.

Sofia Campos

Played by: Paloma Guzman
Appeared in: "Masquerade"

The daughter of Brazilian politician Hector Campos, a Brazilian diplomat, whose Social Security Number came up after she became a loose end in a drug deal.

Bilingual Backfire: She has some nasty words for Reese, assuming he can't understand Portuguese; unfortunately for her, he can.
Ditch the Bodyguards: Sofia is very talented at leaving her potential bodyguards in the dust.
Drowning My Sorrows: She parties hard and gets drunk as a way to escape the reality of her mother's death.
Have You Told Anyone Else?: Sofia is aware of this trope and uses it; she says she hasn't shown the video to anybody else, so the killer won't attack Reese. It's almost a Heroic Sacrifice on her part.
Omniglot: She's fluent in six languages.
Rich Bitch: At first, but over the course of the episode she shows more depth.

Riley Cavanaugh

Played by: Jonathan Tucker
Appeared in: "Triggerman"

An enforcer for the Irish mob who worked for his boss, George Massey.

The Atoner: He's striving to atone for killing his girlfriend's husband before they started dating.
Contract on the Hitman
Love Redeems: The only reason he decides to leave his life of crime is because he loves Annie.
Redemption Equals Death: It turns out he only purchased one train ticket to leave for Annie; he was unwilling to leave her looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.
Revolvers Are Just Better: Uses a Smith & Wesson 36 revolver as his main weapon.
Shadow Archetype: To Reese. Both are violent people but were changed by a woman.

Maxine Angelis

Played By: Gloria Votsis
Appeared in: "Bury the Lede"

"There's a rumor about this guy. The police just call him The Man in the Suit. No one's seen his face, no one knows his name, I'm not even sure he exists, but he's like something out of a comic book. When people are in trouble, he comes out of nowhere. He always seems to be there just in time. Whoever he is, he saves a lot of lives...and shoots a lot of kneecaps."

A journalist working for the New York Journal.

Break the Haughty: She published a story without fully confirming the facts because she wanted the big scoop. She ended up unintentionally getting a crucial (and innocent) FBI informant killed. Agent Donnelly revealed crucial details of their investigation just to show her how badly she screwed up. Her reputation and career were devastated, with her past stories now in doubt. She managed to pick herself up with the help of John, and located the ledger that the informant planned to give to the FBI.
Expy: Given the references to Batman mythos, she is sort of one to Vicki Vale.
Going for the Big Scoop: Her main drive and biggest character flaw.
Intrepid Reporter
Married to the Job
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: She launched a story claiming that a man was being suspected of being HR's boss. Turned out he was actually an FBI informant who had the ledger that could point the direction to HR's boss, but had a bullseye painted on him with that story and got him killed. Nice job breaking it, indeed.
Workaholic

Graham Wyler

Graham Wyler/Lloyd Pruitt

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wyler_brian_8660.jpg

Played by: David Denman
Appeared in: "The High Road"

A former jewelry thief and safecracker who now runs a hardware store with his wife.

Dark Secret: He was once a prolific safecracker who has taken a different name and made a new life for himself.
Dead Person Impersonation: The real Graham Wyler is long dead.
Retired Outlaw: From safe-cracker to suburban dad.

Madeleine Enright

Dr. Madeleine Enright

Played by: Sharon Leal
Appeared in: "Critical"

A leading cardiologist and trauma surgeon.

Happily Married: To her wife.
I Have Your Wife: She's subjected to this by Alistair Wesley.
Straight Gay: Her marriage to another woman is just another facet of her character. Exactly nothing in the episode would change if her significant other was switched for a man.

Daniel & Sabrina Drake

Daniel Drake

Sabrina Drake

Played by: Mark Pellegrino & Francie Swift
Appeared in: "Til Death"

Daniel: I'm so sorry I tried to kill you, honey.
Sabrina: Me, too.

Married co-heads of East Village Publishing whose relationship deteriorated after a traumatic miscarriage to the point they have both put a hit out on the other.

Divorce Requires Death: Their whole thing.
Easily Forgiven: They forgive each other rather easily after their attempts to kill each other. Perhaps neither of them felt that they had a leg to stand on when it came to being angry at each other.
If We Get Through This…: They decide to try for another child.
Mutual Kill: The goal they are unknowingly moving toward. Fortunately for them, they fail.
Poor Communication Kills: Very much so. Thankfully neither of them succeeded.

Fermin Ordoñez

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fermin_ordonez.png

Played by: Michael Irby
Appeared in: "C.O.D."

A cab driver in New York, a former baseball player and a Cuban defector.

I Coulda Been A Contenda: After defecting from Cuba, Fermin played professional baseball but a torn ligament ended his career.

Abby Monroe

Played by: Jessica Collins
Appeared in: "Shadow Box"

The older sister of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. She worked for a charity until she discovered that her boss was stealing money from veterans.

Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Her and her boyfriend's rationale for using stolen explosives to blow open the floor of a bank vault to steal back money collected by a fraudulent charity.
Small Role, Big Impact: She's pretty much forgotten after her episode, but the repercussions of working her number (namely, Donnelly finally cornering and arresting Reese) stick around for three additional episodes, culminating in one of the most important episodes of not just the season, but the series as a whole.

Caleb Phipps

Played by: Luke Kleintank
Appeared in: "2-Pi-R", "Blunt", "YHWH"

A young computer genius.

The Dog Was the Mastermind: Who's the new drug lord selling E in the high school?
Driven to Suicide: Narrowly averted. Caleb planned to kill himself over the guilt he felt due to his involvement in his brother's death. Thankfully, Finch talks him down.
Forgiveness Requires Death: That's what Caleb thought, anyway, deciding to leave the proceeds of his future compression algorithm in a trust for his alcoholic mother. Finch vehemently disagrees.
Laborious Laziness: He's a very intelligent kid but at school he puts in most of his effort keeping his grades as average as possible.
Small Role, Big Impact: He is the reason the Machine isn't completely destroyed by Samaritan two and a half seasons later.
Talking Down the Suicidal: Finch does this while alluding to the events which forced him to fake his death and lose his fiancé and Only Friend, resulting in a Happily Failed Suicide.
Teen Genius: He's very smart, and developed a new compression algorithm. He's not quite on Finch's level, but he's very close and Finch sees a younger version of himself in Caleb.
Undying Loyalty: To Finch. He hands over his billion dollar algorithm without even asking for an explanation.

Karolína Kurková

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/karolina_kurkova.png

Played by: Karolína Kurková
Appeared in: "Prisoner's Dilemna"

A Czech intimate apparel model.

As Herself: It's Karolína Kurková playing Karolína Kurková.
Hero of Another Story: She and Fusco have the sideplot in "Prisoner's Dilemna."
Smooch of Victory: Gives one to Fusco.
Statuesque Stunner: Well, of course. It's Karolína Kurková.

Nicholas Donnelly

See Law Enforcement.

Kara Stanton

Logan Pierce

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pierce_logan_7704.jpg

"Later, bitches!"

Played by: Jimmi Simpson
Appeared in: "One Percent", "Synecdoche"

The founder and CEO of the social networking website friendczar.com that he started with his best friend Justin Ogilvy. He is a self-made billionaire.

Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: He has funds which allow him to fly off to Russia on a moment's whim.
Batman Gambit: Near the end of the episode, intentionally risks his life just so he can find how Reese operates.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Subverted. The only reason he was acting so out-of-whack was so that his company would fire him, thus freeing him up to collaborate with a competitor.
The Bus Came Back: He returns in the Season 5 episode "Synecdoche" seemingly by coincidence. Turns out that The Machine had contacted him and a number of other former persons of interest to form a second Team Machine (and perhaps many other teams as well) and that this second team received John's number.
Cool Car: Mclaren MP412C supercar. As it's in a world where Everything Is On Line, the computer systems are hacked and reprogrammed to make the car go much faster to Make It Look Like an Accident.
Catchphrase: Likes to append the end of his conversations with "bitches".
Expy: Of Lloyd from Breakout Kings. Which makes sense. College dropout that built an extremely successful social networking site and is a very young billionaire.
False Friend: He has a lot of these.
Honest Corporate Executive: Just for starters, he sabotages a predatory lawsuit by his own company against a small startup, and helps them get started. And when his company becomes too ruthless for his taste, he joins forces with another competitor to launch a rival that will decimate them.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He does have a good side. It's just deeply hidden under some cynicism.
No Shirt, Long Jacket: Wears a pair of boxers and his overcoat to the dry cleaner to pick up his clothes.
Shadow Archetype: To Finch. This becomes even more true in his season 5 appearance, as he takes on Finch's role for a DC based Team Machine.
Sherlock Scan: Deduces a lot about Team Machine from one good look at Finch and Reese together.
Wild Card: Even Reese has trouble guessing what he will do next.

Mira Dobrica

Mira Dobrica/Brozi

Played by: Mia Maestro
Appeared in: "Booked Solid"

"Hotel management is hard work, but it's not rocket science."

A maid working in a New York hotel.

Dark and Troubled Past: Witnessed her family's murder and escaped from a totalitarian regime to the United States.

Sameen Shaw

Michael Cole

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cole_michael_5289.jpg

"Do you ever wonder where Research gets the numbers?"

Played by: Ebon Moss-Bachrach
Appeared in: "Relevance", ".exe"

An ISA agent and part of a two man team along with Sameen Shaw who neutralized terrorists.

Dying Declaration of Love:
Shaw: Always trying to be everyone's hero, huh?
Cole: No. Just yours.
He Knows Too Much: Targeted by his employer, Northern Lights, because he started to learn the truth about Research (The Machine).
Hero of Another Story: Along with Shaw in Relevance.
Major Injury Underreaction:
Shaw: We need to move. Now.
Cole: [suffering from multiple gunshot wounds] Ah, that's gonna be tough.
Mission Control: To Shaw.
Morality Pet: To Shaw. Her friendship with him is one of her few softening aspects.
Only Friend: He was the closest thing Shaw had to a friend, and it appeared to go both ways.
Taking the Bullet: For Shaw.

Alex Declan

See Other Antagonists.

Lou Mitchell

Louis "Lou" Mitchell

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mitchell_lou_6149.jpg

"Hey, dumbass—I cheated!"

Played by: Ron McLarty
Appeared in: "All In"

A former card sharp turned watch repairman, who was forced to help launder drug money for Dario Makris.

Card Sharp: A professional; few can play the cards like Lou can.
Cool Old Guy: He's a grump in his elder years, but his mind is sharp and he's a tough old goat.
Grumpy Old Man: Finch accurately describes him as 'cantankerous'. Lou is hard to get along with.
The Lost Lenore: He stills mourns his wife to the point where he can't leave the city where she's buried.
Pay Evil unto Evil: His plan to get back at Dario Makris.
Suspicious Spending: He's a retired watch repairman, but somehow is able to lose $2,000 a day at a casino for over a year; Reese and Finch follow the suspect money to the casino owner, Dario Makris as part of a money-laundering scheme.
What the Hell, Hero?: He gives one to Finch for leaving the love of his life; Lou didn't leave the woman he loved, she died.

Monica Jacobs

Played by: Tracie Thoms
Appeared in: "Trojan Horse"

"Please, we breached firewalls together; call me Monica."

Senior VP of Strategy and Systems for Rylatech, one of the top networking equipment companies in the U.S.

The Cracker: A very skilled computer engineer.
Honest Corporate Executive: One of the few in the Flock of Wolves that is Rylatech.
Workaholic/Married to the Job
Finch: Ms. Jacobs, how are you doing?
Monica: Oh, not bad, considering the company I devoted the last ten years of my life to is under federal investigation.

Cal Beecher

See Law Enforcement.

Richard Nelson

Dr. Richard Nelson

Played by: Dennis Boutsikaris
Appeared in: "In Extremis"

A well respected heart surgeon and medical researcher with Booker University who got divorced from his wife following an affair and now has a struggling relationship with his daughter.

The Atoner: He starts to believe that his poisoning is karmic payback for his mistakes in life, but gradually accepts that despite some of his personal flaws, he didn't deserve to be poisoned.
Badass Bookworm: When a relatively meek man turns into a Dead Man Walking, all pretenses are dropped as he literally has nothing left to lose anymore. The man will get his justice and revenge if it's the last thing he'll do — which it literally is.
Cruel and Unusual Death: ARS is no joke, and is a very nasty way to go. Dr. Nelson handles it like one hell of a champ though.
Deadly Nosebleed: One of the symptoms of his illness.
Dead Man Walking: There is no cure, or even treatment, for ARS (acute radiation syndrome). The only thing he can do is ease his pain a little bit, and get his body moving with some adrenaline. It also helps to have a single-minded focus.
Dramatic Drop: He drops a glass when the poison takes full effect and he finally dies.
Face Death with Dignity: Nelson wants to do this, and eventually succeeds.
Freudian Threat: Toward a hedge fund trader; he shoots at his legs while noting that his vision is getting blurred due to the poison.
My Greatest Failure: For Team Machine, as he becomes the first (on-screen) victim-POI they failed to save, despite getting his killer.
To the Pain: He spells out what happens when someone suffers polonium poisoning to the killer. Who's just taken it himself.
Shot to the Heart: Reese has to pump Nelson with an adrenaline shot to keep him going at one point.
Whodunnit to Me?: With Reese's help, delivers a little Laser-Guided Karma to the man who killed him.

Ernest Thornhill

Season 3

Jack Salazar

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/salazar_jack_9279.png

"I can't be something I'm not."

Played by: Ray Valentin
Appeared in: "Liberty"

A non-commissioned officer with the US Navy who became a Person of Interest after his friend RJ stole some uncut diamonds that were part of a larger shipment being transported aboard his ship without his knowledge.

Awesomeness by Analysis: Gives a chilling play by play of the bar brawl that's about to happen when he gets into a fight along with his friend.
Badass in Distress: Some Force Recon Marines attempt to kidnap him, beating him up, knocking him out and tossing him in the boot of a car. Luckily, John's driving.
Dare to Be Badass: His commanding officer believes he'd make a great SEAL if he tried out for his BUD/S.
Expy: He's basically a younger Reese in a different service branch, who hasn't made career decisions like joining the CIA or suffered personal tragedy in his life. Even Reese sees the similarities between him and Jack, giving him some friendly advice and also warning him not to accept any job offers from the CIA if he decides to become a SEAL.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Is torn between the offer to try out for his BUD/S and become a SEAL or settle down and have a family.
Nerves of Steel: One of the more calm POI's Team Machine has dealt with who doesn't lose his nerve or do something idiotic when his shipmate is kidnapped.
Trading Bars for Stripes: How he got into the Navy, he beat a man into a coma. John empathizes with him over this, alluding to his own experiences.
Trauma Conga Line: All he wanted was a drink and some rest and relaxation in New York during Fleet Week. But his number came up in the Irrelevant list. Then he gets involved in a bar brawl, has his friend kidnapped and wired to an I.E.D, is nearly kidnapped himself, is shot when Reese rescues him, is embroiled in a diamond smuggling operation he wasn't even aware of and is nearly late returning to the aircraft carrier he's serving on. Luckily, his irresponsible shipmate who helped embroil him in the mess takes the blame for their lateness and by the next day, he's safely back on the aircraft carrier with the Force Recon Marines who were trying to kill him dead or in hospital.

Wayne Kruger

Wayne L. Kruger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kruger_wayne_1192.png

"You can't fight the technology."

Played by: David Alan Basche
Appeared in: "Nothing To Hide"

An internet entrepreneur and data broker. He founded and served as CEO of Lifetrace, Inc, a business collecting and disseminating for profit the private habits and details of internet users, sometimes with dire consequences for the individual.

Asshole Victim: Big time, he's ruined many people lives and never made any effort to correct the problems with his website.
Break the Haughty: At the start of the episode, Kruger arrogantly claimed that people who wanted privacy probably had something to hide when they complained about his site. Peter Collier and a group of people who had their lives ruined by Life Trace proceed to take him down several notches.
Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Presents a slick and charismatic personality but it's a lie. He's got a criminal record, gone bankrupt in a previous business, only cares about his financial success, has been having an affair and is willing to injure the man who's trying to keep him alive just for a chance at finalising the business deal he's been conducting. Collier is utterly disgusted by him that he convinced his superiors who wanted Kruger to be scared away from his company to instead accept his proposal to execute Kruger.
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Even Finch sees it and notes that he built The Machine as a Black Box so that men like Kruger couldn't abuse it the same way Kruger's website is abused.
Death Equals Redemption: Averted. Began to show authentic remorse when he learned that his site ended up killing someone. But he gets killed before he can make any possible attempt at redemption.
Evil Counterpart: To Nathan and Finch in that he also created a system that violates privacy. Unlike the two of them, who built it as a black box that could not be accessed directly and sold it for a single dollar, he was only interested in making a profit and failed to care at all for the privacy of those he monitored.
Hate Sink: Can you tell by his other entries that he is quite despicable in almost every way you can think of?
Hypocrite: Calls out Finch twice for reading his personal info.
Finch: "Do you mind?"
It's All About Me: Only cares about himself and getting the business deal with his website finalised. Made more apparent when he smashes a vase on Harold's head and heads to a business meeting where he believes the deal can be finished. It's a trap for Collier to kill him.
Jerkass: Taken up to eleven when he smashes a vase on poor Harold's head.
Large Ham: Given that the actor is theatrically trained, when Kruger starts losing it, he really starts losing it. It actually makes a couple of his scenes somewhat amusing in spite of his Hate Sink status.
Laser-Guided Karma: Peter Collier arranges for him to suffer a severe loss of privacy and ruin his life in the same way Kruger's site did to so many others.
My God, What Have I Done?: After the father of a girl who's stalker/murderer used Life Trace spells out how Kruger's inaction when he requested sensitive information be removed was ignored contributed to her death, Kruger shows genuine remorse for the first time in the episode. Collier is not impressed however and shoots him.
Never My Fault: His main flaw, he never accepts responsibility for how his website helped destroy so many lives. One of the people who lost his child to a stalker who was using Life Trace to track her pointed out that he did nothing and didn't listen to the requests to pull critical information from the site.
The Sociopath: Only just barely subverts this, since he actually does show remorse after learning about his role in the death of a man's daughter. But most other sociopathic traits are still present in his demeanor, including self-centeredness, focus on profiting from his site, and refusing to acknowledge mistakes.
Trauma Conga Line: For the first time, in the history of the show, its actually quite deserved. He's revealed to be having an affair at his wedding anniversary, his secretary learns he only hired her for her looks, the potential business partner leaves him out to dry, the board of his company learns about his shady criminal and business history, he gets thrown out of his company, he's nearly killed in a falling elevator, then a car accident and finally, he goes to what he thinks is a business meeting but is in fact a trap to kill him.

Ian Murphy

Played by: Warren Kole
Appeared in: "Lady Killer"

An investor and playboy who becomes a person of interest.

Master of Disguise: Switches from blue blood to Hipster faster than you can say "ironic facial hair."
Sherlock Scan: Sees Carter push away a small bowl of almonds and correctly deduces that she has a severe nut allergy. He also notices the way she observes other people in the club and deduces that she is/was a detective. Carter even admits that he would make a good detective.
Stalking is Love: Completely believes this. He says it's to 'know' a woman.

Rachel Jensen

Dr. Rachel Jensen

Played by: Jennifer Ikeda
Appeared in: "Reasonable Doubt"

A veterinarian who became a person of interest when a group of armed men attempted to steal ketamine from her office.

Vanessa Watkins

Played by: Kathleen Rose Perkins
Appeared in: "Reasonable Doubt"

A defense attorney who is married to Jeremy Watkins. Vanessa was previously a prosecutor with the District Attorney's office but did not enjoy the work so switched to working for the defense.

Prophecy Twist: She really didn't kill her husband... yet.

Genrika Zhirova

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zhirova_genrika_5463.png

"I'm just practicing for my career....International espionage."

Played by: Danielle Kotch
Appeared in: "Razgovor"

A 10-year-old Russian immigrant with a great interest in surveillance, clever strategy planning, and a keen sense of paranoia which helps her stay sharp when she's being tracked.

Bilingual Dialogue: Speaks Russian and English.
Character Blog: Has a Twitter account (@PA37ABOP) where she was tweeting cryptic comments from July 31, 2013 to the episode's original air date.
Child Prodigy: Knows counter-surveillance tactics and executes them very well; built a "listening station" in the basement air ducts of her apartment house and planted hard-wired microphones all through the building.
Free-Range Children: Her cousin cares little about her and doesn't even try to put limits on her. As a result, she does pretty much anything she wants, including spying on any suspicious character in her apartment building.
Morality Pet: She's the first POI Shaw has genuinely cared about saving.
Meaningful Name: Writer David Slack was a fan of Harriet the Spy. "Genrika" is "Harriet" in Russian.
Spy School: She learned espionage tradecraft from her grandfather the retired KGB agent and Order of Lenin recipient.
Trauma Conga Line: She's never met her father, her mother is a political prisoner, her grandfather who was caring for her died, she's living in a high-crime area with her drug-addled and indifferent third cousin Vadim... and then her number comes up in the irrelevant list.

Timothy Sloan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sloan_timothy_4634.png

Played by: Kirk Acevedo
Appeared in: "Mors Praematura"

A mild-mannered estate investigator, and the foster brother of Jason Greenfield. He became a person of interest after Peter Collier and his organization, Vigilance, were after him for information on Jason's whereabouts.

Hypercompetent Sidekick: He's a very good investigator.

Jason Greenfield

Played by: Michael Esper
Appeared in: "Mors Praematura", "A House Divided"

"I said we should scare the bastard, but Collier convinced the group that it was time for more... aggressive action. I'm not a killer."

The foster brother of Timothy Sloan, and a computer hacker marked for death by Vigilance. Notable for being the first Number assigned to Root by The Machine ("There's a third category.") to appear on the show.

Everyone Has Standards: He suggested that Vigilance target Wayne Kruger, but only wanted to scare him. When Peter Collier decided to kill him instead, he decided to walk. This is likely part of why The Machine wanted Root to recruit him for her team.
He Knows Too Much: The reason he's targeted for assassination.
Not Quite Dead: Jason was believed dead due to a drug overdose, but his death was actually faked to keep him safe from Vigilance.
Put on a Bus: Sent away to safety by The Machine after being rescued. He later returns to help prep the "blind spot" Samaritan servers so that they will not automatically be found when it comes online. He then gets sent away to safety again.
Resignations Not Accepted: He tried to leave Vigilance; they didn't take kindly to that.

Hayden Price

Played by: Aaron Staton
Appeared in: "The Perfect Mark"

A con artist posing as hypnotherapist.

Always a Bigger Fish: Non-lethal version. He gets conned himself by someone playing a very long con.
Con Man: He uses his hypnosis therapy to try and wrangle people's private information out of them, although he has his fingers in a few other scam pies.
Out-Gambitted: His girlfriend is the better con artist in the end, making off with $4.4 mil.

John Reese

Patrick Simmons

See HR.

Arthur Claypool

Played by: Saul Rubinek
Appeared in: "Lethe", "Aletheia"

"Harold, I did it. I solved it before they shut me down. Harold, Samaritan is alive."

A former software engineer for the NSA, and an old friend of Harold Finch and Nathan Ingram back from when the trio attended MIT together. He also suffers from memory loss due to a brain tumor.

Crazy-Prepared: Apparently, he hid the drives of Project Samaritan after the government shut it down.
From Bad to Worse: He goes from having such bad memory loss that he forgets his own wife, to being attacked by privacy terrorists, to being held at gunpoint by the woman acting as his wife.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Not all of his memory lapses are genuine. At one point, he "played the tumor card" to stall for time when he and Harold are being held at gunpoint.
Properly Paranoid: There's a good reason that he doesn't trust his wife...
Unknown Rival: To Finch; he was also trying to create an Artificial Intelligence defense system after 9/11. Not only that, he succeeded. He'd just finished raising Samaritan to self-awareness when the success of Finch's Machine caused his program to be shut down.
Walking Spoiler: Being the creator of Samaritan, it's hard to talk about him without giving a lot away.

Owen Matthews

Owen T. Matthews

Played by: Samm Levine
Appeared in: "4C"

A programmer and the creator of the Black Market Bazaar.

The Dog Was the Mastermind: He's the very mysterious "Sphinx".
Insufferable Genius: He's very aware of how smart he is and he is incredibly annoying about it.
Jerkass: Matthews is short-tempered, irritable and sarcastic.
Plucky Comic Relief: His sarcasm and tendency to go off on tangents make him this for his episode.

Kelli Lin

Kelli Lin/Lin Jiao

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lin_kelli_8954.png

Played by: Elaine Tan
Appeared in: "Provenance"

An antiquities thief and former Olympic gymnast.

Classy Cat-Burglar: She is quite skilled at getting through security systems.
Dark Action Girl: An expert thief and gymnast who can also go toe-to-toe with Shaw. Though she's only "Dark" because some criminals are holding her daughter hostage.
Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: She's found work as an art thief after her gymnastics career ended.
I Have Your Daughter: The method used by the Czech syndicate to force her to work for them was to kidnap her daughter.

Sandra Nicholson

Played by: Melissa Sagemiller
Appeared in: "Last Call"

An NYPD 911 operator.

My Greatest Failure: She considers herself to be responsible for the death of a child she was babysitting when she was 14.

Haley McNabb

Played by: Dillan Arrick
Appeared in: "RAM"

One of the first persons of interest whose number the Machine sent to Finch. Haley knew her boss was embezzling money and was going to testify against him in court, so he hired two hit men to kill her.

Rescue Sex: With Mr. Dillinger.

Daniel Casey

Played by: Joseph Mazzello
Appeared in: "RAM", "A House Divided"

"Managed to get a few bits of code onto the laptop before the system woke up and bit me. It adapted to my hack. Locked me out. ... It's so advanced it's almost alien."

A freelance hacker who specializes in testing the security of computer systems. He worked for many years as a part of various tiger teams.

The Cracker: He's a professional computer hacker, and the fact that he was able to find Ingram's backdoor in The Machine (and was unwilling to tell the government about it) gets him marked for recruitment by Root.
He Knows Too Much: Casey is aware of the Machine's existence, and for that he's chosen for assassination.
Properly Paranoid: He's very suspicious of most people, and he's right to be. Most everyone wants him dead.
Put on a Bus: The Machine and Root track him down three years after his ordeal and send him to stay with Jason Greenfield. He later returns with Greenfield to help prep the "blind spot" Samaritan servers so that they will not automatically be found when it comes online. He then gets sent away to safety again.

Cyrus Wells

Played by: Yul Vasquez
Appeared in: "/"

"Took me a long time to see it, but there's an order to things, a plan. And everything that happens is part of it, including you."

A janitor who was formerly a millionaire banker and businessman.

Creature of Habit: Wells follows the exact same routine every day.
Happiness in Minimum Wage: Is perfectly content with his job.
Morality Pet: He serves briefly as one for Root. She was the shooter who gunned down his former partners, and so she tries to save him as a form of atonement, and as a reminder of how far she's come since.

Maria Martinez

Played By: Nazneen Contractor
Appeared in: "Allegiance"

An engineering contractor working for HydralCorp, an international energy company.

Early-Bird Cameo: Her name, at least; when the Machine calculates potential victims of Samaritan's eventual rise, her name is shown among others.

Leona Wainwright

Played by: Sandy Rosenberg
Appeared in: "Most Likely To..."

A clerical assistant to the Office of Personnel Management responsible for security clearances. Due to the nature of her job she would have access to names and contact details of every government official, from accountants to senators, who could access the confidential information in her department, including those who are associated with the Northern Lights program. Vigilance found out and targeted her.

Small Role, Big Impact: Her "rather theatrical death" at the hands of Vigilance, after less than two minutes of screen time, is the catalyst for the chain of events that eventually leads to Samaritan replacing The Machine as the intelligence provider for Northern Lights.

Matthew Reed

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/reed_matthew_3273.jpg

"I can always tell when somebody's not telling the truth."

Played by: Nestor Carbonell
Appeared in: "Most Likely To ..."

"For two decades, I believed I pushed Claire over the edge, that she OD'd because of me, until I got this reunion invitation and I started thinking like a prosecutor instead of a boyfriend. You want justice? I served a guilty sentence the last 20 years. Shooting you and letting you rot for the next 20, I mean, that sounds like justice to me."

A prosecutor and former student of East Springs High School.

Amazon Chaser: Reed is very attracted to Shaw.
Clear My Name: He seeks to do this by murdering the person actually responsible and leaving a forged suicide note. (See quote above.)
Convicted by Public Opinion: He was never actually found guilty of murdering his prom date, but all his classmates suspect him and basically consider him guilty since the real culprit wasn't caught.
Hello, Attorney!: Shaw most definitely has this reaction upon meeting him.
Reunion Revenge: With a side of Prophecy Twist; Reese and Shaw think he is going to be on the receiving end when the truth is the opposite.
Sympathetic Murderer: Or sympathetic attempted murderer, at least. He was going to kill someone, but he ultimately doesn't go through with it.

Roger McCourt

Played by: John Heard
Appeared in: "Death Benefit"

Illinois' US Congressman and a member of the United States House Committee on Rules. A Relevant number that Team Machine finds themselves forced to protect. Or so they initially think.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Its left ambiguous if McCourt really cares about his constituents, but McCourt definitely helps out the homeless and keeps open communication with the people of Illinois, all while committing insider trading and cheating on his wife. Oh, and he's helping kickstart a surveillance state.
Ignored Epiphany: He almost has a moment of doubt on his face after ensuring that legislation on Samaritan passes committee, but he ultimately brushes it off.
Manipulative Bastard: He's a social wizard, able to navigate almost any situation to his benefit. In one of his first scenes, he manages to get an angry union leader to agree with how he screwed them over and then pass off tickets to an opera he despised onto said leader.
My Country, Right or Wrong: Subverted. He's fully aware that the government has major flaws. It's how he justifies being paid off to put government feeds in corporate hands.
Small Role, Big Impact: A single episode PoI. His survival ensures that Samaritan comes online. It also marks the beginning of an ideological divide between Finch and his Machine, as he realizes the Machine wanted the congressman dead.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The Machine sends up his number because he's the linchpin for Samaritan's awakening.

Grace Hendricks

Control

See Northern Lights.

Ross Garrison

See Northern Lights.

Kyle Holcombe

Appeared in: "A House Divided"

The head of the NSA.

Living Prop: Exaggerated. His actor isn't even listed in the post-episode credits.
The Voiceless: Says absolutely nothing during his screentime.

Manuel Rivera

Manuel E. Rivera

Played by: Joseph Melendez
Appeared in: "A House Divided", "Deus Ex Machina"

The Intelligence Advisor to the President and one of the people Control meets with to discuss Vigilance's impending terrorist attack.

Sacrificial Lamb: His death establishes the danger Finch and the others are in while being held in Vigilance's Kangaroo Court.

John Greer

Season 4

Ali Hasan

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hassan_ali_4468.jpg

"You couldn't protect me, so I protected myself."

Played by: Navid Negahban
Appeared in: "Panopticon"

The owner of an electronics shop located in The Bronx, run by himself with the help of his son Ben.

Beware the Nice Ones: When Link pushes him, the seemingly mild-mannered Ali tries to blow him up.
Papa Wolf: After Link makes a subtle threat to his son, Ali tries to trick him into blowing himself up with a disguised IED. He's only unsuccessful thanks to Reese's intervention.
Retired Badass: Was formerly a member of the Egyptian Army's Unit 777.
Techno Wizard: Even Finch is quite impressed by his tech abilities.

Claire Mahoney

Andre Cooper

Played by: Ryan O'Nan
Appeared in: "Wingman"

Think about meeting women like you're selling yourself....They need to feel like you've made an effort, that you didn't just roll out of bed and throw on yesterday's suit with a new shirt.

A "professional social liaison" (pickup artist) whose Dark and Troubled Past is catching up with him.

Deadpan Snarker

Malcolm & Tracie Booker

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/malcolm_and_tracie_booker.png

Played by: Amir Mitchell Townes & Kaci Walfall
Appeared in: "Brotherhood"

A pair of siblings who stole drug money from the Brotherhood.

The Atoner: Their mother is being held in Rikers for having an unregistered gun, only Malcolm was the one who got it.
Honor Before Reason

Simon Lee

Played by: Jason Ritter
Appeared in: "Prophets"

"Look at this. Wait, this is the wrong file. Someone got to my data. This is—Wait, this is impossible. There is a conspiracy. The election was rigged, Perez was murdered, and then they tried to kill me."

A gifted political pollster whose number comes up at the same time that his typically ironclad predictions go wrong.

Break the Cutie: The poor guy was having such a good career run, then Samaritan decided it had something to say about the election and Finch was forced to destroy his self-confidence to keep him from probing further and attracting Samaritan's ire.
Butt-Monkey: He's targeted for assassination, his career is ruined, and he's forced to question his own sanity, all because...
Fictional Counterpart: Simon is a fictional version of polling and statistics wizard Nate Silver.
He Knows Too Much: He figured out that the New York gubernatorial election was rigged.
Properly Paranoid: Though he doesn't fully understand what's going on, he's smart enough to realize he's in trouble and needs to get "off the grid."

Walter Dang

Played by: Erik Jensen
Appeared in: "Pretenders"
Aliases: Detective Jack Forge

"Hey, listen, that vigilante I heard about, the Man in the Suit? ... He disappeared a few months ago, and crime went up; violence, killings... The city needed somebody to keep up the fight, so I figured, why not me? But you know, 'me' kind of sucks, so I invented Detective Forge..."

An unassuming office worker who stumbles into a dangerous conspiracy while moonlighting as fake detective.

Ascended Fanboy: Walter knew of Reese as 'The Man in the Suit' through his police scanner, and is overjoyed to be actually working with him.
Heroic Wannabe: Despite being an office worker, Walter wants to be a hero and help people. He masquerades as an invented detective named 'Jack Forge'.
Meaningful Name:
- "Walter", as in "Walter Mitty".
- "Jack Forge" as in "forgery".
Nice Guy: Walter is generally a friendly guy.
Third-Person Person: As Jack Forge, he refers to himself by name.

Tomas Koroa

Played by: Adrian Bellani
Appeared in: "Honor Among Thieves"

"I'm not a saint, but some things are too far, even for a man like me."

A jewelry thief who's been successufully eluding the police while pulling off heists of the highest caliber. He finds himself eventually double-crossed by those he trusts most and marked for death.

Amazon Chaser: He's very attracted to Shaw; then again, who isn't?
Even Evil Has Standards: See above quote.
Gentleman Thief: A pretty classic version; he's handsome, suave, honorable and rather conscientious.
Meaningful Name: The name "Tomas Koroa" alludes to the main character of the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair. "Tomas" is the Spanish equivalent of Thomas, and "Koroa" is the Basque word for crown. Doubles as a Bilingual Bonus.
Safecracking: One of his specialties.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: His employer planned to kill Tomas after he'd finished the job.

Dani Silva

See Law Enforcement.

Carl Elias

Rachel Farrow

Played by: Alexie Gilmore
Appeared in: "The Cold War"

A woman in an abusive marriage who plans to kill her husband.

Harvey

Played by: Andy English
Appeared in: "If-Then-Else"

A broker who embezzled money from his clients.

Driven to Suicide: He tries to kill himself after he's caught embezzling.

Yasin Said

Played by: Ryan Shams
Appeared in: "Control-Alt-Delete"

One of the people who participated in Samaritan's contest, the Nautilus Challenge.

Foil: He won the Nautilus game like Claire Mahoney and he and his friends got a sweet gig at Decima until Samaritan decided it didn't need them anymore.
The Scapegoat: Samaritan frames him and his friends for terrorism.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Escapes to Canada, but Control still tracks him down.

Albert Weiss

Played by: Mason Petit
Appeared in: "M.I.A."

A sales associate at a hardware store who leads a double life as a freelance hitman and cleaner.

Make It Look Like an Accident
Police Brutality Gambit: He uses this to get out of an arrest, purposefully injuring himself while alone with Fusco.
They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: Part of what makes him such an efficient cleaner is because he's a seemingly innocuous, unimpressive guy.
Villainous Breakdown: He attacks Silva and Fusco in a rage, because he refuses to accept that he's been caught.

Emma Blake

Played by: Blair Brown
Appeared in: "Guilty"

A prematurely retired schoolteacher who was chosen for jury duty just like Finch.

Extreme Doormat: Her main flaw; she caves easily under pressure. It's why she lost her teaching job, and part of why the fixer chose her to swing the jury.
Genki Girl: Or at least as genki as a woman of her age could conceivably be.

Anna Mueller

Played by: Bella Dayne
Appeared in: "Q&A"

A transcriber for fetchandretrieve.com's product VAL. When she suspects that VAL is nudging potential suicide victims into commuting suicide rather than helping them, she informs her superiors of the problem only to be targeted by Calvin Mazer, F&R Chief Technical Officer.

Action Girl: She's a trained combatant and skilled MMA fighter.
Hypercompetent Sidekick: To Reese, since she's such a proficient fighter.

Harper Rose

Shane Edwards

Dr. Shane Edwards

Played by: Patrick Kennedy
Appeared in: "Karma"

A psychologist who brings his patients peace by secretly framing the enemies in their life for crimes they did not commit. This vigilantism began following the murder of his wife Lucy.

Framing the Guilty Party: His whole schtick; when people escape justice, he frames them for a separate crime that ensures imprisonment. Unfortunately, he's not always the right person to judge who is guilty.
Miscarriage of Justice
Morally Ambiguous Doctorate
Saying Too Much
Talking Down the Suicidal
Vigilante Man

Beth Bridges

Elizabeth "Beth" Bridges

Played by: Jessica Hecht
Appeared in: "Pretenders", "Skip"

A businesswoman residing in Tokyo, Japan.

The Bus Came Back: She re-appears after a break of several episodes.
Implied Love Interest: There's certainly a vibe between her and Finch, which Root takes roughly five seconds to pick up on after seeing them together. Sadly, it never goes anywhere.
Meet Cute: With Finch.

Frankie Wells

Francesca "Frankie" Wells

Played by: Katheryn Winnick
Appeared in: "Skip"

A bounty hunter from Florida looking for the man who killed her brother.

Action Girl: She is so good in hand to hand combat that she can go up against Mooks with guns and win.
Bounty Hunter: Frankie is a very good bounty hunter, but this time, it's personal.
It's Personal: The man she is chasing killed Frankie's brother.
Percussive Pickpocket: Frankie is such a good pickpocket that she can lift Reese's badge while in the middle of a fistfight with him.
UST: With Reese. Aside from several intense, close encounters, she notices Iris looking at Reese, and so lets him go with a playful "Call me when you're a free man."

Sulaiman Khan

Played by: Aasif Mandvi
Appeared in: "Search and Destroy"

The CEO of Castellum, Inc., and the creator of an extremely powerful antivirus system.

Determinator: You have to hand it to Khan; he just doesn't stop.
Expy: His software is one for McAfee Antivirus; it's software that's pre-installed on nearly every computer but has a not-so-great reputation. Khan himself could be one for the founder, although he's a little less eccentric.
He Knows Too Much: Samaritan targets and ultimately kills him for this reason.
Humiliation Conga: His existence is systematically dismantled by Samaritan; his life is destroyed, his reputation ruined, everyone abandons him, and he's ultimately killed.
Insufferable Genius: He's a remarkably intelligent man, but also arrogant: few people in his own company actually like him or even feel sympathy for him. It isn't hard to understand why people are willing to oust him from his company, since he doesn't seem like the kind of person that's easy to work with.
Properly Paranoid: Khan thinks an artificial intelligence is targeting him, and he's absolutely right.
You Have to Believe Me!: He spends most of his episode desperately begging people to believe that he's being set up. Save for Team Machine, none of them do.

Chase Patterson

Played by: Zachary Booth
Appeared in: "Terra Incognita"

Youngest son of the Patterson family who was the lead suspect in the murder of his family.

Cain and Abel: And the poor guy had no idea he even had a half sibling.
What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't see what happened to him, but he presumably survived after Reese was rescued.

Dominic Besson

The Machine

Season 5

Jeffrey Blackwell

Laurie Grainger

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/laurie_granger.png

Played by: Paige Patterson
Appeared in: "SNAFU"

One of the 30 numbers produced by the glitch The Machine underwent after being restarted. She turned out to be a hitwoman hired by the Machine during the glitch to eliminate Reese after identifying him as a threat.

Gerald Mancini

Played by: Anthony Grasso
Appeared in: "SNAFU"

One of the 30 numbers produced by the glitch The Machine underwent after being restarted. His number came up after amassing a huge debt to a gambling ring causing him and his family to be targeted by Andrius and his men.

Alex Duncan

Played by: Stephen Plunkett
Appeared in: "Truth Be Told"

A computer security expert who broke into CIA servers to investigate his brother's death who was one of Reese's victims during his CIA days.

Ethan Garvin

Played by: Will Connolly
Appeared in: "ShotSeeker"

A sound analyst for a NYPD acoustic surveillance system called "ShotSeeker". His investigation into the disappearance of Krupa Naik lands him in the cross-hairs of Samaritan.

Addled Addict: Subverted. He's actually on the trail of Samaritan.
Hyper-Awareness: He possesses hyper-sensitive hearing, which helped him fine-tune ShotSeeker.
Perma-Stubble: Happens if you haven't slept or taken care of yourself for days.
Stalker without a Crush
Unwitting Pawn: To Samaritan. ShotSeeker becomes its ears by the end of the episode.

Phoebe Turner

Played by: Sarah Wilson
Appeared in: "A More Perfect Union"

One of the heiresses to her father's billion dollar horse racing empire.

Howard Carpenter

Played by: Russell G Jones
Appeared in: A More Perfect Union

A civil planner for the city, he was in-charge of the construction of underground tunnels for the five boroughs. His number came up when he requested Bruce Moran to look into the demolition of a tunnel which unknown to them was being used by Samaritan to dispose the bodies of its victims.

Vasily Mikhaev

Played by: Kushtrim Hoxha
Appeared in: "QSO"

A consultant at the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture whose enemies try to assassinate him at the ballet.

Max Greene

Played by: Scott Adsit
Appeared in: "QSO"

A conspiracy theorist and host of "Mysterious Transmissions", a late-night radio talk show centering on paranormal phenomena. He was targeted by Samaritan after Max recognized a secret code hidden in radio signals which was being used by Samaritan to contact its operatives.

Conspiracy Theorist
Small Name, Big Ego: He believes he's spreading the truth to the masses, but really his audience consists entirely of crackpots who are too wrapped up in their own delusions to recognize an actual conspiracy.
Tampering with Food and Drink: Samaritan kills him by poisoning his coffee.

James Ko

Played by: James Chen
Appeared in: "Reassortment"

A man used as part of a Samaritan plot to create a new superflu strain made of a combined human and bird flu.

Blood from the Mouth: When he dies from being accidentally injected with live flu instead of a flu vaccine.
Decoy Protagonist: So much so that his actor is only listed in the post-episode credits.

Terry Easton

See Other Antagonists.

Harold Finch

President of the United States

The President of the United States

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/poi_president.png

Played by: Joel Haberli
Appeared in: "Synecdoche"

The current President of the United States of America.

Our Presidents Are Different
No Name Given: Only labeled as "Relevant One" by the Machine. Reese and Shaw are directed to him by naming the code for his helicopter, "HMX 1".

Philip Hayes