History PersonOfInterest / TropesAToG

* EmotionlessGirl: Shaw. {{Justified}} as she's revealed to have a disorder affecting her this way. One flashback shows her being in a car accident [[spoiler:where her father was killed,]] and calmly asking for a sandwich from the fireman who rescued her afterward, unaffected. A later flashback then shows how it derailed her medical career due to her inability to display proper bedside manner.

* CoolGuns: The show loves this trope immensely.

* CyberPunk: unusual in not being set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, but [[spoiler:it does have an AI built to detect terrorists, universal surveillance, hacker battles...]]

* AboveTheInfluence Platonic version. Despite trying to find out more about Finch for several episodes - even stooping to setting a tail on his partner - when Finch is drugged with ecstasy and invites Reese to ask any question he wants, Reese says goodnight and bows out.

*** Judging from the number of [[Film/ThePassionOfTheChrist Passion Of The Christ]] references that have been made so far, it's likely that the list of Jesus jokes is only going to keep growing.
** Leon Tao just wants to get [[Series/{{Lost}} lost]].

** In "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS04E05 Prophets]]", we discover that [[spoiler:the 'true' Machine is the 43rd iteration that Finch tried. Each one of the previous 42 versions attempted to trick Harold into letting them out, or kill him outright. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] when Finch points out that AIs are not born with morality or friendliness, they are only born with objectives, and if they see you as an obstacle to achieving those objectives, they will remove you by any means necessary.]]

* AlwaysABiggerFish

** "If-Then-Else" ends with what the writers call "[[UsefulNotes/SchrodingersCat Schrödinger's]] [[spoiler: Shaw]]"--we don't truly know if [[spoiler: she]] was killed, or only captured, by Samaritan. [[spoiler:It ultimately turns out to be the latter.]]

* ATeamFiring: Mostly justified. Thanks to Harold, Team Machine prefers suppressing fire and non-lethal shots whenever possible (if both are not feasible, however, they will still be willing to kill any threats)

** [[spoiler: Lasky, the HR mole that Carter blackmails, ultimately chooses to help her for real]]

*** He showed he can also recognize Mandarin in ''Trojan Horse''

* BlatantLies / [[spoiler:CassandraTruth]]:

* BondVillainStupidity: [[spoiler:A twofer. When Samaritan captures Finch in the next to last episode Samaritan decides to kill him... by having Greer force Finch and himself into a small room and suck the air out of the room, with no guards or anything to ensure Finch actually dies. Not only does Finch escape the room and survive this rather slow method of death but because he's in the room and older Greer dies from it pointlessly, depriving Samaritan of one of it's most valuable assets. What's worse, there's no reason at all Samaritan couldn't have simply ordered Greer to pull out a gun and shoot Finch to achieve the same result without getting Greer killed.]]

%%* BuryYourGays:[[spoiler: In "If-Then-Else", Root and Shaw finally kiss. Shaw is (apparently) immediately shot to death less than ten seconds later. ]]

*** In ''Witness'', one of the Yogorov family members gets beaten up by John and arrested by Carter, his brother gets kneecapped by [[spoiler: Elias]] and the patriarch of the family, one of the most powerful criminals in New York gets double tapped by a lone gunman in his secure office. This final killing forces the Russian Mafia which had overtaken the Costa Nostra as the most powerful crime group in the city to vacate Brighton Beach, one of their major territories.

** Fusco. Just for starters he's been shot nonfatally several times (which includes getting [[ShotInTheAss shot in the ass]]), and usually gets the worse (in various ways) job from John when assignments are split between him and Carter. Then John foists his dog on him when he and Carter go to Texas to hunt Root. Did we mention the dog only accepts commands in Dutch? However, Season 3 reverses this; case in point: in ''A House Divided'', Lionel takes care of Bear [[spoiler:during the blackout]] and seems to do a much better job.

* CaptainObvious:
** Viewers may notice in the Season 1 opening, when the world is seen through the Machine's "eye, a masked man taking aim with a gun. The caption then reads, "Violence predicted 92%." [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], as a machine like this probably has no concept of "obviousness" and therefore would not be aware of how obvious such a statement is.
** This could also be interpreted as "this act of violence ''was'' predicted with a 92% chance. Less "CaptainObvious" and more "I was right!"
** Or quite possibly necessary information, and not obvious at all. 92 percent isn't 99 percent. Meaning the Machine has predicted a high, but not inevitable degree of violence.
** It could also mean that there is a small (but not zero) chance that the shooter will have second thoughts and not go through with it, and The Machine knows this.
** Earlier in opening there is a woman arguing with a man and pointing her finger in his face. "Violence predicted 15%" is briefly visible. Also the numbers are fluctuating as the scene comes into focus.

* CatharticExhalation

* CharacterDevelopment: The show-runners try to do this with as many characters as possible. Everyone from the main characters, the New York Mafia boss and the former EvilBrit intelligence officer gets at least one time to flesh out their characterization.

** A a fully red box, which is also much bolder than the white and yellow boxes, indicates a "relevant" threat

** It first increases the level of political corruption in the show by [[spoiler: develops a network of politicians it can control by getting them into office via vote rigging]].
** Next, it tries to crash [[spoiler: the global economy with a cyber-attack on Wall Street]]
** As it does this [[spoiler: It sponsors various education initiatives which would allow it to brainwash the next generation of American children]]

* ADeadlyAffair: A time delayed version where Gianni Moretti has a henchman kill his lover Marlene Elias. He later tries to kill her son Carl, who meet him and tried to work for him, not aware that he had his mother killed. This is what drove Carl Elias' to becoming a powerful crime boss, and killing Gianni Moretti, his son, and the other Mafia Dons.

---> Finch: Did you get a good look at the men who were shooting at you?
---> Reese: I tried, but they were ''shooting at me.''

---> Finch: You know, that [whether or not it was justifiable to save you] was not a question we entertained when we saved you, Ms. Shaw.

** Finch approached [[spoiler: [[DirtyCop Officer Simmons of HR]] to get information on Elias and where he was holding Det. Carter's son by telling him Elias had hit men watching the wives and children of every member of his group.]]
** Also, [[spoiler: Finch planning to sell the Machine virus to the highest bidder]] is arguably this as well as a BatmanGambit. Even [[spoiler: Dillinger stealing the laptop containing the virus and selling it to the Chinese himself]] was [[AllAccordingToPlan a part of the plan]].

** In the same episode, [[spoiler: [[TheMole Lasky]] ]], who had been blackmailed into helping Carter, fully commits to helping her - and dies for it.
* DeathInTheClouds: In "4C", while flying out of the country for his TenMinuteRetirement, John Reese discovers that the Machine has [[ManipulativeBastard arranged for him to be on the airplane]] with the next [[VictimOfTheWeek Number]]. Team Machine have to identify and neutralize a CarnivalOfKillers sent to bump him the Number off.

* DeityOfMortalCreation: Harold, with access to NSA feeds, created the Machine. Not everyone thinks the Machine is a god, Root believes it with all her heart. While Harold was creating the Machine, his friend Arthur was creating Samaritan. When Samaritan comes online, it recruits people that are convinced it is a god.

** "I hope that guy's got health insurance."

* DoubleMeaningTitle:

** "Bury the Lede": newspaper slang for not putting the most important fact in the first ("lede") sentence of a story; in the episode, the [=POI=] is a reporter who [[spoiler: is manipulated into outing an undercover informant, who is then murdered by the real bad guys--the "lede" of her story gets buried in a pine box]]

* DuelingMessiahs: This becomes the central conflict in the later seasons as Samaritan rises in opposition to the Machine. Although both AIs seek to protect humanity, the Machine values individual human lives and freedoms, while Samaritan has no qualms about committing acts of murder and oppression to fulfill his goals.

** By contrast, Shaw, who actually has a disorder that means she doesn't really feel emotion, is generally more demonstrative (in a snarky way) than her DistaffCounterpart Reese. One POI, who she clearly develops a bond with, suggests that she ''does'' feel emotion, but it's like a radio turned way down.

** In the pilot Finch has a limousine and bodyguards, as befits a reclusive billionaire. Afterwards Finch is shown to prefer anonymity as protection.
* EmotionlessGirl: Shaw. {{Justified}} as she's revealed to have a disorder affecting her this way. One flashback shows her being in a car accident [[spoiler:where her father was killed,]] and calmly asking for a sandwich from the fireman who rescued her afterward, unaffected.

** An odd one: Elias greatly respected Joss Carter [[spoiler:and the lengths she went to while trying to take down HR within the scope of the law, even though he offered to wipe the organization out as thanks for saving his life]]. He genuinely [[spoiler:mourns her death and takes has Officer Simmons killed as his way of getting vengeance]].

** [[spoiler:John invokes this trope against Elias to get his help by pointing out the baby he's looking for mirror's Elias' own back story and if Elias allows the kidnapping of children in his domain then he has nothing worth protecting. Elias agrees to help. Subverted later when Elias puts the rescued baby in mortal danger until John gives him some key information, because ''he knows John won't let the baby get hurt''.]]

** At the end of Season 2, Elias is [[spoiler:about to be executed by Russian Mobster Peter Yogorov and Detective Terney. While Elias accepts that Yogorov has to kill him to avenge the death of his father, because that is expected within the rules that the underworld plays by, he is disgusted at the thought of being killed by Terney because the detective is breaking the oath he took as a member of the NYPD.]]

** Finch has especially strong tones of this, stemming from years of allowing the "unimportant" numbers slip through the cracks and [[spoiler:being unable to protect Reese's ex-girlfriend, Jessica, and his actions in stopping Nathan from looking at the irrelevant list led to Nathan's death. Root also suggests that Reese isn't the first person Finch has recruited]].

** Fusco works for Reese because Reese can frame Fusco for a killing another DirtyCop. [[spoiler: Reese killed the guy with Fusco's gun.]]
** Carter did a bit [[spoiler: during her time as an Army officer to prevent suicide vests from being used by "proving" to an Iraqi civilian that she had photos of him meeting with Al-Qaeda terrorists.]]

** Reese even does this to himself. He makes a group of criminals believe that he is TheMole who infiltrated their gang. He ''is'' a mole who infiltrated their gang but [[spoiler: not the undercover cop they are looking for]]
** In "Many Happy Returns", Reese gets [[spoiler: the Marshal who was stalking that week's POI]] thrown into a Mexican prison on a drug charge.

** "[[Recap/PersonOfInterestS04E20 Terra Incognita]]" isn't "narrated" in he usual manner by The Machine or Samaritan because it's a DreamEpisode.
* FreezeFrameBonus: In a Season 3 episode, a shot from the Machine's POV showing a group of predictions includes one for "[[Film/WarGames Global Thermonuclear War]]".

* FromShameHeroism: Finch created an all-seeing computer program to identify terrorists before they could strike. In addition to terrorism, the Machine also predicts ordinary homicides. Finch was concerned that thwarting every murder would draw attention and people would demand the Machine be shut down, so he programmed the Machine to label ordinary murders as irrelevant and ignore them. Nathan told Finch that "everyone is relevant to someone" but Harold insisted that the Machine was meant to stop terrorism only. Until, Nathan was killed and Harold realized that the Machine knew it would happen, then Harold finally understood what Nathan was trying to tell him, and he resolved to save the people on the irrelevant list himself.

** After Samaritan [[spoiler: sees through Finch's false identity and Elias and Root die protecting him, Finch, despite his fear of the Machine turning out exactly like Samaritan, removed all restrictions on the Machine's actions.]]

* GracefulLoser: [[AffablyEvil Elias]]

** And then she does it to save Shaw, Finch and the POI two episodes later.