Recap / Person of Interest S02 E14

Season 2, Episode 14:

One Percent

The newest POI is Logan Pierce, a billionaire genius and creator of a successful social networking site whose erratic behavior makes it increasingly difficult for Reese and Finch to keep him out of danger.

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Finch establishes a new cover identity for Reese because his old cover of "John Rooney" wasn't impressive enough due to only being a single digit millionaire, whereas his new identity "John Wiley" is valued at over one hundred million.
  • And then Reese spends 10 million dollars of Finch's money outbidding Logan Pierce at a charity auction. Finch wasn't really pleased (Though he's casually spent a lot more than that just to get access to a POI on occasion).
  • Logan Pierce qualifies for this trope as well. It goes with the territory of being a billionaire.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Near the end of the episode, Logan Pierce intentionally risks his life just so he can find how Reese operates.
  • All of Pierce's erratic behavior in the first half of the episode was a deliberate effort to get fired from Friendczar and thus freed from the noncompete clause in his contract.
• Birds of a Feather: Finch clearly identifies with the genius Pierce, though not his manic behavior. Turns out Pierce is an idealist at heart too. Averted when Reese tries to introduce himself as a fellow millionaire, Pierce quickly blows him off. Reese the Mysterious Protector is far more interesting.
• Bullying the Dragon: To be fair, Reese did warn Jeremy in advance to keep his hands to himself.
• The Cast Show Off: Jim Caveizel was destined to be an NBA star before a foot injury. At the end of the episode, he's able to show off his basketball skills.
• Continuity Nod: Reese mentions the events from the previous four episodes when Finch asks if he's been under any excess stress recently. Well duh, Finch.
• Cool Car: The Mclaren MP4-12C driven by Pierce.
• Cutting the Knot: Reese gets tired of the impossibility of following Pierce with his erratic behaviour and infinite resources, so just slugs his way past his security and comes clean about why he's here. Pierce is so intrigued, it actually works.
• Eccentric Millionaire: Lampshaded by a bemused Finch. "How...eccentric." Turns up Pierce is actually playing up his own eccentricity.
• Emotion Suppression: Reese may be showing some signs of this in response to the events from the previous four episodes. Finch clearly didn't know he was still struggling with anxiety, and only found out because Bear could sense the mood shift and responded by becoming depressed and moody as well.
• False Friend: Logan Pierce has a lot of these.
• Fanservice: A subtle example, but throughout the course of the episode Reese wears his motorcycle gear, a tux (with a bowtie!), and his Badass Longcoat, all of which are extremely well liked by the fandom. Having all three in the same episode was pure win.
• Foreshadowing: A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example, but The Machine camera footage flashed to a blue error message screen at least twice during the episode (once near the beginning, and then again near the end), possibly implying that the Machine is being infected by the malware installed by Kara Stanton in "Dead Reckoning".
• Friendship Moment: Reese pointedly removes Pierce's hand from his shoulder after saving his life, but does offer him a lift afterwards.
• Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Doing this to Reese can be painful.
• Going to See the Elephant: The trip to St. Petersburg. The one in Russia, not Florida.
  • Shown Their Work: the music playing in the St. Petersburg night club is by the Russian techno-pop band Infiniti.
• Honor Before Reason: Fusco is about to confess his past as a Dirty Cop to Carter, when she makes it clear that if he does, she'll do her duty as a cop, not his friend. Given that it was actually Reese who killed Stills and Davidson, this is bad news for the Man in the Suit.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: What Pierce argues is everyone's motive.
• Ludicrous Precision: Pierce owns a watch that tells time to the nano-second. Because that's something everyone needs to know, right?
• Make It Look Like an Accident: In order — road accident, anaphylactic shock, drowning.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Pierce, creator of the fictional social networking site FrienCzar, shares a lot of similarities with Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook.
• No Shirt, Long Jacket: Pierce wears a pair of boxers and his overcoat to the dry cleaner to pick up his clothes.
• Priceless Ming Vase
  • Reese pays ten million of Finch's money for Albert Einstein's letters, then tells the auctioneer to keep them because he's rushing after Pierce.
  • Pierce thanks Team Machine for saving his life four times over the course of a single day by giving them an incredibly expensive watch that's accurate to the nanosecond. Finch takes one look at the watch and destroys it - it contained a GPS locator that could be used to track the wearer. This 'gift' gets Pierce classified as a threat to Admin by The Machine.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Logan Pierce, all the way.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Reese finally gets fed up with Pierce's disregard for his own safety, and leaves.
• Sherlock Scan: Pierce deduces a lot about Team Machine from one good look at Finch and Reese together.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Pierce's scotch is spiked with a drug he's allergic to.
• Tech Bro: Tech CEO Logan Pierce, made his money with a social media app called Friendczar (presented as a platonic version of a dating app), and is a hard partier who thinks nothing of flying all the way to Russia to go clubbing on a whim (dragging John Reese along). His mercurial nature extends to his business: he jumps ship from his company on the eve of its initial public offering on the grounds that a competing startup has better tech. It gets to the point where Reese actually abandons him to his fate out of frustration with his behavior. He changes his mind.
• Technology Marches On (In-Universe): This trope bankrupted Pierce's parents. They ran a camera shop and failed to notice the rise of digital photography until it was too late.
• Too Dumb to Live: Reese explicitly tells Pierce that he needs to lay low for a couple days, and what does Pierce do? He texts his location to a few dozen 'friends' and invites them to a party.
• Un-person: Finch and Reese, which should be impossible in this digital age, as Pierce notes.
• Vanity License Plate: "P1ERCE" and then "P1ERCE2".
• Vehicular Sabotage: Logan Pierce's Mclaren MP412C is programmed to speed up to the point when he can't brake and is on the verge of getting killed in a car crash.
• Vigilante Man: Nathan Ingram is shown with a gun, ready to protect someone on the Irrelevant List.
• Walk-In Chime-In: Reese and Finch are discussing what to do about Pierce, when he gives them a nasty shock by asking, having followed Reese to their meeting.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: The murderer tells his hired thugs to wait a moment before throwing Pierce off a bridge, so he can deliver "The Reason You Suck" Speech. The delay gives Reese just enough time to show up.
• The Worf Effect: Another thing that gets Pierce's attention is how Reese slugged his way past Pierce's Badass Israeli bodyguard.
• Worst Aid: Reese's first aid technique of using a faucet hose to intubate Logan Pierce, who at the time is having an allergic reaction that's causing his airway to swell. Don't try this at home, kids.
• You Need to Get Laid: Bear, as it turns out. Finch sets up a date in the park with a nice bitch.