Recap / Person of Interest S02 E15

Season 2, Episode 15:

Booked Solid

"The things people try to get away with in hotels."

— Zoe Morgan

Reese and Finch go undercover to protect a hotel maid and find more suspects than they can cover after they realize that any of the guests or staff members could be the potential perpetrator. In the meantime, Carter is once again faced with a significant offer from the FBI and Hersh has gotten out of Rikers and is back on Reese's trail again.

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• The Alcoholic Intrepid Reporter: Harris
• Almighty Janitor: Mira, she actually keeps the hotel running while her Smug Snake superiors run their prostitution ring on the side.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Finch ends up buying the hotel and promoting Mira to manager because he thought it needed better management.
• Big Damn Heroes: Lionel Fusco Took a Level in Badass when he took out two trained killers on his own!
• Brick Joke: The hotel manager tells Finch to always recommend the hotel restaurant to customers. Later Finch quietly sends a couple to the Grand instead.
• Bullying a Dragon: Having caught Reese rifling a locker in the ladies room, the hotel manager smugly asks what Reese would do in his place. Reese demonstrates by punching him.
• *Click* Hello: How Hersh introduces himself to Reese.
• Continuity Nod / Call-Back: Several.
  • Finch suggests a couple eat at "The Grand", the restaurant from "Triggerman", because they have the best ribeye steak in town.
  • Zoe mentions that she hasn't seen John since the 'divorce' in "High Road".
  • Hersh mentions that it took him longer than he expected to get out of Rikers.
  • His boss studies a camera shot of Reese dressed in an ATF uniform, and mentions the events of "Dead Reckoning".
• Disarm, Disassemble, Destroy: Reese strips down Hersh's pistol, taking the slide with him.
• Disposing of a Body: The hitmen smuggle Harris' body out of the hotel in a large suitcase.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Zoe and a MILF guest openly eye Reese in his bellhop suit. He finds the attentions of one more welcome than the other.
• The Easy Way or the Hard Way
  Hersh: This can go one of two ways.
  Reese: Don't suppose one of those ways involves me walking out of here? (Hersh shoves him) Didn't think so.
• Elevator Action Sequence
• Experimented in College: Carter says she smoked marijuana in college. The polygraph operator says she's the first to actually admit to that. Ironically it's implied this is the base question she was lying on.
• Foreshadowing: The situation Hersh has to urgently return for is shown in the next episode.
• Improvised Weapon: Reese throws a frying pan at Hersh while they're fighting in the kitchen. And then they both grab kitchen knives instead.
• Irony
  • Carter tells Finch that the polygraph is Just a Machine. "How smart can it be?" she asks the creator of the world's first Artificial Super Intelligence.
  • For all her fretting over Team Machine, Carter gets rejected for the FBI because of a criminal association she doesn't even know about. Turns out her boyfriend Cal is under investigation by Internal Affairs.
  • Pennsylvania Two tells his pet hitman to report back as "We have a bigger problem at home." He has no idea.
• I Work Alone: When Hersh demands to know who his boss is, Reese tries this trope but Hersh knows he's lying as they're similar; more comfortable with carrying out orders than giving them.
• Follow the Chaos: How Hersh tracks down Reese again.
• Get Out!: Hersh to the kitchen staff in another of his Terminator moments.
• Jerkass: The hotel manager. Before they're even halfway through the episode, Reese is openly hoping that he'll turn out to be the perpetrator so he'll have an excuse to beat him down. He does get an opportunity to deck him before the episode's out.
• Kitchen Chase: Played with when Hersh captures Reese and takes him at gunpoint into the kitchen where there's plenty of Noodle Implements for a Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique. Reese frees himself and they end up fighting with kitchen knives.
• Last-Name Basis: The hotel manager curtly puts Finch in his place, once he's become an employee.
• Leave Me Alone!: Mira turns down Reese's offer of help, and only relents when the hitmen show up.
• Lie Detector: Detective Carter is polygraphed for her application for the FBI, and worries that it will expose her association with Team Machine. Finch advises her to lie on an early question to skew the results. So Carter confesses to having smoked marijuana in college, and the polygraph operator congratulates her on being the first one to answer that question honestly.
• Made of Iron: After being stabbed by Reese, Hersh walks right out of the hospital when his boss demands his presence.
• Male Gaze: When Pennsylvania's Sexy Secretary (Root) walks into the office, the camera shows only her behind at first.
• Needle in a Stack of Needles: 700 guests who could be gunning for this week's POI.
• No Kill like Overkill: A professional hit team for one hotel maid.
• Noodle Incident: We never find out what work Zoe was doing at the hotel. All we know is that it had something to do with a convention the hotel was hosting that had absolutely nothing to do with Team Machine's case.
• Not Named in Opening Credits: Amy Acker as Root.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Hersh gives a little speech about how Reese and he are similar: men who are more comfortable with taking orders rather than giving them.
  Reese: What makes you think I'm working for anyone, anyway?
  Hersh: Because you're like me. We don't give orders, we execute them.
• Not so Dire: Cal Beecher approaches Carter with a serious problem. Whether to ask her out on a date.
• The One Who Made It Out: Mira.
• Refuge in Audacity:
  • Hersh steals a patrol car outside a police station, just so he can listen to the police band scanner.
  • The last hitman tries to garrote Mira in the middle of the Homicide office.
• Rogues Gallery Showcase: The A-plot may just be another villain of the week, but the B-plot features the Machine Conspiracy trying to track down Reese, and the ending reveals that the leader of the Machine Conspiracy's new secretary is Root.
• Seen It All: Zoe and Reese have an (almost) deadpan response to meeting each other in a hotel elevator while Reese is dressed as a bellhop.
• Sexy Secretary: Pennsylvania Two has one. Oh yeah, it's Root.
• Ship Tease: At the end, John invites Zoe to spend a night with him at the hotel.
• Shout-Out: to The Prisoner
  Hersh: Who do you work for?
  Reese: That would be telling.
• Sound-Only Death: Harris
• Theme Naming: Root's latest alias is "Miss May," after British computer scientist David May.
• This Ain't Rocket Surgery
  Mira: Hotel management is hard work, but it's not rocket science.
• Working Title: "Turndown Service"