These are what we call the 'YMMV items.' Things that some people find in this work. We call them 'your mileage might vary' because not everyone sees these things in the same way. This starts discussions in the trope lists, a thing we don't want. Please use the discussion page if you'd like to discuss any of these items.
YMMV: Person Of Interest
Acceptable Targets: Wife beaters. This show also does not hold the federal government's institutions like the FBI and CIA in high regard.
Anvilicious: This show holds war vets in very high regard, and frequently holds big corporate guys in very low regard.
Awesome Music: Aside from an excellent selection of licensed music (listing here), there is the original soundtrack courtesy of Ramin Djawadi.*
Remember the fantastic soundtrack from Iron Man? Yeah, him.
It's tempting to say "all of it" and be done with it, but a particular standout is the version of "Listening With a Million Ears" that played at the end of "Firewall".
Winked at in S01E14, "Wolf and Cub", when Carter tells a perp they have DNA back over the course of a few days. He, being a Genre Savvy repeat offender, coolly retorts that those take three months to come back.
Then, in S02E11, "2-Pi-R", Donnelly manages to get some DNA tests done within three days of getting DNA samples from his suspects.
Foe Yay: In the opening of "Legacy", Carter waiting for Reese looks a lot like someone waiting for their date.
Root's obsession with Finch. Supposedly it's about the Machine and he just happens to be the guy who built it and thus knows everything she wants to know, but sometimes she seems just a little too keen on him.
Root's handle. Having root access on Linux is the same as being an administrator on Windows: you can do pretty much whatever you want to the system and it won't try to stop you. This could be a double bonus, seeing as the Machine thinks of Finch as 'Admin', indicating that she's his equal in hacking skills.
Her aliases are all connected to famous, innovative and eccentric scientists: Turing, Dyson, Neumann.
In one episode Finch is reading It Can't Happen Here, the 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis about a dictator who takes over the United States. An interesting choice for someone who designed the ultimate Big Brother surveillance system.
When translated back into English, the blue screen codes that have made an appearance in the later half of season 2 are revealed to be excerpts from various books and published documents.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Around the time this show started airing, the Santa Cruz Police Department started field testing a computer program designed to predict areas where crimes are likely to happen in the near future. It's helped them cut the robbery rate down by 19%.
Everyone. Literally. Pick any character that has appeared on the show, and then pick another one to pair them with; odds are good that someone has already written a fanfic about it, even if the characters weren't in the same episode or have never shared screen-time.note (If not, pretty much all you'd have to do is suggest it and someone in the fandom would make it happen.) Most of them are crack pairings, but some of them are actually pretty popular.
Leon Tao and Logan Pierce? Shaw and Cal Beecher? Szymanski and Donnelly? Nathan Ingram and Kara Stanton? Root and Everyone? Yes, those are all ships.
The most common victim does seem to be Reese though; he's been paired with just about anyone he's ever shared screen-time with.
Elias and Root. Though Root visibly panics a little when Reese catches up with her and Finch.
As of the conclusion of "God Mode," Harold Finch qualifies as one as well after deliberately putting a virus into the hands of the Machine's enemies, then hiding a virus within that virus that basically gives the Machine complete autonomy to protect itself.
Elias locking a baby in a freezer car to get Reese to reveal the location of a man Elias wants dead. This is actually a double MEH - not only is Elias threatening to kill a baby, he had agreed to help Reese save the baby from some kidnappers as a return favor for Reese saving his life in an earlier episode, which shows how Elias honors his debts.
Reese and Finch openly admit to approaching it when they consider leaving two POIs who are trying to murder each other to their fate. If there had been a third number in need of their attention at the time they very well might have done it.
Det. Raymond Terney crossed it onscreen when he helped Quinn cover up Szymanski's murder.
If the fact that Finch created a sentient being, his child for all intents and purposes, and put in a program that basically forces it to kill itself over and over again every midnight isn't a MEH, I don't know what is.
The Machine itself. Think about it for a minute; a computer exists that is capable of watching your every move and then uses the data it collects to decide whether or not you are a threat to society. Oh yeah, and it's owned by the government. Sweet dreams.
Andrew Benton; he's a serial sexual predator whose victims are too afraid to expose him, and at least one of them has committed suicide as a result. It's even more horrifying when you realize that the woman at the support group who gives a detailed account of being raped by an unnamed co-worker is one of his victims.
The episode "Proteus" is chock-full of it. No wonder, since it involves a ruthless identity-stealing serial killer stalking a few victims on a reclosed island. And of course it also had to take place during a storm, so we got that shot of the lightning illuminating the killer standing right behind Finch.
On occasion, the surveillance tactics used by Reese and Finch.
Remember the time they hacked into all the webcams in the apartment building so they could spy on the residents? Tell me you didn't immediately put tape over your webcam after that episode.
Reese: We're going to hack [the Poi's] WiFi? Finch: We're going to hack all of them. If the threat's in the building, we should get to know our neighbors. Reese: You're into sixteen networks already? Finch: When the phone company puts in your WiFi, the password is your phone number. Most people never even change it. The other ones might actually take a minute.
Rewatch Bonus: There's a lot of things that you probably won't catch the first time around. Or even the second time around!
Unpopular Popular Character: Fusco, all the way. He's one of the more sympathetic characters in the show, and a genuine atoner, but the universe keeps piling more and more shit on him.
Fusco, who knows a One-Man Army and a guy who can do some serious Hollywood Hacking, yet he doesn't tell them HR is forcing him to work with them.
And on top of that, Fusco's recalcitrance is probably what helped him end up letting Simmons get the better of him with that recording of him stealing the IA file and then offing a cop. Finch could have hacked it out of existence in two seconds if he'd known beforehand. That being said, some of the blame lies on Reese for continuing to impose on Fusco even to the point of slightly stepping on his love life.
Fusco was also on the verge of confessing everything to Carter, but she wasn't interested in listening. The look on his face shows that he's coming very close to the Despair Event Horizon. Fusco is all alone, and no one is coming to help him.
