History Recap / PersonOfInterestS02E12

IKnowYoureWatchingMe: When Finch walks by three pay phones and each of them ring as he passes, he stares questioningly at the nearest security camera. Cut to the Machine's POV, looking directly at Finch.

* ContinuityNod: Elias tells Reese that he won't rat him out to the Feds, first because John saved his life once, and second, if he does, Harold will stop coming over to play chess with him.

-> ''"It’s funny, how the choices you make change who you become. Take one path or the other ... All these years later, I still wonder... if I had re-upped when the towers came down... who would I be now?"''

* SexualExtortion: Stanton's interest in Reese has shades of this. Reverse of the trope, she's the one who instigates it and he's one who is uninterested -- until she threatens him at gunpoint.

* DontCelebrateJustYet: Reese is released from prison. But....

** ...and then there's whatever gambit [[spoiler: Cara Stanton]] is playing on top of all that!

* SexualExtortion: Stanton's interest in Reese has shades of this. Reverse of the trope, she's the one who instigates it and he's one who is uninterested -- until she threatens him with a gun.

* ThirdActStupidity: [[spoiler:What made John think it was a good idea to meet Carter in public the night he was released from prison?]]

* WhamEpisode

* SlapSlapKiss / RomanceEnsues: [[spoiler:Reese and Stanton in the flashback. [[BigDamnKiss WHOA!]] ]]

** Carter is [[spoiler: trying to interrogate Reese aggressively enough that Donnelly doesn't suspect anything]], but without [[spoiler; eliciting an answer that blows Reese's cover]]--and simultaneously trying to [[spoiler: frame one of the mercenaries as "the Man in the Suit."]]

** Carter is [[spoiler: trying to interrogate Reese aggressively enough that Donnelly doesn't suspect anything]], but without [[spoiler; eliciting an answer that blows Reese's cover]]--and simultaneously trying to [[spoiler; frame one of the mercenaries as "the Man in the Suit."]]

** Finch is listening in and [[spoiler adding supporting documentation for Reese's cover ''on the fly'' so that if Donnelly runs a search to confirm what Reese is saying, he won't find any gaps in the tale.]]

Carter continues to play both sides of the fence to assist Finch in helping Reese conceal his identity from the FBI, while Reese crosses paths with several old foes and is finally confronted with a figure from his past that he probably wishes would have stayed there. Meanwhile, Fusco is doing.... actually, we don't even know what was going on but it involved a supermodel, an Armenian gang, and the best unnecessary plot line ''ever.''

* MeaningfulEcho: In a flashback to 2007, Kara Stanton tells the reluctant Reese that he needs to learn to love his work as an assassin. Later in 2009, she finally gets fed up with his continued attempts to distance himself and threatens him at gunpoint to choose who he's going to be; the boy scout or the killer. He responds by disarming her, shoving her against the wall, and with his hand to her throat informs her in no uncertain terms that ''he loves his work.''

* SlapSlapKiss: [[spoiler:Reese and Stanton in the flashback. [[BigDamnKiss WHOA!]] ]]

* GetIntoJailFree: How the NSA assassin decides to get access to the Man in the Suit.

* RoguesGalleryShowcase: Reese has to deal with Donnelly, Elias, Hersh (Pennsylvania Two's chief thug) ''and'' the Aryans from [[Recap/PersonOfInterestS02E01 "The Contingency"]]. Stanton is in the episode too, but as a flashback character. [[spoiler:Until she's not.]]

Carter continues to play both sides of the fence to assist Finch in helping Reese conceal his identity from the FBI, while Reese crosses paths with several old foes and is finally confronted with a figure from his past that he probably wishes would have stayed there. Meanwhile, Fusco is doing.... we actually don't even know what, but it involved a supermodel, an Armenian gang, and the best unnecessary plot line ever.

* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: Fusco and supermodel Karolína Kurková. The end.

!! Prisoner's Dilemma