Season 2, Episode 8:
Til Death
"I suppose anything is worthwhile when life gives you a second chance to be with the one you love."
— Finch.
The Machine produces the numbers of a husband and wife, co-founders of a major publishing company, who have each hired someone to kill the other.
Tropes present in this episode include:
- Alone Among the Couples: Of the four main characters, Reese is the only one without a romantic plot-line during the episode, and his conversation with Carter while they're sitting in the car is interrupted before he answers her question about if he's ever thought about moving on.
- Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: In a flashback, Grace mentions going to Italy to see her favorite painting
. Harold buys the painting, anonymously donates it to the Guggenheim Museum, and takes her there on her birthday to show it to her. - Awful Wedded Life
- The Bait: The Drakes are taken back to their home to lure out the hitmen.
- Bait-and-Switch: Fusco is shown acting very shifty and repeatedly ignoring Reese's and Finch's attempts to contact him early in the episode. Surely it has something to do with HR, right? Nope, turns out he was just being very secretive about having a date that night.
- Blunt "Yes": Inverted. Fusco asks if, after taking a bullet in the ass and saving Reese multiple times, he's earned just a little privacy. Reese simply says, "No."
- Bomb Disposal: Having removed a phone-activated Car Bomb from Mrs Drake's car, Reese has to defuse it then and there. He does it Just in Time as the call is made.
- Darkness Equals Death: The lights go out in the Drake house, indicating the killer is moving in.
- Delivery Guy Infiltration: A hitman enters the publishing house by posing as a courier. Finch of course does his IT service thing.
- Mutual Kill: Both of the Drake's try to kill each other with hitmen, but they are both saved by Reese and co.
- Dumb Blonde: Very much averted.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Take a good look at the book being advertised by the publishing company throughout the episode. Do those characters look familiar?
- Grand Romantic Gesture: The birthday treasure hunt Harold arranges for Grace. AND HOW!
- Happy Flashback: Finch and Grace
- If We Get Through This…: Daniel and Sabrina decide that they'd like to try and have another baby if they survive the mess they caused by hiring hitmen to kill each other. They do survive.
- Improvised Weapon: Facing a Professional Killer without his gun, Reese resorts to a hammer, then a nail gun—tacking his foot to the floor for good measure.
- Interrupted Intimacy
- The Drakes kiss, then they get pulled apart by police to let a body on a stretcher through.
- Fusco is on a date when he gets a call from Reese who needs him for a stakeout. However his date wants to come along, and they end up bonding better than in the restaurant.
- Irrevocable Order: The climactic battle of the episode has Daniel and Sabrina trying to call off the hitmen mid-fight, but the hitmen (maybe because it would mean leaving witnesses, maybe because they are pissed off that Reese has made them fail so many times) simply continue trying to kill them.
- Like an Old Married Couple:
Reese and Fusco, and Reese and Finch, engage in their usual Snark-to-Snark Combat. - Locked in a Room: An Invoked Trope by our heroes.
- Love Interest: Cal and Rhonda are introduced as love interests for Carter and Fusco respectively. The episode also flashes back to the early days of Finch's relationship with Grace in 2006, which means that the only major character who doesn't get a love interest at some point in the episode is Reese (see Alone Among the Couples above).
- Mad Bomber: One of the hitmen plants a bomb on Sabrina's car and plans to detonate it while the car is on a busy Manhattan street.
- Moral Event Horizon: Finch speculates In-Universe he might be approaching one when he wonders aloud is "maybe we should just leave the Drakes to their own devices" because they don't deserve his help. The main reason he decides against doing so is because there weren't any other numbers in need of their attention at the time. If there had been, he might have chosen to cross the horizon.
- No Matter How Much I Beg: Dramatic version: During a lull of the final confrontation, the Drakes ask the hit men to stop. Unfortunately, they are either so much consummate professionals (or so pissed off at them continuously surviving because of Reese) that they respond to the request by raising their guns to fire... and Reese saves them again.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Reese throws a hood over Mrs Drake, throws her over his shoulder then stuffs her in the trunk. On a busy street in New York.
- Poor Communication Kills: Pretty much An Aesop of the episode.
- Punk in the Trunk: Both Drake's end up in Reese's trunk.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: Set up to take the blame for the murders.
- Sealed with a Kiss: Go Finch!
- Secret-Keeper: Averted. Finch is about to tell Grace what he's been working on, but Grace tells him to wait till he's ready to reveal it, rather than because he feels he has to. Although he doesn't know it at the time, this probably saved her life given the government has no problem killing to keep the Machine secret.
- Spousal Privilege: Daniel and Sabrina Drake invoke this, deciding not to testify against each other.
- Shoot Out the Lock: The hitman shoots out the lock of the wine cellar the Drakes are hiding in.
- Stealth Pun / Animal Motif:Daniel Drake: We're sitting ducks here.
- Talk to the Fist: Daniel is demanding to know who Reese and Carter are. Reese just punches him in the face and throws him in the trunk.
- Waving Signs Around: The attempt on Daniel happens during a demonstration by the Maryland Militia.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) except the couple hire the killers instead of actually being killers.
- Your Approval Fills Me with ShameReese: I'm proud of you, Finch. You've really gotten comfortable with your breaking and entering duties.
- You Can't Make an Omelette...: Intentionally misquoted by Reese.Reese: "Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to save lives."
- You Monster!: Averted; Finch tells the Drake's he doesn't think they're monsters, having seen ones up close.
- You Talk Too Much!: Reese takes the hoods off the Drakes. When they start shouting at him and each other, he puts them back on again until they cool down a bit.
