Recap / Person Of Interest S 03 E 14

Season 3, Episode 14:

Provenance

"We didn't steal the Bible, Agent Bouchard, we merely borrowed it a bit."

—Harold Finch

Team Machine gets the number of Jiao (Kelly) Lin, a former Olympic gymnast using her physical skills to steal artifacts from museums for a Czech syndicate that's holding her daughter hostage. In order to extricate Jiao from her predicament, Team Machine has to penetrate a high-end secured vault in a caper reminiscent of Ocean's Eleven.

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Tropes present in this episode include

• Air Vent Infiltration: Shaw and Jiao get into the security company this way.
• Artistic License – History: Team Machine discusses the Gutenberg Bible like there's only one copy ever made, which is a little odd for the first mass-produced book in history. It's roughly estimated that a few dozen complete copies are still extant.
• Asshole Victim: As per Caper Rationalization, the security company is willing to smuggle nuclear weapons components for the right price.
• Badass Boast: Reese says he can fieldstrip a .45 upside down in the dark (while completely failing to do up his bow tie).
• Black-Tie Infiltration: Though even the Man in the Suit needs some instruction from Harold Finch.
• Benevolent Architecture: Jiao swings across the Laser Hallway on pipes set into the roof that serve no practical use whatsoever.
• Big Damn Heroes: Reese, when rescuing Kai.
• The Caper, which ends up working out All According to Plan
• Caper Rationalization: Justified as part of a plan to rescue Kai from the Czechs.
• The Chessmaster: Finch
• Classy Cat-Burglar: With the requisite Spy Catsuit.
• Clothes Make the Legend / Badass in a Nice Suit
  Finch: I see your time in Italy was a sartorial success.
  Reese: What can I say? New suit, new man.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Reese is wearing the handmade Italian suit from the tailor Finch recommended in the previous episode.
  • The big-time investment banker Shaw helps out at the museum reception is named Warren Zimm—probably one of the principals at Baylor Zimm
  • In the final scene, when the rest of the team is drinking whiskey and toasting Carter's memory, Fusco is drinking water. Doubles as a Freeze-Frame Bonus.
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Fusco quite enjoys The Caper, and suggests Team Machine should go after the Crown Jewels next.
• Eating the Eye Candy
  • Finch and Reese are Distracted by the Sexy when Shaw walks into the room in a cleavage-revealing cocktail dress.
  • The woman at reception gushes to Finch about how gorgeous Reese looks in his tux.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Reese has shaved off his Beard of Sorrow now that He's Back!.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Bouchard gets all the credit for taking down the Czech syndicate. He even openly admits that he has no idea how he ended up taking them down, but he's willing to take the credit since nobody else is.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: how Jiao got sucked into a life of crime.
• Getting Hot in Here: Due to Finch turning up the room temperature so their body temperature doesn't set off the alarms, Jiao and Shaw strip down to sweaty, skin-revealing tops.
• Homoerotic Subtext:
  • Shaw lampshades the 'mildly erotic moment' of Finch trying to tell Reese how to do up his bowtie. Later Finch non-verbally agrees with the receptionist on how good Reese looks in a tux.
  • Shaw openly admires Jiao's abilities, and the two women end up stripping down and getting sweaty together.
• I Have Your Daughter
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Shaw kneecaps a man while sitting at a bar, firing from under her arm.
• The Infiltration
• Inspector Javert: Agent Bouchard of Interpol, though he ends up a Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist.
• Libation for the Dead: When Team Machine celebrates their victory at the end of the episode, there are five glasses on the table, but only four people there to drink from them.
• MacGuffin: The Gutenberg Bible
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Shaw thwarting Jiao's first attempt at the Gutenberg Bible nearly gets Jiao's daughter killed.
• Noodle Incident: We never see how Jiao got out of the electrified cage with the Gutenberg Bible, and how she and Shaw got out of the vault, before the guards got in. The first one in particular is a bit of a puzzle, considering that Jiao needed a boost from Shaw to reach the bars she used to get into the cage in the first place, and Shaw was outside the cage, unable to help.
• One Last Job: Only Jiao is then told You Can Never Leave.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: Person of Interest does a heist episode!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: For part of the heist, Reese wears a stick-on fake mustache for no apparent reason. It spawned quite a bit of Memetic Mutation, including a short-lived Tumblr dedicated to photoshopping said mustache onto other pictures of Reese (and other PoI characters!).
• The Perfect Crime
• Punk in the Trunk: Shaw smuggles herself inside the trunk of the car taking Reese into the building.
• Refuge in Audacity
• Running Gag: "Right place, right time."
• Shout-Out:
  • Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter"—lampshaded in the name of the bar where Jiao meets her Czech handler Cyril—garnished with a touch of Ocean's Eleven.
  • Reese pretends to be smuggling krytron nuclear switches.
• Slipped the Ropes: Jiao cuts her flexicuffs, to Shaw and Finch's surprise. At the end of the episode, Bouchard leaves a handcuff key for her, despite her hands being cuffed behind her back, in recognition that she won't have trouble getting free.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Reese wants to know where he left his pistol after coming back to Team Machine. Shaw tells him to look in the history section. "You need to upgrade your arsenal." Later after Shaw comes out in a cleavage-revealing dress...
  Reese: I see you've upgraded your arsenal, Shaw.
  Shaw: Oh, I can work it.
• Tap on the Head
  Manager: Do you really have nuclear triggers in that briefcase?
  Reese: No. (clonks him with suitcase)
• To Absent Friends: Reese pours an extra glass for Carter.
• Together Umbrella: Reese having rejected any umbrella that doesn't double as a weapon, Finch holds his own umbrella over him when walking to the event in the rain.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Despite Finch having rejected the practicality of going to Europe and rescuing Jiao's daughter due to lack of time, Reese does just that after taking part in The Caper (because of course they realise the Czech gang will inevitably pull a You Can Never Leave on Jiao.)
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Cyril's attitude toward the decoys, and Jiao when she tries to get out.