Sunday, April 9, 2017

Person of Interest (Massive Spoilers!!)

I finished binge-watching the last 3 seasons of person of interest over the past couple of weeks. I had been watching the show on and off for a few months now but as the overall narrative started to become more prominent compared to the case of the week format i started to enjoy it more and more. Now after finishing it i'm in PoE withdrawal finding it diffcult to say goodbye to all these amazing characters and the machine. Honestly the only other time i felt this depressed after finishing a series was when i finished reading the final book of the "Wheel of Time". Leaving these characters feels like saying goodbye to friends.

Some awesome things i just cant avoid gushing over  -
  • Season one finale where Reese looked into a camera and told the machine to help him -- for the first time i realized what the scope of this show could actually be.
  • Terminator Reese in general was cool :D
  • Season two end - godmode engaged!
  • Samaritan coming online and the ending of season 3. Maybe i'm stupid but i never saw it actually coming online. I always thought they would manage to prevent disaster in the end. The reveal that root's plan was just to enable them to live to fight another day sent me reeling at the implication for the future.
  • Beginning of season 4 was sooo strong.
  • Season 4 finale followed the tradition of amazing final episodes - raising the stakes and the challenge to a hopeless level for team machine.
    • "CAN. YOU. HEAR. ME?" Reese - "hell yes!" Me - "OMG nerdgasm"
    • MAchine's mesage to Finch at the end had me in tears
  • Season 5 beginning as they try to salvage the machine was well done. I liked they didnt just plug it in and viola; it almost didn't work out.
  • All the machine and finch flashbacks where he teaches it were very touching.
  • Finch and Root debates and similarily Harold's conversation with Elias were fun and tense.
  • Shaw was pretty cool and her joining the team and how similar and yet different she and Reese are was fun to watch.
  • Lionel was a bright ray of sunshine with his humor in the show. I never expected him to be such a good character or to grow on me so much when i was watching the first season.
  • Root's entire arc of redemption was very fulfilling and even though her dying was sad, I think they machine taking on her persona was appropriate since she and the machine were both "capable of immense destruction but chose to do good instead". But her death hit me hard even though i knew since season 4 that she would end up dying. In a way the machine using her persona kept the wound fresh and reminded us of her sacrifice whenever it/she spoke.
  • The machine's conversation with Finch about her sorrow for Root's death had me in tears.
  • The finale till the last three minutes had tricked me into thinking it was going to just a depressing end for everyone. It didn't turn out to be roses and sunshine exactly but still that was, i guess, the best outcome that could've been hoped for.
Now on to the struggle of finding a new show and/or series of novels to keep me distracted. I hear Westworld (also by Nolan) is getting great review . . .