Saturday, October 6, 2012

Person of Interest 2.02: "Bad Code"

“You’re the man who sold the world. Just to the wrong people.”
- Root

Much like the week before, we got a little recap courtesy of the Machine. We also have a mini flashback to 1991 where a young girl is calling 911 about another missing girl. It turns out it’s related to how Reese thinks they will be able to find Finch. One interesting thing is we don’t really have a “person of interest” for the week in the usual sense. The Machine hasn’t given Reese a new number. But he and Carter are on the trail of the missing girl, Hannah Fry. So while Lionel is babysitting Bear and keeping an eye of the Corwin investigation, they’re off to Bishop, Texas to try and find out what they can. Reese is convinced the missing girl is actually Root. Once he and Carter get down to Texas, we get a funny little scene where the hotel room they managed to snag only has one bed. Reese says if he sleeps at all it will be in the tub. There’s a shower. So the floor it is. Carter tells him she’ll handle the local LEOs. Unfortunately, Carter may be a good cop but she’s a fairly crappy liar. Reese sneaks into the station and steals the file while she’s trying to twist the sheriff’s arm.

Meanwhile, back in Maryland, Root has both Finch and Denton Weeks captive. Weeks is the government creep that Finch sold the Machine to. Root wants to know how to access the Machine and she’s going to get the information from one of them. The other, will be leaving in a body bag. Root interrogates Weeks by using Middle Eastern torture techniques that he supposedly approved. He claims to just be a DC lawyer and doesn’t read things he signs off on (yeah that’s smart buddy). Root eventually gets him to admit they put the Machine on a train and it was bound for Salt Lake City. So she’s going to gas up the car so they can hop a ride out of DC. Weeks begs Finch to help him. Weeks admits he remembers Finch from his meetings with Nathan. I knew we couldn’t trust Weeks. I mean he’s linked to the DC bigwigs trying to cover up Alicia’s murder and keep the cops from solving it. My guess is they have no idea Root is the one who killed Alicia. Finch manages to get Weeks a knife so he can cut himself free. Unfortunately, that appears to be all part of Root’s plan. She lets Weeks beat her up and listens in on Finch and his conversation. Weeks tells Finch that the Machine can’t physically be accessed. That seems to make Finch happy. And then Root kills Weeks. Satisfied she has the information she needs, she drugs Finch and wheels him off to the train station.

Back in Texas, Reese and Carter are at the library where Hannah was last seen. The librarian had no idea anything had happened that night until she got the call from the sheriff. We get another flashback to 1991 where Hannah is playing The Oregon Trail (I loved that game when I was little) and she’s died again. There’s a slightly older kid watching her. In the present, Carter and Reese take another trip, this time to see Hannah’s father. He believes his daughter is dead but gives them some credit card bill junk mail in her name. Carter manages to trace it to a bank account opened in Hannah’s name in 1993. So now Carter is on the Hannah-is-alive-and-turned-into-Root bandwagon too.

Reese swings by the local bar to have a chat with Cody Grayson (the creepy kid from the flashback). In typical POI fashion, Reese beats the crap out of Cody and his friends to determine that Cody in fact had nothing to do with Hannah’s disappearance. Reese and Carter head back to the hotel where Carter does some digging into the bank account in Hannah’s name. It had a co-signer by the name of Trent Russell and it had $100,000 put in it. Apparently the money was electronically transferred from a drug cartel leader. They head off to talk to Mr. Russell but find out from his wife (the librarian they spoke to earlier) that he was killed by drug cartel guys almost 15 years ago. They also take a peek in the garage and find the car that Hannah got into the night she went missing. All signs point to Trent Russell being the kidnapper. Reese is still spinning theories and he comes up with one that’s somewhat plausible. Hannah escapes and as revenge, she puts the account in Russell’s name and that’s how he got shot. It definitely sounds like Root. Of course this doesn’t mean they’re any closer to finding her and Finch.

Reese and Carter get the sheriff and start looking through the Russell house. They find sixteen copies of Flowers for Algernon hidden in the bedroom. Mrs. Russell explains that they get sent on the date of Hannah’s disappearance every year from different places all over the country. Reese finds a receipt for the latest delivery and heads off to check on that lead. He eventually traces it to a credit card that was recently used in Maryland (Root). There was an amusing bit where when he first gets back to the hotel the thugs are waiting for him. He beats hem up again and takes their crossbow. Oh Reese. Back at the Russell house, Mrs. Russell ID’s the girl who called 911 as Sam. She was a couple years younger than Hannah but they were friends. She told Mrs. Russell about seeing Hannah getting into the car but given her feelings for Trent, Mrs. Russell told Sam to keep quiet. And not surprisingly, Trent redid the patio after Hannah went missing. The sheriff gets some of his guys down there and they find Hannah’s body. Root isn’t Hannah after all. She’s Sam.

Reese gets to Maryland to the house where Root was keeping Finch to find Weeks’ dead body and a cufflink that Finch left as a clue. He also left a coded message on the landline (thank you display screen) of where they were headed. Reese manages to get to the train station and spot Finch before Root can do too much damage. But she does take off into the crowd. Reese collects Finch, even though Finch never expected Reese to come after him and for now, things are settling back to normal. Both Carter and Lionel are relieved that Finch is safe and Lionel is happy to be done babysitting Bear. It may take a while for Finch to get used to their four-legged friend. Bear apparently likes to use books a chew toys and Finch’s collection are all expensive first editions. Just as Finch is settling back in at the library, Root calls to thank him for solving Hannah’s case and she promises she’ll be in touch with Finch when she needs him again. We close with her spying on the other government guys as they come to collect Weeks’ body.

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