Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Person of Interst 2.15: "Booked Solid"

“Seven hundred guests in this hotel. And one is planning a murder.”
- Finch

We open this week with the Machine catching chatter from Europe. We jump over to New York to find Finch and Reese both going undercover for their latest POI a hotel maid named Mira. Finch has gotten a job as a concierge and Reese is stuck as a bellman. When the hotel manager, Derek Fowler, zeros in on them at the start of the shift, Reese is a tad distracted by people watching. Not surprising since that’s really his job. On his way to check on Mira, Reese has a chance encounter in one of the elevators with none other than Zoe. I have to say I really do adore them together. They have this banter that just makes me smile. Reese plants a camera on Mira’s cart so they can keep track of her and intercedes on her behalf with a sexually harassing guest. Mira says she could have handled it but thanks Reese for his help. It seems she knows a lot about the staff goings-on of the hotel. Finch manages to tap into the video feeds and overhears Mr. Fowler and the doorman, Bud, threatening Mira about the cops sniffing around their “side business”. Guess the guests aren’t the only threat. And Finch has learned that Mira sought asylum in the US at age 16 after escaping Serbia. I have to say Finch certainly enjoyed being a concierge this week.

Whoever is after Mira isn’t the only threat this week. The office of Special Counsel and their enforcer are still after Reese. The enforcer manages to steal a cop car and figures that wherever Reese goes, trouble tends to appear. Carter has her own drama going on, too. She’s still seeing Detective Beecher and they come to the conclusion it's time for him to meet Taylor. Their conversation is cut short when the FBI agent from “Dead Reckoning” shows up and offers Carter a spot with the FBI if she passes the polygraph and background check. She’s concerned about the former seeing as she’s been lying about working with Finch and Reese for over a year. Finch tells her to lie on one of the baseline questions to try and trick the machine.

We quickly learn that Derek is running girls out of the hotel and it was likely Mira who called in an anonymous tip that got one of them picked up earlier in the week. Reese is really hoping that Derek is the threat. In fact I have a feeling Reese would very much like to punch the guy in the throat. But, he doesn’t have time for that because Mira gets summoned into a room by a guest and Reese has to go check it out. He overhears some arguing and busts in. Mira tells him to leave her alone and that she can take care of herself. Finch discovers that the guest, Charles Harris, is a freelance journalist with a history of having strong opinions about world leaders. So whatever he’s talking to Mira about, it can’t be good.

To compound the issue, Reese spots a guy who has been sitting in the lobby for quite some time. So he enlists Zoe’s help to get him to move. He’s rapidly replaced by someone else and thanks to the security cameras which Finch is monitoring, Reese determines that there’s a professional hit squad at the hotel. Great. Just great. They call in Lionel for back up and start digging deeper into Mr. Harris and the spotter from the lobby. In short order, we know that Mira was a witness to the man who is running for Deputy Prime Minster of Serbia kill her entire family. She’s actually Albanian. Unfortunately, just as Reese saves Mira from one of the hit squad, the Machine picks up on gunshots in one of the room. And Finch loses the connection he had with Mr. Harris’ laptop and the camera to the floor he’s staying on.

Meanwhile, Carter is having her polygraph and things seem to be going all right until the agent gets a visit and starts asking her about Detective Beecher and his numerous IAB investigations. She obviously had no idea and for some reason that the agent wont’ disclose, her potential career with the FBI is a no-go. Back at the hotel, Reese and Mira are checking out Mr. Harris’ room and Mira admits she saw her family killed and that Harris was trying to convince her to talk. But she’s scared, especially since the Serbian woman who saved her, was killed two weeks ago (after talking to Harris). Reese goes all MacGyver on us and using his and Mira’s cell phones finds a microphone. So at least we know how the bad guys learned her identity. Reese bursts into the next room and takes out the woman with all the tech gear but Mira takes off and ends up in an elevator with one of the hit squad. She’s got nowhere to run.

Finch manages to shut down the elevator before it can reach the basement to give Reese some time to try and save Mira. The hit man demands she hand over the recording Harris made of her neighbor but she denies any knowledge of it. After opening the elevator doors with a fire axe, Reese jumps down the shaft, lands on top of the elevator and takes the hit man out (With Mira’s help). He was going all action hero this week. I like it. Mira reveals that the recording is in her work locker and Reese promises to get it after she’s safe. Lionel ends up taking out two more of the hit men as they are trying to dispose of Harris’ body. Unfortunately, their good deeds don’t go unpunished. OSC enforcer now knows where Reese is.

Reese thinks all is well once he has the recording and gets to punch Derek in the face. But he gets caught by the OSC enforcer and they have a little chat in the kitchen. And then their chat turns into a knife fight (reminded me a little of the fight on Leverage where Christian Kane got to take out a guy with lemon). Reese isn’t quite as ruthless though because he stabs the guy in an artery that takes 20 minutes to bleed out and the guy gets hospitalized.

Mira and Lionel make it to the precinct when a guy that Lionel ran into tries to kill her. Carter gets to act heroic for the first time in the episode and shoots the guy to save Mira’s life. Back at the hotel, Reese, Finch and Zoe are at the bar sharing drinks and we learn Finch bought the hotel (guess he really did enjoy running it). And in another adorable moment, Reese offers to buy Zoe another drink and offers a suite so they can stay the night. I mean, they have to be hooking up right? We end with a rather startling revelation. Back in DC, OSC guy has his secretary start writing up a memo and it's revealed that Amy Acker is back (I recognized her voice before I even saw her on screen). I knew she’d be back and I can’t wait to see what havoc she rains down on our heroes.

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