PERSON OF INTEREST Finds Its Groove

I think Person of Interest is in a comfortable place right now. With having a full season order and the likelihood of getting a second season very high, they don’t need to do anything big and crazy. They can just continue to do their procedural storytelling, occasionally letting in things a bit more thought provoking. “The Fix” felt better than last weeks’ episode, but it was still more of the same. The PoI this week, Zoe Morgan, at one point said to Reese, “You don’t know anything about me,” and she couldn’t have said anything more true about her character. Sure, Reese follows her statement by listing all the things he knows about her, but that’s exposition. No time is spent really exploring her character. This has become a show that focuses on the surface, and while it makes me sad that it will probably stay that way, it’s not an entirely bad thing.

The episode opened smartly, with Reese and Finch already in the middle of investigating Zoe. Doing things this way skipped a lot of unnecessary dialogue. Actually, “The Fix” made a lot of great decisions in terms of the story to just slightly set it apart from some of the other episodes. I was really happy that Zoe ties in to a previous case Finch worked on, but was unable to successfully complete because he hadn’t hired Reese at that point.

Michael Emerson continues to be the highlight of every episode and I was pleased to see him get much more involved this time around. Finch is easily the most relateable character. Heck, often times he seems to be the only one capable of feeling emotion. I could really feel his pain as he remembered Dana and not being able to save her. Finch has a big conscience and it weighs him down. We don’t exactly know why, but we’ve been given hints. I love Finch and I’m dying to know more about him. Unfortunately I can’t, and likely never will, say the same about Reese.

Thankfully the show has found something for Detective Carter to do other than obsess over finding Reese. And at long last we get back to the identity of M. Elias, who turns out to be a murder victim from a number of years ago. It comes back in a fairly unexpected way. Carter finds another murder victim, who happened to be the suspect in the murder of Elias. The other big shocker: this guy was killed using the same weapon that killed Elias. Dun dun dun. Carter’s storyline doesn’t get much screen time, but it does do a well enough job setting up what will hopefully turn in to this season’s big villain. My one hope is that Reese and Finch get involved in it again soon.

I’ve come to accept that Person of Interest is what it is and won’t expect much more of it from now on. At least this way I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it takes a turn down a more mentally engaging path. It’s a good show and deserves the viewers it’s getting. It just won’t ever be the best.