Root/The Machine: “Comforting, isn’t it? Fixing something, creating order amidst chaos?”
I suspect this line was something of a mission statement for “Synecdoche,” which offers a mainly procedural plot after a practically traumatic character death. I, for one, was hoping for a Samaritan-heavy, vengeance-laden episode. My priorities are basically Shaw’s: “No more numbers! We get Finch, we go after Samaritan, that’s it.” Unfortunately, neither of us really gets our wish here. (I wonder if this is one of the procedural episodes the network insisted upon having.) At this point, I’m sincerely unsure if it’s possible to do a “protect the President” story that isn’t hackneyed, but they did try.
Ugh. (Via adecogz)
I’m going to focus, then, on the aftermath of Root’s death. The episode draws a parallel-perhaps for the first time-between The Machine and Shaw. Like Shaw, she watched Root die thousands of times in simulations. “You can’t conceive of my grief because you don’t experience it like I do,” The Machine observes to Harold in Root’s voice. “But it’s there.” John makes the same point about Shaw to Fusco later in the episode.
Shaw, of course, is in not a great place. She had only just started to believe that what she was experiencing wasn’t a simulation (or at least, not one of Samaritan’s simulations), and then the same thing that she killed herself to prevent in every one of those simulations happened: Root died. Naturally enough, then, Shaw defaults to the more comfortable assumption. This must be a simulation (because Root can’t really be dead), and it sucks. John and The Machine manage to prevent her from actually jeopardizing herself, but the Shaw who grudgingly joins the mission to Washington is not the relatively tamed, humorous, even dorky Shaw we’d come to know over the last few seasons. She’s much more the feral, taciturn, angry assassin we met in “Relevance” and immediately after-which makes sense, as that Shaw had just lost a partner she cared for, in her own way.
(Via cantcontrolthegay)
She offers the most open expression of her feelings we’re likely to get when torturing the waiter-cum-terrorist: “I’m angry. I’m angry because you have people that you can love, and you chose to sign their death warrants.” She explained a long time ago to Gen (the little girl who was an amateur spy) that while she doesn’t do feelings well, in general, angry is something she does very well. So her anger here, her impulsiveness, her aggressiveness and recklessness-this is how Sameen Shaw does grief. It’s probably intensified by all the time she spent in simulations (living without consequences for thousands of hours is enough to make anyone reckless), but it’s obvious that she’s taking real pleasure in scaring and, yes, hurting this man, and that is rooted in her experience of grief. (I would like to note for the record that “my girlfriend is dead” is not a justification for torture.) Root was much the same after she lost Shaw, though she expressed and described it differently; hurting someone she saw as an obstacle helped her feel like she was doing something. Maybe even “creating order amidst chaos.”
By the end of the episode, Shaw essentially goes rogue to try to take the fight to Samaritan, because “that’s what Root would have wanted.” She seems to have grasped that what’s going on is probably not a simulation; enough so that she can at least proceed as though it matters. For once, John doesn’t even try to stop her. I appreciated that. (Also appreciated: Shaw’s expression at listening to the most basic and boring possible platitudes about security vs. privacy at the fundraiser.)
(Via shoot-rootandshaw)
Meanwhile, The Machine and Harold are having an extended argument about her voice and about the correct course of action. I struggled with Harold’s plotline here a lot. One of my few real criticisms on an analytical level of the season so far is how it’s been working to elevate Harold into some kind of angel (presumably so he can then turn Avenging). Root insisted over and over in previous episodes that he taught her to be good, like he taught the Machine to be good; that the Machine’s goodness is a reflection of him; that his ethics are not only important but right, and to be trusted. I have never seen Harold in such a clearly positive light. He’s a complex and flawed man who, as he says himself in this episode, has always intended good but often caused harm. We’ve seen more than once how his dedication to his principles is not only hypocritical at times, but even counterproductive. So some of the early conversations in “Synecdoche” about Harold’s having taught The Machine to love, just as he taught Root to be good, didn’t sit right with me. Similarly, later on when he finally decides to go rogue in his own way, setting up an attack on Samaritan seemingly uncaring of what the collateral damage might be, I find that shift less satisfying than I might have expected. His grand speech at the end of the previous episode about how many of his rules he could decide to break was effective, chilling, and glorious; his arguments with the Machine here seem like more of his particular form of selfishness.
You think, Harry? (Via Twitter)
I can’t explain why the Machine is referring to Root as Samantha Groves. I don’t know if it’s meant to be a comfort to Harold, who always preferred that name; if she’s referring to Root before she became Root (I could argue that for “Samantha Groves was born in Texas,” but not so much for “Samantha Groves was special”); or if it’s simply her preference, as an intelligence dedicated in large part to data processing, to use the designation that has official documentation associated with it. The show has always been so careful with names that I can’t imagine there isn’t a rationale here, but I can’t imagine what that rationale might be. Maybe this will change. I don’t know.
One other point of criticism in this plotline is this remark by The Machine: “Of course you [taught me to love]. You taught me to see everything, see everyone, and I do. But I see thousands of versions of them. What they were, what they are, what they could be…and what is love, if not being seen?” There are shows for which this statement would be highly appropriate (for example, Hannibal). But this is a show in which sight has always been a weapon; its mantra is, “You are being watched,” and this has never been taken to mean, “You are being loved.” Are we to understand from this that Samaritan doesn’t truly see people the way the Machine does? Or that it, too, loves the people it sees? The conceptual undercarriage for gaze-as-love is very rich, and the thematic groundwork for it hasn’t really been laid in Person of Interest. So I devoutly hope they’re taking this somewhere (the obvious place being the loving and all-seeing god, which would help connect it back to the show’s previous themes); if not, it’s an unnecessarily tossed-off idea.
(Via follow-voice)
As for the rest of the episode: nobody cares about the President. I’m sorry. It was wise not to try to make us care about him as a character, but even the “twist” at the end-that Team Machine got his number because Samaritan was happy to let him be killed-could be seen coming eons beforehand. This would hardly be the first time that false-flag attacks and artificial crises were created either by Samaritan or by its Decima acolytes. It’s been obvious for seasons that the higher political officials have no idea what is going on and are relevant only for how they can be manipulated, as actors or as symbols.
Similarly, deciding to suddenly insert a sort of Vigilance 2.0 here is a choice I can’t really support. Vigilance was interesting when it was offering a legitimate, sincere critique of the surveillance society, and that critique turned out to be one of Decima’s false flag operations; Collier’s brainwashing presaged Shaw’s. This means that now Vigilance’s ideological position is hard to take seriously for the audience, because we’re looking for what’s “really” going on. It seems there’s no deeper conspiracy here, which then begs the question of why the villains need to be people who believe basically the same things Team Machine believes, and use similar methods. It’s not presented as though it’s an intentional drawing of parallels to evoke moral ambiguity; it’s just pointless. I appreciated that they used a drone, though.
Finally, Team Machine Beta. I appreciated knowing that there are indeed other teams out there in other cities; that the show’s action has always been so limited to NYC is something that never made logical sense but just had to be accepted as part of the show’s premise. Learning that all this time there have been other teams being built in other places-at least one, and I would bet more-is a relief; so long as The Machine is alive, she can build allies. It speaks to a certain contrast with Samaritan, as well: Samaritan has seeded malware in electronic devices to extend its reach; The Machine has seeded friends.
Harper!!! I’d thought Harper was going to be in way more of this season, honestly, so I’m relieved she finally appeared. (Via oliviaswilde)
Final notes:
- “Synecdoche” is a literary device, a type of metaphor where a part of something is used to represent the whole thing, or vice versa. There are a jillion ways to apply that to this episode, but the most obvious is learning that Team Machine has actually been a part standing in for a greater whole for some time.
- The virus Harold downloaded to use against Samaritan was called an Ice-9 virus. This is a real type of virus that, for one thing, renders hidden files no longer hidden in the system’s file tree. The name is a Vonnegut reference with some interesting implications as well.
- Had you guys heard of Palantir before it showed up in the list of evil influences alongside Google and Facebook? I hadn’t. As usual: we’re screwed.
- What an odd collection they chose for Team Machine: DC Edition! They all make sense in terms of their skills, and they come from different seasons and types of episodes, but honestly who remembered Joey Durban (James Carpinello)? I vaguely do because I just did a rewatch, but…deep cut. That said, I really was delighted with the reveal.
- If I don’t see Zoe before this season ends, I will be forced into a depression for which the writers should feel individually and personally responsible.
