Person of Interest “In Extremis”

Person of Interest caught my attention before it aired.  The show is based on a screenplay by Jonathon Nolan, who I really respect as a screenwriter as he’s helped his brother, Christopher Nolan, write most of his films.  I don’t know if you understand this about me, but I enjoy Christopher Nolan’s films immensely.  The show started with a cool premise and has taken this idea to some cool areas within the last two seasons. 

One of my favorite aspects of the show is the multitude of different genre episodes you can have with the format provided.  The show is essentially a mystery/crime drama, but instead of rehashing the same kind of story every week, variations on who the Person of Interest is (either a victim or perpetrator) and the moral angles of the story provide many interesting directions for each episode to go.

This week Reese and Finch are trying to save a successful doctor, but they are too late.  The doctor is poisoned by radiation and has only 24 hours to live.  In a cool turn on the usual stories they tell, Reese and Finch help the doctor hunt down the person responsible for his murder.  Meanwhile Fusco is under investigation by Internal Affairs for the murder of a fellow officer.  This story arc was the focus of the episode and it delivered on some emotional punches. 

I was happy to see into Fusco’s past in this episode.  We knew he was a dirty cop from the beginning, but there was always a good side to him.  When he joined Reese and Finch and became one of their men inside the police force you could tell he was proud to not be a corrupt cop anymore.  This always brought up interesting questions about his past for me.  If he is a good person, and I felt he was considering how loyal he became to Reese and Finch, how did he get so bad?  This episode explains it with flashbacks to 2004-2005 when his wife kicked him out of the house and he was offered friendship by Stalls, a fellow officer.  When he learns that Stalls is crooked he is at first uneasy, but Stalls talks him into it and he spiraled out of control.  In this episode we see the quilt he feels about his past.  Then the twist ending was a real shocker, but that’s spoiler talk.

SPOILERS

At first I didn’t really believe Carter’s reaction when Fusco told her about his past crimes.  I understand she’s THE quintessential cop and she believes that once a dirty cop always a dirty cop, but I think that she’s worked with Fusco enough to realize that he’s not a bad guy.  I don’t know.  I can understand kind of, but I have a nagging feeling they had her react that way in order to hide the fact that she was going to dig up the body and save Fusco.  I like the idea of her moral dilemma, but I didn’t find it honest.   It’s possible that I’m adding my own knowledge of Fusco into the equation and maybe she hasn’t seen how good he can be, but her job entails reading people.  I think she had to see.  But that’s a good topic for discussion.  Did you find her reaction honest, or a ham-handed way for the writers to hide their big twist?