Category: Television-Fiction

Posts about TV shows.

Can you hear me?

Person of Interest makes it difficult for fans to draw conclusions from its season finales. Its two so far have done more to upend its story than resolve it. Season two’s “God Mode” gave viewers a nice mix of excitement before a good cliffhanger left us with questions about what comes next in the story, not who may or may not be dead. Open some new directions, close up some old ones, that’s what I like to see from a season finale.

God Mode began with a vicious video game style shooting rampage directed by The Machine to enable Reese, Shaw, Finch and Root to escape the library where Reese and Root answered The Machine’s phone call. This and its subsequent actions directing them all to safety reveal the show’s most exciting new direction: The Machine’s emergence as a full character.

For most of the first two seasons Harold’s baby has been fairly static. In this episode it became true artificial intelligence, which is exactly how Shaw described it after Reese revealed it to her. Instead of just spitting out numbers The Machine is now a service for whomever it allows to access it. To illustrate this, the writers sent Reese and Shaw after some non-relevants as a way to show what the sentient machine can do. Need a car? Just ask. Need glasses? Just ask. The combination to Harold’s safe? Anything The Machine can know it can give you. Characters don’t just react to it, they interact with it. The Machine is not just numbers anymore.

The ensuing race to find The Machine supported an episode that threw a tremendous amount of storyline at its viewers and reshuffled its setting for next season.

Root leads Harold to a nuclear waste facility in Washington State where they believe The Machine is located. Finch warns her to keep her expectations under control and when the door opens we find out why: The Machine is missing. Yeah, missing. The largest, most powerful computer system ever developed ain’t where it’s supposed to be.

Or is it? Harold explains that he designed the virus Decima unleashed, which in itself was not a surprise to viewers. He goes on to explain how he programmed The Machine so the only way it would alter its code would be in response to an attack. By building the attack himself, he was able to implant instructions within the virus that directed The Machine to relocate, in essence teaching The Machine how to hide from its enemies. Putting the virus into the world with reliance on the fact that someone would someday unleash it shows how building The Machine dampened Harold’s faith in human goodness.

We learned where The Machine used to be, and chasing after it could easily be one of the storylines that bleeds over into the start of next season. But I hope the writers are approaching The Machine’s existence the same way Lost’s writers approached explaining their story. Darlton used the example of midi-chlorians in Star Wars ruining the mysterious nature of the force as proof of why they never wanted to fully explain the show. Star Wars sucks so I don’t know a lot about midi-chlorineians or whatever, but I feel the same way about The Machine. Don’t ruin it by trying to tell us every last detail.

After Special Counsel learns The Machine got away, a phone call from a woman we only know as Ma’am instructs Hersch to eliminate him. Knowing what was going to happen and resigned to the fate he long ago consented to, Counsel stared down the barrel of Hersch’s gun and said simply, “Fair enough.” Near the very end of the episode, Hersch (outlined with a yellow square) tells her The Machine has sent a new number, she instructs him to put a team together.

With Counsel gone we need a new figuree for the government’s use (or abuse) of Harold’s invention, expect Ma’am to fill that role. Now that Hersch knows Finch was the brains behind Ingram, Harold isn’t safe. I would look for next season to feature the paths that will eventually bring Harold face-to-face with Ma’am.

One of the things we are left wondering is what kind of number The Machine gave out? After the reboot and implementation of Harold’s new code, he explains that no one controls The Machine anymore. It and only it will decide if it keeps giving numbers and whether they will be relevant or non-relevant. Its decision – there it is being its own character again – will shape the show going forward.

To give us one last teaser going into the summer, a psychologically-broken Root wanders down the hallway of a mental hospital when a phone rings. She picks up the yellow receiver. “Can you hear me?”  This wasn’t like the call pre-programmed to ring in the library regardless of who would answer. The Machine located her in that hospital and called her specifically. Why? We do not know…yet.

The only small surprise in the finale was the way the wrinkly man and Decima Technologies disappeared. Instead of a real player in the future of the series and a rival to Finch it turned out to only be a storytelling tool for unleashing the virus. That would be too bad but there are plenty of other storylines, so it won’t be missed.

 

For Person of Interest to wrap all this material together without letting it collapse on itself is proof that it is one of the best shows on television. There’s every reason to expect it will continue to be in season three.

The Duchess

Jeanne Cooper died Wednesday morning in Los Angeles. Her age is irrelevant, for she was timeless.

The IMDB credits her for appearing as Katherine Chancellor in 1006 episodes of The Young and the Restless, a tally that must surely fall short considering that she first appeared in 1973, the same year the show premiered on CBS. A single Daytime Emmy award is an indictment on the Emmys more than a statement of her acting abilities. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame sits at 6801 Hollywood Blvd, a location I will surely visit when I am in California later this year.

Cooper was a legend in her own time if there ever was one, the dame of an era of television that the world left behind. America once loved its morning show anchors, evening newscasters and late night hosts who came into our lives on a daily basis. All of those daily institutions went into decline as entertainment options fragmented, including soap operas. Once-standard shows like All My Children and One Life To Live are gone and only four remain.  My grandpa surely went apeshit in his grave at the cancelation of his beloved Asa Buchanan. OLTL recently returned as a 30-minute series on Hulu, but Grandpa Julius ain’t got time for that. Asa belongs on television with the Cubs and Crossfire, dammit.

The Young and The Restless has not been immune from the decline even though its ratings improved after last year’s housecleaning of on- and off-screen talent. It still leads the other four remaining sudsers in all categories. Y&R is making a clear move towards youth in its talent and fresher, more modern sets, indicating that it probably knows it needs to keep and attract younger viewers. As it does, though, they will be coming into the show in a different way than past generations.

Soaps used to be passed down like a family heirloom. My mom’s dad passed Asa on to her, she passed Y&R on to my sister and me. If either of us ever has children, they may take it from us. That connection to their closest relationships is part of why soap fans are so incredibly tied to their shows. As more viewers come to the show without that connection they will be more difficult to retain.

Soap operas will then rely more on another connection unique to the genre. I obviously only knew Cooper in the way that all viewers did, but she and her co-stars have been a part of my life every weekday for half the time I’ve been alive. That might sound a little odd, to say that television stars we never meet can be a part of our lives, but think about it: Five days a week, for years on end. What other parts of your life are that frequent, that consistent? I’ve watched stars like Joshua Morrow and Sharon Case go from their 20s to near their 40s. Christel Khalil began her role as Lily Winters when she was 14 years old. We literally watched her grow up. A viewer cannot help but feel a connection when it devotes 39 minutes to them day after day, year after year. Soaps will need new viewers to stick with the show often enough and long enough for that connection to take root in them the way it has for so many of us for generations.

And through it all, there was Jeanne Cooper. Not young, still restless, forever the dame of daytime television.

Rest in peace, Duchess.

Harold of Interest

Wow! The penultimate episode of season two was AWESOME! The only other episode that comes to mind as being near it is when the FBI shot Reese on the parking garage in season one, but still I would put this one ahead of that (the episodes share a director). I saw a tweet on Saturday, I forget from whom, saying how the episode felt four hours long because of all the plot development. Watching it on DVR I kept thinking, “I must be to the final break now” and only finding I wasn’t close yet. Outstanding television episodes fly to their final commercial break. Only the very, very best seem to take forever to get there.

It occurred to me later Thursday night that this was the kind of episode Lost fans begged for during its later seasons – heavy mythology and rapid plot development. Lost’s creative team was reluctant to deliver it because they felt fully explaining the show’s meaning would take away too much of the audience’s imagination. Darlton even noted their reluctance in The End’s script: And here it is. The closest we’re ever gonna come to actually describing it.  That was their very last chance, and they stuck to their core belief in their storytelling. Person of Interest ran this risk with all it crammed into last week’s episode. If the writers weren’t up to the task they would have undercut the finale, but they pulled it off in spades.

I won’t begin to attempt recapping the episode, you can get that here. Instead I want to look forward and see if there is anything that might give leads to what we’ll see this week.

Harold and The Laptop

Harold sold the the virus that Decima used to take down The Machine. The CIA sent Reese and Kara Stanton deep into China to steal it, leading to both of them being nearly killed before the virus fell into Decima’s hands. We’ve known it for a long time, Decima knows it and now, maybe most importantly, John knows it. We don’t know why Harold sold it.

Some possible answers?

He wanted to destroy The Machine. He was not happy about Nathan leaving the back door for non-relevant numbers, isn’t it possible that Harold so feared what he’d built and what Nathan had done with it that he created a way to destroy it and made sure it found its way into the hands of those who would want to?

He wanted to smoke out John. Harold knew he couldn’t protect the non-relevant numbers on his own, couldn’t he have manipulated the entire situation so the CIA would want to retire John, forcing him to escape and go the one place Harold knows he can find him: Off the grid? This one is a stretch, Harold would have to have his hands on an awful lot of moving parts to make it work. But remember when he and Agent Donnelly squared off while Reese was in prison? If anyone could pull it off, Harold could. There’s more here…

Remember Jessica? Jessica was John’s love before September 11 pulled him back into the military. He was about to leave the CIA to reunite with her when he and Kara got sent to China. How would Harold have known about her? Her number kept coming up because of her abusive husband, who eventually does kill her. When Reese learns this at the hospital, he fails to notice a man in a wheelchair who would soon become very familiar: Harold Finch.

That is some deep mythology and nothing in the lead up to the finale suggests it will come up again. But as Harold’s character is peeled back we are starting to see that he may not be the virtuous do-gooder we first saw him as. I’m also hoping for it because Jessica was played by the incomparably gorgeous Susan Misner, who delighted us all on ABC’s Nashville and FX’s The Americans this spring.

Harold and Nathan Ingram

I would be very surprised if the finale doesn’t show us how Nathan died. His number came up a split second before Harold’s script shut Ingram’s makeshift system down. Will it have something to do with Harold’s limp? It could. Although if I had to bet I’d put money on it having to do with him being in the wheelchair as mentioned above. It could also be what changed Harold’s mind about the backdoor. Recall their argument in the library when he told Nathan he would tell the non-relevant people that everyone dies and he can’t play god. Having one hit so close to home could change his mind.

Harold and John

They have been partners until now, Reese even credits Harold with rescuing his life after escaping China. Will John turn against him now that he knows Harold was responsible for the laptop? He didn’t express as much in their short interactions waiting for the phone call in the library, but John will put his personal feelings aside to finish his mission. I think he will have his word with Finch at the right time. Going into season three the show will need to change its dynamic. Finch and Reese at odds could be that change.

Harold

Like I said, Harold’s character is being peeled back as we get closer to the end of the season. Way back at the start of the series I observed they were featuring the more well-known Jim Caviezel’s character more than Michael Emerson’s, figuring he would draw viewers while Emerson’s Lost fans would be comfortable waiting for Ben to be studied. It really feels like we are at that point now. The writers ran Harold’s story up to the key moments in his life thus far: Separating himself from Grace, taking on The Machine’s non-relevant numbers, Nathan’s death, the laptop. All of this will come together, somehow.

Other potential changes could be evident after the finale. It is only one hour, which is disappointing, and maybe nothing can live up to the excitement of last week’s lead-in. But The Machine is off, Root has the Northern Lights director tied up and Decima is closing in. This should be great.

Who’s got a shovel?

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

So Confucius warns us in philosophy, so Emily Thorne warns us on ABC. If they are correct, can one of them be for Revenge? Creator Mike Kelley is out as showrunner, will that satisfy the bloodlust of ABC’s grim reaper?

I defended season two earlier this year when no one else would. That was before dead Padma turned Nolan Ross into a whimpering pile of nerd alert. This show has gone off the rails in so many ways. Let us count them now.

Emily’s mom. The revelation that Emily’s mom was still alive bombshelled last year’s finale. This will change the show and everything for Emily. Where has Mom Clark been? Does she even know she’s Mom Clark? Is she in [scary music] The Initiative? [/scary music]. No. Mom Clark is crazy under the manipulation of the silver-haired man. Aaaaand thaaaat’s allllll. She was in and out of the story so inconsequentially fast that it leaves you wondering why they brought her in in the first place. What a waste of a potential character and storyline.

Padma. Dear, sweet, stupid and dead Padma. [scary music] The Initiative [/scary music] kidnapped her dad so it could force her to steal a piece of unfinished software from Nolan that [scary music] The Initiative? [/scary music] would then use to, well, to something. We got a hint at what the software was, but then dear, sweet Padma found herself at room temperature. Gone from the story and from our lives. How ever will we move on? (This is a marker so if she turns out to not be dead I can come back and say I told you so. They never showed Aden checking her pulse.)

Trask. Trask was the new handler for [scary music] The Initiative [/scary music] in charge of the Graysons. He took over for the sultry Helen Crowley, who Victoria killed. But then Aden killed Trask. Now [scary music] The Initiative [/scary music] has no one.

Wait, what the deuce is The Initiative??? Oh, right, it’s the thing we found out about in last season’s finale that forced the Graysons to frame David Clark. Um, yeah. We know exactly nothing more about it now than we did then except that two of its staff members are dead and it wants some software from Nolan Ross. Oh, and it tried to control Daniel Grayson, too.

Ahh, Daniel. His alignment with his family last season was the high point of the show, and we were so excited (squee!) that he would finally be more than just really, really sculpted muscles. He even orchestrated Conrad’s ouster from Grayson Global…only to fall instantly under the direction of The Initiative. Buzzkill. He started doing Ashely (or was that last year?) but is now so totally hot for Emily again and back to being dumb and hunky.

Speaking of dumb, let’s talk about Jack Porter. He was annoying when he was the barkeep who couldn’t get over a girl he knew when he was 10 – move on, loser – but then when she was killed he started to do some plotting of his own and now he’s even more annoying than when he was the stupid bartender! When he comes on the screen, I swear to god. Can’t there be a freak CO2 canister accident at the bar or something?

Conrad. Is running for governor. You don’t care, and neither do I. Like Padma, this storyline is time that could be better spent on something interesting.

I forgot to mention Emily’s foster brother. I wish they had, too.

Revenge has fallen so far from its first season highs that even Victoria Grayson is a shell of her former self. With her abortion exposed as actually child abandonment, she went crawling to Nolan’s office to ask him to track down her missing son. I used to watch scenes with excitement for what she might do next. Now I feel sad that Madeline Stowe is being given so little to work with.

No one is. The season is half-assing so many storylines that it’s not whole-assing any of them. I touch on the marks above without mentioning Jack losing the bar, faux-Manda’s public outing as Emily, the Ryans or Emily’s secret affair with Aden. Last week it sunk far enough down to have Charlotte making out with another girl at a bar. When it goes lesbian kiss, you know the creativity at rock bottom. They are also killing off another major character in the season finale. I think death can boost a story (see: Boone Carlyle) but others see it as a cheap gimmick boost sagging ratings.

Speculation about Mike Kelley’s ouster includes his push for the show to be in condensed seasons like FOX gave The Following. ABC should look at this season and realize that he was onto something. Had the season picked any few of these storylines and run with them, it could have been very good. But it is really hard to fill 22 episodes and Revenge is showing us exactly why.

Interesting people

Person of Interest got a little wobbly during its second season when it put Reese in prison and as close to being captured as ever. It took all of Finch’s technical wizardry to get him out in one of the best scenes of the series. As if that scene flipped a switch in the writers’ room, the series got its mojo back immediately.

Reese’s CIA partner, Kara Stanton, reappeared — much to his surprise. On their last mission together, their CIA controller, Agent Snow, sent them to a Chinese factory with orders to destroy a laptop and “retire” the other once the task was done. After barely surviving, Kara received a visit from a mysterious man offering to tell her who sold the laptop to the Chinese — the laptop which he now has. She agrees to work for him by implanting malware in a government computer monitoring station. Using Reese and Snow as tools to accomplish her mission, she calls the man and gets the name: Harold Finch. Before she can act on it, Snow detonates the bomb she strapped to his chest, killing them both.

Harold Finch is a dead man, wiped from existence to go underground after building the ultimate surveillance machine capable of identifying terrorists before they strike. But the machine has a back door that kicks out the Social Security numbers of “irrelevant” targets that will either murder or be murdered. Working with Reese to save lives, he keeps information about his identity extremely close to his vest. Who then is this man a world away that wants him dead. Why?

This looks to be the serialized element that will take Person of Interest to its season finale. Finch has enemies who know he is still alive and want him found. Reese escaped the threat of official apprehension but a dark intelligence element within the government wants him and everyone else who knows about the Machine dead.

Here is a look at the characters who will be major players down the stretch and a few from the past who might reappear.

“Yellow squares” – characters who know about the Machine:

Root. Root first appeared in season one as part of a plot to assassinate a Congressman and frame a former staff member. Her real goal, however, is to find the Machine. Through only computer communications, she goes so far as to reveal to Harold that he knows his name, which prompts him to vacate his library for a brief time.

Root reappeared at the end of season one – unbeknownst to anyone – as the POI in the season finale. Her true identity wasn’t revealed to viewers until the end of the episode when she murders Alicia Corwin and kidnaps Harold. The first two episodes of season two feature her trying to exact the Machine’s location from Finch and one of the seven government agents who know it. She kills the agent after he reveals to her – and Finch – that it is in Salt Lake City. Harold ultimately escapes and she disappears.

Control. Root remains missing from the story until resurfacing as the secretary for a mysterious character known as Control (or Special Counsel). He knows about the machine and controls a number of specialized killers out to protect it. One of them – Hesch – is after Reese. Others work for him indirectly through something they only know as Research.

Samantha Shaw. Samantha Shaw and Michael Cole believe they are taking out terrorists but unknowingly serve as two of Control’s hit men. Cole realizes that one of their targets was a U.S. government employee named Akino. Akino, it seems, knew too much about the Machine. Control can’t risk them digging into Akino any further so it sends a team to kill them, succeeding with Cole but Shaw escapes. Reese tries to intervene – their numbers came from the Machine – but Shaw rejects his help.

Still trying to locate the Machine, Root lures Shaw into a hotel with the hope she is the one who can direct her to it. When Control’s goon squad shows up, Root bolts. Reese saves Shaw again and she agrees to hear him out but rebuffs Finch’s offer to join the two of them. She gets revenge for Cole’s death by killing one of Counsel’s agents right in front of him. Hersh believes she is dead, but Reese and Finch saved her life for the third time. Rejecting their help again, she drives off alone. It is clear, however, that Shaw’s role in the story is not over.

Henry Peck. Henry Peck is a wildcard left over from season one. As an NSA security analyst he accidentally stumbled on the Machine after realizing single names were being added to his security briefs, all of which led to the prevention of a terrorist event. Asking questions earns him a target on his back. This is where we first see Control as he gives one of his men the order to eliminate Peck. Reese helps him avoid two hits and Finch takes the unprecedented step of telling him the Machine is real and confesses he built it. He gives Peck a clean identity, but we don’t know if he used it. He has not been since since.

White squares. Two other people emerged in season two who don’t know about the Machine but we are left with the impression that they might be able to learn who Finch is.

Caleb Phipps. With Reese still in jail Finch protects a high school student who is a coding genius. At the end of the episode, Finch all but confesses to the boy that he is the legendary hacker behind one of the most notorious hacks in history. It certainly seems possible that Caleb was introduced to the story with those specific skills to use him later.

Logan Pierce. Like Phipps, Pierce seems capable of resurfacing. Clearly modeled after Mark Zuckerberg, he’s a social media wunderkind who Reese saves multiple times. At the end of the episode he coyly reveals what he knows about the pair.

A third character in this category remains in the wind from season one: Grace Hendricks. She and Finch were a couple for four years until he faked his death to protect her from the dangers inherent with being close to the one who created the Machine. We only saw her at the end of the Henry Peck episode. Finch created an app that warns him when she is nearby, so she could show up at any time. It’s a long shot.

Before his death at the hands of Kara Stanton, Agent Donnelley tells Carter they think the man in the suit is being assisted by a private intelligence network backed by the Chinese. That line could loom large as the mysterious man who knows Finch’s existence comes back into the story. Reese and Kara were in China to destroy a laptop that Harold sold to the Chinese — could the man be a former associate of Harold’s? Or an enemy?  I expect we will know before Person of Interest signs off for the season…the malware Kara uploaded for him is set to go live in May.