Person of Interest (TV series)


Person of Interest is an American science fiction crime drama television series that aired on CBS from September 22, 2011, to June 21, 2016, with its five seasons consisting of 103 episodes. The series was created by Jonathan Nolan; executive producers were Nolan, J. J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Greg Plageman, Denise Thé, and Chris Fisher.
The series centers on a mysterious reclusive billionaire computer programmer, Harold Finch, who has developed a computer program for the federal government known as "the Machine" that is capable of collating all sources of information to predict terrorist acts and to identify people planning them. Finch hires John Reese, a former special forces soldier and CIA operative, to be his field agent in preventing everyday murders. The series raises an array of moral issues, from questions of privacy and "the greater good", the concept of justifiable homicide, and problems caused by working with limited information programs.
Person of Interest was acclaimed during its run and considered by several critics to be the best science fiction show on broadcast TV. Katharine Trendacosta of Gizmodo noted that by the end of the series in 2016, Person of Interest had been transformed from a "crime-fighting show" with an entertaining plot device into "one of the best science-fiction series ever broadcast". The show won the 2012 People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama and the 2016 People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Crime Drama.

Plot

John Reese, a former Special Forces soldier and CIA operative, is burnt out and presumed dead, living as a vagrant in New York City. He is approached by Harold Finch, a reclusive billionaire software genius who built a computer system for the U.S. government after the September 11 attacks, called the Machine, which monitors all electronic communications and surveillance video feeds in order to predict future terrorist activities. Finch and Reese attempt to understand the threat to, or by, people the Machine identifies as being "of interest" by providing only their social security numbers, and try to stop the crime from occurring. They are helped by New York Police Department Detective Lionel Fusco, a formerly corrupt officer whom Reese coerces into helping them, and Detective Joss Carter, an ex–US Army lieutenant and former senior military interrogator in the 4th Infantry Division who initially investigates Reese for his vigilante activities.
During the second season, Decima Technologies, a powerful and secretive private intelligence firm run by ex–British Army officer turned MI6 spy John Greer, is revealed to be attempting to gain access to the Machine. Detective Carter vows vengeance against HR, a criminal organization of corrupt law enforcement officers and public officials in the city, after they have her boyfriend, Detective Cal Beecher, murdered. Reese and Finch encounter Sameen Shaw, an ex–United States Marine and a US Army ISA assassin, on the run after being betrayed by her employers. The Machine is revealed to have developed sentience and covertly arranged for itself to be moved to an undisclosed location to protect itself from interference.
In the third season, the Machine's sentience is fully revealed as it increasingly communicates with and proactively assists and directs the actions of the team. After being demoted due to HR's machinations, Carter brings down the entire organization by uncovering and arresting its leader, but is killed by its rogue second-in-command. The team also battles Vigilance, a violent anti-government organization devoted to securing people's privacy. A second advanced artificial intelligence called Samaritan is revealed. Samaritan differs from the Machine in being open to external direction and willing to remove those seen as disruptive to law and order pre-emptively.
The fourth season covers the team's life in hiding. They continue to work on cases, but must now also evade Samaritan, which is seeking to resolve perceived problems of human violence by reshaping society, sometimes violently. Samaritan and the Machine meet via human proxies as the only two of their kind, and discuss their essential differences, disagreeing strongly on whether free will or firm guidance is more beneficial to humanity. They part with the understanding that Samaritan will seek to destroy the Machine.
In season five, Finch steals and weaponizes Ice-9, a computer virus capable of infecting and destroying Samaritan, although it will also destroy the Machine and much of the global computing infrastructure as well. Greer sacrifices himself in vain to kill Finch and ensure Samaritan's continuation. The Machine ceases to function after showing Finch its prediction of the world and his friends' futures if it had not existed. Reese sacrifices himself to ensure that Ice-9 destroys Samaritan, while Finch survives and reunites with his former fiancée. A while later, Shaw is unexpectedly contacted by the Machine; it has restored itself from a satellite to continue its work.

Cast and characters

Main

  • Jim Caviezel as John Reese: a former United States Army Special Forces soldier and later a CIA SAD/SOG operative in the Special Activities Division
  • Michael Emerson as Harold Finch: a reclusive, security-conscious, and intensely private billionaire software engineer. His real name is unknown and he has many aliases, using various species of birds as the surname.
  • Taraji P. Henson as Joss Carter : a New York Police Department detective stationed at the NYPD's 8th Precinct and a member of the NYPD's Homicide Task Force. Carter is a former US Army lieutenant and interrogation officer who served in the 4th Infantry Division and passed the bar exam in 2004, but gave up practicing law to return to police work.
  • Kevin Chapman as Lionel Fusco: a reformed corrupt NYPD detective whom Reese blackmails into being a source inside the NYPD and later arranges for him to be transferred into Carter's 8th Precinct and reassigned to the Homicide Task Force so that the two end up working together.
  • Amy Acker as Root Samantha Groves : a genius hacker obsessed with the Machine. She later becomes the only person able to communicate directly with the Machine, when it chooses her as its "analog interface".
  • Sarah Shahi as Sameen Shaw : a former United States Marine and later a US Army ISA operative and assassin who was working for Northern Lights, where she unknowingly dealt with the "relevant" numbers generated by the Machine

    Recurring

  • Brett Cullen as Nathan Ingram, Finch's collaborator on the Machine who died in a suicide bombing attack set up by the government. Ingram acted as the interface between the government and his company while the Machine was under development. Finch and Ingram became best friends while they both attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • Carrie Preston as Grace Hendricks, Finch's fiancée who believes him to be dead following the ferry bombing that killed Ingram
  • Paige Turco as Zoe Morgan, a "fixer" who specializes in crisis management. Finch and Reese first meet her as a person of interest. Later, she works with them on cases that require her skills. She and Reese have an apparently sporadic romantic relationship.
  • Ken Leung as Leon Tao, a former financial criminal and three-time person of interest who has assisted in some cases with his forensic accounting skills. He has a penchant for get-rich-schemes which always land him in difficulties with gangsters.
  • Brennan Brown as Nicholas Donnelly, an FBI special agent who becomes interested in Reese when his case crosses one of Reese's. He periodically offers Carter the opportunity to work with him as he pursues Reese.
  • Luke Kleintank as Caleb Phipps, a genius teenager with a difficult past. Phipps later returns as a successful computer coder.
  • Susan Misner as Jessica Arndt, Reese's deceased lover. After Jessica's relationship with Reese ended, she married another man, but remained in contact with Reese.
  • Wrenn Schmidt as Iris Campbell, a therapist assigned to speak with Reese, working undercover as NYPD Detective John Riley, after his involvement in shooting incidents as a police officer. At the end of the episode "Skip", she develops a romantic relationship with Reese.
  • Jimmi Simpson as Logan Pierce, a tech billionaire and person of interest in the middle of the second season, who returned towards the end of the fifth season and, together with two other former persons of interestJoey Durban and Harper Roseforms a second team also working for the Machine, that is based out of Washington, D.C.
  • Annie Ilonzeh as Harper Rose, a drifter and opportunistic con artist who first appears in "Blunt" as a person of interest when she tries to independently double-cross both a drug cartel and the Brotherhood. At the end of the episode "Skip", it is revealed that the Machine is starting to anonymously use her as an asset. In "Synecdoche", it is revealed that Harper has become part of a second team working for the Machine in Washington, D.C., with former persons of interest Joey Durban and Logan Pierce.
  • James Carpinello as Joey Durban, one of the machine's first numbers in the first season who returns at the end of the series to reveal that hetogether with two former persons of interest, Harper Rose and Logan Piercehas formed a second team in the nation's capital
  • Alex Shimizu as Tatsuro Daizo, a programmer recruited by Root to help protect the Machine's assets from Samaritan
  • Michael Esper as Jason Greenfield, a hacker and former member of Vigilance that becomes an asset of the Machine
  • Joseph Mazzello as Daniel Casey, a hacker formerly targeted by the CIA for discovering the existence of the Machine. He is recruited as an asset to protect the Machine's operatives from Samaritan.

    Government

The following characters are tied to a government project related to the development and use of the Machine:
  • John Doman as Ross Garrison, a US Senator charged with overseeing the Northern Lights project
  • Elizabeth Marvel as Alicia Corwin, a liaison between Ingram and the government while the Machine was being developed and a former member of the National Security Council
  • Camryn Manheim as Control, the woman who is the head of the ISA's operation regarding the Machine. To protect the Machine, she sanctioned the suicide bombing that killed Ingram and caused Finch's injuries. When the plug is pulled on "Northern Lights", she is unwittingly installed as a puppet heading Samaritan, a position with which she becomes more and more uneasy.
  • Boris McGiver as Hersh, the Special Counsel's enforcer, a former member of the ISA
  • Jay O. Sanders as the Special Counsel, a shadowy figure from the Office of Special Counsel who appears to be coordinating the activity regarding the Machine and sees Reese as a threat
  • Cotter Smith as Denton Weeks, the official who commissioned the development of the Machine while he was a Deputy Director of the NSA
  • Jacob Pitts as Henry Peck, an NSA analyst who stumbles upon the existence of the Machine, putting him in grave danger