Well, first things first. Before I get to my actual review of the episode, I first want to reiterate what I said in my Advance Preview and announce that with tonight’s episode, we get a brand new theme for Person of Interest! And, to be honest, when I screened the episode this past weekend, the new opening sequence was one of the things that excited me the most. With both the Machine and Samaritan now sharing the throne as top ASI, the new theme incorporates both Finch and Greer’s voice, with each describing the mission of his own respective artificial intelligence. Check it out:

We are being watched. The government has a secret system — Finch

A system you asked for to keep you safe — Greer

A Machine that spies on you, every hour of every day — Finch

You granted it the power to see everything, to index, order and control the lives of ordinary people — Greedr

The government considers these people irrelevant. We don’t — Finch

But, to it, you are all irrelevant. Victim or perpetrator, you stand in its way, we’ll find you — Greer

How cool is that! Love it, love it, love it. Just another example of the brilliance in writing we are seeing so far in this final season.

Now, back to the episode. After the Machine’s big bug parade in last night’s episode, it appears that Finch (Michael Emerson)  and Root (Amy Acker)  have worked out most of the kinks, and things are about back to normal. Well, as close to “normal” as you’ll get in the world of 2 feuding ASI super-powers. The big thing is they’re getting numbers once again, and these appear to be the real deal — not D-list actors pretending to kill someone, or people who had killed somebody 2 decades ago, or an idiot kid who had called in a bomb threat to his school to get out of a math test (my personal favorite :-)). Basically, we’re very close to being back to the old Person of Interest but with the looming threat of Samaritan still hanging over our heroes’ heads.

In tonight’s installment, we continue the pattern from the fantastic “SNAFU” and get yet another Reese-centric episode. The POI is an Alex Duncan, a brilliant computer scientist who works for a technological consulting firm. Reese (Jim Caviezel)  is assigned to work the case, and so, off he goes to his new job in Security Systems Management. Almost immediately Reese can see that this guy is involved in something shady. He’s anxious, distracted, and then, after everyone has left for the day, he breaks into his supervisor’s office and accesses classified documents. But, for what purpose? Is he some kind of spy who’s selling sensitive information to the highest bidder?

No, not even close. As it turns out, he’s just trying to find out what happened to his brother, Paul, who had been killed while in Afghanistan several years ago. Sounds pretty innocent to me, doesn’t it you? But, if that’s the case, why did the Machine flag his number, and even more importantly, why has his actions gotten the attention of the CIA. It doesn’t take long for the CIA to snatch Duncan up, and to make matters worse, the guy in charge of the operation is Reese’s old boss, Terence Beal (guest star Keith David). With the CIA presuming that Reese is dead, this puts Reese in a dangerous position and one that could potentially blow his cover. How will Reese maneuver this delicate situation, and what about this Beal guy? Friend, foe or something in between?

As part of this, we also get another wonderful series of flashbacks but this time highlighting Reese’s time while in the CIA circa 2010. As I had mentioned in my review of the premiere, one of the great things I see the writers doing this final season is bringing back some of the most notable and memorable characters from earlier seasons. Given the timeframe, you might guess we might be seeing Kara Stanton (Annie Parisse) , and if you did, you would be correct! For me, Stanton was always a character I loved to hate, but even still, it was great to see her back alongside Reese. Even with her actions towards the end, she and Reese still made a great team, and I loved watching them work together. More nostalgia and a great trip down memory lane.

The focus of the flashbacks is a guy by the name of “Brent,” whom the duo had been assigned to interrogate and whom had been accused of stealing and selling a weapons shipment. To be honest here, I thought the guy was 100% innocent. He seemed like the perfect patriot, proud of his country, proud of his job, and no signs he would commit treason for a lousy buck. Heck, even Stanton didn’t see any red flags. However, Reese does, and without blinking, shoots this “Brent” in the head. It seems that Reese had been right because upon examining his briefcase, they discover a false bottom that was full of cash.

The twist in all of this is that Alex Duncan’s brother, Paul, is the same guy as this “Brent,” and so, if Alex truly wants the truth about his brother, someone would have to tell him that his brother is a traitor and sold his country out for a little bit of money. Reese does finally rescue Alex, but it also doesn’t take long for Beal to catch up with him. The tricky part in all of this is the entire operation Reese and Stanton had been on in 2010 was conducted off the books and without congressional approval. So, if anyone found out, some very powerful people — including Beal — would likely be in serious trouble, which could include prison time. In the end, Reese surprises us all and tells Alex that while he did investigate his brother for a stolen arms shipment, he was innocent, and they ultimately let him go. He was then later killed in an air strike, just doing his job, and thus, died a hero, all of which Beal backs Reese up on. As Reese explains to Beal, “Duncan wanted to know how Paul died, but what he needed was to believe that his brother was a hero. So he could let it go.”  Ironically, this could be what saves Reese’s life and keeps Beal from killing him. Even though I’m sure Beal doesn’t like being played and fooled as Reese had done, he also admits, “You were always good at doing what needed to be done. Glad to see some things haven’t changed…. I like you still being out there — a ghost — still doing what needs to be done.” Will we see Beal again? I doubt it given the limited number of episodes left, but I also think he will leave Reese and his new life alone.

While all of this is going down, Root is given her first undercover assignment by the Machine since being holed up in the subway while her rotating identities were being restored. This time she is to work for a shipment company, which she’s not exactly thrilled with. However, as we know, the Machine knows what she’s doing, and puts Root exactly where she needs to be. After noticing that a large number of shipments are being diverted to a single address before making it to their final destinations and especially since most of them are electronics, Root suspects that this may be part of Samaritan’s scheme to disseminate its malware. After asking for Finch’s help, he is able to confirm this, and so, now, the question: what do they do about it?

Finch’s idea — which is the more “safe” alternative — is to absolutely not allow the malware to run, no matter what the device, no matter what the platform. To find out what the malware does, he begins to simply inspect the code, which, of course, could take a while. Finch does make some progress and learns that one of the first things the malware does is package all of the info on the infected device up and send it to Samaritan. Root decides to take a more pragmatic, albeit risky, approach. Her idea is to actually install the malware on a laptop, but one that is completely isolated — no wireless capability, no internet connectivity, no nothing. Then, just let it run to its little heart’s content. Of course, Finch about has a stroke when he finds out, but truthfully, I think Root got him beat on this one. In only a short period of time, she has learned that the malware is already replicating and overwriting the laptop’s code, obviously working towards something. Impressive. So, now, they just have to watch and wait to see what it does next.

Now, lastly, for the buzz kill of the hour. The episode opens with a classically hilarious scene of Reese, desperately trying to make it on time for a date with Iris (Wrenn Schmidt) and her parents. But, hey, the numbers can’t wait, and so, Iris and her parents must. After a good giggle, I began worrying about the scene and whether Iris would be killed in the episode. After all, television writers seem to love to do this — put a nice, good-looking couple together and kill one of them just for the mere angst. Fortunately, I was wrong, but it did turn out to be a harbinger of unpleasant things to come. At the very end of the Stanton/Reese flashbacks, Stanton makes a very interesting observation but one that seems to have stuck with John:

Do you know why Beal picked you over all the other recruits? It was where you came from. You had no family, at least a real family. And, after losing your adoptive mother, you were on your own. Beal knew you would give everything to the Agency because you had no one or nothing to go back to. Except for the girlfriend, and you didn’t hesitate to walk away from her… We don’t get normal lives. That’s why Beal picked us and why we’re so good at our jobs — Stanton to Reese

In other words, it’s obvious Reese is very good at what he does, but it’s because he’s alone and not obligated to anyone. So, in a tear-jerker of a final scene, Reese has to let Iris go — for her sake, for his own sake, and for the world’s sake.

All in all, another fantastic episode. A tad bit surprised that the writers chose to do 2 back-to-back Reese-centric episodes, but hey, at the end of the day, that complaint is minor if you can call it a complaint at all. It’s more like an observation. Plus, you have to admit that the Reese scenes — the shoot-outs, the fight scenes, the pyrotechnics — are one of the things that make this series so compelling and engaging. And, of course, the flashbacks were phenomenal as always, and if every one of the final episodes were done in this fashion, you wouldn’t hear a single complaint from me.

Person of Interest  continues next week with episodes on both Monday and Tuesday at 10/9c on CBS.

Critic Grade — A