History Recap / PersonOfInterestS01E01

* CoolGuns: The foundation of Reese's new arsenal include a M79 GrenadeLauncher and a SIG P556 SWAT assault rifle among others.

* EvilIsPetty: Finch keeps a recording of a woman who was murdered by her husband over the insurance. He uses this to convince Reese to buy into his offer.

** Finch has a limousine and bodyguards when meeting with Reese, as befits a reclusive billionaire. After the pilot however Finch is shown to prefer anonymity as protection so they don't show up again. It's possible he wants to present a certain image to Reese when recruiting him. See also {{Mook}}s.

* {{Mooks}}: Unlike in later episodes, Finch has two bodyguards with him, presumably because for all the information he's gathered, he doesn't know how stable Reese is. Reese takes them down easily when they try to stop him walking out of their meeting.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spying_on_diane_hanson.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Reese has eyes on Diane Hansen...]]

** Which for once you will thank ExecutiveMeddling, as otherwise she would have been a KarmaHoudini.

** Finch walks through Central Park while [[TheReveal telling Reese about the Machine]], so he can't be overheard by bystanders. [[ParanoiaFuel The Machine can still hear what they're saying]].

John Reese is ex-special forces, ex-CIA, and currently, a depressed homeless drunk. An altercation on a subway brings him to the attention of Detective Carter of the NYPD and of Harold Finch, a reclusive billionaire software genius who's got a job offer. See, Finch knows about a woman who may need the help of a skilled operator. Reese isn't keen on the idea, until Finch gives him a crash-course on how it feels to sit by helplessly when someone needs help.

As it turns out, Finch knows a lot about people who need help. He designed and built the Machine, a secret government supercomputer that monitors and processes all the surveillance data in New York to spot terrorists before they have a chance to strike. As a side effect, the Machine can also spot ordinary citizens who will be the victim -- or perpetrator -- of a violent crime, but the government considered that data "irrelevant" and it gets junked each night at midnight. Conscience-racked, Finch arranged for the "irrelevant" data to be sent to him in secret, in the form of a single social security number, so that he could do something to intervene. And to intervene properly, he needs a partner with certain skills, someone like Reese.

The current number is Diane Hansen, an ADA prosecuting a drug killing case. At first glance she seems to have stumbled onto a massive conspiracy involving a fellow ADA, Wheeler, and corrupt cops, including Detective Lionel Fusco, but digging deeper reveals that Diane is one of the conspiracy ringleaders and that they've set their sights on Wheeler, who's threatening to expose everything. Reese is captured and driven out to the sticks by Fusco, but he escapes and returns to New York in time to save Wheeler and his son from the hit-team of corrupt cops. He and Finch expose Diane as the ringleader and use evidence of Fusco's misdeeds to recruit him as their inside man in the NYPD, while Detective Carter investigates the vigilante actions of a man "in a nice suit".