Recap / Person of Interest S01 E09

Season 1, Episode 9:

Get Carter

Carter's number's come up...

Reese: Your life's in danger.
Carter: I'm a cop. My life's always in danger.

With Detective Carter bull-headedly sticking her nose into various cases and continuing to investigate the rise of Elias as one of New York's most influential crime figures, it's no surprise to Reese and Finch when her number comes up. The pair dig deeper into Carter's life and background and learn that there's no shortage of people who might want her dead; chief among them is Elias himself, who has allied himself with "HR", a loose infrastructure of New York's corrupt cops and city officials that want to put the "organized" back in "organized crime" (and get paid, of course). With Reese and Finch watching her back, Carter tries to solve a gang killing and intervenes in a domestic dispute, unaware that Elias has decreed she be dead by the end of the day.

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• A Day in the Limelight: For Detective Carter, this week's POI. We learn she served in Iraq and is the single mother of a teenage son. Though it's implied that her husband is deceased, "Endgame" reveals that he is alive, but the relationship broke up when he refused to get treatment for his PTSD.
• Arc Words:
  • "You can't play God."
  • "It's a long war. You're all alone."
  • "Whether you like me or not, Joss, you're not alone."
• Badass Boast: From Reese, delivered at gunpoint with the recipient half-dangling off a building.
  Reese: Tell Elias if he so much as touches Detective Carter again, I will put him, you... everyone in the ground. You got that?
• Beneath Suspicion: Carter's confidential informant turns out to be the assassin, coerced into doing the deed.
• Break-In Threat: Elias himself walks into the police station to put 'condolence' flowers on Carter's desk (as well as getting a peek at his own file).
• Bulletproof Vest: Saves Carter's bacon long enough for Reese to intervene.
• Camera Sniper: Reese surveilling Carter.
• Cat Fight: Instigated by Carter between Hector's two girlfriends. She locks Fusco in the room with them and then giggles behind the closed door. The sounds of them fighting can be heard throughout the rest of the scene. The two girlfriends eventually decide to team up and sell Hector out as revenge.
• Compensating for Something:
  Kovacks: You come after me, and I will exercise my Second Amendment rights. I promise you, I've got a pretty big gun.
  Carter: Man as angry and bitter as you are, I got a feeling it isn't that big.
• Domestic Abuse: One of Carter's open cases is a Mr. Kovach who beats his wife, who frequently makes excuses for him hitting her.
• Face–Heel Turn: Carter's informant Bottle Cap. He found Elias like Carter wanted...and Elias made it clear he had a choice of either dying or killing Carter.
• Flashback: To Carter's time as an army interrogator in Iraq.
• High Altitude Intimidation: Reese on the HR captain.
• Impersonating an Officer: Reese dresses as a SWAT member.
• Implied Death Threat:
  • The gangbanger Carter is chasing.
    Hector: You need to be careful, I heard some kid got popped on this block last night. You got any kids, detective?

  Then he does a Finger Gun to the potential witness she'd just been talking to.

• Last-Name Basis: Carter insists on it.
• Lotsa People Try to Dun It: The problem with a cop whose number comes up is that there are lots of people who have her in their sights.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Carter invokes this with the man she's interrogating in the flashbacks. Reese points it out in the present, saying that the "stopping bad things from happening to good people" job that he and Finch do is something that Carter's been doing her whole life.
• Oblivious Mockery: Fusco has the grace to look embarrassed when Carter mentions how a mafia boss thinks every cop is a Dirty Cop.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Since he has to follow his Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist on a motorcycle, Reese temporarily sheds his trademark suit for a motorcycle jacket. Of course, after Joss hears that a guy in a motorcycle jacket with a submachine gun and a grenade launcher tore up Hector's shop, she muses that his suit must be at the cleaners.
• Quip to Black - Reese: "Oh I'm... pretty close."
• Rogues Gallery Showcase: "HR" is introduced as working with Elias, who makes a brief cameo.
• Shout-Out:
  • The episode's title to the British gangster movie Get Carter.
  • Also Reese's "knock knock" quip may be from the John Wayne movie Brannigan.
• There Is No Kill Like Over Kill: Reese uses a Grenade Launcher to blast his way into Hector's garage. No one ever accused him of being subtle.
• Who Are You?: One of Hector's kneecapped thugs groans, "Who are you, man?"
  Reese: Tell Hector I'm the guy that just put him out of business. I see him again I'll close down more than this shop.
• You Are Not Alone
• You Are Too Late: A teenager who was going to rat out Hector is gunned down. Carter is first on the scene... as is Reese, having been given the boy's number.
• You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With: Subverted. The Dirty Cop Reese is dangling off the edge of the building protests that Reese is threatening a police captain. Reese's response is to threaten to shoot the man with his own gun.