Recap / Person Of Interest S 03 E 06

Season 3, Episode 6:

Mors praematura

Shaw: The Machine gives missions to Harold and the government. Relevant, irrelevant. Why would it give one to you?
Root: Because now there's a third category. Besides, my relationship with the Machine is a little... different.

Root has kidnapped Shaw, and quickly talks her into helping with an unspecified mission. While Reese tries to track down Root and figure out what's going on, Finch is working on their latest number, an estate investigator who is looking into the death of his foster brother - and aroused the ire of his brother's enemies in the process.

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Tropes present in this episode include:

• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Root places dark glasses on Shaw before she uses the thermal lance. "Safety first."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "For what? The tasing, the drugging...or this?
• Armor-Piercing Question: "How can you be so certain, Ms. Groves, that the Machine does not wish you to be precisely where you are?"
• Big Damn Heroes: Reese turns up just in time to save Finch and Sloan from burning to death.
• Black Site: We get our first view of one, and it isn't pleasant. The inmates are moved every 72 hours and have been officially killed so they don't exist, so they can be interrogated indefinitely.
• Booby Trap / Fiery Cover-Up: The lockup is rigged with gasoline sprayers and an igniter, burning the evidence and anyone else who comes poking around.
• The Book Cipher: Reese and Sloan have to search Greenfield's apartment for the book.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted with Root's full-auto Glock.
• Call-Back:
  • The parallels between Laskey's arc and Fusco's in season one continue. See Kick the Dog entry below.
  • The PoI's brother is on the outs with Vigilance because he objected to killing Wayne Kruger, the PoI in "Nothing to Hide."
  • As in "Liberty", Root does not respond well to being cut off from the Machine. Finch however is less easily intimidated than Dr. Carmichael.
• Casual Kink: On finding taser confetti in her bedroom, Reese seriously considers the possibility that Shaw might have tased herself for kicks.
• The Chessmaster: The Machine manipulates both Team Machine and Vigilance into breaking free a hacker who might be useful to it/her in the future. It might also have arranged for the morally ambiguous yet potentially useful Root to be imprisoned by people who have the means to do so but who won't kill her.
• Conveniently Cellmates: Greenfield is placed in the cell next to Root.
• Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: Root breaks off a piece of the wire mesh of her cell and uses it to cut her zipties.
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind
  Vigilance mook: What are you smiling at?
  Root: I wasn't smiling at you. (mooks get shot in the back by Shaw)
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Having the Machine as Mission Control makes it easy for Root to be this. She makes sure there's a conveniently hidden gun in a specific location; the same location where Peter Collier and a Vigilance hit squad are planning to take out a target the Machine wants saved.
  • In-Universe with Sloan, who has all kinds of breaking-and-entering tools for his job. Finch asks if he has anything that can detect fluids. He does, using a UV lamp to See the Invisible.
  • Vigilance have a system for destroying evidence and snoopers wired into their message drop site.
• Declaration of Protection: Reese doesn't like Finch taking on the investigatory role for this week's number.
• Deep Cover Agent: Turns out Laskey is a member of the Russian mob, infiltrated into the NYPD with the help of HR.
• Demoted to Extra: Carter and the HR storyline begins to take a back burner to the AI conspiracy despite being just about as plot-relevant. Carter (who has two scenes) does not interact with anyone in this episode but Laskey. Fusco very briefly appears. One might even think the scenes involving Carter and the scenes involving the rest of the team were completely different shows.
• Dispense with the Pleasantries:
  Root: We're on a bit of a clock here, so let's dispense with the temper tantrum.
• Do You Trust Me?: Shaw obviously doesn't trust Root, who instead asks does she trust the Machine, whom Shaw has worked for for years under the guise of 'Research'.
• Dramatic Ammo Depletion: Root may have brought enough firepower to effectively take on the Vigilance hit squad but she didn't bring any spare magazines which becomes quite problematic when the hit squad corners her after she runs out of ammo for her Glock 18.
• Empty Fridge, Empty Life: Shaw's fridge is full of guns, ammo and some milk.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • The foster brother of the POI decided to run away from Vigilance when Peter Collier proposed to kill Wayne Kruger.
  • Laskey is not pleased when Simmons orders him to bury the body of a childhood friend who's been murdered by HR and decides to help Carter destroy them.
  • Vigilance uses nonlethal weaponry to take down the CIA truck.
• Faking the Dead: Subverted; the CIA fakes Greenfield's death not to protect him, but so they can interrogate him at length in a Black Site.
• Gender-Separated Ensemble Episode: Reese and Finch help the irrelevant number while Root and Shaw do the Machine's errands.
• Gratuitous Latin: the title is Latin for "premature death."
• Gunpoint Banter: Reese and Collier, justified because Reese is trying to take Collier alive, while Collier has Sloan as a Human Shield.
• Handy Cuffs: Root is flexicuff tied with the other Black Site prisoners with her hands in front, so she's able to cut through her bonds.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Lots of tension between Shaw and Root, with the two women leaning close and staring intently at each other whenever Shaw threatens Root's life.
  Root: The only thing I know for sure is I... need... you.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: the POI, Timothy Sloan, is a very good investigator.
• I Have Many Names: Peter Collier says his name is just one of several aliases.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Reese still hits a Vigilance mook despite his Impairment Shot.
• It's Personal: Reese makes a point of telling Collier he didn't appreciate being shot In the Back (again).
• Just Following Orders: Root, or so she keeps saying.
• Kick the Dog: HR murders a shopkeeper for skimping on his protection money, then makes Laskey, who had known him since childhood and considered him a friend, bury the body.
• Konami Code: it stops the CIA's scrambler radio from acting up.
• MacGyvering: Root makes a thermal lance with an oxygen bottle, tinfoil and spaghetti.
• Outrun the Fireball: Reese has to help Finch hobble away from the lockup before it erupts in a ball of flame.
• Public Secret Message / Dead Drop: Vigilance uses the lockups to pass on messages, written on the wall in infrared paint.
• Punk in the Trunk: This time it's Simmons, with a dead body. And a shovel.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder
  Greenfield: (shouting at CIA guard.) I'm an American! I have rights. Do you even know my name?
  Root: (from next cell) Jason Greenfield, I presume?
  Greenfield: How do you know my name?
• Sadistic Choice: Collier shoots Greenfield in the femoral artery, saying Reese has a choice of getting him medical attention or chasing Collier.
• Shell-Shock Silence: Root after the truck crash, but it segues directly into the Climactic Music.
• Shock Collar: Finch has placed an anklet on Root that gives her a nasty shock if she goes outside a certain radius.
• Shown Their Work/Truth in Television: there really is a government agency in New York, the Office of the Public Administrator, that is devoted to settling the estates of deceased people who appear to have no family. This ''New York Times'' article tells the story of one such case which is similar to the matter Sloan and Finch are shown investigating in the first act of the episode.
• Sliding Down The Slippery Slope: This episode reveals that Vigilance started out as a Well-Intentioned Extremist group that did this sometime shortly before the events of "Nothing to Hide", when they decided to start killing the people they opposed.
• The Snack Is More Interesting: Root munches on an apple while watching Shaw slug it out with a CIA mook.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Finch locks Root up in a section of the library base where she'll have no access to any electronic devices, which are her biggest strengths. She also ends up wearing an ankle monitor, and just in case she somehow ends up smuggling a device into her cell, Finch turned the entire thing into a Faraday cage, so no signals would get in anyway.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Root and Shaw (at first). They prove to be quite the team. Even Fusco says so.
• Themed Aliases: Vigilance uses names of Revolutionary War heroes, which enables Finch to work out their book code.
• There Was a Door: Vigilance drills bolts into the cabin doors of the CIA truck. So Shaw kicks out the window.
• This Is the Part Where...: Shaw is smart enough to know Root will have a reason why she shouldn't cut her throat.
• Trash of the Titans: Finch is squicked out searching through the effects of a compulsive hoarder.
• Trojan Prisoner: Showing extraordinary confidence in the ability of Shaw and the Machine to protect her, Root lets herself be black-hooded and dragged off to a CIA Black Site for interrogation, in order to free another prisoner there.

• Wall of Weapons: Shaw's refrigerator. The only food item stored in there is a jug of milk. Given that Reese sees nothing out of the ordinary in said refrigerator, he might be in the habit of doing the same thing.
• Wham Line:
  • Finch, to Root, after he imprisons her in a Faraday cage: "How can you be so certain, Ms. Groves, that the Machine does not wish you to be precisely where you are?"
  • Laskey revealing his true name and the reason he's on the police force and on HR's payroll to Carter.
  • Early in the episode, Shaw asks Root why the Machine would work with her, because it's already got Irrelevant and Relevant people covered. She responds that there's "a third category." At the end, Root says that Jason was "necessary," implying that she might be the one the Machine put in charge of ensuring its own survival and that it has created a third category of "numbers."
• The War Has Just Begun: Finch says this is only the opening shots of Vigilance's promised revolution.
• Working the Same Case: Reese, Finch, Shaw and Root end up running into each other during the climax. While Reese saves the number, Root saves his brother, who had been unlawfully imprisoned by the CIA and is about to be executed by Vigilance.
• You Won't Like Me When I'm Angry
  Root: You're going against the Machine's wishes by keeping me here, Harold. You're only gonna make her angry. Can you imagine what a being that powerful will do when she's angry?