Recap / Person Of Interest S 05 E 06

Season 5, Episode 6

A More Perfect Union

The little moments are always more important than the big ones.

— Maggie

Reese, Finch, and Root infiltrate a high-society wedding after The Machine gives them the number on the marriage certificate. Fusco continues his investigation, and Samaritan tries a new strategy to turn Shaw.

• The Alcoholic: Finch gets Will's real uncle out of the way by wiring him a large sum of euros, knowing he'll spend it on booze and be too drunk to fly over to the United States for the wedding.
• All Just a Simulation: For Shaw, again. This time over she calls Samaritan on it rather than killing herself.
• Alone in a Crowd: Finch, Reese and Root watching the wedding guests enjoying themselves. Root herself says she only turned up to help because she didn't want to be left alone in the subway.
• Animal Reaction Shot: From Don Juan the horse. "Well I guess Don Juan isn't buying it either."
• Asshole Victim: Greer shows several to Shaw, pointing out that due to the indirect nature of their crimes, the Machine isn't likely to foil the deaths they will cause.
• Birds of a Feather
  • Maggie lampshades her role as the protector of the Turner family "even if they never realise I'm here." Reese can relate.
  • Bruce points out to Fusco that it's not good to be Locked Out of the Loop by people who claim to be your friends.
• Blatant Lies: Finch insists the Machine is doing fine in it's simulated combat with Samaritan. Root isn't fooled.
• Bond One-Liner: After knocking a guy out with a horseshoe:
  Reese: Guess it's my lucky day.
• Breather Episode: There are a lot more comedic moments in this episode, especially in the A plot with Team Machine. Shaw and Greer aren't left out, either.
  • And in-story:
  Reese: Tomorrow their world crashes. But we can give them tonight.
• The Bus Came Back: Gabriel Hayward has a chat with Shaw. She doesn't appreciate it.
• Cacophony Cover Up: Lampshaded when Reese says that Finch had better start singing loudly, when it's time for them to take on the hitmen.
• Call-Back
  • Fusco makes a point of reminding Bruce how he threatened his son.
  • Root keeps insisting that this is not the first wedding she's been to.
  • Gabriel mentions his meeting with Root in "Cold War".
• Chair Reveal: Root does this to Fusco, then complains about the chair.
• Cliffhanger: Fusco is caught up in a demolition.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Greer offers Shaw a "Beatrice Lillie" sandwich from Park's Deli in Chinatown.
  • Fusco finds Krupa and Bruce in the tunnel.
  • Samaritan uses Gabriel Hayward as its emissary.
• Cutting the Knot: Reese and Finch are planning how they're going to steal Maggie's photographs, when Root turns up with Maggie who's been drugged unconscious.
• Cryptic Conversation: The Machine still has a taste for whimsy — this week's Number is a wedding invitation.
• Determinator: Shaw is continuing to resist Samaritan's brainwashing; they're up to 7,053 failures now.
• Disapproving Look: Greer's response to Shaw snarkily suggesting that two suits are responsible for "killing orphans."
• Disposing of a Body: Samaritan has placed the bodies of people it's 'disappeared' in a tunnel, then arranged for its demolition.
• Dreadful Musician: Finch as Uncle Ralph singing the Twisted Sisters' "We're Not Gonna Take It". In an "Irish" accent. At a wedding. However he doesn't do too badly once he gets warmed up, and gets a round of applause.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Bruce is killed off-screen and Fusco finds his body with those of the other missing people at the demolition site.
• Easy Impersonation: With a cheap suit and an Irish accent, Finch has no problem passing himself off as Will's long-estranged uncle.
• Failed a Spot Check: The white collar crimes that Greer talks of will never come up as Numbers from the Machine, because they don't involve imminent acts of violence. Yet they will still cause thousands of deaths. Only Samaritan's pro-active approach has exposed them.
• Fauxreigner: Finch, posing as Will's Uncle Ralph from Dublin.
• The Gadfly: It's implied that Finch knew full well the 'cop' Reese was being sent to meet was a stripper.
• Has a Type
  • When Reese mentions that he's got an invitation to the wedding from one of the women because he's her type, Finch muses, "Who knew?" while glancing at her social page, where she states her taste in men is the strong silent type with salt-and-pepper hair.
  • Just so the audience doesn't forget about the Root/Shaw Homoerotic Subtext, Gabriel mentions that she's the kind that Shaw would find pretty.
• He Knows Too Much: The family photographer accidentally photographed the daughter doping a race horse before an important race. The photographer deleted the photo and swore never to reveal what she saw but the daughter hires hitmen to kill the witness just in case.
• Horseback Heroism: Root just in time to save Reese and Maggie.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters
  • Root thinks that Finch is reluctant to remove the restrictions on the Machine because it will become corrupted by power. But Finch is worried that they will instead.
  • Greer tries to convince Shaw that Samaritan is a Necessary Evil in a world where white collar criminals can get away with causing thousands of deaths, and a single terrorist incident could lead to global destruction.
• Impaled Palm: Root stabs a kitchen knife through a hitman's hand and is surprised that he fainted just over the sight of his own blood.
• Impostor Forgot One Detail: Subverted by Finch as "Uncle Ralph". When he mentions to Will that Will's father, who Will just said had had a falling out with Uncle Ralph, might not appreciate his presence, Will looks surprised, saying that his father's dead. Finch recovers quickly, though, without breaking character, by saying that that doesn't mean he's not still watching from the Other Side, and Will buys it.
• Incredibly Obvious Tail:
  • Greer takes an apparently unguarded Shaw to Central Park but she quickly picks out the surveillance team, including the busker with an blatantly obvious gun holstered at the back of his pants.
  • Reese also can't help noticing the military-looking men who turn up at the wedding brandishing silenced pistols, despite them supposedly being Professional Killers.
• I Need a Freaking Drink
  • Finch downs a glass of Liquid Courage before singing.
  • After locking the Villain of the Week in the wine cellar, Reese helps himself to some quality bourbon which he shares with Root and Finch.
• Literary Allusion Title: To the Constitution of the United States.
• Mission Control: Finch improvised by bringing his with him, tapping into the security feeds via the Turner's own computer.
• Mundane Solution: Brainwashing having proved futile, Greer decides to try persuasion to make Shaw change sides.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Turns out a knife is all Root needs.
  Reese: Finch better sing louder, 'cause we've got some serious ass to kick.
  Root: Silly me. I brought a knife to a gunfight.
• The Not-Love Interest: Root has a Convenient Slow Dance with Finch.
• Not so Dire: The cop Reese meets in the corridor tells him it could get rough. He's right, what with a bunch of drunken debutantes waiting for a stripper.
• Not What It Looks Like: Phoebe walked in on her fiance apparently making out with Becca. Turns out Becca was paid by Kent Turner to throw herself at Will in the hope of breaking up the marriage. It doesn't work though.
• Oh, Crap!
  • Finch when he realises he has to sing.
  • Even Shaw looks nervous when she realises she's speaking to Samaritan in person.
• Oireland: Uncle Ralph from Dublin
• Properly Paranoid: Fusco might still not know about the Machine or Samaritan but he knows enough to keep his evidence board hidden and never take it out where a camera might see it. These extra precautions are probably why Samaritan has not yet classified him as a threat to be eliminated.
• Red Herring: We are made to believe the father is the one doping the horses. It turns out he is heavily against it but his daughter isn't.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Despite having a preference for automatics, Root is wielding the appropriate six shooter for her Horseback Heroism.
• Running Gag: Root is in another disguise, this time as a caterer. Before that she had some kind of run-in with a meth head who didn't want to pay the rent.
• Rule of Threes: Greer shows Shaw two conspiracies involving white collar criminals carrying out their schemes in broad daylight, and Chechen militants building a bomb in a basement at night.
• Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Fusco probably didn't have much hope of finding his missing persons alive, but he wasn't prepared to find all of them dead and about to be buried together.
• Silver Fox: The male stripper uses that exact phrase to describe Reese.
• Slip into Something More Comfortable: Reese has his own Stripper/Cop Confusion when a woman offers him money for this trope.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: Will thinks his 'uncle' seems smarter than usual, and asks if it's because he got new glasses.
• Softer and Slower Cover: "Uncle Ralph" renders Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" as an Irish ballad.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Fusco vs. Coco Pops.
  Root: (doing a Chair Reveal) Ugh, this chair's gotta be killer on your back, Lionel. You should look at some ergonomic options.
  Fusco: You should pay more taxes so I can get a better chair.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Root somehow appears inside a room with Reese and Finch, with an unconscious Maggie. All they heard was the door close.
• Storyboarding the Apocalypse: Samaritan (through Gabriel) points out that the bombing of the Russian consulate would cause World War III. Samaritan then, within a simulation, follows through with exactly that to point out the consequences of human inclination to destroying one another.
• Stripper/Cop Confusion: Reese and a stripper hired for the bachelorette party assume the other shares their profession. Reese spends the rest of the episode pretending to be the stripper's security.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: Finch has no idea of Samaritan's pitch to Shaw of course, but the lyrics of the song he chooses sum up Team Machine's response.
  ♪ You've got the right to choose it ♪ ♪ And there ain't no way we'll lose it ♪ ♪ This is our life, this is our song ♪ ♪ We'll fight the powers that be ♪ ♪ Just don't pick our destiny ♪ We're not gonna take it ♪ ♪ No, we ain't gonna take it ♪ ♪ We're not gonna take it anymore ♪
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Four hitmen are brought in to kill Maggie. However Reese pegs them as ex-military, so maybe they're an ex-special forces team.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Samaritan warns that humanity has not passed the Great Filter as it supposes.
• Villain-by-Proxy Fallacy: Used by Greer to try to convince Shaw that Team Machine is evil. She doesn't buy it.
• Walk-In Chime-In: If Kent Turner didn't hire the hitmen, who did? Enter Karen Turner with two more killers. "That would be me."
• Wedding Episode: The episode is about a high-society wedding with Team Machine as Wedding Smashers.
• Who Are You?: Instead of "a concerned third party" Root replies, "the caterer".
• Widowed at the Wedding: Team Machine assume that this is going to happen to one of the POIs but it turns out the real target was the family photographer.
• With Friends Like These...: Maggie was entirely willing to destroy the evidence when Karen asked, but she puts a contract out on her anyway.