'Person of Interest' Review/Recap: "Honor Among Thieves"

Joe Carter ’18 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

This week’s episode of Person of Interest features a thief. A thief who steals Shaw’s (Sarah Shahi) heart. Okay, bad joke, but it happens. Thomas (Adrian Bellani) is the new number in “Honor Among Thieves,” as well as a talented thief that rivals even Shaw’s talents. He and his team prepare to rob some jewels from a hotel when the POI team frames one of the thieves for drug possession to get Shaw, who has broken from her old thief gang, into their ranks. When the team robs the hotel in a loud heist involving a truck, fireworks, and Veteran’s Day, they bring the safe back to the hideout to find it’s contents are actually vials containing a dangerous virus. Root (Amy Acker) sums it up by calling it “Ebola’s evil twin.”
To make things worse, the other two thieves turn on Thomas and Shaw who barely escape the gunfire. When Shaw and co. try to track down the virus, they run into several issues. First, the virus is now in the possession of an old thief member Thomas worked with whom he thought was killed, but now has a grudge against him. Second, the virus is located in the most secure storage building in the city. And third, Shaw recognizes a government operative she trained, Devin, outside the building obviously scoping it out making the issue relevant to national security. No big deal.
This episode wasn’t as climactic as the previous ones, but it showed a great deal of character development for Shaw. It was nice to see her crushing on someone. Shaw doesn’t get much love, unless Root and the dog count, and she hasn’t shown any real emotional attachment since the death of her partner in season two when she first came on the scene. Thomas asking Shaw to run away with him and Shaw asking him to stay and work with their team resulted in an involuntary screaming of “Go with him or her you fool!” at the TV. Everyone deserves love, even sly thieves and sociopathic former government assassins.

Speaking of which, introducing the government operative that Shaw trained was a nice twist. It’s hard to believe that Shaw had friends before she fell off the map and seeing one added another pleasant addition to Shaw’s past. (Beware. Spoilers are coming.) It was kind of interesting/plot convenient that he was akin to Shaw’s old partner in the sense of asking questions and betraying orders. It raises the idea that maybe they had a close relationship and it definitely means this won’t be the last of him. He let Shaw go which shows he has feeling for her, but his usefulness could be called into question since he accidentally reveals Shaw to Samaritan. Two steps forward, one step back.
The last thing about this episode that was done well was the Root n Harold (spin-off series?) plot-line. Seeing Root use a French accent and work with children calling herself “Mary Poppins Barbie” was rewarding on so many levels. The subplot involves Root n Harold (Michael Emerson) sabotaging a charity that wants to provide underprivileged kids with access to free tablets for education. It sounds bad, but Root n Harold figure out that Samaritan will use the tablets to keep an eye on all the children and brainwash them by screening what they can access. It’s a diabolical scheme and Root n Harold break out their mad hacking skills and take out the charity.

As Harold once again points out after the building is burned down, do the ends really justify the means? Under orders of the Machine to stop another victory by Samaritan, they burned down a building and stopped underprivileged children from receiving cheap/free education. It again harps on the theme that perhaps the Machine is merely trying to secure its own survival and cares little for collateral damage. As Harold mentioned in the beginning of the season, they’ve caused more deaths than lives saved. Harold’s concerns are those of the audience and it makes for a very unique twist on the original concept for the show.
This season is shaping up to be just as psychologically thrilling as the last three while simultaneously redefining the show with a new tone. The evil cocktail of Samaritan, Elias, the Brotherhood, and possibly the Machine is just as intense as other evil cocktails before, but it feels fresh and new. Whatever happens next will be eagerly anticipated. Still waiting on them to use that missile.
Overall Episode Grade: B