'Person of Interest' Review/Recap: "The Devil You Know"

Joe Carter ‘18 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

This week’s episode promised to be good from the moment Elias’ (Enrico Colantoni) number came up in the previous episode and it did not disappoint. It starts out with the all-out gunfight between Martine (Cara Buono), the evil blonde lady, and Shaw (Sarah Shahi). Martine gets uncomfortably close to making Swiss cheese out of Shaw when Root (Amy Acker) comes to the rescue and gets her out of harm’s way. The rest of their plot arch is mostly dodging Samaritan and building sexual tension. Not much room for spoilers there.
The episode gets interesting with the main Elias plot. The Brotherhood targets Elias so they can take him out of the picture and move in to become the new ruling mob of New York. As per usual, John swoops in and whisks Elias and his bodyguard Anthony, whom John calls “Scarface,” away from danger. Elias soon realizes that all of his trusted associates have gone over to the Brotherhood side of the force and he has only Anthony and his accountant to depend on.
Be prepared. Spoilers are coming.

The thing that was most impressive about this episode was the way Anthony’s character was developed in such as short span of time. The writers gave it their best and it was a very touching death to add to the show’s running character graveyard. Anthony had no dimension in the past seasons and was merely depicted as Elias’ muscle. It didn’t even seem like they had a relationship beyond that, but this episode reveals their past in a young boys’ juvenile delinquent home that was so elegantly structured it didn’t seem forced at all. The acting was also spot on and entirely believable.
It also dug at a deeper level painting the main difference between Elias’ crew and the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood is an army while Elias’ mob is a family. Dominic constantly quotes conquerors and cites practices of the Romans in a way that makes him seem like an ancient Roman general himself. Elias, on the other hand, is willing to sacrifice himself to save Anthony and vice versa. It’s a very intelligent juxtaposition of the two mobs. The Brotherhood has come a long way since the beginning of the season and has proven to be a viable plot arch. They still mess-up constantly, but no evil gang is perfect.

The family vs. army motif can be expanded further to the Machine crew and Samaritan crew conflict. Team Machine is more of a family that cares for one another while team Samaritan is a system of expendable soldiers. Shaw is even willing to risk her safety to help John with Elias and is only stopped by Root who knocks her out with “enough tranquilizers to take down a bull.” It’s a brilliant theme that links the show together and only a show as intelligent as Person of Interest could pull it off with subtly.
The end of the episode was definitely in favor of the bad guys. Elias lost a dear friend and almost all of his connections. Shaw lost her cover and the rest of the team is jeopardized because of it. Dominic knows that someone is operating outside the law and mob which sets his sights on Harold’s operation. Finally, Team Samaritan has figured out that team Machine has hidden the information that would expose them and has formed a large team, led by Martine, to smoke them out. Things do not look good and the horrifying implications are soon to follow. The issues established at the beginning of the season are coming to fruition and it seems to only be getting better and better each week.
Overall Episode Grade: A-