Person of Interest, Season 3, Episode 13: “4C”
Written by Melissa Scrivner-Love and Greg Plageman
Directed by Stephen Williams
Airs Tuesdays at 10pm ET on CBS
The last few episodes were a very exciting bunch, ramping up to a big climax and even then barely slowing down. Each episode has been such a slurry of top-grade action and story that only now have things calmed down to the point that it feels like the show is standing still.
Frustrated by the Machine and everything it entails, Reese (Jim Caviezel) tries to leave New York via an airplane. Tendering your resignation with The Machine is more difficult than simply putting a two-weeks notice in, though. Manipulating the system, The Machine puts Reese on an airplane which just so happens to have a number on board. As always, Reese is an asset and apparently he’ll stop being one when The Machine says so. Side note: The Machine is either the best or worst Human Resources manager that’s ever lived.
In all respects, “4C” is a fine episode. Its only function is to set Reese back on the path of saving people and wanting to save people, a goal that is accomplished by the end of the episode. It’s not bad and it’s not good, it’s just a filler episode. It has a clearly defined purpose that it shoots for and it’s unfair to expect more than that. That being said, the episode is rather outlandish in the sense that Reese beats the snot out of plenty of bad guys on the airplane and the only person who notices is the stewardess.
The greatest problem with this episode is that, for the most part, it’s completely surface level in almost everything it does. There’s nothing larger or more substantial, in a thematic sense. It’s just an episode of Reese running around an airplane punching people in the head, which is fine, but the show has much more to offer its viewers. Person of Interest‘s episodes usually have really interesting themes and subtext, an element that is so ingrained into the show that it feels utterly strange to have an episode that is so simple in comparison.
Where themes are concerned, “4C” essentially boils down to Reese being a bit angry that The Machine exists at all and, by extension, being angry at Finch (Michael Emerson) for creating in the first place. That’s about as surface level as themes get, considering Reese delivers that monologue to his number.
All in all, “4C” isn’t terrible, which isn’t to say that it’s good, either. In fact, this episode will probably have faded from most viewers’ memory twenty-four hours after watching it. What else can you expect from filler, though?
