Taraji P. Henson

Henson has been working steadily since the late 90s, but thanks to her role as Cookie on Empire, she has appeared to, per her monologue, “made it.” Henson blends in well with the cast and commits to the looney worlds the show has her inhabit. The best sketches of the night, however, are the ones that don’t have her play straight woman or second banana. This is most prominent is the obligatory Empire sketch, where Cookie becomes a new cast member on Sesame Street, where she immediately runs roughshod over the show, stealing and devouring Cookie Monster’s cookie and turning Elmo into a new fur coat. Henson has the makings of a great host and hopefully next time she stops by SNL, the show will build an entire episode around her strengths than just half of one.

No Good Deed is directed by Sam Miller of BBC’s Luther, and he knows how to take typical archetypes and work them around his leading man. Memorable villains like Hannibal Lector and Patrick Bateman are all too common for white actors, but, with the exception of Denzel Washington, black actors rarely get those parts. Actors of Elba’s caliber should at least get the chance to play a quality scoundrel.

‘Think Like a Man Too’ is a restatement of what is obvious to anyone in the audience: this is Kevin Hart’s movie.

Under-appreciated in critical circles, the CBS show Person of Interest is full of strong, unorthodox characters, both male and female, and strong plotting, as well as an examination of the ramifications of its premise, all of which combine together to make it a must-see.

Some episodes can have all of the elements that should make a perfectly effective hour of television, and would for most TV shows, but for whatever completely subjective reason, they don’t seem to work nearly as much as they should. In the case of “Last Call”, the pieces should theoretically work and yet, perhaps due to how they come together throughout the episode, the episode just doesn’t work, plain and simple.

When a show with a cast as small as Person of Interest decides to kill off one of its main characters, the next episode can often give an indication of how the show will feel going forward.

“The Crossing”, the second installment in Person of Interest’s three-part arc, picks up directly where “Endgame” left off with Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Carter (Tarji P. Henson) transporting the head of nefarious organization HR, Alonzo Quinn (Clarke Peters), to the FBI headquarters in New York City. Making matters more difficult, HR has put a hit out on Reese to every criminal in the city.

“Endgame” kicks off Person of Interest’s three-episode arc with stakes that don’t get a whole lot higher, as Officer Carter (Taraji P. Henson) goes on the offensive against HR. True to form, “Endgame” is another solid installment from Person of Interest. Seldom does this show ever fail to provide an effective episode and this week is no different. The shake-up of the show’s format is a welcome change. Most episodes follow Reese, Finch, and Shaw, with Carter on her own adventure and this week is very similar, except much more attention is spent on Carter’s dealings. The shake-up itself isn’t even evident until the show hits flashback-land, normally a danger-danger place, but this show always seems to make it work for them and it really helps the episode’s momentum when a couple of logistical mysteries are revealed in the flashback before catching up to present time.

“The Perfect Mark” opens with Finch (Michael Emerson) undercover once more as a patient for Hayden Price (Aaron Staton), a con man posing as a hypnotherapist to get sensitive information out of people. In the opening scene, it looks like this hypnotherapist, fraud though he may be, might be able to squeeze some information from Finch about his past, but no, Finch is a tough nut to crack and it’ll probably be some time before the show reveals the hush-hush world of Finch’s pre-Machine life. All we know is that Finch might have been a legendary hacker in his past life and is still a wanted man, by his old name at least. Back to the case, though- Price has managed to get involved in the ugly affairs of everyone’s favorite corrupt police organization, HR, all in the search of an admittedly large score: a 1927 New York Yankees-signed baseball that could be sold for over four million dollars.

Person of Interest, Season 3, Episode 6, “Mors Praematura” Written by Dan Sietz Directed by Helen Shaver Airs Tuesdays at 10pm ET on CBS The driving force behind Person of Interest is its greatest strength and its biggest potential weakness. Having an all-knowing Machine at the foreground is, in one breath, a fantastic expositional tool that can …

It’s been shown numerous times since Shaw’s (Sarah Shahi) addition to the cast that she’s not quite what one would call a “team player”. It’s also been strongly implied that she might be some sort of a sociopath. Why someone like this would be in the business of saving people’s lives day in and day out is up to anyone to guess. “Razgovor”, though, has one very simple but vital goal- exploring deeper the strange woman that is Shaw.

When Person of Interest first started, it had a simple cast of Reese and Finch (Jim Caviziel and Michael Emerson, respectively) being hunted every week by Taraji P. Henson that has now transformed to a full roster of characters (assets)-many of them women- that the show has its disposal. “Lady Killer” drives this point home time and time again when Reese and Finch receive a number from a regular Casanova, a real “lady killer”(get it, guys?) who they suspect might be a stalker/serial killer. To find out for themselves, they bait the waters with Carter, Shaw (Sarah Shahi), and political fixer Zoe Morgan (Paige Turco). While Reese and Finch are focused on the new number, Root(Amy Acker) is continuing her crazy-person-athon at the mental institution she’s attempting to escape from while not being discovered by government types.

A brief recap on the first two seasons: there exists a machine made my the government that monitors the activities of everyone in the country (and abroad) for the purpose of predicting and preventing terrorist attacks. As a byproduct, “The Machine” also tracks the more mundane activities, i.e. premeditated murders. “The Machine” gives out a person’s number who will either be murdered or will be murdering someone else. Using “The Machine” to prevent these murders, former CIA operative John Reese (Jim Caviziel) and Harold Finch (Lost’s Harold Finch), creator of “The Machine”, work to prevent these murders with the assistance of New York City Detectives Carter (Tarji P. Henson) and Fusco (Kevin Chapman).