POI 2x07 and 2x08

[kindkit]

A change in my work schedule means that I'll have to be at work at 6 am every day now. Except for the one day a week when I'll work 2-10 pm. Yeah, this is gonna be awesome.

So, have a very early POI discussion post for "Critical" and "Til Death." As always, anyone's welcome to join in, but please, no spoilers for developments after the episodes we're talking about.

Episode summaries under the cut, discussion in comments. (Note: my comments and probably most of the discussion will be on DW; I'm having connectivity problems and DW loads a lot better for me right now.)



2x07, "Critical"

This week's number is a surgeon, Maddy Enright, who will be performing heart surgery on the CEO of an energy company. Right before the surgery she gets a phone call telling her that her wife, who is in a local park hosting a charity art festival, will be shot unless she kills her patient by giving him a blood thinner and then "accidentally" nicking an artery.

Reese incapacitates one sniper, but learns from their leader, ex-MI6 agent Alistair Wesley, that there are more. Meanwhile, Finch is at the hospital keeping an eye on Maddie and researching the situation with the help of Leon Tao, whom they've let temporarily take refuge in the library because he got himself in trouble again.

Reese, with Fusco's help, manages to get Maddy's wife Amy safely away from the park, and Maddy calls off the operation even before she knows Amy is safe, but the actions of the surgical nurse, who was working for Wesley, mean that Maddy has to restart her patient's heart with Finch's help.

Meanwhile, Carter encounters ex-CIA agent Mark Snow, who reveals that "she," i.e. Kara is controlling him and is going to cause trouble. The episode ends with Carter confronting Reese about this, and Reese telling her she has to decide how much she really wants to know.


2x08, "Til Death"

This time they get the numbers of a married couple, Daniel and Sabrina Drake, who are joint CEOs of East Village Publishing. At first it seems like the threat comes from a militia leader about whom they published an exposé, but it soon becomes clear that in fact Daniel and Sabrina have each hired a hitman to kill each other,

With the help of Fusco (who was on a date), Reese and Carter foil the first murder attempts, then kidnap the couple and put them in a room together to try and force them to reveal whom they've hired. It turns out that their estrangement comes from lack of communication after Sabrina had a miscarriage, and soon they're talking again and cooperating to try to stop the hit men.

Reese takes them back to their apartment to serve as bait, and stops the killers with Fusco and Carter's help after a big shoot-out. The couple are arrested but won't testify against each other and will probably get off lightly.

Fusco's stakeout/date with Rhonda goes well and looks likely to turn into a romance. Meanwhile, Carter agrees to a date with a colleague, Beecher, who helped her on the case.

Throughout the episode there are flashbacks to Finch's early relationship with Grace, including his attempt to tell her the truth about himself, which he abandons after she implies that she doesn't need to know.

Comments

2x07, "Critical"

[kindkit]

1) Hey, it's queer characters with actual speaking roles! It was handled very well, in the sense that Maddy and Amy's marriage was shown just like any other marriage we see on the show, and nobody put scared quote around "wife." So that's good, though I'm sorry that it took one and a third seasons to get here.

2) Oh, God, Wesley's going to be another arc, isn't he? I feel a bit overwhelmed with arcs already. On the other hand, Julian Sands! Whom I haven't seen in anything for ages, but who has grown into a handsome if dissipated-looking middle age (perfect for playing a washed-up MI6 agent).

3) Reese came across as awfully scary and threatening towards Carter at the end. I'm not sure if the show intended that or if it's just Jim Caviezel's limited acting skills.

4) I like Leon Tao so I wasn't sorry to see him back. Though if he keeps turning up, I hope they give him a little more depth than "amoral opportunist."

5) The way Finch's hospital phobia was handled worked at first and then sort of didn't. "They make me aggressively uneasy," is a great phrase, and I liked how when it turned out that he had to stay at the hospital, he did his best to cope: "Even if I had a phobia, now would not be the time for it." And of course I loved Reese's gentle inquiry about whether he would be okay. But then came the surgical scene at the end, where I felt Finch's phobia was being played more for comedy. "Oh dear, look at it, it's squishy" is funny, but I've have rather have had an acknowledgement that Finch's associations with hospitals must be even worse than most people's

6) I assume the Hot Pockets were Reese's, because isn't it established that Finch hates junk food? He was certainly disdainful of Reese's can of pringle-like chips back in season 1.

2x08, "Til Death"

[kindkit]

1) I have such mixed feelings about this episode. It was funny sometimes and I enjoyed the lighter tone, but at other points it was grossly sentimental. Ten minutes' honest conversation can save a marriage that has deteriorated to the point that the couple are trying to kill each other! Yeah, right.

2) It almost felt like they were trying to cram as much heterosexuality into this episode as possible (to make up for last week's lesbian couple?). Having said that, I like Fusco and Rhonda's chemistry, and although we don't know much about Beecher yet, he seems nice enough.

3) As for the flashbacks, well, at least Grace finally gets a personality. Alas, the personality she gets is unbearable. I am trying, honestly trying, to be fair to Grace and the Grace/Harold pairing, because I don't like het but I don't want to be a jerk about it. But . . . I just don't see Harold falling in love with someone who speaks in self-help platitudes. "Every day there's a new lesson," really? And "Our journey starts here. Any mystery around the corner, we can discover together"??? Even if it was a male/male relationship and I was more innately inclined to like it, I would be rolling my eyes at lines like that.

4) I think Grace has to be put in the category of manic pixie dream girl, the free spirit whose only role in life, or at least in the story, is to teach an uptight man how to love and be happy. At least Grace is a mild version, more of a soppy pixie dream girl, but still, the show hasn't done anything to make her interesting beyond a generic sweetness we're supposed to read as lovability. Her two-dimensionality shows most clearly in her conversation with Harold about Italy: she says Italy is beautiful and dreamlike, Harold says "I first saw the Italian countryside through a ViewMaster." His line has specificity and implies a lot about his personality; hers is vague and tells us nothing except that she's kind of a drip. She reminds me of one of the women Bertie Wooster keeps not marrying, the one who calls the stars "God's daisy chain." I'm honestly dreading seeing any more of this pairing, and I have a bad feeling there's going to be more.

5) The birthday scavenger hunt (because the manic pixie dream girl always inspires her formerly staid man to do whimsical things) at least confirms my theory that Finch tends to give elaborate, over-the-top gifts. Okay, he didn't quite buy Reese a painting and then lie about it (and why is he lying so systematically to Grace?) but I can see a resemblance.

6) As my consolation prize, there was some Nathan! And interestingly the scene was set up so at first we'd think Finch was on a dinner date with Grace. Parallels, yes. Though I do think S2 is downplaying their friendship a lot, because now Harold's past and his feelings are required to be all about Grace. His and Nathan's conversation is solely the women in their lives. I also note that this scene contradicts something in S1, where Nathan doesn't know Finch is seeing someone, and says "If you had anyone in your life, you'd tell me about it."

7) In the present, Finch is still stalking Grace. I fear that the show is setting things up for them to meet again, which, beyond how much I don't want it, also undermines the basic premise of the show that Finch and Reese have to stay unknown and unconnected to the rest of the world as much as possible. And given that Finch letting Grace think he's dead is supposed to be a noble self-sacrifice to protect her, because if she knows about the machine she'll be in danger, shouldn't he, oh, stay away? Rather than lurking in the park across the street, semi-concealed behind things and apparently completely unrecognizable because he's got new glasses?