POI 3x15 and 3x16 watchalong
Jul. 10th, 2014 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitMy episode summaries are in this post under the cut; I'll post my personal reactions in the comments on LJ. As always, anyone's welcome to join the discussion, but please be aware that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
halotolerant hasn't seen S3 before, so please avoid spoilers past these episodes.
3x15, "Last Call," written by Dan Dietz
We find Finch working as a trainee in a 911 call center with the week's number, Sandra Nicholson, a 911 operator and trainer. Nicholson gets a call froma little boy alone in his apartment with men breaking into it; the boy, Aaron, is kidnapped, and Nicholson is then contacted and told that she must do what the caller tells her to save the boy's life. He has her shut down the backup generator and acquire an administrative password to the system, because he wants her to delete all 911 calls received two days earlier.
Finch figures out that besides keeping her on the phone, the caller is monitoring what Nicholson does through a webcam on her headset. He tries to help her, muting her phone remotely and only talking to her when her back is turned so he can't be seen, but the caller figures it out and detonates a bomb in a parking garage. He says there's another bomb strapped to Aaron and Nicholson has 15 minutes to delete the calls.
Finch narrows down the 30,000 911 calls received that day to 300 possibly relevant ones, and Rusco realizes that one of the calls came from Tara Cooke, whose murder he and rookie Jake Harrison are investigating. She was murdered by her married boss, Ron Kincaid, because she wanted to reveal their affair; Kincaid's wife hired someone to get rid of the 911 call, but she didn't know how it was going to be done and has no idea how to reach him.
Reese and Shaw trace the kidnappers and the boy to an office building, which also seems to be the caller's location. Meanwhile the caller has said that because the Kincaids have confessed, the call no longer matters but he's going to kill Aaron and Nicholson to cover things up. The lights go off in the call center and a hitman pursues Nicholson and Finch.
Shaw and Reese find the boy and disconnect the bomb just in time. Meanwhile, Finch and Nicholson lure the hitman down into the generator room, which they've flooded, and make him surrender by threatening to electrocute him.
At the end of the episode, the caller contacts Finch and threatens him and the team; Finch doesn't tell Shaw and Reese what he said.
3x16, "RAM," written by Nic Van Zeebroeck and Michael Sopczynski
The episode begins with the old S1 credits, which are rolled through and then run backwards. Then the scene cuts to a woman being chased through a dark street, while Finch advises his partner from the library--but the partner isn't Reese. It's a man called Dillinger, who saves the woman rather showily and then, to Finch's dismay, propositions her.
Back in the library, we finally see the date: 2010. Finch is using a wheelchair and wearing his old round glasses.
The next day there's a new number, although Dillinger complains that it's Saturday and he should have some time off. The number is Daniel Casey, who freelances testing the security of computer systems. Dillinger approaches Casey's old friend Lester Strickland and spooks him into calling Casey, then Dillinger stakes out Casey's hotel and sees that Casey's also being watched by a professional team, whom we recognize as Reese and Cara Stanton. Finch also recognizes Reese, warning Dillinger that they're CIA.
Casey meets with someone claiming to be Ian Banks from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; we see that Casey is a whistleblower, not a traitor. But Banks turned out to be an impostor with his own agenda, and it ends in a three-way fight between Dillinger, Banks and his helpers, and the CIA team. Dillinger manages to escape with Casey and brings him to the library; Banks escapes leaving behind one of his wounded teammates whom Reese and Stanton interrogate until he unexpectedly commits suicide. Banks, it turns out, is really named Lambert and works for Decima.
Casey reveals that he was hired by the government to test a secret system for weaknesses. He quit after realizing that the government really wanted him to hack into the system (and in fact he did find a backdoor), but managed to save some code on his laptop. He lets Finch look at the code and modify it. Finch sets up the sale of the laptop hoping that it will distract Decima's attention from Casey, and asks Dillinger to arrange to get Casey out of the country with a new identity. But Dillinger, who is angry at Finch for not sharing information, arranges his own sale to the Chinese: he drugs Finch, takes the laptop, and lets Casey leave, but unprotected.
Casey is soon captured by Reese while Stanton has gone to set up a trap at the office of Lester Strickland (whom she kills). Reese, who has decided Casey is innocent, pretends to kill him but actually helps him escape to Canada.
Finch follows Dillinger to the exchange point and warns him that he's in danger, but Dillinger won't listen. During the exchange, Dillinger and most of the Chinese buyers are killed by a US government agent who turns out to be Shaw, but one buyer gets away with the laptop.
Control, who was behind the CIA attempt to kill Casey and get the laptop, orders that Reese and Stanton be sent after it and then killed. Finch buries Dillinger in the woods.
At the end of the episode we return to 2014. Root arrives at Casey's cabin in the woods and tells him he has to flee. She sends him to Colombia to find Jason Greenfield, the hacker and former Vigilance activist Root rescued from the CIA in 3x06, "Mors Praematura."
halotolerant hasn't seen S3 before, so please avoid spoilers past these episodes.3x15, "Last Call," written by Dan Dietz
We find Finch working as a trainee in a 911 call center with the week's number, Sandra Nicholson, a 911 operator and trainer. Nicholson gets a call froma little boy alone in his apartment with men breaking into it; the boy, Aaron, is kidnapped, and Nicholson is then contacted and told that she must do what the caller tells her to save the boy's life. He has her shut down the backup generator and acquire an administrative password to the system, because he wants her to delete all 911 calls received two days earlier.
Finch figures out that besides keeping her on the phone, the caller is monitoring what Nicholson does through a webcam on her headset. He tries to help her, muting her phone remotely and only talking to her when her back is turned so he can't be seen, but the caller figures it out and detonates a bomb in a parking garage. He says there's another bomb strapped to Aaron and Nicholson has 15 minutes to delete the calls.
Finch narrows down the 30,000 911 calls received that day to 300 possibly relevant ones, and Rusco realizes that one of the calls came from Tara Cooke, whose murder he and rookie Jake Harrison are investigating. She was murdered by her married boss, Ron Kincaid, because she wanted to reveal their affair; Kincaid's wife hired someone to get rid of the 911 call, but she didn't know how it was going to be done and has no idea how to reach him.
Reese and Shaw trace the kidnappers and the boy to an office building, which also seems to be the caller's location. Meanwhile the caller has said that because the Kincaids have confessed, the call no longer matters but he's going to kill Aaron and Nicholson to cover things up. The lights go off in the call center and a hitman pursues Nicholson and Finch.
Shaw and Reese find the boy and disconnect the bomb just in time. Meanwhile, Finch and Nicholson lure the hitman down into the generator room, which they've flooded, and make him surrender by threatening to electrocute him.
At the end of the episode, the caller contacts Finch and threatens him and the team; Finch doesn't tell Shaw and Reese what he said.
3x16, "RAM," written by Nic Van Zeebroeck and Michael Sopczynski
The episode begins with the old S1 credits, which are rolled through and then run backwards. Then the scene cuts to a woman being chased through a dark street, while Finch advises his partner from the library--but the partner isn't Reese. It's a man called Dillinger, who saves the woman rather showily and then, to Finch's dismay, propositions her.
Back in the library, we finally see the date: 2010. Finch is using a wheelchair and wearing his old round glasses.
The next day there's a new number, although Dillinger complains that it's Saturday and he should have some time off. The number is Daniel Casey, who freelances testing the security of computer systems. Dillinger approaches Casey's old friend Lester Strickland and spooks him into calling Casey, then Dillinger stakes out Casey's hotel and sees that Casey's also being watched by a professional team, whom we recognize as Reese and Cara Stanton. Finch also recognizes Reese, warning Dillinger that they're CIA.
Casey meets with someone claiming to be Ian Banks from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; we see that Casey is a whistleblower, not a traitor. But Banks turned out to be an impostor with his own agenda, and it ends in a three-way fight between Dillinger, Banks and his helpers, and the CIA team. Dillinger manages to escape with Casey and brings him to the library; Banks escapes leaving behind one of his wounded teammates whom Reese and Stanton interrogate until he unexpectedly commits suicide. Banks, it turns out, is really named Lambert and works for Decima.
Casey reveals that he was hired by the government to test a secret system for weaknesses. He quit after realizing that the government really wanted him to hack into the system (and in fact he did find a backdoor), but managed to save some code on his laptop. He lets Finch look at the code and modify it. Finch sets up the sale of the laptop hoping that it will distract Decima's attention from Casey, and asks Dillinger to arrange to get Casey out of the country with a new identity. But Dillinger, who is angry at Finch for not sharing information, arranges his own sale to the Chinese: he drugs Finch, takes the laptop, and lets Casey leave, but unprotected.
Casey is soon captured by Reese while Stanton has gone to set up a trap at the office of Lester Strickland (whom she kills). Reese, who has decided Casey is innocent, pretends to kill him but actually helps him escape to Canada.
Finch follows Dillinger to the exchange point and warns him that he's in danger, but Dillinger won't listen. During the exchange, Dillinger and most of the Chinese buyers are killed by a US government agent who turns out to be Shaw, but one buyer gets away with the laptop.
Control, who was behind the CIA attempt to kill Casey and get the laptop, orders that Reese and Stanton be sent after it and then killed. Finch buries Dillinger in the woods.
At the end of the episode we return to 2014. Root arrives at Casey's cabin in the woods and tells him he has to flee. She sends him to Colombia to find Jason Greenfield, the hacker and former Vigilance activist Root rescued from the CIA in 3x06, "Mors Praematura."
