Person of Interest "Honor Among Thieves" Review: Tension, Sexual and Otherwise

Person of Interest S04E07: "Honor Among Thieves"

The tension in "Honor Among Thieves" was thicker than Fusco after a footlong hoagie. And no, I'm not talking about the high-stakes thieving by a group of international crooks, the potential deadly outbreak of Ebola's grumpier cousin, or the possible discovery by Samaritan that Shaw is out there hiding in plain sight. I'm talking about the explosive sexual chemistry between Root and Shaw! Hoooooo boy, it was cold shower time after "Honor Among Thieves," because Person of Interest's friendly females were eying each other like sweaty popsicles on a sweltering summer day.

By all means, this will-they-won't-they-oh-just-do-it-already-and-invite-me-to-watch shouldn't work in a show like this. It's a series about supercomputers attempting to take over the world, vigilante crime fighters protecting the innocent, and the never-ending debate about technology's role in society. But here they are, Sarah Shahi and Amy Acker, reenacting the scenes you fast-forward through while watching lesbian porn, and it's flat-out amazing and distracting in the best way possible.

That's not to say it's overpowering to the point of detracting from the rest of the show, because Person of Interest enjoys its character moments as much as it likes sparking techo-theological debate. The Shoot/Raw 'ship sailing into our hearts is just another case of adding a fun layer to a show that loves to have its fun. The flirty exchanges don't just quicken the pulses and tighten the pants of Person of Interest's majority male demographic, they add dimension to the characters, and Person of Interest has built their unconventional relationship along slowly and organically so that those of us who have watched these two grow together aren't put off by it. Or maybe I'm blinded by the sexual innuendo and am just trying to justify it.

The point is, every major character on this show has a unique relationship with the others for a bunch of entertaining permutations, this sapphic fantasy just so happens to be theirs, and it was on big-time display in "Honor Among Thieves."

And it mattered, because Shaw nearly ran off with the handsome number of the week. His name is Tomas, he was an international jewel thief, and, after the typical double-switches of the first half of a Person of Interest episode, got unwittingly involved in a plot to steal a deadly virus that makes Ebola (timely!) look like pink eye. Shaw had the hots for Tomas right off the bat, making for some great jealous commentary from Root through Shaw's earpiece, and also giving Shahi some room to let her guard down and seduce every single person watching the show instead of play her character with emotional walls and a mean streak.

But the highlight of the episode came when "Honor Among Thieves" brought back a team of Relevant number hunters to complicate matters even more. I love this s*** so much, guys. With the whole Samaritan mess, it'd been a while since government goons were thrown into the mix, and they came in the form of Grice (Spartacus' Nick Tarabay) and Brooks, who both had a history with Shaw on account of her previous gig working for Control. It was a little hard for me to tell whether they were getting their orders strictly from the government or if Samaritan, who is still providing numbers to the government, was sticking its fingers into their business, but an abrupt change of orders to secure the virus rather than eliminate it outright made me think it was the latter.

Grice, who had been trained by Shaw back in the day, clearly had a problem with the new directive and let Shaw sneak out with the virus. And given his backstory, his screen time, and the laid-out foundation of his character, I'm hoping we'll be seeing lots more of him in some capacity as Season 4 rolls on because the guy looks like a badass and his role would make him fit into things nicely. He's already questioning how things operate now: instead of getting orders to investigate a target and actually make choices, they just get a simple kill order for targets now. Machines... "they took our jobs!," basically.

Elsewhere, a B-story followed Root and Finch as they figured out why Samaritan's newly appointed puppet Governor Dawson (remember, he was vice-governor or whatever the job is called when the other governor keeled over and died right after being elected) would give 12 million buckaroos in grant money to a charity run by one Gerald Wilkins. The charity aimed to give a tablet to every elementary school kid in the area (spoiled kids) which sounds nice on paper, but not when you realize that they could be used by Samaritan to spy on or brainwash New York's youths. I don't think I need to tell you that Finch and Root took down the operation with some espionage and a few keystrokes.

But it did raise more of Finch's alarm bells about the nature of their work now. While Root wages singular war against Samaritan on behalf of The Machine, Finch is more concerned with the collateral damage of their actions. Yes, they stopped Samaritan from having unfettered access to millions of schoolchildren, but they also prevented little Sally from having the power of the Internet at her fingertips and getting a leg up in terms of education. And from what Finch saw, the OS on the tablets didn't have any nefarious code, leading him to believe that they may as well have burned down an orphanage while they destroyed the charity's tablet factory. "How much wrong are we willing to do in the name of right?" he wondered. It's an honest question, and one that the suddenly techno-weary Finch would naturally ask. But given what we know about Samaritan, I think I'm on Root's side here. Those kids would have used the tablets for Candy Crush anyways.

In the final moments, things got even more interesting. Grice deleted the video footage of him letting Shaw (and Tomas and the viruses) go, but before they were wiped from the Internet, Samaritan did some tricky puzzle piecing and used its incredibly sophisticated and quite possibly beyond-the-realm-of-possibility technology to spin the camera feed around and begin compiling a digital image of Shaw's face. The implication could spell disaster for Team Machine; Samaritan might have a positive ID on Shaw, completely blowing the team's cover. The idea that Samaritan was slowly catching up to our heroes has been sprinkled throughout the last few episodes, and I appreciate Person of Interest moving forward with their blown cover sooner than later. It is an all-seeing supercomputer that doesn't sleep, after all.

I wonder if it can get some eyes on whatever went down between Root and Shaw after they smiled at the fact it would take them "all night" to destroy the viruses? Gimme a call, Samaritan.

NOTES OF INTEREST

– Good old Fusco. Fusco, as bullets whiz by from a firefight with Grice and Brooks: "Who are these guys?" Reese: "Highly trained government assassins with orders to kill." Fusco: "It's not cool that you ask me to this stuff with you, man. Not cool!"

– I don't know where the government gets their deadly assassins, but they're picking pretty ones if Brooks and Shaw are average examples.

– This was another great David Slack-written episode, and he's great at hitting the right tone of the show. He keeps things humorous and he really knows how to pace an hour.

– Damn, Finch is really good at his job. Too bad he's not that great at his cover job. He's always complaining about his students!

– Excellent pre-planning by setting this episode on Veteran's Day. That and the Ebola references leave me in awe at how the writers schedule these things out.