Person of Interest Recap: Use the Cushion!

This week Jonah Nolan and the gang decided to do an homage to Rear Window, as an ailing Reese is set up in a posh apartment to spy on his neighbors from his wheelchair. Sadly, there is no sassy housekeeper and the less we think about Finch as Grace Kelly the better, but all in all, a fun episode that will forever change your view on donut pillows.

Wasting no time, the episode opens with choppy archive footage from the shootout on the hospital parking garage rooftop, although the cameras were cut before Badger, Preppy and Carter arrived. So we learn a new, nifty trick of the Machine: It can process threats in real time and override system shut downs to preserve the evidence. We hear Badger telling Preppy to cut the cameras as Reese walks to his car, but we also hear and see Badger telling Reese it’s time to come home and getting shot when he refuses. That won’t look good on Badger’s performance review.

Ouch!

In real time footage, Finch is rushing a dying Reese into a coroner’s exam room. The logistics of how he got the gurney, sheet and lab coat, let alone how wee, crippled Finch managed to get giant, dying Reese on the gurney are not covered since time is of the essence. The attendant is Faruq Nadan, an Iraqi surgeon who’s unable to get an American medical license. Finch drops a shit-ton of cash on an exam table and tells Nadan that if he saves Reese, no questions asked, he’ll get his license. Nadan is a smart man so he just gets to work.

07:43:21 and Carter’s leaving her building on the Upper West Side and I’m calling bullshit on her honesty because rents for a 2-bedroom apartment at 78th and Broadway go for at least $3K, which is about half her gross income as an NYPD homicide detective. Does she have a 1-bedroom and make Taylor sleep on the sofa? Or does he actually live with his grandmother and she only visits him when the episode requires her to be a good mother? Shouldn’t she be saving for Taylor to go to college? Or maybe her landlord recognizes her saintliness and gives her the apartment for free? Or maybe I should just. Let. It. Go.

Anyway, Carter’s leaving for work when she sees some random in an overcoat standing on her sidewalk and a big, green van parked across the street. Believing that all she has to say is “Police” and the world is her oyster, she starts banging on the side of the van demanding that they come out. As with everyone not named Reese, they just ignore her ass and Badger sallies up and asks Carter if there’s a problem. She tries to butch it up and be intimidating asking if he’s “that sloppy when they tail Al Qaeda?” Badger just tells her she has a cute place and asks if she’ll be gone for a while. Because he’s a badger and she’s the little squirrel he’s toying with until he gets tired and snaps her neck. But Carter gets the hint and realizes it’s a set up to let her know they believe she’s still in contact with Reese.

Badger just wants some coffee.

Of course, she’s still Carter and still delusional about just how much power and control she has over any situation and tells Badger that the surveillance is unnecessary. But she always comes unarmed to a fight and Badger makes veiled threats that if she doesn’t cooperate with him all his snooping could lead to him finding something in her past that could destroy her family or career. Carter warns him that threatening a cop is illegal, but he trumps her with so is lying to a federal agent. She makes her fart face of concern so he just walks off.

At the station, loyal, honest and true Carter decides she’s going to snoop into Finch’s background by stealing Fusco’s login and pulling up “Burdett’s” information. Because setting up a fellow detective is the righteous thing to do. Fusco comes in, but unlike Carter who’d throw a hissy fit and launch an unauthorized investigation into Fusco if she caught him stealing a highlighter from her desk, he just tells her if she’s going to use his computer he may as well write his reports for him, too. She actually has the unmitigated gall to shush him when he asks her what’s the what because she’s, again, flashing her NYPD status and asking for location information on “Burdett’s” cell phone. Seriously, Nolan. If you want us to love her as much as you do, stop making her be such a pain in the ass.

Fusco sees the picture of Finch and tries to milk Carter for information, but it just leads us into a flashback to 2005 and a healthy Finch going for a run in Battery Park where he pulls up behind a tree and starts spying on Ingram meeting with a woman named Alicia Corwin.  They’re framing the Statue of Liberty in case we like our dystopian symbolism really obvious. He’s being rakish and charming, but she’s being a hardass because Ingram’s had unauthorized, unfettered access to the NSA’s information for three years and has yet to provide them with anything tangible. She warns him that if Congress ever catches wind of what they’re doing, the Machine wouldn’t just be shut down, Ingram would go to jail. He just uses that as a moment to flirt with her some more, because he’s Brett Cullen and he flirts like the rest of us breathe. She doesn’t seem unflattered but she tells him she needs progress. He gives her a slip of paper with a series of nine numbers on it, written out like a social security number, but she’s flummoxed and wants to know what it means. He tells her she’s in intelligence, figure it out.

Even in blue tint, I’m a right sexy bastard.

Turns out Finch, of course, wasn’t eavesdropping on Ingram. He was just monitoring the conversation because his disdain for most human contact began long before he met Reese. Ingram pretends he’d rather have Finch handle one of those meetings and he’ll lurk, but Finch has always had an affinity for giant peacocks and tells him he couldn’t lurk if he tried. Ingram is concerned about what little information they gave Corwin and hopes it pans out, but Finch is fully confident in his Orwellian nightmare and tells him to have some faith. The show continues the Ingram/Reese parallels by having Ingram wonder if he means in the Machine or him, then we see surveillance footage of them with the yellow boxes, just in case we didn’t pick up on all the other Ingram/Reese parallels.

In the present, we see the Machine doing a search for “Asset: Reese, John,” and, aww…the Machine likes Reese. It culls cell phone data and facial recognition to pinpoint his location then accesses his cell phone mic when it loses the camera feed. Scene shifts to a rather nice apartment and Angel Batista, moonlighting from Miami Metro Homicide as a building super, is showing “Mr. Hays” his new place. He puts his foot in his mouth when he tells Reese in a wheelchair to “watch his step,” but Reese pretty much ignores him because he really has poor manners.

Angel tries to be helpful and friendly, introducing himself as “Trask” and telling him about how, back in Miami, he had nightclubs and a mansion in Coral Gables and a white tiger, but had to give it up because it was bad for his health. But he’s David Zayas, who adorably bearish though he may be, forgetting he was on Oz, doesn’t really come off as Mr. Moneybags. He tries to chat up Reese asking him what he does, where he’s from, how he ended up in the chair, but Reese just says he had a rough night and grins. Angel gets the hint, hands off the keys and tells Reese that if he needs anything, his number’s on the lease.

Surprisingly, a much better wardrobe than he sports on Dexter.

Finch walks up behind Reese and asks if everything’s satisfactory and…did I just notice Reese close his eyes in disappointment??!??! Oh hell no, Mr. Reese. Reese thinks the apartment was too much trouble, but Finch says that it was no trouble and in Reese’s condition he needed something a little less obvious. Reese, still forgetting to thank Finch for his generosity, moves on to asking about Badger. Finch says he’s preoccupied with Carter and Reese, showing what a jackass he can be at times, asks how she’s doing.

Finch gets a brief “Fuck you,” look on his face and snidely says “Not that I don’t share your concern for the woman who tried to hand you over to the CIA…” but Reese interrupts to make pretty, sad, glassy eyes and says “she did let us go,” (yes after YOU GOT SHOT IN THE GUT BECAUSE OF HER AND SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS LETTING YOU LEAVE TO DIE IN PEACE!!!!!) and to keep an eye on her “for him” while he rests up.

Finch is still giving the same amount of fucks for Carter.

Yeah, about that. Reese gets a wry smile when he realizes he’s there to trail the next number, Angel. We see him tending to the courtyard as he greets the tenants. They seem to like him, especially Lily the cook. He’s Ernest Trask, 51, from Goodland, Florida. Not a big digital footprint, but he did graduate high school. They exposit about how the stories about the nightclubs, mansion and pet tiger were just part of his vivid imagination.

Finch wonders where Reese’s stuff is, but he packs light. Just one of his guns. A little one. A soupçon of a gun, if you will. Just to remind him he’s a killing machine. Reese wonders what the threat is, but Finch doesn’t know. He’s just certain that whatever it is will happen at the building since Trask has been the super for 14 years. Reese wonders how many people live in the building, and there are 241 tenants. Going against their natural tendency to assume female numbers = victims; male = perpetrators, Reese thinks that means there are 241 suspects but Finch tells him probably just one, Trask, who placed three calls last week to pawn shops that specialize in selling untraceable handguns.

Big man with a gun.

Down at the police station, Badger’s walking across the street to his big, green, obvious van with his omnipresent coffee cup. Preppy’s inside manning the computers and wonders where his coffee is. Badger just tells him “Coffee is for closers.” Bitch. Then he reminds Preppy that he “whiffed” his shot at Reese but Preppy points out he wasn’t aiming to kill because Badger wanted to question Reese about Ordos. Badger tells him the questioning was their “secondary objective” and moves on to asking about Carter. Preppy says she’s catching up on paperwork because she hasn’t used her computer or phone all day. Carter bores him as much as the rest of us, so he asks about Reese. No bead on him yet, but they’re checking every hospital, clinic and morgue in a 300 mile radius and Preppy assumes that if he got stitched up they’ll find him.

Finch is playing Welcome Wagon for Reese and in addition to all the surveillance equipment he brought some deTocqueville for a little light reading and a housewarming gift: a donut pillow. Reese looks like Finch is trying to give him a pot pourri wreath festooned in pink satin bows and when Finch suggests he try it Reese is all “No, I’m good.” Finch does and does not get the hint and tells Reese he’ll thank Finch later.

Who’s the big man now, donut ass?

Reese moves on saying Trask looks like a harmless windbag but he wants to know why he bought a gun. Finch is playing with connectors and says there’s only one way to find out. Reese thinks it’s to hack Trask’s WiFi but Finch says they’re going to hack everyone’s WiFi connection. Reese notices that Finch has already hacked 16 connections and we learn something very important: When the phone company hooks up your WiFi, your password is your phone number and most people don’t bother to change it. The rest likely change it to Buster or MrsFifiLaRue after their cats, but Finch doesn’t say that. He does say that once they’re in they can turn every webcam, nanny cam and laptop into their eyes and ears. Reese says just like the Machine in a not particularly flattering manner, but Finch doesn’t pick up tone because he’s geeking out and says “If one apartment building were the entire world.”

With the feeds in place, Reese notes that Lily the cook appears to be dating Rick from the penthouse and that Amber is…healthy as we first watch a young woman practicing yoga then Finch and Reese tilt to follow her. But Finch doesn’t think that’s what alerted the Machine because he didn’t program it to get horny. Reese picks up on Doug Stanley, a security guard who’s tracking a thief who’s stealing jewelry from tenants and they brainstorm that Trask could be the thief or knows who is, but then they move on to Alan Holt, landlord. He gets into it briefly with Trask and Reese wonders if Trask is about to snap and kill his boss, causing Finch to briefly pause from eating his Chinese noodles to contemplate if it’s a good idea to have an unstable, if efficient, killing machine in his employ.

16:18:24 and they still are at a loss as to why Trask’s number would come up. Reese says they’re not going to figure it out by staring at a wall and they need to do some legwork. But he’s using the royal “we” because he’s laid up in a wheelchair and sends Finch down to the basement to snoop around. Once he’s in place he tells Reese to distract Trask, which he does by springing a leak in his bathroom after pounding away at the faucet with a hammer.

If I had a haaaa-mmer…

While Trask bitches about the interruption, Finch sneaks into his office. Reese is sitting in the hallway looking like the cat that ate the canary and Finch tells him he’s placed the cameras and is looking for the gun but finds the ammunition instead. Trask complains that it looks like someone came at the faucet with a hammer but he’s still jovial, saying that he didn’t bring the right tool and leaves to get it. Reese warns Finch to get out of the office immediately but Finch continues his search. Meanwhile, Trask barrels through the courtyard bumping Rick on his way. Finch finds some photos of Lily and Rick and lets Reese know that Trask is a stalker, but Reese just warns Finch to get out immediately. He tries but, unfortunately, Trask sees Finch on his way out.

Finch heads to the elevator as Reese calls out to him. Trask follows him but the elevator door closes before Trask can grab Finch. Finch asks for help and harking back to “The Fix” Reese monitors the security footage and warns Finch that Trask was cutting the elevator in time for Finch to get off. Once in the hallway, Reese directs Finch to the east stairwell and that he has to move fast. Finch gets flustered because he’s not used to being in the field and wonders how Reese does it. With style, my friend. And a bitching black suit and driving coat.

Finch comes upon Doug the security guard as Trask is warning him about the intruder but Reese tells him to just keep walking because the concept of abject terror is foreign to him. Finch walks by as Trask gives a perfect description of him and Doug stops him. Reese, showing that he may not be as dumb as I usually think, pulls up footage from the apartment Doug just left. While Doug frisks Finch, Reese sees Doug stealing jewelry and tells Finch Doug knows he’s not the thief and sends him the footage. When Doug pulls out Finch’s iPhone, Finch asks to “show him something.” Then he shows him the footage of him robbing the apartment. Do’h! Trask asks if he saw Finch, but Finch says they can either call the cops or Doug can pretend he never saw Finch and Finch won’t rat him out. Doug’s all “He’s not on 2” because thieves aren’t very principled.

D’oh!

Finch concludes since Trask is armed, has a dangerous fixation on Lily and chased him up three flights that he’s the perpetrator. Reese ribs Finch and says he’s not sure; maybe Finch should double check with the Machine. Finch just snots back that that joke never gets old. Squabble!

This leads into another flashback to 2005. Finch is hotfooting it into Ingram’s corner office and plugs in a flashdrive before pouring a cup of coffee on the computer. This is odd even for Finch, but he explains that they “have company.” Corwin and her detail march in and apologize for just barging in. Ingram proceeds to launch another charm offensive but Corwin dismisses the detail and glares at Finch. Ingram says he’s tech support and Finch walks out, leaving behind one of his spy pens.

Corwin reintroduces Ingram to Deputy Director Denton Weeks, for the benefit of the audience, and Ingram continues to try to charm his way out of whatever trouble is brewing. Play with your hair, Brett. That usually works in real life. Sadly, Brett does not listen to me and Weeks tells him that SSN he gave them belonged to Gordon Kurzweil DIA case officer with top secret clearance and clean background checks for 20 years. They surveilled him for two weeks with nothing and just when they thought Ingram was a fraud, Kurzweil breaks pattern and sells 26 pounds of weapons grade uranium to the Iranian government.

If my dick shrinks any more, I’ll have to have you killed.

Weeks wants to know how the Machine could pick up on the threat when there was nothing leading to Kurzweil, but Ingram says with authority that it’s programmed to detect threats to national security but its OS is a blackbox. Weeks asks about directing the Machine to a specific target. Ingram says there’s no need, it watches every target. Corwin is skittish about software over which they have no control so Ingram points out that it feeds them information when it perceives a threat.

Then he points out that while it may be discomfiting, that as long as no human can see what the Machine sees, they’re not technically violating anyone’s fourth amendment rights. Weeks tries to throw his weight around and tells Ingram to leave Constitutional concerns to the government, but it’s the Bush Administration era of the secret room at AT&T and John Yoo justifying torture, so Ingram says he’s a citizen, too, and he’s more comfortable having the machine watch his every move than someone like Weeks. Shablam!

Corwin seems open to Ingram’s explanation and is satisfied that the system is closed and fully autonomous. Weeks is still peeved that it’s not giving them more than an SSN, but Ingram points out that was enough for them to dig up Kurzweil. With his dick shrinking by the moment, Weeks swings it one more time and suggests that without the ability to control the Machine maybe they should revisit Ingram’s fee, but he’s providing the Machine to them for $1, so sucks to be you, Weeks.

Finch has been monitoring this the whole time and in addition to a continuity error that makes Ingram six years older (The bust says he was born in 1962, but the Machine says he was born in 1956.) we see that once the Machine recognizes Ingram, Corwin and Weeks, their facial recognition boxes shift from white to yellow, so yellow represents the group of people who know about the Machine. Ingram has “executive” access to the Machine, but Corwin and Weeks are “prohibited” supporting Ingram’s claim that it’s a black box. But further analysis changes Weeks’ box from yellow to red and his access is denied because he’s a “threat to the system,”…but Finch already knows.

Warning, Harold Finch!! DANGER!! DANGER!!

Back in the present and we hear one of Lily’s archived cell conversations about some creeper she can’t shake but we’re seeing footage of her from a camera in her air vent. Meanwhile, Reese is making Finch a “bump” key that he can use to pick any lock in the building so Finch won’t be caught with nowhere to hide. Showing that neither of them have the best manners, Finch doesn’t thank Reese, either, he just moves on to all the intel Reese has gathered on Lily the cook. Her name is Lily Thornton, she’s from Georgia, staying in her great aunt’s apartment, chef at a top Manhattan bistro, and romantically linked to Penthouse Rick.

Finch congratulates Reese on his good work but Reese seems put out by the compliment and tells him it’s not his first time using a computer but that they’re having difficulty linking to her WiFi. She changes her password daily to a random alpha numeric sequence and Finch gets almost starry-eyed over a woman with good security habits. Reese doesn’t think there’s a definite link between being a peeper and a killer, because he’s not necessarily blessed with the gift of self awareness, but Finch tells us that 76% of female homicide victims were stalked before they were murdered.

Reese gets cranky with Finch, again, and sayinh he’ll have to keep an eye on her.  Finch puts the kibosh on that. Reese is proud at how well he can get around in the wheelchair prompting Finch to point out that Badger will probably be really impressed with him…after he has Preppy shoot him again. Reese whines that he’s getting restless so Finch tells him to “Use the cushion,” like they’re married and Reese won’t listen to him.

I already told you, your ass doesn’t look fat in that plaid vest.

Reese tells Finch that the numbers will keep coming in while he’s recuperating but Finch tells him that he’ll think of something while he pockets one of Reese’s prescription bottles. Since Finch won’t carry a gun, Reese wants to show him some basic self defense and it goes even better than his gun safety lesson with Elias. His first piece of advice is if Trask comes at him to just go for his eyes. Finch is a bit put off by it being so crude and wonders if that’s Reese’s technique, but Reese says “No. That’s your technique,” because Reese just shoots out the kneecaps.

Reese powers on, not picking up any non-verbal cues that he’s creeping out Finch, and proceeds to the next, more graphic, technique. If Trask is still coming at Finch after he gets poked in the eye, Reese tells Finch to take his thumb jam it in his eye socket and twist until Finch hits Trask’s brain. Finch looks nauseated as he tells Reese to stop before walking off.

Can I trade you in for a new killing machine?

As Finch uses his new toy that Reese gave him to break into Lily’s apartment, Reese tells him that while Trask is in the courtyard, he needs Finch to have eyes on Lily at work. Finch exposits that he’ll head over there after he plants a camera in Lily’s apartment but when he finds her bedroom vent to place it, he sees a camera already planted there and, shock horror, it’s a cheap, consumer model. He looks at the cameras but decides Lily’s been spied on enough and disconnects the planted one.

Over at the station, “honest to a fault” Carter has illegally gotten “Burdett’s” cell phone locations without a warrant and steals some perp’s SIM card, claiming she needs to dust it for prints. Yes, the world cannot exist without someone so good and pure. Fusco saw the list of locations and that it was Finch’s so he tries to stop her but she says, in her good, honest and true way that she’s “getting lost” and blowing off her inconsequential work as a homicide detective with 14 open and active cases. Yup. Still awful.

She charges out of the station, with her service pistol in plain view for anyone to just bump and run with, when she sees two of Badger’s stooges. She speedily walks off and barges into some building lobby where she announces “Sir, NYPD. I need your jacket now,” adding petty theft to her crime spree. The stooges run after her and look the other way, pretending not to see her, so she stole the poor old guy’s coat for nothing because she still looked like Carter, anyway. Just in a new coat.

How long do I have to pretend I can’t see her?

Back at the station, Fusco gets a call from Finch and he warns Finch that Carter’s tracking Burdett’s cell phone. Finch is already aware of that, but doesn’t know why. Fusco doesn’t either then he asks about “their guy.” I know it’s so they don’t tip off surveillance, but it’s cute how Fusco and Finch always refer to Reese as “their guy,” like their his sister wives. Finch wants to make sure that Fusco received the package. He did, and he wonders if Finch needs him to fill his Adderall prescription but, no. The CIA is on “their guy’s” trail and he wants Fusco to plant it somewhere far enough away and suggests Connecticut.

Reese calls Finch and asks him how it’s going. Finch says it’s the best catered stakeout in history, but Reese flirts that he doesn’t eat in the field because you never know when you’ll have to move fast. Okay, maybe he’s not cranky with Finch. They discuss several leads like the landlord’s email, hidden WiFi networks and the camera in Lily’s apartment, but none of them are panning out. Reese did learn that there used to be a Mrs. Trask, but she disappeared 13 years ago without a trace, even though Trask said she moved back to Boca Raton to live with family. She probably just withered away from boredom.

Focusing back on Lily, Finch feels pretty confident that she knows she has a stalker and that she’s miserable. He sees her get a bouquet of roses that she asks a bartender to throw in the trash and tells Reese just as Reese notices Trask tending to a rosebush.

Aw, look. It’s Ferdinand.

18:27:21 and Carter’s at the final location on her ill-gotten list, wearing sensible flats. For some reason she’s just lollygagging on the sidewalk when a pay phone rings at 18:47:09. She goes to answer the phone wearing stacked heeled boots, so maybe she spent those 20 minutes buying more ugly shoes. She answers the phone and Finch basically calls her an idiot, but actually says she’s wasting her time because he falsified the location data that morning. She obviouses that his name isn’t Burdett, like she knew this all along.

She actually pretends that she’s “lying to federal agents” to protect Finch and Reese as opposed to not knowing dick-all about them except what they’ve shared with her, and she wants answers. Why can’t a bird shit on her head once in a while? Anyway, Finch tells her to turn around and he’s sitting in a restaurant, waiting for her.

Carter sits with Finch and snottily asks how “his friend” is. He just stares at her inscrutably.  She tells him he’s going to have to tell her something.  He obliques a story about how, when he was nine, his brothers threw him in the pool to teach him to swim. Took him a few minutes, but he figured it out. Carter’s drooling at this point so he moves on and points out a guy at the bar.

Name that acting cue: Bitch? BITCH! Or Bitch, please.

Guy at bar’s name is Derek Watson. Lost his job, his marriage, his house and now he will be involved in a violent crime. Finch doesn’t know how or what, just that he will. Carter, despite only closing cases that Reese and Finch gift wrap for her, snorts “You can’t know that.” Finch glares at her and asks if she has her service weapon. Then he tells her that he’s sorry to toss her in the deep end, but “his friend” is indisposed.

19:12:33 and Carter’s calling homicide to do a background check on Watson while watching him just hang out on some street. Even though neither the name “Derek” nor “Watson” is that unusual and the likelihood that there’s at least two of them in the greater NYC metropolitan area is high, we need to move this story along so the random voice on the other end finds the only Derek Watson in the system. She asks which bank wrote his mortgage and hears “TruPrime Mortgage” where we see him standing under a TruPrime sign. As some fatheaded banker walks past Watson, we switch to Machine footage and Watson’s facial recognition box switches from all white to red and white as he follow the fatheaded banker.

20:02:37 and Badger’s badgering his team for letting Carter get away. The stooges are just extras, though, so they have nothing to say and Badger sends them back out into the rain to find her. Preppy’s playing Words with Friends and mentions that since Reese hasn’t turned up dead, odds are he’s in a safe house. Badger’s getting cranky and suggest they expand their search to all hotel rooms and apartments that have been rented in the last two days. Preppy tries to ask a question, but Badger says to just make it happen.

Badger and his Legion of Dim

Finch is walking down the street, making sure Reese has eyes on Trask. Reese asks where Finch has been and Finch actually says, without a trace of irony, “Now you know how I feel.” All that’s missing is “And dinner is ruined,” and it’s an episode of any family drama from the 60s. Finch tells Reese that Lily’s on her way home and Reese posits the theory that maybe Trask is planning on killing Rick and not Lily since he’s been nosing around Rick’s penthouse all day and looks to be digging a grave.

Finch thinks that Trask’s plan is to get rid of the boyfriend so he can move in on Lily then asks how Reese is doing. He whines about getting tired of being cooped up staring at screens all day. Finch moans that he’d rather be doing that than trudging around Manhattan and jokes that he’s half of the mind to spot her cab fare. But their bitch session ends when Reese sees Trask loading his gun. Finch is still 15 minutes away so Reese has to think fast.

As Trask cuts Rick off at the courtyard entrance offering to show him a new faucet for his apartment, Reese is tearing up sheets and tying them around one of his crutches. As Reese pours alcohol on the fabric, Trask tells Rick that he needs to leave Lily alone because she doesn’t love him and Finch tells Reese he can be back at the apartment in five minutes. Reese thinks that will be too late and rushes out into the hallway to set his crutch on fire, setting off the fire alarm as Rick tells Trask that he’s not Lily’s boyfriend or hero, he’s just a janitor, so stick to fixing toilets.

And THIS is what I think of that damn donut pillow.

Another archived cell conversation and Lily’s talking about how scared she is that “he” is breaking into her apartment because when she comes home things have been moved. Reese tells Finch that Trask won’t be put off for long and as Lily and Finch reach the building entrance, he suggests taking more aggressive measures. She gets four text messages from a blocked number asking about the flowers and how he can see her and Finch says they need to get Trask out of there that night.

Trask goes to his office and Reese is already waiting for him. He throws down the photos and tells Trask he knows what he’s planning. Trask says he’s got it wrong, but Reese pulls out his gun and tells Trask he’s leaving the building that night because Lily’s not his girlfriend and he’s not going to keep terrorizing her or kill Rick. Trask admits to caring for Lily but “Not like that.” Reese looks like he might believe Trask.

Finch reaches the apartment just as the hidden network is accessed. Finch opens the files and we see that it’s Rick’s WiFi. Reese calls and tells Finch that Trask didn’t take the photos and Finch confirms that Rick’s the stalker, not Trask. D’oh. You’d think they’d learn after Benton that it’s always the skinny rich guy with the greasy hair. Just then, Lily comes out of the shower and Rick is in her apartment, asking if she got his flowers and saying he thought it would just be the two of them.

Lily tries to call the cops but Rick stops her. She gently asks him to leave but he gets progressively more aggressive, eventually telling her about Trask telling him to stay away from her and wondering if she told Trask he would. She’s scared and he asks if she wants him to hurt her, but before he can, Finch shows up and tells him to let her go. Rick comes at Finch and he instinctively pokes Rick in the eyes, just like Reese told him. See, it is your technique, Harold.

OMG! I’m the guy who pokes guys in the eye.

Lily and Finch run off, but when Rick runs after them, Trask grabs him, telling him to leave her alone. Rick finds a letter opener and stabs Trask in the arm, but a crutch comes into view, poking Rick in the back. Reese proceeds to violently poke Rick with the crutch several times. The fight’s a little more even than most of Reese’s fights since he’s hobbled, but he eventually gets tired of it and throws Rick out the window.

Out on some other street, Preppy gets in the SUV of evil and tells Badger that they have a lead. There was a break in at a veterinary clinic in Norfolk, Connecticut, 122 miles away, and they found a prescription bottle with Reese’s prints. Badger’s still being an asshole and asks if Preppy couldn’t tell him that while he was driving and they take off.

Back at the building, Doug the security guard is getting arrested for stealing from the tenants as an EMT lets us know that Rick’s still alive and a cop is taking Lily’s statement. She says Rick’s been stalking her for months but she was too scared to save anything and she’s just lucky Ernie came by when he did. Trask is all “Wasn’t nothing compared to what I did back in Miami because you don’t want to mess with the Cuban mafia.” Angel would know. It was a minor story arc in season 1 of Dexter.

Reese and Finch are slipping out of the courtyard, and Reese gives Finch Trask’s gun. Finch tells Reese that Trask is actually Ernesto Machado. His crazy stories about Miami were all true, including the tiger, and it being bad for his health as he was a witness against the Cuban mafia and is now in witness protection. And they couldn’t trace his wife because she went into witness protection with him, but left him a year later to live with family in Boca Raton. Reese wonders how Finch found all this out, and he just says he’s good with computers. Then Reese tells him to fess up, there’s no Machine. Just him. As the POV switches to surveillance footage, showing Reese and Finch in their yellow boxes, Reese tells Finch he’ll be ready for the next number. Finch is all “Funny you should mention that…” and throws away Trask’s gun.

I’m still the right sexiest bastard on the show.

22:38:12 and Carter’s followed Watson to some bar. As she walks toward the fatheaded banker in one direction she sees Watson approaching him from another and when she sees him pull out his gun she subdues him and thwarts the murder. She tells the patrons that it’s okay, she’s NYPD and she has it all under control but before her head can get too big from all her awesomeness, she gets a call. It’s Finch and he tells her “That…Detective Carter…is what we do,” and then hangs up, AGAIN, missing his chance to say “I said ‘Good day’.” Do I have to send them a copy of Tootsie? Then we get a little more insight into the Machine when it re-logs the “Violence Imminent” in red to “Averted” in white.

One final flashback to 2005 and Finch and Ingram are toasting as Finch has a story about Kurzweil’s arrest on his laptop. Ingram asks Finch what made the Machine piece the plot together. Finch gets cute and asks if Ingram wants him to “pop the hood.” He does, so Finch logs in as the admin and shows Ingram all the data compiled on Kurzweil. The first critical piece wasn’t the first chronologically, but it was the first to show a pattern of Kurzweil going to the same location on the same day of every even month. From there the Machine cast a wider net and managed to piece together all the disparate elements to reconstitute the plot

This is why you schedule your dead drops in parks.

Ingram is literally awed by the power of the Machine and says it’s terrifying. Finch foreshadows that Ingram’s the only other person in the world who will ever see the Machine in action and once it’s fully operational he’ll encrypt the OS so that no other computer can ever crack it. Ingram, because he’s kind of a peacock, wonders if Finch ever feels shortchanged because no one will know he’s the creator of such a terrifyingly historic Orwellian nightmare such as the Machine, but Finch says that’s how it has to be, so he can safeguard that it never gets used for other purposes. Ingram wonders if Finch is worried that the government will try to manipulate it, and Finch shows Ingram that Weeks is already trying to crack into it, but he’s been unsuccessful. Ingram wonders if Finch is certain it’s Weeks. Finchtells him that the Machine has an instinct for self preservation. As Ingram jokes that Finch talks about the Machine like it’s alive, their little yellow boxes dissolve into a flurry of data and the Machine pops up with “Possible threat detected: Ingram, Nathan C.” and…fade.

Hmmm. The threat was still in white instead of red so, does this mean the Machine had just started tracking Ingram? Was it that conversation that triggered the Machine? Is the threat to Ingram or is Ingram the possible threat to the Machine? It took the Machine three years to put together all the data on Kurzweil, and six months to determine that Weeks was a threat, so the three years between determining Ingram was a possible threat/possibly in danger to Ingram’s eventual death is not out of the question, but it’s vagueness bugs because I’m sure we won’t see Ingram again until the season finale because we’ll have to be told how extra superfly awesome Carter is so we don’t go down to the production offices with strongly worded letters begging them to please, for the love of all that is clean, pure and holy, just kill her off already. Still, curious and an interesting thread to follow, if they remember the story’s about Reese and Finch.

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