In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
There's a reason that the preview at the end of last week's episode was incomprehensible: Stretched over an hour, this episode was nearly as difficult to understand. But I'll do my best. At the beginning of the episode, JC saves an adulterer whose wife has paid some hitmen to take him out. He does this by killing the two hitmen. I'm not quite sure two deaths to save a cheater is worth the effort, but this is Finch's formula, not mine. But that guy's not the person whose number is coming up this episode. Said person is a fifteen-year-old girl named Theresa. The only catch? She died two years ago, along with her entire family. Finch and JC even visit the family gravesite. They track down Theresa's aunt, who wonders if the cops are still looking for Theresa's body, which was never found. Since their relatives were killed, Theresa and her husband, Derek, have divorced. She says she doesn't know how to reach him, but has an old cell phone number.
JC comes across Theresa a time or two -- and ends up with a pretty severe cut after the first time -- thanks to a boyfriend she's stayed in touch with after "death." She's almost as good at disappearing as JC himself, though, so she keeps slipping away from him. Finally, he saves her life enough times to earn her trust. Finch (who's thankfully outside the office this episode) ends up as her babysitter in a hotel room while JC tries to track down who is coming after her and why. They pinpoint the uncle, Derek, but after spending some time with him JC learns the truth: Theresa's father bought a piece of land that he figured would be worth a lot of money once the government got it cleaned up. His business partner arranged to have the whole family killed, but kept Derek around as the heir the land would go to after it went through probate. Derek says it's the only reason he's alive. JC quickly deduces this is why they're after Theresa: The land is worth a fortune now, and she's the rightful heir. He relays the message to Finch, who's talked Theresa into trusting him by this point. But the bad guy her dad's former business partner's hired to come after her ends up tracking down her aunt, then her uncle. When he taps the aunt's phone, and Theresa calls her and hangs up, he traces the call to the hotel, and shows up to kill her. She and Finch pull a bait and switch and barely escape getting killed about fifty times in a matter of seconds. When they're finally backed into a corner, JC shows up just in the nick of time (he's good at that), and shoots the guy.
Carter's still after JC the entire episode (it seems she has no other police work going on, because she shows up at every crime scene just to see if he's involved – or at least I assume she must since she ends up at all the ones he actually is involved in, and she can't be that good of a guesser). He finally calls her after stopping this week's future crime, and arranges a meet. She shows up with plenty of backup, but he's sent Theresa instead. Theresa tells her that her friends said she could trust her. And, of course, she can; but she's going to have to deal with A LOT of probing questions about JC. This girl's used to running, hiding, and lying, though, so Carter's getting nothing out of her. Her dad's former business partner ends up arrested, too, so all is right with the world.
Unless you want to know Finch's backstory, which JC winds his way toward until Finch pulls even further back. We get a little more insight than JC, which amounts to Finch's own business partner (maybe a family member? We don't get a lot of information to work with), who found out about the irrelevants and wasn't happy. Also, Finch's death supposedly occurred in 2011, according to a statue at the company he founded. Little by little, we'll figure this guy out -- as long as we're willing to sit through the procedural A plot.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Extended intro of surveillance cameras with Finch voiceover fills us in on everything: "You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a Machine, that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the Machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything: violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us. But, victim or perpetrator, if your number's up, we'll find you." Okay, so that intro's a little cheesy, but I guess it's necessary for a sort-of (or mostly) procedural, for those audience members that come and go on a given week.
We open with surveillance footage of a guy with flowers arranging to see someone at their place. He gets in an elevator, then JC sneaks in and says he "almost missed it." He grills the guy about whether the flowers are for his wife. He lies that they are, but JC knows better and tells him to come clean about the cheating. The guy gets defensive, until JC saves the guy's life from the two guys in the elevator who the cheater's wife hired to kill him. And by "saves the guy's life," I mean that JC shoots both guys. It doesn't show for certain whether he kills them, and they're groaning a bit as he leaves the cheater with advice to call the police "and a good divorce lawyer." So hopefully he didn't kill the two hitmen just to save one cheater. Two for one is only a good deal if the person you're saving is a child or at least a good person.
Surveillance footage cuts to a guy being offered "triple his usual fee" for a job. Then Finch calls JC, who's across the street, watching Finch walk. He fills him in on his latest salvation, and then tells Finch that he's doing "a little research." Finch is interested in hearing about it later - though I'm guessing JC won't tell him it's Finch he's researching. Finch wants to meet later for a "somewhat unusual" number that's come up, he says, then disappears around a corner. When JC gets there, Finch really has disappeared (along with everyone else on the streets of New York; apparently they found the one street in the city where there's no one milling around), and he tells JC to remember that they meet on Finch's schedule, not JC's.
Carter shows up at the elevator crime scene and, since she's homicide, the detective on scene isn't sure why she's there. She says it's part of an ongoing obsession she has. Actually, she says it's an investigation, but my hunch is she's already way off the books with this JC thing. The detective tells Carter what happened: These two guys tried to kill a rich guy, who says a guy in a suit "intervened."
Finch and JC meet up on the street somewhere, and Finch queries JC about his research, which JC says was "inconclusive." So Finch fills him in on the latest number: It's a 15-year-old girl named Theresa Whitaker with some disciplinary trouble but basically a good kid. JC wants to know where to find her, and Finch leads him to a cemetery. He reiterates that this is a somewhat unique situation, because Theresa should be buried here with the rest of her family. They were all murdered two years ago. JC hams it up big time with, "So we're looking for a ghost?"
Surveillance footage and close-ups of the Machine (which is really more like a thousands machines, but now I'm just nitpicking). Then we're on camera footage from 2002. Finch -- sans limp -- is running on a treadmill when his friend comes in bearing whiskey and the news that they won another award. Their small talk makes it clear they work together, that Finch is the brains and the other guy is the face of the organization. Finch is watching the government machine surveillance on his cameras. He's still working on teaching the computers to track people. But he's about to move on to the problem: how to sort out the terrorists from everyone else, by searching bank transactions, emails, etc. "Looking for people who are hiding something, living double lives." His friend says that sounds a lot like Finch. This project will take four or five more years to complete according to Finch.
Surveillance cameras bring us back to the present, where Finch is standing on a dock overlooking a waterway when JC joins him. Turns out this is the last place Theresa Whitaker was seen alive. Her father, Grant, took the family sailing and they never returned home. Grant was a real estate developer who was upside-down on fourteen properties after the market crash. The police declared their deaths a murder-suicide: Grant killed the wife and kids, then himself. All the bodies were found -- the parents and 18-year-old son -- except Theresa's. JC thinks "presumed dead" was a reasonable assumption. But Finch says the police see a lot less than the Machine. So if her number's come up, she's alive. But she won't be for long if the Machine is right. Finch tells JC they better find her, so JC heads to talk to his "friend" in the police department.
Though he doesn't treat Fuscoe all that much like a friend when he storms in and grabs him from the hall and pushes him against a wall. JC got into the station with Stills' badge, and he'd like a file from Fuscoe. Fuscoe says he's about a step from being sent up to jail, because "they think I'm dirty." JC matter-of-factly tells him that's because he is dirty, which is not JC's doing or concern. He wants to know about Theresa Whitaker and her two-year-old murder-suicide out in Bowery Bay.
Cut to JC and Finch watching an Internet video of a man and woman crying about Grant killing his family. They knew about the financial issues, but never thought he'd do anything like this. They just wish he'd come to them, so they could help. JC tells Finch that there were muzzle impressions made on the gun after the shots were made, to make it look point-blank, like the father did it. But it was a murder. Finch wonders how JC knows this, and JC skeeves us out with a shrug, "That's how I would have done it." JC can't explain, though, why the shooter didn't kill Theresa or why she's disappeared. But he does have a lead on a boy who might know her: Deacon Page (that's quite a name). They got in trouble together when she was still "alive," and he's been picked up lately for shoplifting and carrying a concealed weapon. JC is as sick as I am of Finch sitting in the Library: He tells Finch he might need a little help, since they don't know how much time Theresa has left.
Surveillance images cut us to Finch showing up at the door of the crying woman from the Internet video he and JC watched. He tells her his name is Arthur Bellinger with Liberty State Mutual, and calls her Elizabeth Whitaker. He claims they wrote the life insurance policies for Grant Whitaker, and that she and her husband, Derek, are listed as of kin. She says that would be ex-husband, since the divorce went through last year. She invites him in, and says she's surprised her brother-in-law even kept up payments on life insurance. Then she asks if they're going to stop searching for Theresa. A look from Finch makes her quickly add, "Her body, I mean?" He says the police stopped searching, and asks if she wasn't satisfied. She just doesn't like that they buried an empty coffin, and hoped the current would bring her home. She says Derek never came out of the funk. He asks if she has any contact information, but she says they haven't spoken since the split, though she has an old cell phone number. He asks if they had any children, but she says no -- and now she's not even an aunt. She sets up the loving reunion that we're sure to see soon enough by telling us she loved Theresa like her own daughter.
NYPD. Carter's obsessing about JC some more. She says there are eight cases connected to his prints, but half of them have been redacted. Her colleague gives her another file: JC caught some missing persons in 2007. But this entire file's been redacted. Her colleague tells her this is feds, which is above her pay grade. Something tells me that's not going to slow her obsession.
Finch updates JC on his situation with the aunt, and says the uncle's MIA. No answer on the cell phone, and no forwarding address. JC's been to every skate park in the city, but hasn't seen Deacon Page or Theresa yet. Of course, since it's his turn to have a scene, though, he sees Deacon right then. He bumps into Deacon, picks up the cell phone he drops, and flashes Stills' badge as he tells him skating isn't allowed in this park. He gives the phone back once he's finished pairing it with his. Deacon walks away and immediately sends a text to "T" that says "86'ed by NYPD. U need to bolt." JC knows she's close by and looks around until he sees a girl in a hood looking around after reading a text. He takes off after her, but when he catches up, she slices him with an Exacto knife. What skateboarding chick doesn't carry one of those? You never know when she might have a package to open.
Finch stiff-walks and limps, briefcase in hand, into an office building. Everyone greets him warmly as "Harold." One guy goes Office Space on him about his TPS reports or something (actually, about a database he's coding). When he gets to his cubicle, JC's sitting there waiting. He says it's not exactly what he expected: a cubicle software job, where JC found out in HR that he's worked for seventeen years. He wonders how many people know Finch owns the whole company. Finch says none of them. "The best place to hide, Mr. Reese, as you well know, is in plain sight." JC asks what happens if he speaks too loudly or says the wrong thing. Finch says he could overhaul the whole department, or reassign, promote or fire people. So JC says he'll make it quick: He lost Theresa, who has some trust issues. But JC found a card skimmers he left behind at the ATM, so they know how she's making a living. Finch says he can track her if she tries to sell them online. He's also looked into the uncle, who's hiding from a dozen different creditors, but he thinks they can track him down. He also plans to investigate Grant's finances much more closely. JC says that's a good idea, because this was a hit for, and he's going to investigate the shooter, by finding out where he can hire one himself. When JC leaves, a lady comes up and asks Finch who his friend is.
JC's in the back of Fuscoe's cop car. Fuscoe fills him in on how to hire a shooter at this area bar call Junior's. JC heads inside, then gets thrown out on the street by a couple of heavies. They tell him they don't want to see him around here again, so he heads back in and fighting and gunshots ensue. Fuscoe watches it all from across the street, then JC rejoins him in the car, says he got a name and is ready to go. Surveillance images put us inside a prison, where JC's on the phone with Finch. He's arranged a visit with a contract killer named Solnick, who supposedly murdered the family, then got locked up for another job. Solnick's not interested in talking to JC about the family he killed in Bowery Bay, so JC threatens him with telling the gang leader who lives in his cell block that he killed his brother. Solnick gets that JC's like him: a killer, a genuine bad guy. "Then I don't have to explain what happened to those people on that boat. You already know." What JC says he doesn't know is why he let Theresa live. Solnick says he wouldn't have killed her even if they'd paid him his quote. He doesn't kill kids. But he told her that if anyone ever knew she was alive, he'd finish the job. He says he told some guy on his cellblock the same thing last week when he asked about it (which might explain why Theresa's suddenly in trouble; Solnick's blabbing his mouth about her being alive). JC asks who hired him to do it, and he says "some guy I met one time. No names. Cash." He asks who hired JC. That seems to end the conversation.
JC calls Finch. They understand now why folks know Theresa's alive, but not why anyone's after her. Finch thinks he might have a lead. He's come across one real estate investment that Grant Whitaker wasn't the sole investor in (he was sole in all the others). He bought a couple properties with a holding company called Landale. JC wants the address; he's on his way.
Surveillance footage shows us the guy getting offered his usual rate on surveillance footage earlier in the episode roughing up Deacon Page. JC, meanwhile, is outside Landale scoping it out. Finch says the head of Landale is a guy named Calhoun. JC says he's got a lot of security for a real estate developer. Then he notices Derek in Landale, and wonders why he'd turn up here. Finch says it will have to wait, because Theresa's just tried to sell those credit card numbers. He tracks down the building where the IP address she's selling from is located. JC finds her in a laundromat, and tells her she got him good last time. She starts to run again, but he says he knows what happened to her family, and he's not going to let anyone hurt her. The guy who was just roughing up Deacon clearly got the information he needed, because he comes up behind JC and tells him he shouldn't lie to kids. He points a gun at her, but JC fights him. The bad guy seems to be winning, and throws JC out the front window of the place. But once his gun's retrained on Theresa, JC sits up and shoots him in the chest. He takes off after Theresa, as the guy sits up and pulls off his bulletproof vest. JC catches Theresa and asks if she's going to trust him now. She says she doesn't know him, but he tells her she's got to trust someone. Oh, really, JC? Who exactly do you trust? It seems the only person in his life is Finch, and he's been stalking him to find out what he's hiding.
Surveillance footage puts us in a hotel, where JC shows Theresa to her room and tells her she's safe here. He says he ordered her room service. Then he asks if she's ever seen the guy who attacked her before, or if she knows what happened to her family. She doesn't know. He wonders if it has anything to do with her uncle, Derek, and if that's why she didn't go to him. She says she doesn't trust him because, before that man put a bullet in her dad's head, he said it was Derek's fault. Finch knocks on the door and JC lets him in. He tells Finch he used his card to book this nice place, and Finch shrugs, "I guess I could use the miles." You mean they're going to get out of New York someday? JC introduces Finch to Theresa as Harold, and says he's going to stay here and keep her safe, while JC is "going to pay a man a visit." Finch and JC talk in the hall. Finch hacked Derek's cell phone account, and the GPS is active but he's not answering. JC knows Landale's involved, but still isn't sure why they're still coming after Theresa. Finch tells his boyfriend not to dawdle as he heads out.
Derek comes out of a bar and his cell phone rings. It says "Grant Whitaker" is calling. Derek drops his keys and says, "What the hell?" JC walks up then and asks if Derek doesn't want to talk to his dead brother. He pushes Derek into his truck, and says he'll drive. Meanwhile, the bad guy from the laundromat is tapping into a phone call Elizabeth's making to Derek. She's telling him about the insurance guy wanting to talk to him about Grant's assets coming out of probate. Bad guy establishes a wiretap and ends up getting Derek's number.
JC takes Derek out to Bowery Bay, and throws him into the mud. He asks him if he remembers this place, where they dumped his brother's family into the water like chum. Derek wonders what the hell JC's talking about. JC says he's talking business, about Landale Financial, where Derek was yesterday. He goes on that he's talking about that deal Grant made for Greenpoint, a bunch of land out in Brooklyn ruined by an oil spill. Derek says he tried to help Grant, and JC says he helped him right into an early grave with no will, which means the land goes into probate and then to Derek. Derek says he was trying to help Grant. He swore Greenpoint was going to be worth a lot of money, but he didn't have enough to cover the costs, so Derek told him he knew these guys, Landale. Grant swore it would be "a ten-bagger" (whatever that means), as soon as the government cleaned it up. But it took the government too long, and Landale wanted the money out immediately. So they killed the whole family. The only reason they didn't kill Derek was because he's administer of probate. He says the kicker is that Grant was right, and the government came through. So the property's worth forty or fifty times what they put into it. JC realizes that's why they're coming after Theresa. She's the legal heir. Derek asks what JC's talking about; she's dead. JC says she's alive, no thanks to him. If he'd come forward and cleared Grant's name, she might not have had to spend the last two years in hiding. I don't really get his logic here. If he'd come forward, wouldn't the risk be that Calhoun and his guys would kill Derek and Theresa?
Back in the hotel room, Finch tells Theresa he spoke with her aunt, who is a lovely person. He says he didn't tell her about Theresa being alive. "But she did mention how much she missed you." He says there's no changing what happened to her family, but she still does have someone out there who loves her. She asks what he knows, and he tells her knows what it's like to lose someone and feel the need to disappear. But, trust him, you don't want to leave people behind.
Surveillance images cut us back to 2007, where Finch walks in and finds his business partner looking at the computer monitors. Disappointed, he asks Finch when he was going to tell him. Finch guesses he wasn't, because he'd rather he didn't know himself. His partner says he knew from this Machine that someone wanted to harm or kill all these people. "And you did nothing." Finch says they both knew what they were building: a Machine that looks for schemers and plotters. But the Machine doesn't know the difference between threats to national security and those that are irrelevant. His partner is disgusted at the use of the word "irrelevant," and asks Finch if he's trying to play God. He says he's not, but there are eight people in the world who know this Machine exists. If anyone else found out, there'd be such an outcry that they'd turn it off. He says the intelligence from the Machine has already foiled half a dozen terrorist plots. His partner asks how they are supposed to live with this, knowing they could save these people. Finch says they don't have to, because he's coding it to delete the irrelevant list every night. "We didn't build this to save somebody. We built it to save everybody." He shuts the monitors off.
JC calls Finch and fills him in on Greenpoint and what Landale's up to. JC says Calhoun's walking, and he's got to keep up with him. Finch says Theresa is too, and gets off the phone. He heads out into the hall and tells her he can't keep up with her, but sooner or later, she's going to have to trust someone. She thinks about it.
Derek's being tortured by the hired man. Derek says he can't kill him; they need him. The hit man says Derek's vastly overestimated his value, and asks one more time: "Where's the girl?" Derek tells him to kiss his ass, so the hit man kills him. JC, meanwhile, is watching Calhoun walking on the Greenpoint property with some other guy who's congratulating him on this wonderful piece of property, which the good people of Brooklyn deserve. Then there's Carter, who finds Derek's body with a picture of Theresa stuffed in his mouth.
Back at the hotel, Theresa has a few minutes alone and calls her aunt. The hit man stops on the street and checks the number. He picks up and listens as Elizabeth answers with a lot of "Hello" and "Who is this?" but no response on the other end. The number flashes on the hit man's screen, and he calls it right back. It's the Fenwick New York. He grins evilly.
Calhoun, meanwhile, is driving away from Greenpoint with a satisfied smile about whatever deal he just made with the other suit. But he looks up just in time to see a red dumptruck crash into the side of his car. JC steps out. This show has more and more shades of Batman in every scene, don't you think? From JC's Christian Bale-style whisper-growling to the truck crashes (not quite so spectacular as the truck flip scene in The Dark Knight, but still reminiscent). I'm not complaining, really. I actually sort of like that it's an homage. Finch and the Library are even thematically and aesthetically similar to Alfred and all Batman's lairs. Anyway, JC tells Calhoun he's sorry, but he really needs to watch where he's going. Calhoun's all, "Huh?" JC tells him to call off the dogs on Theresa Whitaker right now, but Calhoun says it's too late. JC tells Finch he's coming and to get off that floor right now. Finch tells Theresa they have to go, so the run out to the elevator, which is heading right toward their floor.
They run back into their room as the hit man exits the elevator. Finch watches through the peephole and sees the hit man going for the fuse box to cut out the hall lights. He'll see the lights in their room, so Finch tells her to turn them off. She does, and they close the door to the adjoining room, where the lights are blazing. That's the room the hit man focuses on, of course. In their room, Theresa tells Finch she told him they should have left. He says she did, and he's sorry. He asks for her phone, as the hit man busts down the door. You can hear them talking, saying, "He's right outside the door" but it's coming through the hotel room phone. Nice diversion, actually. They're already in the hall, but the elevator's too slow. They head into the janitor closet, but the janitor elevator isn't quick enough. Finch tries to get her to take the fire escape, but she won't go without him (and he can't go down it). Apparently she's found someone she trusts. As the hit man aims his weapon at her, he gets shot from the other hall and falls down dead. It's obviously our Savior, JC.
Carter's phone rings. It's JC's whisper-growl on the other end. He says she's been asking a lot of questions and asks if she wants to meet. She does. So she show up in a park with a bunch of backup. She tells them all to be careful, because this guy's as dangerous as they get. She looks around and finds no one that looks like JC. Eventually she sees Theresa, and asks her what she's doing here. Theresa asks if she's Detective Carter, and says her friends told her she could trust her. Theresa, disappointed, takes Theresa in. Some other cops arrest Calhoun elsewhere in the city. Carter questions Theresa about what JC looks like. She won't speak. Carter says the hotel staff may have seen two people coming and going, and might there have been anyone else helping her. Theresa says it was a pretty traumatic experience, and lies that she doesn't remember much at all. Then her aunt Elizabeth comes in looking for her and they have a tearful reunion.
As Roisin Murphy tells us "You can't hide from the truth, because the truth is all there is," JC walks through Finch's office to his empty cubicle. A blonde woman asks him if he's looking for Harold. JC asks if he's taking another personal day, but she says he's gone. Some say he left, others say he was laid off. "He didn't even say goodbye." JC's phone rings. He answers and tells Finch that he was thinking they were getting a little closer, "Harold." Finch says he already told him he's a very private person, and he has his reasons. JC asks if he's ever going to tell him those reasons. As he walks out the front door of the office building with a box of goods from his desk, Finch says, "Don't call me, Mr. Reese. I'll call you." Uh, isn't that what just happened? I guess he's just being cute. He stops in the lobby to look at a statue of his business partner's head (I thought it was Finch's in the recaplet, but now I realize what actually happened) that says, "In loving memory. 1962-2010. The founder." So I guess we have that backstory to continue to delve into, in addition to what happened with JC's girlfriend, Jessica. Let's hope that keeps this from getting too bogged down in procedural territory.
week: Another incomprehensible episode. What the preview reveals is that someone's number is up, so that means the Machine is trying to tell them something. And JC is a badass.
DeAnn, a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon, wonders if JC might have made a better Batman than Christian Bale. You can contact her at twopmodmars@gmail.com.