Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 231

Person of Interest: “A More Perfect Union,” “QSO,” and “Reassortment”

The last act of a story has to be lean and mean. The story’s first three acts (or two or four or whatever) have burned away everything but this final push, our protagonist in the crucible, and there’s only one real mandate: Fight Back.

In a hundred thousand word book, my last acts are usually around 15K sometimes less. That’s seven, eight, maybe ten scenes, tops, for my protagonist to pick herself up, get to the antagonist, and end the damn thing one way or another. This isn’t just for pacing purposes, this is for the reader/viewer, too. She’s waited a long time for this, so I don’t stop for anything else isn’t directly related to getting to that climax. This is the top of the roller coaster; don’t slow down on the final drop.

So PoI has burned off five of its episodes putting the Gang back together, reconstituting the Machine, and showing Shaw fighting her own battles. The three episodes that aired this week were textbook examples in (1) how not to tell a story in the last act, (2) a pretty good way to work the middle of the last act, and (3) how to do it absolutely right.

A More Perfect Union

Reese, Finch, and Root go to a wedding, which I suppose had potential but since all the juice in the story is Shaw going through a new simulation and Fusco on the trail of Samaritan’s missing people, the whole horse-drugging, ex-girlfriend bribing, assassin-coming-for-the-photographer-at-the-behest-of-the-least-likely-suspect is weak sauce because it has nothing to do with Samaritan. Even Root playing a caterer on a horse falls flat, as does Finch’s bizarre wedding song. The entire wedding plot is PoI treading water badly until the final reveals, which are stunning.

The real MVP here is Fusco, no longer the bumbling cop of compromised morals but a serious, skilled, focused detective determined to do his job. I would pause to admire this incredible character arc (and Kevin Chapman for embodying this character so thoroughly) but Fusco’s on the move, discovering the tunnel where Samaritan has been dumping the people it’s disappeared (a really clunky way to dispose of bodies), efficient and implacable and putting himself directly on the Machine’s radar because the damn Gang still won’t tell him what’s going on. Of the many tropes I hate, the “Don’t Tell X the Central Secret of the Story” is right up in the Top Ten. It’s not keeping Fusco safe to keep the Machine from him, it’s putting him in more danger, and he is understandably a little pissed about that.

Which I think is where the “More Perfect Union” title is going: the Gang is back but its perfect union is fragmenting. Root isn’t going to wait any more to find Shaw, Fusco isn’t going to follow mysterious directions any more, and the Machine is starting to assert its independence. Finch and Reese are still bonded, and probably will be until the bitter end, but it’s starting to look like every Gang Member for him or herself.

Also, Shaw is still going through hell, and I hate that kid.

QSO

“QSO” is the code for a contact between radio stations, sometimes just a signal, and of course that’s what Root does in the radio station as she tries to protect conspiracy nut/DJ Max, who discovers Samaritan’s code in his radio static. It’s not all tin foil hats; sometimes, as Max discovers, they really are out there.

“QSO” is a MUCH better episode: it starts in action and stays in action, in direct conflict with Samaritan, the number of the week directly in the path of the Evil AI. Or is it? Greer’s definitely trying to convince Shaw that Samaritan is at most a Necessary Evil, killing to prevent worse outcomes. BY this time, Shaw is into the seven thousands in simulations, and how she can tell real from simulated at this point is a problem. Hell, how WE can tell the real from the simulated is a problem, which is excellent because it puts us firmly in Shaw’s head.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Root is a ballerina to save a Russian who immediate proposes, a historical re-ennactment player churning butter in a mobcap to steal an EMP device, and a conspiracy nut/radio station producer to protect the new number, a nice guy named Max who’s discovered this weird code in his static . . . which is unfortunate for Max because it’s Samaritan’s code.

That leads to two interesting things: The Machine through Root explains to Max that as long as he lies/stays quiet about the code, he’ll be safe; Max is compelled to tell the truth, and Samaritan kills him. When Finch yells at the Machine for not saving Max, the Machine points out that Max had free will, which is pretty much the foundation of freedom. Free people get to choose, even if their choices are dumb. Samaritan rides roughshod over freewill, citing the Greater Good; the Machine honors freewill which gives it the boundaries that Samaritan does not have. Fince’s insistence on overriding Max’s free will to save his life and the Machine’s refusal to violate free will is the crux of the Machine/Samaritan conflict, leading to the conclusion that Finch is wrong, another crack in the edifice that is the Machine Gang.

Which brings us to the other interesting thing: Root tells the Machine that she must find Shaw now, and the Machine essentially hooks her up with Samaritan, leading her to the printer that is the Samaritan’s source of transmitting code in the radio station. Root speaks directly to the Machine, promising to go quietly if she will be taken to the place where Shaw is being held. Reese comes in and rescues her, but the connection is established and in the final shot, Root’s in the Machine’s yellow square, talking to her enamored Russian and looking at Russian missiles, having gotten a message through to Shaw. (I read somewhere that the Machine and Root planned Shaw’s escape, but all I saw was Root sending “4 Alarm Fire” (the way Shaw had described their potential romance before “a 4 alarm fire in an oil refineray”) as code for “I’m coming for you.”)

All of which means that no moment of this episode is wasted. Even with a compelling number of the week; the Gang is rushing headlong into its final conflict, which is exactly what it should be doing.

Reassortment

And then there’s this episode which is not only full of action, it’s full of everybody changing lanes: Root working on her own with her infatuated Russian, Fusco asking for and getting a transfer, and Shaw putting one in the center mass of the Machine Minion as she goes out the door to freedom, a changed woman.

But in the beginning, it’s back to work: There’s a sickly number heading for ER, the Machine is still losing all its simulations against the Machine, and Root really wants Finch to set the Machine free. Samaritan’s Reese (hereafter known as Jeff) has a bad lunch with an old girlfriend, Fusco goes to Elias to find out about the bodies, Shaw breaks out of a South African prison, the number dies from something horrible, and Jeff is asking questions which Samaritan will not like. We’re a third of the way through the episode and things haven’t stopped.

And yet they’re still fighting rear guard actions. Only Fusco is attacking Samaritan, and he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

But back to the number: He’s dead and now Reese and Finch are trapped in the ER with a virus and Samraitan’s Jeff on his way to the ER with two vials of tainted blood because the dead number is a Samaritan victim. I’d go on, but the bottom line is: The episode moves the way a fourth act beat should move: fast and full of consequence, propelling the protagonists toward that final showdown.

But the real kicker here is the emotion the episode evokes: the Samaritan-deluded admin who destroys the anti-viral vials for the Greater Good, the son-of-a-bitch Greer minion who plays chess with Shaw’s mind and loses, the nice guy in the prison refusing to leave his friends, the good cop in the ER, the bitch-minion who blackmails Jeff into staying with Samaritan, the thrill of Shaw’s escape made real by the announcement of the virus on the radio that she could not have known about, Fusco leaving the gang and the precinct and telling Reese he doesn’t want a partner who won’t tell him the truth, and above all, Elias and Finch fighting over full disclosure. Finch won’t read in anybody else to the truth of the struggle, but as Elias points out, he needs them all. Cutting Elias and Fusco out of loop weakens the Gang and strengthens Samaritan. Since Root is arguing the same thing about the Machine, Finch is beset on all sides, and Elias’s final words to him are quiet but ominous.

Ominous Moment

Elias: “You know what your problem is, Harold? Underneath all the intellect you’re the darkest of all of us . . . I just hope I’m not around the day that pot finally boils over.”

New PoI Post

Two more next week and then three weeks with just one episode–SO much easier to talk about just one–and then PoI is done, which is a damn shame, especially with so much dreck out there now. And then they cancelled “Limitless” which I loved, damn it. Not to mention the already axed Galavant and Agent Carter. Idiots. They’re all idiots.

June 2: “Sotto Voce” and “The Day the World Went Away.”

June 9: “Synecdoche”

June 16: “exe”

June 23: “Return 0”

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Wear the Towel, Carry the Lilac . . .

Today is an extremely important day in the Argh Universe because it’s Wear the Lilac and Carry Your Towel Day. And this year is especially poignant because we lost the guy who wrote the lilacs, Terry Pratchett, and the guy who voiced the robot who worked for the people who carried the towels, Alan Rickman.

Towel Day is held in honor of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy. We lost Adams fourteen years ago (that doesn’t seem possible), but his work will never die, especially Marvin the gloomy robot as voiced by late and much-loved Alan Rickman:

Wear the Lilac Day comes from the Discworld Books, but it became an informal part of the fight against Alzheimer’s when its creator, Terry Pratchett, was diagnosed with the disease in 2007. We lost him this past year, but it’s a small comfort that he met Death on his own terms, as described in Pratchett’s Twitter feed which announced his end:

Carry your towel (thank you, Douglas Adams), wear the lilac (thank you, Terry Pratchett), and try not to weep (although Marvin would, thank you, Alan Rickman). They may be gone, but as Pratchett said in Reaper Man, “No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…”

They’re gonna live forever.

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Book Done Yet? No, I’m Fighting With the Antagonist

I was talking with Mollie today, trying to explain what was going on with the book and the reason I can never say when a book will be finished, if ever, and I explained why sitting out in the yard and crocheting today was actually working.

Because I’m having antagonist problems.

I never know who the antagonist is going to be when I start a story. It’s a miracle if I get the protagonist right. So then I write stuff, mostly dialogue (this will not be news to most of you by now) and stuff happens and I have no idea why. I knew Nita ate a poisoned doughnut, I didn’t know who gave it to her or why it was important. I knew somebody burgled Nita’s house, I didn’t know why. I knew somebody shot Joey, I didn’t know who hired the hit or why.

But sooner or later, I need to know these things because the antagonist shapes the story. As I explained to Mollie (who probably just wanted to hear “It’ll be done by September”) with no antagonist, the protagonist just makes a beeline for her goal. Of course, Nita didn’t have a goal, either, so that had to be solved by making her manic about finding out who killed Joey, but then who doesn’t want her to find out? And why is this person poisoning her with doughnuts, robbing her house, and sending mutant goats after her? The answers to these questions shape the whole story so I kinda need to know them about now.

This led me to crochet in the garden (if you can call a collection of weeds in bloom a garden, but I digress) where I stared into space as I worked on a jacket and tried to sort out my antagonists, minions, red herrings, and complications (because there can be only one antagonist, sort of like Highlanders). My original roughed-in antagonist was Mammon, but then I met him. Mammon is a pain in the ass, but he wouldn’t try to kill Nita, he’s a political animal. So maybe Moloch: Moloch would try to kill her, but he’s such a dickhead (he’s Mammon’s minion and betraying him anyway) that I think Nita can take care of him, no problem. He’s still in there being a dickhead, and he thinks he’s the antagonist, but there’s somebody using him.

Which gives me a matryoshka antagonist. You think it’s Mammon, but when you open him up, it’s Moloch. But then you open him up and it’s X, and then you open again, and what you have is a lot of people using each other to get different goals, until at the end, Nita comes face to face with the real power behind the conflict. I know who that is, I think. What I don’t know is EVERYTHING ELSE.

Like Lieutenant Chinamin; she’s hinky. (Did anybody notice I have a Chinaman, a secret passage/hellgate, and twins in here? Because that was not easy to pull off.) And then there’s Nita’s mother and grandmother who are both nuts but on opposite sides and Nita’s great grandmother, and what the hell are Brad and Thad Lemon doing, and who are the Guys in Suits (I may not have put that part up yet) and is Vinnie on the level and what’s Joey doing in Hell now that he’s in Paradise (spirit only, but still) and what does that mean, spirit only? Also how did Joyce get there and will she get along with Stripe? And who hired somebody to kill Daglas and torture Rabiel? (It’s okay, the bad guys end up much worse than Our Boys.) And where the hell is that hellgate?

I know there’s a strong, conservative Demon-Firster contingent in Hell that’s been making life miserable for Nick, and Mammon’s been using them without really buying into their belief. When they go too far for Mammon, Moloch’s still there and he does buy into it and used them to get what he wants. But what that has to do with the island is beyond me at the moment, mainly because I’m still not entirely clear on why Mammon and three other demons manipulated humans into populating the island. I’m thinking it was for political gain because it’s all politics for Mammon, but I’m not sure how that works exactly. “Support me and I’ll get you a vacation on Demon Island.” Doesn’t seem all that great.

Then the opposite would be a Never-Demon contingent on the island, except that very few people on the island know that demons exist. So maybe not that. And there’s a female demon who’s angling to be Devil, and I do NOT want her collated with Hilary Clinton (yeah, I’m With Her since Bernie turned out to be terrible under pressure) or any other female in power. I think I need two factions at war with each other and eventually with Nita and Nick since they’re trying to keep the island safe, but I don’t know what they are or why they’re on the island.

I know that somebody wanted Joey dead so he couldn’t tell Nick something important. Somebody wants stuff from Nita’s house, and in the next draft wants her dead. Somebody poisons doughnuts so islanders with a lot of demon blood will die. Somebody sics a very large mutant goat on Nita and then tries to kill her on a dark street. Demons are being killed–Furcas and the old Wainscotts, for example. I JUST DON’T KNOW WHY.

So I’m going to keep crocheting, staring into space, and moving things around in my mind and on graph paper until I get it. This may cut down on Argh Ink posts in the meanwhile, although I’m aiming for a rewrite for next Sunday’s secret link. I figure you’d rather have that than posts anyway, although the PoI post will appear as soon as the episodes appear in my inbox.

And now back to the WiP to write more direct attacks on Nita. Because “this time it’s personal” is really good for a protagonist/antagonist conflict. And maybe if she wrestles one of this assholes to the ground, she can find out why they’re trying to kill her. I’ll take all the help I can get.

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Cherry Saturday 5-21-2016

Today is Waitresses and Waiters Day.

Tip generously. You would not believe the crap they have to put up with.

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Book Done Yet? Thinking About Tone

One of the things a discovery draft discovers is tone (“the general character or attitude of a place, piece of writing”), which is very close to but not the same as mood (“a distinctive emotional quality or character”). So think of them as attitude and emotion, it you will. The tone of Fast Women is fairly dark, the tone of Bet Me is much lighter and snappier, but I think Bet Me is the more emotional book, and I think Faking It is deeper emotionally than either of them, even though the tone is lighter than both of them. The thing is, I can’t plan tone and mood, they just show up and I have to hope they’re in a good relationship with each other even if they’re very different.

Sometimes the tone is right there from the beginning; the “Cold Hearts” WiP has a screwball tone to it and that’s not gonna change. But sometimes it’s not there, and part of the discovery is finding out what the hell kind of book this is. I think that’s one of the problems with You Again: it’s all over the damn place, plotted as dark but veering into a much lighter tone about 50% of the time. It doesn’t know what it wants to be yet, so it’s resting. I thought the Paradise Park/Monday Street stories were going to be light but they veered dark. That’s fine with me, I just have to cope with how to conceptualize them now.

Which brings us to Nita, which I’ve been struggling with, trying to find that tone. The parts I like best are fast and sharp and angry, not a light tone but not Fast Women dark, either. It’s not screwball (I love screwball, it’s just not turning out to be that), but it’s something else.

And then I realized: It’s a smart-ass buddy cop story, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as romcom (which Kiss Kiss Bang Bang actually was since Harry and Perry should definitely have ended up as a couple). The lovely thing that about that approach is you can do anything, no high is too high, no low is too low, and still deliver an emotional story. (In case you can’t tell, huge Shane Black fan here; see also Lethal Weapon 1 and Iron Man 3 and one of my favorite movies of all time, the aforementioned Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, plus the upcoming The Nice Guys which looks wonderful.)

So the tone in the beginning is off because Nita’s sick and depressed and I was going for realism. The tone in the bar with Vinnie is better because Nick is not depressed and while he’s too focused to be a smart-ass, it’s there underneath. So Nita is going to have to carry the smart-ass weight until Nick gets up to speed later. I think that’s why I like the middle stuff I posted last week: that’s the tone of the book. There’s a huge blow-up scene with her mother in the bar that’s like that, too, and I’ve been putting off rewriting it because even though it’s hopeless in its current state, it just moves so well; the content is off but the tone is dead on.

The big relief in realizing it’s the tone I’m missing is that now I know I can swing wide in this early draft and pull it back later if I go too far. It’s definitely better to go too far than not far enough, which is the problem with the first scene now.

More cogitation is needed of course, but I’m happy with this. Step Three: PROGRESS.

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Person of Interest: “6741” and “ShotSeeker”

So the first move after the crisis is the reset: the protagonist picks herself up and charges back into the fray, changed irrevocably from where she began and now determined to bring down the antagonist and achieve her goal or die trying. (Since this is Person of Interest, “die trying” is not an exaggeration.) And the first three episodes of Season Five did this: the five remaining Gang members (I’m counting Bear) are relatively safe back in their undiscovered subway lair (or in Fusco’s case, the police station), the Machine is relatively back to normal (big asterisk on that one), and the numbers are coming again. So this is the time for the Gang to move from recovery to assault; this is the last act and it has to move swiftly. And with “6741” and “ShotSeeker,” it does.

6741

The opening is Shaw getting chipped by Samaritan, with a lot of As You Know dialogue, but that’s so much better than flashbacks, I’m okay with it. She’s still a bad ass, but she’s up against huge forces. So when she escapes, you have to wonder, is this part of Samaritan’s plan? I vote yes; that boat is just too damn convenient. Love Shaw’s “I’m towing bad news behind me.” You’re not paranoid if a giant AI really is out to get you. And Shaw unchipping herself is as badass as we expect, especially when the AI fights back. Also loving killing Bobby Jackson.

All right, I just love Shaw.

And bam she makes the action happen. This episode moves. They capture Greer, they find a USB drive that they think is Samaritan’s kill switch, and then Shaw becomes a time bomb they can’t desert while Greer plays mind games to his detriment. The paranoia here is excellent because even Shaw doesn’t know if she’s a traitor. But then Reese dies and all the other slightly-wrong things start to add up–Finch is too robotic, Reese would never turn his back on Shaw, Greer is captured too easily, there’s no reason to put a kill program in Greer’s arm–and I realized it was all in Shaw’s head. That’s the problem with Gotchas, I thought . . . and then it wasn’t a Gotcha, it wasn’t Shaw hallucinating or dreaming. It was story, in this case a vicious simulation, the six thousand seven hundred forty-first that Samaritan has put Shaw through since she was captured. And the stakes skyrocketed when I thought they couldn’t get any higher, and I was outraged and . . . this is one of the best episodes this show has ever done.

They better get in there and rescue Shaw, that’s all I’ve got to say. (Anybody else get a callback to “Awakening” in Angel, Season Four?)

Smart Story Moves

• Casting Sarah Shahi.

• The chip in Shaw’s brain is an outstanding way to weaken a superhero. Plus bringing Shaw back into the fold even though she’s possibly a Trojan Horse, and making her hostile. And hot for Root, which was overdue. And finding a natural Faraday cage and another great lair. But mostly, moving the episode at the speed of light, every move fraught with meaning and danger.

• And then making it all a simulation, the 6741st attack on Shaw’s brain, which made it even more devastating. There wasn’t a wrong move in all of “6741.”

• Most interesting thing from a story wonk point of view: Knowing that everything in the episode was part of a simulation doesn’t make any of the details less important or compelling because they’re Shaw’s details from Shaw’s memory; what they want her to do is Samaritan-directed but her interactions with the Gang are not. For example, she never betrays the subway, even though she doesn’t consciously realize it’s a simulation.

• Best evidence that this is superb story-telling: It’s even better when you watch it the second time.

Favorite Moments

• Bear being so excited to see Shaw, and “Stay here with me,” even if it did turn out to be a simulation. Just knowing that those were the things Shaw clung to was devastating.

ShotSeeker

And then there’s another number of the week episode but this one is integrated into the bringing-down-Samaritan plot with a victim who is not only skilled but willing to rush into danger to save somebody he admires, all of which means that it moves fast and we care. There’s so much in this one–the ShotSeeker program, Garvin’s exceptional ear, Samaritan’s new recruit who has no idea he’s working for evil, Fusco’s passionate desire to find Reese, Reese’s passionate desire to protect Fusco, Elias’s foster brother entering to gum up the works, the Machine running simulations against Samaritan ten billion times and losing every time–that it just zings. And then the bonus at the end that Elias is still with us. He may be a murderous mob boss, but he’s our murderous mob boss.

The thing that really struck me about this episode is how much it leaves unsaid but still clear, including the fact that Samaritan not only has eyes everywhere, it now has ears, too, thanks to ShotSeeker. And the big unspoken reveal is that Samaritan has now elevated protecting itself above protecting the Greater Good. That is, in the past it’s executed people like Dominic and Elias because they were disruptions to normal life. But Garvin is not a disruption, he’s important to preserving the peace, his work with ShotSeeker is a huge benefit to the police force. And yet Samaritan moves to eliminate him because he’s investigating a disappearance that Samaritan is responsible for. Samaritan had decided that the Greater Good means protecting itself at all costs.

And then there’s the Little Machine that Could, running ten billion simulations and losing every one but learning an immense amount about Samaritan as it loses. When Root tells Finch to give her defenses, and Finch says that the Machine is smarter than he is and it must design its own defenses, it’s a dead giveaway that the Machine is doing exactly that.

Now go get Shaw.

Smart Story Moves

• Tying everything in this multi-thread story back to Samaritan.

• Using all the story moves to bond the Gang even more.

• Releasing the food program to scientific journals but leaving open whether the results will be good or bad, reinforcing that nothing the Machine Gang does is ever simple any more.

• Using that annoying “Don’t tell Fusco” plotline to put Fusco in danger as Samaritan logs him as a potential threat.

Favorite Moments

• Elias!

Ominous Moment

• ShotSeeker is listening . . . to everything.

New PoI Post

May 26: “A More Perfect Union,” “QSO,” and “Reassortmentr”

June 2: “Sotto Voce” and “The Day the World Went Away.”

June 9: “Synecdoche”

June 16: “exe”

June 23: “Return 0”

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Person of Interest: “B.S.O.D,” “SNAFU,” “Truth Be Told, ” and the Beginning of the End

So here’s the problem with last acts: You have to pick up after the splat of the crisis (“Oh, my god, we’ve lost!”) and show how the protagonist charges back into action without stopping to explain too much. My favorite solution to this is one from an old radio series (although this may be apocryphal) about Jack Armstrong who at the crisis point falls into a tiger pit and is surrounded by snarling cats who advance on him . . . followed by “Tune in next week!” Then the next week begins, “After Jack Armstrong got out of the tiger pit . . .”

But 2016 has a much pickier audience than the 1930s, so there’s no “after the Machine Gang escaped from the Samaritan forces,” PoI has to show how they did that, which gives us “B.S.O.D.” aka, “The Blue Screen of Death,” which is what you get when a computer (and a big plan to save the world) crashes.

I recognize that the PoI writers had to cram a helluva lot of explanation into this first episode, but it still feels “As You Know” heavy, crammed too full of action with lucky breaks.

B.S.O.D.



The problems started for me with the very beginning which I strongly suspect is schmuckbait: Root talking over a black screen in 2016, intoning that she doesn’t know where anybody is:

“If you can hear this, you’re alone. The only thing left of us is the sound of my voice. I don’t know if any of us made it. Did we win? Did we lose? I don’t know. I’m not even sure I know what victory would mean anymore. But either way, it’s over. So let me tell you who we were. Let me tell who you are. And how we fought back.”

Or possibly it’s the Machine using Root’s voice. Or it’s Root and she’s part of the Machine now. Obviously, the writers don’t care, they’re just trailing bait in the water, hoping we’ll go for it.

Then the show flashes back to 2015, which is when our Gang was under fire, and I realized that this entire season is going to be a flashback.

Okay, the writers are stuck with that; if they have to pick up where they left off last year, they’re in 2015, and if the entire series is set then, it’s not a flashback at all until you start with a voiceover in the present, dummies. This is probably where I should confess that I hate flash-forward intros ten times as much as I hate flashbacks, so we’re talking passion of a thousand firey suns here. So they could have skipped the “Oh-my-god-everything-is-lost” beginning and just picked up the action, but instead they do flashbacks within the flashback that isn’t really a flashback because the whole thing is a flashback . . . . Okay, what I really hate is the schmuckbait, the idea that the viewing audience is sitting there going “What if they’re defeated????” Look, we know this show. We know it’s entirely possible that they’ll be defeated, that some of them will die. So doing the Ominous Flash Forward of Doom is unnecessary, not to mention flat-out annoying. The only good thing about it is that if that’s Root, at least she survives. Except that might be the Machine using her voice. SO ANNOYING.

But even with its flaws, there are still wonderful moments in this episode, including how bonded Finch, Reese, and Root are. I loved Root telling Finch that the Machine must be good because he built it; it’s a testimony to how far they’ve come and what a close relationship they now have, one of the few male/female friendships on screen that has no romantic subtext. They just believe in each other and in the work they’re doing, and it’s great. Reese coming after Root after he’s gotten Finch and the Machine to safety is another great community move; as he tells Finch “We don’t leave a man behind,” so clearly Root is one of the boys he’s going to protect. And when he finds her under fire and tells her to escape to help Finch, and she refuses to go and fights beside him, it’s another big moment written small. Meanwhile, Fusco, who is still in the dark about the Machines, finds himself navigating very tricky territory while trying to stay honest, even though Reese tells him he either lies or dies. Fusco as the moral center of the story is probably the strongest part of this episode: he’s totally at sea and still pursuing the truth. And any story that can make me tear up at the sight of a cursor on a screen is doing something very right. So a slow start with some annoying misfires, but a solid one nonetheless.

SNAFU

So we’ve gotten our protagonists out of the line of fire and into their subway lair, now it’s time to raise the Machine.

This episode was a little odd for me because it’s so damn funny. The world is on the brink of an AI apocalypse, but the Machine’s problems with its facial recognition software, which is a major drawback, is played for laughs in a great series of shots where she mixes personalities with voices, which is genius because these actors are all excellent and they’ve been playing these roles for years so they really know each other’s characters. (I could have SWORN I’d seen this before, though. Am I losing my mind?) Reese in a bowling shirt is also good value. But this humor is also just odd in itself, and it works that way: the world is a lot weirder now, they all have to pretend to be people they aren’t, and the fact that they’re spinning into Earth 2 territory kind of fits with the absurdity of the horror they’re facing. And there’s also the giddiness of successfully avoiding Death By Samaritan.

Which is short-lived. The Machine comes online as an open system with dangerous glitches like the facial recognition software, ut the worst is its inability to contextualize, which means that it sees the Gang as the killers they are and tries to eliminate them. Hello, worst AI nightmare: it’s going to turn on us. Plus the Machine isn’t the only one with a glitch: Finch keeps seeing Grace where she’s not. Making the glitches personal takes the cold tech out of the series reboot as the Machine reboots.

My big question: When the good ex-con gets hired by Mona, is that Samaritan or the Machine setting up its own Gang? The general consensus is that it’s Samaritan, but using the same words that Finch used to hire Reese.

One other thing: I will admit when I saw Amy Acker in the Girl Scout uniform at the picnic, I rolled my eyes because it seemed like basic “hot school girl” vanilla porn, but then I found out about her badges:

At which point I fell in love with the PoI writers all over again. There’s the ax from the escape from Wall Street, and a nice one for kneecapping, a gun of course, and best of all, a rainbow. Shoot forever.

Truth Be Told

The opening here–Finch and Greer’s voice interchanging over the images–is chilling. “You asked for this . . .”

But the story is oddly weightless. Reese’s number is looking for the truth about his brother’s death, his brother was a traitor and Reese killed him, but Reese lies to him and tells him his brother was a hero. But I don’t care about the number or the brother, and remember this is a show that can make me cry over a cursor on a screen. Plus huge coincidence that Reese is the one who killed the brother. Then John telling Iris that he can’t see her any more is so unemotional that even Iris doesn’t seem upset. (I never liked Iris, so I cheered when she left. Where’s Zoe?)

On the other hand, Root as a UPS APS driver is worth a lot, and it’s a fun way of introducing the wonky plot point that Samaritan is affecting all the devices it can get its digital hands on.

So if the first three episodes are the beginning of the end, what have they set up?

The first and biggest idea is the difficulty of telling good from evil, something that goes straight back to the pilot when everybody assumed the pretty District Attorney was the victim and she turned out to be the perpetrator. These Season Five episodes seem to rest on the idea that nobody is all good or all evil; as Finch says, most people are just trying to do the best they can. That also goes back to Greer, who trusts Samaritan to keep the world safe far more than he trusts people; he really is trying to make the world a better place, and if that means killing some people, well, hey, the Machine Gang does that, too. Person of Interest was never really black-and-white, but it’s a lot grayer this season.

The second and more ominous idea is that it’s time for metamorphosis, which seems to be foreshadowing the Machine becoming something else along with everybody in the Gang. I think the Machine has a target on its screen, but it may not be death that’s coming for it, it may be an evolution into something completely different. The characters in this story have traversed huge arcs–they’re all (barring Finch and Bear) murderous loner/sociopaths who have not only learned to shoot people in the knees instead of the hearts, but have bonded into a family (that picnic) willing to die for each other–but they are still essentially the same people–computer genius, computer genius, hired gun, hired gun, cop–so the foreshadowing of the first three episodes seems to indicate that they’ll transform, cocoon into butterfly, and become something greater.

Of course, that could also mean death. Go back to Root’s flash forward:

“If you can hear this, you’re alone. The only thing left of us is the sound of my voice. I don’t know if any of us made it. Did we win? Did we lose? I don’t know. I’m not even sure I know what victory would mean anymore. But either way, it’s over. So let me tell you who we were. Let me tell who you are. And how we fought back.”

I don’t for a minute think they all died. (Schmuckbait.) But what this does seem to foreshadow is that they transformed. I’m willing to bet that Samaritan and the Machine merge rather than fight each other, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Root becomes one with the Machine, giving it her voice. But really? That’s all schmuckbait, a hook that has no meaning because of course they fought back, and of course it will be over at the end, this is the final season. So they’ll transform, some by death, some by uniting with the Machine, some by starting entirely new lives, completely untethered by what’s gone before.

Or not. I really have no idea what’s going on here, but it’s the Machine Gang, so I’ll keep watching.

Weakest Parts

• Flashforward. Flashbacks. Flashbacks within flashbacks.

• All that As You Know Dialogue.

• How does Reese keep surviving these horrible car crashes?

Smart Story Moves

• The glitchy openings through the Machine.

• Showing the team so firmly bonded; they’re not going to waste time wondering if Root will turn on them.

• The story’s use of low-value tech, something they’ve done throughout (the Machine contacts them through phones, the TV antennas, etc.)and something that Samaritan in its efficiency might not include in its calculations.

• The Machine seeing the Gang as the killers they are. It’s a nice acknowledgement of the carnage they’ve unleashed in their pursuit of salvation.

• Finch talking to the Machine. If it wasn’t a full-fledged character before, if theirs wasn’t a character-to-character relationship before, it’s real now.

• Using the previous numbers to site the Machine in time and site the show back in its original premise: saving people.

• Root taking the “enormous risk” by loading the Samaritan malware onto the laptop. “It’s no risk, no reward, Harry,” which is going to take them out of defensive mode, never as exciting as offensive mode.

Favorite Moments

• Root’s shopping list, then kissing Finch on the cheek, and then the slap on the butt.

• The heist. Finch as a badass in a ski mask is a wonderful moment. “I’m getting felony nerves.” Then a Finch/Reese fist bump. (Remember when the Obamas did that and Fox called it a terrorist sign? Idiots.)

• Bunny Slippers

• Bear with Bunny Slippers.

• Root’s bedroom in the subway.

• The Machine trying to recognize them.

• Fusco inviting Reese to join his bowling league.

• The Machine hiring a hit woman to kill the Reese-threat, which ups a funny glitch to real danger.

• Bear standing guard over the sleeping Root.

• Fusco’s phone message: “The Fuscinator can’t answer the phone right now . . .”

• “You’re no cop.” “I’m trying.”

• The picnic, especially Root’s badges.

Ominous Moment

The Schmuckbait, which is really lazy Ominous Writing.

New PoI Post

I get the episodes the day after they’re shown, so I’ll probably post on them the day after that, so two days after broadcast. I have no idea what craft topic I’ll be looking at until I watch that week’s episodes a couple of times, so the list below is just dates and episode names. We’re flying blind here, folks.

May 19: “6741” and “ShotSeeker”

May 26: “A More Perfect Union,” “QSO,” and “Reassortmentr”

June 2: “Sotto Voce” and “The Day the World Went Away.”

June 9: “Synecdoche”

June 16: “exe”

June 23: “Return 0”

The post Person of Interest: “B.S.O.D,” “SNAFU,” “Truth Be Told, ” and the Beginning of the End appeared first on Argh Ink.

Sunday Notes

So I’ve been thinking about pieces and wholes.

Take this house. It has too much stuff in it. I know exactly what I want it to be as a whole–a warm, colorful cottage–but the only way to do that is to fix the pieces, clear out each room, finish painting, clean the place, and bake cupcakes (okay, the last one is just to make me feel whole). It’s just that it’s overwhelming. So today I’m going to try fifteen minutes in each room. I think that’s a Fly Lady thing. Just some progress, that’s all I ask.

Then there’s the book I’m not writing. I e-mailed with Lani and Krissie this week, trying to figure out where the book will start, and Lani rightly said, “Okay, who’s the protagonist, who’s the antagonist, what are the goals . . .” The thing that really surprised me is that she thought Nick was the protagonist because he’s the one with the clearest goal. Nita is the protagonist, but because I gave her a negative goal, she has a blah first scene and no drive. (When I will learn to stop with the depressed heroines with negative goals? Seems like I fight this battle with myself in every book.) So I looked through some of the later scenes in the book to see what Nita’s like when she’s not suffering from poisoned doughnuts and ennui, and realized that she’s very take-charge and driven to protect the people on what she considers her island.

Which made me think about islands. If you’re a control freak cop, an island with only two ways in or out is paradise. And anything new that enters that paradise would be seen as a serpent unti it’s folded into the general concept of “my island.” Nita’s problem is that she sees the island as a whole, a thing she knows and understands completely, and then realizies there’s a lot more to it. She missed that part because she didn’t understand the pieces. Nick understands the pieces, but he keeps finding more pieces. He can handle each piece, but he has a harder time seeing the whole. Nita has a firm grasp on the whole, but she can’t see the pieces. So that’s one thing to move toward: Nick toward seeing the whole and Nita finally seeing the pieces she’s missed. Except that’s backward. Nick is the admin of Hell. He’d be a big picture guy, delegating pieces. Nita would be working with people on a one-to-one basis. Must cogitate on this.

Sort of like writing a book. I don’t write in chronological order, so I see pieces. Then at some point, I have to put them all together to get an idea of the whole. I think trying to get the beginning right is impossible without knowing the whole, but I also think that for myself, I have to get Nita’s opening at least close to right. She’s My Girl, I need her entering stage left with fury and purpose, not bitching and moaning. Nick’s wrong in that first scene with her, too; Lani pointed out that he reminded her of Lucifer from the TV show, which isn’t surprising since that’s where I started, but he’s not like that at all. Looking at them from later in the book is a big help, but mostly I just need to get a grip on who they are in the middle of the book so I can get a better grip on who they are at the beginning.

In other news, my internet is wonky today, so it’s taking forever to post anything. If I disappear for while, that may be why. Grrrr.

And now back to the middle of the book so I can rewrite the beginning. Chronology is for wimps. (Kidding.) (Kind of.) (Really going to make cupcakes now.)

The post Sunday Notes appeared first on Argh Ink.

Cherry Saturday 5-14-2016

It’s National Dance Like A Chicken Day.

You know what to do.

The post Cherry Saturday 5-14-2016 appeared first on Argh Ink.

Book Done Yet? Nope.

Still trying to figure out how to fix the beginning.

Still figuring out the antagonist’s big plan.

Still trying to get the yard work done and the dogs to the vet and the laundry . . . never mind.

And now back to the WiP.

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