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Metropolis
Apr 6, 2006
This show was a hell of a ride. I still remember the days in season one when everyone was all "Wait a second guys, I think this show is actually trying to be good. And they're kinda doing it?" I was not expecting them to go so deep with the premise of the machine. And then the show actually became popular enough for us to not have to worry about it getting canceled after 1 or 2 seasons.

I would have rather had a full season to close out on, but we got what we got and I'm glad. I do think this truncated season was still better than season 4. The ideal world never happens for a TV show. They had to deal with things like Nolan being busy with other things, Taraji Hensen leaving, Shahi getting pregnant, Caviezel being struck by lightning while crucified and struggling to relearn how to act, losing NCIS as a lead-in, CBS being the CBS that they are, etc. Instead of thinking about the missed potential I'll say hats off to everyone involved for not letting any bullshit stop them from making a drat good show for five years. Rolling with the punches like that is what separates the greats from the almost-greats.

This show had great use of music. POI is old enough that it started in the era of "every drama episode ends with a sappy montage to a song" but they never abused that. You could play any song that played in the show and anyone who watched could tell you when that song played. Afraid of Americans, Hurt, Sinnerman, Fortune Days, Welcome to the Machine, The Day the World Went Away. I'll always think of this show when I hear those songs now. And the score by Ramin Djawadi was great. Just the right amount of emotional, paranoia-inducing, bombastic and overblown to set the show apart from its non-badass counterpart crime shows.

John went out like a loving boss. Capping waves of goons with a big smile on his face, until he eventually got shot a bunch of times, then kept gunning down fools until he got chewed apart by machine gun fire then getting blown up by a cruise missile. We can all but hope to die so well.

As cool as a spinoff would be I have no idea where they'd take it. I am sure they could come up with something if they really wanted. But really how do you take the number-of-the-week premise and end up topping two battling super AIs that have both infected the entire world? The show can still work on a smaller scale though.

I am going to miss you, POI threads. I didn't post much but I've read every post starting from season 1. You guys hardly ever got bitchy or stupid for too long, and that may not sound like much but it's very high praise for any long-running show's thread anywhere on the internet. Seeing other people's reactions, thoughts, jokes, and predictions really added to my enjoyment of the show.

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Slamhound
Mar 27, 2010

pik_d posted:

TALAMANTES
TALAMAS
TALAS
TALLAS
TALLIS

I''d say due to the spacing, it's gotta be John Talas.
Could be Talents. Like in the Parable.

JossiRossi posted:

Decima were there to guard him, after all this was the man who was going to secure Samaritan got the gov't feeds. He was never in any danger. The machine spit out his number as the potential cause of a lot of deaths, the only solution to which was killing him.
If he was never in any danger, then guard him from whom? And again, if he's the potential cause of a lot of deaths, that would make him Relevant and the Machine would have given it to Northern Lights/Indigo. Team Machine only gets Irrelevants.

bring back old gbs
Feb 28, 2007

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

pik_d posted:

TALAMANTES
TALAMAS
TALAS
TALLAS
TALLIS

I''d say due to the spacing, it's gotta be John Talas.

uhhh Talbot?

lol where is this definitive list of names coming from??

pik_d
Feb 24, 2006

follow the white dove





TRP Post of the Month October 2021

bring back old gbs posted:

uhhh Talbot?

lol where is this definitive list of names coming from??

Just having some fun, someone posted a link to a generic list of last names, The gravestone says TAL, and Zaggit said we saw the last letter is 's' in season 1.

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

bring back old gbs posted:

uhhh Talbot?

lol where is this definitive list of names coming from??

Just some dumb website I found that had a list of last names.

Talas makes sense because TAL______S So first 3 letters are TAL and last 1 is S. Plus it fits on the tombstone.

bring back old gbs
Feb 28, 2007

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

pik_d posted:

Just having some fun, someone posted a link to a generic list of last names, The gravestone says TAL, and Zaggit said we saw the last letter is 's' in season 1.

Hollismason posted:

Just some dumb website I found that had a list of last names.

Talas makes sense because TAL______S So first 3 letters are TAL and last 1 is S. Plus it fits on the tombstone.

Never knew bout the last letter being an S, yeah I guess that'd be it.

violetdragon
Jul 27, 2006

RAWR

Sober posted:

If you can hear this, you're alone.

The only thing left of me 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.

But either way it's over. So let me tell us who we were. Let me you who you are.

Someone once asked me if I had learned anything from it all. So let me tell you what I learned:

I learned everyone dies alone.

But if you meant something to someone...

If you helped someone...

Or loved someone...

If even a single person remembers you...

... then maybe you never really die.

And maybe...

... this isn't the end at all.

I can't stop sobbing. :[

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013
The Man in the Suit should have been John Taylor :colbert:

The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
some of the best TV I've seen. season 1 was, hah, by the numbers, but it's been really incredible since episode three.

Ignis
Mar 31, 2011

I take it you don't want my autograph, then.


quote:

Just to clarify, does the Machine still have Root's voice? Or is it back to being voiceless?
Nolan: The Machine is still Root. Because of how the finale works, there's not a lot of time to get to it, but the idea being that the Machine has been destroyed, and [is] rising out of the ashes of it all. It's going to be holding on to certain pieces of what it left behind; a code it leaves to decipher who it was, which is why the season began with essentially the Machine telling the Machine who it was, in an effort to jump start that conversation. Like an amnesiac coming to, and finding notes that remind it who it was, and point it in the direction of [the team]—in posterity, here are the people you're going to work with. So by the time Shaw picks up the phone, she is talking once again to Root as the Machine. That team, that pairing, which is such a fantastic pairing, goes forward.

:unsmith:

Slamhound
Mar 27, 2010

Ignis posted:

quote:

in posterity, here are the people you're going to work with.




Don't know who Asian Kid, 11th Doctor, and Mirror Santa are, but sounds good.

Dr Kool-AIDS
Mar 26, 2004

I know the short season/cancellation is unpopular with a lot of the show's fans, but I think the short season and even the schedule fuckery (once it actually started airing) really added to the sense of urgency. A full season might have been able to bring back a couple more characters from previous seasons, but it would have had a lot more filler that would have slowed everything down too. This was the last network show I was watching, so maybe I'm biased, but the idea that any show actually needs 22 episodes to tell a story seems ridiculous to me. Obviously if you love the characters and the world of the show and enjoyed the number of the week episodes, you may have wanted more just to have more, but I think 13 was a blessing in disguise.

Generic American
Mar 15, 2012

I love my Peng


You know, alongside the praise that everyone else has already said... I'm really glad that they managed to wedge Amy Acker in there proper with Harold's hallucination and as a visual proxy for The Machine's presence. Getting cut from the show right before the big finale (even if she still had the narration) would've felt a little off for how big a part she played on the team these past few seasons. That was a nice touch. :unsmith:

Dr Kool-AIDS
Mar 26, 2004

Generic American posted:

You know, alongside the praise that everyone else has already said... I'm really glad that they managed to wedge Amy Acker in there proper with Harold's hallucination and as a visual proxy for The Machine's presence. Getting cut from the show right before the big finale (even if she still had the narration) would've felt a little off for how big a part she played on the team these past few seasons. That was a nice touch. :unsmith:

I kinda think Finch should have been a little more alarmed that his Machine decided to take on the persona of someone who worshiped it as a god, but it was a nice move from a sentimental perspective on the showrunners' part. Did anyone else think it was pretty weird when the Machine started flirting with Shaw though?

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007

Witchfinder General

It makes sense that The Machine would flirt and talk with Shaw like that. It's clearly established The Machine does feel love and has the ability to simulate personalities.

Also, the Machine has duplicated itself and as stated earlier Root lives on in the Machine.

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
That was really good and now I'm really sad. Going to go drink some whiskey in honor of John.

I haven't been this bummed about a show ending since Justified.

Pussy Cartel
Jun 26, 2011



Lipstick Apathy
This was an amazing series(especially considering how, uh, rote the first season was), the best portrayal of AI I can think of, and one of the best scifi shows in years. Despite how great this ending was (and it really was great), I'm really gonna miss this Person of Interest. :smith:

Whatever happened to Gabriel, anyway?

NieR Occomata
Jan 18, 2009

Glory to Mankind.

It was a good ending with really powerful moments that didn't quite work as well as it should have.

I do like the idea of the Machine recursively teaching a future version of itself/her daughter, that was a neat idea and closes out the season opener really well. But it's just sort of a disjointed mess off the back of the penultimate episode, which although rushed was at least clean. This finale I honestly had very little to no idea what was going on or what people were doing outside of the big sweeping moments, like I was at best very unsure what Finch and Reese were doing and why most of the time during the finale.

The irony is that the single most powerful moment of the finale is that subplot with the two cops in the terms of a tonal/thematic conclusion to the series as a whole, which honestly just feels wrong. Basically all the roof stuff and Machine Root flashback-ing stuff was all fantastic, but basically the plot as written was a convoluted mess.

NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Jun 22, 2016

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Um... at the end, for the PoI title card it zoomed out to satellite view and there was a red triangle over part of NY. Was that always there this season or does Samaritan live on in the skies? :tinfoil:

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





Bruceski posted:

Um... at the end, for the PoI title card it zoomed out to satellite view and there was a red triangle over part of NY. Was that always there this season or does Samaritan live on in the skies? :tinfoil:

That's been there since Season 4. Before it was the Machine's yellow box over the title card, but it was flipped to Samaritan's red triangle. This season it starts off as the red triangle but gets overridden with a yellow box at the last second. I guess they just didn't have time to create a "clean" version for the finale to show that the Machine had won and Samaritan was gone for good, even though it already existed for Seasons 2 & 3...

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!


I would watch Memento starring The Machine.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





The Dark Id posted:

Now that the series is over, I'm disappointed nobody kicked that dipshit little kid Samaritan was using as a speech puppet in the face at any point. Everything with that kid was loving dumb.

For what it's worth, when this happened:


I pictured that smug kid screaming in mortal terror.

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

I bet that kid is gonna spend the rest of his life in an asylum after flipping out that the voice in his head is gone and trying to tell people about the ai gods and the great filter.

nine-gear crow
Aug 10, 2013





Zaggitz posted:

I bet that kid is gonna spend the rest of his life in an asylum after flipping out that the voice in his head is gone and trying to tell people about the ai gods and the great filter.

Again, I'd like to imagine that the last thing that kid heard from "God" was Samaritan screaming "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! :byodood:" into his cochlear implant :allears:

Party Plane Jones
Jul 1, 2007

by Reene
Fun Shoe
What was with the editing on that roof scene though? Reese killed one guy at least twice and he still shows up in the next shot.

Great Orb!
Feb 4, 2009
Well. That was something.

Yeah, it did feel a little rushed and convoluted, but, all things considered, I'm happy with the way it went. Sure, a full season would have been nice, but I get the feeling it would have been a bit much. v:shobon:v

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

Toxxupation posted:

The irony is that the single most powerful moment of the finale is that subplot with the two cops in the terms of a tonal/thematic conclusion to the series as a whole, which honestly just feels wrong.

In a show all about how irrelevant people matter, the core theme/lesson for the machine to learn and the viewer to then experience coming from one of those irrelevant threads seems very much intentional to me and not some stumble that ironically stands out.

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK
Sep 11, 2001



We never found out what Root did in Russia :argh:

Nameless Pete
May 8, 2007

Get a load of those...
All these years John thought he had escaped death-by-cruise-missile when he was merely delaying it.

Generic American
Mar 15, 2012

I love my Peng


Missiles, man... Those fuckers play the long game. :tinfoil:

Kegslayer
Jul 23, 2007
John's not really dead. He just retired to a farm upstate with Carter and Root.

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

It's a shame LaToya Ferguson only got the review the last 3 episodes of the show for the AV Club, she really understands the show and all its nuances in a way that Alexa Planje just made no effort to.

Her review on the finale pretty much lines up with my feelings on the ep 1:1.


http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/moment-truly-matters-person-interests-last-episode-238603

Daedalus1134
Sep 14, 2005

They see me rollin'


Great show.

I will begrudging be content if this is how it has to end, but if Netflix could decide this season was all a simulation and throw a proper last season or two on that would be great; thanks in advance.

Oasx
Oct 11, 2006

Freshly Squeezed
I didn't understand why the show wanted us to hear the same speech three times in the same episode, but it makes sense that it was the previous machine leaving notes for the new version.

A great ending to a great show.

Mr. Horyd
Jul 17, 2001

REDHEADS WILL BE MY DOWNFALL!
"Try not to die."
"Yeah, I love you too."
:cry:

Even though a few narrative elements in the final season were unused or seemed to go nowhere, the emotional impact of this last chapter is going to haunt me for a day or two the way only a few of the best told stories can.

Edit: Agreed on the AV club review being excellent.

Mr. Horyd fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Jun 22, 2016

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!
Solid ending. I gotta admit the Deus Ex fan in me wanted the Machine and Samaritan to merge in space and comeback to Earth as a single AI, taking the best aspects of both to police the world and help people without controlling them and removing their agency completely.

Harold needed the happy ending and John going out made sense. I think a lot of their ideas in general sounded better on paper than they actually played out but really the show peaked with Carter's death and subsequent revenge episode so wrapping up the AI stuff with a limited budget even though it made no sense in many ways, was about as good as we were going to get.

Shaded Spriter
Mar 27, 2010

I have watched two series finale this year (this and Castle.) and out of both of them this was satisfying. I am not sure if the new machine is 100% the Machine's child or not...or if it took some of Samaritans' programming with it.

I always thought that the end of this storyline would be a new machine which was a combination of the both of them in a Ghost in the Shell "Where does the newborn go" sort of sense.

Sub Rosa
Jun 9, 2010




CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

Samaritan did nothing wrong :colbert:

Metropolis posted:

I am going to miss you, POI threads. I didn't post much but I've read every post starting from season 1. You guys hardly ever got bitchy or stupid for too long, and that may not sound like much but it's very high praise for any long-running show's thread anywhere on the internet. Seeing other people's reactions, thoughts, jokes, and predictions really added to my enjoyment of the show.

Yeah, I'll miss you thread, too.

And I would like to remind everyone that Mister Reese is a bad pun for Mysteries since that was my first post in the Season 1 thread.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

A solid ending to a flawed (but by no means bad and in many respects excellent) season, and to an overall fantastic series.

I almost liked Amy Acker's turn as the Machine (especially in this episode where we got to see her) more than I liked her performance as Root, and I thought she was fantastic as Root. I also thought (and I'm sure this is what they were hinting at) that the Machine's half-remembered "everybody dies alone" lesson while it was in such a morbid mood was a callback to John's last words to Jessica: "Everybody dies alone and no one's coming to save you." And I'm glad it turned out to be something different.

Alas poor Blackwell, we hardly knew ye (and cared even less).

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raditts
Feb 21, 2001

The Kwanzaa Bot is here to protect me.


Sinteres posted:

I kinda think Finch should have been a little more alarmed that his Machine decided to take on the persona of someone who worshiped it as a god, but it was a nice move from a sentimental perspective on the showrunners' part. Did anyone else think it was pretty weird when the Machine started flirting with Shaw though?

Isn't the goal of any worshiper to be with their god when they die?

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