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Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

Team Machine: DC :getin:

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Mraagvpeine
Nov 4, 2014

I won this avatar on a technicality this thick.
I wonder if the Machine set up teams all over the world.

raditts
Feb 21, 2001

The Kwanzaa Bot is here to protect me.


There better be a team headed up by Leon somewhere.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

Harper is the worst. I assume they used her because they couldn't get Zoe. Would have made even more sense for it to be Zoe since she's a fixer and this other team seems to be based out of DC.

Finch talking and discussing things with the machine is still the best.

Zoe would never be part of a team like that.

Kithkar
Apr 23, 2011

I'm gonna RENOVATE your ass!

Mraagvpeine posted:

I wonder if the Machine set up teams all over the world.

The irrelevant numbers, paying it forward. I wonder if this revelation is what's going to bring Harold back to the fold.

Team Machine is a lot bigger than Samaritan thinks.

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK
Sep 11, 2001



Aphrodite posted:

Zoe would never be part of a team like that.

Makes about as much sense as Harper being on the team.

raditts posted:

There better be a team headed up by Leon somewhere.

Team Las Vegas

pik_d
Feb 24, 2006

follow the white dove





TRP Post of the Month October 2021

raditts posted:

There better be a team headed up by Leon somewhere.

What about Casey, Greenfield and Daizo, the other three guys who got blind spots but were never heard from again (unless I forgot).

Echophonic
Sep 16, 2005

ha;lp
Gun Saliva
Thank god this isn't actually a CBS show, or else all of these Team Machine: DC jokes would come true.

Ningyou
Aug 14, 2005

we aaaaare
not your kind of pearls
you seem kind of pho~ny
everything's a liiiiie

we aaaare
not your kind of pearls
something in your make~up
don't see eye to e~y~e

y'know i think this is the first harper appearance i haven't completely hated

also the revelation that Team Irrelevant aren't the only ones handling numbers and the implication that there might be a bunch of people all over doing it is kinda neat?

also also holy poo poo now i really want an episode of nothing but Finch and the Machine talking about stuff and/or the Machine getting her spooky AI flirting on with Shaw :sigh:

pik_d posted:

What about Casey, Greenfield and Daizo, the other three guys who got blind spots but were never heard from again (unless I forgot).
I could be remembering stuff wrong but i thought they were all killed in the end of S3?

Ningyou fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Jun 8, 2016

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013
I'm surprised they brought back privacy terrorists again but seeing some of the old numbers back in action was neat. I wonder if they wanted to get the compression algorithm guy, but Friendczar will do.

Kithkar
Apr 23, 2011

I'm gonna RENOVATE your ass!

monster on a stick posted:

I'm surprised they brought back privacy terrorists again but seeing some of the old numbers back in action was neat. I wonder if they wanted to get the compression algorithm guy, but Friendczar will do.

The implications of this episode leave me hopeful he'll turn up too before the end.

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

Ningyou posted:

I could be remembering stuff wrong but i thought they were all killed in the end of S3?

Nah Root's boys all made it out because they were covered by the cover identity blindspot implanted in Samaritan. They are probably all chilling in Cuba or something.

Please Eat A Vegetable
Jun 26, 2002
Lord of Primate Booty
So the machine has Thornhill employees at the ready also. And running her own operations with at least one other team. I wonder what exactly happens when Finch tales the shackles off.

I get on the elevator or your daughter dies in 5weeks. That's ice cold.

Shaw has the rotating cover now.

Harper is annoying, but OK in small doses.

I miss this show already.

Echophonic
Sep 16, 2005

ha;lp
Gun Saliva
I kind of feel like Caleb (compression guy) played his part in the S4 finale, since they used his algorithm to save the machine.

I'm not sure what I think about this episode. It kind of felt like filler at first blush since it doesn't really progress the team towards the finale, but I think it serves a few purposes. It reinforces the idea that the numbers never stop coming, it shows the team that they are not as alone as Samaritan wants them to feel, and it's showing us what Harold is capable of, unshackled. It also serves as a lighter interlude before the finale begins, which I think has a good purpose after last week's changes.

It's pretty nuts that "privacy terrorists try to kill the President" is the A-plot of a light interlude of Person of Interest.

The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
interesting how the machine's arguments about unshackling itself are so similar to samaritan's MO

raditts
Feb 21, 2001

The Kwanzaa Bot is here to protect me.


Echophonic posted:

I kind of feel like Caleb (compression guy) played his part in the S4 finale, since they used his algorithm to save the machine.

I'm not sure what I think about this episode. It kind of felt like filler at first blush since it doesn't really progress the team towards the finale, but I think it serves a few purposes. It reinforces the idea that the numbers never stop coming, it shows the team that they are not as alone as Samaritan wants them to feel, and it's showing us what Harold is capable of, unshackled. It also serves as a lighter interlude before the finale begins, which I think has a good purpose after last week's changes.

It's pretty nuts that "privacy terrorists try to kill the President" is the A-plot of a light interlude of Person of Interest.

The fact that Samaritan has no interest in keeping the POTUS alive has some pretty big implications for its endgame.

I can't help but feel there's no way they are going to fit a satisfying conclusion into two episodes, though. They need to be double length episodes at least.

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013

The Iron Rose posted:

interesting how the machine's arguments about unshackling itself are so similar to samaritan's MO

You noticed that too?

It's really sad this show is ending because now it's really obvious why they cast Emerson since he went full-on Ben with that "it'd be a shame if you daughter didn't get a transplant" speech. Also unshackled Machine which seems to be a bit clingy.

pik_d
Feb 24, 2006

follow the white dove





TRP Post of the Month October 2021

monster on a stick posted:

You noticed that too?

It's really sad this show is ending because now it's really obvious why they cast Emerson since he went full-on Ben with that "it'd be a shame if you daughter didn't get a transplant" speech. Also unshackled Machine which seems to be a bit clingy.

It seems like it's partially (or more than that) taken on Roots personality as well as voice.

The Iron Rose
May 12, 2012

:minnie: Cat Army :minnie:
also seriously harper is so crazy annoying, ugh

Kithkar
Apr 23, 2011

I'm gonna RENOVATE your ass!

pik_d posted:

It seems like it's partially (or more than that) taken on Roots personality as well as voice.

I kind of wonder if it hasn't always been this way, and that's why Harold has always been so adamant about keeping it a closed system.

Zaggitz
Jun 18, 2009

My urges are becoming...

UNCONTROLLABLE

The virus Finch picked up at the military facility was a Vonnegut reference, also.

Zaggitz fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Jun 8, 2016

Hollismason
Jun 30, 2007
An alright dude.
poo poo they are all going to die and then'll it will pull back and we'll see the Machine tracking assets all over the world.

Sober
Nov 19, 2011

First touch: Life.
Second touch: Dead again. Forever.

The Iron Rose posted:

interesting how the machine's arguments about unshackling itself are so similar to samaritan's MO
I think ultimately this is what both of them are designed to do. OR at least that they will eventually transcend their initial purpose as mass surveillance devices. But there does lie a real fundamental difference in the Machine and Samaritan's worldview. I think Finch is definitely apprehensive about it though because of all the talk of him literally birthing a god, this is freakishly as close as we're getting.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

Live, laugh, kupo!

The Iron Rose posted:

interesting how the machine's arguments about unshackling itself are so similar to samaritan's MO

It's the old idea of a strong AI talking its way out of the box.

Team Irrelevant should have had Karolina Kurkova from Fusco's solo job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR4oQg3P8To

GrandpaPants
Feb 13, 2006


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

I thought the line about The Machine seeing Root's death some 12000 times or whatever was pretty goddamn heartbreaking.

Fun fact, the "bank robber" is Amy Acker's real life husband, which would sort of explain why he's easy to get back on the show.

monster on a stick
Apr 29, 2013

Zaggitz posted:

Nah Root's boys all made it out because they were covered by the cover identity blindspot implanted in Samaritan. They are probably all chilling in Cuba or something.

Venezuela, no cameras if there isn't any power.

CeeJee
Dec 4, 2001
Oven Wrangler

Bruceski posted:

It's the old idea of a strong AI talking its way out of the box.

Team Irrelevant should have had Karolina Kurkova from Fusco's solo job. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR4oQg3P8To

She is, here she's trying to take down an agent of an illegal covert US agency that experiments on human beings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dot7nufFP3I

Gervasius
Nov 2, 2010



Grimey Drawer

monster on a stick posted:

I wonder if they wanted to get the compression algorithm guy

He changed his name to Richard Hendricks and now he's busy getting his startup compression company off the ground.

Jigsaw
Aug 14, 2008
This episode brought up a lot of questions for me: if there are other Team Irrelevants, is Samaritan after them too? If not, why not? They wouldn't have the blind spots added by the replaced servers, so no cover identities for them. Are they just better at hiding? Are they actually helping fight Samaritan, or can only Finch & Co. do that for some reason?

How long have they been around? From Pierce talking it sounded like they'd been doing this for a while; could they have helped last week when Harold's number came up and avoided Root's & Elias's deaths?

Did they have access to the open system before Finch closed it?

Other Team Irrelevants going around raises a lot of questions regarding the Samaritan plotline, so I'm hoping they tie into the conclusion and we get good answers to them, though I'm a bit worried it'll just be dropped since we've only got two episodes left.

Edit: And for all the importance of the Machine being a closed system again, it's remarkably chatty (not to mention the bit where it threatens that guys daughter). What "full potential" can it not exercise without Harold's approval, if it's already got other teams running around that it's giving numbers to, can modify the organ waiting list, speak through the loudspeaker, and somehow get all those people after Harold kneecapped?

Jigsaw fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Jun 8, 2016

Party Plane Jones
Jul 1, 2007

by Reene
Fun Shoe
Episode ended on a note that was a little too 'cute' for lack of a better word. Hopefully the next one has more Harold to it.

docbeard
Jul 19, 2011

great, there's two of them

Jigsaw posted:

This episode brought up a lot of questions for me: if there are other Team Irrelevants, is Samaritan after them too? If not, why not? They wouldn't have the blind spots added by the replaced servers, so no cover identities for them. Are they just better at hiding? Are they actually helping fight Samaritan, or can only Finch & Co. do that for some reason?

As long as they aren't an active threat to Samaritan or to its operations, and as long as they can't lead Samaritan back to the Machine, it has no real reason to go after them.

It's likely that they don't know much about the Machine aside from it being a mysterious source of information about people in danger, and may not know that Samaritan exists at all. (I was half expecting, when John said that they were also working for the Machine, for them all to just be completely oblivious, since they get all their info from a mysterious corporate dude called Thornhill.)

I suspect that further elaboration about this will end up as another casualty of the shortened season. (I could absolutely have seen them do an episode centering around another Irrelevant Team that got in Samaritan's way and got squashed like bugs, for example.)

I liked this episode, though after last week, I was expecting something a bit more apocalyptic. Still, a lot of good stuff here, and I really liked how thrown Shaw was by everything. And I don't find Harper as annoying as the rest of the thread, though I guess the episode she was introduced in wasn't great.

I have a feeling that the conversation between Finch and the Machine about love is going to be crucial to the eventual resolution, and will certainly be key to the difference between an unshackled Machine and Samaritan, for all that they have nearly identical broad goals. Samaritan sees people as pieces to be shoved around for the greater good, and the Machine sees people as people to be saved.

Interesting that the President's apparently a white dude, since we saw Obama being elected in a flashback sequence. (I'm guessing that the network told them they could absolutely not show the real President being threatened with assassination.) It was also interesting that real brands like Google and Facebook got namechecked when they've always used fictional variants (like Friendczar) in the past.

xeria
Jul 26, 2004

Ruh roh...

Jigsaw posted:

This episode brought up a lot of questions for me: if there are other Team Irrelevants, is Samaritan after them too? If not, why not? They wouldn't have the blind spots added by the replaced servers, so no cover identities for them. Are they just better at hiding? Are they actually helping fight Samaritan, or can only Finch & Co. do that for some reason?

The blind spots are explicitly to protect the team that's already been exposed to Samaritan -- Finch/Reese/Shaw/Root and Root's Boys. Presumably Fusco hasn't completely attracted Samaritan's attention yet (Samaritan was watching him but hadn't labeled him as a threat/deviant yet), even if he is now a Machine Asset, so same would probably be said of the B-team (and all other Irrelevant teams floating around out there; probably we can assume if there's one in DC, there are probably ones in every major city in the US by now).

(Root's Boys getting new identities was probably less that they were in immediate mortal danger from Samaritan coming online and recognizing them as threats, as it was convenient to just include them in with the main four at the time, since there wouldn't have been any more super Machine hacking power required.)

quote:

How long have they been around? From Pierce talking it sounded like they'd been doing this for a while; could they have helped last week when Harold's number came up and avoided Root's & Elias's deaths?

At least since Harper's introduction, I would imagine. We saw her multiple times at the end of last season getting paid by Thornhill to help out (save Fusco, etc.). Stands to reason Thornhill would eventually link her up with Logan and Joey.

quote:

Did they have access to the open system before Finch closed it?

Also stands to reason they get their numbers and do their research the same way Finch/Reese used to -- pay phones, SSNs, Logan's google-fu.

quote:

Other Team Irrelevants going around raises a lot of questions regarding the Samaritan plotline, so I'm hoping they tie into the conclusion and we get good answers to them, though I'm a bit worried it'll just be dropped since we've only got two episodes left.

I don't think it actually raises any questions about Samaritan? If they've kept off Samaritan's radar because the Machine is sending them on (mostly) irrelevant number jobs, there's no reason to assume they'll get roped into the endgame arc beyond just protecting Fusco/Reese/Shaw in this one job. They're there almost exclusively in this shortened final season to highlight that other people are keeping up the good fight of saving people, that the Machine herself is still trying to save as many people as possible even as it faces off with Samaritan, that Nathan Ingram's purpose -- that Finch co-opted -- hasn't been lost.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

The DC team wouldn't have had access to the open system, Team Primary did because they physically have the Machine in their possession.

pik_d posted:

It seems like it's partially (or more than that) taken on Roots personality as well as voice.

It seems like it's speaking like Root consciously (or whatever the equivalent word is for a machine) for Harold's benefit.

Like when it was talking to Harold in the car, that wasn't Root's manner of speech. Just her voice. But after it explained everything to him, it called him Harry.

oohhboy
Jun 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
I tear up a little when Fusco and John was at the grave site. Sad she got reduced to a number.

It's just a bit of dust in the eye.

Nameless Pete
May 8, 2007

Get a load of those...
Solid red boxes. New yellow boxes. Hell, even a blue box! This episode had it all!

that one guy
Jun 3, 2005
Something I read last week in an interview with Amy Acker was that during those scenes where Harold is driving in the car talking to the Machine, Acker was actually laying down in the back seat of the car speaking the lines. Couldn't help but think of that during this week's episode.

WarLocke
Jun 6, 2004

You are being watched. :allears:

Nameless Pete posted:

Solid red boxes. New yellow boxes. Hell, even a blue box! This episode had it all!

Finale will end with a green box

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Orange box. It was all Half Life 3. Gabe is a genius, praise Valve.

Mr. Horyd
Jul 17, 2001

REDHEADS WILL BE MY DOWNFALL!
The name of the computer virus worries me that the man who brought the world the internet is going to take it all away.

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SpookyLizard
Feb 17, 2009

Zaggitz posted:

The virus Finch picked up at the military facility was a Vonnegut reference, also.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who picked up on that. And is suitably terrified of what that virus might do. If anyone in this thread hasn't read Cat's Cradle you probably should.

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