PERSON OF INTEREST: PILOT {SERIES PREMIERE} (TV)
Summary
The series premiere in this dramatic mystery series about a former CIA agent turned vigilante who works to prevent crimes in New York City with the use of a "machine" built by an enigmatic billionaire. In this episode, a young man, Anton, causes trouble on a 6 train with his cronies and harasses a scruffy, drunken man, who proceeds to take all of them down with expert fighting skills. At the police station, Officer Carter questions the man, who declines to give his name, guessing that he is an ex-soldier who is having trouble adjusting to civilian life. He does not elaborate, but she runs his fingerprints and learns that he has been present at many different crime scenes over the years. An attorney comes and collects the man and takes him to see his “employer,” a man calling himself Finch who addresses the man as John Reece and says that he knows “exactly everything” about him, including the fact that he used to work for the government and is now thought to be dead. He offers him a job preventing planned crimes, saying that he has a “list” of people who will be somehow involved in felonies, and shows him a woman named Diane Hanson. John, however, doubts the veracity of his claims and leaves, returning to his apartment and changing his “homeless” appearance by shaving. He soon passes out drunk and awakens in a hotel room, handcuffed to the bed. Finch calls on the phone and says he must know what it is like to witness a murder and be unable to stop it, and John hears screams from the next room. He manages to escape and bursts through the door, only to find that it is a recording. He angrily confronts Finch, who says that John could not save the woman on the tape nor “his friend Jessica,” but that he can help to save others if they work together, calling himself “a concerned third party.”
Finch takes John to an abandoned library building that is “in limbo” and admits that while he knows a great deal about John, he himself is “a really private person.” He provides John with fake IDs and cell phones, like he had with “the agency,” and shows him the list: a string of social security numbers of people in danger. Finch refuses to name the source of the numbers, but provides John with background on Hanson, an assistant D.A. with a high conviction record. John familiarizes himself with her life in “the fast way,” by bugging her house and her phone, and comes up with two suspects who might try to hurt her: her co-counselor and ex-boyfriend Wheeler, and Lawrence Pope, a criminal whom she is prosecuting. After trial, she visits Pope in jail and asks for whom he is covering, guessing that he is lying to protect himself and his brother Michael, and John surmises that whomever framed Pope will come after Hanson next. At the same time, John flashes back to a Tuesday morning several years ago when he woke up in Mexico with a woman and told her that he finally quit his job to be with her, only to see a news report about an incident in New York.
John spies on Hanson and begins to suspect that Wheeler is working with the criminals, and he tracks down Michael and tries to help him, explaining that he is in danger. Michael flees, but John tracks him with his phone, and though Finch states that he dislikes firearms, John decides to arm himself and travels to an underground weapons cache where Anton and his friends are attempting to buy guns. He quickly takes out all of them, though he leaves them alive, and departs with several weapons. Finch finds Michael, who has been kidnapped by the real criminals, and John hurries to rescue him. When he does, he realizes that he is dealing with crooked cops, including an Officer Stills. As they walk through Central Park, John tells Finch that he needs more information, and Finch finally admits that in the aftermath of 9/11, he built a “system” to root out crimes before they happen, dividing them into “relevant” terrorist-level events and “irrelevant” smaller crimes. At first the machine deleted the “irrelevant” crimes, but after some time Finch built a “back door” to allow him to investigate and prevent them on his own with the social security numbers. Elsewhere, Officer Carter hears about the mysterious man’s takedown of Anton and his pals, and John learns that Lawrence Pope has been killed in prison. Hanson receives a call and goes to meet Stills in an alley, and John follows, thinking she is in danger, but then realizes that she is in fact the ringleader and had Pope killed, and now wants Wheeler “taken care of” because of his suspicions. John is caught by one of Hanson’s thugs and driven out to Oyster Bay to be killed, but he addresses his captor, a Detective Fusco, and says that he will allow him to live if he comes to work for him instead before causing the car to crash and escaping.
That night, Hanson’s men go to kill Wheeler, bringing along a random ex-con as a patsy, and when Wheeler arrives home with his young son, Stills ordered him murdered as well. John shows up and faces down Stills, stating that he has no friends or family to threaten, and the ex-con escapes as shots ring out. In court, an anxious Hanson attempts to continue trying her case without Stills and plays a tape of a victim’s 911 call—except John has switched it with a recording of her confessing to Pope’s murder and ordering Wheeler killed, much to the surprise of the judge and Wheeler himself. John then surprises Fusco in his car and orders him to dispose of Stills’ body in the trunk and says that he will “be in touch.” He then meets with Finch, who reveals that he too is thought to be dead and also “lost someone,” and admits that they will both likely die as well if John chooses to stay. At the same time, Carter captures one of the dirty cops and demands info on the mysterious John, who watches from nearby, continuing his work for Finch. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: September 22, 2011 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:44:14
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: 106330
- GENRE: Drama, mystery/suspense
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, mystery/suspense; Detectives
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 2011-2016
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Bryan Burk … Executive Producer
- Greg Plageman … Executive Producer
- J.J. Abrams … Executive Producer
- Jonathan Nolan … Executive Producer, Created by, Writer
- David Semel … Executive Producer, Director
- Kathy Lingg … Co-Executive Producer
- Margot Lulick … Producer
- Athena Wickham … Co-Producer
- Stephen Semel … Co-Producer
- Ben Brafman … Associate Producer
- Ramin Djawadi … Music by
- Jim Caviezel … Cast, John Reese
- Taraji P. Henson … Cast, Detective Joss Carter
- Kevin Chapman … Cast, Detective Lionel Fusco
- Michael Emerson … Cast, Harold Finch
- Natalie Zea … Cast, Diane Hanson
- Susan Misner … Cast, Jessica Nichols
- James Hanlon … Cast, Detective Stills
- Chris Chalk … Cast, Lawrence Pope
- Brian D'Arcy James … Cast, Asst. DA Miller
- Michael Drayer … Cast, Anton
- Jermaine Crawford … Cast, Michael Pope
- Leon Addison Brown … Cast, Charles Robinson
- Kristine Johnson … Cast, CBS Newsperson
- Greggory Lay … Cast, Transit Cop
- Bruce MacVittie … Cast, Defense Attorney
- Anthony Mangano … Cast, Detective Kane
- Charlie Moss … Cast, Judge
- Kevin Murphy … Cast, Anton's Friend
- Alfredo Narciso … Cast, Forensic Tech
- Wolfgang Scheitinger … Cast, Wheeler's Son
- Andrew Stewart Jones … Cast, Doyle
- Louis Vanaria … Cast, Azarello
- William Sadler … Cast, Gun Salesman