There’s a brand new episode of Person of Interest this coming Tuesday April 14th, and it features a returning guest star. You may not have heard the news most probably have heard the news, but ‘Terra Incognita’ features the return of the one and only Taraji P Henson as Detective Joss Carter!
The episode features three different storylines, or, more accurately, time periods. The first is a set of flashbacks to earlier in the show - more specifically, just a short time after the opening two episodes of season two, and Finch makes a hilarious mention of Bear to show us that. These feature Reese and Carter. The second is the present day where Reese is working on a number and the third is flashbacks to seven years ago where Carter is investigating a case.
The number Reese is dealing with is connected with Carter’s cold case and so things come quite full circle in that by stopping or saving this number, Reese might be able to close that case. Person of Interest throws in some tricks and Reese’s task, as ever, isn’t as simple as he makes it out to be.
The flashbacks to Carter’s case does little else than nudge the present day story along, though it brings us the (albeit brief) return of Detective Terney (Al Sapienza) and he’s as hateable as ever. It is the flashbacks to Reese and Carter that stand out. At times, it’s funny and at others it gets quite emotional. It’s a fantastic set of scenes that showcase the relationship that the pair had, and when you see how Reese behaves remembering his fallen friend, the hole left by her gets oh-so much bigger. Reese and Carter take up most of the screentime, with only a few brief scenes involving Finch, Fusco or Root. However, I didn’t find that I missed them and that’s a true credit to the strength of the writing for all that’s going on involving Reese and Carter, as well as the acting from Jim Caviezel, who is truly excellent with all that he’s given this week.
You’d expect that the antepenultimate episode of the season would be centred mostly on Samaritan, but there is barely a mention of the malevolent AI. There are a few brief scenes featuring the Elias/Brotherhood story arc, but that is as far as it goes. However, there’s so much great content going on elsewhere in the episode that it isn’t missed.
A few short teasers
- There is no main title sequence this week, and the cold open is great.
- Root’s entry to the episode is magnificent.
- “Hydrating on a stakeout is a double-edged sword anyway.”
- Once the episode is over, go back and rewatch the opening scene.
Make sure to tune in to CBS on Tuesday April 14th at 10pm, because this really isn’t an episode to be missed. Also remember to check back to the site after the episode for my review and our roundtable discussion! If you have any questions about the episode, feel free to ask in the comments or via Twitter, and if they’re not too spoilery, I’ll try to answer them.
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