Person of Interest

Season 1

1. Pilot

John Reese, a former CIA agent and Army Special Forces soldier now a homeless alcoholic, is arrested for getting into a fight on a New York subway train. He is bailed out before homicide detective Joss Carter can question him regarding DNA evidence linking him to a string of killings. Reese is brought to mysterious billionaire Harold Finch, who explains that after the September 11 attacks, he designed an algorithm capable of predicting crimes by analyzing behavioral patterns in troves of surveillance data. The program ("the Machine") provides the social security number of a person it predicts to be involved in an impending crime, victim or perpetrator.

Finch enlists Reese in helping him thwart the crimes, appealing to Reese's sense of guilt following the death of his girlfriend Jessica. Reese's first person of interest, ADA Diane Hansen, oversees a ring of corrupt police officers and plans to kill a fellow DA. He blackmails one of the corrupt officers, detective Lionel Fusco, into being his inside source at the NYPD. Reese then reveals Hansen's corruption to an open court, kills corrupt detective Stills, and links Fusco to the crime to ensure his future cooperation.

2. Ghosts

Reese takes the case of Theresa Whitaker, who supposedly died alongside her family years prior. He discovers that the crime was in fact an assassination staged to look like a murder-suicide, and that there is still a price on Theresa's head. He tracks down the original hitman, who admits he let Theresa live out of a refusal to kill children. Finch locates Theresa, only to be cornered by another hitman; Reese intervenes in time to save them, leaving Theresa in Carter's care. Carter attempts to access Reese's police file via his fingerprints, only to find it redacted. In flashbacks to the early days of the Machine's development, Finch expresses concerns to his since-deceased business partner Nathan Ingram that the Machine would have to be shut down should the public ever learn of its existence.

3. Mission Creep

The Machine produces the Social Security number of Joey Durban, a former soldier. On returning from Afghanistan, Joey joined a gang of former soldiers who have taken to robbing banks. Reese infiltrates the gang for their final robbery at an NYPD evidence lockup. They steal a file marked "Elias, M." before Latimer, the ringleader, begin killing off the gang members and escapes. Reese starts tracking him down, but discovers that Latimer has himself been murdered after handing the file over to Elias, his contact. The file is revealed to contain photos from the scene of a brutal murder.

4. Cura Te Ipsum

Reese begins 24-hour surveillance of Dr. Megan Tillman, whom he and Finch believe to be targeted by serial rapist Andrew Benton. Reese discovers that Tillman is in fact stalking and planning to kill Benton for raping Tillman's sister, who killed herself after her assault. Tillman abducts Benton, but is talked out of killing him by Reese, who suggests she will not be able to forgive herself for taking a life after spending her career saving them. Reese then kidnaps Benton himself and contemplates killing him to avoid him committing further crimes. Carter finds surveillance footage of Finch and Reese at the robbery from their previous mission. Reese blackmails a police captain into transferring Fusco to Carter's precinct in hopes of sabotaging her investigation into him and Finch.

5. Judgement

A Polish street gang known as SP-9 kidnaps the son of Samuel Gates, a judge known to be tough on crime. In exchange for his son's safe return, the gang's leader demands that the judge release a banker who is key to their money laundering operation without punishment. Breaking with his preferred means of operation, Reese makes himself known to Gates in an attempt to stall the kidnappers while he uses Fusco to process evidence from the scene of the crime. He misleads SP-9 into believing that their demands have been met, securing the release of Gates' son, before delivering them to Detective Carter and the NYPD. Meanwhile, Reese makes overtures of friendship towards Finch, but is actually trying to find out more about his daily routine.

6. The Fix

Reese takes the case of Zoe Morgan, a professional fixer who uses her high-profile connections to perform various services for her own clients. Zoe is hired to retrieve an incriminating recording of a pharmaceutical executive from a rival company, but comes under threat when she hears the contents of the recording itself and realizes that her employer is just as corrupt as his rival. Finch finds that Zoe's case is connected to that of Dana Miller, a POI whom he was unable to save before meeting Reese. With Zoe's help, Reese exposes the pharmaceutical's corruption and Finch short sells their stock to ensure their downfall, finally getting justice for Miller.

Meanwhile, Carter takes a homicide case when the murder weapon is proven to be the same one used in the "Elias, M." case. She learns that the victim was killed with the same knife he used to murder Elias' mother Marlene years prior. Carter finds her friend, retired detective Bernie Sullivan, murdered in his apartment, with the killer fleeing the scene.

7. Witness

Reese must protect Charlie Burton, a schoolteacher who witnessed a Russian mobster shooting an Italian-American mob lieutenant in a Brighton Beach bodega. As Reese and Burton flee the Russian mob as well as the Five Families of New York's Italian mafia, they stumble into territory controlled by the Bulgarian mob. Meanwhile, Carter searches for Burton to place him in protective police custody, and in doing so, draws closer to finding Carl Elias, believed to be the illegitimate son of an aging mobster with a plan to unite the Five Families and reclaim the New York underworld from the Russians. Cut off from Finch as he tries to evade the Russians and Bulgarians, Reese comes to realize that Burton is Elias. Elias thanks Reese for saving him, but warns him not to interfere with his future goals, leaving Reese feeling guilty for endangering others by saving Elias' life.

8. Foe

Reese and Finch track former Stasi agent Ulrich Kohl across New York City. Kohl, who recently escaped his 24-year captivity from Germany, is now hunting down his former Stasi colleagues who betrayed him to the American and German governments in exchange for new lives in the U.S., as he believes them to have murdered his wife Anja (who died while attempting to flee Germany with him). Kohl kills one ex-agent, while Reese saves the other from poisoning. Upon confronting his third former colleague, Kohl learns that Anja is alive and staged her own death to leave him, having bore their child Marie in the years since.

Kohl locates Anja and takes Marie hostage to force Anja to explain her reasons for leaving him, then forces Reese to kill him. Kohl's situation prompts Reese to reflect on his own past as a spy: flashbacks reveal that "John Reese" is an alias given to him by his former CIA partner Kara Stanton.

9. Get Carter

In flashbacks, Detective Carter, while serving in the Army, convinces an Iraqi deliveryman to give intelligence on Al-Qaida. Carter is outraged when the American soldiers kill the man during the operation, causing one to warn Carter that she's on her own. In the present, Carter's investigation into the Elias case has earned her a place on Elias' hit list, making her the next POI. Reese faces the challenge of protecting her without revealing his identity. While Carter investigates the murder of a teenager during a drive-by shooting by an arms dealer, Reese continues following Carter, who meets with one of her confidential informants – whom Elias has turned against her.

The informant reluctantly shoots Carter twice in the chest, but she is protected by a bulletproof vest; Reese kills the informant before he can finish the job. Reese parts ways with Carter accepting that she will still have to arrest him given the next chance, but promising that she is not alone. Reese threatens an HR higher-up in order to force him to get the hit called off.

10. Number Crunch

The Machine produces four POIs: Reese finds one dead and fails to prevent the murder of the second. He learns that all four individuals were involved in robbing drug money from the scene of a car crash, and are now being targeted by the corrupt banker and Congressman implicated in the accident. Carter is approached by CIA operative Mark Snow, who requests her help in locating Reese; Snow explains that Reese was responsible for the death of his CIA partner Kara Stanton years ago, and disappeared thereafter until Carter's investigation put him back on the agency's radar. Reese is approached by Carter and Snow soon after he saves the remaining two POIs from being assassinated. While fleeing, he is shot by a CIA assassin and retrieved by Finch; Carter catches up with them, but allows them to escape.

11. Super

Finch takes a wounded Reese to the morgue and pays an assistant to suture Reese's wounds while sending Fusco to misdirect the CIA. While Reese is in a wheelchair, Finch rents an apartment for him. The building's super, Ernest Trask, is the newest number; Reese and Finch believe him to stalking one of his tenants, Lily Thornton, and targeting her boyfriend Rick. However, Trask reveals that Rick is the one stalking Lily and he is only trying to protect her. Reese rushes to Lily's apartment to save her from Rick and ends up throwing him out of a window during the confrontation, leaving Rick severely injured.

Finch later discovers that Trask's wild claims about his previous life are actually true and he is in the Witness Protection Program. Having recognized him from the evidence lockup robbery, Carter attempts to contact Finch, who gives her information that helps her stop a homicide; Finch later calls and explains that his purpose is to prevent crimes. In flashbacks, Finch and Ingram come at odds with the NSA, whose employee Denton Weeks is attempting to seize control of the Machine over concerns regarding its constitutionality.

12. Legacy

Reese decides to finally meet Carter, who helps Finch and him in their next case to glean insight into their methods. Their POI, Andrea Gutierrez, is a self-made attorney who specializes in suing the state of New York on behalf of convicts who believe they were wrongfully imprisoned. They learn that the parole officer of Andrea's latest client is setting up convicts for imprisonment and profiting off of placing their children in foster care, and manage to save Andrea's life. Reese follows Finch to a meeting with Ingram's son Will, who inquires about his father's death and the nature of his work with Finch.

13. Root Cause

Reese and Finch take the case of construction manager Scott Powell, who was laid off due to budget cuts advanced by Congressman Michael Delancey, whom Powell is planning to assassinate in revenge. However, as Reese tries to intercept Powell, Finch realizes that he has been framed, and he and Reese are unable to stop the real assassin from killing Delancey. Powell is arrested by the FBI in the face of mounting evidence. Reese helps him escape and enlists Zoe Morgan's help in identifying Delancey's chief of staff Matheson as the real culprit, having hired both an assassin and a hacker to kill Delancey and frame Powell to cover up his own corruption.

Finch exonerates Powell after acquiring an incriminating recording between Matheson and the hacker. Matheson is later found dead; the hacker, who goes by alias "Root", admits to having him killed to tie up loose ends, and acknowledges Finch, by name, as a worthy adversary.

14. Wolf and Cub

The latest POI, teenager Darren McGrady, is attempting to avenge the death of his older brother Travis at the hands of a drug gang. Reese stops him from killing the gang's leader and later tracks down both the murder weapon and the perpetrators, who are arrested while Darren is taken to a new foster home. Finch is visited by Will Ingram, who found a reference to the Machine in his father's belongings; Finch later observes Will as he meets ex NSA employee Alicia Corwin, who flees when Will mentions his father's best friend. Reese has Fusco investigate Finch and learns he went to MIT; the Machine deems Reese and Fusco potential threats and begins monitoring them.

15. Blue Code

Reese and Finch discover their latest POI, Michael Cahill, to be secretly involved in a ruthless smuggling ring led by a man named Vargas. Reese infiltrates the ring and learns that Cahill is in fact an undercover cop formerly named Daniel Tully, and has held off on arresting Vargas in hopes of apprehending his superior. Reese learns that Vargas may have a connection inside the NYPD; Fusco attempts to locate the connection via his friend, corrupt police officer Patrick Simmons, but is later taken hostage by Vargas' corrupt informant, whom Reese kills in time. Reese tasks Fusco with going undercover in "HR" – a secretive network of corrupt NYPD officers – to learn more about their operations. Flashbacks show Reese and Kara in New York, illegally operating on U.S. soil. Reese meets his girlfriend Jessica's husband Peter Arndt at a bar, but leaves before Arndt can "introduce" him to Jessica.

16. Risk

Reese goes undercover as Finch's asset manager at a Wall Street investment firm to monitor their latest number, trader Adam Saunders. Adam had advised his adoptive uncle to invest heavily in a firm known as Tritak, but has since noticed suspicious activity, putting his life in danger. Reese learns that Adam's co-worker, along with an SEC employee monitoring him, are engaged in insider trading, hoping to short the soon-to-fail Tritak and defraud thousands of people out of millions of dollars. Reese saves Adam from being assassinated while Finch uses his unlimited funds to keep Tritak financially afloat. Carter deduces that the true mastermind behind the plot is Carl Elias while Reese gains possession of a burner phone that he can use to contact Elias in the future.

17. Baby Blue

Carter places crime lord Don Gianni Moretti in witness protection ahead of his anticipated testimony against Elias. Reese and Finch are surprised when the Machine names a six-month old child, Leila Smith, as the latest POI. They learn that Leila is the illegitimate child of a construction magnate whose wife ordered the hit to protect the family's reputation and is now unable to call off the contract. Leila is kidnapped; a desperate Reese goes to Elias for help. Elias helps Reese to retrieve Leila but then traps them both in a refrigerated truck until Reese gives up Moretti's location. Elias kidnaps Moretti, who is revealed to be his father. In the process, Carter's friend Bill Szymanski is seriously wounded and Carter distances herself from Reese and Finch.

18. Identity Crisis

Reese and Finch are given the number of Jordan Hester, whose identity matches both a male and a female individual. Finch believes the female Hester to be in danger, but learns that she is an identity thief named Mary, while the real Hester is the man. Mary drugs Finch and leaves him to die in a fire, but Fusco rescues him. Mary goes to kill Hester, but Reese gets her arrested, exposing her real identity as con artist Tara Verlander. Carter, keeping her distance from Reese and Finch, is approached by FBI agent Donnelly, who is also pursuing Reese. Donnelly explains that Reese was illegally involved in CIA operations on U.S. soil, and the FBI believe him to be working for Elias.

19. Flesh and Blood

The Machine yields five numbers belonging to the respective heads of New York's major Italian crime families. Reese and Finch suspect Elias is planning to eliminate his competition, and Carter has the dons placed in protective custody. One of the dons is killed in a car explosion while another is killed in witness protection. Carter takes the remaining dons to a safe house, but is tracked down by HR cops. Elias has Carter's son kidnapped to force her to turn the dons over to him; Reese rescues Carter's son alongside Elias' father Gianni Moretti, against whom Elias wants revenge for ordering the murder of his mother Marlene.

HR cuts ties with Elias after Finch shows Simmons that Elias is targeting his and other corrupt officers' families. After Fusco calls for backup from honest cops, Elias surrenders to Carter and is finally arrested for his crimes. On his way to his prison cell, Elias places a call to his father and half-brother before having the two killed in a car bomb executed by his lieutenant Scarface.

20. Matsya Nyaya

The latest POI, armored-car driver Tommy Clay, is working with a team Finch believes will be robbed. Reese infiltrates the team, but the vehicle explodes during a platinum robbery and Clay shoots Reese, who is rescued by Carter and hospitalized. Finch tracks Clay to a motel where his two partners have been killed, while Fusco realizes HR is connected to the robbery. Finch tracks down Clay's girlfriend Ashley, a waitress, but she kills Clay and attempts to escape with the platinum before being killed by Captain Lynch of HR who is in turn killed by Fusco to save Reese.

In flashbacks, Reese receives a panicked phone call from his girlfriend Jessica before traveling with Kara to Ordos, China, to retrieve a stolen computer. Snow separately orders Kara and Reese to kill the other. In Ordos, Reese realizes the CIA wants the computer destroyed and anyone who had access to it killed, right as a CIA missile destroys the site, seemingly killing Kara. Kara is later revealed to be alive in the present day when she kidnaps Snow and kills his partner.

21. Many Happy Returns

Flashbacks reveal that Reese's girlfriend Jessica was killed by her abusive husband Peter Arndt, who covered up the death as a car crash. Finch spots Reese in the hospital as the latter learns of Jessica's death, suggesting she was a POI Finch was unable to save. Reese later finds evidence of Arndt's abuse and apparently kills him in his home. In the present, Reese is given the day off, ostensibly for his birthday. Finch urges Carter to accompany agent Donnelly to New Rochelle, where Donnelly suspects Reese in Arndt's disappearance.

Finch and Fusco track POI Karen Garner, who is being pursued by U.S. Marshals for identity theft, but realize she is fleeing her abusive husband Brad, a marshal who framed her to trigger a manhunt. Reese realizes Finch kept him away from the case to protect him from the reminder of Jessica's death, and manages to find and subdue Brad as he attempts to kidnap his wife. Reese makes Brad disappear by arranging for him to be imprisoned in a Mexican penitentiary for drug smuggling. It is implied that Reese has done the same thing several times before as a way of making people disappear without actually killing them, possibly including to Arndt. During these events, Carter finds out Reese's true identity through his military record, but decides to keep it a secret; Finch gifts Reese his own apartment.

22. No Good Deed

Flashbacks to 2009 show Alicia Corwin warning Ingram that the Machine will "flag" anyone who discovers its existence, leading Ingram to realize the government will use the Machine to spy on its own citizens. He asks Finch to create a contingency to avoid such an abuse of power; when Finch refuses, Ingram creates one himself. In the present, NSA security analyst Henry Peck, the latest POI, is being targeted for unwittingly discovering the Machine's existence in a security report. Though Peck is initially incredulous, he realizes the Machine does indeed exist after being repeatedly saved by Reese, and decides to contact the press. Finch intercepts Peck and gives him a new identity while admitting to creating the Machine, unaware that Corwin is listening in. Reese tracks down Finch's fiancée Grace, who believes him dead; Finch admits he faked his death to protect her.

23. Firewall

Fusco is hired by HR leadership to obstruct any investigation into a planned murder, with the target being the latest POI: Dr. Caroline Turing, a therapist with a powerful client list. Reese poses as one of her clients and saves her from an assassination attempt. HR and FBI later converge on the hotel where Reese is hiding Turing; Carter and Fusco help them escape and fend off HR – discovering in the process that they are on the same side – while Finch waits in a car to collect Turing. However, he is met by Corwin, who demands his help in shutting down the Machine.

Corwin is suddenly shot dead by Turing, who reveals herself as "Root," the mysterious hacker Finch previously encountered. Root anonymously hired HR to target her, thereby putting her on the Machine's radar and allowing her to learn more about it. She abducts Finch before Reese can arrive. Fusco sends evidence to the FBI allowing them to arrest an HR mole and exposing HR's Inner Council, the first step towards bringing the organization down. Reese asks the Machine via a surveillance camera to help him find Finch. A payphone rings nearby and Reese answers.

Season 2

1. The Contingency

The Machine provides Reese a code that translates to the SSN of accountant Leon Tao, who is being targeted for stealing money from the Aryan Brotherhood. Reese saves Tao from the gang and adopts their dog, which he names Bear. The government sabotages Carter's investigation into Corwin's death to prevent her from learning about the Machine. Root takes Finch to a cabin in Maryland and kidnaps NSA operative Denton Weeks. She explains that she sees the Machine as a "perfect intelligence" and wants to "set it free." Reese threatens to quit his operations unless the Machine helps him find Finch, and receives the SSN of a girl in Texas who has been missing since 1991 when she was 14.

Flashbacks to the early days of the Machine's development depict it saving Finch from a distracted driver who dies in a crash. Finch rebukes the Machine and states that it should be protecting everyone, not only him.

2. Bad Code

Root interrogates Denton Weeks for the Machine's location and kills him after he discloses it. Reese identifies the missing girl provided to him by the Machine as Hanna Frey, who was abducted and never found twenty years prior. Reese suspects the missing Hanna to be Root, especially as her abductor was set up to be murdered in a manner matching Root's MO. Reese and Carter's investigation leads them to Hanna's friend Samantha Groves, the sole witness to the abduction. Sam informed the local librarian of what she saw, only for the librarian -- the perpetrator's wife -- to accuse Sam of lying and intimidate her into silence about the abductor's identity.

Sam later adopted the alias "Root" and left home after the death of her mother. With the help of the remorseful librarian, Carter finds Hanna's body and ensures that she gets a proper burial. While investigating Corwin's murder, Fusco finds a taped conversation regarding the government's search for Weeks, which, combined with a clue found in Hanna's killer's house, allows Reese to locate the cabin and retrieve Finch. Root escapes but calls Reese to thank him for finding her friend, but warns that she will come back for Finch.

3. Masquerade

As Finch tries to readjust to life after his kidnapping, establishing a bond with Reese's attack dog Bear, Reese poses as a bodyguard to get close to Sophia Campos, the spoiled daughter of the Brazilian consul in New York. Sophia has become the target of the leader of a drug smuggling operation, who believes that she and a friend witnessed their operations. Reese saves her from the gang. Meanwhile, Fusco hands the Alicia Corwin case on to Carter. While at the morgue, Carter encounters Mark Snow, who claims that he has been reassigned, but is in fact being held hostage by Kara Stanton.

4. Triggerman

Riley Cavanaugh, an enforcer for an Irish mobster, becomes the next number when he betrays his boss and goes on the run with his lover, Annie, whom he was ordered to kill. Reese and Finch debate the morality of trying to save a ruthless killer, but they soon need Riley's help when Annie is captured by bounty hunters hired by the mob. To keep Annie safe, Finch is forced to make a deal with Elias, who continues to run his criminal organization from behind bars, in exchange for a game of chess.

Elias uses his influence to order the hit called off, but the mobster continues to personally pursue the couple. Riley sacrifices his life in order to save Annie, an act Reese encourages her to interpret as proof of his love and a sign of his redemption. Reese later tracks down the hitman who killed Riley and presumably kills him in retaliation.

5. Bury the Lede

In the midst of New York's mayoral elections, the FBI are closing the net around the HR; 75 dirty cops are arrested, but their elusive leader remains unknown. Investigative reporter Maxine Angelis is trying to beat them to the story and becomes the next number, but Reese finds it difficult to openly protect Maxine when Finch discovers she is also researching an exposé on the mysterious "man in the suit". HR runs a gambit to trick Maxine into imprudently naming an FBI informant as HR's leader, causing HR's criminal enemies to murder the innocent man and discrediting all her work, including an exposé of a mayoral candidate.

Finch uses an online dating website to get Reese close to Maxine without exposing his true identity. While Reese helps Maxine hunt for the dead informant's ledger containing the names of everyone in HR, he must also protect her from repeated HR kill teams. Reese, Carter and Fusco track down the ledger, and Fusco secretly removes the pages that would incriminate himself and Simmons. The ledger names one of the mayoral candidates as the big boss, causing his opponent to win the race, but in reality, both candidates are on the payroll of Alonzo Quinn, HR's true leader.

6. The High Road

Reese ventures into suburbia to locate the next person of interest, Graham Wyler, whose past returns to haunt him. Reese "proposes" to Zoe Morgan for the mission to help blend into suburban life. They move to the suburbs to investigate Wyler. Wyler is forced to help with a robbery led by his former partners, as he is a master safecracker. He cracks the safe as Reese and the NYPD show up. Carter buys some extra time with the police by leading them up the wrong staircase to give Reese and Wyler time to escape down the other, but Wyler decides he does not want to continue running from his past and turns himself in.

He turns state's evidence against the gang and is then placed on house arrest, as the court deems him no threat to society due to his help in getting convictions on his crew. Flashbacks show Finch greeting Grace (his future fiancé) for the first time.

7. Critical

Reese and Finch work to save both the life of a CEO undergoing secret surgery and the wife of the surgeon from a former MI6 agent and a team of ex-SAS operatives. Leon Tao, once again in danger, assists while under protective detention. Carter handles the case of a murdered man with her business card in his pocket, discovering that Agent Snow is the murderer. Snow reveals to her that he has been strapped to a bomb suit and says that 'she', referring to Stanton, is planning something big. Detective Carter informs Reese of her meeting with Agent Snow, and he warns her to stay out of the case.

8. 'Til Death

The Machine produces two numbers belonging to a married couple who own a publishing house. Reese and Finch work together and soon discover that each has ordered a hit on the other to settle a proposed sellout deal for their company. Reese kidnaps the couple with Carter's reluctant help, and defends them from a group of armed thugs while Finch plays marriage counselor. Eventually the hitmen are taken down while the couple are arrested but work out their marital problems. Finch suggests that the two will not spend much time in jail due to skilled lawyers, as well as their refusal to testify against each other. Meanwhile, Carter begins a relationship with narcotics detective Cal Beecher.

9. C.O.D.

Reese works to save the life of a local taxi driver who is put in danger when a passenger leaves behind a laptop that is wanted by the Estonian mafia. Reese and Finch eventually realize the laptop contains valuable information that could enable terrorists to enter the country undetected. As a result, the Estonian mafia is killing anyone who has even seen the laptop. Finch is able to locate the laptop and the Estonians are defeated by Reese. Finch and Reese then have the cab driver use the laptop to negotiate a deal with the Secret Service to bring his family over from Cuba in exchange for the laptop.

At the same time, HR decides to reestablish ties with Elias and blackmail Fusco into helping. After walking into an ambush, Fusco tells HR member Simmons that Elias has cut all ties, and Fusco does the same. Unwilling to accept Fusco bowing out, Simmons leaves Carter with an anonymous tip that a cop murdered Detective Ian Davidson (" Blue Code ").

10. Shadow Box

Reese must protect the sister of a soldier who died in Afghanistan and her boyfriend, an ex-Marine who lost his right arm. The two are trying to expose an executive stealing from a charity for wounded veterans. Carter is offered a temporary assignment to the FBI when Special Agent Donnelly returns with new clues he believes will lead to Reese. The situation gets complicated when Reese, for whom the wounded veterans charity case has become personal, puts himself at risk as the FBI closes in on him while Finch is unable to stop him.

The FBI ultimately arrests Reese and three mercenaries under suspicion of being "the Man in the Suit," but the financial information recovered from a safe deposit box will allow Finch to redistribute the stolen money to reputable military charities; Finch promises to help the couple to escape to safety. Fusco, meanwhile, grows increasingly suspicious of Carter's boyfriend Cal Beecher, who is revealed to be the godson of HR leader Alonzo Quinn.

11. 2πR

With Reese in FBI custody, Finch poses as a high school teacher to protect the next number, a teenager named Caleb Phipps who is deliberately underperforming at school to hide his intelligence. Finch discovers that Caleb is a master coder and, with Fusco's help, learns the boy is also a drug lord. Finch accuses Caleb's tech teacher of stealing Caleb's code, but the truth is that the teacher is trying to promote Caleb's work so investors can help Caleb profit from it. Finch learns Caleb plans to give his valuable code and drug money to his drunk mother and commit suicide at the train station where his brother was killed in a train accident.

Finch is able to talk Caleb out of it. The next day, Caleb thanks Finch as he prepares for school, as Finch hints about his own past as a legendary hacker. Meanwhile, Reese and three other men are held captive by the FBI, who prepare to interrogate each one until they reveal the identity of the "Man in the Suit". In order to help prevent this, Carter removes Reese's fingerprints from the system and tampers with the DNA evidence.

12. Prisoner's Dilemma

Fusco is assigned to the new number, supermodel Karolina Kurkova. Meanwhile, Carter is asked to interrogate the four suspects in jail. Elias offers to help Reese, but Reese refuses, to avoid the attention of the FBI. Finch bribes a suspect to blame one of the other men, but after another suspect is killed by a government assassin named Hersh, Agent Donnelly suspects the real man is Reese. Donnelly incites a brawl involving Reese to get him to reveal himself, but Elias breaks it up, saving Reese and preserving his identity.

Carter questions the last suspect to provoke him, falsely identifying him as the man in the suit and securing Reese's release. Later, Reese visits Carter and thanks her, but Donnelly arrests Carter for conspiracy and Reese for murder, having deduced the truth from Carter's defense of Reese. The Machine informs Finch the next number is Donnelly and he tries to warn him as a truck hits Donnelly's car. Kara Stanton walks out, killing Donnelly and sedating Reese.

13. Dead Reckoning

Carter survives the crash while Reese is taken by Kara Stanton. Reese, with a bomb strapped to his vest like Mark Snow, is forced into doing fieldwork alongside him. The two steal a hard drive and are assigned to install it. A flashback shows Stanton was visited in the hospital by a man named Greer after surviving the Ordos airstrike. Stanton agrees to help Greer if he reveals who tried to kill her in China. Back in the present, Stanton activates the bomb vests and activates the cyberweapon stored on the hard drive; Reese and Snow escape, but Snow attacks Reese and runs off to get Stanton.

Carter and Fusco try to help Reese, but he refuses. Finch meets Reese and deactivates the bomb vest. Having completed her mission, Stanton is met by Greer, who gives her the name of the person who sold the laptop. Snow shows up in her car and his vest explodes, killing Snow and seemingly Stanton as well. The FBI later names Snow "The Man in the Suit" and closes the case. A flashback before the car explosion shows the name Stanton received: Harold Finch.

14. One Percent

Reese protects eccentric Internet billionaire Logan Pierce ( Jimmi Simpson ), who is dragging the reputation of his company FriendCzar through the mud with his bad behavior. After several attempts on Pierce's life, it is revealed that his partner, Justin Ogilvay, has been trying to kill him. Pierce flies himself and Reese to St. Petersburg, Russia, to escape the killer, but he invites several friends to join him and party, causing Reese to walk away. Pierce runs into Justin and his goons outside who are just about to throw him off a bridge when Reese appears and saves him.

Justin is arrested, and it is revealed that Pierce was in cahoots with Emily Morton, who has developed a superior technology. By being removed from FriendCzar, Pierce's non-compete agreement is void, allowing him to assist Emily in a new venture which will crush FriendCzar. When Reese shows Finch the $2 million watch that Pierce gave him, Finch stomps on it, revealing a tiny GPS tracker inside. Pierce was trying to track them and learn who they are. In a flashback to 2009, Finch's old partner Ingram is shown about to try to save one of the "irrelevant" numbers identified by the Machine.

15. Booked Solid

Reese and Finch work undercover in a hotel to protect a maid named Mira ( Mia Maestro ) who escaped the war in Kosovo. Mira, who is hiding her true identity, is being followed by a hit squad. She refuses to cooperate with a reporter investigating a Serbian general's war crimes. When the reporter is murdered, she decides to give a DVD with evidence to the authorities. Fusco escorts Mira to the station, where one final hit man attempts to kill her; he is shot by Carter. Meanwhile, Carter is invited to join the FBI.

She passes the polygraph but is rejected because Cal Beecher, her friend and love interest, has a record of Internal Affairs investigations. Acting on orders from the Special Counsel, Hersh follows Reese to the hotel, intending to interrogate and kill him. Reese stabs Hersh, and gives him a choice: Seek medical attention or attack Reese. Hersh chooses the hospital. While in recovery, he is ordered back to D.C. Finch purchases the hotel and promotes Mira to manager. Meanwhile, the Special Counsel's assistant, Miss May, is shown to be Root.

16. Relevance

The Machine gives the numbers of Sameen Shaw ( Sarah Shahi ), a government assassin, and Michael Cole ( Ebon Moss-Bachrach ), a computer specialist working for Special Counsel ( Jay O. Sanders ). Special Counsel has sent a hit team to eliminate Shaw and Cole because Cole may have obtained information on the Machine. They kill Cole but Shaw escapes, shooting Reese, who she believes is another assassin. Root captures and interrogates Shaw but leaves abruptly to avoid another hit team from Special Counsel. Reese saves her and Finch explains her "Research" does not actually exist, implying it is the Machine, and offers his aid to her, which she refuses.

She confronts Special Counsel, and returns the flash drive with the information Cole had recovered, then kills the subordinate who had ordered her and Cole's death. Special Counsel allows her to leave, but Hersh finds her and injects her with poison. Leon Tao (disguised as a paramedic), Carter, and Fusco take charge of the apparently dead body and drive away. Tao, as directed by Reese, injects her with an antidote. Shaw, fully recovered, meets with Reese and Finch in a graveyard and accepts Finch's card.

17. Proteus

After being silent for three days, when the Machine generates numbers of six missing people, Reese, Finch, and Detective Carter realize that they are hunting a serial killer who assumes the identity of his victims. Reese encounters FBI agent Alan Fahey ( Luke Macfarlane ) at Owen Island during his search for the same killer. Due to a severe storm, residents of the island take shelter in the police station. Finch arrives at the island and assists Fahey interrogate the people in the station. Carter, having researched the six victims, goes to help Finch and Reese.

Meanwhile, Finch and Reese discover that the killer is actually masquerading as Agent Fahey, whom he had killed before Reese arrived on the island. The killer captures Finch before Carter arrives and saves him before Beecher shoots the killer dead. Finch and Reese later ponder why the Machine was silent for three days, with Finch suspecting that the virus Kara Stanton uploaded to the Department of Defense has infected the Machine and slowed its abilities. He tells Reese that he believes this is the beginning of a coming storm.

18. All In

The Machine generates the number of watch repairman Lou Mitchell ( Ron McLarty ), who is consistently losing large sums of money at a casino. He and many other elderly gamblers are actually victims of a drug-money laundering operation headed by the casino's owner Dario Makris ( Michael Rispoli ). Finch breaks into the casino server room and gathers the needed evidence, but is caught and taken hostage along with Reese, Leon, and Lou. They are forced to play a game of Russian roulette, but Reese gets them out alive after Lou sneaks the bullet out before it enters the gun.

Meanwhile, HR incriminates Detective Szymanski ( Michael McGlone ) so the head of the Russian mob can be exonerated and give financial support to HR. Cal Beecher was the one who told IAB that Szymanski was corrupt, acting on information from one of Beecher's CIs. Carter succeeds in clearing Szymanski, but he is later killed along with the ADA by HR boss Alonzo Quinn, who makes it look like an assassination by an outside figure. Detective Terney ( Al Sapienza ) of the homicide task force is revealed to be an HR operative, potentially watching Fusco and Carter.

19. Trojan Horse

Reese monitors Michael Cole's family where Shaw finds him. Finch calls with a new number, that of Monica Jacobs ( Tracie Thoms ), a high-ranking employee of a technology company called Rylatech. Jacobs is being hunted and framed for industrial espionage by other employees who are secretly working as spies for China and Greer's shadowy company Decima Technologies. Meanwhile, Shaw tracks Finch to the library, where she grabs a list of Root's aliases from the wall, telling Finch she has a new project. While monitoring Beecher, Fusco discovers that he's innocent of any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Quinn realizes that Beecher knows too much about his role in HR, and arranges to have him killed. The Machine gives Finch his number, but too late for Carter and Fusco to save him. The next morning, Finch is taking a walk around town with Reese, telling him that he has identified Decima Technologies, the company which employed Kara Stanton to upload a virus onto the Machine. Unknowingly behind them, Greer is on the phone, and when he hangs up, he looks at his phone, which has a countdown ticking on it, and smiles.

20. In Extremis

When a highly decorated doctor named Richard Nelson ( Dennis Boutsikaris ) is poisoned with a fatal dose of radiation, Reese is forced to partner with Nelson to track down the killer after they both realize that the radiation has no antidote. Unable to save Nelson, the two poison the killer with the same toxin. Flashbacks explore how Detective Fusco became involved with HR and the development of his friendship with Detective Stills. Meanwhile, HR has an informant give the Internal Affairs Bureau the location of Stills' body so that they can send Fusco to prison in retaliation for him quitting.

Fusco confesses his past to Carter who is forced to evaluate her partnership with Fusco and how she might help him with the problems he is facing. With the help of Bear, Carter finds and moves Stills' body while Finch has Elias get the informant to recant. The Machine displays the coded blue screens with increasing frequency as it becomes apparent to Finch and Reese that the numbers are coming too late, leading to Dr. Nelson's death. As the episode ends, the Machine sends a series of alerts before beginning the process of shutting down its primary functions.

21. Zero Day

Special Counsel discovers that there is a threat to the Machine, which Finch and Reese are attempting to stop. The Machine gives a number belonging to Ernest Thornhill, a CEO who is buying several payphone companies in New York. Decima Technologies, Finch, Root, Shaw and Reese all attempt to reach Thornhill, but Finch discovers that Thornhill is an alias created by the Machine. Root and Finch enter Thornhill Enterprises and discover that the Machine will reboot to defend against the virus, once complete giving Admin access to who ever receives a call.

Reese and Shaw follow and encounter Greer and his men. Greer tells Reese that the laptop Reese had to recover with Kara Stanton from China was sent there by Finch. Finch knows which payphone the Machine is going to call and goes with Root to answer, followed by Shaw and Reese, where they encounter Greer's men. When the call comes, Root answers the phone, but Finch splices the call to a payphone near Reese so he too can answer the phone.

22. God Mode

The Machine grants both Reese and Root full administrative access and saves Reese (with Shaw) and Root (with Finch) from several potential threats. Root and Finch arrive at the Hanford nuclear facility where the Machine is kept, followed shortly by Reese and Shaw, the latter being slowed as the Machine directs them to rescue people from the irrelevant list. They find that the Machine has moved. Finch explains that he planted hidden code inside the Machine that would grant it the freedom to protect itself if it was at risk, code triggered by the virus from the Ordos laptop.

For failing to protect the machine, an unknown woman orders Hersh to kill Special Counsel. Meanwhile, Raymond Terney (HR) and Peter Yogorov attempt to kill Carl Elias. They are stopped by a masked Detective Carter, who wounds Terney and Yogorov and frees Elias. A payphone later calls Reese and Finch. Hersh talks with the unknown woman confirming that they received a relevant number. The Machine then calls Root. In flashbacks, Ingram plans to tell the press about the Machine, but Hersh manipulates a suicide bomber into detonating a bomb on a ferry where Ingram and Finch are meeting. Ingram is killed while Finch is injured. Grace believes Harold to have died in the explosion.

Season 3

1. Liberty

Reese, Finch, and Shaw work to save the life of a sailor named Jack Salazar ( Rey Valentin ) who is inadvertently caught up in a diamond smuggling operation run by a team of Force Recon Marines. Shaw gets used to being a member of the team, although her propensity for violent solutions worries Finch. Meanwhile, Carter adapts to life as a uniformed police officer after being demoted. It is revealed she is conducting a secret investigation into HR, and has identified several of its high-ranking members. A troubled Root continues to receive counseling, and later reveals that she is still in contact with the Machine when she uses it to learn the unhealthy habits of her psychiatrist, Dr. Carmichael ( Bruce Altman ).

2. Nothing to Hide

Wayne Kruger ( David Alan Basche ) is the owner of a company known as Lifetrace, which specializes in revealing members' privacy on their profile pages and selling it to various organizations. Reese, Finch, and Shaw monitor Kruger's activities in the company, which is currently making a deal with another large retail company called Riverton. Though the site is deemed harmless by Kruger, Finch discovers that there is a class-action suit against Kruger involving various victims of the site whose privacy has been eliminated. Members of the suit receive anonymous packages containing information on how to humiliate and attack Kruger in revenge for their lives being destroyed thanks to Lifetrace.

One of these people is Stu Sommers, a man whose daughter was stalked and killed by her ex-boyfriend after he used Lifetrace to follow her. Reese convinces Sommers not to kill Kruger before being shot at by Collier, a man supposedly working for Riverton. Collier also kills Kruger before fleeing the scene. He was the one who sent the anonymous packages.

3. Lady Killer

When the Machine gives the number of Ian Murphy ( Warren Kole ), a man suspected of being a stalker, Reese along with Shaw recruits Carter, Fusco and Zoe to investigate further into his background. But when they discover that Murphy has a son from a former lover who is now dead, they work to reunite the boy with his father and right the wrong set in motion by the boy's grandfather, who wanted Murphy dead after he did not approve of him and saw him at his daughter's funeral. Meanwhile, Root sets her escape plan in motion with the help of the Machine when government operative Hersh tracks her down. Finch arrives at the hospital and finds to his horror the hospital staff incapacitated and Root gone.

4. Reasonable Doubt

Reese and Finch's next number is that of Vanessa Watkins ( Kathleen Rose Perkins ), a prominent New York prosecutor who is accused of killing her defense attorney husband, Jeremy. The police find a gun with her DNA on it and arrest her. Vanessa escapes police custody. Finch investigates Jeremy's murder and learns that he owed money to a gangster. Reese, Finch and Carter question Watkins to decide if she is guilty or innocent. Her testimony eventually convinces them that Vanessa is innocent, but they also discover that Jeremy, who turns out to be alive, has emptied his bank accounts.

They then conclude that Jeremy framed her and Reese drops Vanessa at a bus station to flee as Jeremy may try to kill her. But the team discovers that Vanessa lied in the testimony, had a fake passport for herself and did not leave town, intending to kill Jeremy. On his yacht, Jeremy is held at gunpoint by Vanessa. Reese arrives, leaves his gun next to Jeremy and leaves. Reese then has Finch call the authorities as gunshots are heard from the yacht, not revealing who survived or died.

5. Razgovor

In a series of flashbacks to Shaw's childhood it is revealed she was in a car with her father when he was killed in a wreck, but that she showed a lack of emotion over it. In the present, Shaw saves another number. The team's next number turns out to be a Russian immigrant girl named Genrika Zhirova (Danielle Kotch), who is deeply interested in espionage and is living with an older cousin in a run-down apartment. Shaw ends up watching Genrika when men come to attack her. Genrika had been bugging the phones in her apartment building and overheard information she should not have.

Meanwhile, Carter is continuing her investigation of HR. She is eventually asked to meet her partner Laskey at a bar, where he confronts her about her work with Reese. Knowing that Laskey is corrupt, she blackmails him into working for her. Root later arrives at Shaw's loft and abducts her.

6. Mors Praematura

While Shaw is abducted by Root, Finch and Reese get the number of Timothy Sloan ( Kirk Acevedo ), an estate investigator. Finch goes undercover as Sloan's assistant while Reese continues investigating Shaw's whereabouts. Sloan investigates the case of his foster brother, a man named Jason Greenfield ( Michael Esper ), who apparently died of a heroin overdose. Finch soon learns that Greenfield used to be a member of the organization Vigilance, which includes Peter Collier ( Leslie Odom, Jr. ) (from the episode "Nothing to Hide"). Meanwhile, Shaw reluctantly agrees to help Root get into a CIA black site.

Jason, who is alive, is one of the people held there, awaiting transfer. The transfer is intercepted by Vigilance, leading to a shootout. Root helps Jason escape and tells him to go to a location in South America. Reese and Shaw eventually save Sloan and recapture Root, but Collier gets away. Finch locks up Root in the Library.

7. The Perfect Mark

Reese and Finch get the number of Hayden Price ( Aaron Staton ), a hypnotherapist. Finch, who poses as Hayden's patient, learns that Hayden is a con man who hypnotizes his patients into giving him their security information, which allows him to enter their bank accounts and steal from them. One of his patients, Sven Vanger ( Carsten Norgaard ), is in fact a money launderer for HR who bids fake items at auctions. One of the items he purchased is a baseball signed by the 1922 New York Yankees team, which is worth $4,000,000. Sven sells it for $5, believing it to be a fake.

That night, Laskey shows Carter the pictures he has taken of Simmons' activities, when Terney comes in with his gun drawn. Terney shoots Laskey dead, and Carter responds by shooting Terney almost immediately after. She begs a dying Terney to tell her if the head of HR is in one of Laskey's pictures, and Terney places his bloodstained finger on the picture of Alonzo Quinn.

8. Endgame

Finch receives 38 numbers, all members of HR. Carter intercepts a drug delivery of the Russian mob, causing leader Peter Yogorov to suspect HR. Carter starts a war between HR and the Russians by firing sniper shots at HR leader Alonzo Quinn, who blames the Russians. Quinn orders his right-hand man, Simmons, to have his men round up the Russians. Reese learns about Carter's plan, and Finch deduces Quinn's identity as the head of HR. The Russians' numbers come up as they are now threatened by HR, but both groups are arrested by the FBI when Carter tips them off.

Carter takes Yogorov into protective custody and has him sign a statement that can earn an arrest warrant for Quinn, but the judge she approaches is member of HR. Quinn, Simmons, and two other HR cops wait for Carter at the judge's house, where Carter reveals that she called Reese and Finch, recording HR's incriminating conversation. Reese breaks in, a shootout ensues, and Carter apprehends Quinn. Simmons later accesses a dashcam that has a picture of Reese.

9. The Crossing

Reese and Carter are crossing town to deliver Alonzo Quinn to the FBI. Simmons alerts HR and several criminal groups of Reese's identity, limiting their means of movement. The two fight their way to, and break into, the city morgue. Simmons and Detective William Petersen ( Lee Tergesen ) capture and torture Fusco for the location of Carter's safe deposit box, which contains evidence against HR. To break Fusco, Simmons sends Lin ( Khalil Kain ) to kill his son Lee (Sean McCarthy); but Lin is killed by Shaw. Fusco breaks his own thumb to get free of the handcuffs, and kills Petersen.

Reese distracts the HR cops by killing or disabling all but one, leading him onto the street. Finch arranges for two honest policemen to arrest Reese to evade HR. Carter and Quinn reach FBI Headquarters. Quinn is charged with multiple offenses and HR gets disbanded, with the exception of a few rogue officers, including the now-fugitive Simmons. Carter, re-promoted to detective, releases Reese from police custody. Simmons fires on both Reese and Carter down the street. Carter shoots Simmons back, but he escapes, merely wounded. Severely injured, Reese holds a dying Carter in his arms as she loses consciousness.

10. The Devil's Share

Flashbacks illuminate Finch's dealing with survivor's guilt, Reese's time doing wetwork, Shaw's former life as a technically excellent surgeon but completely indifferent to the people she helped, and Fusco's recounting of exacting vigilante justice to a crook that slipped through the system (the devil's share). Reese starts sliding into his old, dark ways to get Simmons while also sliding towards death. Finch, Fusco, and Shaw go to an HR attorney to know Quinn's whereabouts to question him for Simmons' plan, but the Russians have killed him, shortly after Reese got the information.

The team turns to Root in desperation. Reese gets Simmons' location and is just about to kill Quinn when Finch reminds him that killing Quinn now would destroy Carter's legacy of bringing him down legally, and he collapses. Fusco finds the note that Reese dropped, and goes after Simmons. After a brutal fistfight, Fusco emotionally refuses to kill Simmons and takes him into custody, citing Carter's influence for turning his life around. Root, despite having opportunity to flee, returns to her cell, and Finch thanks her for helping him in saving Reese. Finally, Elias watches as Marconi murders Simmons in his hospital bed in retaliation for Carter.

11. Lethe

Reese leaves the team and heads for Colorado, where his father had lived. The Machine provides a new number to Harold, who at first is reluctant, but eventually accepts it on Root's insistence. The number belongs to Arthur Claypool ( Saul Rubinek ), Harold's close friend during his days at MIT. Claypool has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is being monitored at the hospital, being kept under Secret Service guard. Arthur's wife, Diane ( Camryn Manheim ) tells the disguised Doctor Shaw that Arthur works for the NSA, and Collier's group Vigilance tries to abduct him.

They escape to a hotel, where Harold talks to Arthur to get more information about Samaritan: a project which sought to build an AI, like the later Machine, but was shut down just as it achieved consciousness. As Arthur talks with Finch, he remembers that his wife is dead, prompting the woman pretending to be Diane to reveal herself as Control. She threatens to kill either Arthur or Harold unless one of them gives up their respective AI. The Machine starts analyzing threats to its assets and itself, changing Samaritan's status from "Deactivated" to "Unknown".

12. Aletheia

Control holds Harold, Shaw and Arthur captive. She orders Shaw killed, but Root enters, guns blazing, and frees the trio. Root herself is shot and captured by Control, who tortures her, demanding access to the Machine. Control destroys the hearing in Root's right ear and threatens to make her completely deaf and blind. Meanwhile, Arthur reveals that he has a copy of the Samaritan AI in a safe-deposit box. They go to retrieve it, and Vigilance militants attack the bank. Harold locks himself, Arthur, and the bank manager in the vault.

While Shaw readies a bomb to break out of the vault, Harold tells Arthur about the Machine and convinces him to destroy Samaritan to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Vigilance breaks into the vault and captures everyone, including Shaw, but Reese and Lionel save them. Meanwhile, the Machine helps Root to escape from Control. Root calls Harold to tell him that the Samaritan drives were not destroyed: The bank manager was an imposter who swapped the disks with replicas. The impostor is shown handing the drives to Decima Technologies head Greer, who shoots her to cover his tracks. He has great plans for Samaritan.

13. 4C

Reese boards an international flight to get away from his former life, but the Machine makes changes to his itinerary causing him to take another one. Initially Reese is angry at Harold thinking he has made the changes, but Harold convinces him otherwise. It turns out that Owen Matthews ( Samm Levine ), a passenger on the plane is a witness being escorted by U.S. Marshals, and he is the intended target of multiple assassins including the ISA. After Reese foils several assassination attempts, Finch learns that one of the assassins plans to crash the aircraft and kill everyone onboard just to ensure the witness is eliminated.

Reese and Harold safely land the plane and save everyone, and all ends well. Reese goes on a date with Holly ( Sally Pressman ), the flight attendant who helped him and later tells Harold he wants a new suit and to come back and work again.

14. Provenance

The team's next case is that of Kelli Lin ( Elaine Tan ), a former silver medal-winning Olympic gymnast who is later revealed to be an antiquities thief long pursued by Interpol. Shaw investigates Kelli's house, learning that her next operation is to steal a Gutenberg Bible that is being shipped out that night. Shaw foils the plan but is confronted by Kelli, whose boss Cyril ( Gene Farber ) is an extortionist revealed to be forcing Kelli to commit robberies while her daughter is held captive. Finch takes Interpol agent Alain Bouchard (Henri Lubatti), the man in charge of the investigation against Kelli, to listen in on Kelli's conversation with Cyril so Bouchard can learn the truth.

Cyril refuses to free Kelli's daughter, but sees Reese take down the thugs guarding her on the surveillance feed. Shaw stops Cyril from killing Kelli and both Kelli and Cyril are apprehended. In an interrogation room at the NYPD, Bouchard places a key on a desk, allowing her to leave. The next day, Kelli and her daughter happily reunite. That night, the team celebrates their victory and Reese honors Carter by pouring a glass for their "missing member".

15. Last Call

When the number of Sandra ( Melissa Sagemiller ), a 911 operator, comes up, Harold goes undercover at the 911 call-center. Later, a child is kidnapped and the call is routed specifically to Sandra. She is ordered to delete an earlier day's 911 call logs, in return for the child's life. Meanwhile, the case overlaps with one of the murder cases with which Fusco was helping a rookie detective. It turns out that a woman was killed by her married ex-boyfriend and boss, and the family hired a cleaner to erase the final 911 call she made.

When Fusco 'convinces' the family to terminate the contract, the cleaner decides to kill both the child and Sandra. Reese and Shaw save the child from kidnappers and a bomb, while Harold traps the assassin who comes after Sandra. The team is never able to find the real cleaner, who later calls Finch to threaten him. The criminal becomes known as "The Voice".

16. RAM

In 2010, Harold works with Dillinger ( Neil Jackson ), an ex- Blackwater mercenary who performs the same duties later performed by Reese. Their current number is Daniel Casey ( Joseph Mazzello ), a hacker who tests computer security systems. Multiple parties attempt to eliminate Casey, including Reese and Stanton (secretly arranged by Control) and agents of Decima Technologies. Dillinger saves Casey and brings him to Harold, who realizes Casey's last job was to find a way to access the Machine. Although Casey failed, he learned enough to warrant Control to want him dead and his laptop destroyed.

Dillinger turns on Finch and steals the laptop from him to sell on the black market, but not before Finch modifies the laptop's code. The sale is busted by a Special Counsel agent (Shaw) who kills Dillinger, but one of the buyers escapes with the laptop. Casey is captured by Reese, who decides to let him live against his orders, providing him with safe passage to Canada, an act of mercy that Harold observes unseen. Control traces the laptop to China, and orders that Reese and Stanton to be sent after the laptop and destroyed along with it. In the present day, Root finds Casey in Alaska and tells him to go to Cartagena, Colombia and seek out Jason Greenfield.

17. /

The Machine orders Root on several tasks such as helping a convict escape and using him to impersonate a Department of Defense employee in order to obtain a secret note. Afterward, she and Harold's team coincidentally reach the same person, a janitor. It later turns out that NSA has been testing an advanced supercomputing chip and the janitor was one of the 15 people who had access to the development lab. This makes both Decima and Vigilance come after him. While Harold and his team's assignment was to protect the janitor, Root had to stop the chip from falling into Decima's hands. They are able to save the janitor, but Decima gets the chip.

18. Allegiance

The team receives the number of Maria Martinez ( Nazneen Contractor ), an engineer working for the international energy company HydralCorp. Maria is working to clear the name of Omar Risha ( Haaz Sleiman ), a man from Iraq suspected of being a terrorist. Shaw, Fusco and Reese save Maria from an assassination attempt and learn that Omar was her translator in Iraq and saved her from a terrorist ambush during the shipment of six generators. The generators went missing and Omar learned about their disappearance, being targeted for it. Finch learns that the generators were shipped elsewhere and that HydralCorp's corrupt CEO Ken Davis ( Casey Biggs ) is responsible.

Maria and Shaw discover that Davis has created a false report of Omar's terrorist accusations, and that French United Nations diplomat Rene Lapointe ( Michel Gill ) has the papers approving Omar's asylum in the US in his office. Reese, Fusco and Omar break into the UN building and stop Greek diplomat Christos Sevon ( William Abadie ) from killing Maria. Root takes Bear to spy on Decima head Greer, where it is revealed that Davis had the generators shipped to the US so Greer can power Samaritan. Greer has Davis killed and leaves, and Root follows him.

19. Most Likely To...

The team witness Leona Wainwright being killed by a suicide bomber. She worked for the government, managing security clearances; Finch deduces from cell phone information that Vigilance killed her. Their next number, prosecutor Matthew Reed ( Nestor Carbonell ), sends Reese and Shaw to a high school reunion in Westchester. They manage to prevent a planned murder, while fending off an ambush by Vigilance. Meanwhile, Finch and Fusco go to Washington, D.C. to find out why Leona was targeted, but Vigilance beats them to it. Collier obtains classified documents about the Machine and disseminates them world wide. Senator Ross Garrison ( John Doman ) publicly denies the existence of the Machine and orders Control to shut it down. She gives the command, and shreds Collier's eyes-only file. With its Primary Operations compromised, the Machine restructures, transferring massive amounts of red-flagged data to Tertiary Operations: Root.

20. Death Benefit

The new number is Congressman Roger McCourt ( John Heard ), who serves on the powerful Rules Committee. The team is initially baffled: He has no obvious enemies. They eventually discover a connection to Decima: McCourt admits to agreeing to help Decima with favorable legislation (granting Decima access to government surveillance feeds), in exchange for insider stock-trading tips. Reese concludes that the team is the “danger”, because the Machine wants them to kill McCourt in order to prevent future killings by Decima. Harold is deeply disturbed at this idea, and he leaves the team, not wishing to participate in an assassination.

In the end, McCourt is left alive and proceeds with Decima's plan. Greer also approaches a skeptical Senator Garrison, offering him a 24-hour beta test of their machine. Garrison agrees, and Greer immediately deploys Samaritan to track down Finch. Meanwhile, Root is travelling across the country, dealing with various relevant threats.

21. Beta

With Finch having disappeared, Decima initiates their plan with Samaritan, and when unable to find Finch, they look for his closest connection and the number received is that of Finch's fiancee Grace. The Machine also provides Grace's number as a result, and Reese, Shaw and Root work to protect her while evading Decima, who use Samaritan to spy on them within the range of New York. Grace is eventually kidnapped and interviewed by Greer, who reveals his extensive knowledge of her and begins asking about her life with Finch. When he implies that Finch lied to her, Grace snaps and firmly tells Greer that Finch would never lie as Grace gave him her unbreakable trust.

When the team manages to locate Decima's current HQ, Greer takes Grace and tells Reese and Shaw that they can get Grace back in exchange for giving them Finch. Finch agrees to the deal, and at Jefferson Bridge, Grace is blindfolded and brought to Reese and crew while Finch is taken by Decima. Reese later gives Grace an envelope, saying that she has been accepted for a job in Italy. Greer, meanwhile, finally meets Finch in person and sits down with him to talk.

22. A House Divided

In a series of flashbacks to 2010, the narrative reveals the backstory on Collier, the face of Vigilance. His brother had been falsely accused of terrorist activities, held without trial, and had committed suicide as a result. The Machine's latest numbers include Control, Senator Garrison, a presidential assistant, and a seemingly unconcerned Greer. Vigilance kidnaps them, along with Finch, and the episode ends with Vigilance about to conduct a private trial of their detainees, while Reese and Shaw, along with Hersh (joining forces after a tense confrontation) watch from a closed-circuit TV screen set up for their benefit. Meanwhile, Root has discovered the location of the Samaritan system.

23. Deus Ex Machina

The trial continues. Reese, Hersh and Fusco search for the courtroom. Shaw helps Root smuggle seven servers into the Samaritan array. Hersh finds a bomb, wired to go off when the power comes on. Control is found guilty. To save her life, Finch confesses to building the Machine. When a command post is compromised, Collier moves the trial to the roof, where Decima attacks. Greer reveals that he himself created Vigilance. He wanted an atrocity—the bomb—to justify Samaritan. The bomb explodes, Greer's lieutenant kills Collier, and Reese rescues Harold. Because of Samaritan, Vigilance members are identified, targeted and eliminated, but Harold's team is identified as “irrelevant” by the program. Finch, Reese, Shaw, Root and the programmers have new identities. The seven servers hard-wire Samaritan to ignore them. Samaritan asks for instructions. Greer replies, “What, my dear Samaritan, are your commands for us?” The answer: “Calculating response... ".

Season 4

1. Panopticon

The team adopts cover identities in the wake of Samaritan's rise. The Machine provides Reese the number of Ali Hasan, who has built a communications network VHF television antennas across New York that cannot be traced by Samaritan. When a street gang known as "the Brotherhood" forces Hasan to set up a network for them, Hasan attempts to assassinate one of the leaders via a bomb placed in a burner phone. In retaliation, the Brotherhood kidnaps Hasan's son; Reese hires Elias to recover him. Finch gives Reese a phone belonging to Hasan's invisible network. A Samaritan agent named Martine Rousseau arrives in New York to eliminate threats to Samaritan. The Machine leads Finch to a new hideout inside an abandoned Interborough Rapid Transit Company station. Reese, via his cover identity as an NYPD detective, is placed on the 8th precinct's homicide task force.

2. Nautilus

Reese and Finch work to save the life of Claire Mahoney, a talented young mathematician who is heavily involved in solving a nautilus -themed cryptographic puzzle, a recruitment tool used to find gifted minds. Claire is unaware that Silverpool, a private military firm is targeting her for stealing files associated with the game. Finch learns that Samaritan is running the game and attempts to warn Claire against continuing. Claire ignores him and completes the game; she is held at gunpoint by Silverpool operatives who force her to hand over the stolen documents, only to be shot dead by snipers. Samaritan recognizes Claire as an asset, while Claire's documents expose Silverpool's atrocities, thereby eliminating a potential competitor to Samaritan. Finch shows Reese and Shaw the team's new hideout.

3. Wingman

The Machine's next number, wingman Andre Cooper, is discovered by Fusco to be preparing to testify against former mob associates who are now targeting him. Reese and Shaw rescue Fusco and Cooper from the mobsters' captivity. Finch and Root infiltrate a black market for weapons sales. Root subdues a group of Latvian gang members buying an AT4 anti-tank weapon; she and Finch uncover the mob's stash of money and weaponry, which they decide to use for their own work.

4. Brotherhood

Reese is assigned to the case of a drug deal gone bad between a gang of Armenians and "The Brotherhood", who were introduced in " Panopticon ". The team's latest numbers belong to siblings Malcolm and Tracie Booker, who stole the drug money from the scene to bail their imprisoned mother out of jail. While Reese works with a DEA agent to protect the kids, Finch consults Elias about the Brotherhood's elusive leader Dominic. Shaw abducts an injured Brotherhood soldier, nicknamed "Mini" ( Winston Duke ), from the scene of the drug deal. The DEA agent is revealed to be a mole working for Dominic, who leaves Reese and the kids to face a Brotherhood assault.

Fusco saves Reese, but Malcolm tries to make a deal with Dominic's right-hand man, Link ( Jamie Hector ), to protect his sister. Reese saves Malcolm, while Shaw forces Link to free Reese under the threat of burning the gang's heroin stash that Mini led her to. Shaw agrees to let Mini go, and he is picked up by Link. Mini reveals himself to in fact be Dominic and kills the DEA agent, ordering The Brotherhood to release the kids' mother as part of a campaign to induce gratitude.

5. Prophets

The Machine produces the number of Simon Lee ( Jason Ritter ), a brilliant political pollster and member of New York Governor James Murray's reelection campaign. Despite Lee's prediction, Murray loses, leaving Lee suspicious of the election result. The team discovers that the election upset is the result of vote rigging by Samaritan and that it wants Lee dead to tidy up loose ends. A series of flashbacks show the process Finch and Ingram went through to create The Machine. Reese is scheduled to attend therapy sessions because of his tendency to shoot people on the job.

Root reveals to Finch that since Samaritan's activation, The Machine ceased talking, leaving her without guidance and afraid. Samaritan operatives led by Martine find the hotel where Lee is hiding. Despite being shot by Martine, Root manages to divert Samaritan's focus from Lee. Finch and Shaw produce fake data to convince Lee that his prediction was incorrect, causing Samaritan to disregard him. Reese tells his therapist why he feels compelled to save people, referring to his failure to save Carter. Greer and Martine discuss Samaritan's plans to gain political control. Finch indicates to The Machine his desire to communicate with it.

6. Pretenders

The team receive the number of Walter Dang ( Erik Jensen ), a worker at an insurance company. Finch has to travel to Hong Kong to present a paper at a conference. Walter is investigating the death of truck driver Abel Mindler, who apparently committed suicide. He gets dragged into a gang war between Elias and the unknown adversaries. It is later shown that Abel was smuggling high explosive weapons to the same gang. The gang abducts Walter for the location of the truck which Abel drove and then ditched, once he realized what he was smuggling; but the team intervenes.

Elias meets with Dominic, and it is shown that Dominic was the mastermind behind the guns as he wanted to shift the balance of power. At the conference, Finch meets Elizabeth Bridges ( Jessica Hecht ), a small tech company owner, and the two bond. They are mugged on the way to the hotel. Discovering the thief's workplace, they go there, where Finch incapacitates him. As the conference ends, Finch pays him, revealing that he staged it to place a software on Bridges's laptop. As Bridges leaves, she calls a potential investor, who is revealed to be a Samaritan operative.

7. Honor Among Thieves

The latest number is Tomas Koroa ( Gerardo Celasco ), a wine dealer who is also an international thief. Shaw joins his gang. They rob a safe, which unexpectedly contains a deadly virus ( Marburg, or "MARV"). The other members try to kill Tomas. Shaw intervenes, but they take the vials. Shaw tracks the virus to a secure storage facility and realizes that two government operatives are doing the same thing. One of them is her former apprentice, Devon Grice ( Nick E. Tarabay ). Shaw and Tomas break into the storage facility, but are confronted by one of Tomas' teammates, who was behind the virus theft in the first place.

They escape with the vials, but Grice apprehends them. He lets them go, deleting the CCTV video. Samaritan retrieves the video and starts repairing it. Root and Finch investigate software engineer Jared Wilkins, founder of new nonprofit OTPS, who received a $12 million grant from Governor Dawson (from " Prophets "). OTPS is an effort to give every New York student a tablet for educational use. Believing the tablets to be powered by Samaritan software, they plant a virus which ultimately destroys the building.

8. Point of Origin

The latest number is NYPD recruit Dani Silva ( Adria Arjona ). She is spying on her fellow recruits, though further analysis proves that Silva is not hunting them, but is instead already a cop from Internal Affairs, working undercover in the academy trying to expose a suspected mole. The mole is Silva's fellow recruit and friend, Alex Ortiz, who is acting on orders of the Brotherhood. Ortiz steals Silva's files from her handler and then murders him, framing Silva for the crime. Ortiz also steals files from the academy's commandant for Dominic.

The group retrieves Ortiz from a local drug cartel in Spanish Harlem and escapes while Dominic has the cartel leader executed. Ortiz's confession exonerates Silva and improves Reese's standing in front of Internal Affairs. Elsewhere, Samaritan has processed the retrieved security footage (from "Honor Among Thieves"), producing a somewhat blurry picture of a person (Shaw), but identifies Tomas instead. In response, Martine is sent to identify the person, who interrogates Katya, Tomas' last remaining associate; and tortures Romeo for information on Shaw. The two make eye contact at the department store where Shaw works and recognize each other as agents of the opposing AI.

9. The Devil You Know

Martine engages in a gunfight with Shaw, who ultimately escapes thanks to Root. Martine learns that Fusco had stopped the truck that Root and Shaw used to escape, on a suspicion of Narcotics possession. Pretending to be a DEA agent, Martine questions Fusco about it, but he sees through the ruse and gives her a false lead. Reese and Finch deal with their latest number, Elias. Dominic gets many of Elias's people to turn on him in exchange for promises of expanded territory and power under The Brotherhood. Reese steps in to defend Elias and, during the process of evading Dominic, Anthony is captured and later killed in a suicide bombing.

Greer and Martine deduce that Samaritan has a "blind spot" somehow caused by The Machine. Martine is given command of a group of Decima agents to hunt down Shaw. Meanwhile, Dominic has deduced that there is an extra-legal team helping Elias—he has two of the players figured out (Shaw and Reese), with the bankroller's place (Harold) still a large question mark. Elias vows revenge for the death of Anthony, and warns Reese to stay out of the way once that day comes.

10. The Cold War

To bring The Machine out of hiding, Samaritan showcases its strength by eliminating crime in New York City for a whole day. John finds out that Samaritan has learned how to deal with irrelevant numbers and has managed to prevent a series of crimes which would otherwise be taken care of by The Machine. Samaritan's actions leave Harold and his team with a difficult choice. When The Machine decides not to communicate with Samaritan, Samaritan changes course, bringing New York City to a halt by allowing crime to dramatically increase.

When The Machine agrees, Root (acting as The Machine's voice) meets with Samaritan's representative, a young boy. It becomes clear that The Machine will not back down, while Samaritan is set on destroying it. Shaw leaves the Subway to help Root and the others while Samaritan engineers a stock market crash on Wall Street. A series of flashbacks show Greer's past as an MI6 agent. When Greer is assigned to kill a KGB agent, he discovers that the KGB agent is also an MI6 agent and that his deputy director, Blackwood, is a double agent. Overcome with anger, Greer kills Blackwood and severs his ties with MI6.

11. If-Then-Else

The team go to install software at the stock exchange that will stabilize the market. However, they are almost immediately intercepted by Samaritan operatives, who corner them in a room. Out of options, the team turns to The Machine, who in a matter of seconds provides a multitude of projections and outcomes in each. While doing so, it reflects on multiple chess matches it played and the lessons it learned with Finch in 2003. In a final simulation, The Machine projects a roughly 2% chance of survival and instructs the team to follow it.

Shaw is stuck on a subway train with a stock market exchange manager with a security code to the exchange's server room. However, she is interrupted by a would-be suicide bomber who she kills in the first two simulations (and thus gets herself arrested) but talks down in the final and ultimate outcome. After sending the code to Root, she arrives as the two teams clash, opting to hold the Samaritan operatives off as Finch, Reese, Fusco, and Root escape. She traps them in the elevator, but Martine shoots Shaw multiple times before approaching her as the elevator doors slam to a close.

12. Control-Alt-Delete

During a mission to eliminate four suspected terrorists, ISA operatives (including Brooks and Grice from "Honor Among Thieves") eliminate three while the fourth, Yasin Said, escapes with his laptop. When Control requests access to the laptop's contents, Samaritan denies the request. Suspicious of Samaritan's actions, Control orders Brooks and Grice to make recovering the laptop their highest priority. But when they do so, Said escapes and the laptop self-destructs. Reese and Root, who have been hunting for Shaw, kidnaps Control. Root tortures Control for information on Shaw, but Control denies having any knowledge.

Harold realizes that Control herself has been kept out of Samaritan's plans. Harold uploads a worm to one of the cellphones of the ISA operatives who came to rescue Control. Control tracks Yasin to Canada. He reveals that he won the Nautilus puzzle (from "Nautilus") and he wrote some software for an anonymous corporation. Control kills Yasin, but her actions leave a hint of doubt in her mind. The young boy acting as Samaritan's representative approaches White House and demands for a meeting with the President. Control visits the site of the shootout between Harold's team and the Samaritan operatives at the New York Stock Exchange.

13. M.I.A.

Root and Reese travel to the remote (and fictional) upstate town of Maple in search of Shaw. The two find a truck with a stretcher and medical equipment inside, leading them to a doctor; who was anonymously consulted for the job, but did not call the police since Maple has a history of job losses for those who ask too many questions. Root and Reese realize that Samaritan is experimenting with Maple as an "ant farm" to study human nature. After kidnapping and interrogating Maple's mayor Leslie Thompson, she leads them to the factory where Shaw was last seen, but Reese and Root instead find a secretary from the stock exchange, one of many innocent people who Samaritan is experimenting on with neural implants.

Fusco and Dani Silva (from "Point of Origin") investigate The Machine's next number, one Arthur Weiss, a seemingly unsuspecting citizen revealed as a freelance assassin. They lure him into Silva's home and engage in a fight, with Silva shooting him to save Fusco, thus making her first kill. The Machine sends the team a coded message telling them to stop looking for Shaw. Elsewhere, Shaw is revealed to be alive and in Greer's captivity.

14. Guilty

Harold is summoned for jury duty in the trial of a man charged with murdering his wife, the former CEO of a cellphone development company. Harold provokes the judge to get rejected from the panel, but is brought into it anyway. He is seated next to a former schoolteacher named Emma ( Blair Brown ), who turns out to be The Machine's next number. The team initially concludes that she is a perpetrator, being coerced to "fix" the trial; but later realizes she is supposed to convince the jury to vote "guilty".

Harold stalls to get a "not guilty" verdict while Reese and Zoe Morgan try to deduce the real story. The jury is sequestered in a hotel, and one of the jurors attempts to kill Harold, but Reese intervenes. The man is actually a plant by the real perpetrator, the new CEO of the company. The murder was to prevent the dead CEO from withdrawing an expensive product which was deemed to be unsafe. The new developments lead to dismissal of charges, and the real perpetrator is arrested. Fusco tells Reese to stop shutting him out. Zoe realizes there's a growing attraction between Reese and his counselor.

15. Q&A

Reese and Finch work to save the life of Anna Mueller, a software programmer at Fetch and Retrieve. She is being targeted because she expressed concern over the results VAL, a mobile app designed to aid users, is giving to people with depression that has resulted in suicides. Finch discovers a nautilus during the investigation and is contacted by Claire Mahoney (from " Nautilus ") who tells him that she had recovered some source code from Samaritan and wants him to use it on his laptop, but he's suspicious. Later, Claire reveals herself to be a Samaritan agent and leads Finch at gunpoint to a school run by Samaritan to convince him to join, but he refuses.

Root rescues him from the agents and shoots Claire, who escapes and hands Finch's laptop to Greer. Back at Fetch and Retrieve, Calvin Mazer, the CTO, holds Fusco and the CEO Lauren Buchanan at gunpoint and reveals that he altered VAL's source code to target people with depression, gambling problems and debt, for the sake of the advertisers. Reese rescues them, and Calvin is arrested. The next day, Greer attends a board meeting at Fetch and Retrieve.

16. Blunt

Reese works to save the life of grifter Harper Rose ( Annie Ilonzeh ), whom Dominic targets after she steals a large amount of money from a legalized marijuana dispensary. Her actions result in the Parral Cartel killing two of Dominic's men guarding a money laundering operation. Dominic tracks down and interrogates her boyfriend Trey. Reese reaches out to Dominic and offers to return the money stolen by Harper in exchange for Trey and the hit being called off on Harper, but he refuses. After suggesting the plan to Reese and Finch, Harper decides to visit the Estonian mafia, mentions Dominic's money laundering operation, and lures them to Dominic's location while Reese rescues Trey.

Fusco and the NYPD arrive and arrest the Parral Cartel, initially on possessing weapons illegally. Dominic and his crew are quickly released when he produces legal documents that show their guns are registered to his private security company. Dominic attempts to recruit Harper, who refuses, but he leaves the door open if she changes her mind. Root tries to sell an application she developed at The Machine's request to former POI Caleb Phipps, which she hopes will aid in trying to defeat Samaritan.

17. Karma

The Machine's next number is a psychologist named Dr. Shane Edwards ( Patrick Kennedy ), whose wife was murdered eight years earlier, an event which continues to haunt him. The team determines that Edwards has been studying the people who traumatized his clients and got away with it, then carefully crafting frame-ups in order to punish them for their crimes. When Wyatt Morris (Daniel Sauli), the man convicted of murdering Edwards' wife is released from prison, Edwards stages his most elaborate frame: to commit suicide and make it appear that Morris murdered him.

In flashbacks to 2010, Harold is shown plotting revenge on Alicia Corwin, whom he believes is responsible for killing his collaborator, Nathan Ingram. As he is about to kill Corwin with a car bomb, he has an epiphany thanks to the intervention of The Machine. He uses that experience to persuade Edwards not to go through with his plan. Additionally, the team uncovers evidence that suggests Morris probably did not commit the crime. Harold and Reese discuss the fact that they may never know the full truth. In a session with his own therapist (Iris), Reese begins to open up about Jessica, the love of his life.

18. Skip

Reese and Fusco follow a bounty hunter named Frankie Wells ( Katheryn Winnick ) whose number has come up. She is trying to track down the man ( Ato Essandoh ) that killed her brother. Harper Rose ("Blunt") interjects herself into the cat-and-mouse case and manages to negotiate a resolution to a gunfight standoff between Reese and several other parties. Later, Harper tells Reese that Thornhill (The Machine) has been sending her texts. Finch resumes meeting with Elizabeth Bridges, whose number also came up. She is nearly ready to turn over a software package that contains the Trojan Horse which Finch had installed previously.

He intends to activate it via a special device. Root, fearing that this will result in Finch being exposed and killed by Samaritan agents, foils the plan, at the cost of Finch and Elizabeth's growing mutual attraction. A doubly devastated Finch tells her to leave the team for a while. Iris confesses to Reese that she has fallen for him.

19. Search and Destroy

The Machine's next number is a brilliant developer and CEO named Sulaiman Khan ( Aasif Mandvi ), whose antivirus software is hijacked and he is framed for embezzlement. Samaritan and its operatives spend the episode trying to find and kill Khan, while the team tries to save him and determine what Samaritan is doing. They arrive at one of Decima's underground lairs in a forest, and discover that Samaritan is using Khan's antivirus software; Martine and her men arrive, resulting in Khan being captured and meeting Greer. He asks to "look Samaritan in its eyes", to which Greer responds by shooting him dead. Finch tells Reese that since The Machine's code cannot be searched for, Samaritan is employing Khan's software to attempt to locate The Machine.

20. Terra Incognita

The new number is a man named Chase Patterson ( Zachary Booth ). Finch, Root and Fusco are then to work on a case between the two gangs of Elias and Dominic while Reese works on Chase's case regarding the death of Chase's whole family. When Reese asks about the file regarding Chase Patterson, he finds out it was a case of Carter's ( Taraji P. Henson ). As Reese dives into the case, different flashbacks are shown with Carter doing similar investigation to what Reese is doing. As Reese reaches the final destination to the case, he discovers that Chase did not kill his parents and sisters.

It was Gil, the doorman at their building, as well as Chase's half-brother. Gil then shoots Reese but Reese manages to shoot him back, killing him. In the process, Reese is trying to escape, the slow process of death is shown with Carter. Reese, now hallucinating and succumbing to hypothermia, talks to Carter about things that he wished he could have talked to her when she was alive. After Reese finishes talking with Carter, she disappears from his hallucination, and a car pulls up.

21. Asylum

Reese and Fusco race to find the next number, Carl Elias. They reach his hideout in a bank in Manhattan, but The Brotherhood arrive and capture them all. It turns out that Harper now works for Dominic. The Brotherhood tortures Elias for his intel, and Reese and Fusco for information on Harold. Elias tricks Dominic to kill his right-hand man, Link, to avenge the death of Anthony. In Washington, D.C., Control is interrogating a female Samaritan handler posing as a teacher, for a Samaritan's strategy called "The correction". Root receives a call from Shaw for help.

Surprised, she and Finch follow The Machine's instructions to try to find Shaw, driving to a mental hospital, which is also Samaritan's base. Samaritan's operatives capture Finch and Root and give a choice to The Machine: to reveal its location, or both Root and Finch dies. Root kills Martine by breaking her neck. The Machine exchanges its location for Finch and Root's life. Greer takes a group to go in search for The Machine's location. Root tells Finch to reach that location before Samaritan in order to save The Machine. Shaw is last seen being driven away in a van.

22. YHWH

Samaritan begins a series of power outages throughout the country. Having been sent by the Machine, Harper releases Fusco, but is caught by Dominic. The Machine allows Root and Reese access to its God Mode (from "Zero Day" and " God Mode "). Fusco and the NYPD arrest Dominic and Elias. Control believes "the Correction" is Greer's plan for a terrorist attack on the Supreme Court, but it's actually a list, created by Samaritan, of people who need to be eliminated for the betterment of society, including Control. Dominic and Agent Grice are killed by Samaritan snipers.

Elias is also shot. Root and Finch infiltrate Caleb Phipps' (from "2πR" and "Blunt") company to steal his compression algorithm and some high-capacity RAM chips, but Caleb willingly gives them to Finch. Reese regroups with Finch and Root at an electrical substation. They discover that the Machine spread itself over the power grid in boxes attached to electrical poles, and that Samaritan has been causing the power surges to destroy the boxes. Finch and Root starts downloading The Machine's core code to a briefcase contained with the compression algorithm and RAM chips. The team walk out with the briefcase to face more Samaritan operatives.

Season 5

1. B.S.O.D.

In the aftermath of Samaritan's attack known as "The Correction," Fusco is being questioned by Internal Affairs and the FBI, who believe he shot Dominic and Elias. Reese and Finch return to the subway hideout, where Harold tries to repair the damage done to the piezoelectric battery charging the briefcase containing The Machine. To his surprise, it starts decompressing on its own, resulting in a fire. Flashbacks to 2006 show Harold apprehensive about the Machine's ever-expanding capabilities, leading him to erase the Machine's memories every night at midnight. Once Root escapes Samaritan's operatives, she seeks refuge in the hideout of one of her former hacker/assassin associates, but he sells her out.

Reese joins her to battle a team of Samaritan operatives. They steal 300 PlayStation 3s to create enough storage for the Machine. Harold downloads the Machine, while Reese keeps the systems from overheating with liquid nitrogen. When Finch asks the Machine, "Can you see me?", after a few seconds go by, it responds by opening an empty command prompt followed by a long string of code showing its reboot.

2. SNAFU

Finch decides to use Reese and Fusco to run a surveillance test. Following malfunctions in the facial recognition system, Reese and Finch steal 64 next-generation GPU blade servers which, once connected to the networked PlayStation 3s, are used to reboot the Machine at full power. When the Machine shows signs that it's failing to place threats in context, Root and Finch have it run a contextual background on them, leading to it identifying them as threats and locking them out of the system. The Machine has lost the ability to differentiate between past and present, forced to relive the 42 times Finch killed it.

Reese engages in a firefight against an amateur assassin the Machine sent after him. Root puts herself under an anaesthetic so the Machine cannot use her cochlear implant against her and Finch has to convince the Machine that the team are not threats. Upon the Machine's first reboot, it provided 30 different numbers, most of whom were not involved in violent crimes; however, one of those numbers, ex-con Jeff Blackwell ( Josh Close ), was dismissed as someone who was not involved in any nefarious activity, only to be recruited by Samaritan.

3. Truth Be Told

In flashbacks to 2010, Reese and his partner Kara Stanton from the CIA are told to investigate a soldier and kill him after confirming that he sold information to the Taliban. In present day, The Machine gives the number of Alex Duncan ( Stephen Plunkett ), who turns out to be the brother of that soldier and who has found himself in trouble with the CIA through investigating his brother's death, since doing so could expose an off-book operation. Reese rescues Duncan from his old boss, Terrance Beale ( Keith David ), the very same agent who sent Reese and Kara to kill Duncan's brother, and they both lie to Duncan about his brother's ignominious death.

Reese leaves on good terms with Beale, who agrees to keep Reese's existence a secret. Meanwhile, Finch and Root investigate malware that Samaritan has been using to infect the firmware of electronic devices. Root runs the malware on an airgapped laptop disconnected from any external sources. Reese decides he can no longer see Dr. Iris Campbell for the time being, claiming that he is unable to lead a "normal life," after which he receives another number from Finch.

4. 6,741

Shaw is seen undergoing surgery by Samaritan operatives to have an electronic microchip implanted between her ear and her brain stem. She is able to turn the tables on them by breaking out of confinement and finding the team. Together, they trick Samaritan's operatives and capture Greer. With Greer in captivity, Shaw removes a USB drive embedded inside his arm which Finch is able to analyze, discovering it to be a kill-switch for Samaritan. Shaw had revealed to Root that she was subjected to extreme psychological torture while captive; once Greer starts to taunt her about the kill-switch and her mental state, she hallucinates heavily, loses control of reality, and kills him.

Shaw continues into a neurological downward spiral, causing her to kill Reese. She is about to kill Root when she confesses that Root was her only mental safe-place and turns the gun on herself. The narrative returns to the operating room and it is revealed that these events happened only in Shaw's mind. She has been subjected to thousands of electrochemical simulations by Samaritan so its operatives could see if she would lead them to the Machine and its assets. This particular simulation was number 6,741.

5. ShotSeeker

Reese protects an NYPD analyst named Ethan Garvin who works with an acoustic surveillance system called "ShotSeeker", designed to detect gunshots anywhere in the city. Samaritan had Ethan's friend Krupa killed because of her research and tries to cover up her murder and the existence of her work, by hacking ShotSeeker to engineer Garvin's death via suicide by cop and having Krupa's classmate and possible owner of her research files killed. Elias' associate and childhood friend, Bruce Moran ( James LeGros ) approaches Fusco to learn who killed Elias. Root meets Jeff Blackwell and tries to open his eyes about the true nature of his new employer.

Fusco has investigated so much about Garvin and Krupa that Samaritan labels him a "potential obstructionist." Root and Finch decide to make Krupa's research public to render Garvin irrelevant to Samaritan. The team reveal to Bruce that Elias is still alive, who encourages Bruce to go back to the shadows and embrace them. Finch and Root engineer a series of simulations in a Faraday cage between a small clone of the Machine and that of Samaritan, but every outcome is in favor of Samaritan with tens of billions of victories.

6. A More Perfect Union

The latest number belong to a marriage license, sending Reese and Finch to a wedding to prevent what appears to be a typical case of disapproval of the Groom by the Bride's father, however the situation proves to be more complex. Samaritan has now begun to track Fusco, having previously labeled him a "potential obstructionist". Root assigns the Machine's next number to Fusco. In an act of desperation, Greer takes Shaw on a "field trip", trying to bend her moral compass in favor of Samaritan. Fusco's investigation leads him back to Bruce Moran, who seems to be caught up in a Samaritan-engineered interference with a demolition project.

In another attempt to persuade Shaw, she is led to meet Gabriel, Samaritan's analog interface, who gives an apocalyptic depiction of what Samaritan is capable of. As the narrative returns to the biometric simulation room, revealing the events not to have been a simulation, but a manipulation of Shaw's thoughts and neurological activity. Fusco and Bear arrive at the eventual demolition site, finding many of the missing persons he has been investigating, including Krupa and a dead Bruce Moran, only to be caught in the middle of the demolition operation itself.

7. QSO

Root visits a recovering Fusco and hands him an exit strategy for himself and his son consisting of IDs and documents made by the Machine. The Machine discovers that Samaritan uses the radio wave frequencies of station AM 520 to communicate with its operatives via a sophisticated code that most people believe to be feedback noise. Upon realizing the reason why the Machine sent her there, Root uses Samaritan's own equipment to send a message to Shaw to give her hope. Finch does not necessarily agree with the Machine not forcing the radio host to quit, but Root believes the Machine allows for humans' free will and will not interfere with it.

After Fusco is recovered, he is visited by Finch who refuses to waver from his stance that keeping Fusco in the dark keeps him safe. Fusco points out that it is not working, and quits. Shaw is escorted by Lambert and told to kill an innocent woman. Believing that it is another simulation, Shaw complies and is later shocked when told that it was not a simulation. Shaw is about to kill herself when she receives the message from Root, regaining hope. She stealthily makes preparations to escape.

8. Reassortment

Reese and Finch become trapped in a hospital manipulated electronically by Samaritan to have initiated an outbreak of what it said to be a combination of H5N1 (avian flu) and live human flu virus; a synthesized, super-powered strain of the flu, and send Jeff Blackwell at the hospital. It appeared as though the epidemic was overkill to eliminate three targets in the hospital. Since the Machine is an open system, Root was able to use its abilities to find and retrieve a cure, saving the lives of two hospital workers and Fusco.

Shaw executes her escape plan and finds herself in a jail in Johannesburg, South Africa. While escaping, Lambert taunts her by claiming that she is actually in another simulation; she kills him, and is last seen driving in Lambert's vehicle at night at high speed, presumably to an airport. Fusco indefinitely chooses to distance himself from the team. Blackwell and his handler, Mona, discuss the quelled epidemic and declare it a success: The CDC is requiring everyone to be vaccinated, which will result in Samaritan learning everyone's DNA.

9. Sotto Voce

"The Voice", a criminal from the past has resurfaced and Finch turns to Elias for assistance. It is discovered that he has tracked Reese and Finch since their previous encounter in 2014. After a planned prison break of the "Templarios" gang, Reese and Fusco become trapped in the precinct against multiple enemies. Elias and Finch extract valuable information from an explosives associate. It is determined that "The Voice" is Terry Easton ( Neal Huff ), their number from the start. Finch finally meets him on the street, abhorring his devious acts. Elias stops him from killing Finch; as he drives away, Elias kills him remotely with a car bomb.

Meanwhile, Shaw finds her way back to New York and is reunited with Root. Root is overjoyed that Shaw is back, but Shaw, afraid of risking Root's life, threatens to shoot herself, simulation or not. Root threatens suicide as well, declaring that, if Shaw dies, they both die; Shaw withdraws. Reese and Finch decide to explain The Machine and Samaritan to Fusco. The three meet along the East River near the Queensboro Bridge. Joined by Root and Shaw, the Team is brought back together.

10. The Day the World Went Away

Finch's number comes up when his cover identity is compromised, due to a subconscious error, and Samaritan initiates a continuous dispatch of operatives on him. The team splits up in their escape, which results in Elias being killed by Samaritan agents while protecting Finch. The team rescues Finch from his potential capture and Root explains in the car her current understanding of herself and everyone else to be "information" that can never truly disappear, despite their deaths. Root is shot by Samaritan operative Jeff Blackwell and placed in critical condition while the police apprehend Finch, who is accused of treason.

A devastated Finch provides a soliloquy on how he intends to abandon the principles he has long followed and vows to kill Samaritan. The Machine calls Finch in the precinct, having taken on the voice of Root, who has died from her injuries. The Machine sets every criminal in the precinct free to allow Finch to escape; Reese and Shaw realize that Finch's number came up not just because he was a victim, but also because he's a perpetrator against Greer and Samaritan.

11. Synecdoche

Reese and Fusco reunite with Shaw after burying Root and travel to Washington, D.C. to protect their newest number, The President of the United States. But Shaw is worried about the implications behind Samaritan's neglecting to intervene. The threat is identified as a domestic terrorist group who are against the President's surveillance programs. The attempted assassination is stopped with the unexpected assistance of former POIs Logan Pierce, Joey Durban, and Harper Rose who each camouflaged themselves into various useful covers. The three reveal that they now work for the Machine, having been given the irrelevant number of Reese's cover identity while the team got the relevant number of the President.

Fusco, Shaw, Reese, Logan, Joey, and Harper discuss their enlistment by the Machine, what has happened, and what is to come before Logan provides the team with their next number: Harold. Harold, meanwhile, is grieving over the loss of Root and reaches a conclusion that brings him to a highly-secured government facility in San Antonio, Texas with a weaponized virus capable of destroying Samaritan, but with significant collateral damage. Harold has become ready to go to any lengths and Reese and Shaw prepare for their final battle.

12..exe

Fusco discovers that the missing persons he found in the tunnel as corpses have been discovered by the police and is kidnapped by Agent LeRoux, who reveals himself to be the killer. As Finch prepares to deploy his stolen computer virus (named ice-9.exe), he's hesitant because it will also destroy the Machine, so the Machine shows him a series of simulations of what would have occurred to each of the team's members if the Machine had never existed. Reese and Shaw are given a new number: one of John Greer's aliases along with coordinates to Fort Meade, where Finch has infiltrated the NSA and uploaded his virus onto the NSA's Intranet but is captured before he can activate it.

Greer tells Finch Samaritan's wish to rule the world together with the Machine. When Finch refuses to join, Greer sacrifices himself in an attempt to kill Finch by having all the oxygen removed from the room. Reese and Shaw infiltrate the building and activate a wireless modem to give the Machine access within, allowing it to save Finch's life. Finch confronts Samaritan and, with the Machine's encouragement, activates the virus.

13. return 0

The Ice-9 virus begins to have disastrous effects globally. Samaritan has uploaded a copy of itself to servers in the Federal Reserve. Reese and Finch infect Samaritan's servers there with the virus, but Samaritan uploads a compressed version of itself to a satellite. The Machine tells Finch that the only way to defeat Samaritan is to upload a copy of the Machine to the satellite and that whatever building he uses for the upload will be destroyed by a cruise missile. At the subway, Fusco and Shaw are attacked by Samaritan agents led by Blackwell.

They escape on the Machine's train, capturing Blackwell. Blackwell stabs Fusco and escapes. Finch realizes he's on the wrong rooftop, having been tricked by Reese and the Machine. Reese tells Finch he plans to sacrifice himself, as saving one life can make a real difference depending on the person. A grieving Finch leaves as Reese holds off Samaritan agents. A week later, the world recovers from the virus and Shaw kills Blackwell to avenge Root. She meets with a recovering Fusco as the Machine's copy returns to Earth before contacting Shaw, while Finch returns to his former fiancée, Grace.