EPISODE

7. Witness

Finch gets the number belonging to Charlie Burton, a high school history teacher in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and an unlucky witness to a Russian mafia murder. Reese, with no time to spare, rushes to Charlie's side and whisks him out of danger just as the mob descends on his apartment to silence him for good. But they can't shake the Russians that easily. In hot pursuit, the shooters chase them into the infamous Double B High Rises -- a city housing project that has fallen into disrepair and is now home to thugs and illegal enterprises. Reese must find a way to escape the Double B's with Charlie and get him safely across the river into Carter's hands so that Charlie can testify to what he saw and bring justice to the victim of the murder. But the mafia is dead set on killing Charlie and will stop at nothing to make sure that Charlie doesn't make it out of the Double B's alive. And when Reese loses contact with Finch, Finch must look to Detective Fusco for help.

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THIS ENTRY’S STORY

The story

Spoilers ahead. Coverage follows the scope labeled below.

Plot summary

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.

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Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Person of Interest season 1. HTML formatting and reference markers removed.

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