8. Foe — Episode — Person of Interest

8. Foe

Reese and Finch receive the number for Wallace Negel -- a mysterious man who hasn't had a single electronic transaction in his name since 1989. But as they dig for more details, they begin to suspect that Negel is not who he seems. Reese knows a cover identity when he sees one. This man is a spy. When bodies start to turn up, Reese and Finch need to figure out how they are connected to this agent and why he has returned to New York City after so much time. In this game of spy vs. spy, the old school operator matches his spycraft against Reese and Finch's neo-technology. We also learn more about Reese's early days in the CIA and his relationship to a mysterious woman named Stanton.

Description credits

Description source · Content or data license. Source formatting adapted for this entry.

The story

Spoilers ahead. Coverage follows the scope labeled below.

Plot summary

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.

Credits

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

Original text and revision history

Content license