On season 3 so no spoilers please. But I just wanted to say that the acting in POI has completely astounded me - it’s a jaw dropping performance by all of the main cast, and even the one off characters are usually very good.

The best of the main group are Finch, Fusco, and Carter for me, though John is also very good (his performance in the flashbacks and in 3x10 especially is amazing). Root and Shaw are great too.

Part of it is the writing, but how did they put together such a competent cast? That’s so rare nowadays.

Which are your favourite performances from POI?

Just finish the show the second time and I find myself resenting Greer less than the first time. I feel this show does not give us much about his life apart from how he was betrayed by his boss when he was a MI6 agent.

I’m intrigued to know where he went after that, how he found Samaritan (or maybe how Samaritan found him?), how he genuinely came to believe that an ASI will save human (I think he basically gives himself up as a human at this point, he did not even care to die for it) and how he was able to plan such a big game for Samaritan to come alive.

I also feel it’s because he didn’t build Samaritan that he could so blindly follow its commands. Finch loves his machine but also knows its flaws, and how it could lie and kill if without ethical rules. I used to think Greer and Finch are like two human representing their own ASI, but no, Finch is a creator while Greer is a follower.

I will apologize now because I can't be the first to mention noticing that Caroline Turing is shown with yellow squares while John is "saving" her. The crazy thing is that I just now noticed, after numerous rewatches!

Yall I loved this show so much but only finished watching it for the first time a few months ago - I am about to finish The Mentalist (rewatch) but I throughly enjoyed rewatching the mentalist because the first time I watched it was years ago so I couldn’t remember any major plot points. That brings me to my question - is it worth rewatching POI again if I still remember what happens? Did you guys find it just as entertaining and interesting on rewatching already knowing what goes down??

A paused pic of a glitch in the machine (s2e20, ~7:44)

According to google translate it's discussing the greek orthodox church, the most important things to know about the greek language and something about the constitution.

Actually I have many from the series but this one always makes me smile. ‘Detective Carter? What a funny old world.’

Hey all,

Just an FYI, I have used AI to clean up my question and theory written down below:

I wanted to open up a discussion about Harold Finch’s philosophical arc in Seasons 4 and 5, and how the massive logic gap of the "Machine in a suitcase" affected the final season.

First, when you look at the established lore of the show, compressing the Machine into a single Kevlar briefcase powered by night-vision goggle batteries felt like a massive, logic-stretching narrative shortcut. For four seasons, the show went to great lengths to establish the staggering physical reality of these systems. The Machine hijacked the entire U.S. power grid and dispersed its hardware nationwide. Samaritan required massive, dedicated data centers and custom microchips just to boot up. Suddenly compressing the fundamental core code and consciousness of the Machine down to a mobile briefcase—and having its survival depend on a faulty battery charging in a subway station—strained the grounded tech-thriller realism the show was built on.

Furthermore, Harold’s strict deontological ethics repeatedly created devastating utilitarian consequences. By refusing to play God or treat people as chess pieces, his choices inadvertently triggered massive collateral damage where saving one person resulted in many more innocent lives lost.

• In 4x05 "Prophets", his refusal to let Samaritan execute Simon Lee forced a confrontation where Samaritan's agents ruthlessly executed innocent campaign workers in the building.

• The Machine's simulations in "If-Then-Else" mathematically proved that stopping to save a single irrelevant bystander caused a cascade effect that got the entire team killed and allowed Samaritan to take over the world.

• His refusal to proactively assassinate Greer ultimately led to the team being cornered and the tragic death of Root.

While Harold’s ultimate pivot in the interrogation room in Season 5 was incredibly cathartic, I strongly believe it should have happened much earlier.

Instead of the "rebuilding from scratch" suitcase plotline, imagine an alternative Season 5 where Finch breaks his rules immediately after losing Shaw in Season 4.

What if Season 5 started with a completely unfazed, calculated, and terrifyingly cold Harold Finch?

• Finch walks into the bunker, looks at Root, and says, "We are doing this your way."

• Instead of Root constantly pleading with Harold, they operate as co-commanders, syncing the Machine's raw predictive power with Root's chaotic field tactics.

• The first half of Season 5 becomes a high-intensity offensive "John Wick" style rescue mission to hunt down Samaritan's black sites. Harold uses his vast financial resources and tech brilliance to blind Samaritan, while Reese and Root aggressively tear through Decima operatives with zero restraint, solely focused on extracting Shaw.

This would have given us a gripping, high-stakes offensive war rather than a desperate, defensive retreat, and it would have shown that the abduction of Shaw was the exact line that broke Harold's pacifism.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think the briefcase plot was a bit ridiculous given the established tech lore? And would you have preferred a Season 5 where an unchained Team Machine went completely on the offensive from day one to get Shaw back?

I hate how annoying Harold was when it comes to wanting to save even the bad guys including Greer, Control etc. If you literally eliminate these people then there will be no more deaths.
He has no bad blood in his body and it pisses me off because it’s so unrealistic.
I wanted to see Greer and Control to be tortured and killed for what they did to everyone.
Telling Shaw and Root “that’s enough” when they were attempting to torture them. Let them do what they want to them man!!!!
He was too good of a person but also a hypocrite because he created the machine.

It feels like the writers just stopped caring about ways to explain the escapes. Collier and all the others escaped like 100 times and our team almost died by the last second thousand times. How lazy do you have to be to come up with this script? How do you guys rewatch this show and not find it annoying? It's been over 60 episodes!!! 60!!!

I binged watched the whole 5 seasons in 2 weeks and I have to say I am pretty disappointed.

I probably wouldn't have been disappointed if people wouldn't have hyped up this show as some masterpiece.

It turns out to be a normal 'monster of the week' series with AI in the background. The character motivations are all over the place and the writing is so lazy and predictable. But I guess, it is expected from a network show.

Pros-

the concept of AI is new at the time it was released and it couldve been explored further.

The main characters were so likeable that made you glued to the screen.

The episode which are good are really good imo. One would expect it to maintain the momentum in the series but it falls flat in the next episode quickly.

Bear the good boy!

Cons-

writing of majority of the episodes were too predictable and mediocre.

Main characters always had their plot armour too strong that the actions scene didnt feel interesting. There was no risk of anyone dying.

The action scenes were so bad, especially the bullet dodging scenes.

I just want to add my thoughts and see other people’s, but i’m on season 2 and don’t wanna get spoiled.

Actor also played lawyer in movie Unhinged.

Et si Samaritan était créé aujourd'hui pour nos téléphones ? C'est la question que je me suis posée. Voilà à quoi j'aimerais que ça ressemble.

I’ve watched the entire series multiple times but I keep finding things I missed. In this ep what’s the story on the incision in Alicia Corwins arm when Carter views her in the morgue?

link to the article

it all started with a viral insta reel that made me curious enough to check out the show. and damn, what an incredible series.

what's crazy is how relevant it feels today. i honestly wouldn't be surprised if something like the machine already exists out there. maybe there's even been a secret war between machines that we know nothing about lol.

i got so obsessed with the show that i've actually had dreams about being chased alongside the team. some mornings i wake up feeling like i just survived another episode :'D

i do feel like the final stretch was a bit rushed though. anyone else feel the same?

also, i really didn't like dominic. not sure if that was intentional, but to me he always felt like a kid trying way too hard to act like some powerful gang leader.

also, how did i only just find out that grace and harold are actually married in real life?? and he's already 72?? :'D

anyway, i'm still heartbroken over carter and reese. i miss all of them so much.

the ending left me with so many questions, and i keep thinking about all the different ways things could've played out.

man, imagine if we got a "what if" series set in the poi universe. that would be amazing.

Watching the show for the first time and I’ve made it to the end of 4x10 (great episode, the conversation between the machine and Samaritan was fantastic!)
The one thing I cannot get over is the tension between Root and Shaw. It’s killing me and I neeeeed these two to get together already!
I’m hoping this is just a slow burn and not one of those shows where the writers continue to tease, only for it to end up as nothing!

Also, I know it goes without saying, but no spoilers please! I just needed to vent about this!

Edit: I JUST FINISHED 4x11. SHAW, YOU BETTER BE ALIVE 😭

They really had to get her out of the show huh? The second half of this episode felt so rushed, the pacing was so horrible... how could you treat Detective Carter like that. I get that revenge comes at a price, but this was so damn disappointing. Her death deserved so much more... i'm so confused right now.

I thought they were building her up to be a main character but that's what this was all for? A lesson for Finch?

I mean.... is this going to happen to other characters aswell? Just randomly get shot... and of course Simmons gets away just like the other guy. They always get away. This show finally made progress in S3 Ep 9 only to be ruined by Carter's death.

Masterful and with Johnny Cash?!? Probably one of the best things I’ve seen.!

I have this show ripped on my PC from the DVD set. Been rewatching the series in Amazon Prime from the start. I kinda feel like this digital version on Amazon is higher quality like my files are 720P and this feels like 1080p. All of the sudden ONE episode is paid. Then the rest are not. I'm thinking it might be some licensing thing, but that next paid episode also gives me the option to buy the whole series on Prime and other purchase options. All digital of course. Like, why would I buy the whole thing if it's available with Prime and only one episode is locked on paywall? Ultimately, people are so fucking stupid with their digital purchases that I almost feel like the evil corporations are not even to blame. Either way the whole dynamic pricing, locked episodes, and TVs proven to listen to conversation for ads that have louder volume and brightness is getting really out of hand, and the irony is that this show warns about that dystopian future which is our present now.

Such an amazing show, the character development, the story, and the music everything about this show was top-notch. I know it's been 10 years since the finale was released but I never got around to watching it since it's quite underrated and I only watched it because it just got into Netflix was kind of bored but such a happy accident. Now that I am done watching it there's a void inside me don't know what to do now lol. Going to miss Reese and Finch :,)