Warning: Full spoilers for Person of Interest's five-year run follow.
If you asked people who'd never watched CBS' Person of Interest what they thought the show was about, you'd get a lot of different answers, and likely none quite close to the truth. A lot of this disparity had to do with the incorrect way the show was marketed, while some of it also was the result of a show that continuously evolved over the years - transforming from a somewhat straight forward surveillance state procedural into a much more serialized sci-fi saga about two warring artificial intelligences and the human pawns they sacrifice -- or who sacrifice themselves to stop them -- along the way.
With the series recently, and perfectly, wrapped up in its truncated final season, here's a list of the ten best Person of Interest episodes (plus one honorable mention) for you to debate to your heart's content. Victims and perpetrators are all welcome!
And if you'd like, check out our post-POI interview with Nolan and Plageman about the show's final season and more!
"Witness" (Season 1)
It's easy to see how many fans, along with the show's own producers, see "Witness" as a big and early step forward for the series, as it ended with a Keyser Soze-style twist involving Carl Elias (the wonderful Enrico Colantoni) that represented a notable step into more serialized/seasonal arc territory. With the formal introduction of the show's first recurring arch villain, Person of Interest grabbed the attention of many who may have not been gelling with the show as a straight, albeit unique, procedural.
"RAM" (Season 3)
You'll find a handful of POI's outside-the-box episodes on this list, and the fierce funkiness of "RAM" - which showed us Finch's failed first attempt to hire muscle (the dishonorable Mr. Dillinger) - took us into the recent past and then brought us right up to the starting point of the series. Containing a bunch of fun Easter eggs, and a kickass Radiohead song, this chapter filled in a lot of gaps while helping the series springboard more fully into the Samaritan storyline.
"Firewall" (Season 1)
The Season 1 finale put Reese in the critical crosshairs of the FBI while also revealing Root as a major AI-worshipping villain. In a twist similar to the Elias reveal, Root turned out to be the "number" of the week, but with the added swerve that she purposefully set herself up as a victim in order to draw out the AI she guessed was out there protecting people. She was right, and one of the show's best characters got her sinister start.
"Relevance" (Season 2)
Directed by series creator Jonathan Nolan, POI introduced Sarah Shahi's Shaw in an episode that placed most of the show's major characters in the background while we watched an awesome "arrow" of a black ops agent tasked with carrying out kill orders -- based on the Machine's "relevant" cases -- discover a traitor in her midst. A total badass introduction for a warrior who'd wind up becoming Team Machine's lovable loose cannon.
"The Crossing" (Season 3)
Tragedy struck in Season 3 when Carter's crusade to take down HR cost her her life. At the time, it was the heaviest blow struck to our heroes, and it wasn't even a story dealing with a potential cyber-apocalypse. It was just a good cop doing whatever she could to take down local corruption. And from this hugely important episode, a turning point was made that allowed the show to reach up and out a bit beyond the municipal crime arena and into the arms of an adversarial artificial super intelligence.
"The Day the World Went Away" (Season 5)
This immensely hard-hitting gateway chapter into the series endgame featured the back-to-back deaths of two huge characters while, essentially, breaking Finch down to a point of no return. By the end, after watching both Elias and Root die while trying to protect him - all because a careless mistake put him on Samaritan's radar - he vowed to take down his enemy at any cost. This was an action-packed stunner, featuring a very emotional and transcendent scene in which the Machine took Root's voice after her greatest human admirer had passed on.
Continue on for Person of Interest's five best episodes...
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