Person of Interest “Risk” Review

Person of Interest returned this week with a very different episode in “Risk”. Trying it’s hand at a wall street story, tonight’s episode introduced us to Adam Saunders, a stock broker hot shot played by Friday Night Lights‘ Matt Lauria. Having recently finished a three episode arc on CSI as FBI agent Matthew Pratt, Lauria seems to be doing pretty well for himself post-FNL.

Anyway, this was a very…odd episode. I’m all for Person of Interest diversifying the kinds of stories they tell. There’s only so many stories about murder and kidnapping that you can tell, so to completely change gears for one episode is very risky. Instead of telling a story using guns and explosions, you base the story on SEC investigations and insider trading. Definitely a change of pace, and I’m not sure I completely appreciate the experiment. Hopefully it’s just a short change, and we’ll back to the more action-heavy episodes soon.

That’s not to say there wasn’t anything to like in “Risk”, though. There was a pretty spectacular vehicle stunt, as well as a few exciting moments of Reese trying to keep Saunders alive. Apart from that, though, just about everything in the episode was disappointing.

Not only was tonight’s installment not very exciting, it was also a bit confusing. Again, I’d like to compliment CBS on not dumbing the show down, but a good chunk of the episode was pretty tough to follow unless you actually knew a pretty good amount about stock trading. Plus, it got a little confusing as to who was who and what their motivations were towards the end. It was just a sea of rich white dudes in fancy suits.

The M. Elias reveal at the end was pretty awesome, but it felt like too little too late. Plus, do the standard CBS viewers follow this show well enough to even know who that was? I bet a bunch of people said out loud to their TVs “Wait a second. Who’s that guy?!”

Random Thoughts:

- Did anybody reading this watch Friday Night Lights? If so, (Spoilers) what did you think about Matt Lauria’s Luke Cafferty leaving to go to the army in the season finale?

- I immediately started thinking of Battlestar Galactica when everybody started talking about “Fracking”.

- Had we ever seen that homeless lady before tonight?

By Luke Gelineau | February 23, 2012 | 1 Comment

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http://www.facebook.com/Th3On3Fr33man Michael Anthony Leber

I have no knowledge of Wall Street before tonight, and I didn’t have that hard a time following what was going on.

Sure, I didn’t understand the intricacies of it, but it was very clear who was who in the end to me (with the key players being the POI, his friend who screwed him over, and the corrupt SEC agent.

And so what if random CBS viewers don’t get who Elias is? We’re talking about a show from the creator of Lost here, I’m glad its starting to serialize (what with all the stories that have slowly been weaving their way into the open) and I was thinking about Elias being a part of this gig the entire episode.