filler episodes are talked about derogatorily-- as though there's something to slog through
until you get to the stuff that matters. person of interest's early first season not uniquely is
full of groundwork setting episodes that establish the norms and rules of the world and ease us into
the characters. but they're not filler. and cura te ipsum certainly isn't. i always remember this one
the tone the acting the ending. it's also written by denise the, who will pen some of the best and
some of my favorite episodes in the series. i'm really excited for this one. let's get into it
this week's number is megan tillman, an extremely hard-working doctor played by a criminally small
role for linda cardellini. she works 80 hours a week is well liked and is instantly warm to
undercover finch. trying to suss out who's after her they find out she spends her few precious
non-hospital hours at a nightclub. john follows her to the bar and notices she's being encroached on
by an unfriendly stranger which he rapidly takes care of. he also notices she's being followed by a
man they saw earlier, creepy banker andrew benton a little digging reveals that he has strings of
accusations of harassment but no convictions so benton seems a likely perpetrator in between all
of this we get the b plot continuing from the previous episode carter visits finn shreds fake
address and questions him about the events of the last episode namely the interaction between
bystander finch and the undercover criminal john caught on camera did you try to communicate with
him in any other way so yes i was communicating with him i was begging for my life i promise you
we will catch this guy finch is a practiced liar and throws her off for the time being. fusco gets
some time in the spotlight as well and we see another side to him as he plays with his son
dirty cop chickens come to roost and fusco has to come up with money under threat of harm to his son
fusco gets some info for john who is pretty flippant at fusco's request for protection
"lots of crooked cops in this town, lionel. not gonna be hard to find another one just as useful as you"
we haven't gotten a lot of fusco yet at this point but seeing john brush him off the way he does
does make me feel for him. the b-plot with fusco and his debts doesn't quite tonally
mesh well with the rest of the episode but it does give us some necessary progression of him
and john's relationship. john and finch's research reveals that benton sexually assaulted her sister
in college who then took her own life soon after. tillman considers him responsible for ruining her
sister and is determined to take him out. but the machine sent them tillman's way, so it's possible
the intent wasn't to get them to save benton but to intervene on tillman's behalf: an actual
good person john follows megan to a support group and they have stilted if empathetic conversation.
"just wanted some coffee" "coffee's terrible." he invites her to elaborate by sharing about his
own losses and i love the gentleness that john brings to his interactions with the numbers.
after figuring out the specifics of dr tillman's plan john pipes up with a suggestion: he'll just do
tillman's job for her ridding the world of benton and preventing her from becoming a criminal. easy
peasy. "i'm gonna find a way to make benton disappear" before resorting to extreme means john tries
to frame benton for drug use and he's quickly released from jail. like the previous episodes
we get a perpetrator who relies on power and privilege and they realize that conventional means
of justice aren't going to work. but tillman's plan is already in motion. she incapacitates
benton, wheels him into a truck and sets out in the rain. she quickly stops at a diner for gas and:
"remember me? let me buy you a cup of coffee megan. come on i hear it's terrible. the guy you got tied
up in the back of the van can wait." john opens up here more than we've seen so far. he says
that he knows what it means to take a life that it's cost him some deep part of his humanity. and
here we get the real climax of the episode in that scene at the table where dr tillman hands over the
keys to the van. because of course it's not about saving benton. it's that this isn't, evidently who
megan tillman. is the other crucial piece is that tillman's desperate act is the result of knowing
that the alleged justice system in place has not and will continue not to hold benton responsible
so john does what john does: absorbs her pain and elects himself arbiter of benton's fate
john takes on a role here that we've definitely seen before: the "doing what
apparently good people can't," taking on things so that they don't have to. "why do you do it finch?
machine the numbers." "i told you mr reese. i have my reasons." before we get to the wonderful closing
scene let's talk a little bit about this episode's discussion about responsibility
a premeditated violent act is predicted who do you go after to stop it? cura te ipsum asks us what
we're supposed to feel when the person they have to help is one that very arguably the world would
be better off without this is a question the show will come back to repeatedly and the end doesn't
give us an answer largely because john himself doesn't have one yet. the final scene is fantastic
and still a piece of imagery that sticks in my head. the two men at the table, the bright blue
sky, the gun--the violence that john believes they share--between them. i love how unhinged john looks,
almost ragged in the final scene even though he and benton aren't actually fighting. as cool and
exterior as he can have sometimes he's constantly on the edge of losing it. "but the truth is
people don't really change, do they?" but john doesn't really believe that. after all even
after pegging fusco as a bad guy he let him live because he thinks his heart wasn't really in it
and he's clearly trying to do good now in contrast to his previous work that he feels guilty for.
the parallels for our ongoing season 1 john character study are explicit. john directly compares himself
to benton he and benton break people while megan tillman fixes people. the episode also addresses
john's belief in people's ability to change which perhaps contributes to his cavalier attitude
towards fusco. if he doesn't believe he can change he doesn't believe benton can or fusco. as of now
fusco is an asset in name, only he's a means to an end. but maybe there's a difference between
a person doing harmful acts while following orders, versus a predator like benton seeking
the vulnerable with clear malicious intent. john's intentions, however are less clear, and we end the
episode with the two men at an impasse, the gun still untouched, and the screen cuts to black
there's a lot of great detail in this one i love how in her plan to get revenge on benton
the facade dr tillman uses is one of care. she uses her medical knowledge to drug and incapacitate him
and transports him by pushing him in a wheelchair as though she's his caretaker. in this isolated
dynamic tillman is the clear perpetrator: stalking kidnapping by pretending to be a victim to get
closer access to him but she's still sympathetic because her motivations are understandable and
even her conviction to carry through with her plan wavers with her morals. when john finds her
in the diner her hands are shaking. so we believe that she's a good person. it's a double subversion:
the presumed perpetrator is actually the victim and then the actual perpetrator is sympathetic
and the recipient of the team's help. there's also questions about the ethics of revenge and does it
do more harm to the person on the acting or the receiving end of that revenge? revenge on behalf of
a loved one in his eyes may not actually bring all that much closure. the title is a reference to the
biblical proverb "physician cure thyself." phrases to the same effect can also be found in jewish and in
greek literature. it's sort of a pot calling the kettle black thing. basically, deal with your own
issues before you take on those of others. but it's also a little prod at the irony of human existence
knowing how to heal others doesn't translate necessarily one-on-one to being able to do so for
ourselves. the physician in question, dr tillman, can't really cure herself of the psychological
injuries she carries the most she can do is make peace with reality and honor her sister's life.
john is no physician but he's also part of this equation he sees himself as incurable
with this idea of doing what other people can't jon removes himself from the world again he's the
exception he takes on their burdens believing he's already too far gone he leans into it to at least
put it to good use. i love these two fantastic mirrored shots where jon almost becomes a conduit.
he absorbs tillman's pain and then he gets to choose whether to redirect it towards benton
so the question, of course: what did john do? it's entirely plausible that jon would have sent benton
off with a threat. it's equally plausible that he would have just killed him without remorse.
so whatever outcome we land on probably says more about us how we feel the situation should
be handled and how we feel about john at this early point in time. for fourth episode it's surprisingly
weighty and i dig it a lot it's moments like these that have me going yeah that's my show