I’m not crazy about ghosts. I know,
i know, i said this guide was to give some love to the often looked down upon first season,
but i’m not going to lie to you. The strengths of the episode are in the the flashbacks,
which bring up mysteries and drama in an otherwise run of the mill plot of the week.
But it’s not without some memorable moments. Let’s see what we can find.
SUMMARY
The episode opens with Reese snarkily saving a man
from a hitman hired by his wife by kneecapping his would-be assailants.
Finch’s new number takes them them to a cemetery. It’s Theresa Whitaker, a girl who was thought
to have died along with the rest of her family. The going story is that after losing everything,
the father killed the entire family. As they try to get more info on her, Theresa’s actually alive
and from an ATM with a skimmer -- Reese finds her but she gets away after cutting his hand.
Reese runs into some tough luck in his search for information on the
hitman (him kicked out of a bar) and we get this fantastic cutaway from the first with
only the [FIGHTING NOISES] as reese takes on an impossible number of guys on his own.
I like it. It eleates him to semi superhero,
we don’t need to see the actual fight to know John Is Scary and Always Wins
Posing as an insurance employee, Finch questions Theresa's aunt Elizabeth and gets her ex-husband's
Derek's number. Meanwhile, Reese visits the hitman in jail, who reveals that he
left Theresa alive because he “doesnt kill kids” Hitman says to john “i get it, you’re like me, a
genuine bad guy” the third use of the word “bad guy”
Derek's records lead them to Landale Financial, finding Derek meeting with the owner Jimmy Calhoun
Reese and Theresa escape and
hide in a hotel room and Finch decides to stay to take care of her. Reese finds Derek,
who confesses: It turns out Theresa's father had assets that were going to be given to Derek,
and Theresa being alive jeopardizes Landale’s hold on Derek. Or something. Tell the truth,
i never followed this story too closely. It’s not explained in the clearest way
and doesnt emotionally grip me a ton. SORRY The point is, the land that Theresa’s father
bought is now worth fifty times its original worth,
and Landale Financial wants to kill Theresa, its legal heir, to collect.
Going home, Derek is killed by the hitman when he refuses to give away Theresa's whereabouts. The
hitman tracks a call between Theresa and her aunt and locates the hotel where she is.
John’s “smoke grenade” moment of the episode isn’t even the laundromat fight, it’s him
SLAMMING this big red semi into calhoun In a suuuuuper tense scene,
Finch and Theresa hide from the hitman, and there’s this bit where he cleverly cuts the power
to locate their room, and they frantically turn off all the lights. Great suspense.
Theyre cornered when John shows up and shoots the guy at the absolute last. Second. Cool dude.
Reese leads Theresa to Carter. With her testimony, Calhoun is arrested.
Reese returns to Finch’s office, but finds it’s been cleared out. “I’m a very private person”
The most interesting piece: the flashbacks We get the first usage of the word “irrelevant,”
as Finch uses it to describe those victims relationships to national security--to the
“larger picture,” we might say. Nathan chides him for it using
particular phrasing: “you want to play god, is that it?” “no i don’t, that’s the whole point.
Nathan asks how they’re supposed to live with knowing people need help, and Finch explains
they won’t have to, because he’s coded the machine to delete the irrelevant list
every night. And out of those inconvenient lives they ignore, a new set of ghosts.
“We built it to save everybody” finch’s reasoning is something like utilitarianism:
the machine produces the most good by ensuring national security and preventing casualties in
large numbers. Risking it being shut off for a few lives isn’t worth the risk.
In flashbacks to 2002, Finch is joined by a Nathan Ingram and shows him an
early version of the Machine, who is now merely sureveling NYC. Finch has taken
on the role of “teacher,” to program the machine with the ability to track people.
The second flashback, from 2007, is glued together with the scene in which Finch tells Theresa theyre
narrative parallels--sorry--tells her that “i know what it’s like to lose someone and
to feel the need to disappear, but trust me you dont wnat to leave people behind.”
Nathan finds out about Machine's discovery of irrelevant crimes and is angry at Finch for hiding
it from him -- Finch responds that the Machine is supposed "to save everybody," not just one person.
Just before he shuts it off, we see Jessica’s face on screen. A brief haunting reminder of actions,
consequences, and the way our choices domino into others. In this moment Harold can switch off a
screen with a stranger’s face, but in four years he’ll work side by side with the man whose grief
over her death almost destroyed him. Rough stuff. Ruh roh. It's revealed in the present that the
office where Finch works has a memorial bust for Nathan Ingram, who died in 2010.
ANALYSIS Ghosts is
cowritten by Jonah and Greg, which should mean it’s a knockout but i find it, as i mentioned,
very average. That said, second episodes are rarely where all the great stuff happens.
This one’s pretty simple. There’s a few “ghosts” in the ep. First, our person of interest.
Theresa’s obviously a ghost, evading her killers, presumed dead--just like a certain dramatic ex CIA
op we know. John’s a ghost to the CIA and to Carter, who is officially on the hunt for him. And
Harold - a ghost who clears out his office on a dime to keep his privacy. “The best place to hide
is in plain sight,” finch is a ghost now as he was then, invisible behind Nathan Ingram’s public
face, invisible as an employee of his own company. Nathan Ingram is Finch’s personal haunt.
He died under circumstances we don’t know much about yet, and Finch is extremely committed to
upholding what seems to have been one of his wishes--to not neglect the irrelevant numbers.
“Im a very private person” and “division of labor,” compare his two partnerships
This week’s perpetrator motivation is simple: greed and the disregard for human life.
Landale who killed theresa’s family,
and finch feels himself responsible for the losses of people he could have saved
There’s also the “You're going to have to trust someone” line repeated. John and Harold both say
it to Theresa, when they realize her inability to trust is going to put her in more danger if she
won’t stay with them. John makes the appeal after saying Theresa has “trust issues.” Then, later, to
Harold, taking Harold clearing out his office as widening the distance between them.
Sometimes the lessons we try to tell others are the ones we have to learn ourselves.
You have to give trust to get trust. Maybe john and harold will get there.