Reese is abducted by an old acquaintance planning a massive act of cyber-warfare that could lead to Reese's death and an attack on The Machine.
Origin of the Title
Main Plot Points
Episode Notes
Dead reckoning is a technique of orienting a map without using a compass, by looking at the surrounding environment. It also refers to predictive calculation based on inference and guesswork.
This episode mentioned malware software known as Stuxnet and Flame, respectively. Malware is a potentially unwanted program (PUP), whose purpose is to either control computing equipment for nefarious ends, or to destroy (or steal data). Stuxnet and Flame, two of the best known PUPs share some similarities:
a) the infection of computer systems seems to be highly concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa, especially Iran.
b) the nature of the source code is so sophisticated and well-coordinated that it likely was created and conducted with "nation-state support".
c) the programs share some similarities to one another with respect to some of the modules of their respective source code itself, which suggests common point of origin.
After the explosion of Stanton's car, the fire was enhanced with further smoke, dust and ember particles added later in post production.[1]
Bloopers and Continuity Errors
When in the SCIF, Reese points out that there is no cellphone reception (thus Stanton cannot listen in on them) while close-ups of his phone show two bars of mobile network reception and full wi-fi.
The phone model on Reese's bomb vest changes a few times: on the bus and when Finch opens Reese's shirt to access the vest it's what looks like an Android phone; later inside the SCIF and what Finch actually unlocks on the rooftop is an iPhone.
Trivia
The three books that compose Stanton's Social Security Number appear to be fictitious. It is likely that the titles were created with the overall theme of the episode in mind. The book titles are:
"Debugging the Mind: A Guide to Information Ethics" by Pamela Hall
"Historical Views of the Future"
"Purple Mountain Rhapsodies - A History of American Music" by Corazon
Chinese TV usually doesn't have English captions. Instead, most shows are aired with Chinese captions for viewers who don't understand Mandarin Chinese very well.
According to her death certificate, Stanton died on December 23, 2010 5:10AM.
Both Greer and Stanton were assigned a white square by the Machine indicating that they are not aware of its existence. Stanton's square changes to red when she informs Greer about the completion of her assignment meaning that the Machine categorizes her as a threat to itself or to Finch.
The sound of gunshots that alarmed Reese and Snow, during their first assignment together at the sellers apartment, came from the video game Far Cry 3 (which was being played by the sellers in the background).
Military terminology
Abbreviations/acronyms used in Kara Stanton's Department of Defense (DoD) Service Record:
CAPT = Captain
DOR = Date of Rank
PMOS = Primary Military Occupational Specialty
BILMOS = Billet Military Occupational Specialty
XO = Executive Officer
CI = Counter Intelligence
HUMINT = Human-gathered Intelligence
MOS is followed by a code that identifies the soldier's rank and specific occupation.
The date formats used in the armed services differ from civilian life, where it would be month, followed by day and year. Military dates appear year (in full form, not just the last two digits), followed by the month and day.