S2 >>
Person of Interest -- Season 1 (Flashbacks in parentheses)
#01 "Pilot" (Reese)	#09 "Get Carter" (Carter)	#17 "Baby Blue"
#02 "Ghosts" (Finch)	#10 "Number Crunch"	#18 "Identity Crisis"
#03 "Mission Creep" (Reese)	#11 "Super" (Finch)	#19 "Flesh and Blood" (Elias)
#04 "Cura Te Ipsum"	#12 "Legacy"	#20 "Matsya Nyaya" (Reese)
#05 "Judgment"	#13 "Root Cause"	#21 "Many Happy Returns" (Reese)
#06 "The Fix"	#14 "Wolf and Cub"	#22 "No Good Deed" (Finch)
#07 "Witness"	#15 "Blue Code" (Reese)	#23 "Firewall"
#08 "Foe" (Reese)	#16 "Risk"

"Matsya Nyaya" is the twentieth episode in season 1, and overall the twentieth produced hour of Person of Interest. It originally aired on April 26, 2012.

Contents 1 Synopsis 1.1 May 2010 1.1.1 Tétouan, Morocco 1.1.2 Ordos, China 1.2 2012 1.2.1 April 25 1.2.2 April 26 2 Trivia 3 Production notes 3.1 Bloopers and continuity errors 3.2 Music 4 Analysis 4.1 Cultural references 5 Quotes

SynopsisEdit

May 2010Edit

Tétouan, MoroccoEdit

John Reese and Kara Stanton are with Operation Black Fort at a black ops site where Stanton is interrogating a suspect, Reese watching on a monitor. He checks his phone and realizes that he has a message from Jessica. He listens to a message in which Jessica says that she needs to talk to him. Reese returns her call and an obviously distraught Jessica says that she understands what John meant when saying that everyone is alone and no one is coming to save you. ("Mission Creep") John promises to come and get her and that he will be there in 24 hours.

Agent Snow and Alicia Corwin inform Reese and Stanton that they are being redirected to a new operation, obtaining a laptop and stolen software from Ordos, China. Reese says that he can't go on the operation, but is told that he will do the job. Agent Snow also advises Reese that he will need to kill his partner as she has been compromised. He tries to call Jessica, but gets her voice mail instead.

Ordos, ChinaEdit

Reese and Stanton arrive in Ordos, China, on the mission given to them by Snow. They find that everyone working on the project has been killed. When finding a man still breathing, he speaks in Chinese to Stanton, saying that they stole the machine. Hearing him talk about the machine, she shoots and kills him. When asked by Reese why she shot him, she says he asked to get rid of the pain.

Reese and Stanton then find the Laptop and Reese puts it into one of his bags. While waiting for extraction, they eat and discuss whether they will be replaced by technology. Stanton questions Reese about where he thinks they receive their intel. Shortly after, in a brief moment and without Reese noticing, Stanton secretly hides the laptop in her bag just before she steps outside to signal the extraction team.

As Stanton sets out the glowsticks to signal that the job is done, Reese pulls his gun out to kill her as ordered by Snow. As he is too modest to kill a good friend, he puts the gun down and says "Kara, I need to tell you something-". Stanton then shoots him in the gut. She says she was ordered to kill him because he was compromised. Reese, realizing everything, gives her the information of what has just happened: both of them were not sent to China to steal the laptop, but to insure everyone is dead. They were told to kill each other so that everyone who came in contact with the site and the Machine would be dead. The glowsticks Stanton just set out to signal the job was done, was actually just a beacon so that the CIA could blow the place, destroying all evidence of the Machine. Stanton, shocked, looks back at Reese to see that he is gone. As Reese runs away from the site, the building is bombed and explodes, implying that Stanton was killed.

2012Edit

April 25Edit

Detective Carter and Reese meet at a bar where Carter informs Reese that she need more information about the cases that they are working. Reese shows her the picture of a person of interest, who is in the bar with them. When the girlfriend comes to shoot the PoI, Carter arrests her.

Fusco brings a crook into the police stations where Captain Lynch orders the crook to pay up the money that would have been paid to Mob, now is Going to HR.

Reese and Finch meet at the library to discuss the next number provided by the Machine, Tommy Clay an employee at an armoured car company. Finch has arranged for John to be trainee working with Tommy in order to protect him. Reese discovers that the driver, Murray Langston and Tommy are not really preparded to prevent a robbery. He is then tricked by Tommy and Murray into believing that a robbery is in progress, only to find it was a practical joke.

April 26Edit

Fusco contacts Reese about the mob money that he is collecting and wants to know what to do with it. Reese tells Fusco that he doesn't care about the money. Reese then meets the rest of the crew at a diner where they are served by Ashley, who is wearing a diamond bracelet. Near the end of their route, Finch identifies that one of the pickups for the day is two cases of platinum. After the pickup, an explosion overturns the armored truck. Robbers remove Murray from the truck and Reese leaves the truck to save him. Reese is able to shoot both of the robbers, but is then shot in the back by Tommy. Tommy also shoots and kills Murray, then escapes with the robbers.

Finch and Carter track Reese to the hospital were he has been taken by EMS. Carter escorts him from the area and begins helping with the investigation. She interrogates Tommy's wife and confronts her with a box for a diamond braclet, realizing that Tommy gave it to his girfriend not his wife. Finch hacks Ashley's phone in order to lure Tommy to call her in order to track him. Tommy is tracked to the Royce Motel by Finch but when Reese arrives, he finds only the dead robbers and empty cases for the platinum. A few moments later, Fusco enters the motel room, having been sent by Lynch to pick up the now missing platinum. Fusco askes for Reese's help, but Reese tells him that he is a "talented liar" and will think of something to tell HR. Finch confirms that Ashley was having affair a with Tommy. Reese confronts Ashley as she leaves her job at the diner, but she tearfully tells him that she thinks Tommy has left town without her.

Finch is able to track Tommy through his new burner phone, via Tommy's habit of using the password "ashley" and gets an address. Finch contacts Detective Carter, for backup, but she is then accosted by CIA agents Snow and Evans who warn her to stay away from the FBI investigation of Reese, making her unable to help him right then. Reese, now without backup from Carter, finds Tommy and subdues him. While Tommy is being tied up, Ashley arrives, frees him and then they procede to tie up Reese. Reese tries to warn Tommy that Ashley will double cross him, that he is both the victim and perpetrator but Tommy will not believe him. Ashley then shoots Tommy, grabs the platinum and is on the way out of the building when she is shot by Lynch, accompanied by Fusco. When Lynch threatens to kill Reese, Fusco kills him with Ashley's gun and tells Reese that he can make it look like Lynch botched the job. Later back at the library, when Finch askes Reese if they accomplished anything, Reese says that they stopped Tommy from getting away with murder.

Snow and Evans break into a hotel room, thinking that they have traced Reese though a bank account pointed out by a North Korean asset. Instead of finding Reese, they are surprised by Kara Stanton who kills Evans and shoots and wounds Snow. She tells Snow that they have some "catching up to do".

TriviaEdit

•  When Reese and Stanton are in Ordos, they are marked as threats by the Machine
• According to the Grayling Armored Services website, the events of the episode start on April 25, 2012.
• Additional scenes from the flashbacks in Morocco and Ordos are included in"Prisoner's Dilemma".
• The title of the episode "Matsya Nyaya" is a reference to a concept in Hindu mythology as "Matsya Nyaya Pranali", whose literal translation is the "law of the fishes". In the West, it is known as "law of the jungle" or the "survival of the fittest" or "only the  strong survive". With respect to Hinduism, it refers to the fact that the "big fish eats the little fish", which is quite the universal "law of nature".

Production notesEdit

• Starting with this episode, a new title sequence is used. When Finch's narration refers to "a partner," Carter is shown shortly after Reese. When he talks about them being "hunted by the authorities," a clip featuring Mark Snow is shown.
• According to casting calls, Ordos was filmed in the Rockaway Beach area.

Bloopers and continuity errorsEdit

• The infrared chemlights Stanton uses as a beacon to mark the pickup zone are colored blue. IR chemlights emit no visible color.

MusicEdit

• UNKLE's song Lonely Soul is featured at the end of the episode

AnalysisEdit

Cultural referencesEdit

• Matsya Nyaya (IPA: /mət̪s̪jə/ /nja:jə/ Hindi/Sanskrit: मत्स्य न्याय‬) is Sanskrit and literally translates to "the syllogism (nyaya) of the fish (matsya)", meaning "the process of the eating of small fish by the big fish", or simply put, the survival of the fittest:
  • The CIA supposedly kills Stanton, who attempted to kill Reese, who was instructed by Snow to kill her.
  • Fusco kills Lynch, who killed Ashley, who killed Tommy, who killed Murray and supposedly Reese.

• Pronunciation of Matsya Nyaya:
  

  

QuotesEdit

• "Agent Snow, have a seat. We have some catching up to do." - Kara Stanton

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