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Episode 419: Search and Destroy[]
Reese is attempting to teach Finch how to handle a firearm when a payphone rings. The latest number is Sulaiman Khan, the CEO of tech company Castellum, who is the creator of the world's most powerful antivirus system. Khan is awoken by his secretary and learns that his company has been hacked. Details of his private emails and personal life have been leaked, and he has been accused of embezzling money through his own company.
Reese spies on Khan while he leaves his home, and observes that his car has been hacked. Finch points out that the hacker harbors an extreme amount of skill to be able to break Khan's firewall, which even the Machine can't access.
Root, at a restaurant, spies on two Decima men with a briefcase. She deploys a toxin which renders everyone unconscious before stealing the briefcase.
Reese follows Khan into his company's headquarters, where Khan's angry wife Linda calls over nude pictures from her affair being leaked on the web. At the company's board meeting, Zoe is present while a chief accountant confronts Khan over the leaks. Khan denies embezzling money, but the entire company votes him out. Finch warns that Khan's instability makes him an almost certain perpetrator.
Reese and Zoe keep an eye on Khan, as he watches his belongings get moved out. Zoe points out that Khan is being exclusively targeted by the hacker, since the company had an accounting scandal in 2008 which isn't part of the leak. She tells Reese that the matter is personal.
Khan's assistant arrives at his home to deliver him a pistol.
Decima men follow the tracker placed on Root's briefcase, which she destroys in a hotel room. The men still find her, but Root is able to take them out before leaving.
At a bar, Reese watches Khan talk with his friend Mark, who he asks to break into the company's servers and look at their power meters. A worried Khan tells Mark that several weeks back, an excessive load of fuel was used to power the company, and that an artificial intelligence is likely targeting him - Finch realizes Samaritan is responsible for the attack. Khan grabs Mark's arm to insist, but Mark leaves. This was all to pickpocket Mark's employee ID. Finch advises Reese against taking on Samaritan again, but Reese follows Khan nonetheless.
Khan breaks into the server room to look for something in the energy meters. The NYPD arrives, however, and Reese is forced to escape to avoid being discovered by Samaritan. Khan is arrested.
Greer and Martine review surveillance footage of Khan. Martine requests that she be allowed to eliminate Root. Greer agrees.
Fusco tells Reese that Khan has been transferred to Rikers. At the prison, Fusco requests Khan's release, but a guard finds a series of past felony charges pending against Khan. Reese is forced to extract Khan the hard way.
Khan is hastily escorted to his cell while he furiously protests. Samaritan pays an inmate $50,000 to murder Khan, but Reese stops the inmate in time, coming in disguise to release Khan. Samaritan tracks their escape and engineers a roadblock to throw them off course, but instead of Decima arriving there, Root does.
Reese, Finch and Root discuss the situation over Chinese takeout. Khan awakens, but finds himself tied up. Finch interrogates him, and Khan explains that since his company is using too much fuel to power itself, it's likely that an artificial intelligence is the true recipient of all the power. Reese believes that this could be to advance the transponder technology they found in Maple (“M.I.A.”), but Root locates the port Samaritan used to hack into Khan's comms systems. It's a surveillance-proof forest.
That morning, the team heads to the forest, where Reese eliminates two cameras. Root finds a trapdoor in the snow, which leads them down to a guard at a surveillance system. Khan panics when he finds that Samaritan is using his software. Finch observes that Samaritan as "re-tasked" Khan's code for its own purposes.
When the team exits, they're ambushed by Decima forces. Root singles out Martine and is determined to kill her for shooting Shaw (“If-Then-Else”), and almost strangles her to death until they are outnumbered and are forced to retreat.
At the headquarters, Reese regrets not letting Root kill Martine before leaving. Root gets a text reading "314", and uses it to open the briefcase she stole. There's a Fabergé Egg inside that she smashes before placing the briefcase aside.
On the streets, Finch explains to Reese that since the Machine's code is one-of-a-kind and cannot be traced, Samaritan instead found the next best thing, Khan's software, to attempt to find the Machine. A payphone rings.
Khan is brought to Greer, demanding to know why he was targeted. Greer confirms the existence of both the Machine and Samaritan and asks Khan if he is satisfied. Khan asks to "see" Samaritan and "look in its eyes". Greer complies by shooting Khan dead, leaving his corpse staring right at Samaritan's emblem on the computer.