This episode could have been a seasons ending because of how excellently it is put together. The writers Jonathan Nolan and Amanda Segel cared for every detail, nothing is accidently in it and the storytelling by sound, picture and acting is a complete one.
The introduction: This opening is completely without sound except the beeping of the heart monitor at the beginning and the voice of Johnny Cash's "Hurt". Hurt is in a physical sense what Reese is, but much more so in a psychological way for the whole team. Everything is silent after Carter's death and the voice of Johnny Cash carries us through the sequences: John on his bed, the burial with the mute salute shots, the look of pure grief on the faces of Finch, Shaw, Lionel and Paul and Taylor. But still only the music when the phone silently rings for Finch to give him Simmons number, Shaw beating up in silent rage someone for information, Simmons buying a passport. The way he turns around and the camera on his half-lit face has the same eery effect when later John turns around and walks away from the car wreck. To highten the eery atmosphere slow motion is used for the t-boning of the car, the questioning and the walking away. The look on John's face is one of the most impressing in the whole show.
But instead of going on with the story the machine rolls back in it's memory to four different interrogation scenes that structure the episode and make some much needed explanation on the four characters to tell us who they are and how they became what they are now.
1. Harold
Besides from the small detail that the actress who plays the counsellor for Harold is the same who plays later Elizabeth Bridges, we find Harold at a very important turning point of his life, shortly after he has lost Nathan and Grace. This is an insight to himself, his hybris. In fact the counsellor tells him in a different context: You are not god! This will be the change in Harold's life when he has to face the consequences of his building the machine and builds in his question that cannot be answered: "Does survivor's guilt ever goes away when everything that happened was actually your fault?"
The story goes on with Lionel, Harold and Shaw not trying to find Simmons but John who is badly hurt and they fear for his life. When they are out of options it is Shaw who brings Root in, who urges Harold to overcome his doubts about her. But who is Shaw really?
2. Shaw
We now learn that she was a doctor and her pragmatism, stoicism and lack of deeper feelings got her into trouble. The tale of her delivering a death notification to a family while eating a candy bar is so much Shaw, as we now know her, that it is silently funny. She now has to face who she is and what she can't be - a doctor - because her counsellor has figured it out: She obviously cannot see the difference between fixing and healing. He tells her that she is very gifted, has a brilliant mind and soon would get bored at the job. She is unfit to be a doctor.
In times of trouble the team comes together, just like in the episode ending of season two, now it is Fusco, Shaw, Root and Finch that are tracking down John. The story turns to Reese and what he is doing, but who is Reese?
3. John
The military interrogator tells John: You are soft! And John answers in a very soft voice: No sir. But the use of light and shadow tells us that this is not so. His face is lighted like a skull, a very eery shot that combines Reese with the image of death. The interrogator: "You are about to join men at the ragged edge to stop extremely bad things from happening." Which is a perfect description of his later job with Finch. "I am the last stop between you and the darkness that awaits you." This is a sentence that can be understood in many different ways: His awful job with the CIA, his getting lost after the betrayal or his actual death at the end of the show. It speaks for Caviezels acting ability that is mostly an understatement, but very effective. Just by leaning back in the chair the interview changes completely and now he is in charge. He has no problem in killing the traitor, giving him "the devil's share".
The action scene when John takes out the marshalls like a very desperate killing machine is again a show in light and shadows, the darkness after the electricity cut, the green light of the marshalls visors, the bright exploding light when the sticks are shot and then again the dark-red brooding light when John confronts Quinn. He knew that he was lost and told the marshall: "the man who is coming after me - your men won't be able to stop him." In his desperation he starts talking about "loyalty" - a pompous speech suiting the mobster that he really is. But it is all lost on Reese who knows what this is about. It is not loyalty but the regime of fear that HR was built on. "That is why you and I understand each other". The writer gave John here some very good lines - at last. Together with the blood streaming down his arm and the desperate look on his face this scene is as strong as possible. And the fear gets to Quinn, he gives Simmons up - just like that.
But still - revenge is not the answer. Carter wanted to tell John when she was dying: "Don't let this ...(change you)". That is exactly what Finch tells him - this is not what she wanted, but anyway, John would have killed Quinn (same as Shaw later in the last episode kills Root's murderer).
4. Lionel
Earlier Root has told us where his name is coming from - he is a "lion" in an allegorical sense - strong, fearless and unforgiving. And it is again Root's task to tell us that there is still someone to go after Simmons when the team decides it is more important now to save their friend. The interrogator of Lionel tries hard to break the shell after Lionel has killed someone in the line of duty. He is talking about PSA which just gets him a smirk of the very sarcastic pre-Carter-Fusco. When Lionel picks up the paper of Simmons location we all have to ask ourselves: Is Fusco a killer? Sure he is! That is what we learn of his interview and story of a cold-blooded shooting of a cop-killer. He is the first to introduce the term of what this episode is about: the devil's share.
But is he still like that? Simmons thinks so: "I always knew you were a killer!" But instead of shooting Simmons, he chooses to beat him up - same choice Reese made earlier in Razgovor. But we viewers have to fear for him when he raises his injured and banded hand - is he able to do it when even Reese had problems with it? But the rage is so strong that we get an awesome fight scene and Lionel showing us that Carter's morale was not lost on him. "She saved me from myself".
In the last scene at the hospital, another dialogue scene with someone looming in the shadows, we get the closure of this story. The takedown of Simmons was a team job: Reese tracked him down, Lionel arrested him and now it is Elias who is not letting him get away with all the bad stuff. His cold-smiling speech about what is civilization ("that we treat criminals better than they treated their victims") is just awesome in it's simplicity. He draws a clear line: the lost ones who are not reigned in by morality (which includes John and Shaw) and the civilized ones like Carter, Fusco and Finch. I like it that the camera doesn't rest on the strangling of Simmons, it is equally effective when we only see the heartline on the monitor rest. The heart monitor at the beginning and now in the end - a perfect frame, perfect ending of a perfect episode.
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