Everyone loves this episode, right? (Except perhaps the Shaw-fans) What is not to love here because this episode combines everything that makes PoI a great TV-show. Nolan and Plageman wrote the script and their handwriting is obvious. Who else could combine four storylines in such a smooth way into one hell-of-a-ride episode with a very emotional cliffhanger at the end?
Perhaps it is a matter of personal preferance, but I like this episode better than the end-episodes of s. 2 or s. 3. It is only one episode and not a double one like the others and therefore much more coherent and contained. The action is reduced to two places (FBI-room and hotel) which adds to the drama aspect.
Plus we get finally to see Root and her introduction couldn't be more topnotch with a plot-twist that the actress handles in an adorable way. Being a frightened, very pretty and female looking number-of-the-week until nearly to the end and then just by opening her hair (and killing someone) turns everything around and becomes a really "scary chick" (Fusco's words). In rewatching you might detect some flaws in her innocent appearance f.e. when the killers advance front and back in the street scene, the camera catches the look on her face and she is not frightened at all! Then the expert way she handled the elevator cables and her analysing Reese in the beginning - of course she couldn't read this only from being with him for a short time in a room.
Reese is so nice towards Root, trying to protect her in the most desperate situation ("when they are moving in just stay behind me"), no need for her to be so rude towards him in most all of the following episodes!
I admire this episode very much, even Nolan himself picked it at an occasion as his favourite episode. The tension is rising until we find Reese and Root trapped in an elevator with the FBI coming down and HR below installing an explosive trap. Only the genius of Finch can find a way out and Reese acknowledges it right away.
(One thing that astonishes me always are those pillars in the parking level of a supposedly very good hotel - they look like they could crumble every minute because they are so rotten. Wouldn't be possible here in my country - I think.)
And there are Carter and Fusco - this bathroom scene is just adorable and highly fulfilling. Of course they don't hesitate to rush to Reese' rescue only to end up in a car with him and he is not sorry at all ("trust is a complicated thing - f.e. I am sitting in a police car with one cop who tried to shoot me and another who spend six month trying to lock me up"). The look on their faces when he blows up the car of the bad guys is just gold!
But his badass manner ("We shall all go and grab a drink together" straightening of jacket) will be punished soon when he finds out about Finch being gone. This last scene when he walks into the empty library is really sad - and we get all this in the course of barely 10 minutes.
In the pedia-of-interest there is described how this episode mirrors the pilot episode in many ways and of course it ends in the same way - Reese looking up on the security cam - but then the phone rings. No way someone who watched all 23 ep. until this point wouldn't want to go on right into season 2.
