I can't help it if all the world is ending

[sovay]

I really want someone to vid Person of Interest to Shearwater's "Quiet Americans." It seems like exactly their sort of music—Nina Simone's "Sinnerman," Unkle's "When Things Explode," Fever Ray's "If I Had a Heart," and David Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans" being previous standouts in the episode-closer music video derby. Ideally the show would have done it itself, but I don't think the timing works out. The only light is the day yet to begin / The only signs are the lives in silhouette / The only sound is the rushing of the wind / The only life is not the only life, only, only . . .

Comments

[tam_nonlinear]

The episode with Fever Ray at the end was one where I started to really like Fusco. I knew from the moment we saw that he was, despite everything, a good father to his son that he was probably going to get a redemption arc. And I was interested in him as a character from early on, though hesitant to forgive his somewhat murderous introduction. But this was the episode where I truly felt for him, with how he actually wanted to be good, even though he knew he was probably doomed and redemption might be out of his reach. When there might be no reward other than no longer doing wrong. Which is true for a fairly large amount of the cast, really (except Bear, who is a good boy).

Basically, he was finally starting the journey that the other characters were already taking about cost and necessity of walking away from the life you'd had before, and hiding in plain sight, and all of that.

One of the reasons I like the show is because it is so invested in some hard ethical questions- and definitely ethical rather than moral, because so much of it is about the question of being good versus right versus obedient, and obedient usually comes out fairly low on that list (pragmatic is probably higher as well). I also particularly respect that it doesn't pretend that breaking the rules just makes you a charismatic maverick, because there's always talk about the costs and consequences. John's willingness to use Fusco becomes a difficult and uncomfortable thing- how much is because it's necessary from his training on how to handle 'assets', how much because John's not very good at attachment to people anymore, how much is because Fusco's redemption story requires penance and proof, and how much because it's just the way the story moves.

I've tried to find the right words to describe what it is I like about the show, as far as the outlook on the world it depicts. It's not optimistic, or even necessarily positive. But it is committed to the idea that making the decision to help matters, even though it may fail and it will cost you. The dedication of a few people to trying to make things better, person by person. The almost casual assertion back in the pilot about how what John needed was meaningful work to do is more than just about his individual rehabilitation, it's about how the story defines a meaningful and ethical existence, and how you decide what needs to be done, and how you do it. And how you life with yourself afterwards, if you get to live.

Anyway, this is probably more of a response than you were expecting from a post about how you liked the music, but that scene is one of my favorites in the series, and one that captures some of the central concepts of the show.

[sovay]

Anyway, this is probably more of a response than you were expecting from a post about how you liked the music, but that scene is one of my favorites in the series, and one that captures some of the central concepts of the show.

I don't mind at all. In the sideways fashion of many characters that interest me, Fusco has become my favorite character on the show after Harold—this is honestly not surprising—for all of the reasons you pinpoint, plus the fact that, with John still running him "under with HR," Fusco is not yet in a situation where he can just do good and see how well it works out for him. "My hands are dirty, always will be, huh?" Plus the fact that where John plays out this tension from the burnt-out glamour of the black ops world, Fusco plays it from the perspective of a sarcastic fireplug of a middle-aged irony magnet who has only to put on a suit to look like he's been sleeping in it for a week. He takes a bullet for a fourteen-year-old person of interest without a second thought and it nets him the immortal line "Whatever you got to say, save it. I can already see the ass cake on my desk when I get back." He has one of the most important, vulnerable conversations of his life ("I know this is going to sound crazy, but they seem to know when people are in trouble. And they help them—him and another guy—and me too, sometimes") while being held at gunpoint by his partner in the men's room. And he's not any less interesting or any less real or any less complicated than the other characters. We're approaching the midpoint of the second season, meaning that Simmons has sicced Carter on the trail of Detective Davidson, last seen in need of a shovel in "Blue Code," and Fusco has in return told his superior in HR that the field in which he grows his fucks is barren, so your comments are very timely.

I also particularly respect that it doesn't pretend that breaking the rules just makes you a charismatic maverick, because there's always talk about the costs and consequences.

Not to mention being pursued by the CIA, the FBI, the NSA at least briefly, getting on the radar and/or the wrong side of both the corrupt and honest factions of the NYPD, Elias, the Russian mob, whatever's left of the Five Families, that Sinaloan cartel, the 14th Street Mafia . . . In many shows you can go around New York City bringing a rocket launcher to a knife fight and nobody notices. Here, all the authorities take notice, because people aren't stupid, and next thing you know you're an urban legend and have to wear glasses to disguise your secret crimefighting identity while on a date with the investigative reporter whose biggest story is the Man in the Suit. I adore that. The show can get away with its flights of science fiction because it takes place in a real city inhabited by real people with a real ecosystem that will be perturbed by an ongoing pattern of vigilante justice.

John's willingness to use Fusco becomes a difficult and uncomfortable thing- how much is because it's necessary from his training on how to handle 'assets', how much because John's not very good at attachment to people anymore, how much is because Fusco's redemption story requires penance and proof, and how much because it's just the way the story moves.

I was incredibly relieved when the first-season finale included Carter and Fusco finally getting out of the French farce stage of their separate and simultaneous relationships with John and Harold, partly because it was visibly being terrible for Fusco; see above about the men's room. One of the other elements of the show I really enjoy is its recognition that sometimes life is dramatic and sometimes life is dumbass and sometimes it's both at the same time.

It's not optimistic, or even necessarily positive. But it is committed to the idea that making the decision to help matters, even though it may fail and it will cost you.

That does read as both optimistic and positive to me, because the decision matters. It doesn't guarantee happy endings. But I don't view those as a necessary component, just a nice one.