December Talking Meme #11 - On Sameen Shaw

[grimorie]

For maurenrerman

Shaw + your feelings (likes, dislikes, etc) pertaining to the way she's written + anything you would wanna see with her character in the future

Sameen Shaw had the best character introduction in Person of Interest and just by Relevance I had a pretty clear idea of who Shaw was, what she was for, and how she'd react.

I love how she was written at first then in comes Zero Day/God Mode and Shaw was a little more quippier than I first thought she would be. But some of nitpicks come in during the first half of season 3.

I honestly feel like the early half of season 3, barring Carter and Root, Harold, John, and Shaw were written inconsistently. Again, the part where Shaw was too quippy needled at me.

Also, the thing is I'm a big Shaw fan, a big one but I thought there were some episodes or scenes where Shaw was unnecessary. I think season 2 showed a better job why Harold and John needed another person who had similar skills like John because sometimes Carter and Fusco couldn't help.

I actually went into season 3 thinking Harold and John would use Shaw sparingly for the first few episodes and then slowly draw her in.

Such as it was there were episodes in the beginning where even I thought John could do the surveillance job alone or have Shaw do something else while John did surveillance.

It also seemed to me that at the beginning of season 3, Shaw's character was retooled a bit to make her more palatable to mainstream fans her flattened affect was punched up but fortunately by Razgovor the writers remembered how to write Shaw.

I guess the writers also wanted to show how Harold and Shaw had friction when they first started, and I guess Shaw was pushing the boundaries but how they went about it felt off to me.

Shaw was a skilled operator for the ISA, she went on solo missions, where she developed her own tactics, and there were times I was frustrated that Harold or the show itself seem to forget it. Or worse, the show seem to forget that Shaw is neuroatypical.

They've done a lot better by season 4, particularly showing that while she is similar to John, they're not the same, that between John and Shaw, Shaw is the more levelheaded one. I also like the sense by start of season 4 Harold and Shaw's come to an understanding, enough that they began planning together more (Wingman) and Harold realized Shaw's capabilities with computers.

I've no doubt that when he initially planned the Turtle Cave, he set up the computers for Shaw to handle.

I think the show is doing well by Shaw in season 4 although there are still moments when I'm afraid they're going to drop the ball but its a long ingrained fear stemming from other shows.

In the future, I guess I want Shaw to get in touch with her roots--- do more of the things we saw her do in Relevance execute a successful solo mission, multitask, and contribute tactics to team planning. But the thing I really want more? backstory. I want to know more about Shaw's mother, Shaw's time in the Activity, her relationship with Cole, her mentorship of Grice. Her relationship with Hersh and more of the complicated dynamic between Control and Shaw.