Worlds Enough and Time

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Oh, this is hard but I’ll do my best!

Harold Finch

God Mode

This remains as my favorite season ender of all-- the way this episode, these flashbacks recontextualize Harold is amazing. He is an unreliable narrator, and this episode breaks down all of Harold’s initial pitch to John and it left me breathless. 

I will fight anyone who say flashbacks are useless because in the right hands, in the right story, it can change everything, and this is my go to example for it. It’s just honestly, honestly amazing. 

The Day the World Went Away

God this it’s crafted so well but it also does something so terrible but damn is this episode excellent. Especially this scene. Michael Emerson gives a brilliant and blistering tour de force performance, this monologue was fantastic.  The way his voice shakes at the way he denounces his rules. The very rules I’ve wondered about from the start.

I’ve wondered why he was so unshakeable and steadfast about his rules, and man, does this deliver in every single way. The music, the tense build-up. And I remember on a recent rewatch (knowing what happens to Root, and the distance from the initial hurt really helps), how I felt my heart race just from this scene. I knew what was going to happen, and yet when we reach that moment. 

Damn. 

John Reese

Foe

here

Matsa Nyaya

here

These two episodes remain, in my head, as important episodes for John Reese. This formed the John we get to know and Kara Stanton is an important part of the formation of John.

Kara Stanton was the monster he needed to survive his tenure in the CIA, even as it hurt who he was. John got good at killing people, even to the point where Kara let John took the lead but Kara was also always there to hold him true to the path the moment she feels him stray.

Ordos is the place that breaks both Kara and John's faith with differing results and I just feel like this moment and the episodes in season 2 was part of John's character, seared in blood. Until his work with the team helps him walk the line back out of darkness, and we get this moment:

"But then I realized: Sometimes, one life, ...if it's the right life, it's enough."

from here

Joss Carter

As a whole, all of Carter’s moments from:

In Extremis

by cocoabuffster satan’s raisin

This moment and the moment after this, where Carter digs up and moves Stills body was a pivotal moment for Carter, IMO. It’s one thing helping someone out of prison, and another, actively covering up a (supposed) murder to help out someone she now knows was a dirty cop. Carter is forced to choose between the law and what she thinks is right.

This is the pebble that causes the avalanche and where it continues rolling into the moment —

God Mode

Everything that happened before was a lead up to this moment of choice and the moment Carter does it, it’s not a decision that’s out of character. It build off the moments from season 1, to 2 Pi R, In Extremis and then actively intervening to keep Elias alive, caught between the devil she didn’t know and the devil she knew, she chose the devil she knew.

It’s such a turning point for Carter that ends with Carter taking down the head of HR, and earning Elias’s undying loyalty.

Sameen Shaw

Boy. This is… I’m going to have to restrain myself here but:

Relevance

Need I explain how amazing and beautiful this episode is? It's a backdoor pilot in itself, what a fantastic introduction to one of my top favorites. It has everything that is my jam-- the superhero stealth entrance, the espionage, the fierce and fantastic Sarah Shahi as the equally fantastic Sameen Shaw.

And, a beautiful thematic music for both Shaw and the second phase of the show.

Razgovor

I'll be honest from Zero Day up to the episode before Razgovor, I despaired that the show forgot how to write Shaw but this episode assured me, that no-- they haven't.

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I wonder if Shaw ever looks back at her career and how different her life was from how she pictured it.

I think if Relevance hadn't happened Shaw would be perfectly fine doing her job and working for Hersh and Control (as evidenced by the AU episode). She didn't have a problem with their methods nor their management style until they made it into a problem.

I actually think she preferred Hersh's or Control's style over Harold's soft touch approach to action but one thing she does prefer with Harold is, that with Harold she's sure even if they disagree there won't be a bullet with her name on it.