Person of Interest - "Legacy"

Person of Interest 1.12: “Legacy”

“I give you an address and you promise me no one would get dead. And what happens?”
- Detective Carter

Detective Carter is sitting in a coffee shop, anxiously looking around at every well-dressed guy with dark hair that walks in. She’s obviously looking for Reese. And in typical fashion, he just appears behind her. She wants to know more about how they get their intel and all Reese tells her is that they get information about people about to be involved in crimes or commit them and he asks her to unseal a juvenile record of this week’s number (Andrea Gutierrez). Reese also gives Carter a phone so he can call her when he needs to.

We next see Andrea walking into the courthouse (getting knocked over by some guy and having to rip off the bows on her shoes when one rips). She’s not had the easiest of upbringings but she fought her way through law school and is now trying to carve a niche in the legal field representing ex-cons and inmates with grievances against the State. Sadly she’s 0-6 and her current case isn’t going well. Her client’s parole officer found drugs in his apartment but he tested clean. She heads over to the Department of Family Services to try and get a copy of the blood test but gets shooed away by the supervisor.

That night, Reese is tailing Andrea and she stops for drinks with some friends. This gives Carter time to call him and share what she found about Andrea’s juvenile record. In a somewhat comedic scene, Lionel calls Reese to tell him Carter’s up to something. Finch makes the comment that it will get really complicated keeping both detectives in the dark about each other but Reese isn’t worried. I have to say I was thinking the same thing as Finch. Whenever they do find out about each other it’s going to be great. As Reese ends his call with Carter, he spots someone else following Andrea. He manages to catch the guy in a great locked off comedy shot and starts to pummel him but the other guy has a little fight training and Reese is still recovering from his gunshot wounds. But Andrea is safe for now.

The next morning, Reese shows up at HQ and tries to log on to Finch’s computer but obviously has no luck. Just as Reese starts telling Finch that they need Andrea’s files to see if the guy he ran into the night before is a former client, Finch gets a call and races off to bail out a young man named Will. It’s quite obvious they have some kind of past. It turns out that Will is Nathan’s son and he’s going to be sticking around for a while. He was a doctor traveling around the world but he wants to get to know his father (even though daddy is dead). It looks like we have someone else who is interested in trying to find out more about the Machine. Meanwhile, Carter’s been tasked with finding out where one would buy the brand of steroids Reese found on the thug as he goes off to meet with Andrea.

Reese tells Andrea he wants to sue his manipulative, eccentric boss for bad working conditions. It’s kind of amusing the way he describes Finch so well. Andrea says she can help him (he promises he can pay up front) but she has to go tend to her current case by bringing her client’s son by. He’s been in foster care since her client got arrested. Reese is outside the prison in his car listening when Carter calls with information on the steroids. She gives him three locations with the condition that she’d better not be called to any of them as a crime scene. Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. At the third place, Reese finds the guy and chases him right into the path of an oncoming garbage truck. So much for that lead.

Well, Reese and Finch manage to find the connection between the dead guy and Andrea’s current client. They share a parole officer and the dead guy had just under $10,000 on him. Looks like a payoff and Reese says so as Carter calls to berate him for getting someone dead. Reese has more pressing matters. He’s found the parole officer, Galuska, shaking down another parolee. So of course Reese has to intervene. Carter is rather annoyed about Reese framing Galuska for threatening a parolee but she is going to interrogate him as several of his parolees have claimed he planted evidence. And Reese has given Lionel a new job. Carter’s interrogation doesn’t go well and Reese pays another visit to Andrea just to check on her. Well, and he also stopped by Galuska’s apartment to “borrow” his computer. He and Finch find some interesting data in Galuska’s checking account. He got deposits every time he sent one of his parolees back to prison. And he made withdrawals of just under $10,000 the night the dead guy first tied to take out Andrea and he’s just made another one. Reese tracks Andrea down at the NYU law library and takes out another assailant just in time.

Reese takes Andrea to a safe house and kind of explains the situation. Once he’s satisfied she’ll be safe, he goes to meet Carter. She’s found a pattern in the parolees Galuska sent back to prison. They’re all single parents. Now it’s time to look at someone in the Department of Family Services. Carter brings in the couple fostering the son of Andrea’s current client. They eventually admit that most of the kids listed as being in their care don’t exist. Finch interrupts the investigation to tell Carter she should let the couple make their phone call. He and Reese have a plan for catching the DFS member in action by installing a scanner inside the document shredder. Unfortunately Reese realizes it’s not the person they thought (he followed the head of Foster Placement after she left work early) just as Andrea gets a call from her client telling her he’s going to be moved to Attica. Andrea promises to fix it and goes to DFS where she runs into her contact (Chris) and realizes he’s Galuska’s partner.

Reese shows up just in time to stop Chris from hurting Andrea and Carter arrives to arrest him. They make a pretty good team. They’ve got this really funny banter where Carter sort of brags about what she can do to move the case forward without having to shoot anyone. Andrea settles her client’s case for $10 million (I’d take a $300,000 fee too). We end with Lionel checking in with Reese while on his new job; tailing Finch. This is going to get interesting.