Person Of Interest 4.9, 'The Crossing' Review

By Richard Church / November 20, 2013

rating: 4.5

Last week I said Person of Interest delivered the best episode of the season, but that was just topped by 'The Crossing'. The episode was tense the entire time through the story, delivering twists, great character interactions, excellent acting and very surprising moments. Emotions rode high throughout and did not let up until the episode's closing moments. 'The Crossing' reminded me very much of Season 1's standout episode and finale 'Firewall' as several groups converged on Reese, but much more than Reese's life was on the line this time around. The majority of the POI team was under attack as HR raced to rescue its captured leader. Speaking of him, Quinn's banter got a little tiresome as he kept repeating lines such as "This is my city, don't you get it?" or "You two are on the losing side" or variations of those. That is my only negative of the episode, but then it was very pleasing to see Reese sedate Quinn as he was in the middle of one of those lines. Since the promos hinted at Fusco dying, a large portion of the emotion came from his end as he spent the majority of the episode in Simmons' custody. His torture was fairly brutal and the acting displayed by Kevin Chapman was the best I've seen of him on the show thus far. Fusco has been a character who has fallen flat for me on several occasions. It's not that I don't like him or Chapman, it's just the writing team have seemed as if they don't know what to with him from time to time. One moment he's being a clean cop, the next he's doing something a little dirty to protect his skin. 'The Crossing' though showed his true mettle as he lied to Simmons' about the location of Carter's evidence, buying himself and the rest of the POI team to strike at HR. His heartfelt phone call to his son was not only one of the strongest scenes of the episode, but one of Chapman's overall best scenes of the entire series. One subtle aspect of it I loved was the look of relief and thankfulness on his face as Shaw saved his son, being completely okay with the fact it would probably mean his own death as long as his son lived. Then they had to go and add icing on top with an escape even Reese would be proud of. Reese and Carter's interactions were another positive aspect of the story. As a viewer of Person of Interest since the beginning, I very much appreciated the nods to the start of the series as Reese reflected on the subway fight and their very first discussion in the pilot. While Reese and Carter have shared a camaraderie due to their military experiences, once again shown when they literally compare battle scars, I've never thought they've had much romantic chemistry until this episode. That's not to say there hasn't been some level of sexual tension between them as Reese has often been very protective of Carter, but the kiss was something I still did not see coming though strictly because they never played those romantic feelings up so much before. At first I found it a little jarring, but came to like it after some thought; on any other show Reese and Carter's relationship would have played out with the Will They or Won't They? question continuously lingering over them, but it felt a little more natural in 'The Crossing'. The HR story has closed, at least for time being, but not without a huge loss. Because of the kiss, I had thought Carter was safe since it looked like the series would pursue a new direction between herself and Reese, but the final moments proved that belief wrong. It was an ending I didn't quite see coming in an episode already full of unpredictable events. I'm personally excited to see how Reese handles this loss in the conclusion to Person of Interest's three part storyline and if Simmons' number will finally be up.