Person of Interest - In Extremis

Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Finch (Michael Emerson) may be too late to save their latest number, a cardiologist (Dennis Boutsikaris) who was given slow-acting poison for which there is no cure. For such an honest man the list of suspects is staggering: the man's protege and former mistress (Gabrielle Miller), the doctor's hedge fund manager (Matthew Humphreys) under SEC investigation for insider trading, a friend at a pharmaceutical firm (Matthew Rauch) whose drug trial was halted based on the doctor's recommendation costing the firm millions, and the doctor's estranged daughter (Allison Scagliotti).

Confronting Simmons (Robert John Burke) at Beecher's funeral, Fusco (Kevin Chapman) learns that HR has removed their protection and is allowing Internal Affairs to look into the detective's shady past. Detective Soriano (Ned Eisenberg) suspends Fusco while he looks into Fusco's possible involvement in the illegal activity involving the missing Detective Stills (James Hanlon) and former Detective Azarello (Louis Vanaria) who fingered Fusco as the third member of their crew.


Unwilling to let Fusco hang without knowing the whole story, Carter (Taraji P. Henson) does a little of her own investigating including visiting Azarello in prison, listens in on Fusco's interrogation, and corners him in the men's restroom, but doesn't like anything that she hears. Sickened by what she learns of Fusco's past, and with Reese unable to help, Carter is forced to take a hard look at herself and decide how far she is willing to go to save Lionel.

Although Reese can't do anything to save the doctor's life he does give the man a chance to try and smooth things over with his daughter, help kidnap the doctor's hedge fun manager to squeeze some necessary information, and allow the cardiologist to have a chance to confront his murderer (Scott Jaeck) before time runs out and exact his revenge. The melancholy episode provides its share of moments and hard choices in both storylines as well as confirming Finch's worst fears as the damage done to The Machine by Stanton's (Annie Parisse) virus can no longer be ignored. Next week's return of both Shaw (Sarah Shahi) and Root (Amy Acker) should make things even more interesting.