POI

[timesink]

Okay, so I forgot it was Tuesday and failed to watch POI live, and then got myself spoiled for the Big Death. I was not entirely surprised by it -- marakara had a really good argument for it before any of us knew who it would be -- but still. CARTER. That's not right. One less strong kick-ass woman on television. I loved that character, especially once they took Cal -- with whom she had *zero* chemistry -- out of the picture and gave her something to do again.

(From the ew.com interview: her favorite Carter quote was "You're working for me now, son." Yes. A million times.)

ANYHOW. At least they let her know she'd succeeded in her quest (for now, anyway), thank goodness. And I hope to heaven's sake they find and kill Simmons next week.

But here's the real deal: the actual culprit/catalyst in her death is not HR. It's Finch.

1. She figured out the Machine, and that freaked Finch out. (Honestly, I'd forgotten that she didn't officially know, but anyone with a brain could figure it out.) So to him, the eternal protector of the Machine, she officially became a threat.
2. Root had planted the concept of losing Reese (I refuse to go by first names on any of these people) firmly in his head, and that also freaked him out.
3. So when Finch saw Simmons firing on Reese and Carter at the same time the pay phone began to ring, he suspected that it was Carter's number, because Reese's number had been cleared and I don't think a number comes up twice in a row. (Unless you're Charlie Pace, who is well and destined to die no matter what. Whoops, wrong show.)
4. So Finch knew that Reese would try to save Carter at the expense of his own life, and that Carter would try to save Reese with her number on the table.
5. NOBODY GUESSES ABOUT THE MACHINE.
6. AND NOBODY MESSES WITH FINCH'S BOY REESE.
7. So Finch did nothing -- quite obviously, too -- and let Carter die.

I didn't think the Machine gave you a number on that fast of a turnaround, but this could be the New Machine, Root's Machine, making the call. Which could also be why Root appears to be part of the Scooby Gang in the previews.

So I suspect Reese might figure this out once he comes out of his black hole, and this will be a small problem for him and Finch. Root will absolutely know what happened, because she's Fucking Root, Man, and she'll torment Finch with it. Finch is going to have to get used to the new world order surrounding the Machine, but Root will be a 100 percent loose cannon, looser than Shaw by orders of magnitude, and she may yet still be honest-to-god crazy, too.

I miss Carter already, but I think I like where this is going.

Side note: the part that increased the amount of dust in the room for me?

Shaw: I don't think I can be there for you now, Lionel.
Fusco: You did good.

Fusco rocks. Even though I'm annoyed that Carter is gone, I'm glad they've freed up the script space where they can potentially use him more.

Second side note: I think the only reason that, oh all right, John kissed Joss was because he honestly thought he was about to die. If his number hadn't been up, he wouldn't have done it, and he would have stuck to surreptitious beers and cute fist bumps. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Boy, I haven't thought about a TV show this hard in ages.