Person of Interest – 1×21 – Many Happy Returns – Recap
This episode of Person of Interest was intense. I thought it might be a cheery one because it’s John’s birthday but no. Tonight, we get angry, ass kicking Reese. Which is an amazing Reese to watch. Reese shows up early on his birthday but Finch isn’t having it. He tells him there isn’t a number to save and he gifts him with a small gift and the day off. What is he hiding? And why didn’t he get any cake?
Recap:
Finch actually does have a number and recruits both Carter and a hungry Fusco to help him. He believes this particular case will bring up painful memories for his buddy. What memories? Flashback time.
A weakened John is on a bus, wearing facial hair straight out of LOST season 4, and it looks like he still has a bleeding gunshot wound. What the hell? Get him a bandaid! He goes to find his old girlfriend Jessica and is devastated to learn that since contacting him recently, she died in a car crash. Oh no :(. Back in present day, John’s DNA is found at a murder scene outside of the city. Whose murder? Peter. Aka Jessica’s husband. That doesn’t sound too good.
John realizes that Finch is working without him (aww hes jealous!) and demands some answers. Finch believes their latest number is being abused by her husband and he didn’t want to upset Reese. What is he implying? Well, for one thing, John has zero tolerance for guys who abuse their wives. He literally walks into this guy’s office and beats the crap out of all of them. He kicks some ass and is basically terrifying when he threatens the abuser.
Unfortunately for them both, the girl is so frightened that she tries to take a train out of the city. She is nabbed by cops and her abusive husband gets her. It’s not long before he’s driving her out of the city. When they realize this, John is so overcome with emotion that he kicks Finch out of the car to take care of this guy. John saves the girl before her husband kills her and sends the guy somewhere he can suffer for eternity.
Meanwhile, back at the old crime scene, Carter puts two and two together and realizes that John was Jessica’s old boyfriend. What happened here? In a flashback, Jack Beard Reese breaks into Peter’s home to watch home movies of Jessica and him. They seem to confirm what he already knows. That Peter has been abusing her all along and that’s why Jessica has been calling him. Peter killed Jessica and put her body in the car before the crash. What happens to Peter when he walks in on an angry John probably wasn’t pretty.
Finch obviously has a soft spot for John. He even gifts him (what I think) is his old apartment because it’s nearby a friend of his. What a sweetie. When John asks if he knew before they met that Jessica had been abused, we see a flashback of Finch in a wheelchair, in the hospital as John got the news about Jessica. Was he trying, even then, to save them?
Preview of next week’s episode here