“Mission Creep,” this week’s episode of Person of Interest, finally feels like the show is creating a path for itself in where it will attempt to go. The first two episodes were monotonous, boring and not as interested in character. Person of Interest still definitely has problems, but for once it seems like it’s trying to solve them.
This week’s episode the “person of interest” is a former soldier who, after returning to the United States, realizes that there’s no place for ex-soldiers, no jobs, no nothing. He becomes a part of a group of thieves, led by a barkeep who unites ex-soldiers to commit robberies. Reese realizes this when he decides to follow him and ends up in the middle of one of their robberies.
In order for Reese to figure out what is happening, he gets Finch to help him infiltrate the gang. As it turns out, the Marine is not only supporting his girlfriend, but helping out the wife of a soldier he knew during the war who he saw get blown up, and has vowed to help his wife and pay for the future of their child.
Reese infiltrates the gang and during the group’s final robbery, he finds out that it is a trap and that the bartender who runs things is going to take them out. He figures this out in time to once again prevent the person of interest from being murdered. However near the end, we figure out that all they stole was a file with the name “Elias M.” When this “Elias” receives the file from the bartender, “Elias” shoots him and moves on, without us ever seeing who this person is.