Person Of Interest Episode 3.04 Reasonable Doubt **** SPOILERS ****

Episode Summary from aceshowbiz.com:

Vanessa Watkins was a successful prosecutor who left her career behind to marry a ruthless defense attorney, Jeremy Watkins. After her husband goes missing and is presumed dead, the machine gives Finch her number. Vanessa is arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband, but she escapes police custody and becomes the focus of a citywide manhunt. Reese and Shaw try to keep up with this elusive and intelligent POI, eventually cornering her and bringing her to one of Finch’s safehouses. Finch learns that Vanessa’s husband was deep in debt to a mobster, so there is a chance that he could have been killed for failing to pay his debt. However, Finch also discovers that Vanessa’s husband was having an affair with her best friend, which gives her a clear motive to kill him. Ultimately, our team is unsure whether Vanessa is the perpetrator or a potential victim, so they hold a mock trial, allowing Vanessa to defend herself against their cross-examiner, Carter. A short time later, Finch gets word from Fusco that Jeremy is actually still alive, and that he has cashed out a large sum of money from their joint charity. Convinced that Vanessa is innocent, Reese takes her to a bus station so she can start a new life. However, he soon learns that Vanessa wants to get revenge of her own, and she goes to confront Jeremy on their yacht. Reese arrives in time to intervene, but he decides to let the duplicitous ex-lovers handle their issues on their own.

Episode Summary from en.wikipedia.org:

Reese and Finch’s next number is that of Vanessa Watkins (Kathleen Rose Perkins), a prominent New Yok lawyer who is accused of killing her husband Jeremy. The police are investigating her case, and they find a gun with her DNA on it. Vanessa escapes police custody, triggering a manhunt for her across New York. Carter tries to help her, but Vanessa says that no one can help her, though she insists that she didn’t kill Jeremy before escaping. Finch investigates Jeremy’s murder and learns that he owed a great deal of money to a gangster. Shaw attends a book club meeting with Vanessa’s best friend Nicole, where she and Finch learn that Nicole and Jeremy were having an affair. Reese finds Vanessa and takes her to a safe house, where she is shocked to learn about Nicole and Jeremy’s affair. Fusco and Shaw, meanwhile, go to the bank of a charity founded by Jeremy and Vanessa, where they learn that a recent payment was made for a yacht by Jeremy. Finch and Reese realize that Jeremy is alive and framed Vanessa for the murder. Reese takes Vanessa to a bus station to keep her safe, but Carter sees that Vanessa has defaced a picture of Jeremy earlier when she was asked if she loved him. They realize Vanessa lied and helped Jeremy fake his death, and she’s out to kill him for framing her. Reese finds the two on their yacht, with Vanessa aiming a gun at Jeremy. Reese says that he is in the business of stopping bad things from happening to people, but he doesn’t know if what’s about to happen is a bad thing. He places another gun down for Jeremy, leaves the boat, and unties the anchoring rope from the dock. The episode ends as two gunshots are heard from the now-adrift boat, implying that Jeremy and Vanessa shot each other.

Please use this thread to discuss the series’ fourty-ninth overall and third season fourth episode Reasonable Doubt. Rule: Please keep spoilers limited to those revealed during the series up to this episode only.

As much as it pains me to say it, this episode didn’t work for me. While not every number from the machine can be a victim, the episode’s writer, Melissa Scrivner-Love, attempted to make a convoluted plot where the number was both a victim and a perpetrator. But despite personal history with Carter this was the first time we see Vanessa and I really didn’t care at all for her. Thus I was emotional removed from the episode. Carter continues to be duped by Laskey. I give her much more credit than how her character has been written so far this season. Shaw’s antics with Nicole’s Book Club and the Innocence Now charity’s bank was funny but it was so out of place for the episode that I was more annoyed by it than amused. We see little of the overall plots this episode - there was no Elias or Root nor was there any reference to the newly found group represented by Mr Collier or the Government Organization/Research. The interplay with Bear actually going undercover at the beginning was cute, but Dr Jensen’s reaction was more of befuddlement than shock and horror after watching three people get shot right in front of her and the whole scenario didn’t tie into the episode at all. Overall, the episode was a major letdown for me following the exquisite Root escape last week. I sure hope the series rebounds from this episode.

I looked up the episode’s director, Stephen Williams, and writer, Melissa Scrivner-Love. Both had two previous Person Of Interest attempts. Melissa Scrivner-Love always writes in a good part for Bear and Stephen Williams had the opportunity to helm the season 2 episode “No Good Deed” - an excellent episode. Aside from that, there other attempts haven’t exactly been notable. So again, here’s hoping for a good rebound next week!