User reviews

Wow.

First to be clear let's talk about the episode. Not merely the best in the series so far, not merely technically perfect, but soars even above the usual standards for POI. The script which is flawless works on multiple levels, not only telling a story via the trope of flashback but carefully introducing new elements like a time release drug to shock the viewer in real time and yet (this is not easy, trust me) also adding to our understanding of the characters for episodes to come.

"Wow" does not do justice. Nor is the 10 score high enough.

I need to repeat this is technically perfect, no false notes, no wasted words or frames, and constant viewer connection.

Makes those handful of TBAA episodes ("touched by an angel" theme in the lesser POI entries) look tawdry in comparison.

And the script team from ARROW, who have turned the flashback, as a reliable script device, into a weapon of torture should be forced to watch this episode on a continuous loop with their eyelids taped open.

Not to benefit them. To benefit their viewers.

This is how you do flashbacks. This show found a really great way to do flashbacks and balance it with the present timeline and not overdo it so when they do flashbacks like this, they would blow your mind. And they did it again.

This might not be the best episode of the show as a whole, not even better than the ones before it, but it's definitely out there with how perfectly it's written and executed.

The way they find new ways to surprise you with the storylines you already are familiar with is just brilliant and they also do a great job of integrating the new reveals we had only a couple of episodes ago into it without the need of keeping it secret or mysterious since it's already out there. The reveals in the previous episodes help shed more light on the new storyline of the episode as well as multiple other storylines that we already know of, some of which already had their ending in season 2.

It's amazing how they can show a little more of an already finished storyline with characters that aren't there anymore and still blow your mind with it, and still connect the plot of the flashback episode to the present so it's not just a random filler flashback that just revealed some trivial details and is pointless.

This episode also serves as a great retrospective to show us how far these characters have come and how much they've changed and how good the writing for these character arcs is.

This is my first rewatch of the show after probably 6 years, so I'm familiar with the story and characters and how it ends, but I don't really remember everything and the show still manages to give me goosebumps from how well-written. I didn't really want to review episodes of the show on my rewatch and just wanted to review the whole series after I was done, but this episode was so good that I just couldn't not say anything about it.

The story might seem a little generic and boring from the beginning, but the more it goes on you realize that it is actually essential and related and even central to every single major storyline we've seen so far, and some characters. And the writers do a brilliant job of connecting every dot and giving us more from the storylines of the first season.

This show never fails to surprise you. Yet it didn't receive the recognition that it deserves. This single episode is more thrilling and enjoyable than most of the contemporary movies out there. My favorite episode till now. I will definitely watch it again someday.

In 2010, before working with Reese, Finch works with Rick Dillinger. The Machine delivers the number of Daniel Casey, a hacker that works testing security systems and vanished two months ago. Dillinger heads to see Lester Strickland, who had hired Casy in a previous work. When he leaves Strickland, he calls Casey and asks what he had done, since first a couple and now a man had visited him looking for Casey. Finch sends Dillinger to a hotel, where he sees Reese and Stanton, who worked for CIA. They are talking to each other and say that Casey had stolen the government and must die. Casey leaves the hotel and Reese puts a bug in his pocket to track him down. After a shootout, Dillinger rescues Casey and brings him to see Finch. Soon he learns that the government had hired Casey to break into The Machine. He had accessed some information through a backdoor and now the government is trying to kill him. Finch examines Casey's laptop and the code he accessed would allow to introduce a virus in The Machine. He asks Dillinger to put Casey in a charter airplane to go to Canada. But Dillinger drugs Finch to sell Casey's laptop to the Chinese and leaves Casey on his own.

"RAM" is an interesting episode of "Person of Interest". In flashback to 2010, it shows connections to several episodes. Casey's laptop is the one that Reese and Stanton were sent to Ordos to retrieve. Control is the one who ordered to kill Reese and Stanton. Finch interested in Reese when he spares Casey, despite the received orders. It is also shown the first "helper monkey" mentioned by Root is Dillinger. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "RAM"