In the second episode of Person of Interest (Season 1), John Reese and Finch tracked down their next number, a teenager who had been declared missing by the police. How can they save a ghost? On the other side, Reese investigates his elusive employer. Plus, the flashbacks show the beginnings of The Machine and Finch’s decision to protect the greater good.
Tonight, let me analyze the underrated sci-fi crime drama’s second-ever episode, “Ghosts.”
Spoiler warning: This post contains major plot spoilers of the second episode of Person of Interest (Season 1), “Ghosts.” If you haven’t watched it, please do so first before reading my analysis.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Summary, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Episode Summary
Reese Arrives at the Elevator
A fine suit-wearing Reese catches an elevator with three men, one of them holding flowers. Reese knows the man with the bouquet, Bill, and that he’s been cheating on his wife. Reese also knows that the scorned wife hired two hitmen to kill Bill (no pun intended), and they are in the elevator as well. Reese fought the hitmen, shot their kneecaps, and coolly left the elevator, telling Bill to “call the police and a good divorce lawyer.”
Reese Follows Finch
Over the phone, Reese updates Finch on Bill, and his boss tells him to rest. Reese says he is doing some research, which, in fact, he is tailing Finch. Finch tells Reese they have a new number. Reese suddenly lost track of his boss. Finch said, “We’ll meet on my schedule, not yours,” figuring out he was being followed by his own employee.
Carter Arrives at the Elevator
Detective Carter arrives at the same elevator where two hitmen were shot in the kneecaps. Detective Raymond Terney says that Bill was about to be killed, and a gentleman “intervened.” Carter remarks, “Let me guess. Some guy in a suit.” She is still searching for the ex-Special Forces man from the subway incident.
Reese and Finch’s Third Number
Finch asks Reese about the result of his “research,” and he quips, “inconclusive.” They go to a gravesite where a murdered family; the tombstone inscribes their surname “Whittaker.” One of the departed family members owns the number they received from The Machine. “So, we’re looking for a ghost,” Reese says.
Flashback: The Face and the Shadow
A man in a loosely tied tuxedo goes to a secured floor and approaches Finch, who has just finished running on a treadmill and is not limping. He brings Finch whiskey and an award. He talks to Finch about getting tired of handling the board, the awards, and the finances, while the man with glasses says he’s happy doing most of the (real) work. The man also has doubts about the latter because of the “Orwellian nightmare” they are building, The Machine. Finch says that the Orwellian nightmare is their way of making a difference.
The man notices the servers and the government feeds, and Finch explains that the latter are directly from the NSA at Fort Meade. With access to every email, phone call, and surveillance in New York City, Finch has to teach The Machine prototype how to track people and sort the information. Finch says it will take four or five more years to complete the prototype. The man sees a screen of New York City’s digital map, and asks, “And this is?” Finch says, “Everyone.” Every moving person is marked with a square.
Finch & Reese Search Theresa
Finch and Reese meet in a marina, the last place where Theresa Whittaker was seen alive. Two years ago, her father took his family on a weekend sail, and according to the police, he shot every family member and then himself. All of their bodies were recovered except Theresa’s. Finch says that if The Machine gives them Theresa’s number, she must be alive yet in danger. Reese leaves Finch to start his search.
That leads to Fusco getting a surprise visit from Reese at the police station. Reese was able to get into the station, thanks to the badge he took from the departed Detective James Stills. Reese demands that Fusco pull a police file of a two-year-old murder-suicide in Bowery Bay, in which Theresa is involved. With the police file, the news footage of the murder’s aftermath, and Reese’s past as a killer, Reese deduces that the murder was done professionally. Reese also has a file of Theresa’s friend, Deacon Page, whom he searches next.
Finch, who masquerades as a Liberty State Mutual agent, visits the home of Theresa Whittaker’s aunt, Elizabeth (a relative from the news footage). During their conversation, Finch learns the following: Elizabeth and Derek (the other relative in the news footage) are divorced and have no children, an empty coffin for Theresa was buried, and Elizabeth hasn’t contacted Derek’s old number since they split. Elizabeth also shares that she loved Theresa as if she were her own daughter.
Carter Continues Her Search
Carter is baffled about the eight files connected to The Man in the Suit’s prints—half of them are redacted. Detective Kane has found a mission person’s file of the mystery man from 2007, and it’s also redacted. Kane warned her, “This one’s above your pay grade, Carter.”
Reese Finds Theresa
On the phone, Finch updates Reese about Elizabeth and Derek. The Man in the Suit has been looking for parks filled with skaters, and Washington Square Park is next. Reese slaps a skating Deacon’s phone, then flashes his badge and asks about Theresa’s whereabouts. Deacon says that his friend is dead, and Reese doubts his answer while he secretly clones his phone.
A few minutes later, Reese sees Deacon’s recent text to a person named “T.” Reese looks around the park and sees a hooded Theresa skating away from an ATM. Reese runs after Theresa around the city, and when he reaches her, she slashes his palm with a box cutter. He continues running after her, but a moving truck blocks him.
Finch Goes to His “Day Job”
Finch commutes to work; he enters a building with a logotype, “IFT.” He greets a blonde co-worker, then another co-worker named Dave asks him to expedite the database he’s been coding. Finch nods, and then he shockingly sees Reese at his cubicle.
Reese reveals he has dug up on Finch’s long work history and accomplishments as a software engineer. Reese asks who knows Finch’s is the company owner, to which Finch responds, “None of them.” After their banter, Reese updates his boss on Theresa: she’s alive and kicking (showing his newly bandaged hand). Reese also hands Finch a device Theresa left at the ATM, and Finch identifies it as a skimmer that catches account numbers and PINs. Finch plans to track Theresa through online selling and investigate Grant Whittaker’s financials. Wanting to know the reason for the murder, Reese tracks down the family’s killer.
Reese Asks the Family’s Killer
Fusco, parking a car with Reese, points him to a bar owned by a fixer who handles contract killings in the city. Reese walks into the bar, and he is ejected. Reese returns to the bar, fights everyone inside, and walks back to Fusco’s car with a name.
Reese arranges a visit with Solnick in prison. Solnick is the Whittaker family’s killer, and he is sentenced to life imprisonment for a separate crime. Reese asks Solnick about the murders he has committed, like the one at Bowery Bay and the other one involving one of his cellmates. Solnick says he doesn’t need to explain the Bowery Bay murder. Reese asks him why he let Theresa live, to which he replies, “I don’t kill kids.” Solnick also reveals that an unnamed man hired him and paid him in cash.
Reese and Finch figure out that the man who hired Solnick didn’t kill Theresa, and now a new killer is hired to finish the job.
Looking into Landale
Finch combs through Grant Whittaker’s financial records, and a lead points the duo to Landale Financials and an investor named Jimmy Calhoun. Meanwhile, The Machine sees the unnamed hitman approaching (and almost harming) Deacon, Theresa’s friend.
Reese surveys the Landale floor from afar, and he finds Calhoun and his security detail. Reese also sees Derek Whittaker entering the office, and wonders why he is there. Finch tracks Theresa’s recent online selling and updates Reese on Theresa’s whereabouts.
Reese Saves Theresa
Reese finds Theresa, laptop on her person, at a laundry shop. Reese asks Theresa to trust him, while she pulls out their box cutter again. Reese assures Theresa that he will not let anyone hurt her again, and he feels a gun pointed at the back of his shoulder. Reese fights the hitman all over the laundry room, and Reese was tossed out of the shop through a glass window. The hitman points his gun at Theresa, and Reese shoots him in the chest twice. Theresa runs away from both men, and the hitman is revealed to be wearing a bulletproof vest.
Reese reaches for Theresa, and the young man still has doubts about him. Reese assures her once more, “You’re gonna need to trust someone.”
The Investigation Continues
Reese is in a hotel room with Theresa, where he ordered an expensive burger for her. Reese asks Theresa if she has seen the hitman before or who went after her family, and she says no. Theresa reveals that she doesn’t trust her uncle Derek; her dad says to not trust him before he was killed in front of her. Finch arrives at the room, and Reese introduces him to Therea. Reese informs that he used Finch’s credit card to book the whole floor.
(To be updated soon.)
Flashback: The Irrelevant List
Finch approaches the server room, and he sees his unnamed partner, head down, disappointed. The man finds out all the ordinary people that The Machine sees in danger, and he asks, “When are you going to tell me?” Finch says he never plans to, and he reveals he has to teach The Machine to differentiate the crimes concerning national security and the ordinary ones that are “irrelevant.”
The man is frustrated, “You want to play God? Is that it?” Finch reveals that eight people know The Machine exists, and when more people find out about it, they will protest to have it turned off.
After Finch reveals that The Machine has already prevented several terrorist attacks, the man asks how they will live with the irrelevant numbers. Finch shares his decision with the aforementioned list: he coded The Machine to delete it at midnight. As Finch slowly shuts down all the screens, he coldly tells his friend, “We didn’t build this to save somebody.” When he shuts down the last screen (that bears the photo of Jessica Arndt, Reese’s love), he says, “We built it to save everybody.” The man
(More chapters to be updated soon.)
Reese Goes After Calhoun & The Hitman
The hitman informs Calhoun that he has found Theresa, which brings a smile to the greedy man’s face. In comes a gigantic truck, smashing Calhoun’s car. Reese goes out of the truck and asks Calhoun to call off the hit on the young girl. Calhoun says, “It’s too late. It’s already been done.” Reese walks away and warns Finch and Theresa that the hitman is at the hotel.
Finch and Theresa try everything to evade the hitman, from leaving a phone on when he entered their hotel room to almost exiting through an emergency staircase. IRS finds Finch and Theresa, cornered, and as he points a gun at them, he gets two gunshots to the knee and side. Reese emerges, saving his boss and the young girl.
Carter Brings Theresa Home
Carter gets a phone call from someone who says, “You’ve been asking a lot of questions about me,” then says it’s time for them to meet. When she hears, “You know who,” she knows it’s the mystery man she’s been hunting, and picks up a pen and paper.
In the park, Carter advises her police squad to wait for her signal, then approaches someone who is wearing a suit jacket. It’s Theresa Whittaker, who confirms Carter’s identity, and someone told her she can trust the detective. Carter brings Theresa to the 8th Precinct, while Reese and Finch, far away from both women, part ways. Back in the precinct, Carter asks Theresa who saved her, and Theresa says that after all the stress she went through, she doesn’t remember much at all. Elizabeth enters the precinct and sees her beloved niece. They embrace as Carter smiles at them.
Finch Quits His (Cover) Job
Reese goes back to Finch’s cubicle at IFT, and the area is empty. Reese asks the blonde employee about Harold’s whereabouts, and she is uncertain whether he quit or was let go. Reese’s phone rings, and Finch reminds his employee in the suit that he doesn’t give his trust easily. Having thrown his work effects and prepared an umbrella for the rain, Finch leaves the building.
A bust of IFT’s founder (bearing the face of the same man from the flashbacks) was shown near the office entryway, implying that he is already dead.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Summary, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Thoughts & Feelings
In Person of Interest’s second episode, “Ghosts”, Reese and Finch (with some help from Fusco) proved that they are a machine (no pun intended) so well-oiled that they saved someone who was deemed dead by the authorities. Also, Reese fought someone as skilled as he is, but eventually, he won. Add the unknown hitman to The Man in the Suit’s body count.
Beyond the mission, Reese sought more information about his mysterious boss, and though he learned a thing or two, his research was, to quote him earlier in the episode, “inconclusive.” When it comes to Finch, paranoid is an understatement. Why is Finch like that? Since then, I wondered about the man’s origins.
Speaking of Finch, he hinted in the pilot episode that, like Reese, he has lost someone dear because of ignoring the irrelevant numbers. In the flashbacks shown in “Ghosts,” Nathan Ingram, Finch’s co-creator of The Machine, was introduced. (Though I don’t think he’s named in this episode.) In the same episode, they also showed his sad fate. What happened to Nathan? Is he the loved one Finch talked about? Plus, back, the ASI already sees that Jessica Arndt (Reese’s love) is in danger way before the main characters meet. Who wants Jessica dead?
Deep Topics & The Domino Effect
A few deep topics were tackled in the flashbacks: privacy versus security, AI-related concerns, and the protection of the greater good.
Finch developed a massive surveillance system that could sort imminent threats through every email, phone call, and surveillance camera, which, in a way, violates people’s right to privacy. Yes, the surveying and sorting of threats were done by an AI (not a human), which can be fascinating for AI enthusiasts… but also terrifying.
Also, I remembered stories about AIs going rogue, so frankly, I was a bundle of nerves about The Machine at first. Is there a way for Finch’s AI not to abuse the information it has or go rogue on humanity? In this episode, it’s too early to tell.
Which brings us to the other topic: protection of the greater good. Finch’s goal for The Machine is to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks. But The Machine can’t differentiate between national security threats and day-to-day violent crimes, so Finch taught it to sort the numbers: relevant (national security threats) and irrelevant (ordinary violent crimes). Finch coding the AI to label the latter as irrelevant is already heartbreaking.
And by the looks of it, I can tell that Finch’s decision to save everybody instead of somebody will have a domino effect, especially since the last photo shown by The Machine has a familiar face: Jessica Arndt, Reese’s love. Back then, The Machine saw Jessica in danger, and Finch chose to ignore the warning. Yikes.
The Episode Title
One of my favorite English words is ghost, so upon learning the episode’s title, I was over the moon. “Ghosts” fits the episode like a glove because:
- The entire Whittaker family was murdered in cold blood—except Theresa, who went missing. Her aunt, Elizabeth, buried an empty coffin, not knowing that her niece was still alive. So, in a way, Theresa was a ghost. But it’s heartwarming to see that Theresa didn’t stay a ghost and reunited with her aunt, thanks to the original members of Team Machine.
- When Ingram learned that Finch coded The Machine to delete the irrelevant list at midnight, photos and information of the irrelevant numbers were shown—people who needed saving (assuming they would be the victims). All of those lost lives are ghosts that haunt Ingram and, later, Finch.
- The main characters, Reese (a CIA agent who is deemed MIA) and Finch (a billionaire hacker with a mysterious past), are ghosts themselves. To quote Finch in the pilot episode, “The world thinks we’re both dead…” And with their ghostly statuses, they stop violent crimes and save lives quietly, from the shadows.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Summary, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Standouts
Reese Almost Met His Match
In “Ghosts,” Reese already met a killer who matches his skills, the unnamed hitman (the one who hunted Theresa). The urban legend known as The Man in the Suit is starting to grow here, so it’s interesting to see the human behind the legend. As silently dangerous and efficient as Reese is, he’s still human. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get the upper hand, and he did when he shot the hitman dead.
Calhoun’s Car Gets T-Boned
In one of the personally infuriating parts of the episode, the hitman smiled when he tracked down the hotel where Finch and Theresa were hiding. But honestly, I’m more infuriated with the hitman’s employer, Jimmy Calhoun. When Calhoun showed that sick smirk after the hitman’s update on Theresa, I wanted to punch the screen. The things people do for greed. So, when his car got smashed by a humongous truck (driven by Reese), it was a chef’s kiss moment.
Pardon me when I say this: the asshole deserves it.
Ignoring the Irrelevant List
Back then, The Machine could list not just the threats of national security, but also the lives that needed saving, but its creator, Finch, chose to ignore them for the greater good. All those eventual ghosts broke Ingram’s heart, and so do mine and everyone else’s. Why would anyone ignore those poor lives who need saving?
But what broke my heart further is the photo shown on the screen before Finch turns it off: Jessica Arndt’s. If Finch hadn’t ignored the irrelevant list back then, Jessica might still be alive. Might. Who knows?
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Summary, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Conclusion
Overall, “Ghosts” seemed like a filler episode on the surface, but the duo’s challenge of tracking (and saving) a missing person, a “ghost”, is somehow thrilling me. But what thrills me more are the flashbacks that shed a bit of light on Finch’s past and The Machine’s beginnings. Those revealing flashbacks also raised more questions, subtly discussed deep topics, and set up a domino effect for the rest of the series.
As they say, the plot thickens.
Rating: 👁️👁️👁️👁️
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Summary, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Header image: Person of Interest: Ghosts (Season 1, Episode 2).
Disclaimer: This is simply an in-depth analysis from a fan. No copyright infringement intended on any of the show-related media featured on this post.
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