Finch and Reese receive the number of an old spy and prisoner who’s out for revenge. Meanwhile, The Machine flashes back to Reese’s first mission as a CIA agent. Tonight, let me reflect on the espionage-centric eighth episode of Person of Interest (Season 1), “Foe.”
Spoiler warning: This post contains major plot spoilers from “Foe.” If you haven’t watched it, please do so first before reading my analysis.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Breakdown, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Episode Breakdown
The Number
The Machine gave Finch and Reese the Social Security number of Wallace Negel (played by Alan Dale), a US immigrant and international exporter with no electronic transactions since the 1980s.
Upon Reese’s assumption that Negel is a spy and Finch’s further research in a library where secret pre-digital information on East German spies can be found, they confirmed that he is really Ulrich Kohl, a member of a four-man espionage team for the Stasi, an East German intelligence agency.
Victim or Perpetrator?
Knowing that Kohl killed informants, his Stasi teammates were offered new lives by the US government in exchange for the assassin. Kohl was jailed without trial, and his wife and a Stasi secretary, Anja Kohl, died in a car accident. Heinrich Hauff (the case officer), Wernick (the document forger), and Steiler (the team leader) were advised to blend in New York.
Years later, the German government decided to transfer Kohl, now old and feeble, to a minimum security facility. The deceiving Kohl took down the guards and escaped with information on his old teammates’ whereabouts. Now he is after the people who betrayed him and killed Anja.
Therefore, Ulrich Kohl is the perpetrator.
Did They Stop The Crime In Time?
Reese did and didn’t stop the crimes on time.
Firstly, Reese didn’t stop Kohl from killing the case officer, Hauff (now Andrew Honem, an architect), with a Welrod pistol, a silent firearm. After checking around Hauff’s apartment, Reese and Finch learned that Kohl was not killing defectors but his old teammates. Reese also took down a BND agent, Heinlein, and informed Detective Lionel Fusco via phone call of Hauff’s body.
Kohl tracked down the forger, Wernick (now Julian Werner, a lawyer on Wall Street who goes to the same restaurant during lunchtime). Kohl used a needle with a fast-acting poison on Wernick, and they had a chat about his revenge before the now-lawyer fell unconscious. Reese saved Wernick in time when he stole the ambulance and gave him acids to counteract the poison, and there he learned of the deal the old Stasi agents made with the US government.
Next, Kohl tracked down the team leader, Steiler (who is Michael Stegans, a foreman for a construction company). That’s when Kohl found out something Steiler only knew: his wife, Anja, is still alive and living in New York. Steiler tried to take Kohl’s pistol from him, and Kohl pushed him from the building, killing him.
After listening to Steiler’s phone, Reese tracks down Kohl’s next target, Anja. To get information from the only one who knows Anja’s location, Heinlein, the BND agent, he stopped his German Consulate vehicle with a sniper rifle (while Finch spotted the wind range).
To be updated soon.
Other Threads
The Machine flashes back to 2016, in an undisclosed location in Hungary.
John introduced himself to his partner, Kara Stanton, then she proclaimed him a nobody. Stanton asked him if he had seen any old friends, to which he answered, “No.” She showed him a surveillance photo of him and Jessica Arndt, and reminded him that he crossed a line he can never go back from.
While deciding on his name, Stanton and the new agent interrogated their fellow agents about how Alim Nazir safely escaped the country. Stanton killed them in front of a shocked John without getting answers from them, and she instructed him to dispose of her weapon and the dead men.
Stanton told him that in their line of work, he no longer has old friends, and they walk in the dark. She smiled at him, and she finally gave him his codename: Reese.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Breakdown, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Thoughts & Feelings
The Episode Title
According to Dictionary.com, the word foe means “a person who feels enmity, hatred, or malice toward another,” “a military enemy,” “an opponent in a game or contest,” or “a person who is opposed in feeling, principle, etc., to something.”
The word foe applies to many things and people in the episode. Firstly, Kohl and his team’s foes are the defectors declared by the government. When Kohl’s own teammates and his frightened wife betrayed him, they became his foes. When The Machine sent Kohl’s number to Finch and Reese, and they learned he was out for revenge, he became their foe. It also fits Reese’s role in Detective Carter’s life: her foe.
On Ulrich Kohl & Revenge
Foe is synonymous with something simpler: enemy. And there’s a well-known idiom:
You are your own worst enemy.
In “Cura Te Ipsum,” Reese stopped Dr. Tillman from becoming the worst version of herself, a killer of her own sister’s rapist. In “Foe,” Reese had to stop an older, more experienced cold-blooded spy from killing the ones who betrayed him, including his own wife, who became afraid of him after learning of the brutal crimes he committed and the bodies he left behind.
Kohl’s job led him to struggle between doing what the job requires and what is morally right. In a way, Kohl’s worst foe is himself. And with the betrayal from the ones he trusted and being in a hellhole for many years, the killer in him only got fed by hate and more hate. And in his final moments, the killer and the good in him struggled one more time, and he was about to kill his own wife in front of a daughter he never knew. Reese had to shoot because that’s his job: to protect others. And after shooting him, Reese learned that his pistol was empty, so there was no way he could kill Anja. Before Kohl breathed his last, he acknowledged that he never had a tomorrow because of his horrific crimes, and everything was taken away from him. But he also acknowledged that the good in him still survives in his own daughter. In a way, Kohl vanquished his own foe—the killer inside him—and made peace with what remains in him before dying.
On John Reese & Kara Stanton
On Reese’s first day as a CIA agent, after Stanton killed the alleged traitors in front of him, she told him that in their line of work, “they walk in the dark.”
On that fateful day, his own darkness grew, and in a way, she became his foe. But the mission is greater than his feelings, so he had to create and maintain an uneasy alliance with her, and they went on to assassinate more enemies of the state. Like Kohl, the former soldier became his own foe because of his growing struggle between what the job requires and what is morally right, and that carried on when Finch gave him a new purpose as The Man in the Suit, protector of the innocent.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Breakdown, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Standouts
Kohl Overwhelms Reese
In this episode, we saw the second opponent who overwhelmed The Man in the Suit in their first fight: their number, Ulrich Kohl. The fascinatingly scary thing is that, unlike IRS’s first fight with Reese, Kohl’s obstruction of Reese’s external carotid arteries looked harmless at first… but the younger fighter’s facial expression says otherwise. After that, he tied Reese and tortured him with the same needles he used to Wernick earlier.
I have to say: Kohl may be older than Reese, but he is way deadlier.
Finch, Reese, & a Sniper Rifle
After Fusco sent Heinlich and the German Consulate car’s plate and directions, Reese and Finch tracked them down, and that’s when the ex-CIA agent brought out his sniper rifle (definitely unregistered). With Finch’s eyes almost popping out of fear, they said to one another:
Finch: Mr. Reese, I’m highly uncomfortable being here.
Reese: I’m highly uncomfortable having you here, but I need a spotter.
After Finch showcased his surprising knowledge in wind ranging, which impressed Reese, his boss with glasses asked him, “What if you miss?” Reese took a deep breath and calmly answered:
I wouldn’t know. Never have.
I truly love this scene because of Finch’s uneasiness and surprising precision as a spotter, and Reese’s calm badassery. What a duo.
The Episode’s Last Few Words
Trigger warning: themes of depression and thoughts about death. Please be advised.
I’ve been struggling with depression and thoughts about death way before my first therapist officially confirmed it and before Person of Interest even aired. So, whenever a grim quote clicks with me, it sticks with me for years.
For example: the last scene of Reese and Finch being near Kohl’s grave with a different name marked on it. They assumed the German government would erase Kohl’s existence, and Reese thought that would happen to him someday.
Finch: You think anyone will care for our names?
Reese: After we’re dead.
Finch: I thought we already were.
That conversation stuck with me all this time; I still remember it whenever dark clouds hover over my head, and I almost feel dead on the inside in the process.
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Breakdown, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Conclusion
“Foe” is an espionage-themed episode that pitted Finch and Reese against an older, smarter, more experienced spy. While the action is less apparent here, the duo being on the hunt for Kohl, them trying to stop multiple violent crimes, Kohl overwhelming Reese with only one move, and the sniper rifle scene were astonishing and thrilling. The episode also explained the beginning of Reese’s darkness when his own CIA partner, Kara Stanton, broke his moral compass from day one, and that made Reese’s new purpose as The Man in the Suit more meaningful.
Rating: 👁️👁️👁️👁️
Navigation: Introduction, Episode Summary, Thoughts & Feelings, Standouts, Conclusion
Header image: Person of Interest: Foe (Season 1, Episode 8).
Disclaimer: This is simply an in-depth analysis from a fan. No copyright infringement is intended on any of the show-related media featured in this post.
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