Last night ’s sequence give us everything , and then read it all away . We get some well - written comedy , a major Lucy in the sky with diamonds of fan service for shippers , incredibly interesting insights on how an artificial intelligence might experience reality , and a heart - disintegrating disaster . I am still reeling .
write by Denise Thé , “ If , Then , Else , ” is part of a trilogy of episodes that discover Team Machine and Team Samaritan encounter in direct difference of opinion . This meter , Samaritan has decided to rile up the Machine by put down the fund market . Which leads to chaos and insanity among humankind , of course — and allow Root to utter the immortal phone line , “ We ’re going to save the world grocery store . ” Because no matter what they may think about the evils of corporation and coin bank , she and Finch ca n’t deny that destabilizing the U.S. securities industry could set off wars , famines and worse .
The entire thing is obviously a yap from the beginning , but Team Machine ’s ethical urges overpower their circumspection . To bar the market crash , they need to upload a computer program into Samaritan ’s servers properly at the source . Shaw goes on a mission to chip the password to the secure readiness from one of the guys who works there , while Finch , Reese , Fusco and Root sneak into the server farm … and realize as soon as the Machine hijacks the surveillance cams that they are surrounded by a zillion Samaritan ninja with auto guns .
And that ’s when time stops . Or rather , that ’s when we go deeper into the car ’s point of view than we ever have before . Root asks it for “ a short assistance , please . ” And we get to watch out as the powerful AI spends valuable instant evaluating potential outcomes of the squad ’s next move . At first , it ’s not cleared that these are potential scenarios , and we watch in horror as Reese is shot to last . Then the Machine retrieves a memory board from ahead of time in its life , when Finch was learn it to trifle chess . That ’s when the Machine first interpret the virtue of playing out dissimilar scenarios in its lightning - fast mind first , before acting .
Each iteration of scenario has its own tang . We see bravery , futility , snags , serious Root / Shaw flirting , a random passionate buss between Fusco and Root ( “ Why not ? It ’s a computer simulation ! ” Sim - Fusco explains ) — and even some delightfully meta wittiness . There ’s a great bit where the Machine postulate to speed up its manikin so it reduce all the negotiation to things like “ coquettish gossip ” and “ answer bordering on enmity . ”
After one thousand thousand of nanoseconds tick by , the simple machine reaches a decision . But not before withdraw that Finch warned it against seeing life as a chess game game . “ People who treat life story like a biz merit to recede , ” Finch aver , vocalise my latent convictions about mass who obsessively cite secret plan possibility to excuse everything from difference of opinion to romance . living is not just a secret plan , and everyone animated is just as worthful as everyone else , Finch tells the motorcar . Nobody should be used as a pawn .
With this honorable substrate underlying its decision - making , the Machine finally transmits a course of action to Root . Unlike many of the scenario it mould , this plan involves the whole team sticking together . First they ’ll upload the computer software , then they ’ll escape via a hack service elevator . The Machine cypher they have less than a 3 per centum hazard of survival of the fittest , but those are the best odds they ’ve contract .
Somehow Shaw manages to get the code out of the bozo who works in the building , after talking down a self-destruction waistcoat dude who is about to blow up the tube train she ’s on because he lose everything in the gunstock food market clangour . act as on a tip from Fusco , she aid the guy finger fellow feeling for his fellow passengers by asking each of them how much they lost in the clangour . It sour out everybody is terrified because they ’ve gone broke . Even the security guy Shaw ’s after has lost his pension . The resolution to violence and topsy-turvydom , Shaw discovers , is to create a notion of solidarity . Now that the man realizes he ’s not alone , he realizes he has to defuse the bomb calorimeter .
Likewise , the members of Team Machine are not alone . Even though they are under onset from forces far more powerful than themselves , they manage to preserve the market — and make it to the elevator with just injuries . Reese has been taken out by a shot to the chest , which look bad but non - fatal . Just in prison term , Shaw arrives to help . Unfortunately , that involves racing across the elbow room to hit a clitoris that will release the elevator — while getting flash at by a long ton of bad guy wire .
Root tries to check Shaw , and our sociopathic ninja realizes that there ’s only one thing that will shut the flirty hacker up . So Shaw gives Root an vivid , passionate kiss . And releases the elevator . And dies like a hero , in a hail of gunshot , her eyes train on the fields of Valhalla as the lift room access close on Root ’s call face .
It was the perfect ending for our beloved Shaw , and it was a bittersweet second for the serial publication ’ producers . They told Entertainment Weeklythat when actress Sarah Shahi ( Shaw ) come to them a few month ago and said she was pregnant , they were thrown for a grummet . She ’d been so intact to the show that they could n’t ideate it without her . But after going over every potential room to keep her , they realized that it just would n’t work . They did n’t require to hide her behind basketball and flower pots for a time of year , and they gain that they could n’t write a pregnancy into the show . Producer Greg Plageman said :
And what we pop to realize is that someone involve in what Shaw is involved in is almost irresponsible to portray as a female parent on the show . We ’d have to entirely change the character . And I remember Sarah feel that way too . She say “ Well , let ’s do it with some guts then . ” And we felt that that was the most appropriate means to go about it .
Nicely done .
We went deep into the political machine ’s nous , and late into Team Machine ’s grit , and we lose Shaw . But we win a greater understanding of what this show think about honourable decisiveness - devising . Game logic can only take you so far . Beyond that , you have to trust in biotic community — and that is something that ca n’t be quantified . It can only be lived .
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