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ShotSeeker Recap

Finch and Bear arrive at the new safehouse, and Reese calls in from the Real Time Crisis Center. He asks if the simulations are up and running at the subway station, and Finch says that there's no news yet. Finch says that he's updating security at the safehouse, and Reese reports that he's tracked down their new Number: Ethan Garvin, a sound analyst for ShotSeeker, a new NYC program. The police have placed microphones around the city to pinpoint gunshots within 50'. Ethan rules out false positives before dispatching police. Ethan is wrapping up a 12-hour night shift and drinking coffee, just as gunshots come in.

While Ethan identifies the sounds, Reese gets close enough to clone the Number's phone. The supervisor notices Reese and he says that he wants to see ShotSeeker in action. Ehtan confirms that they are gunshots and predicts what type of gun was responsible. The supervisor tells Reese that the city almost scrapped the system six months ago due to too many false alarms. However, Ethan came in, calibrated the software, and got it running smoothly. The police call in the arrest and tell Ethan that his prediction of the gun type was correct. A co-worker invites Ethan to have some lunch, but Ethan says that he claims that he's meeting his wife. Reese listens in to Ethan's call and hears him tell his wife that he has to cancel their lunch date because of overttime. Reese wonders who else Ethan is lying to.

In Whitman Park, Fusco is watching his son Lee when Bruce Moran comes over and quietly threatens Lee. He then tells Fusco that he knows he was one of the last people to see Elias alive, and says that Elias was like a brother to him. Fusco insists that he doesn't know who killed Elias, and Bruce figures that Reese is the one with the answers. He tells Fusco to tell Reese that he's looking for him and leaves with his bodyguard.

Finch meets Root at the station, where she's watching a laptop run inside of a Faraday cage. He explains that he created the code from the laptop to create a clone of Samaritan Finch has also created a clone of Machine and plans to engage the two ASIs in a series of simulations to see which one is the victor. Hopefully they'll come up with a strategy that will let them defeat the real Samaritan. Finch insists that no one watches for security reasons.

Reese calls in and says that he's followed Ethan to a low-income apartment on the edge of campus. Ethan knocks at a door and calls to Krupa Naik. Finch confirms that Krupa is studying chemistry. There's no answer, and the man next door complains that Ethan is back making noise. A woman, Mary Mulhall, looks out from a nearby apartment. Finch confirms her identity and determines that she's in the same graduate problem as Krupa. Ethan asks Mary to call if she hears from Krupa, and she slams the door in his face.

Ethan takes a gun out of his backpack and kicks in Krupa's door. Reese goes in after him and finds Ethan firing three shots into the fireplace. Ethan puts his gun down and recognizes Reese from the RTCC, and says that it took him long enough to get there. A ShotSeeker alert goes off as it recognizes the gunshots, and Reese calls off the alert. Ethan explains that three nights ago at 2 am, ShotSeeker picked up the sound of three shots in the apartment. However, the program identified them as firecrackers. Ethan insists that Krupa hasn't been seen for days and the official story is that she went missing after setting off M-80s in her living room. He sets off three M-80s, records the sounds, and they go back to the RTCC.

At Ethan's desk, Ethan shows Reese the difference between the two sounds. The sounds are subtly different, and Ethan figures that Mary knows something but is too scared to talk. Finch calls to say that he hacked into ShotSeeker and believes Ethan is correct. He figures someone is targeting Ethan to stop his investigation, and suggests that Reese runs down the first lead with Ethan. Benjamin Haas, president of an anti-hunger non-profit called Feed The Globe, filed a missing-persons report on Krupa. As they leave, Fusco catches up to Reese and says that Bruce threatened Lee. He warns that the team is now putting Lee at risk, and Reese assures Fusco that he'll make it right. For now he needs Fusco to working the missing-persons case with Ethan and leaves.

Finch puts the laptop with the Machine clone into the cage and hooks it up to the other laptop. Root assures him that it's what the Machine wanted, and the two clones engage... and begin showing nothing but negative outcomes for the Machine.

Fusco and Ethan go to Feed the Globe's office and Fusco notices two men watching them from a van. Inside, Benjamin explains that Krupa was developing that would extend the shelf-life of fresh produce by two years. She was going to license the process to Feed the Globe, but J.D. Carrick with Harvesta didn't want them to have it. Carrick offered a Krupa a fortune for her process. After refusing, she vanished and Harvesta has been rumored to be behind other disappearances. Someone hacked Feed the Globe's computers at the same time the gunshots went off in Krupa's apartment, and the only thing taken was her research. Benjamin's IT guy can't trace the hack, and Fusco says that he knows someone who can.

As Moran gets into his car, Reese takes out his two bodyguards and gets in with Moran. Reese tells Moran to go underground, but Moran says that he lost both of his friends. Elias' death hasn't been revenged, and Moran plans to do it. He figures that Reese knows who killed Elias, and Reese warns him that the people responsible will kill him just for asking. Reese then promises that if Moran threatens Fusco or his son again then he'll kill Moran himself.

As Fusco and Ethan leave, Ethan gets a ShotSeeker alert that multiple shots were fired at their location. The shooter's ID matches Ethan, and four cops arrive. Fusco identifies himself and tells them not to shoot. Once the officers back down, Fusco takes Ethan to the station and tells Reese what happened. Fusco figures that someone set Ethan up using ShotSeeker. Finch has confirmed that the van Fusco saw was never in sight of any cameras. The tip about Ethan's description came from a nearby payphone that is also off-camera. Finch says that he and Root will follow the cybertrail while Fusco checks out the payphone. Ethan comes over and tells them that Mary wants to meet. As Reese goes with him, Fusco asks if he settled things with Bruce. Reese says that he got Bruce off his back and leaves.

As Finch and Root hack the hackers, Finch admits that the Machine clone keeps losing. Root suggests that Finch recode the Machine with a more defensive stance, but Finch refuses to make the Machine dangerous. She says that Finch needs to trust the Machine, and Finch figures that it can recode itself because it's infinitely smarter than they are.

That night, Reese and Ethan wait in a parking garage for Mary. Ethan talks about how he knew Krupa in high school but never thought much of her. He saw her name on the report and remembered her, and realized that she was doing something to change the world. Ethan figures that it ends with them turning up Krupa's body, but Reese tells her that neither one of them loses.

Root confirms the hack on Feed the Globe's server, and it originated inside of Carrick's laptop. Krupa's file is on the laptop, but Root is unable to open it. Finch checks in with Fusco, who reports that the payphone is out of order and no one saw anything. The payphone in the station rings, and Root answers it while Finch calls Reese. ShotSeeker reports more gunshots from near the university chemistry lab where Krupa and Mary worked. However, the program labels the gunshots as car backfires. Ethan confirms that they're gunshots and ShotSeeker is misidentifying them, and Reese drives there. Meanwhile, Root confiorms that the new Number the Machine has sent them is Mary. Finch tells Fusco that they have an emergency.

Reese and Ethan arrive at the chem lab and they find a badly wounded Mary on the floor. The shooter opens fire from a closet and Reese shoves Ethan down just in time. Reese goes after the man as he runs down the stairs as Fusco pulls up outside, and Ethan talks to the dying Mary. She says that he knows.

At the station, Finch realizers that only Samaritan could have engineered the coverup using ShotSeeker. Meanwhile, Fusco finds Ethan cradling Mary's corpse, and looks out the window to see the killer leave in the van that Fusco saw earlier. As Reese confirms that the van is gone, two men knock him out and says that their boss wants to talk to them.

The police arrive to secure the chem lab, and Fusco tells Finch that Reese is gone. Root tells the Machine to locate Reese, but it turns up nothing. Finch tells Fusco to stay put, but he tells the officers at the scene to find the van from his description, and to bring in Carrick for questioning. Finch, listening in, warns Fusco that he's in danger but Fuscoi refuses to abandon his partner. When Finch can't tell him about Samaritan, Fusco figures that he's keeping him in the dark and he's not going to let Reese disappear the way that others have. Root asks the Machine to give them something to work with, and it plays back a call of Mary offering the killer Krupa's hard drive. When she refuses, the killer shoots her. Root tells Finch to stay there while she finds the hard drive. Finch starts running a trace on the van's plates but it's disappeared into a camera dead zone.

Fusco takes Ethan to the station and handcuffs him to a desk, while Samaritan monitors the situation and sends an asset to dispose of Ethan. The officers bring Carrick in and Fusco questions him. He says that the cybertrail leads to Carrick's laptop, and asks where Reese is. Carrick is apparently surprised that Krupa is dead, and demands a lawyer, but Fusco locks the door and says they're going to try it again.

Finch watches as the Samaritan clone keeps losing. He then calls Root, who is at Mary's apartment. A man is searching the place for the hard drive, and Root goes in after him. The Machine notifies Finch that the van is at the station, and Finch warns Fusco that the killer is there.

Root figures that Mary hid the hard drive in an air vent and recovers it. The searcher--Jeff Blackwell--attacks her and Root draws a gun on him. When she asks where Reese is, Jeff has no idea what she's talking about.

Bruce's men take Reese to Bruce's barber shop in Brooklyn, and Bruce says that four other kingpins throughout the U.S. have been assassinated. He wants to know who killed Elias.

Root remembers Jeff, who says that his boss is paying him to recover the hard drive. He doesn't know anything about Mary's murder or what is on the hard drive. Root realizes that he doesn't know anything about Samaritan, and Jeff says that he's not going back to jail. The police pull up outside and Root explains that Jeff is working for Samaritan. She says that whatever they've told Jeff is a lie, and then leaves before the police arrive.

The killer enters the station and approaches Ethan. Fusco knocks the man out from behind, and Samaritan notes Fusco's interference. The ASI deploys reinforcements to dispose of Ethan.

Root returns to the station and brings up the Number file on Jeff. She figures that she'll see him again, and Finch warns that Samaritan will keep sending more assassins after Ethan. Finch checks the hard drive and realizes that it's a backup of Krupa's work. He checks the file Root found on Carrick's laptop and realizes that it was a decoy planted by Samaritan to frame him for Krupa's murder. Finch figures that Samaritan is targeting Ethan because he was investigating Krupa's death and finding the information. To save Ethan, they can release the information to the public and Samaritan will no longer have a reason to kill him. Neither Finch nor Root have any idea why Samaritan wants the research supressed, but Root figures that doing the opposite of what the ASI wants is their best option. Finch agrees and Root sends the information to fifteen scientific journals.

Samaritan monitors the research distribution and reassesses Ethan as a minimal threat.

Reese offers to tell Bruce what he wants to know, but wants the bodyguards to leave so he doesn't put them at risk as well. Bruce refuses and Reese starts to go. When the bodyguards draw their guns, Reese takes them out and tells Bruce that now they can talk.

Finch wonders what cost they will pay for saving Ethan's life. Reese calls in and says that Bruce wants the truth, and tells Finch to meet him in 30 minutes. Root figures that Ethan is safe, and assures Finch that their path to victory will reveal itself soon enough.

At the station, Fusco releases Ethan and says that they did good. He insists that they did the best they could even though Krupa is missing and Mary is dead, and says that it's never good enough... and why they never stop. Fusco promises that he's not going to give up on Krupa, and tells Ethan to go home, shave, and get some sleep.

Reese meets Finch and they take Bruce to the safehouse. Elias is there, alive but injured, and says that he kept Bruce in the dark for his own good. He explains that Fusco got him to the safehouse, and Reese and Finch brought him back from the brink. Meanwhile, Reese calls Fusco and says that he's okay, and thanks his friend for sticking his neck out for him. Fusco warns that he's not done asking questions, and figures that Carrick was framed. He says that he's going to investigate whether the team helps him or not.

Elias tells Bruce that there's a new player, an adversary that they can't beat. He says that there's no room for guys like them anymore, but Bruce warns that someone has to step up and handle the business or they'lll lose everything. Elias tells his friend to go back to the shadows, but Bruce promises that he won't give up that easily and leaves.

Once they're alone, Finch tells Reese that there have been over 10 billion scenarios in the battle of two the two ASI clones... and the Machine has lost every one. He wonders if they can win.

At the station, Fusco goes over Krupa's file. Samaritan watches and tags him as a potential obstruction.

Bruce walks down the street, while the ShotSeeker microphones monitor everything.

Written by Gadfly on May 18, 2016

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