Person of Interest "Brotherhood" Review: The Streets Are Getting Real Again

Person of Interest S04E04: "Brotherhood"

Let's be honest, there's not a whole lot to discuss about "Brotherhood," a mostly by-the-numbers installment of Person of Interest that followed three strong outings to start the season. But the hour did introduce a new threat, which is necessary since Reese and Shaw keep shooting the old ones. Gotta keep the creep tank replenished, right?

"Brotherhood" was a Reese-centric episode—bit it didn't just focus on any Reese, it focused on Cop Reese! And not just any Cop Reese, but Sensitive and Serious Cop Reese, who happens to be one of my least-favorite Reeses. I like my Reese silent, shooty, and sarcastic, but in "Brotherhood," he got himself tangled up in protecting a pair of kids from Armenian gangs and some hood rats. The two munchkins had stumbled upon half a million dollars in a duffle bag after a gang deal went sour, making them two of the most adorable targets in Manhattan.

As the episode progressed, it laid on the schmaltz by slowly doling out the kids' backstory: They were in foster care because their mom was in prison on a weapons charge. But that wasn't heart-wrenching enough, so Person of Interest dug deeper. Ah, she went to jail because she took the heat for her son's gun. Oof. That would do it! And then the kids wanted to keep the money so they could hire a powerful attorney to work his magic in the legal system and bring her home. Aww! Reese fell for the kids pretty hard, as he's wont to do when it comes to sad stories of people in need. But overall, "Brotherhood" felt like a pretty standard episode of a typical CBS procedural, hitting all its marks with a somewhat predictable twist and a (temporary) happy ending.

However, what "Brotherhood" did do well was what Person of Interest has a long history of doing well: deepening its universe with the unexpected addition of new adversaries. The Brotherhood—which made its debut in the Season 4 premiere as the gang in need of a closed phone network—isn't just a one-off gang, and we got our first hint of that when Link (Jamie Hector) returned as the representative of one of the parties interested in retrieving that duffel full of cash back. Though Link had the high profile (and The Wire background) to be the big cheese, the real mastermind was a man named Dominic. And just like what happened with the big Elias reveal in Season 1, Dominic was hiding in plain sight as the foot soldier who received a (now understandably) disproportionate amount of screen time when Shaw held him hostage.

What surprises me is that the Brotherhood doesn't appear to be anything more than a well-organized street gang. They aren't cyber terrorists like Vigilance, they aren't a secret cabal of powerful old white dudes like Decima, they aren't even old-world gangsters like the countless groups of Eastern European cronies that pollute Manhattan. They're just some dudes rollin' in Escalades who exhibit a keen sense of patience and smarts. It's a surprising throwback to regular criminals, while the rest of the series is in the throes of technophobia and the above-my-pay-grade shadow organizations looking to control the entire world.

And in a way, the Brotherhood is even more chilling than Samaritan because they're real. They're analog in their recruiting. Consider the cyber scavenger hunt that Samaritan set up to bring in Claire and compare it to Dominic's plan to recruit the young boy Malcolm: Dominic saw a potential asset in Malcolm and decided to coordinate a release for Malcolm's mother and wait for the boy to find his way back to the Brotherhood. If a young hacker wants to play a game being run by an artificial intelligence as a way to find meaning in her life, then sure, that's television. But Dominic preying on the weak by putting them in his debt? That's REAL. I have enough trust in Person of Interest to expect great things from the Brotherhood. This could get very interesting.

NOTES OF INTEREST

– Can't spell D-E-A-D without DEA. Adios, two-timing DEA lady. What a chilling image for "Brotherhood" to end on!

– There was barely any humor in this episode. Thank God for Fusco, who showed up just in time to save Reese's ass. Reese: "Have you met my partner?" [Fusco pops up from behind and shoots two thugs.] Fusco: "Nice to meet you!" HAHAHAHAHA for days!

– Every time I've spoken to either Greg Plageman or Jonah Nolan, they've mentioned how they're both really influenced by The Wire, and that last scene with Link and Dominic riding in the car was as Wire-y as Person of Interest has ever been. What a fantastic scene.

– No Root this week, and I know a lot of you are upset about that, but I don't mind taking a little breather from the Machine and Samaritan, as long as Person of Interest uses the extra time to build up to something else. "Brotherhood" did that.

– And here's the .GIF of the episode: Bear after eating homework!