'Person of Interest' Finale: Michael Emerson and Winston Duke on What's Next for Finch and Dominic

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The War of the Gods between Samaritan and the Machine is far from over, but it comes to a bloody head this week on the season finale of Person of Interest. Many familiar faces don’t make it out alive and, as the loss of Detective Carter proved last season, no one is safe.

All season, the young lion crime lord Dominic (Winston Duke) has posed a threat to the Machine’s creator Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson), and that tension will be resolved Tuesday night. It’s been awhile since Finch has had direct contact with the Machine, and Emerson says it’s been harder for his character than he lets on: “I think Mr. Finch had more personally invested in that relationship than he would ever admit to himself. I think he felt a bit passed over or rejected.” At the same time, there’s a fear of his creation. “The Machine is able now to alter its core code, which surprises Mr. Finch,” says Emerson. “I think he thought that was impossible. I think he’s felt like his gift to humanity was creating an AI that would never take things into its own hands.”

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He finally does, once again, get to speak directly to the Machine. “I was so thrilled to read that,” says Emerson. “It’s so satisfying for Mr. Finch to finally have a conversation with his child. It’s mighty stuff.” Love, fear, pride, and pathos all intertwine in their final exchange: “It’s a great notion the way they are slowly humanizing a purely electronic entity. It’s kind of thrilling to consider.”

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At first blush, it would seem that Dominic is on the opposite side of the coin from Team Machine, but they have more in common than you’d think. When Dominic kills his right-hand man, Link, Duke says the act “gave insight into a very rigid moral compass. He doesn’t show preferential treatment because you’re close to me. He’s similar to the Machine in that way… He is very much like the Machine. He is that young, calculating entity that throws everyone off and is always, to some degree, a step ahead of his competitors.”

The moral compass Dominic and Elias share is what makes their conflict so engaging. Though their compass has been “morphed by a life of crime,” Duke says they are still honorable, and “on the other side of the law, they’d probably be really great cops or really great judges because they’re fair people.”

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Emerson says that the possibility of a Dominic-Finch partnership does exist. “Mr. Finch always gravitates to men with reflective intellect and strategists. There’s no question that Dominic is a great player of the game; he’s a chessmaster. Mr. Finch always has something to observe or connect with in a person like that.”

So is that something we’ll see in Season 5? Emerson says he’s only heard some “cryptic remarks” from the writers about what’s in store. “Next season is more Finch-centric. I don’t know what they mean by that,” he admits. “Partly, I’m terrified that I’ll have more scenes and longer episodes. But I think maybe what they mean is that this business of Finch and his relationship to his creation will be played out in more detail.” The actor loves abstract scenes — all that talk of mathematics and philosophy — though he knows that “people tune in because they like the guns and the car chases and explosions and the threat of death at all times.” If we’re lucky, PoI will continue to deliver plenty of both.

The Season 4 finale of Person of Interest airs Tuesday, May 5 at 10 p.m. on CBS.