GOD MODE

Sameen Shaw: "Your tracker. Maybe Finch doesn't want to be found."

Oh, look, the return of self-sacrifice – despite what Shaw may think, it's still very much probable. He thought they'd agreed it was John's gig, not Harold, after the thing last year with – oh, wait, it was already Root back then. Speaking of which, it might also be Root this time, maybe Harold isn't to blame. Maybe.

John Reese: "You like a challenge, Shaw. We're the good guys, which means we have to do both."

Mostly. They still know how to prioritize, of course – they can't always do it all at once – but if something is happening right before their nose, well. They deal with it, John guesses. Besides, the Machine seems to know how to use those interventions for the best – to get what they need for what comes next.

Sameen Shaw: "To help you feel less inadequate while I drive this thing."

That means Shaw likes cars, apparently.

John Reese: "If Finch had something to do with the virus, I'm sure he had his reasons."

Oh, Finch lies, alright. He doesn't trust much, even his own friends. He thinks he always gets it right – and he often does, but no one is always right – and that no one else can understand. But he doesn't try to do ill, and if sometimes he gets it wrong, well. That's true of everyone – it's just that when you make decisions as important as the ones Finch makes, obviously the consequences are worse than for the common man if you got it wrong. Maybe... Maybe Harold tried to do something with that virus – if he did in fact create it – and maybe it even works, but it's also full of collateral damages the older man hadn't anticipated. John couldn't say – because he's not Harold, he doesn't know what the man does, what he did, or why. But he can guess.

Sameen Shaw: "You knew her. Cared about her. Is she alive?"

John doesn't really want to think about Jessica – to talk about her. He'd wondered, back when Sarah Jennings' number came out, if Finch had received Jessica's number too. Why would he, really? New Rochelle isn't New York. But here is her picture, and John has to guess that at some point, Finch hadn't been limiting the irrelevant numbers he receives to the New York area. Then he'd had to downsize, because it was too much work for only one person. Jessica is dead, anyway, and John... John generally doesn't talk about her with anyone, not even with his few friends. Shaw isn't quite there yet – and even then, he wouldn't, past a few words. Still. He appreciates her tone, the way she asks. Once again, Shaw is showing an unexpected sensitivity to the pain of other people, for someone like her – and John knows, because he does the same, that it doesn't necessarily mean she cares that much, but at least she's being tactful. She respects that pain, even if she only marginally empathizes with it.

John Reese: "Finch!"

Okay. Harold is doing it on purpose then. Probably for the reason John thought, at that – self-sacrifice, not endangering other people and Shaw and John, et caetera – and it's really getting on John's nerves.

Sameen Shaw: "This is gonna be a rough landing."

As Finch would say, "I never said it'd be easy, Ms Shaw".

John Reese: "Is this what you expected?"

John is honestly not surprised – after Greer's words, with Finch's tendency to keep secrets, with the fact that the older man only ever gives him pieces of information on a need-to-know basis – that indeed, this had all been thought-out by Finch himself, that the man had done everything necessary while no one was looking. Oh, certainly, Harold might not have expected how it would turn out exactly – the collateral damage, once again – but he still controls the general outcome.

Harold Finch: "I realized that the people Nathan and I had entrusted the Machine to were the wrong people and that the only way to protect it would be to teach it to protect itself."

The wrong people... That might be a bit too much, honestly. Those people are dealing with the relevant numbers, and Finch is too paranoid himself not to understand that they have doubts, too, as to the reliability of a Machine they don't know the workings of. Of course, they abuse their power, too, but they do it with the idea that it will protect this country – that it's necessary. They didn't get rid of John, of Kara, of Shaw and her partners just because. They were wrong to, maybe, but it's hypocritical to comment on their paranoia when Harold himself probably made debatable choices at some point for the same reasons. It's not that the people he gave the Machine to are perfect – they really aren't – but John doubts, in the end, that anyone else would do much better in the same situation, in the long term. After a while, at some point, everyone has to make choices, and sometimes there are no good choices – only those you made, and those you didn't, and both are problematic in their own way. It's true of everyone – themselves included.

Sameen Shaw: "You lied to me too."

When you lie to someone – whether it's right or not, whether it's justified or not – you can't be surprised when they don't trust you afterwards.

John Reese: "My life changed when I kept my mouth shut at an airport terminal seven years ago. You didn't have anything to do with that. You lost a friend. You did what you had to do."

Maybe Harold is responsible for some of the things which happened to John, in some way – but even then there is never a way to completely control or predict collateral damage, and John put himself there on his own, he chose the risks that came with his CIA career, and anyway, the ones who decided to terminate him decided that on their own. Harold certainly isn't the first person John thinks of in terms of responsibility for his burn notice.