Person of Interest

Or, what if there was a Batman series where Oracle was that creepy guy from Lost. The basic premise is that Jim Caviezel is a Jack Bauer Guy who has fallen on hard times since 9/11. Man, two wars and our country's most badass Special Forces guy is homeless. The economy really is bad. Finch, played by Ben Linus, recruits Homeless Karate Jesus to help him go on missions to save people that a computer which monitors everyone in the country has predicted will be murdered. Oh, sure, tell the homeless guy that a giant computer is watching his every move. That'll end well. But a quick shave, a new wardrobe, maybe a home trepanning, and Reese is good to go!

I've got to admit, some of the appeal comes from Jim Caviezel also playing a bum in the favorite movie of your mom and mine, Pay It Forward, so I'm really hoping it turns out they're the same character and that's the big J.J. Abrams twist. The show does flashbacks to how Jim Caviezel came to be a bum, but they really don't cover the bum timeframe, so maybe it'll turn out that that was where the events of Pay It Forward take place. He got really inspired by Haley Joel Osment, but didn't know how a homeless man with Batman powers was supposed to help people, and then he met Finch. Maybe in the season finale, the bad guy can blow up their homebase and shoot Taraji P. Henson, since she's useless, and Reese will be bandaging himself up and grabbing a bunch of guns and Finch asks "What are you going to do?" And Reese will rack the slide on a gun and say "I'm going... to pay it forward." And everyone will go, "Holy crap, it's because he's the guy from Pay It Forward! Of course!"

Then in season two, they can bring in Kevin Spacey. He was in that movie too. Playing Two-Face.


"We've paid forward enough. Now it's time... for *payback*."

So basically it's a procedural, but with a fun Batman vibe. Reese himself is sort of a Batman who's freed from the confines of DC editorial--he uses firearms ("I don't like guns, but if they're in the room, I'd rather have them than the other guy."), doesn't lose much sleep about killing when absolutely necessary, and speaks in a Batman voice as badasses do. And refreshingly, though the pilot hints that he became Homeless Karate Jesus because his chick died, man, it turns out that they just broke up. Which is subversive, but when he goes on about how he lost someone, it does kind of make you wish someone would go "You broke up! God!" But that might be a little too funny.

The weird thing is, he and Finch... kinda make a cute couple? Like, I'm not a boyslasher and they're not doing the Sherlock Holmes bromance thing, they just come off as a little gay. I mean, who breaks up with a girl and then ends up living on the street. Maybe someone who realized they were gay? And there's this subplot where Reese tracks rich dude Finch down to this day job he works to feel normal, they have a little talk, then the next time Reese goes there Finch has quit because he "values his privacy." So the next time they meet, on business, Reese gives Finch the job section of the newspaper so he can find another job. Of course, there's no reason one heterosexual man can't want to get closer to another heterosexual man and then respond with chagrined amusement when teasingly rebuffed. They did it in the Wild West all the time.

Oh, and Finch lost someone too, driving him to a life of crime-fighting, only that person actually died. And was a male friend. People go on crusades to avenge their platonic guy friends all the time.

Anyway, Reese's character is pretty cliched so far, since doesn't every TV show have a hero who just needs to be alone with his pain, but I do like the scene in the last episode where he has a self-aggrandizing "am I a bad person who does good things or a good person who does bad things?" conversation with a serial rapist. That's the kind of fucked-upness you really need from a character like this, otherwise the angst comes across as posturing ("Oh no, when at all possible you kneecap bad guys! Stay away from my baby!"). But doing this kind of self-analysis with someone you just know he's going to kill makes it kind of a foregone conclusion, don't it?

Of course, it's a network show, so the episode ends before we actually get this vital look at Reese's characterization; "hmm, what do you think he did, middle America?" I guess that's their prerogative, but it would be totally metal if Reese had just shot the guy right in the middle of the scene. Preferably when he referred to sexual-assault-as-fun-hobby with "I crossed some lines."

This kind of "should I let the bad guy go or just kill him?" decision-making is why I would make a pretty lousy vigilante. You know, that whole "I'll be watching you to make sure you don't step out of line," that sounds like a lot of work. "Hmm, should I spend my Saturday nights making sure the serial rapist doesn't rape someone else, since I don't know what the word 'serial' means, or should I just kill him and spend next Saturday playing Angry Birds?"

I'm just saying, it turns out the sanctity of human life hinges a lot on whether I have to use those fucking Blue Birds.