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Recaps

Rewind and Repeat Moment: Reese tells Carter She Changed Him, Person of Interest “The Crossing” 

The Crossing
Photo Credit: Giovanni Rufino/Warner Bros.

[WARNING: Major spoilers for the latest Person of Interest]

The head of HR, Alonzo Quinn, is sedated at the morgue and out of the way for the moment. Carter and Reese are preparing to meet the corrupt cops head on with not a lot of ammo so they’re forced to improvise with the tools at their disposal.

The two start comparing wounds and scars from combat…and childbirth. “When your time is up, it’s up,” Carter says. Which is exactly what happens at the end of “The Crossing.” But before that, the friends/soldiers/colleagues — whatever you want to call them — share an intimate moment that probably makes Carter/Reese fans ecstatic and heartbroken at the same time.

Carter asks Reese what his closest call was. And he takes out a bullet from his pocket and shows it to her:

Carter: “That’s got somebody’s name on it?”

Reese: “Mine. There was a time I thought I was saying goodbye. I lost someone. Lost myself.”

Carter: “What happened? What stopped you?”

Reese: “I got in a fight with some punks on a subway. Cop detained me. He brought me to you. You changed my mind, Joss. (They kiss) You changed me.”

Reese had put his hand on Carter’s face and then he lightly kissed her. It was nice, intimate and so incredibly sad all at the same time. And it turns out the kiss was an unscripted moment that came courtesy of POI actors James Caviezel and Taraji P. Henson. Isn’t that amazing? Reese and Carter knew that they could very well die by the end of the night. And they reached out to each other and had this very open, vulnerable moment that sealed their bond forever. It was enough to make me want to watch the pilot all over again.

Now I have to say that Twitter spoiled me so I knew while watching this that Joss was going to be the one to die. And even knowing that, it didn’t take away from the drama or the moment, it enhanced it. Carter and Reese had me in tears because I loved the friendship they developed. Thankfully, Joss figured out she needed to trust John and Harold instead of going it alone to the bitter end.

Now I waited until the credits rolled before I hit rewind to watch this scene again. It’s going to be one of my favorite moments of the show of all time. I also loved that if Joss had to die, she died in Reese’s arms. Watching the preview for the next episode, it looks like Reese is as devastated by Carter’s death as much as I am.

I have to admit. One of the major reasons I watch this show is because of Carter and the presence of Taraji P. Henson. It’s hard for me to know she won’t be part of John and Harold’s fight anymore. But Carter did strike a massive blow to HR. She’s awesome like that. And I’m glad her son is with his father (Breakout Kings star Laz Alonzo). But I’m going to miss Carter like crazy. I just am.

Person of Interest airs Tuesdays on CBS at 10/9c.

There’s no way we could just write one article on such a major POI event. Kara Howland writes about the impact of Carter’s death here.

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6 Comments

  1. MByerly

    I had a bad feeling last week when Carter’s son was safe with her ex-husband, and they kept emphasizing that it would be Fosco who would die.

    Killing her was remarkably stupid because she was the most “real” character, what’s called the gateway character who acts as the audience’s emotional connection.

    Not to mention she’s being replaced by a sociopath and a psychopath who definitely aren’t gateway characters. I won’t even go into replacing the only non-white character.

    I’ll probably keep watching, but my loyalty won’t be such that I’d choose it over another program.

    1. Tina Charles

      Yeah, Carter’s death was a huge blow to me. It just is. I am going to have to reassess how I watch POI. I will still watch it. But I loved Carter a lot. Like I said in my article, she’s one of the biggest reasons why I watched the show.

    2. Guestt

      Is the “gateway character” also called a “character surrogate”? In other shows, my “character surrogate” was killed/written off, but I still continued with the show. I guess it all depends on the quality of the show. Some shows are larger than any one character and can survive without them, while some viewers who started watching a show will stop because the character they identified with was the only reason they watched. It’s probably too early to say how things will play out on PoI.

      1. Tina Charles

        I’m not ready to write this show off yet even though this was a huge loss for me. It is too early to say how things will play out. We’ll see. I want to keep watching. But it’s going to be a bit difficult because Carter to me was such an essential character. She didn’t start out that way. They basically had to shoehorn the character into the action. But at the end there, she was significant. And her death was significant.

      2. MByerly

        A character surrogate isn’t exactly the same thing as a gateway character.

        A writer uses a gateway character to introduce all readers to a world or story. Usually, that character is a stranger to the situation who has that world explained to him. Think Skye in AGENTS OF SHIELD. Or Sam at the beginning of SUPERNATURAL as Dean started training him.

        Usually, the reader will continue to use the gateway character as their surrogate character, but some readers may also change “their” character to someone who resonates emotionally with them.

  2. Mary

    I know I may be in the minority here, but I’m more of a Fusco fan than a Carter fan. I also have to admit that I fell for the hype that Fusco was going to die, hook line and sinker. Looking back, it seems pretty obvious that Carter was going to be the one who “fell”. First, they were making such a big deal about Fusco possibly dying, where if he did die, it would have been no shock at all. Second, they have been working pretty hard in pumping Carter’s character up during most of last season and nearly all of this season. And, the more you pump a character up, the harder they fall in the end.

    Regardless, I can’t say I’m going to miss Carter much. The only thing I’m really curious about is what Reese is going to do to get revenge. I wonder how many more “Americans” he will send to that prison in Mexico 🙂

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