Person of Interest/Recap/S01/E14

Season 1, Episode 14:

Wolf and Cub
"Kid: What's this dude's superpower? He's got no costume, no cape. Andre: His being a superhero's not about a cape or a cowl. It's about protecting your fellow man, looking out for him when no one else will."

The latest number is Darren Mc Grady, a teenage boy whose older brother was recently murdered by small-time thugs. Reese intervenes in time to stop Darren from trying to kill the thugs himself, and when efforts to hole the kid up somewhere safe prove futile, Reese decides to take Darren under his wing and help him get non-lethal revenge on the thugs who killed his brother. They work their way up the ladder to Andre, who runs a comic book store and a numbers game, but when Darren tries to take Andre out on his own, Reese is forced to take on the whole crew and deliver them to Carter.

Meanwhile, Will Ingram is continuing to investigate his father's legacy, specifically the seven-year period where he shut down his company, IFT, and put it to work on a secret project. Will has found a champagne cork and a reference to the Machine going online a day before the $1 contract was signed, and tracks down Nathan's government contact, Alicia Corwin, who has since retired to a small town in the countryside with no wi-fi, no cell reception and no way for the Machine to track her. Alicia doesn't spill the beans about the Machine, and at the mention of "Harold Wren" -- Finch's alias he uses with Will -- she rabbits. With his father knocked off a pedestal, Will decides to leave New York.

Fusco reports what he's learned in his investigation of Finch: he attended university under the name Harold Wren and graduated with Will's father, Nathan, who died a couple of years earlier. In response to Reese and Fusco's new intelligence on Finch, the Machine classifies them both as threats to the system and decides, for the moment, to continue monitoring them.

-

Tropes present in this episode include

 * Did Do the Research: There exist a handful of towns in the United States that have no digital or phone reception.
 * He Who Fights Monsters: Again, Reese tries to make would-be vigilantes realise this, speaking from experience.
 * Hey, It's That Guy!: Andre is more qualified to talk about superheroes than most.
 * Interrogation by Vandalism: Reese convinces a local goon to talk by taking a blowtorch to the money he's supposed to deliver for his boss.
 * Lampshade Hanging: On Reese and Finch's shadowy vigilante shtick.
 * Ronin: Darren explicitly compares Reese to the ronin of history.
 * Sympathetic Murderer: Darren.
 * Taking the Bullet: Fusco takes a bullet for Darren. Specifically, in the ass.