‘Person of Interest' season 5 episode 4 recap and review: Shaw returns but is not the same; what 6,741 means

In Season 5 Episode 4 of “Person of Interest” ("POI"), Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi) returned and revealed her activities in the past months.

Shaw has been causing a lot of trouble for the Samaritan over the past months, resulting to the opening scene where Greer (John Nolan) implanted a chip into the base of her skull with the objective of making her a useful asset. She faked being drugged and managed to escape on a boat. She arrived in New York and made a call to let Samaritan and The Machine know her current location. More of Samaritan’s men arrived. One almost killed her but Root (Amy Acker) came just in time to save her.

Root took out the chip on the go and brought her to the team. Shaw was agitated by the fact that Harold (Michael Emerson) failed to look for her. Root, however, calmed her down by saying she never stopped looking. Later, Root and Shaw talked about how they may not survive the battle against Samaritan. They ended up making love.

Later in the episode, Shaw planned to bring the fight to Samaritan by taking out more of his men and grabbing Greer. They brought Greer to a church basement where they found an implanted USB drive in his arm. Harold thought that it contained a kill switch code that would undo The Machine’s evil counterpart. Greer said that it was a beacon to alert Samaritan’s men about her location and that Shaw was released intentionally. Shaw shot Greer in the head in exchange.

John Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Shaw talked and the former realized that she was not the same. Shortly, Shaw was forced to shoot John. Samaritan’s men appeared and Root was again present to protect Shaw. She confessed to Root that the latter was her safe place during her captivity, but she can no longer control herself. She turned her gun on her head and committed suicide.

At the end of the episode, it was revealed that everything only happened in Shaw’s mind. She was still under the mercy of Samaritan’s techs who put her through a simulation with the intention of identifying The Machine’s location. She has gone through the simulation 6,741 times.

“Person of Interest” airs on CBS. It also airs on FX in Australia.