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Notes for season 1 episode 13, “Root Cause” 02:51 Finch’s background searching includes a screenshot of what is clearly Facebook but without a logo, rather than some in-universe site. 06:50 Finch constructs a waveguide antenna out of a tube of potato chips. “Its dimensions are perfect for capturing wifi radio waves.” Pringles Cantennas are one…

Notes for season 1 episode 11, “Legacy” 02:36 Carter finally sitting opposite Reese. Like that one single scene in Heat where De Niro and Pacino are onscreen together. 15:10 Sending phishing emails containing malware feels like it’s something that should feel dated a decade later, but sadly not. 16:57 Carter identifies the steroid in the…

Notes for season 1 episode 11, “Super” 01:26 Finch finds a morgue attendant who was a talented surgeon in Iraq, but unable to perform that role in the US due to the cost of a medical license. Tapping into the cultural idea that America has skilled immigrants doing comparatively menial work, because they can’t overcome…

Notes for season 1 episode 10 “Number crunch” 14:20 The bomb in the baby-carriage was wired to the radio. It seems like such a movie-plot assassination device, but apparently exploding prams were considered a real threat in post-9/11 New York. 15:46 The thing about phones constantly looking for the wifi networks they recognise is usually…

Notes for season 1 episode 9 “Get Carter” 06:23 “They don’t sell that [specific Mexican soda] everywhere” for a minute you wonder if cracking the case is going to require Fusco’s surprising knowledge of imported soda distribution, with some possible asides about “cane sugar”. But no, they’re literally standing outside of the bodega that sells…

Notes for season 1 episode 8, “Foe” 01:22 Jim Robinson! Alan Dale has been a prolific guest-star in movies and tv for years, but for many people he’ll always be their Aussie soap opera dad. 05:00 The 1970s cold case in previous episodes, and now cold war spying, give the show a legitimate reason to…

Notes for season 1 episode 7 “Witness” 01:00 The episode opens with black and white cctv footage, complete with analog interference artefacts, and video “rolls” – which have culturally shifted from genuine artefacts to cringy digital video effects incorporated into YouTube essays. Surprisingly we also see the targeting reticules, indicating that this is video is…

Notes for season 1 episode 6 “The Fix” 16:53 “Interference suggests it was made on an old PCS cell network making the recording at least two years old.” It would actually have been more than three years old – this is referencing the shutdown of the 1G analog AMPS cell-phone network in the US between February and…

Notes for season 1 episode 5 “Judgement” 02:00 Finch is reading “It Can’t Happen Here” in 2011, several years before everyone started calling it prescient. 05:25 another iPhone interface on a not-very-iPhone bad guy phone – are they not allowed to use iPhones? 01:37 Finch “When you work for the government, access is not a problem.” 14:04…

Notes for season 1 episode 4 “Cure Te Ipsum” 01:30 The episode’s first “obsoleted thing” makes an appearance, the pager. (Broadcast pagers, rather than the local pagers you see in food courts, etc.) It’s plausible that hospital staff were using pagers in 2011 but they’re slowly on the way out.  Up to 2019 it was estimated that…