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Notes for season 2 episode 20, “In Extremis“ The title of the episode “In Extremis”, reminds me of the words David Cameron used in 2015 to describe the rare and extreme circumstances in which private communications would be looked at. Eight years later, and governments have now moved to call for proactive monitoring. 05:07 Is…

Notes for season 2 episode 19, “Trojan Horse“ 03:59 Monica refers to “hex cores” when discussing the fictional tablet CPU. This is usually “hexa-core” (ie a CPU with 6 cores). 04:39 The executive has strong opinions about New York pastries. (Not a fan of Parisian macarons?) From the context, it feels like Rylatech or Censatek…

Notes for season 2 episode 18, “All In“. 01:00 Leon can’t believe that the “Nigerian scammers” are actually Nigerian. I did enjoy the comic sound effect as Bear bites down on a scammer’s crotch. 06:42 “Just your garden variety Abuse of Power.” Obviously police corruption is the narrative prerequisite for vigilantes, but the show is…

Notes for season 2 episode 17, “Proteus“ 01:07 You think the episode might be a “Rashomon” structure, but no – it’s an Agatha Christie. 02:52 Finch checks the NCIC missing persons database. 22:00 Ah, American television continuing to push polygraph propaganda. 22:13 Fahey alludes to the FBI’s ViCAP database which was made available online to…

Notes for season 2 episode 16, “Relevance“ This is a really good alternative pilot for the show – and, if it didn’t ruin the twist in Firewall, I’d suggest people new to the show watch this episode as though it were a prolepsis, and then watch the actual pilot. 00:41 In the 2011 flashback, Daniel…

Notes for season 2 episode 15, “Booked Solid“ 00:54 Finch states that the first public mobile phone call was made from the New York Hilton. But it was made on the street, walking away from the hotel. That was the point of the demo: to show mobility. 04:50 “Aggro Push” is probably the most plausible…

Notes for season 2 episode 14, “One Percent“. The title “One Percent”, alluding the 2011 Occupy slogan “We are the 99%”, because it features a billionaire. Uh, ignoring the fact that every episode features a billionaire? And that statistically unlikely number of the “persons of interest” are extremely wealthy Manhattenites. A significant investment of resources…

Notes for season 2 episode 13, “Dead Reckoning“ 02:07 Finch pulls a bunch of fake books to construct the social security number, among them “Debugging the Mind: A Guide to Information Ethics” 09:39 I believe the game being played in the disk-seller’s place is 2012’s “Far Cry 3”. 09:41 The disk is plugged into what…

Notes for season 2 episode 12, “Prisoner’s_Dilemma“ 06:28 Donnelly finally gets some pushback for his actions from the warden of Rikers. He shuts this down by threatening to report violations of regulations regarding the care and treatment of prisoners. Touché! 09:22 Finch is using the defunct “Shotshuffler” site from S2E05 to do facial matches. 09:38…

Notes for season 2 episode 11, “2πR“ 01:20 We see the men suspected of being Reese receiving DNA swabs, and your first thought is probably: “They took his fingerprints in the pilot, surely identification would have happened by now?” (This will only be addressed in a later scene.) 02:30 Reese finds a regular-sized flip-phone in…