Automobiles of Interest

You are being watched....

John Reese (Jim Caviezel) is a former CIA assassin living homeless on the streets of New York City, drinking heavily and contemplating suicide after being betrayed by his employer and suffering a devastating personal loss. He meets the mysterious Harold Finch (Michael Emerson), a billionaire software genius living in well-crafted anonymity, who extends Reese an unusual job offer.

I've got a list, a list of people who are about to be involved in very bad situations: murders, kidnappings....Most of them are just ordinary people - like her....I want you to follow her, figure out what's gonna happen, and stop it from happening.

The source of Finch's "list" is The Machine, artificial intelligence software he built for the federal government after 9/11 to data-mine computerized records, e-mails, surveillance video, and telephone conversations ("... watching us with ten thousand eyes, listening with a million ears.") and use that data to predict terrorist attacks and threats to national security.

Finch's creation proved to be very good at its job--too good. The Machine successfully detected future terrorist attacks and threats to national security--and thousands of other future crimes that had nothing to do with terrorism or national security. In order to get it to provide only that information the government wanted, Finch had to instruct The Machine to sort its predictions into "relevant" and "irrelevant" categories, and delete the irrelevant ones--even though not acting on that information allows people to be hurt or killed.

Spurred to action by a loss of his own, Finch programs The Machine to send him the Social Security numbers of people on the irrelevant list. ("...nine digits, that's all we get.") Using his money and Reese's skills, he embarks on a private mission to stop everyday crimes before they happen, to save the world one "irrelevant number" at a time.

Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but, victim or perpetrator, if your number's up, we'll find you.

This is the premise of Person of Interest, a television series which has been on the air for four years, and in December finished filming 13 episodes of its fifth season for broadcast sometime in the spring, what is widely expected to be its final run. "POI," as we fans call it, is simultaneously a case-of-the-week detective show, a fatalistic espionage drama, a noir vigilante comic book--Batman without the bats--a serious work of hard science fiction grounded in cutting-edge computer science, a cautionary tale about surveillance technology, a meditation on good and evil, and above all a tale of broken people seeking redemption--not just the best SF series I've ever seen (sorry, Star Trek!), but the best-written drama I've ever seen, period.

Though it has its fair share of car chases and stunts, POI is not a particularly car-centric show. Nevertheless, I've identified a few subjects of interest (get it?) regarding the automobiles used in the series.

While there's no Batmobile or General Lee in POI, there are vehicles which are effectively regular characters. Joss Carter (Taraji P. Henson) and Lionel Fusco (Kevin Chapman), two NYPD detectives who become allies of Finch and Reese, drive unmarked department-issue sedans, a W-body Chevrolet Impala and a Panther-platform Ford Crown Victoria, respectively. Panther sedans also regularly appear as police cruisers, car-service limos, and taxis.

Those cars are just props, but Finch's black 2003 Lincoln Town Car--the dolled-up version of the Panther sedan--

--also serves as a symbol of its owner. Harold Finch is a middle-aged man of great wealth and sophisticated taste, so of course he drives a luxury car and keeps the radio tuned to the classical station. At the same time, he's been living "off the grid" and wants to stay anonymous--he apparently faces prosecution for some "youthful transgressions" involving government computers. Consequently, the luxury car he drives isn't one, like a Rolls Royce or a Stutz Blackhawk, that would get noticed or stand out in traffic. A dark Town Car on the streets of New York is pretty anonymous.

There was another Finch vehicle that made only a brief appearance in a flashback in the third season episode "Lethe": his dad's 1965 Ford F-series pickup.

The scene shows 9-year old Harold and his father working on the truck. While his father is off taking a phone call, Harold tears down the carburetor and figures out, all on his own, why the mixture is too rich. When his father says that Harold wasn't supposed to take it apart like that--was it a factory-sealed unit, perhaps?--young Harold replies, "...if they don't want you to get inside, they ought to build them better." With that attitude, it's no surprise that he became a hacker!

The truck was supposed to make an encore appearance later that season, when Finch returned to the family farm. Here's the "deleted scene" from the third season DVD set, lacking sound from the radio, which would have been dubbed in had the scene been used in an episode.

Flashbacks are an important part of POI's storytelling style, and the production company is very careful to pick cars (and other props) appropriate to the year they're flashing back to. For a scene in London taking place in 1973 ("The Cold War"), they filled a street with right-hand drive British cars of appropriate vintage. A flashback to 1980 ("Alethia") had a scene where two G-men parked a government-issue Ford Fairmont next to a Ford Granada.

However, it's not all mediocre '70s cars and nondescript sedans. As befits a show which often deals with spy-movie themes, there are occasional appearances of the sort of exotic iron that wouldn't look out of place in a James Bond film. The "number" in the episode "One Percent" is Logan Pierce, a flamboyant tech billionaire threatened by corporate intrigue and his own erratic behavior. Pierce drives a McLaren MP4-12C supercar, a good choice for someone who's looking to attract attention to himself.

While tailing him on a motorcycle, Reese comments that Pierce "drives fast, but he drives with precision." This turns out to be a pretty good thumbnail description of the character: he's acting crazy, but it's the "crazy like a fox" kind of crazy where every "crazy" act has a very calculated objective.

Another flashy supercar appears in "Bury the Lede." The "number" is a newspaper reporter who uses an online dating service. In order to get Reese close to her, Finch, posing as Reese, creates an account on the dating service and sets up a date. As befits his cover identity as a wealthy executive, Reese arrives in a customized Porsche 911 Turbo S.

Finch: New cuff links I could understand, but buying a $100,000 sports car--was that really necessary?

Reese: Relax, Finch--the car's stolen.

The 911 they used in this episode is actor Jim Caviezel's personal car. Since POI is set in present-day New York City, where Mr. Caviezel lives with his family, this means that Mr. Reese, played by Jim Caviezel, stole the car from Jim Caviezel, who plays Mr. Reese--which is pretty darn recursive if you think about it!

As I said several paragraphs ago, Person of Interest has its fair share of car chases and car crashes. In a memorable scene from the very first episode, Detective Fusco flipped his NYPD Crown Victoria on its roof.

Flipping vehicles head over heels and having them land upside down has since become a running gag of sorts. Another Crown Vic got to do a somersault in the first season finale, "Firewall." They did the same stunt a year later in "Zero Day" with a Lincoln Town Car, a Mercedes Benz drove off a bridge and landed upside down in"God Mode", an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight took a tumble in "Razgovor," and a Range Rover did a spectacular series of flips in "Nothing to Hide."

Besides doing gymnastics, those nearly-ubiquitous Panther-platform sedans also frequently get shot up, firebombed, and otherwise trashed, far more than any other species of automobile over the course of the series. This is most likely because decommissioned Crown Vic taxis and police cars are readily available for stunt work--though I sometimes wonder if the stunt coordinator doesn't have some deep-seated animosity to full size Fords.

The writers have also made a running gag out of the practice of stopping a vehicle and getting its occupants' attention by ramming it with another vehicle, preferably a large truck. The first time was in the series' second episode, "Ghosts,"...

...and we've seen this tactic used on several more occasions since. The most creatively-staged instance was in the opening act of "The Devil's Share," where the crash was filmed from inside the target vehicle. (Fast forward the video to 2:38.)

In your face, Dukes of Hazzard!

--Cookie the Dog's Owner (Ignored by the authorities, he works in secret. You'll never find him but, Chevy or Studebaker, if you license plate number's up, he'll find you.)

All stills came from the Person of Interest Wiki and POI's pages at the Internet Movie Car Database.

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