Person of Interest: Exec Producers Discuss the CBS Series’ Last Episode

Person of Interest aired its final episode last night, and executive producers Jonah Nolan and Greg Plageman recently spoke to Deadline about the end of the CBS series.

The drama stars Jim Caviezel as a former CIA agent who partners with a billionaire (Michael Emerson) to prevent violent crimes in New York City. The cast also included Kevin Chapman, Sarah Shahi, and Amy Acker.

[SPOILERS AHEAD] Discussing the series’ end, Plageman revealed they always planned for a main character to die:

Yeah. It seemed to spring organically from the sacrificial nature of what Reese was doing. It felt right in terms of that relationship from the very beginning. The moment Finch hired him at the end of the pilot, he said, ‘I should warn you, we’ll probably both get killed.” You almost knew at some point in time that sort of sacrifice was going to be required in order for them to ultimately defeat Samaritan and for one to allow the other to go on.”

He added that Reese (Caviezel) had fulfilled his purpose as a character by the last episode:

Just to add to that, there is a sense, I believe, that all the characters on this show have sort of pushed away people in their lives and lived quiet lives of tortured anonymity to an extent. Reese really didn’t have anyone else in his life in the end, but Harold Finch had a fiancé that he had pushed away. We do have that sense that Harold will be able to go on and have a life with her in the end. Lionel Fusco is saved in the end in terms of going on and being able to have a life. Who knows what could happen with Shaw as well. It really felt to us like Reese fulfilled his purpose in order to allow everyone else to go on.”

Nolan added that with Reese gone, Shaw (Shahi) seems the most likely replacement:

I think that’s the suggestion at the end of the finale. As Finch says in the pilot, the numbers never stop coming. We assume that someone has to pick up that mantle. There’s no better candidate than Shaw. She’s capable and has a somewhat redemptive arc through this. I think that purpose and that relationship with Root as the Machine, to us we always imagined that someone would pick up the mantel and carry it forward. Shaw was always conceived of as that character.”

Plageman also revealed that, at the end of the show, the Machine is still the only artificial intelligence out there:

I do think it’s important. I think it’s important to understand that there is an artificial intelligence in the world that considers humanity. We talked about artificial intelligence quite a bit on the show and what could happen, will there be just one or will there be multiple artificial intelligences that proliferate. For now, at least in the ending of this show, as far as we’re aware there is only one. That is the one that Harold Finch originally encoded.”

What do you think? Are you a fan of Person of Interest? Did you find the last episode satisfying?