‘Person of Interest’ 100th episode: Show exec discusses shocking death
The 100th episode of “Person of Interest” aired tonight on Tuesday night, and it definitely brought us excitement, drama, and plenty of fireworks. We also had quite possibly one of the saddest moments we’ve seen in some time courtesy of the death of a beloved character in Root.
Is this hard to digest? Sure, and for so many reasons. She was excellent as a force on the show, Amy Acker was brilliant, and you cannot ignore that it is another LGBT character killed off over the past year. Yet, you can’t really blame the showrunners for following other programs out there given when this story was written, which was long before the controversy really sparked.
In speaking about the specific decision that was made here, executive producer Jonathan Nolan made some of his own thoughts clear to TVLine in a interview alongside fellow EP Greg Plageman:
“… We haven’t seen these other shows [that killed LGBT characters], so I can’t speak to that, but it’s really just about characters getting their due and not feeling disposable, and not feeling like the audience’s investment in a character is being used against them, or that they’re being set up for it. This was always the end of Root’s story, this was always where we were going. It became clear at the beginning of the season that this was the end of the ride for us… and Root’s journey has always been getting ever closer to The Machine, so the end of her story was always basically becoming The Machine. That’s another thing I thinks separates this from the pack, and this is how Root feels about it — it’s an evolutionary step. We’re not trying to sucker-punch the audience.”
We don’t feel like the producers in this instance were trying to be cruel, mostly because of the fact that death has been established as such a key cog in this world. Just think back to what happened to Carter, or also what even happened to Elias in this episode. Also, if you’re going to die, isn’t this one of the most awesome ways to go?