PERSON OF INTEREST Season 2 Finale: Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman Tease Answers and Darkness in ‘God Mode’

It’s never a great thing when technology malfunctions, but when The Machine glitches (thanks to a virus), and all of the info it holds is exposed for anyone to potentially get access to, things can get mighty tricky.

“We pick up [in tonight’s season finale] right where the last episode left off [where The Machine has called on a payphone to open up the line of communication],” PERSON OF INTEREST co-creator Jonathan Nolan told me. “Much of the action of the episode is 24 frantic hours [when it’s in God mode]. Whether or not we go beyond that is something people will have to tune in to see.”

While The Machine is in God mode, things won’t exactly be calm for Finch and Reese.

“I think ‘God mode’ portends not exactly a bottle episode,” Nolan joked. “We’re not big believers in happy, happy, feely, smiley finales. So, our world has gotten a little bigger here, and the idea that all of these characters can reach out and scoop each other up and help each other out is not something we are big fans of. We feel like on every episode of this show, anything can happen.”

Case in point? As Finch and Reese are otherwise detained, Carter’s trouble with HR reach a boiling point.

“Up to this point in time, Carter, we’ve always seen as the moral compass of the show: someone who had a strict set of rules of how she operated,” co-creator Greg Plageman noted. “Some of that was stretched to the limit in episode 20 with what she did for Detective Fusco. She now finds herself squarely in the path of HR. How Carter deals with that is going to be very interesting.”

But even if she manages squirm her way out of trouble, it doesn’t seem as if HR will be going away any time soon.

“HR is a pretty formidable enemy,” Nolan teased. “So I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them yet.”

The same might not be said for all of the characters currently on the show, though.

“Have we had an episode where we didn’t bump off a great actor?” Nolan asked with a laugh. “Drama for us is stakes. I loved 24, I always thought 24 and THE X-FILES were kick-ass shows when it came to you really never knew, every week you tuned in and you thought there’s a small chance, Kiefer Sutherland (Jack on 24), for instance, might not make it until the end of the episode. We love that. We love the stakes of it, the danger of it. As sad as it is, the carnage continues.”

“It’s an episode that has some pretty dark stuff in it,” Nolan continued. “Some big answers to questions, it’s that usual PERSON OF INTEREST mix of big ideas and satisfying resolutions to things with big questions about what comes next.”

As for what does come next, the showrunners were a little more coy about what the finale will mean for the upcoming third season.

“I like the terror of wondering where the show goes next,” Noland teased. “We have a pretty good idea. We’re thinking we’re in for a wild ride in the third season.

“But we conceived this finale — unlike last season’s finale which was a straight cliffhanger, this year’s finale is the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one,” Plageman added.

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The PERSON OF INTEREST season finale airs tonight at 9 PM on CBS.

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