PERSON OF INTEREST: Jonathan Nolan Teases Deaths, ‘Messy’ A.I. War in Final Season 4 Episodes

PERSON OF INTEREST took a little bit of a detour from the looming wars with the last episode as Reese set out to solve one of Carter’s unfinished cases (and he nearly died in the process). But as we approach the final two episodes of the season, things are about to explode.

“As usual, we get to the end of the season, [and] we like to break things,” PERSON OF INTEREST co-showrunner Jonathan Nolan laughed.

And with those broken things to come, some familiar faces won’t make it out of the season alive.
“We don’t like to have to make these phone calls in which we let people know their character is being killed off, [but] we had to make an awful lot of them for these next two episodes,” Nolan allowed. “That’s a bummer, but it means for the audience lots of thrills and surprises in store.”

One of the big clashes in these final two hours? The Machine and Samaritan’s on-going battle (which, as Nolan previously teased, includes the reveal of where the Machine has been hiding out).

“It’s every bit as cataclysmic as you might imagine a contest between two gods might be,” Nolan teased. “We’re fascinated by the idea of AI…not a singularity, which seems oversimplified, but the idea of diversity and multiplicity, and intelligences competing against one another. These are very powerful network of intelligences. Their conflict is messy.”

Elsewhere, Team Machine has their hands full as both Elias and Dominic’s numbers come up. (This has not been a good season for Elias.)

“Dominic plays a large role in these last two episodes,” Nolan said, acknowledging the conflict will play out with both Elias and the A.I. war. “We endeavor to cram everything into the last two episodes.”

One thing viewers (likely) won’t see? Finch picking up a gun. Though in a recent hour Finch said that when he has to pick up a firearm, things have gone to hell, Nolan shared that perhaps things aren’t quite that far gone in these final two hours. “We like to set things up a long way in advance…I’m very nervous about what happens when we get to that point,” he allowed.

Wherever the show does go, a potential fifth season will look different than the world the characters have lived in this past season.

“We love to raise the stakes every season,” Nolan pointed out. “We’ll always find our way back to our characters trying to do their job, trying to help people. That definitely remains the case [next season], but their job is about to get more challenging.”

And, for the foreseeable future, they’ll still be down one team member. While viewers know Shaw is alive (and her portrayer, Sarah Shahi had her twins in March), her return to the series is still very much up in the air.

“We’re incredibly excited for Sarah,” Nolan said. “Right now she has three beautiful children at home and having a ball. We’re wishing her all the very best, we’re in touch, she’s having a lot of fun. Whenever she’s ready, we’re excited and we have a storyline to plug her right back into [the show] in a pretty awesome fashion. But as with everything on PERSON OF INTEREST, it’s complicated. We’ll be ready to play when she is.”

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PERSON OF INTEREST airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on CBS.

Related:

PERSON OF INTEREST: ‘Asylum’ Photos
PERSON OF INTEREST Post-Mortem: Jonathan Nolan on Bringing a Bit of Closure to Carter’s Tale
PERSON OF INTEREST: Jonathan Nolan on Carter’s ‘Return,’ the Mystery of Reese, and More

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