Person of Interest fans are going to be very happy with one budding romance in the show’s fifth season, featuring two characters we’ve been wanting to get together for ages. The cast and crew told us everything to expect from season five at New York Comic Con. Spoilers ahead...
The premiere episode picks up right where we left off, taking place seconds after the season four finale. Which means? The Machine will kick off the new season on the brink of death. The panel told us the characters “aren’t sure if it has a heartbeat or not” and “not quite sure how its brain is working.” The season premiere features a lot of action, and huge flashbacks, and Finch going through a period of self-examination, tumult, and heartbreak.
“Mr. Finch is in kinda of a bad place,” said actor Michael Emerson. “All the years he’s been programming the machine, he’s been trying to keep that relationship non-personal, cool, professional. And yet, we see all this parental passion and caring. The relationship between a human and intelligent machine—that’s going to be a thing that we, and our descendants, are going to have to negotiate some day.” And it’ll be something that the premiere explores, too.
The other main topic covered at the panel, besides the Machine’s pending brush with death, is the budding romance between Root and Shaw, who’s been MIA in the series. And the two actors assured fans that there will be a lot to look forward to with the relationship, and encouraged the crowd to let “your mind run rampant.”
“Root will be very happy,” Amy Acker, who plays Root, said.
“Amy and I both have bruises—and it’s not from any of the fight scenes,” Sarah Shahi added.
Shahi, who pointed out her first job was on Showtime’s The L Word, said that role allowed her to represent characters that had been underrepresented on TV. And when she learned of the direction the Shaw/Root relationship was taking, she was a bit surprised at first, but she sounded as though she felt honored to be able to continue representing LGBT characters.
Said Shahi: “It’s incredibly important for [the LGBT community] to have role models—to have someone on TV they can empathize and emulate and find strength in. I’m so happy to work with this lovely lady, and I want to thank [the writers] for the storytelling. It has been one of the most fulfilling things, to be a voice I feel is underrepresented.”
Meanwhile, in future episodes, executive producer Greg Plageman said he wanted the show to continue addressing relevant technological issues—stuff that’s “on the cusp of science fiction.” Everything from the surveillance state to AI, autonomous drones, and decision-making robots. “It’s happening now,” he said. “That’s the part of the show we want to stick to your ribs.”
Finally, they teased the above scene from the new season, which involved all the actors impersonating each others’ characters, due to faulty facial recognition. Check it out above, and watch the Person of Interest season premiere sometime next year on CBS.
Top image via Warner Bros. YouTube
Email the author at bryan@gizmodo.com, or follow him on Twitter.