The most perfect episode of TV. Ever.
Person of Interest: Cura Te Ipsum
The funny thing about television is that I rarely remember specific scenes from my favorite tv shows. Usually all I remember is a general feeling, a superficial remembrance of the story arc, but usually never anything more specific than that.
But sometimes you find that rare occasion when something happens in a television episode that really grabs your attention.
Person of Interest is long since over, but it will always be one of those special shows that stood out to me in a unique way.
Person of Interest was bold and didn’t speak down to viewers in the way that many other procedural shows have done before and after.
Much of this comes down to the superb acting of Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson, but even terrific leads can’t carry a show in its entirety.
Luckily for them, especially in the first three seasons, they were provided with truly exceptional material that elevated Person of Interest above its competition.
And unlike some television that takes awhile to get going, Person of Interest hit the ground running and in only four episodes cemented itself as one of the boldest shows to ever come into existence.
The name of that episode is Cura Te Ipsum, which is Latin for ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ a phrase from the New Testament.
The episode in its entirety, while well executed, didn’t exactly break new ground. But much like the Sixth Sense that only became the classic that it did because of its ending, Cura Te Ipsum became one of the penultimate episodes of POI because of its powerful conclusion…or lack of conclusion.
Before we get to that, what was Cura Te Ipsum about?
Following the standard procedure for the show, Mr. Reese (Jim Caviezel) and Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) receive a social security number from the mysterious ‘Machine’ which indicates that sometime in the near future, the person associated with the number will either be a perpetrator or victim of a crime, and it’s up to the two vigilantes to figure out which and stop the act before it’s too late.
In this case, they receive the number of a promising physician, Dr. Megan Tillman.
Mr. Reese begins his usual surveillance of the victim/perpetrator and discovers that she is frequenting singles bars at all hours of the night. It’s only until later that he discovers that she has being doing this in an attempt to locate a single man, which she eventually does: a young investment banker by the name of Andrew Benton.
As the story unfolds, we learn that Benton drugged and raped the doctor’s sister years before and that Megan has been chasing after him ever since, seeking justice.
Before she is able to pull off her flawless plan to kill Benton, Reese intervenes and powerfully reminds the doctor that she isn’t a murderer, she’s a healer.
She reluctantly relents and gives up Benton to Reese who takes the drugged rapist to a shoreside safe house and waits for him to wake up.
Benton wakes up, surprised to see Reese sitting across from. The only thing separating the two men is a table…and a pistol sitting atop it.
Reese is sitting comfortably, his hands in his lap.
The conversation that ensues is screenwriting gold.
“I don’t understand,” Benton says. “Um… who are you? What are you going to do to me?”
Reese replies, “Honestly, I haven’t decided yet. But let me ask you a question: do you think people ever really change? I mean, you — you hurt innocent people and I, well for a long time, I killed people like you.”
Benton makes a mistake and moves his hands closer to the pistol as he says, “Please, I’m not who you think I am. This is a mistake.”
At this moment, Reese leans forward and places his palms on the table beside the weapon.
Benton’s eyes go wide as he sputters, “Wait oh wait oh oh OK — I’ve done some things, um, I’ve crossed some lines. But I won’t do it again I — I — I swear. Please, let me go.”
Reese slides his hands back. “I could let you go. Because you know that for the rest of your life, that I’d be watching you. And if you hurt anybody, I’d stop you. And maybe you could change, and maybe so could I.” At this moment, Reese’s eyes become cold. “But the truth is…people don’t really change do they?”
Benton, aware at the sudden change in demeanor of the man sitting across from him says, “No, they uh, they can. I can and you — I…I don’t think that you’re going to kill me.”
“No?”
“No because I can see inside that you’re a good person. You’re a good man.”
“Good.” Reese chuckles at the thought. “I lost that part of myself a long time ago…not sure if I can find it…not sure it matters anymore. Maybe it’s better this way, maybe it’s up to me to do what the good people can’t. Or maybe there are no good people, maybe there are only good decisions.”
“Please, you y-y-you don’t want to do something that you’re going to regret.”
“Which do you think I’ll regret more — letting you live or letting you die? Andrew, help me make a good decision.”
And then suddenly, the screen cuts to black. As the audience, we don’t know whether Benton lived or died.
I love this scene because it’s filled with so much uncertainty. Reese is fighting a battle inside of himself, spouting off words that he thinks he wants to believe, or things that he thinks are inevitable, but not things that he truly believes.
Deep down, Reese does believe in redemption, because while he kind of fits in the “good guy” category, he’s not really a good guy.
He needs redemption, whether he wants to admit it or not.
If we compare Person of Interest with Batman Begins, Mr. Reese is basically Bruce Wayne had Bruce decided to kill the criminal under the command of Ra’s al Ghul.
Whereas Bruce Wayne became Batman from a position of strength, Mr. Reese became the Man in the Suit from a position of weakness.
This internal conflict is what makes this scene so compelling. From what we know about Mr. Reese, we know that he’s a killer, but what we don’t know is if he’s gotten to the point where he won’t kill if he doesn’t have to.
How do you create genuine tension? By developing a scenario where you don’t know what the outcome is going to be.
The first Pirates of the Caribbean was so much fun because we didn’t know which side Jack Sparrow was on.
Was he merely a pirate who was looking out for his own best interests, or was he a pirate with a heart of gold? We truly didn’t know until the resolution.
Of course, Cura Te Ipsum leaves us without such a resolution. While we have the rest of the show to figure out what kind of person Mr. Reese is, for a while, we just simply didn’t know.
In this case, the unknown is more powerful than the known.
Any other show would have taken the easy route and simply showed us the decision that the protagonist made, but where is the conflict in that?
If we simply know what happened, it wouldn’t have left us guessing, reviewing in our minds the facts to try to determine the outcome.
In this moment, Reese became a real character because we’re forced to evaluate him based off of our knowledge of him thus far.
We don’t know everything about him, but we know enough to theorize. Had it been a lesser character without such a strong internal conflict, the guessing game would have been easy, but for such a nuanced character as Reese, it’s almost impossible to determine because with such a level of moral ambivalence, you can honestly see the outcome going one way or another.
