Shaw escapes her captors, but the team is unsure of her mental state when she begins to act paranoid and reckless.
Origin of the Title
6,741 refers to the number of virtual reality simulations Samaritan has put Shaw through to brainwash her into killing her comrades, and in the hope of her revealing the location of the Machine.
Person of Interest: None. The episode updates the viewer on Shaw's status.
At the end of the episode, it is revealed that the entire episode is a simulation by Samaritan. The simulation was used to brainwash Shaw as part of its program to make her an asset. The intent of the simulation was to induce Shaw to lead Samaritan to the Machine and the team.
The Simulation
In the simulation, Shaw is led to believe a chip is implanted in her brain and she believes she has escaped.
After capturing John Greer, Shaw interrogates him and she eventully finds a USB drive embedded in his right arm. Harold Finch plugs the USB drive into a computer without access to any networks and states that he has seen this code before. The code he sees is written by his former classmate Arthur Claypool, and seems to be a "killswitch" for Samaritan. When Finch and Root leave, and Reese is pulled away by gunfire, Greer tells Shaw that the code is indeed a "killswitch", but is not designed to take down Samaritan, but rather take down The Machine. Shaw then shoots Greer in the head, killing him.
When out again, Shaw kills Reese by shooting him, after making them walk into an alley, allegedly to stay away from Samaritan's cameras. She radios the team, and tells them that one of Samaritan's operatives killed him.
Shaw and Root have a sexual encounter together.
At the end of the simulation Shaw confronts Root, and Shaw shoots herself, because she can't kill Root.
The technician tells Greer, "Good news. She waited an extra hour before she shot you.".
Flashbacks
Episode Notes
To celebrate Person of Interest streaming on Netflix beginning September 1, 2015, IGN.com asked Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plageman to pick a few of their favorite episodes. Nolan and Plageman both picked the upcoming fourth episode of season five, which they called "6,741", one of their favorite episodes. Nolan specifically said "It's a doozy. It's going to blow everyone away. And it's just filled with f**king mayhem."[1]
Production Notes
Bloopers and Continuity Errors
Music
"Do I Move You" - Nina Simone
Trivia
In this episode we see Samaritan run simulations for the first time.
The language with which Shaw and the taxi driver speak is Farsi.
6741 simulations in 9 months works out to 24 each day (actually 24.60 etc.),
Quotes
"Did you come up with this game by yourself? Or did it tell you to bore me to death?" (Shaw)
"Move along Milhouse." (Shaw to store clerk)
"The patient is ready for you, doctor." (Shaw, before attempting to remove the chip herself)
"Brain surgery medieval style...Awesome." (Shaw)
"I already wanted to tear Samaritan apart, turn it into an Atari. That's too nice. Scarred my beautiful girl. Maybe a Casio." (Root, to Shaw)
"It seems this is the best place to hide from a god." (Finch, in church)
"I am not ready to lose you again, Sameen. Whatever happened, we'll fix it. Just stay alive." (Root, to Shaw)
"But when things got to be too bad...there was one place I would go to in my mind. Here...with you. You were my safe place." (Shaw, to Root)
"We have all the time in the world, my dear Sameen." (Greer)
