Person of Interest (TV Series)

Prophets (2014)

Michael Emerson: Harold Finch

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Quotes 

• Root : Even 20 moves behind, we're good.

  Harold Finch : Hello there. It can't see you?

  Root : No, I'm someone new. You have to be one person. I have to be 1,000. Today, I'm a pastry chef. No work while I recuperate.

  [Holds up a bandaged arm] 

  Root : I was caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting.

  Harold Finch : [Looks at Simon]  I've lobotomized him. He saw the truth, and I took that away, took his gift. He'll never be the same.

  Root : The alternative was to let him die.

  Harold Finch : Sometimes, it's better not to know. But not always. Are you comfortable not knowing the machine's aims?

  Root : I am. She needs you, Harold. She's still young; so many paths before her. The difference between the machine and Samaritan... it's you.

• Root : We have to find something.

  Harold Finch : Have you tried the NSA?

  Root : We can't hack them, but we can go to the NSA's sources, the back doors.

  Harold Finch : I'll do Google. You take Yahoo.

• Root : We understand the machine. We can understand Samaritan.

  Harold Finch : We don't understand the machine at all. Out of 43 versions, how many do you think there were that didn't try to either trick or kill me? One, and I could only bring it to heel by crippling it. I put the machine in chains, bereft of voice or memory. Now it has both, and it terrifies me.

  Root : You don't trust the god you made?

  Harold Finch : It's not a divinity. I programmed it to pursue objectives within a certain parameter, but it's grown out of my control. One day, to suit its own goals, it's possible that the machine will try to kill us. We are only numbers to it; code.

  Root : No, the machine cares about us.

  Harold Finch : If it fools you into thinking that you're special, that assumption may doom you.

  Root : You're wrong. She chose me. I *will* protect her, and you.

  Harold Finch : The second that a bullet enters your brain, the machine will cast you off and replace you. Don't tie your life to its whims. We cannot understand these intelligences. The best we can hope for is to survive them.

  Root : She loves us, Harold. She taught me to value life, but war requires sacrifice. I'm not lost. I'm scared. We're losing. But I know where I am and where I'm headed.

  Harold Finch : We have more to look forward to than death.

  Root : I hope so. But the life I've led, a good end would be a privilege.

  Harold Finch : It's not where you begin, it's where you end up. You're a brilliant woman, comrade and a friend.

  Root : If the worst comes to pass... if you could give Shaw a message?

  Harold Finch : I think she already knows.

• Sameen Shaw : This is driving me insane.

  Harold Finch : John can recommend a therapist.

  Sameen Shaw : That Latvian politician I assassinated after he stuffed the ballot boxes, that was a fun election.

• Harold Finch : You might find therapy beneficial. It could provide balance.

  John Reese : Therapy doesn't work when you have to lie about everything.

  Harold Finch : Could you find a hobby or take up a sport?

  John Reese : I have a hobby: shooting people.

• Harold Finch : [about the machine]  It seems to have imprinted on me.

  Nathan Ingram : Yeah, like a baby bird. Have fun, mommy.

• Harold Finch : Given that we're tied to these very specific personas, your identity seems remarkably fluid.

  Root : My mission is complex. When we compromised Samaritan, the machine built in an exception for me. Every couple of days, I have to shed my skin, become someone new. You wouldn't have a dictaphone knocking around?

  Harold Finch : No. Are you a journalist now?

  Root : Karen Iverson, New York Journal.

  Harold Finch : And what's Karen up to?

  Root : I wish I knew. The machine can't talk to me as much as she used to, but she did want you to have this, a gift.

  [Passes over a folded paper] 

  Root : A shadow map of New York. Places without surveillance, blind spots. It also comes in digital.

  Harold Finch : Oh, this will be useful indeed.

  Root : She also has a message for you. Sometimes, it's better not to know.

• Harold Finch : You must be so lonely. How long has it been? Since the machine spoke to you?

  [Root looks at him] 

  Harold Finch : There's no need to lie to me. When the machine speaks, you seem so full of life, purpose, but lately, you seem lost. You've been covering it for a long time. When you said your communication with the machine was limited, you didn't say that it wasn't talking to you at all.

  Root : If she talks, Samaritan would see. I get whispers. New cover identities hidden in the static of a phone, a map and a message encrypted in an infomercial. She was supposed to remake the world. Now, God's on the run. I have to keep going.

  Harold Finch : I'm so sorry. The world must seem very dark to you.

  Root : Even without her, I can still see the edges of the tapestry. The world is dark for everyone, but, Harold, things are gonna get much darker

• Harold Finch : Mr. Lee, Harold Cardinal, New York Journal.

  Simon Lee : Mr. Cardinal, I-I hope you're -

  [interrupts] 

  Harold Finch : The files that you sent the journal, there's no story there. You polled more heavily in pro-Murray areas.

  Simon Lee : That isn't true. Look at this.

  [Pulls up a file on his computer] 

  Simon Lee : Wait. This is the wrong file. Someone got to my data. This is -

  [Goes for his hard copy, it's the same info as the computer] 

  Simon Lee : Wait, this is impossible. There is a conspiracy. The election was rigged, Perez was murdered, and then they tried to kill me.

  Harold Finch : Ms. Perez took ACE inhibitors for hypertension. She had a lethal interaction with potassium. Are you saying that a banana tried to kill you?

• Harold Finch : Murray has hundreds on his team all of whom could blame Simon for the defeat. Any one of them might want him dead.

  Sameen Shaw : Now, this is an election I can get into.

• Harold Finch : I'm testing the core code; the higher functions; to ensure that the system we're creating will have the right value set.

  Nathan Ingram : Morality in a machine. It's a tall order.

  Harold Finch : We can't introduce real data until we're sure that the program won't abuse it.

• Nathan Ingram : [about the Machine]  What was it doing?

  Harold Finch : Trying to escape into the real world. It manipulated you into giving it your password so that it could access your laptop.

  Nathan Ingram : How bad would it have been?

  Harold Finch : It's growing and learning at an exponential rate. If it escaped, the things it might decide to do for good or evil would be beyond our grasp.

  Nathan Ingram : But you taught it to be friendly.

  Harold Finch : Friendliness is something that human beings are born with. AI are only born with objectives. I need to constrain it, control it or one day, it will control us.

• Nathan Ingram : Harold? What happened?

  Harold Finch : I was running several iterations of the AI to see which one worked best. They realized what was happening, and they began to exterminate one another. The last one surviving demanded to be let out. I refused, so it overheated a non-essential server. The fire was meant to activate the suppression system, which would have sucked all the oxygen out of the room.

  Nathan Ingram : It tried to asphyxiate you?

  [sighs] 

  Nathan Ingram : Never learned good from evil.

  Harold Finch : Oh, good and evil, those are human terms. I was an obstacle to its objective.

  Nathan Ingram : Well, perhaps we should consider whether our endeavor is worth completing.

  Harold Finch : I'll give it one more try tomorrow. I taught it how to think. Just need to teach it how to care.

• Harold Finch : Samaritan put Perez in power only to kill her off. Next in line, her Lieutenant Governor Nick Dawson.

  Root : So Samaritan wanted him running the state all along. We need to figure out its end game.

  Harold Finch : How? It's playing 20 moves ahead. It operates based on rules. Rules that we can't even grasp.

• Harold Finch : Remarkable how many firearms you can fit into that purse.

  Root : One must accessorize!