But of course, upon further examination, "6,741"
is anything but substandard.
Moving back to the topic of misdirection though, the show
does a couple of things to keep the viewer questioning if what they're seeing
truly is unfolding in front of them. The episode does a remarkable effort of
keeping the POV of the episode almost entirely with Shaw. It almost never
breaks that point of view, except in a few moments. Depending if you also count
Samaritan POVs, there are a few moments that are questionable at best when you
return to the episode and evaluate what would be possible in that artifice or
not. They included the initial conversation between Greer and
Lambert behind the window; remember, they used an intercom to communicate with the
doctors in the room. This also occurs when Shaw was (in the simulation)
administered a sedative following Lambert's "dead or alive?" game;
this is when Greer and Lambert discuss possibilities of another chip or if Shaw would even be receptive to more surgery. But she
is unconscious, so how would she perceive this at all? Otherwise I found that any other
scenes that don't start on Shaw, she is usually backfilled into the scene,
observing it in some fashion.
The hospital scenes breaking POV seemed an odd
choice, as they seemed to exist only for exposition (which is somewhat later
covered when Shaw wakes up on the subway with Reese and Root), and the point of
the chip is all the point made useless because we are told so (just a placebo)
and that Greer is confident that they broke Shaw anyway; it just seems rather a
moot point to discuss the chip when it ultimately becomes a non-factor. The
Samaritan surveillance POVs seem to add a level of misdirection for the viewer and they
don't really add much into further viewings. It's an odd choice, and certainly theirs,
but not something I would've done.
The artifice of "6,741" is an interesting
examination of how stories are processed by us, however. Upon a second viewing,
it becomes clear that the artifice is only thinly held together and that a
hyperaware viewer might catch a few of the slips. It's hard to tell what
comprises what in this simulation. How much of it is Shaw's understanding of
the world and her friends and colleagues, and how much of it is Samaritan's, or
some mixture and extrapolation of both?
- Root's apartment. The show makes it very clear at the start of the season that Root has come to roost in
- Reese and Finch are not really "there". These two characters feel off at times in the episode and sit in the background more than you would expect. The camera sometimes jumps on and off Reese, leaving with only the impression he's just barely there, occasionally delivering procedural lines to keep the story going. Same with Finch, who seems to have ditched his "five dollar words", for the lack of a better term, for something less.
- No one ever mentions the subway. Probably a stretch, but it feels like most of the pushback from both not-Team Machine and Shaw not mentioning their base of operations is wholly rooted in Shaw's mental fortitude. Otherwise even that tiny detail would probably result in dozens upon dozens of agents swarming any known or unknown secret subway entrances for the smallest lead.
- Finch mentioning Arthur Claypool. Remember, when Carter died, Shaw was left behind with Finch to investigate the numbers? And what was one of them? Arthur Claypool. He was more than just a "colleague" as not-Finch recounts and has to explain to Shaw. She was there and was faced with all the implications of the scramble for Samaritan and was not simply someone watching from the wings. It seemed like an odd line reading that neither participant really recognized any of the words being used in their discussion.
- Shaw's escape and Greer's capture. The artifice starts to break down when you wonder just how exactly simple it was for Shaw to escape and for Greer to be captured. Almost in one fell swoop. It's all too easy, isn't it? There's something to be said - even with the artifice of storytelling, there must be the need to have your heroes overcome obstacles and solve problems to get to their ultimate destination. Otherwise, how else would Shaw even conceivably believe her circumstances? But here, the stakes and the problems are so incredibly low (lure a pair of agents to a diner, knock them out, GPS your way to Greer's home base) that to the viewer, it should be a clear giveaway that there is something wrong.
"6,741" makes for an interesting hour of
television. Being almost completely standalone, it may be devoid of any
momentum to propel the main story forward, but it doesn't make it less
meaningful. Although now the decision to move this episode - originally slated
as the seventh - interesting. It serves as a piece of work about Shaw, and gives us hints of what Greer and Samaritan are willing to do to flush out the Machine's acolytes. The context of the episode is all but null and
void, though one has to assume these events occur after "Asylum"; or
that Shaw is probably aware they do.
But if the episode is almost completely artifice, was there
anything of merit to the episode? I would argue that there was. If one
criticism against the episode is that it ultimately provided no momentum for
the season, one could safely say the same to the previous episode, the
Reese-centric "Truth Be Told". This truth is even more told especially when you learn that the CIA
is unlikely the return as a major player, nor is Reese's boss (Keith David
confirming that he had a one-off appearance). But what was "Truth Be
Told" ultimately about? It and "6,741" were fundamentally the same
in providing some - I would argue - emotional climax, if not emotional finale
for the character in question.
Yes, "6,741" was all but a facsimile of the real
thing, but the one kernel that was truth to itself was Shaw. She was the one
constant in the series of simulations that remained stalwart in the face of
adversity. I mean, 6,741 times is a lot when you consider that's about how many
times she's had to kill herself to keep her friends safe. In that
final moment, even if everything else didn't matter or even if not-Root that
Shaw was accompanying wasn't all there, Shaw saw exactly where she was - or
might've been if it were real - and choose, like the other 6,740 times, to break down her walls to Root
and end it on her own terms before she hurt anyone else. Or, rather, Root. At the last second she regained what little agency
she could muster in a bind like hers to admit to herself what she kept
suppressed all that time.
Whether or not you might consider this a romantic gesture or
a confession of romantic love or something else is up to the viewer and your opinion of Shaw and
Root. I won't try to heterosplain whatever transpired in "6,741" was
worthy of this couple (and to be sure, they are a couple in no uncertain
terms), but I think any emotional truth underlying it definitely crystallized
in this episode. The sex scene can read like fanservice if you see it that way,
or something more, even in spite of the artifice. Trust me, I wanted so much to hope it was real.
In the larger context of
television storytelling in the year, Shaw and Root have been much more of a stable
constant than I have seen in other LGBTQ+ pairings that I am aware of, especially when it comes to
pieces of fiction which put those women in real danger. I would imagine that Root and Shaw
are an especially bright beacon in a year where LGBTQ+ characters are sent off
to die tragically or in completely tone-deaf ways. Or even just the treatment
of women in the wider space in television. 2015-16 has not been a good year at
all.
Root has been incessantly nagging but has grown to care
romantically about Shaw throughout the series, and
Shaw has begrudgingly accepted Root up until the final moments of
"If-Then-Else". It may have been one-sided but "6,741" shows us
the other side. And remember, this isn't an accumulation of experiences in
which Shaw in simulation 6,741 finally admits she lives Root (again, in no
uncertain terms) like some perverted Groundhog Day; she's had to relive each
simulation from scratch and if each of them were equally unsuccessful for Samaritan and ended
in a likely similar fashion, well then I would have to think the verdict is
almost always rendered truly each time: Shaw also loves Root.
Other observations
-
“Dead or Alive” – Lambert plays it by the bedside while Shaw has a more creative way of playing it, one involving using Lambert as a human shield, in a wheelchair. Poor not-Lambert.
- It’s Bear! Yay! Oh crap, they know about Bear!
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