DEAD RECKONING (2.13)

Picking up where episode 2.12 left off, Reese is kidnapped by rogue Agent Kara Stanton, while Carter is left for dead in Donnelly's wrecked SUV. Stanton puts a bomb vest on Reese and tells him that he and Agent Snow will be running errands for her, and if they choose not to comply, she'll kill them both. Stanton's plan involves Snow and Reese breaking into a top secret Department of Defense cyber terrorism lab, which the men successfully do, only to have Stanton appear and hack into the database herself. She locks them in the lab, but Reese and Snow manage to break out. Reese races to the roof, hoping that he can get far enough away from innocent people, but he finds Finch waiting for him. Finch successfully hacks the cell phone detonator on Reese's bomb vest in the nick of time, saving both of their lives. Snow, meanwhile, manages to catch up with Stanton just as his bomb vest explodes, killing them both. Through flashbacks, we see Agent Stanton's interactions with a mysterious British man named Greer after her near-death experience in China. Greer offers to help her find the person responsible for stealing the laptop that she was sent to retrieve in China, but only if she'll do a few favors for him in return. In the end, the exercise in the D.O.D's lab was for Greer, and he informs her that the man she's looking for is Harold Finch. Though Stanton appears to be dead, it appears that Greer knows of Finch, though it remains to be seen what his long term goals are.

Air date: January 31, 2013
Written by Erik Mountain and directed by John Dahl.

PRISONER'S DILEMMA (2.12)

Reese is locked up in Rikers under the order of Agent Donnelly, who is determined to root out the real Man In The Suit from the four suspects captured. Donnelly takes advantage of Carter's army interrogation experience and has her grill the four suspects, and she steadily chips away at their false identities--all of them except for Reese. Finch hacks into Carter's earpiece so he can simultaneously hear the questions Donnelly is feeding her and create fake documentation to corroborate the answers Reese gives during his interrogation. Reese also manages to dodge Hersh, who gets himself arrested at the request of Special Counsel in order to eliminate all of the suspects in holding. When Carter manages to point all of the evidence at another suspect and away from Reese, Donnelly finally relents and allows him to be released. Later, Reese goes to thank Carter, but Donnelly intercepts them and arrests them both. Finch frantically works to find a way to save them, but he gets a new number from the machine that he can't ignore--Agent Donnelly's number. Just as Donnelly is taking Carter and Reese in, their car is blindsided by an SUV driven by Agent Stanton, who calmly executes Donnelly before drugging Reese. In flashback, we see the beginnings of Reese and Stanton's partnership in various jobs overseas. Stanton appears to relish eliminating their targets, while Reese shows extreme reluctance. Tensions between them reach a boiling point and they begin to fight, but that fight slowly turns passionate. Meanwhile, Fusco must fill in for Reese and keep a gorgeous Hungarian supermodel safe from Armenian mobsters.

Air date: January 10, 2013
Written by David Slack and directed by Chris Fisher.

2πR (2.11)

With Reese locked up in Rikers as Agent Donnelly struggles to figure out who the real 'man in the suit' is, Finch is left to his own devices to protect this week's POI, a high school student named Caleb Phipps. At first glance, Caleb appears to be a thoroughly average kid, but when Finch goes undercover as a substitute at Caleb's school, he learns that Caleb is remarkably good with computer code. Caleb gets involved with some vengeful drug dealers so Fusco and Finch try to keep him away from harm as he puts the finishing touches on a new memory software that could make millions of dollars. Gradually, Finch learns that Caleb's older brother died in a subway accident, and that Caleb feels responsible for it. He intends to sell his program and then commit suicide, but Finch is able to talk him out of it before he can go through with it. The two share an unspoken connection, which is clarified in flashback as we see echoes of Caleb's relationship with his mother in young Finch's interactions with his Alzheimer's afflicted father. Meanwhile, Carter struggles to locate and dispose of the DNA evidence that the Feds have on Reese, hoping that it will be enough to get him out of Rikers after 72 hours. When Donnelly learns that the DNA has gone missing, he gets the Attorney General to sign a Public Safety Exception, giving him the power to retain Reese and the other three suspects indefinitely. He then tells Carter that she'll have to interrogate the men to find the real 'man in the suit.'

Air date: January 3, 2013
Written by Dan Dietz and directed by Richard J. Lewis.