Rooting for Root

Great thoughts by Cassandra on one of my favorite pop culture heroines! Thanks, Geeky Voyage!

Geeky Voyage

Over the summer, I discovered a television series that blew my mind and changed my perception on modern television. Said series is Person of Interest.

Until I had subscribed to Netflix back in June, I hadn’t heard much about the series. I knew of the two main female characters, Root and Shaw (their portmanteau pairing name being the apposite “Shoot”) and that was as far as my knowledge on POI stretched. Sadly, the series receives next to no promotion in the UK so it is largely unknown to the majority of British audiences.

I had been fresh off an Angel binge at the time and I was dying for some more Amy Acker in my life. So when I saw an advertisement for POI on Netflix—its title card blown up in all of its deceptively subtle glory— I bit the bullet and loaded it up.

The first thing that I…

View original post 1,325 more words

Psycho Sunday: Badass Women in Combat Gear #6

maxresdefault

Back to your everyday basic black combat gear (albeit with heeled boots—how do these actors run in these boots???), on the Minority Report-esque TV show Person of Interest, we eventually shift from the two male main characters, the quirky Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson) and the silver fox John Reese (Jim Caviezel). Starting at the very end of season one, the showrunners introduced the character of “Root,” a genius computer hacker who renamed herself after the root code in a computer program. She is pretty much psychotic, and nobody does psycho like Amy Acker, because even when she is preparing to torture you she is just so darn sweet.

images

Starting in Season two, they also introduced Sameen Shaw, a former ISA assassin who self-identifies as having Axis 2 Borderline Personality Disorder and occasionally calls herself a sociopath. As she describes it to a little girl she is trying to protect, “You know that thing that makes you flinch? I don’t have that. I don’t do most emotions. Although I’m pretty good at anger.” Although once again we see women being badasses primarily because they are in some way kind of broken, it is also sort of refreshing to see mental differences being portrayed on television at all, and not entirely in bad ways, especially as we get to know the characters and they get to know each other and come to first respect each other and then eventually like each other.

Shaw and Root also have an interesting chemistry that appears most strongly when they are shooting people together. As disturbing as that is to think about, it’s also lots of fun to watch.

tumblr_mudvw1eukY1ql9uwio2_250

Also, from earlier seasons, Taraji P. Henson as Detective Carter and Paige Turco as Zoe the fixer also make it work whether in uniform or little black dresses. La la la. Our definition of combat gear, like our definition of poetry, continues to expand.