Mr. Finch is reading It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, in the CBS show Person of Interest (2011–2016).
Have you seen the show? I hadn't––I stayed up late last night watching the first 5 episodes on Netflix.
The premise is, after 9/11, Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson) created a supercomputer Machine that watches every single person in the United States. Now he's trying to use the data for good. Moral conundrums ensue.
I was a little surprised when I stopped the show to read the book title. It Can't Happen Here (1935) is about a Trump-like guy becoming president.
President Windrip––Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip––even his name is Trumpish.
But this episode aired in 2011, I thought. How prescient, I thought.
It's like I was thinking, "But everything was alright in 2011."
In fact, in 2011 Obama renewed the Patriot Act.
Snowden released classified NSA info in 2013.
Remember how the US got caught spying on Germany, tapping Angela Merkel's phone?
Trump is so bonkers off the charts, even though I always say Obama was no angel, I'm guilty of remembering the Obama era through rose-tinted glasses.
This show is a good reminder.
At one point someone accuses Mr. Finch of being paranoid.
"With good reason," he says.
He lives and works in a decommissioned library.
When the guy he's recruiting as a vigilante (Mr. Reese, Jim Caviezel, below right) asks, "What's this place?"
Mr. Finch replies, "The decline of Western civilization."
Does that refer to the closing of libraries, or his own computer work?
Be it either or both, Mr. Finch is doing his part sartorially to halt the decline.
Have you seen the show? I hadn't––I stayed up late last night watching the first 5 episodes on Netflix.
The premise is, after 9/11, Mr. Finch (Michael Emerson) created a supercomputer Machine that watches every single person in the United States. Now he's trying to use the data for good. Moral conundrums ensue.
That's a first edition Finch is reading--the cover banner reads,
"What will happen when America has a dictator?"
"What will happen when America has a dictator?"
I was a little surprised when I stopped the show to read the book title. It Can't Happen Here (1935) is about a Trump-like guy becoming president.
President Windrip––Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip––even his name is Trumpish.
But this episode aired in 2011, I thought. How prescient, I thought.
It's like I was thinking, "But everything was alright in 2011."
In fact, in 2011 Obama renewed the Patriot Act.
Snowden released classified NSA info in 2013.
Remember how the US got caught spying on Germany, tapping Angela Merkel's phone?
Trump is so bonkers off the charts, even though I always say Obama was no angel, I'm guilty of remembering the Obama era through rose-tinted glasses.
This show is a good reminder.
At one point someone accuses Mr. Finch of being paranoid.
"With good reason," he says.
He lives and works in a decommissioned library.
When the guy he's recruiting as a vigilante (Mr. Reese, Jim Caviezel, below right) asks, "What's this place?"
Mr. Finch replies, "The decline of Western civilization."
Does that refer to the closing of libraries, or his own computer work?
Be it either or both, Mr. Finch is doing his part sartorially to halt the decline.
(0)
ReplyDeleteI had never paid much attention to this show but just requested it from the library.
ReplyDeleteAlso on the hunt now for the Sinclair Lewis book. Maybe Ayn Rand will be back on the reading list.
Kirsten
I've never seen this show. It DOES seem amazingly prescient to refer to this book, even given the debates about the Patriot Act at the time. Obama had his flaws but he couldn't hold a candle to Trump in the dictatorship department!
ReplyDeleteHi, GZ!
ReplyDeleteKIRSTEN: I do recommend the show, but with a warning that it's very uneven--some of the episodes are filler (23 episodes in a year means lots of space to fill!): I just skimmed those to find & watch the flashbacks, which give the characters' backstories...
I have higher hopes for season 2, which has started off well.
STEVE: TOTALLY agree--Trump wins in the dictatorship dept.!