Previous installments of Femslash Friday can be found here.
Friends, how do you feel about murderesses?
To be more specific: how do you feel about women who have little use for men beyond the expedient? Who find humanity, as a general category, to be dull, silly, exploitable things clambering after some irrelevant significance? Who kill with little remorse and no regret? Who even in their deep ennui about humans are more engaged with women than men and with each other more than anyone? Who might, maybe, on some level want to be kinder to the world, but don’t know how to find a world that allows them to be so?
If the answer is “POSITIVE,” then I am here to help. I’m here to talk to you about Root and Shaw on Person of Interest.
A quick note: 1) If you are a person who is into portmanteaux for your ships, I would like to point out that your options consist, VERY APPROPRIATELY, of Shoot and Raw, and I think that’s beautiful. 2) If you’re looking for some theme music to listen to while we do this, look what I got you! ALL RIGHT. We have girded ourselves with music; we have laughed at or with the portmanteau phenomenon; we are now as prepared as a human can ever be for these two. Shall we?
We have here two women who are ruthless cold-blooded killers, and yet in a constant battle with themselves in terms of their own humanity; women who tease each other in the face of near-certain death; women who, together, form an all but unstoppable team. Two women who started out as antagonists and are now allies, who are pretty canonically sociopaths, who are real good with guns, and who care about one another more than probably anyone else in the universe.
Oh. Did I mention they’re both REALLY NICE TO LOOK AT?
Amy Acker as Root, looking fanatical as usual
Sarah Shahi as Shaw, looking deadly as usual
Since Person of Interest—the show that gave us these psychopathic murderesses in love—is not so well known as some of the media previously featured in Femslash Friday, allow me to set the scene. Person of Interest takes place in a slightly more cyberpunk world than the one we live in. It’s primarily interested in exploring the issues around surveillance and privacy, and the abuse thereof, with a heaping side of “A.I. is weird as fuck and the future is terrifying amirite” and taking place, more or less, in Gotham City. (I mean, not literally. But I have definitely sat around and cast just about every single character as a Batman universe character, and it works, I’m just saying.) Against this backdrop of intrigue! violence! computer science! corruption! unfolds our tale.
Root
“Every system has a flaw. I’m awfully good at finding them. You care about other people; that’s your flaw.”
Root is introduced in the manner of Menacing Computer Antagonists everywhere, by hacking our Hacker Character’s hack and signing off with a mysterious, “You can call me Root, Harold.” This is the kind of woman who tries to make friends with someone by kidnapping their ass to Baltimore. She considers humans almost universally boring; she kills and steals with little compunction; she is a genius at coding, manipulation, and subterfuge. (One time she paid a guy for a fake ID with money she stole out of his own account. And then she killed him. A lot of stories about Root end with “and then she killed him.”) She is o b s e s s e d with the A.I. Harold built, known as The Machine, and makes all kinds of eloquent speeches about it:
One day, I realized all the dumb, selfish things people do… it’s not our fault. No one designed us. We’re just an accident, Harold. We’re just bad code. But the thing you built… It’s perfect. Rational. Beautiful. By design. […] Humanity has come as far as we’re gonna go. I want to see what’s next.
Here, of course, is where we realize she’s not just amoral; she’s fucking bananas. Root is many things, and one of them is a fanatic.
Shaw
“I got finesse coming outta my ass. There’s a time for a scalpel, and a time for a hammer. It’s hammer time.”
Things Sameen Shaw has been in her life:
A surgical resident
A secret murder agent
Dead (she got better!)
My forever girl
Her default expression is “bored hardass.” She is canonically a near-sociopath who doesn’t give a shit about killing people; in fact, as time goes on and she’s pushed toward “maim and incapacitate” instead, she actively complains about not being able to just drop some bodies.
This woman will hold a guy at gunpoint, stick a needle in his arm, and give herself a blood transfusion in the field because fuck you buddy, I’ll make better use of your blood than you will. Your blood should be so lucky as to run in my perfect veins. At the same time, though, she’s sort of adorably socially awkward when not with officially-dead weirdos like herself.
She is all about feeding the body, whether it wants food, alcohol, or sex, and she snarfs everything she consumes like a goddamn animal. It’s a thing of beauty.
Just a steak on a knife nbd
ACCORDING TO CHEMISTRY ALCOHOL IS A SOLUTION
Obviously, they belong together. Just a couple of cold-blooded hotties whose destinies collide via the all-knowing digital god.
NOW KISS
Look, I don’t require any real subtext to start trying to mash two female characters’ faces together. I’m past that level. I don’t need your permission, bruh. But Person of Interest has given us ample basis to read both Root and Shaw as queer, or at least more interpersonally oriented to women than to men. Plus, honestly, at this point their relationship is barely subtext. Nothing has officially even ~happened~ between them and already Shaw has literally ridden off on the back of Root’s motorcycle.
Root is pretty clearly pro-ladies. With one exception, every meaningful relationship in her life has been with another woman, including a particular very special one: her connection with The Machine. She alone of all the characters considers the Machine—generally thought of as a genderless intelligence—to be female. The Machine chooses to speak to her in a woman’s voice, presumably to better appeal to her. Root talks about the Machine like a friend and a life partner and pretty much loses her shit when their connection is briefly severed. The Machine, in turn, has patiently trained Root into maybe killing slightly less of the fuck out of everything; it’s invested itself in reforming her ethics so that they can work together seamlessly. They call each other cute pet names like “God” and “Analog Interface” (SQUEAL).
Root’s main arc on the show has been a romance, a process of courtship and connection and growing closeness, with an entity she perceives as female, if inhuman. Actually, Root considers The Machine better than human. “Humanity is boring” is kind of her thing. (If you’re asking yourself, “did she just backdoor a second Femslash Friday into this Femslash Friday?” THE ANSWER IS YES. I’M DRUNK WITH POWER.)
Most recently, she got to the point of getting a cochlear implant linked to the Machine so that no one can ever separate them again. (This also means she spends a lot of time cryptically talking to herself and informing other characters that, no, she wasn’t addressing you, puny human.) (It also means her Machine is literally whispering sweet nothings like “shoot through that wall” or “impersonate an FBI agent” in her ear 24/7.) Root has, over and over, shown herself to be dedicated to the next stage in our evolution, and she apparently believes that the future speaks with a woman’s voice.
Shaw, meanwhile, is clearly bisexual and, I would argue, homoromantic. At one point she explains that men and their gross feelings are useless to her:
Guys these days have so many… emotions. They cry, they wanna be held. I just don’t know what to do with them. […] I’m a pragmatist…. I go out, have a fun night or three, and then, uh, I move on. No muss, no fuss.
So clearly, she’ll use a dude’s body, but his heart? Please. We’ve never seen her actually get with a guy, but she has expressed the intent to at least once—so the physical interest is there, but that’s all it is. Meanwhile, though, she has giggled like a schoolgirl (totally anomalous behavior for our resident bored hardass) over Taraji P. Henson’s Detective Carter playing with her gun:
girl’s got taste
Been frankly appreciative of Elaine Tan’s Olympic gymnast turned sneak thief:
TAKE IT ALLLL IN, SHAW
And has engaged in THE MOST ADORABLE CRAZYPANTS FLIRTATION with Root for a good season or two now. When these two met, they were firmly in the realm of Sexy Hatred, by which I mean Root tied Shaw to a chair and threatened her with an iron, and both of them agreed that they “enjoy this sort of thing.” It was in no way safe, sane, or consensual, but it was the wind beneath the wings of a thousand fanfics. They so get each other, you guys! Their torture banter is in sync! im cry
But since then? Well, Shaw stole Root’s picture off someone else’s wall and declared her her new project. And Root keeps doing this thing where she shows up and drags Shaw along on adventures, and Shaw has gotten progressively less reluctant. We’ve come all the way from Shaw waking up ziptied to a steering wheel after Root kidnapped her from her bed (ah, young love) to—I am not making this up—“I’ll do yours if you’ll do mine.” I want to make it very clear that every one of these incidents includes some hint of potential Sexy Results. I present: Intense Staring At A Close Range; declarations of need followed by dopey grinning; LITERALLY A ROMEO AND JULIET BALCONY SCENE, BUT WITH FOOD, BECAUSE ROOT KNOWS THAT SHAW MUST BE WOOED WITH SUSTENANCE. DEEDS NOT WORDS, PEOPLE.
AHEM. To continue: Shaw watching Root shoot up a batch of hitmen and declaring, “Okay, that’s hot”; Shaw treating Root’s injuries and Root telling her, “I love it when you play doctor” (!!!) with the BIGGEST GOOBERFACE ON; and, eventually, at long, long last, Shaw abandoning her mission to rush across half of New York to reach Root when she learns her beloved has put herself in a situation even she might not be able to handle.
There is no one else in the world for whom Shaw would do this. She saves people all the time now, but because those are her orders, not because she particularly cares to. She ditched her hard-won and only friends in a crisis to get to Root—who she keeps, adorably, insisting she hates. Meanwhile, there is no one else in the world Root would feed and tease and chase around the way she does Shaw. No one else is worth the trouble to her; she’s busy with the Machine’s agenda.
And even better, The Machine knows this and is TOTALLY PLAYING YENTA. It keeps throwing the two together for missions, and when Root told Shaw “All I know is, I need you,” I’m pretty sure it was because The Machine told her so. It even sent them on a romantic getaway to drink fruity drinks and fuck up some goons! I want to be clear, though: you can’t chalk up the way Root treats Shaw to the Machine telling her she needs her for one mission or another. The Machine didn’t make Root give Shaw food, or tell her she loves her similes, or say “admit it, you were worried about me.” (I suppose theoretically it could have, but that would just mean The Machine is romancing Shaw via Root. A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES.)
Probably the more emotionally satisfying way to read this is that these are two skilled, strong women who are traumatized by being orphaned, who particularly feel the loss of their mothers, and who are being guided together by an all-seeing, all-knowing, sometimes- female figure—that is, a surrogate mother. The Machine cares about Root; it knows what Root needs; and what Root needs is Shaw. It understands that together they are more than they are on their own.
Let’s not pretend, though. We’re close enough now that I can tell you I have a wiiiiiide shallow streak and I like robots, so I say let’s call it a poly transhuman relationship and LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL, WHICH PROBABLY MEANS WORLD DOMINATION. AMEN.
But whatever The Machine’s role here might be, Root and Shaw remain perfect for one another. Beyond their similarities, beyond being extremely appealing together, these two women improve each other. Each has struggled, with the help of various friends, toward less thoughtless violence and more restraint, and each of them uses these lessons to help check the other when it’s a good idea. Each is doubtful of her own humanity, struggling with which parts of herself to deny or embrace. They admire one another’s competence; their skillsets are divergent but complementary, making them a nearly unstoppable team. Root’s sunnily nutty disposition lights up Shaw’s curmudgeonliness, and Shaw helps bump Root back to analog reality. They care about one another’s safety, when experience has taught them that no one is safe and none is worth the cost of saving.
Our characters are currently scattered, facing a terrifying new unknown, but I know these women will see each other again: the future is being born, and it will be midwifed in part by Root’s visionary light and Shaw’s expedient thunder. Wherever the show takes them, they belong to us as they were on their last mission: saving each other, working as partners. Root rubbed a streak of dirt off of Shaw’s cheek; Shaw looked away, and frowned, and let her.
Sarah Shahi! I’ve missed her face so much (it is SUCH A GOOD FACE) since Life was canceled.
Her face is truly a wonder. Pretty much every episode these days I end up pausing and taking a screencap of her doing SOMETHING OR OTHER because I’m just like “uggghhhhhh be my giiiiirrllllfriiiieeeeennnnnddddddd”
LIFE IS SO GOOD. I miss it.
Yessssssssss this is up! Now off to read it and to think about how since you sent me your first draft of this, the pairing has become ESSENTIALLY CANON.
I KNOW RIGHT? THANKS, NOLAN
I made some embarrassingly loud noises of glee when I saw the title of this one. Root/Shaw forever. Forever.
Though I think I’m now sold on Root/Shaw/The Machine as well, so thanks for that. I’d never even thought about it before, but it does make perfect sense.
It came to me as I was writing this, honestly. I was thinking about The Machine’s role in all of this, since you can’t really talk about Root without talking about Ernest, and suddenly the sky opened up and I was like “WAIT. WAIT. TRANSHUMAN POLYAMORY. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.”
YESSSSSSSSS. Going to read this carefully because I’m not done with season 3 yet but yessssssss.
These things (Femslash Fridays) are just a goddamned delight to read, even though I honestly don’t know who these particular characters are.
I read the ones about characters I don’t know too! Glad you enjoyed even without preexisting affection for the characters 😀
Miranda I loved this, and want to know how you would feel with adding a little Alice Morgan into the equation. We can also have Luther there, as a sort of failsafe for everyone in case all three of the sociopathic killer women get IDEAS about killing everything.
Alice can come too, but I feel like she and Root would be so busy always trying to get one up on each other it might distract from TWU WUV. Too much alike, you know?
Somebody should write this crossover, though. It would be so twisty. Shaw and Luther standing in the background staring at the camera like “what have I done to deserve this.”
Somehow I also doubt Alice would jive with Root’s obsessive devotion to The Machine. I think Alice would just think she’s better than The Machine.
This is so true. She would probably insist on being given access to it somehow so she could (try to) beat it at something directly. She would probably also get really sneery at Harold by association.
What about Alice and Root competitively wooing Shaw, who is a-ok with this situation?
I thought about that too and I also am a-ok with it.
Yes, I am on board and believe both might bring her dead things like cat would.
Looks like I need to start watching Person of Interest! Sarah Shahi + Amy Acker playing amoral women who only care about each other is basically my dream show.
If, say, someone was impatient to get to the parts with both of them on screen, could some episodes of the show be skipped? Or would this hypothetical impatient person still do best to watch all of the episodes?
It’s a pretty amazing show all round, and well worth watching for other reasons besides Shoot and Raw. But if you really need to skp to the, ahem, action, those two characters don’t appear until halfway through Season 2.
Root doesn’t show up until the end of season 1 I think. You probably don’t need to watch everything (I have a weird fondness for formulaic tv shows so I always do buuut some of the episodes are ‘person of the week’). There’s a few story arcs (“what is the machine” “what’s up with all these gangsters”, “corruption in the police”) you might miss out on if you skip, but that’s what wikipedia episode summaries are for. Shaw comes into it a bit later (midway through S2?).
I mean, it really depends! It is a wonderful show for so many other reasons, and in my ideal world everyone would watch all of it, but this is not, I am frequently informed, my ideal world. So I would say you can skip a fair amount of it if you really just want to focus on them–watch the pilot and then watch all the season 1 episodes in which Amy Acker appears (Shaw is introduced later), and after that I think you’ll know pretty well whether you actually like the show as a whole and want to expand your viewing habits. Feel free to ask me LITERALLY ANY TIME if you want advice on what to skip and so on! I am a hopeless evangelist.
OH MY HEAVENS I did not realize this was going up today! Am on my phone, but I just wanted to say that this was written before the current season started airing, obviously, and the new season has VINDICATED US.
I punched the air when I saw the title of this piece and shouted, “THE FEMSLASH FRIDAY TODAY IS ROOT AND SHAW” and MrSmee had no idea at all what I was talking about. I love Shaw SO MUCH. She is awesome and hilarious. I am 100% here for this, and thank you.
Shaw is my everything. She is the best. She is Of Great Importance.
Root/Shaw has turned me into a full-on tinhatter. THIS POST IS SO ACCURATE AND ROOT/SHAW DEFINITELY NEEDS TO BE CANON. Miranda, this is perf.
lol it’s so true. I love how every single time you reblog something about them you always ask, grimly and with steadfast determination, “When will Shaw/Root be canon.” Every time. KEEP UP THE GOOD FIGHT
Gosh darn it Miranda I JUST caught up with Scandal and now I’m gonna have to start a WHOLE NEW SHOW
Just kidding I don’t mind at all and I LOVED THIS ah! My favorite part, though, that I didn’t tweet because I didn’t want to edit its gloriousness down to fit, not even a little bit, was this:
Root has, over and over, shown herself to be dedicated to the next stage in our evolution, and she apparently believes that the future speaks with a woman’s voice.
because really that’s just beautiful.
JOOOIIINNNN UUUSSSSSSSSS. Gingerhaze has drawn fanart for it, it’s like a real fandom and everything.
I’m particularly fond of that line, too, so thanks for picking it out!!
Where is the Gingerhaze fanart of this? I need to know for reasons?!
<a href="http://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/80094131759/person-of-interest-girlfriends-cute-babies-who
http://gingerhaze.tumblr.com/post/80094131759/per… />
😀
I have cartoon hearts in my eyes right now.
PS EVERYONE I am on tumblr and if you want to know where ask me on Twitter! I’m trying to keep some semblance of a fourth wall between my various internet personae going; this is probably futile, but by god I will fight to the end. But forreal, ask me and I’ll DM you the info. INTERNET PARTY
I was binge-watching this last night! Also, Zoe and Joss. This show has great women.
Josssssssssss why did you have to leave us? Ngl I cried.
I can tell you on good authority that when The Thing Happened mrtafadhali’s sister threw her phone which bounced and hit her in the mouth. I think she may have actually bled a little. A perfect metaphor for everyone’s emotional state.
I just…I had a feeling it was going to be Joss. The previews made it look like Fusco was going, so you knew that was misdirection. And they can’t get rid of John or Harold so that left Joss and even knowing it would be her, it still killed me. Three cheers to Taraji for embodying such an awesome character.
Mmmmmmm I’m not sure they can’t get rid of John, tbh, but certainly they couldn’t yet at that time. (Not for any particular structural reasons, just because they hadn’t done the necessary ~dramatic~ work to make it feel remotely acceptable.) I sort of hope that whatever happens at the end of the show, whoever survives, John isn’t one of them–not because of any dislike on my part, I just think it would be fitting.
BUT ANYWAY THAT IS NOT THE POINT. I don’t remember what I thought was going to happen at the time, but I was initially very upset and now am pretty okay with it. I really like that they haven’t just forgotten about her now that she’s gone; her presence is still felt in meaningful ways. I WORRY ABOUT HER SON A LOT ;__;
I think I threw the remote and yelled “I threw it on the GROUND” and she followed suit and ended up bleeding, um, kind of profusely. Trying to explain that one to my mother was…interesting.
I think you neglected to tell me the “I threw it on the GROUND” part in favor of telling me that you threw every object in your immediate vicinity, which normally would be a tragic oversight, but I understand. It was a stressful time.
Sometimes it’s hard for one person to tell another person that in their times of greatest emotional duress, they opened their mouth and a Lonely Island lyric came out.
Aw, Boney. You know you can tell me anything. <3
YAAASSSSSSSS.
OK, I’ll try actually reading it now.
Ok, now I want to go back and binge watch the entire show for some of the subtext I clearly missed. Up until two episodes ago, I shipped them just for funsies, then came The Line about “If this goes south, tell Shaw something for me” and now their love is real and 4eva and if it’s on The Toast it must be true.
I am familiar with this impulse. All those links on page 2 should serve as A Helpful Guide to Important Moments. Godspeed.
You’ll be happy to know Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi apparently continue to speculate on whether or not the their meeting scene with the threat of torture with an iron was meant to play as foreplay.
Also Person of interest is more like original O.M.A.C. than Batman, but since Batman co-opted O.M.A.C. I forgive you.
Goddamnit, I DO NOT NEED more shows to watch.
OR DO YOU
(psst the image embed was broken before, have now fixed it so that my devastating response is visible)
MY GOD THAT HEAD TOSS
Yessssss I love these two together. Also, Amy Acker and Sarah Shahi are both totally aware of the femslash happening here and appear to be total pals off-screen as well as on. And I love Shahi and Acker as actresses, so it’s a treat to see them at work on the same show.
I also appreciate how POI started as a show about a pair of unlikely bros and then added all these kickass, complicated women who are never accessories to the male characters. This show is populated with complicated, difficult, willful women (Paige Turco’s Zoe Morgan, Annie Parisse’s turn as Kara, and Taraji P. Henson when she was still on, Camryn Manheim being awesomely villainous). I’m cool with Carrie Preston being a saintly love interest thanks to all these other, spikier ladies populating the story.
Sarah Shahi and Amy Acker AND ROBOTS in a TV show together and I had no idea! Holy shiiiiiiit.
Thank you. You are doing God’s work.
Be blessed, my child, for the time of ignorance is ended. Go forth newly armed with light into this, the kingdom of robot heaven.
Thank you soooo much – have watched this from the beginning and love these women- both the characters and the acting. Shaw’s love for Bear the dog is wonderful.
If I have one regret, it’s that Bear didn’t make it in here. Glad you enjoyed!
I exclaimed “Oh my god, yes! finally!” when I saw the headline. I have been desperately longing for a Femslash Friday on Shaw/Root. And everything you say is brilliant. But . . . can I just have a tiny minute of mourning the Shaw/Carter ship that will never be? Shaw’s fluttery little moment with Carter and the gun is one of my favourite bits in the entire run of the show. Truly, my heart belongs to Shaw/Root, but part of losing Joss will always be losing what might have been with Shaw.
OH I FEEL THIS. I REALLY DO. I was a pretty manic Shaw/Carter evangelist for a while until it became, um, untenable. I mean LOOK AT SHAW IN THAT GIF! SHE SMILED MORE FOR CARTER IN 30 SECONDS THAN SHE HAD IN HER ENTIRE PREVIOUS CAREER OF APPEARANCES!!!!!!!
Shaw’s hardcore crush on Carter was fifteen different kinds of adorable. I really wish we’d seen more of her reaction to losing Joss instead of John’s intense manpain (I like watching Jim Caviezel look like a sad, suffering puppy dog as much as the next girl, but it got old well before it ended) because I think her response was interesting. She obviously had feelings for Carter that she hadn’t had for anyone else and was having to process all that.
I don’t think anything would’ve come of Shaw/Carter really, but I enjoyed watching them interact.
Root is perfect in every possible way. Everyone should love her.
This was very, very compelling and has finally tipped me over the edge into watching the show after seasons of hedging. I also had this up on my phone just as I spotted signs that they are filming on my block this week. I’m hoping my daily routine will be enlivened by an archly disdainful murderess.
truth be told I knew Root/shaw before watch the show & I dont wanted to ship them. but writing is so obvious like they want us to root them as a couple. The lack of personal space I mean come on they are so close they might accidentally kiss each other while arguing & their most dialogues has double meaning and all these are since the first meeting. I also believe their characters might be bi, remember when Root said Finch that her relationship with “The Machine” is “more intimate” than Finch’s. Now i love the paring & I think i love shaw very much and this is great post
I just started watching PoI and so far it’s Tragic Masculinity ManPain Central, which is great, I like that, but I’m really looking fwd to meeting these two
FINE you’ve convinced me after I’ve held off the tide of tumblr (it was the poly transhuman possibilities that did it)
This post is really poignant given the way the show ends. My heart.