Nina Simone & Person of Interest

How can I not be obsessed with Person of Interest?

It has everything - thin-lipped Jim Caviezel playing a rogue ex-CIA agent, Michael Emerson (from Lost) as the wealthy computer geek, a computer that collects all data. Finch, played by Emerson, opens each episode with, “You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up...we'll find you.”

Just as I am obsessed with Person of Interest, the writers are obsessed with Nina. Episode 7 (“Witness”) closes with a shot of Charlie the schoolteacher, now unmasked as the mobster, Elias, to the track of Sinnerman, possibly the greatest track in the history of music.

This week, Episode 19 (“Flesh and Blood”) closes with “Ne me quitte pas.” They say that Jacques Brel wrote the song for his ex-lover, who left him because he would not acknowledge that he was the father of her unborn child. They say she left him and aborted the fetus. The lyrics are translated here by Zafiris There’s no one like Nina Simone.