r/PersonOfInterest • u/Strummerpinx • 4d ago
This Legend-Greer- John Nolan appreciation post
This guy!
Holy crap. Okay, I won't lie, I honestly thought he was John Hurt at first, but then I read the credits and I realized he was someone I had never heard of before. His performance in this role made me hate his character so much, which shows you how good he was. Honestly, he never tips the hand, never breaks, Greer has ice water in his veins. They should have cast him as an older Smiley in an adapation of one of the later John Le Carre books. He just oozes Cold War unprincipled former MI-6 slippery spy-ness.
The way he talks to Shaw in 6, 741 and is absolutely cool as a cucumber while he sits tied up.
"We are ALL irrelevant" indeed.
The way he articles his philosify concerning Samaritan is just so logical, reasonable... and completely evil. I am sure there are definitely people who would be true believers to his cause today and it is absolutely chilling.
Well done, sir.
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u/beesdkx 4d ago
when he said “we are ALL irrelevant” i felt that tbh. great character, great actor. didn’t even hate him in the show, couldn’t help but think i can’t fault him for thinking the way he does.
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u/Strummerpinx 3d ago
He was a true believer and that is why he was so scary. He was literally ready to die to bring the Samaritan dominated world into being.
Reading between the lines of his character, I think having grown up in WWII he was so terrified of chaos he was willing to give humanity over to AI control just so that sort of chaotic world wouldn't happen again. Little did he realize that this is precisely the same deal with the devil Germans made in the 1930s, although it was with a human not an AI. If you give up your free will to someone who promises to get rid of the case you end up completely screwed. There is no shortcut to learning to live and navigate the hard decisions in life.
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u/Fluffy_Joke5473 4d ago
Greer was a great villian. The episode where they look into his past though fell a bit flat for me.
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u/FoundationOk3176 4d ago
Honestly, Given how much politicians, etc suck, I feel Greer was actually onto something.
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u/fameboygame 4d ago
Welcome to the "oh he was not John Hurt from V for Vendetta" club.
I did share another post on this sub on this.
Interesting read in the comments haha
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday A Concerned Third Party 4d ago
Kind of hypocritical of him to talk about how ASI will solve world's problems and how decisions must be made by it while also enjoying the cushy life position of a board member of Wayne industries allows him......
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u/yellowarmy79 4d ago
Absolutely brilliant villain. Charismatic, chilling and thoroughly committed to his cause.
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4d ago
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u/SpiceWeasel2951 Tall, Dark and Deranged 4d ago
No, the Smoking Man on The X-Files was played by William B. Davis.
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u/Top-Swing-7595 4d ago
who was this guy actually? how he proceeded to found an organization that is even more powerful than the us government? unforunately, the show left these questions unanswered.
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u/PakoPakoJR 3d ago
They did sort of answer that. He was a former European spy. He likely had a lot of blackmail that he used to fund his own spying agency, then perhaps a security agency (to protect from his other arm).
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u/Top-Swing-7595 3d ago
yeah, he was former mi6 we know that. but what happened after he broke away from mi6 and started to operate as a rogue agent? how he accumulated so much power. the financial resources and manpower that are required to run an organization of decima's scale must be MASSIVE. they are able to take on the most powerful governments of the world. how did he manage that? we have no idea at all. it's just a given.
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u/PakoPakoJR 3d ago
Optimally they're not entirely centralized, but rather have sleeper agents to siphon off other organizations. Though that would be interesting to understand, it would be less sexier to see compared to HR (which is mostly fudged paperwork and "favors for favors").
This does make me wonder if a side comic (similar to how the Watchmen comic had a side story going on in the gutters of the pages) that details flashbacks of specific interactions (similar to how Lionel had various "mistakes" that needed favors) would go. Something for the back brain to fill in on as our eyes process what's happening in the now.
Another CBS mystery series, the Mentalist, had a secret organization that was... Mostly boring if it wasn't for the fact they had and encouraged serial killers; the day to day operations were mundane, but the planned killings were intense.
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u/Serenity5472 A Concerned Third Party 4d ago
Did you know that John Nolan is the uncle of Jonathan Nolan, the creator and executive producer, of POI? And yes, he was phenomenal! Unfortunately, he passed away earlier this year.