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In Person Of Interest's final episode, the Machine, while fading away from the viral attack, talks to Harold and explains some key lessons it learned about people. One of the stories it tells, to illustrate that how people die and how they are remembered are really important, appears to be the story of how Reese's father dies.

We see a young Reese at a funeral and overhear people describing his father as a hero because he rescued some people from a fire while losing his own life in the process. He seems to have been a fireman.

But in series 3 episode 11, in a bar scene between him and Fusco, we seem to get a different story. They are in the bar his father used to frequent where there are photos from his military service. Fusco asks if he was killed in action. Reese explains his father did four tours in vietnam but died two months after coming home in an accident at a refinery.

These stories don't seem to be consistent.

Which one is true? Did the machine make up or embellish the story?

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    Couldn't the accident at a refinery have been a fire that Reese Senior was there to help fight?
    – Dave
    Jun 15, 2021 at 22:38
  • @Dave This is possible, but I was struck when rewatching the s3e11 episode for the first time in a while at how different and mundane the story feels to the one recounted by the machine in the last episode (more than once in that last episode BTW). A comparison of the details might clarify that but they still don't sound the same to me.
    – matt_black
    Jun 16, 2021 at 14:49

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We see a young Reese at a funeral and overhear people describing his father as a hero because he rescued some people from a fire while losing his own life in the process. He seems to have been a fireman.

There is no indication that Reese Sr was a fireman....just that he rescued people before passing.

He went back in. It was like the gates of Hell itself, and he pulled four people out.

Going back would seem to indicate that he was already there rather than a rescue worker or fireman who just went in because it was his job

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  • Going "back" in didn't imply to me he was already there: but then I assumed this meant he was a fireman who attempted too many rescues. Perhaps we all read non-existing context into the story.
    – matt_black
    Mar 14, 2022 at 9:10

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