Shaw killing the Conan-lookalike Samaritan agent bothered me.

I agree with you but I would have wanted retribution also, regardless of his circumstances. Shaw being Shaw probably didn't give a moment to wonder how he ended up doing what he did. She wasn't there when his number came up, once the machine came back online but had some glitches, so she didn't get his background info.

I have to say I hated that this bit player, a person with no real history with the show, killed Root. Although, I was not okay with any of them dying.

That's the point. Shaw changed, but not completely. At her core she was still an unemotional killer.

He eventually blindly did what he was told, including killing people. You know who else followed orders? The Nazis.

I disagree. It shows the progression of her character. She killed him for revenge, because he killed the person she loved. Old shaw would have never done that

Her conversation with him explained all of this.

Before the machine if she was under orders she would have killed him without a thought. Instead she actually confronts him and thinks about it.

In the end she kills him for revenge, for her that is more emotion that she would typically have over a death.

She regrets the situation she is in and she feels strong enough to need to act on it. That's not the old emotionless Shaw. That's the new emotional Shaw acting out in a world without guidance.

Maybe that's not redemption, but for someone who was essentially a sociopath, that's a huge change. It means that what she really needed in life was guidance.

And in the end, if the machine survived just enough to rebuild itself and call her, maybe she will get it after all.

I don't know, they took this guy that was down on his luck, that served a lot of time for a non-violent offense, showed him doing menial work, not getting a second chance with his girlfriend. I could see why he would start doing odd jobs for Samaritan. I would have. He didn't just blindly do what he was told, and even tried to get out but was brought back in by his boss. Now he ultimately ended up killing Root.

I just think he should have gotten a redemption arc, and I think Shaw should have let him live. It was over. Samaritan was done. It think it really would have shown character development if she would have let him live even after killing Root. It just showed she was still a stone cold killer.

I would have agreed, but then he killed root. Then he had to die...

But they also showed that he understood where he would end up if he kept working for them. He knew they'd ask him to kill before long and he had a way out (although they probably would have killed him but he didn't know that). So at the end of the day it was his choice to stay in knowing it would mean killing people he knew nothing about.

Also, Shaw is shown repeatedly to be a sociopath. So that kind of character development would have been... out of character... 😎

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You made a good reference by pointing out this scene which bothered me as well. We should remember the episode in the hospital where Jeff was ordered to kill the two doctors, didn't want to do it first and then was forced to by Samaritan showing him his thumbprint proofs. He then went on because his hown safety was at stake and I ask myself what he would have done also, maybe also killed a child? We don't know, can only speculate.
Shaws killing him was pure revenge and Finch wouldn't have liked that. He only let Elias kill the voice in order to prevent him of doing further harm.
But John Reese would have probably done the same as we have seen in The Devils Share, where he wanted to kill Quinn and was prevented by Finch.
I like the series because it makes us think about these questions of morale and ethics, shame that it got canceled!