"Our poor mothers," John says with a soft breath of laughter. In his case he means it much more sincerely, since his own mother had to put up with his awful behaviour until he was arrested. Until he joined the military.

And then she died and luckily never had to see the person he became. She would have liked the man he was when he was with Jessica, but she wouldn't have recognized the man he was working with Kara. Maybe not even the man he was when he was working for Finch. They were doing a good thing, helping people, but his methods had remained brutal.

"Mine had a lot to put up with especially," he says. "My father was killed in action when I was young."