About

Assassination Chain refers to a memorable scene from the Person of Interest TV series in which four characters hold one another at gunpoint inside a church. In 2019, a multi-panel meme format based on the scene, sometimes expanded with additional images of people aiming, gained popularity on Reddit.

Origin

On December 16th, 2014, episode ten "The Cold War" of season four of the science fiction crime TV series Person of Interest premiered.^[1] In the episode, characters Jeremy Lambert, Root, Martine Rousseau and John Reese hold one another at a gunpoint in a chainlike sequence (scene shown below).

Well, isn't this a tricky situation.

Spread

On September 7th, 2018, Redditor AudacityPosting posted a one-panel meme based on the scene to /r/PersonOfInterest subreddit,^[2] with the post gaining over 160 upvotes in six months (shown below, left). The format did not see any spread until on January 21st, 2019, Redditor SteleCat posted a two-panel meme and a template based on the scene to /r/PersonOfInterest subreddit,^[3][4] where it gained over 210 upvotes (shown below, right).

On January 21st, Redditor lmr97 reposted SteleCat's Post to /r/MemeEconomy subreddit,^[5] gaining over 230 upvotes. On the same day, Redditor Goose-Swafford posted a meme based on the format which gained over 8,100 upvotes in /r/dankmemes subreddit in one week,^[6] prompting the further spread of the meme (shown below).

In the following months, the two-panel format saw a moderate spread on the platform. Additionally, memes based on the expanded versions of the format have also been made.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References