Warning: this article contains spoilers from Person of Interest episode 'return 0'.
Person of Interest concluded its five seasons on Tuesday (June 21) with an epic finale.
The episode saw lead John Reese (Jim Caviezel) killed off, while the Machine and Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) survived.
In an interview with Deadline the show's creator and executive producer Jonah Nolan and showrunner and producer Greg Plageman opened-up about their choice of ending, and what lies in store for the future.
They said that the idea to kill of Reese had been there from the start, Plageman explaining: "It felt right in terms of that relationship from the very beginning.
"The moment Finch hired him at the end of the pilot, he said, 'I should warn you, we'll probably both get killed'.
"You almost knew at some point in time that sort of sacrifice was going to be required in order for them to ultimately defeat Samaritan and for one to allow the other to go on."
"You get a sense that these guys are on a tragic journey - we announced it right from the pilot that they are not both going to make it," Nolan added.
"So it's really a question of the arc for these characters and also the idea of friendship and sacrifice."
On the prospect of a new series in the future, Plageman continued: "Look, I think the premise that Jonah came up with in terms of an artificial intelligence that takes in all this information, processes it and gives, you might say, a predictive output in some regard is so strong that there's no doubt that that could be revived in some sense.
"I don't know if it would be with these characters. In Episode 11 this year we understood that the Machine had been providing information to another group of people.
"So could it be that this show is strong enough that it could come back in a different form? I would say never say never in a world where we've seen the X-Files and 24 and a number of really strong premises come back as well."
Nolan added that if the opportunity arose, he would be there in a "heartbeat".
Questioned over the earlier episode 11 reference earlier, Nolan said it was "definitely not an attempt on our part to do a spinoff".
"If we were ever going to do a spinoff it would have been with the Control end of things and the relevant side of things which would have been great fun to take a look at three seasons ago.
"We didn't want to do a spinoff. We've watched friends go through this where it's like, the series is doing great, spin it off and then you wind up impoverishing both shows."
Person of Interest airs on CBS.
Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies, TV and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME and Screen International. Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings to Love Is Blind, and is equally in his element crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' as a sub-editor.
