Elementary Season 3 Episode 11 "The Illustrious Client" – Recap and Review

The episode delves heavily into Kitty Winter's (Ophelia Lovibond) past and the abuse she went through. The man who inflicted the horrific injuries on her has arrived in NY. His latest victim, Melanie Vilkas is a personal message to the authorities and Kitty in particular.

As can be expected, Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) pay extra attention to this case. Joan is lucky that her new boss, Del Gruner (Stuart Townsend) is very accommodating and gives her permission to spend time, despite having just joined the company very recently. 

The local authorities initially suspect Melanie's fiance, Brandon Powell. But Sherlock and company know better and interrogate Ron Davis (Robert Eli), the man whom Melanie had met on an online dating site. Ron was supposed to meet her at a pub on the same night she disappeared. Ron declines having met Melanie, claiming that he found her to be less beautiful in person than her online profile picture had suggested.

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A strong suspect soon emerges in the form of Simon de Merville (P.J. Sosko). He is a known face with the NYPD and is heavily involved in supplying women for prostitution. Just as he is tracked down and the NYPD arrives to take him down, he flees.

Simon has a sister, Violet de Merville (Tammy Blanchard) who works as a nurse. She claims to have only helped Simon by stitching him up, after having a fight in a bar. 

Sherlock deduces Simon's hiding place, but is too late as Simon is killed before he can be arrested.

In the closing scenes, Kitty recognizes the voice of Joan's new employer, Del Gruner as belonging to the man who had sexually assaulted her five years back. She also identifies him visually, after looking him up on the internet.

Canonical References
1. The episode titled is a reference to the Canonical story “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client” (ILLU).
2. The name of the character played by Stuart Townsend, Del Gruner is a shortened version of the name of the main antagonist in ILLU: Baron Adelbert Gruner.
3. The  character of Violet de Merville - In ILLU, Sherlock Holmes takes up the case in order to break the impending marriage between Violet de Merville and Baron Adelbert Gruner.
4. Violet looking out for her brother, whom she acknowledges was always “different” - This reminded me of The Hound of the Baskervilles, in which Mrs Barrymore cared for her brother, Selden. Selden is an escaped convict who is now hiding on the moor and receives food and clothes from the Barrymores.
 

Being familiar with the original story, I was not that surprised by the revelation involving Del Gruner.

I did enjoy Kitty's impromptu meeting with Violet, that involved Kitty using her single stick to coerce Violet into disclosing information about Simon. In ILLU, Sherlock Holmes takes Kitty Winter to meet Violet de Merville in an attempt to dissuade her from marrying Baron Gruner. Kitty was one of Gruner's former mistresses and Sherlock hopes to convince Violet by utilizing Kitty's personal experience. 

I liked the following quotes by Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock:
1. Given the narcissism that consumes the modern epoch, a solitary selfie is a minor miracle. 
2.  A fugitive is more difficult to anticipate than an obsessive. 
3. Those of us with exceptional sensitivities are prone to motion sickness. 

The acting was intense, with both Miller and Ophelia giving exceptional performances. A good episode by Elementary's usual standards.

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Elementary Season 3 Episode 9 "The Eternity Injection" – Recap and Review

Alfredo Llamosa (Ato Essandoh), Sherlock Holmes' (Jonny Lee Miller) sponsor is back. He presents a new challenge to Sherlock in the form of “Odin”, a tough-to-crack sensor.

A Shauna Milius (Julienne Hanzelka Kim) arrives at the brownstone. She worked with Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) at the hospital and is seeking her help to locate her missing colleague  Marissa Ledbetteris.

Sherlock follows Marissa's credit card trail and finds her corpse in a dumpster behind a pub.

Autopsy reveals that Marissa had the DNA of a man under her fingernails. This man turns out to be Christopher Jacoby. His wife, Sarah (Andrea Syglowski) strongly believes in his innocence. Christopher also went missing around the same time Marrisa was killed. 

Mason (Robert Capron), the irregular last seen in the episode “Bella”, tracks down Chris from the surveillance cameras installed around the city. From the picture, Chris looks shabby, in contrast to the clean-shaven face he supposedly maintains.

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Sherlock and Joan try to track down Chris, who is living as a homeless individual. He has been murdered. Sherlock discovers a journal Chris has been maintaining. Sherlock learns that Chris had started to lose his mind in the recent past.

It is revealed that both Chris and Marrisa received deposits of 1,50,000 USD in their bank accounts. Sherlock deduces that Chris was being injected with a drug “E-ZED-M-77” by Marrisa as part of a illegal drug trail.

The drug has been created by Purgatorium Incorporated, a pharmaceutical company. It is a time dilating drug that alter a person's perception of time.

Sherlock deduces that there were five other patients receiving doses. One surviving patient is Louis Carlisle (Luke Robertson). He provides the useful information that in addition to Marrisa, there is a black man aged around 40 who looked to be in charge.

This person turns out to be Dr Dwyer Kirke (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.), head of Ubient Pharmaceuticals. He is arrested by Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) when he comes to visit his ailing aunt.

Dwyer confesses to conducting the trials, but steadfastly refuses to disclose the identity of the person who sponsored his research work.

But Sherlock is up to the task. He digs into Dwyer's background and discovers that one James Connaughton (Dakin Matthews) has been the benefactor who has funded Dwyer's education.

James is suffering from a serious disease and is supporting the drug trials in an attempt to prolong his life. James claims to have played no part in the trials.

Sherlock and Joan next force James's nurse Brett Won (Brian Lee Huynh) to reveal the details. In order to provide a closure to the victims of the drug trial, Brett provides the details.

As Sherlock, Joan and NYPD arrive to arrest James, we learn that he has taken a heavy dose of the drug to prolong his freedom before landing in jail.

This was an OK episode. The focus is primarily on Sherlock and his struggle to maintain his abstinence from drugs. His solution to a working arrangement that involves Bella/Edward/Jacob (from the Twilight mythology) was another reminder of why this version of Holmes is quite unlike the Canonical Version.

Sherlock playing “Reveille” on Bugle to wake up Joan failed to generate any laughs.

Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) is relegated to the background. The scene involving her trying her hand at picking locks was funny, with both Sherlock and Joan providing her unsolicited advice.

A run-of-the-mill episode that should appeal to fans of the show.

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Elementary Season 3 Episode 8 "End of Watch" – Recap and Review

NYPD Officer Alec Flynn (Jim Ford) has been killed in what looks like an ambush attack. Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller)  discovers that Alec had a toy gun with air pellets.

Captain Thomas Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Sherlock question Alec's former partner,  Officer Miles Polano (Andrew Dolan). He claims to be innocent and denies any involvement in the murder, despite admitting to having difficulties in the past.

Alec's widow, Brie (Rebecca Brooksher) informs Joan and Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) that she threw Alec out of the house after he started stealing her things to get the drug he got addicted to, after being injured on duty.

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) discovers a video showing Flynn buying a fake gun. Shortly, a one-eyed man emerges as the main suspect in Flynn's homicide. ATF Agent Hernan (Leslie Silva) identifies this person of interest as Niko Buros (Robert Mammana), a gunrunner.

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Before he can be arrested, Buros claims his next victim, Officer Casey Hatem (Shezi Sardar). Joan meets up with Officer Doud (Rajesh Bose), whose nephew is Casey.

Joan deduces that the number 6 is not a name but a nickname for one of Alec's teammates. This person turns out to be Charlie Riggs (Geoffrey Wigdor).

Sherlock theorizes that Niko is not targetting random police officers, but those with a connection to Rodman's Armory. Niko wants to steal the weapons and uses the killed officer's funeral ceremony as a strategy to distract the cops.

Niko is apprehended by Detective Bell and taken into custody.

Canonical References

1. Elementary Sherlock almost quotes verbatim the following lines from The Sign of the Four: “My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence.” 

2. At the drug addiction meeting, another attendee informs Elementary Holmes about the blog “BrainAttic” - Possible reference to this line spoken by Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet: “I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose....Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

3. One of the quotes featured in the blog is the following line from The Final Problem: “At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.”

This was one of the weaker episodes. The main plot was lacking in excitement.

Secondary plot involves Sherlock on the trail of someone publishing his quotes on a Tumblr blog. Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) talks to one Astrid (Kerry Butler) about the blog. 

Sherlock asks Kitty to stop working on the case and tracks down Daren (Gregory Abbey), who has been maintaining BrainAttic. Daren insists on maintaining the blog, despite Sherlock's insistence on the opposite. Daren claims that people (including himself) find inspiration from Sherlock's quotes. In response, Sherlock maintains silence in the next session.

I liked Ophelia's comment about Sherlock being quotable. There were other nice touches as well - Miller's Holmes commenting that he is not a man who likes to share his secrets. He is also seen practicing Kyudo, Zen archery. This scene reminded  me of the darts used by Tonga, the pygmy islander and Jonathan Small's trusted companion from The Sign of the Four.

Miller's Sherlock detects the scent of two perfumes on Daren's person: Sherlock Holmes states in The Hound of the Baskervilles: “There are seventy-five perfumes, which it is very necessary that a criminal expert should be able to distinguish from each other, and cases have more than once within my own experience depended upon their prompt recognition”.

On a side note, there was no sighting or mention of Joan Watson's boyfriend Andrew Paek (Raza Jaffrey). Readers might remember that at the end of the previous episode, Joan was seen preparing a special feast to celebrate Andrew's return from Copenhagen. Kind of like how Mrs Hudson too appeared in just one scene, only to disappear altogether.

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Elementary Season 3 Episode 7 "The Adventure of the Nutmeg Concoction" – Recap and Review

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) is approached by Sally Holder (Kate Arrington), an attorney whose sister Jessica has been missing for the past five years. Sally suggests that Jessica might have been the victim of a serial killer, who always leaves an olfactory signature at the crime scene.

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) takes an interest in the case, based on the the case details sent by Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond).

Sherlock, Joan and Kitty meet Agent Blake Tanner (Peter Benson) of the Behavioral Science unit. He is reluctant to share details about the “The Pumpkin” case, which has claimed five other victims in addition to Jessica.

Sherlock deduces that each crime was committed by a different individual and there there is no serial killer involved. However, there is a common element to these murders - the cleaner who worked on the crime scenes in each of these murders.

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Sherlock observes that Jessica has three keys (one of which is unmarked) and assigns the task of finding the key's purpose to Kitty and Joan.

The key is meant for Dan Kramer’s (Lewis Cleale) apartment. Dan is a defence attorney and has been having an affair with Jessica. Joan discovers that Dan had revealed details about one of his clients, Raymond Carpenter (Kevin Geer), a gangster to Jessica. Jessica was about to reveal the details to the police, when she went missing.

Raymond is currently imprisoned in Sing Sing prison. He informs Sherlock and Joan that he had hired Danny Tacelli, a contract killer to take care of Jessica. Working on the case, Sherlock and Joan investigate a construction site riddled with bullets and reeking of nutmegs.

We meet yet another Baker Street Irregular, “The Nose” (John Horton). As his name implies, he has an extraordinary sense of smell that surpasses even that of Sherlock. The Nose deduces that Sodium Hydroxide has been used and the nutmeg was used to hide this odor.

To track down this elusive cleaner, Joan suggests looking up institutes providing cleaning courses. Sherlock and Joan narrow down their search to one Conrad Woodbine (Jon David Casey), graduate of Spaulding Technical Institute.

Sherlock, Joan and Kitty pay a visit to Conrad at his apartment and discover that he has stored nutmeg concoctions. He is arrested and interrogated by NYPD. He refuses to co-operate and is let go.

Sherlock devises a strategy to make Conrad confess. He prepares a list of Conrad's clients in the hopes of pressurizing him. One such client is Artem Dedekian (Tom Mardirosian), head of a Armenian criminal gang.

Soon Conrad is killed as well and the individual cleaning up copies Conrad's style at the crime scene. Sherlock is at his wit's ends and is helped by Kitty, who identifies the murderer as Jeremy Carpenter (Harris Doran). Jeremy is Raymond's son and the Superintendent of Conrad's apartment. Raymond had made him Conrad's apprentice and had him kill Conrad after Jeremy informed him about Sherlock's visit to his mentor's apartment. 

 
The secondary plot involves Sherlock offering unsolicited advice to Joan about her relationship with her current boyfriend Andrew Paek (Raza Jaffrey). Her former boyfriend Chris Santos (Christian Carmago) asks for her help. She helps him out and informs him that one Ermel Janic stole his identity.

This was one of the better episodes of this season. I liked the twist involving the cleaner being the common factor among all the cases.

The episode had a strong sense of humor. Sherlock comparing Joan to a female baboon advertising her availability with a bright red posterior was hilarious. Also amusing was his comment about Joan skipping her training on Speed reading.

Sherlock keeps assigning menial tasks to Joan and Kitty and Ms. Hudson (Candis Cayne). Yes, Ms. Hudson makes her return to the show after appearing in just one episode, “Snow Angels”. Sherlock asks Ms. Hudson to listen to the police scanner for any mention of “Pumpkin” or “Nutmeg”. Interestingly, she appears only in one scene and promptly disappears. The writer could have included her in at least one scene to provide a closure and explaining what she has been doing with her life so far.

We do know that Andrew is returning from Copenhagen and Joan prepares a special feast to celebrate this. I also liked Sherlock's comment on Joan being being attracted to a life of adventure. Dr John Watson mentions in The Hound of the Baskervilles: “The promise of adventure had always a fascination for me,...”

Another interesting aspect that caught my attention was the name: Spaulding Technical Institute. This could be a possible reference to Vincent Spaulding, the alias used by John Clay in The Adventure of the Red-Headed League.

Trivia 

1. Kitty Winter hums the Clarinet part of “Beethoven’ Symphony No. 6”, when she and Joan are working on Jessica's mysterious key.

2. Kitty Winter is listening to the song “Titus Andronicus”, when Sherlock Holmes walks in.

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