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 6 "Terra Pericolosa" – Recap and Review

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) has returned from Denmark and is catching up on the latest developments with Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond).

Kitty receives a text from Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and is dispatched to help Rafael (K.Todd Freeman), a curator with a theft. Rafael suspects one of his security guards, Gerald Vogel of stealing maps. The surveillance cameras were deactivated. 

Rafael's suspicions are laid to rest when Kitty discovers Gerald's corpse. Sherlock deduces that the thief wanted to steal one particular map and stole some others just to mislead the investigation.

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Sherlock determines that one particular map was the actual target of the robbery. That one turns out to be “The County of King James, Virginia, 1794”, of which only one copy exists in that very library.

Sherlock contacts the granddaughter, Margaret Bray (Mamie Gummer) about the significance of the stolen map. Sherlock works with Margaret to get more details about the map.

Sherlock initiates a correspondence with one Austin Cornblatt (David Adkins). A person of interest, Stuart Zupko (Gabriel Hansen) is found dead. Sherlock theorizes that Stuart killed Gerald after stealing the map, but the question now is: Who murdered Zupko?

Sherlock and Joan pay a visit to William Hull (Skipp Sudduth), a real estate magnate offers to pay Sherlock for retrieving the original copy of the map. Sherlock figures that William wants the information hidden in the map.

On further scrutiny, Sherlock deduces that a river depicted in the map has changed course and this could disrupt plans to construct a Indian Casino. The trio then question Leon Moody (Eric Schweig), who occupies a high position in the Gaming Commission and has vested interests in Indian Casino,

Joan is able to figure out the identity of Zupko's murderer, based on the observations she has made so far. 

The secondary plot involves Sherlock and John quarreling about his interference in Kitty's personal life. Kitty has a new acquaintance, Zachary and Sherlock is wary of his influence on his protege.

He finally relents and informs Kitty that Joan has offered to play a larger role. In turn, he offers Kitty the freedom to spend her time as she wishes.

After two strong episodes, this was a weak episode. The mystery component was good, but somehow the episode on the whole, lacked the excitement.

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Elementary Season 3 Episode 5 "Rip Off" – Recap and Review

A business woman (Paige Patterson) discovers by accident a severed hand in a pool of blood on the road side.

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) wants Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), to safeguard his interests. Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) is still in Copenhagen.

Sherlock and Kitty arrive at the spot where the severed hand was discovered. Sherlock deduces that the hand's owner is already dead and that the dead body will be in a parking lot. He is proved right shortly.

Captain Thomas Gregson (Aidan Quinn) finds himself in a tough spot after physically assaulting Chris Stotz (Derek Grabner), a fellow cop. Turns out that he did so to retaliate against that Stotz's abusive behavior against his daughter Hannah Gregson (Liza J. Bennett), who is a police officer herself.

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Dr Grannis (Nadia Dajani), who performed the autopsy on the dead man concludes that he was attacked with a blunt instrument and had fought back hard. She also informs Sherlock that the deceased person was making a good recovery from an unknown ailment.

Sherlock deduces that the deceased was a devout Jew by observing his clothes. Sherlock and Kitty visit synagogues and track down the victim's brother, Josef Shapiro (Stuart Zagnit).

Josef confirms that his brother, Moshe Shapiro was recovering from bone cancer. Moshe owned a Postal Unlimited and was murdered within a block from his office.

Sherlock and Kitty visit Moshe's office and question one of his employees, Amit Hattengatti (Rafi Silver). Amit confirms that Moshe was a very kind human being, without whose help it would have been hard for him to get through graduate school.

While working together on the case, Sherlock refuses to lend his laptop to Kitty. We soon find out the reason for Sherlock's lack of trust: He has discovered a 474-page transcript titled “The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes” written by Joan.

Joan has not properly deleted her draft and Sherlock is not sure if she has any more copies lying elsewhere. He is determined to ensure that she destroys all other copies (if any exist).

Sherlock figures out that Moshe was involved in the diamond smuggling trade. At the NYPD, Sherlock does some lip reading and is able to recover the diamonds.

Sherlock further deduces that a yet to be identified strong individual has ripped off Moshe's arm. He hopes to find that person in Ritchie's gym, which is very close to Moshe's murder site.

At the gym, Sherlock has his eyes set on one Dana Kazmir (Michael DeMello). He challenges him to an arm wrestling contest. He does this in order to get Kazmir's DNA and accomplishes his goal successfully.

Realizing the possibility of facing legal consequences, Dana makes a full confession that he was hired by an unknown man (known only as “Mencius Blackbag”) to kill Moshe Shapiro. He was told to deposit the bag containing the diamonds in a dumpster.

Dana has not met his employer, but could make out a Dutch accent over the phone calls. Dana's attorney Cynthia Kerr (Leslie Hendrix) provides a list of three more persons who were supposed to have been killed by him. The third individual on the list is Moshe's employee Amit.

Amit informs Sherlock that one Leonard Oosthuizen (Daniel Abeles) had threatened Moshe at his office in front of Amit and two other customers. Sherlock and Kitty realize that these three eye witnesses are the names on the list.

Leonard is taken in by the NYPD for interrogation. He denies any involvement in the murder of Moshe Shapiro.

Kitty proposes that Amit is the mastermind behind Moshe's murder. She is proved correct. Amit was working for Moshe in the diamond smuggling trade.

He bribed Kerr to make Dana make the false confession and provide the fake list of targets (including his name) to mislead the investigators. Amit intended to take over from his boss and at the same time get rid of his competitor, Leonard.

Canonical References

1. The name of the manuscript written by Joan Watson:  “The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes” is a direct reference to the final set of twelve Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle.

2. Elementary Sherlock refers to Joan Watson's prose as prosaic - The Canonical Holmes often complained about Dr John Watson's writing style:

Sherlock Holmes writes about Dr Watson's writing style in The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier: “..since I have often had occasion to point out to him how superficial are his own accounts and to accuse him of pandering to popular taste instead of confining himself rigidly to facts and figures.”

Sherlock Holmes tells Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Abbey Grange: “Your fatal habit of looking at everything from the point of view of a story instead of as a scientific exercise has ruined what might have been an instructive and even classical series of demonstrations. You slur over work of the utmost finesse and delicacy, in order to dwell upon sensational details which may excite, but cannot possibly instruct, the reader.” 

This is easily the best episode in this season and one of the best episodes in all three seasons combined. I did suspect Amit, but still the episode managed to surprise me with the twist. This is one of the best plots.

Credit to Jason Tracey, the writer for this episode. The director, John Polson has also done a great job. It is no coincidence, that he has also worked on some of the other episodes I have enjoyed so far:  “M.”  and “The Deductionist”.

Jonny Lee Miller and Ophelia Lovibond share a good chemistry as a mentor and his protege. Despite being initially apprehensive about Joan writing about the cases, Miller's Holmes finally acknowledges that she did have the right to do so. He cancels the Non Disclosure Agreement and even encourages Kitty to publish her own memoirs about their cases.

Ophelia finally comes into her own. She shows her trust in Sherlock's judgment by destroying the laptop containing Joan's draft. Being a victim of abuse, she can empathize with Gregson's daughter Hannah and plays a crucial role in resolving the conflict between Captain Gregson and Stotz. 

I also enjoyed Elementary Holmes' comment about prosecuting “Mencius Blackbag” for his crimes against the English language.

The best compliment I can pay is that Joan Watson was completely absent and the episode still managed to hold my attention till the end.

Hopefully, the show will manage to keep up the quality for the rest of the season.

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Elementary Season 3 Episode 4 "Bella" – Recap and Review

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) is hired by one Edwin Borstein (Michael Chernus). Edwin owns a software company specializing in Artificial Intelligence. Someone has stolen a copy of Bella, an AI program.

Sherlock is so intrigured by Bella's thoughts about love, he takes the case without any pay. He is more interested in beating Bella, rather than catching the culprit. He leaves that part to Joan Watson (Lucy Liu).

Joan and Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) strike a working relationship. They notice a similar case involving theft of a human genome. They narrow down the list of suspects to a single individual, based on a match in fingerprints.

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Sherlock and Joan conduct investigation at Edwin's office. We learn that only Edwin and Melinda Yee (Condola Rashad) had access to Bella.

Sherlock has already identified the aforementioned suspect as Mr Raffles, the legendary criminal. He also discovers that Mr Raffles has recently started working for Robert Burnett (Bill Winkler), Edwin's competitor in AI field. 

Sherlock deduces that Burnett used Mr Raffles' skills to illegally obtain a copy of Bella. He threatens Burnett into destroying the stolen copy, failing which Sherlock will reveal his misdoings to the authorities.
 

Before Sherlock can inform his client about the latest developments, Edwin is found dead. Melinda thinks that her employer has died from an epileptic attack.

Sherlock believes that his client has been murdered. Sherlock has a theory: Members of Existential Threat Research Association (ETRA) killed Edwin to gain more credibility for their message about the threat posed by AI to human survival.

Since Edwin was a fan of Death metal music, Sherlock listens to a CD (formerly in his client's possession) real loud in the NYPD office. He notices some anomalies in the track.

Sherlock's conjecture about ETRA is proven correct when another suspect, Michael Webb (Jonathan Judge-Russo) identifies Halley Feiffer (Ellen Rabin) as the person who entered his house under the disguise of a professional cleaning company worker.

Halley adores her mentor Isaac Pike (Michael Cristofer) and makes a quick confession. Sherlock deduces that she is covering up for Isaac.

He devises a less than ideal way to make Isaac confess to his crimes - by using his drug-addicted brother Joshua as a trump card. But Isaac has already done some research on Sherlock's addiction problems in the past. Isaac knows that Sherlock would not send a fellow addict to prison and calls Sherlock's bluff.

This is probably the best episode of this season. I liked the final chat between Sherlock and Isaac. There were some genuinely funny moments involving Mason (Robert Capron), the irregular hired by Sherlock for his AI skills to take down Bella.

This is the first time that Sherlock gets to do most of the detective work. Unlike the previous episodes, Joan enters the scene only at the sixth minute.

Speaking of hogging the limelight, it is Clyde (supposedly the breakout star of the show) whose face looms large at a very close range in the first scene. Sherlock is watching him eat lettuce, while delegating tasks to an understandably vexed Kitty. 

The secondary plot involved Joan Watson's boyfriend Andrew Paek (Raza Jaffrey) helping out Sherlock, after the latter explicitly seeks his help. Initially, Joan is not happy with this interaction, but Sherlock convinces her of his benign intentions.

In the end, Andrew is off to Copenhagen on a new business venture with Magnus, one of Sherlock's friends. Joan accompanies him on his flight trip, giving her interest in exploring Copenhagen as a motivating reason for her action.

Ophelia's Kitty Winter is relegated to the background this time.

But the episode did have a jarring moment: In an earlier scene featuring Edwin explaining his case to Sherlock, Jonny Lee Miller delivered a line off screen as the camera cut him off. Hopefully, such glaring lapses will not recur.

On a side note, there was mention of Turing Test: this test measures a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human.

This somehow reminded of the soon-to-be-released picture The Imitation Game starring the other Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) as Alan Turing.

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