Friday, January 3, 2014

CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode # 12 "The Diabolical Kind" - Review

Natalie Dormer guest stars as Jamie Moriarty Irene Adler with Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes with a painting of Joan Watson in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 12 The Diabolical Kind

The opening scenes offer a quick summary of Sherlock's experiences with Jamie Moriarty/Irene Adler (Natalie Dormer) from the previous season episodes, “Heroine” and “The Woman”.

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) is off to an date with a guy she met from an online dating site, TrueRomantix.

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) has been hiding his correspondence with Moriarty in the beehive he has been maintaining.

An armed and disguised gang kidnaps Kayden Fuller (Delphina Belle), a seven year old girl after killing her father, Uriah Fuller, a wealthy British businessman.

Miss Allison Fuller (Rachel Pickup) soon receives a ransom call for 50 million dollars. Sherlock deduces that the voice belongs to one of Moriarty's lieutenants, who had previously passed off as Moriarty. Sherlock names him “Faux-riarty”.

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Ramses Mattoo (Faran Tahir) is in charge of Moriarty's lockup and he takes Holmes, Joan and Gregson to meet Sherlock's archenemy/ lover.

Devon Gaspar (Andrew Howard), the aforementioned Faux-riarty is still waiting for orders from Moriarty and is keeping the morale of the gang by promising a big payoff.

Jamie works out a deal with her captors and agrees to assist NYPD in solving the kidnapping case. She informs them that Devon is a former British intelligence agent and gives her sketch of Devon and the possible men he has hired.

Jamie visits the Fuller residence and catches up with Joan. Jamie confesses to Joan that Miller's Holmes is the only person in the world can talk to and understand her, just as the way she is the only one who can talk to him.

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 12 The Diabolical Kind

Two cops are ambushed by Devon and one of his cohorts. Sherlock deduces that Moriarty sent an encrypted message to Devon thorough her sketches and that Gasper had already been communicating to his boss via newspaper ads.

I recommend the viewers to check out the episode to find out the resolution to the mystery.

Canonical References

1. Elementary Holmes makes the statement: “I conduct myself as though I'm above matters of the heart...” - Sherlock Holmes states in The Adventure of the Lion's Mane: “..for my brain has always governed my heart, ..”

2. Miller's Sherlock makes the observation: “...love, for lack of a better word, is a game I fail to understand, and so I opt not to play.” - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia: “All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer.”
 
3. Miller's Holmes speaks in French to one of his Interpol contacts - Sherlock Holmes states in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter: “But, none the less, my turn that way is in my veins, and may have come with my grandmother, who was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.”

Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu as Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 12 The Diabolical Kind

4. Elementary Sherlock using cryptography to decode the messages exchanged between Gaspar and Moriarty - Sherlock Holmes remarks in The Sign of the Four: “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.”

5.  One of Devon's henchmen is named John Clay (played by Andy Murray) - Reference to the character of the same name in The Adventure of the Red-Headed League. Sherlock Holmes described him as “the fourth smartest man in London”.

6. Jamie Moriarty makes a key deduction based on clay subsoil found on a character's boots - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes' knowledge in A Study in Scarlet: “Geology.— Practical, but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers,and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.”

7. Jamie Moriarty confesses to maintaining a dossier of interesting facts, most of which she assembled herself - Dr John Watson writes about Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia: “For many years he had adopted a system of docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he could not at once furnish information.”


Natalie Dormer guest stars as Jamie Moriarty Irene Adler with Andrew Howard as Devon Gaspar in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 12 The Diabolical Kind

This was a good episode. Natalie Dormer is a blast as always as Moriarty. She makes a masterful and cunning criminal mastermind.

Miller's Holmes does not get to show much humor this time around, thanks to the presence of Moriarty. I did enjoy his line about Joan going through a series of “curated mating rituals”. Equally well done was his logic for taking out the telephone from the closet to put more emphasis in his calls.

Lucy Liu's Joan Watson is pushed to be a sideshow as well. There is however one noteworthy moment of Detective Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) practicing shooting. That scene was truly (and unintentionally) hilarious.


Faran Tahir guest stars as Ramses Mattoo with Aidan Quinn as Captain Thomas Gregson in CBS Elementary Season 2 Episode 12 The Diabolical Kind

This is an out and out Natalie Dormer's show and is a recommended watch to Elementary fans.

Trivia

The song “The Crooked Kind” by Radical Face can be heard in the closing scenes of Miller's Holmes sitting by the fireplace in the brownstone.

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Image Source: CBS 

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Step Nine

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

BBC Sherlock Christmas Mini-Episode "Many Happy Returns" - Review

Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in BBC Sherlock Christmas Episode Many Happy Returns Season 3 Prequel

Dear Readers,

The Christmas mini episode of BBC Sherlock has arrived.

The rest of the post might contain spoilers. Please watch the video first, if you wish to avoid spoilers.




The episode opens in a Buddhist monastery, in which a blonde female smuggler is caught by an abbott with extraordinary powers of observation and deduction.

The scene cuts to Anderson (Jonathan Aris) and Detective Inspector Lestrade (Rupert Graves) discussing about the possibility of Sherlock surviving the fall. Anderson has been obsessively looking out for signs of Sherlock's existence, to the extent of losing his job.

Anderson brings up the next sighting in New Delhi, India where the solution to a particular case strongly suggests the presence of a genius. The third sighting is of an mysterious juror in Hamburg, where one Herr Trepoff is proven to be guilty of the murder of his wife, despite all the other jurors believing in his innocence.

Lestrade advises Anderson to try to get his job back and then meets John Watson (Martin Freeman) to hand over an uncut version of the video of Sherlock's message on John's birthday. Interesting thing to note is that John refers to Lestrade by his first name “Greg” (a nice nod to the inn scene in “The Hounds of Baskerville”).

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Canonical References

1. The first sighting of Sherlock by Anderson takes place in the Buddhist monastery - Sherlock Holmes states to Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Empty House: “I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhassa, and spending some days with the head lama.”

2. In the second sighting in New Delhi, India: The local inspector solves the case by working out the depth to which the chocolate flake had sunk into victim's ice-cream cone. This is a reference to The Adventure of the Six Napoleons, in which Sherlock Holmes remarks to Dr John Watson: “You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.”

3. Anderson commenting to Lestrade about Sherlock's refusal to take credit for solving the latter's cases - Sherlock Holmes often refuses to take any credit from Scotland Yard in many cases in the Canon

4. Anderson chiding Lestrade for not seeing the signs of Sherlock's genius at work - Sherlock Holmes makes a similar statement to Dr John Watson in A Scandal in Bohemia: “You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.” 

5. The Herr Trepoff case - Dr John Watson writes in A Scandal in Bohemia: “From time to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder,...”

6. Anderson notes that Sherlock is getting closer to London, with the recent sightings in Germany, Netherlands and the latest one in France - Sherlock Holmes informs Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Empty House: “Returning to France, I spent some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I conducted in a laboratory at Montpellier, in the south of France.” 

Martin Freeman as Dr John Watson in BBC Sherlock Christmas Episode Many Happy Returns Season 3 Prequel

7. In addition to a pink phone (presumably from A Study in Pink), a yellow mask can be seen inside Lestrade's box - This is a reference to the main plot of The Adventure of the Yellow Face: Sherlock Holmes is sought out by Grant Munro to solve the mystery behind a yellow-faced person in a nearby cottage (credit to Swanpride)

8. Sherlock's statement about missing John's dinner: “Of course, I am going to miss dinner. There will be people” - 

Sherlock Holmes remarks to Dr John Watson in The Adventure of the Gloria Scott: “I was never a very sociable fellow, Watson, always rather fond of moping in my rooms and working out my own little methods of thought, so that I never mixed much with the men of my year.”

Dr John Watson also writes about Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia: “...Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.”

9. Sherlock notes in the video that he has written an essay on suppressed hatred in close proximity after observing John's friends - Sherlock Holmes notes in The Adventure of the Dying Detective: “Malingering is a subject upon which I have sometimes thought of writing a monograph.” Holmes has already written monographs on cigar ashes (A Study in Scarlet) and tracing of footsteps (The Sign of the Four).

Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes wearing deerstalker and Dr John Watson outside 221 B Baker Street in BBC Sherlock Season 3

The episode has everything that fans have liked about the show so far: the trademark visual text, the humor (the newspaper headline proclaiming “The game is back on!”) and references to Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories.

Benedict Cumberbatch is back in the game as Sherlock. I liked his explanation for refusing to elaborate on his excuse to skip John's birthday: “Only lies have details”.

This is a veritable Christmas treat for fans. Sherlock Season 3 debuts with the first episode “The Empty Hearse” on Jan 01 2014 in the UK and on Jan 19 2014 in the US.

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Image Sources: BBC Wales, Hartswood Films, Masterpiece Theatre

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