TV Review: Elementary Episode # 18 - Deja Vu All Over Again

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes

The episode opens 6 months back as a woman is waiting to board her subway train. She is offered a bouquet of flowers by a hooded stranger. Her joy is short lived as she is soon pushed to her death right in front of the approaching train.

Meanwhile, Joan Watson is dining out with her friends when she receives a call about a possible client. Joan is intrigued with her client’s name – Sherlock.

We move back to the present. Sherlock’s sponsor Alfredo Llamosa (Ato Essandoh) has started teaching Joan “street skills”. In turn, Holmes spends couple of hours with Alfredo for each hour, he “mentors” Joan.

As readers might remember, Holmes had borrowed 2.2 million USD from his father. It is payback time and Holmes has to help a woman who works for his dad’s attorney.

Click on the link below to buy your copy of Season 1:

Rebecca Burrell (Geneva Carr)’s sister Callie Burrell (Roxanna Hope) has been missing for 6 months.  Rebecca believes her brother-in-law, Drew Gardner (Josh Hamilton) forced Callie to make a confession video and then killed her. Callie mentions that she is disturbed with the aforementioned subway death and is thinking of leaving her husband.

Holmes pushes Watson to take this up as her first case. Holmes takes the case of the subway killer, as he had lost an informant in a similar crime.

Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) takes up her first case as a Consulting Detective

Joan follows Drew around and breaks into his car to investigate the trunk, despite Alfredo’s strong protests. This lands Joan in jail and Holmes bails her out.

Holmes too is hot on the trail of a suspect, Anson Samuels (Jim True-Frost), who used to work with the subway victim, Vivian Tulley (Penny McNamee) and stalked her regularly.

Holmes is certain that these 2 cases are related just as Joan is convinced that Drew murdered his wife.

I will leave it to the readers to discover the solution for themselves.

Canonical References

1. Inside the attorney’s office, Holmes mentions about the glass being made of six inch polycarbonate – Reference to Watson’s listing of Holmes’s skills in A Study in Scarlet: “Knowledge of Chemistry. - Profound”.

2. Holmes’ remark: “There is no aspect more neglected than the art of tracking footsteps” – Direct reference to this statement by the Canonical Holmes from A Study in Scarlet: “There is no branch of detective science which is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.”

Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) approaches a fellow violin enthusiast

3. Holmes recognizes the tune being played by a violinist in the subway footage and tells Captain Gregson that he plays violin - Reference to Watson’s listing of Holmes’s skills in A Study in Scarlet: “Plays the violin well.”.

4. Captain Gregson’s comment to Holmes about not noticing him eat on that particular day – The Canonical Holmes is known to skip food when he is working hard on a case.

5. Miller’s Holmes quotes the eminent psychologist, Silvan Solomon Tomkins’ infamous line – “The face is like the penis”. This seeming indifference to Joan’s sensitivity reminded me of the deductions made by Holmes about Watson’s brother from his watch in The Sign of the Four. Yes, it is a bit tenuous connection and I can say it in no better way than to quote Holmes himself from Silver Blaze: “A long shot, Watson; a very long shot!”

This was one of the better episodes. There were a lot of fun moments.

Holmes’ statement: “Fortune favors the bold” was very Sherlockian in nature. His usage of the term “Tube pushers” was a nod to his British nature and a nice touch too. Holmes’ reaction to Joan’s intention to settle with Drew to drop his charges was a fine piece of acting by Miller.

Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Aidan Quinn as Captain Gregson 

I also liked Holmes and Gregson working together while interrogating Drew. This aspect of their relationship is similar to the great chemistry between Basil Rathbone's Holmes and Dennis Hoey's Lestrade.

Homes’ meeting with the imprisoned Joan was a pivotal moment and showed the level of passion with which Joan has taken to her detective work. Joan’s Columbo impression was funny too.

There were a couple of weak points though. Joan approaches Drew and introduces herself as being interested in solving the mystery of his missing wife. She proceeds to ask a number of questions about his personal life. Drew answering personal questions about his missing wife to a stranger (who did not present any official credentials or credentials of any kind) was not a believable sight.

As good as it was to see Joan gain the confidence of being a good detective, the closing scene of her updating her status as a “Consulting Detective” on her social media profile was a bit clichéd and induced some unintentional laughs.

Oscar Wilde said in his 1889 essay The Decay of Lying - "Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life." This episode reminded me of the subway tragedies in NYC towards the end of 2012.

On the whole, a good episode (by Elementary’s standards). The question is: Can they maintain this quality for the rest of the season?

Trivia

Holmes refers to Gas Light, a 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton. He makes this point during his discussion about “gaslighting”, a psychological form of making a person doubt his/her own sanity and beliefs.

Click here to read all my posts about CBS Elementary.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to this blog by clicking here.

Image Source: CBS

You might also like:

Sherlock

Is CBS Elementary a good adaptation of Sherlock Holmes?

Movie Review: Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)

The movie starts in black and white and we meet Oz (James Franco), a magician with a flair for seducing women. He dreams of acquiring fame and money and is willing to sacrifice the love of his life Annie (Michelle Williams) to realize his ambitions.

But fate has different plans for Oz and he is forced to flee in a hot air balloon. He is magically transported to the Land of Oz.

Oz meets lovely Theodora (Mila Kunis) and is upto his old tricks again. She falls for him and believes him to be the wizard, who according to a prophecy, will save the Land of Oz from the Bad Witch.

James Franco and Mila Kunis in Oz the Great and Powerful

Theodora's sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz) is less welcoming and informs Oz that he needs to kill the aforementioned witch before he can start enjoying a life of riches. Oz also picks up a talking monkey, Finley (Zach Braff) and China Girl (Joey King).

We then meet the Good Witch, Glinda (Michelle Williams). Glinda is able to see through the character of Oz for the selfish coward that he actually is. Still, she introduces Oz as the savior to the people and privately asks Oz to keep up the show.

Evanora is revealed to be the Bad Witch and she manipulates Theodora into attacking Oz and Glinda. Theodora is transformed into an ugly witch, thanks to Evanora.

Rachel Weisz as Evanora

The rest of the movie deals with how Oz lives up his prophecy and saves Glinda and her people from the combined onslaught of Evanora and Theodora.

I have enjoyed all of Sam Raimi's movies (Evil Dead trilogy, Spiderman trilogy and Drag me to Hell) I have seen so far. This movie proved to be the exception.

This is a typical summer blockbuster movie. While there is nothing wrong with that, it deprives the movie of the humor and wit that Sam Raimi is known for.

All his trademarks are there: the fast camera movements (in a couple of scenes), cameos by Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi and the Evil Dead hand scene reference. But they seem more like obligatory nods to his fans.

The movie boasts of some excellent CGI work, as can be expected from a big budget movie from a top notch director and the biggest movie studio. What the movie lacks is originality. There are some clever touches here and there, but I was reminded of Avatar, Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland more than once.

I also felt that the actors were kind of lost in the green screens they had to work with. The digital imagery takes precedence. This need not be the case. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is an example of fantasy movie making where both the imaginary landscapes and the actors complement each other to present the ultimate immersive experience for the viewer. Peter Jackson's movies transported us to Middle Earth during the movies' running time. Unfortunately, this is not the case with this movie.

I have never been a big fan of James Franco's acting and this movie does not help his case. Just as it was in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, he continues to be upstaged by the computer generated cast members. Andy Serkis stole the show as Ceasar, the chimp in that movie. Here, it is Zach Braff as Finley and Joey King as China Girl who make the best impression.

Joey King as China Girl and Zach Braff as Finley 

These 2 characters breathe more life into the movie than the rest of the cast combined and the visual effects team deserves full credit. Both Zach and Joey do some excellent voice work and are more appealing in their computerized representations than as flesh and blood characters.

Zach has some of the funniest lines in the movie and he delivers them to great comedic effect. His exchange with Oz about stereotypes was probably the best. Speaking of stereotypes, the movie also pokes fun at the general perception of witches being ugly and riding on broomsticks.

Click on the link below to buy your copy:

Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams are here to collect their pay checks. Tony Cox and Bruce Campbell fare much better in their much briefer roles.

I have enjoyed a lot of Disney movies in the past: The Lion King, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo and the Pirates of the Caribbean series. I believe there are 2 types of Disney movies: one for mass consumption and the second one, I prefer to call Disney movies for kids. This one unfortunately falls in the second category.

Yes, this is a Disney movie for kids

This is a predictable Disney family movie that delivers exactly what a Disney family movie always does.

Fans of Sam Raimi would probably do better by rewatching his earlier movies. Fans of fantasy genre have the Lord of the Rings trilogy and/or the Harry Potter series.

I would recommend this movie strictly to die hard fans of Disney movies.

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to this blog by clicking here.

Image Source: Walt Disney Pictures

You might also like:

Man of Steel

Iron Man 3