Elementary

CBS

Creator: Robert Doherty

Executive Producers: Robert Doherty, Carl Beverly, Sarah Timberman, Craig Sweeny & Michael Cuesta

Music: Sean Callery, Zoe Keating

Regular Cast: Jonny Lee Miller (Sherlock Holmes); Lucy Liu (Joan Watson); Aidan Quinn (Captain Tobias Gregson); Jon Michael Hill (Detective Marcus Bell); Stephen Park (Oren Watson); Vinnie Jones (Sebastian Moran); Natalie Dormer (Irene Adler); Linda Emond (Dr Candace Reed); Ato Essandoh (Alfredo Llamosa); Kristine Johnson (TV Reporter); Michael Iannucci (Medical Examiner); Erik Jensen (Isaac Proctor)

Jon Michael Hill appears in episodes 2-24 only

Stephen Park appears in Episodes 10 and 24 only - in the latter, he is uncredited

Vinnie Jones appears in episodes 12 and 21 only

Natalie Dormer appears in episodes 22-24 only

Linda Emond appears in episodes 12, 13 and 16 only

Ato Essandoh appears in episodes 6, 18 and 20 only

Kristine Johnson appears in episodes 21 and 22 only

Michael Iannucci appears in episodes 23 and 24 only

Erik Jensen appears in episodes 23 and 24 only

1X01: Pilot

US Airdate: 27 September 2012

Writer: Robert Doherty

Director: Michael Cuesta

Guest Cast: Dallas Roberts (Dr Richard Mantlo); Manny Perez (Detective Javier Abreu); Jonathan Walker (Harrison Polk); Kristen Bush (Eileen Renfro); Craig Walker (Peter Saldua); Michael Nathanson (Infomercial Narrator); Randal Turner (Male Opera Singer); Melissa Zapin (Female Opera Singer); Sherry H Arell (Shushing Lady); Annika Boras (Amy Damper)*; Ward Horton (Soap Opera Actor)*; Roy Pollack (NYC Pedestrian)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Joan Watson’s first day as sober companion to Sherlock Holmes does not go as expected. Holmes, a consultant with the NYPD, leads her to the home of psychiatrist Dr Richard Mantlo, who has notified the police following the disappearance of his wife, Amy Dampier. Following an examination of a struggle in the couple’s home, Holmes leads Captain Gregson to Amy’s dead body in the safe room.

Holmes and Watson speak to a Dr Harrison Polk, a friend of the Mantlos, who confirms that Amy underwent a good deal of unnecessary plastic surgery.

Holmes suspects that the killer may have struck before. He tracks down Eileen Renfrow, who is physically similar to Amy, and managed to survive an attack by the same man. Annoyed by Holmes’ bombastic approach, she later admits to Watson that she knew her attacker, Peter Saldua, who now works for a florist in Chelsea. But Saldua is dead, an apparent suicide. His cell phone is missing from his home. It’s learned that Saldua delivered fresh flowers to the Mantlo house every week and that he’d been seeing a psychologist, Dr Jessop, who died of a heart attack two years earlier.

Holmes suspects that Dr Mantlo took over Saldua’s treatment from Jessop, provided his patient with steroids in order to increase his aggression levels, and pressured his wife into having plastic surgery, thus making her more like Saldua’s preferred victim type. Frustrated by the lack of evidence and Mantlo’s insistence that he never knew or treated Saldua, Holmes drives Watson’s car into the psychiatrist’s own vehicle and winds up in jail. While he is locked up, Watson is struck by the presence of a large bag of rice in Saldua’s home, despite his allergies. Holmes deduces that Saldua accidentally put his cellphone in the washing machine, and subsequently placed it in the bag of rice in an attempt to dry it out. Saldua recorded all his sessions with Mantlo on his phone, and now that it is functioning again, Gregson has enough evidence to charge him.

The Best and the wisest man: Holmes first appears shirtless, practising a memory game which involves watching several television recordings simultaneously (we see him do this again in The Long Fuse and Dirty Laundry). His father owns five properties in New York, a fact that becomes relevant in the episode M. He considers the brownstone in which he lives to be the shoddiest of all the residences. The address of the brownstone still has yet to be revealed at the end of Season One. He tells Watson that he often gets bored. He uses Google when his deductive abilities fail him. He refers to the New York subway system as “the tube.” He insists that he doesn’t really care for opera, even though his father thinks he’s a buff. This may well be an example of Holmes’ resentment for his unseen and unnamed parent, since he knows when a singer is off-key. He has no mirrors in his home. Watson suggests that Holmes knows a lost cause when he sees one.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan Watson was once a surgeon, but made a mistake during surgery which cost a patient their life. No specific details of this tragedy have been revealed thus far, and the name of the patient has never been stated. She still visits his grave in Culver Cemetery. Abandoning medicine, she became a sober companion. Her services have been secured by Holmes’ father for six weeks, meaning that she and Sherlock investigate roughly two cases per week until she is forced to make a decision regarding her future in M. In this episode, she addresses her charge as “Mr Holmes;” for the rest of the series, she calls him “Sherlock”. She has two alarm clocks, because getting up is such a chore. Watson has a car, but it’s never seen after Holmes smashes it up (in The Red Team, she’s driving a rental). To paraphrase Futurama, nobody drives in New York because there’s too much traffic. She’s a baseball fan, though this never crops up again. In fairness, the Canonical Watson’s fondness for rugby is rarely mentioned either. Like Martin Freeman, Lucy Liu has decided to play Watson without a moustache. A wise choice - it’s not a look that would suit either of them.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Captain Toby (?) Gregson first met Holmes when the American was observing counter-terrorism procedures in London. Holmes has deduced his password for the NYPD website. He likes to hang out in an Irish pub.

Detective Javier Abreu makes his one and only appearance in this episode. His role and characteristics are transferred to Detective Bell in the very next episode.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Holmes’ observations regarding the lack of symmetry in Mantlo’s living room recall not a Holmes tale, but G K Chesterton’s Father Brown mystery The Worst Crime in the World.

In Conan Doyle’s His Last Bow, the retired Holmes has written a book entitled Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, With Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen. The CBS Sherlock keeps a hive of bees on the roof (honey drips through the ceiling sometimes). He’s writing a book with the same title, but it exists entirely in his mind - he’s reached Chapter 19.

Captain Gregson shares his name with Inspector Tobias Gregson, who appears in A Study in Scarlet, The Greek Interpreter and The Red Circle. Holmes considered him “the smartest of the Scotland Yarders.” By the next episode, Gregson’s forename has changed to Thomas.

I have never loved: Watson sees a prostitute leaving the brownstone as she arrives. Holmes insists that he finds sex repellent but feeds the need as his body requires it. Watson doesn’t believe him, but future episodes seem to bear out his claim.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes has been confined at Hemdale Rehabilitation Facility, but escaped shortly before he was due to be released. He watched baseball games with the other inmates at Hemdale.

He tells Watson he’s finished with drugs, though the temptation he’s placed under later in the season suggests that this is wishful thinking on his part.

Watson conducts a saliva test on Holmes after he unplugs her alarm clocks in order to ditch her.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Most of the comedy in Elementary revolves around Holmes’ ability to embarrass Watson in social situations. As the series progresses, and Lucy Liu’s gift for playing the straight man becomes apparent, such scenes become more widespread, but the sole example in this episode comes when the detective joins her at the opera, but only in order to discuss the case and cause her to pretend not to see or hear him. It’s worth noting that the short promos for each episode focus almost exclusively on the show’s humorous elements.

My head is in a whirl: Watson thinks Holmes’ act of auto-vandalism is part of a bigger plan, but if she’s correct, we never find out what that plan is. It seems to be simply an act of sheer spite and rage.

It seems very likely that Mantlo could escape conviction for his wife’s murder, given that the evidence proves only that he treated Saldua, a fact that would surely come under the category of doctor-patient confidentiality anyway.

“Consider every wretched hive of murder and depravity in this city my place of business.” It’s clear from the start that the team behind Elementary are playing a long game. Holmes and Watson are still quite cautious around one another, and their relationship throughout is notably frosty. Miller’s performance suggests Nicol Williamson’s twitchy, cocaine-addicted Holmes in the movie The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, struggling to overcome his cravings and prove his worth to the police.

1X02: While You Were Sleeping

US Airdate: 4 October 2012

Writer: Robert Doherty

Director: John David Coles

Guest Cast: Jennifer Ferrin (Rebecca Ellison); Bill Heck (Ty Morstan); Casey Siemaszko (Mike McGee); Rosa Arredondo (Elaine); Chris Bresky (Recovering Addict); Amy Landon (Yvette Ellison); Rey Lucas (Martin); Ken Marks (Moderator); Asa Somers (Doctor); Paul Michael Valley (Burley Man); Dj Nino Carta (Hospital Patient)*; Ava Paloma (Mary Margaret Phelps)*; Tom Stratford (Core Detective)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Casey McManus is shot in his home, having apparently surprised a burglar. Holmes deduces from the odour of deodorant that the killer was a woman. A witness provides the police with a description of the mysterious female, whom Detective Bell tracks down to St Isadora’s hospital. But Yvette Ellison has been in a coma for three days and couldn’t possibly have committed the crime, even though her deodorant matches that smelled by Holmes at the crime scene. He finds that Yvette has a twin, but Rebecca Ellison does not look at all like her sister.

There’s a second shooting in Queens, and Holmes proves that the victim, Anna Webster, is related to Casey McManus. Anna was being watched by a private detective, Mike McGee, who reluctantly confesses that his clients were Yvette and Rebecca Ellison, who have been tracking down their late father’s bastard children.

Rebecca admits to knowing that Casey and Anna could lay claim to some of the estate. Holmes is convinced that Rebecca is the killer, but has no idea why she should have chosen to impersonate her comatose sister. Gregson is forced to release her when she provides an unbreakable alibi.

Confronting Rebecca at the hospital, Holmes informs her that there is another heir. Bell arrests Holmes after he makes a scene and punches the officer. But it’s all a ruse, and Gregson arrests Yvette at the address of the third heir (who turns out to be an undercover police officer). Holmes and Watson explain to Rebecca that Yvette was having an affair with a doctor, who placed her in a medically-induced coma, from which she regularly emerged to commit the murders.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes has learned how to put himself into a trance during AA meetings. He doesn’t share. He has a collection of locks, which he picks. He denies owning the violin Watson finds in the closet. When he is shown to be lying, he sets fire to it. At the end of the episode, he plays a (different?) pristine violin, though he is not seen to do so again for the remainder of the Season. He claims that half his face is leathery from the number of slaps he has received over the years. He has hacked Joan’s e-mail.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson displays her first glimmerings as a detective, pointing out something the cops missed. Holmes is impressed. Joan’s parents have reached out to her ex-lover, Ty, regarding her (to them) inexplicable decision to switch careers. She hasn’t been returning her mother’s phone calls.

The efficiency of our detective police force: This episode marks the first appearance of Detective Bell, one of Gregson’s “best guys.” His first name, Marcus, is not revealed until late in the season, in the episode Details. He considers Holmes nuts and calls him “Harry Potter.” Bell is presumably named for Dr Joseph Bell, Conan Doyle’s original inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

Gregson is happily married (and, we learn in Dead Man’s Switch, a parent). He addresses Holmes as “Sherlock” here, but in later episodes switches to the more formal “Holmes.” He found the consultant to be a pain when they met in London, and is apparently under the impression that Holmes was in London two weeks earlier rather than in rehab. Mike McGee is an old friend, and former colleague.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Holmes explains his “attic theory” of how the mind works, taken directly from A Study in Scarlet (and also used in the Sherlock episode The Great Game). “It’s important not to have useless facts... crowding out the useful ones.” Without success, Watson points out to him that the brain doesn’t work that way.

Holmes’ skills as a violinist are mentioned throughout the Canon.

Ty bears the same surname - Morstan - as John H Watson’s first wife Mary. It is never stated onscreen, however, and there is no suggestion that he might make a return appearance.

I have never loved: Holmes figures out that Ty is Watson’s ex-lover, and advises her to sleep with him. She doesn’t.

A seven-per-cent solution: The episode begins at an group support meeting. Holmes realises the solution at another meeting.

He recognises the signs of substance abuse in Gregson’s old friend Mike.

Watson promises to give Holmes a drug test when she returns from her dinner date.

He refuses Gregson’s offer of a celebratory drink. This proves to have consequences in the episode Rat Race.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Watson’s reaction when Holmes sets his violin alight is hilarious, particularly since, Airplane-style, we see him preparing the blaze in the background while she’s on the phone. They argue over his plans to test whether or not Yvette is faking her coma by stabbing her in the thigh.

When Holmes mentions the familiar deodorant, Bell responds: “Too bad we can’t put out an APB on an armpit.”

Holmes, upon overhearing the name of Joan’s ex: “Ty - funny name, that. Noun, verb, nationality.”

My head is in a whirl: The episode title rather gives away the solution.

The pale stripe of skin left by a wedding ring on the doctor’s finger is seen clearly in flashbacks, but is invisible in the original scene.

Holmes’ ability to deduce Watson’s recent lack of sexual activity based upon her gait is nonsense.

Is there no simpler way to trap Yvette than to stage such an elaborate charade? Wouldn’t any of the hospital’s security cameras show an apparently comatose patient walking around? Is this an example of Holmes’ inability to resist a touch of the dramatic?

The CBS website lists Gregson’s first name as Tobias, but here Mike McGee calls him “Tommy”, not Toby. The Elementary writers’ Twitter feed has confirmed that he is indeed called Thomas. Stranger still, a CBS interview with Aidan Quinn refers to his character as “Captain Grayson.”

“Is it sad being wrong as often as you’re right?”

The first really satisfying mystery of the series, with two highpoints - the first when Bell reveals that the prime suspect is in a coma, and the second when Holmes’ theory that the murder was committed by Yvette Ellison’s twin is shattered by the discovery that Rebecca is a fraternal rather than an identical twin sister. Lucy Liu is wasted in too many scenes where she is present but has not a single line of dialogue, as in the sequence at Mike McGee’s office. This problem is addressed in later episodes.

1X03: Child Predator

US Airdate: 18 October 2012

Writer: Peter Blake

Director: Rod Holcomb

Guest Cast: Johnny Simmons (Adam Kemper); Yancey Arias (Robert Castillo); Michael Countryman (Barry Kemper); Erin Dilly (Amanda Kemper); Selenis Leyva (Sara Castillo); Christopher Evan Welch (Samuel Abbott); Larisa Polonsky (Lori Thomas); Flint Beverage (Sgt. O’Donnell); Andrew M Chamberlain (Adam Kemper Aged 12); Don Guillory (News Cameraman); Brian O’Neill (Kemper Family Attorney); José Báez (Prisoner); Katelynn Bailey (Mariana Castillo)*; Ludovic Coutaud (Prostitute)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Holmes is alerted via his police scanner to the abduction of Mariana Castillo, a 7-year old child. It’s the work of a notorious criminal known as the Balloon Man (because of his habit of leaving a bunch of party balloons at the site of each crime).

Mr Castillo’s ex-mistress was outside the family home on the night Mariana was taken, and she recalls seeing a dark brown van speeding past. Holmes and Watson find evidence that the vehicle may have been repainted. With this information, the police are able to track down the Balloon Man’s decommissioned NYPD van. But the driver is too young to be the kidnapper. Holmes recognises him as Adam Kemper, the Balloon Man’s first victim, taken at age 12 in 2005.

The youth is far from forthcoming, but after speaking to him, Holmes realises that the Balloon Man has a night job delivering newspapers. From this deduction, the police are able to identify the kidnapper as Samuel Abbott, but when they storm his last known address, they find only a memory stick on which Abbott has recorded a demand for Adam’s return, in exchange for Mariana.

Adam accepts immunity and gives up the location of Abbott’s hideout. The police rescue the girl, but Abbott shoots himself rather than be captured. An examination of the apartment brings Holmes to a horrifying conclusion: Abbott isn’t the Balloon Man, Adam is! He’s dominated Abbott ever since he was snatched and from the age of 14 ordered the adult to commit further abductions.

The immunity agreement means that he can’t be charged for any crimes committed in concert with Abbott. But his abductor was in hospital during the killing of the fifth victim, William Crawford, in 2009. Adam therefore acted alone, and can be arrested for murder.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes lies to Watson about his intention to join her on a jog. He first became interested in the Balloon Man while still in London. He prefers to talk rather than to listen, once to a phrenology bust he named Angus (shades of the skull the BBC’s Sherlock deems a friend.) He was sent to boarding school at age 5. He tells Adam Kemper that he was bullied there by a boy named Anders Larson (the name has no Canonical associations whatsoever). He later indicates that the story may not have been entirely true. He doesn’t sleep during a case. He mans his scanner again in Flight Risk.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson, too, remembers the Balloon Man’s crimes. She exercised to keep herself awake while cramming for tests at medical school, where she was valedictorian. At the end of the episode, she brews a cup of tea intended to detoxify and cleanse Holmes’ system.

The efficiency of our detective police force: This is the first episode in which Gregson and Holmes are seen to be at odds, after the consultant asks to interview Adam Kemper. He’s threatened by the Castillo family when he refuses to hand Adam over to Abbott.

Bell is in the episode, too, but his involvement is minimal to say the least. Get used to this - Jon Michael Hill is criminally underused in many episodes.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds:

Holmes quotes a famous line from Conan Doyle’s first novel, A Study in Scarlet: “From a drop of water, a logician can infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of either one.”

I have never loved: Holmes lists prostitutes as being among those to whom he enjoyed talking about his cases while living in London.

A seven-per-cent solution: Watson is shocked when she spots Holmes handling a bottle of wine in the Castillo’s fridge. This is a surprisingly drug-free episode, considering how early on it is in the Holmes-Watson relationship.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: The scene where Watson teaches Holmes to stay awake by performing squats is the first suggestion of a bond between the two beside the purely professional. The fact that Holmes is prepared to look silly by taking her advice may not be hilarious, but it’s oddly sweet.

He admits to lying when he agreed to join Watson on a jog. “When I say I agree with you, it means I’m not listening.” he reinforces the point, by agreeing with her moments later.

My head is in a whirl: Why on earth do the cops who enter Samuel Abbott’s home handle the memory stick with their bare hands?

“I handed a psychopath a Get Out of Jail Free card.”

The previous episode may have offered several surprising twists, but the revelation of Adam’s guilt is more satisfying still, aided in no small part by Johnny Simmons’ unsettling performance. It’s a real shame that Peter Blake has only written one more episodes for the series, You Do it to Yourself.

1X04: The Rat Race

US Airdate: 25 October 2012

Writer: Craig Sweeny

Director: Rosemary Rodriguez

Guest Cast: Craig Bierko (Jim Fowkes); Molly Price (Donna Kaplan); Luke Kirby (Aaron Ward); Jennifer Van Dyck (Alyssa Talbott); Andrew Pang (Dan Cho); Susan Pourfar (Emily Hankins); Tim Ewing (Sommelier); Judy Kuhn (Board Member); Nicole Patrick (Barista); Stephen Plunkett (Martin Rydell); Alison Walla (Girlfriend); Lim Ferguson (Local Sheriff)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Holmes and Watson are summoned by the board of directors of investment firm Canon-Ebersole. Their COO Peter Talbot has vanished, and an examination of his office reveals that the executive has a fondness for prostitutes.

The search ends at an apartment in Tribeca, but when Holmes and Watson find Talbot, he is dead, apparently from a heroin overdose. The NYPD consider his death accidental, but Holmes is intrigued by the fact that Talbot’s predecessor died from peanut allergies, another convenient accident. He begins to suspect that several Canon-Ebersole executives may have been murdered by an ambitious colleague.

In a stroke of inspiration, he realises that the killer is not prime suspect Jim Fowkes, but his secretary, Donna Kaplan. She has killed in order to ensure Fowkes’ rise to power (and, by extension, hers). Confronting her, Holmes is zapped by Donna’s taser. She intends to bury him on Fowkes’ property.

In an attempt to put Watson off the scent, Donna replies to one of her texts, omitting Holmes’ preferred use of abbreviations. When Joan realises he couldn’t have sent the message, she alerts Gregson, and the cops arrive just as Donna is forcing Holmes to dig his own grave.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes loves text-speak, and Watson considers his abbreviations indecipherable, a fact that saves his life at the episode’s climax. Gregson calls him a weirdo (though he also apparently tells Jim Fowkes that Holmes is the finest investigator he’s ever known). He loathes bankers and considers them crooks. He has no rate of pay. He thinks most of the killers he’s known rather dreary. He is not a fan of John Maynard Keynes. He can imitate an American accent pretty well and speaks Mandarin, though not as well as he’d like. This is the first time we see Holmes attempt to solve a case by pinning up all available documented evidence above the fireplace in the brownstone. For the first but not the last time this season, Holmes gets out of a pair of handcuffs.

I am lost without my Boswell: The opening scene of the episode shows Watson breaking client-patient confidentiality in order to locate Holmes. She too speaks Mandarin, but not as well as her mother would like. She’s never been married, so we know that her former partner, Ty (seen in While You Were Sleeping), is not an ex-husband.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is again at odds with Holmes when the consultant asks to interrogate Peter Talbot’s widow. When Holmes finally confesses his addiction problems, the policeman tells him that he already knew, having tested him with the offer of a drink during While You Were Sleeping.

Bell, who, again, barely appears, is similarly unimpressed with Holmes’ suggestion that someone may have laced Talbot’s salad with heroin.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: There are no Canonical quotes or references in this episode. Shame.

I have never loved: Watson suggests that Holmes may be as familiar with prostitutes as Peter Talbot.

Her friend sets her up with a blind date, Aaron Ward. She puts her hair up whenever she meets an attractive man. Joan suspects Aaron is married, and Holmes confirms her suspicions. Aaron insists he married a woman from Kosovo to get her citizenship. Unnerved by the fact that she spotted his lie, he breaks up with her.

A seven-per-cent solution: Watson is dismayed when Holmes orders the most expensive bottle of wine on a restaurant menu, charging it to his employers. He sends it over to a courting couple.

The presence of heroin in the room where Peter Talbot died causes Joan to worry that Sherlock might relapse at any moment. Holmes is familiar with the typical apartment of a heroin addict and with the smell of cooked heroin. Watson administers a drug test to Holmes after her date.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: After his investigation stalls, Holmes slams a basketball into the floor repeatedly, claiming it helps him think, but in reality he’s probably doing it to get rid of Watson.

Prime suspect Jim Fowkes: “Do you know what it takes just to survive at a place like Canon-Ebersole?” Holmes: “I’d think avoiding you would be a good start.”

My head is in a whirl: Why didn’t Donna Kaplan remove the salad containing heroin from Talbot’s secret apartment? Without it, Holmes would have no reason to suspect murder. Having been so careful in all her previous murders, this seems like a careless but very convenient lapse.

Gregson claims that he tested Holmes by offering to buy him a drink some weeks earlier, but in the pilot, the two of them are seen together in an Irish pub.

“If I’m going to get in bed with the croupiers of a rigged game, I’m going to make damn sure their wallets are lighter in the morning.” A solid episode, utilising what will become a standard Elementary plot device, a previously unsuspected second mystery arising from the resolution of the first. For the second time since the pilot, Holmes almost fails to give Watson the credit she deserves. It’s pleasant to see him suitably humbled in the closing scenes, but of course, there’s no way it’ll last.

1X05: Lesser Evils

US Airdate:1 November 2012

Writer: Liz Friedman

Director: Colin Bucksey

Guest Cast: David Harbour (Dr Mason Baldwin); David Constabile (Danilo Gura); Ben Rappaport (Dr Cahill); Jenni Barber (Jacqueline Zoltana); Anika Noni Rose (Dr Carrie Dwyer); Eric Deskin (Richard Sanchez); Jonathan C Kaplan (Barista Dave); Jay Klaitz (Bruce); Shauna Miles (Nurse); Eric Engleman (Security Guard); Rozi Baker (Morgan Duncan); Mike Getz (Trent Kelty)*; Shawn Gonzalez (Reporter)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Visiting Chandler Memorial hospital, Holmes spots the body of Trent Kelty in the mortuary, and instantly believes that the old man was murdered, the crime disguised as a heart attack.

He finds evidence that someone in the dead man’s room had purchased a drink from a nearby coffee shop. A chat with a horny barista leads Holmes and Watson to Kelty’s female visitor. She tells them that the old man, who was dying of cancer, often had late-night discussions with a doctor regarding pain relief. Holmes believes that the hospital has its own Angel of Death, who has taken the lives of at least nine terminal patients.

Prime suspect is Dr Mason Baldwin, a surgeon who specialises in high-risk cases. Holmes and Watson capture a Dr Cahill as he is in the process of stealing morphine from his patients. Under interrogation, Cahill claims to have heard one of the Angel’s victims conversing with the mysterious doctor about his condition.

Watson discovers that one of the Angel’s victims, Samantha Cropsy, rather than being a hopeless case, was in fact recovering from her illness.

Realizing that the killer conversed with one of his victims in Ukranian, Holmes identifies the Angel as Danilo Gura, the hospital’s janitor and a former doctor in his home country. Gura confesses to all the killings but insists that Samantha Cropsy was, according to her chart, a hopeless case. The chart was altered by Dr Baldwin, who knew about Gura’s activities. Bates made an error when operating on Samantha, and, fearing his career would be in jeopardy if his mistake became known, set about turning Samantha into the ideal victim for the Angel of Death.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes has Watson buy him tickets to the Arms and Armour exhibit at the Met. Presumably, once he becomes involved with Kelty’s death he doesn’t have time to attend. He modestly considers himself a wise man. When Watson suggests sushi for dinner, he lists all the various conditions one can suffer from following the consumption of raw fish.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan lost touch with her old friend, Dr Carrie Dwyer, and other former colleagues after the death of her patient. As a result, she is uncomfortable in a hospital environment. She correctly diagnoses the heart attack suffered by the first victim. She let her licence expire, but led Holmes to believe she was no longer permitted to practice medicine. She’s the one who figures out that Kelty’s blonde visitor is not a doctor but a beautician. A subplot involves Joan diagnosing a 12 year-old girl’s heart condition against all available evidence. Watson apparently requests the appropriate tests for the child, despite having no authority to do so. At the end of the episode, she deletes all the photos on her laptop of her time as a doctor.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Yet again aggravated by Holmes’ actions, Gregson insists that Holmes apologise to the hospital’s administrator Sanchez.

Bell’s skilled interrogation of Dr Cahill is ruined by Holmes, who doesn’t believe him guilty of murder.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: As described by Stamford in A Study in Scarlet, Holmes is seen strangling a body in the morgue in order to determine post-mortem bruising. OK, he beat the corpses in A Study in Scarlet, but there was probably a little strangling going on, too.

Holmes’ love of bees is mentioned again: he and the morgue attendant Bruce frequent the same beekeeping forum.

I have never loved: Holmes has his fingers crossed that Joan and Carrie fell out over a failed sapphic dalliance.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes is annoyed at himself for failing to identify Dr Cahill as a former addict.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes callously throws liquid into the corridor to ensure that Gura the cleaner stops work in Kelty’s room. Gura gets his own back by pressing multiple buttons in the hospital lift in order to inconvenience Holmes.

Mocking Sanchez for his shortness, Holmes asks Baldwin, “Do you reach things off high shelves for this one?”

Joan explains away Holmes’ tactlessness by claiming that he has a form of Tourette’s.

My head is in a whirl: Although Holmes compliments Gura’s accent, it’s hard to believe that Cahill didn’t realise that the voice he overheard wasn’t that of an American.

Again, the flashbacks cheat. The fabric wrapped round Gura’s trolley (which Holmes deduces match the colours of the Ukranian flag) aren’t visible in the original scene.

“So you’re too indifferent to your patients to be the Angel of Death? That’s a novel alibi.” The plot rehashes the major gimmick from the pilot: the villain turning his target into the ideal victim for a killer. Once again, the apparent resolution of the Angel of Death case throws up another puzzle. But the writing is good, and the setting novel, so the episode gets away with it. Even Joan’s largely irrelevant subplot doesn’t stick around long enough to tax the viewer’s patience. Even though this is a very Watson-heavy episode, Miller acquits himself well.

1X06: Flight Risk

US Airdate: 8 November 2012

Writer: Corrine Brinkerhoff

Director: David Platt

Guest Cast: Reiko Aylesworth (Miranda Molinari); Brian Kerwin (Charles Cooper); Roger Rees (Allistair); Adam LeFevre (Ed Hairston); Matthew Humphreys (Owen Bates); Ashley Bryant (Hostess); Michelle Federer (Ellie Wilson); James Michael Reilly (Walter Devlin); David Shumbris (Hank Gerard)*

*Uncredited

Plot: After a slow week, Holmes is excited at the news that a small plane has crashed on Far Rockaway Beach. There are no survivors. The three passengers were attorneys, but only two died as a result of the crash. Holmes finds that one of them, Hank Gerard, was murdered.

Charles Cooper, the head of Key Star Charters insists that Joe Newell, the pilot on the doomed flight was incapable of any irresponsible act that might have led to the crash.

Bell reports that the law firm to which the three attorneys belonged was engaged in a class action case against a food company with regard to their allegedly carcinogenic sugar substitute.

Gerard’s role at the firm was in jeopardy, and it seems likely that he attacked his boss, Walter Devlin, during the flight. The plane’s black box recording appears to confirm this - Devlin can apparently be heard arguing with Gerard. But Holmes deduces that Devlin was leaving a message on Gerard’s cell phone, not realising that his employee was already dead, his body stowed in the cargo hold of the plane.

Charles Cooper produces security camera footage of Gerard arguing with Ed Hairston, employee of the food company involved in the legal action. Hairston admits to being the whistle blower who supplied Gerard with information. They argued because he refused to testify, but his physical disability means that he was incapable of killing Gerard.

Holmes proves that the plane’s fuel tank was filled with sand - the flight was doomed to crash, and Gerard was killed when he confronted the saboteur.

One of Key Star’s other pilots, Owen Barts, has been smuggling drugs from Florida. Holmes thinks Barts sabotaged the flight to prevent the pilot, Newell, from alerting the authorities. Barts insists that Cooper will alibi him, but the next morning, Cooper informs the police that Barts confessed to him over the phone.

Barts has vanished, and the weapon used to kill Gerard is found in his garage. But Holmes suspects that Barts, too, has been killed by an accomplice - Charles Cooper. The smell of model glue fumes suggests to Holmes that Barts cut Cooper during their struggle, and Cooper used superglue to seal up the wound.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes knows all the police emergency codes, and considers himself an expert on aviation disasters. Watson gradually realises the reason for this fascination: he’s afraid of flying. He insists he’s not phobic, but his anxiety is the result of his observational prowess. Joan thinks Sherlock is taking an interest in the case purely in order to avoid seeing his father, who is apparently coming to New York to check on his son’s progress. In fact, Sherlock knows that the man he calls “a serial absentee” has no intention of showing up. He’s right, and to prove it, has an old friend named Allistair take his father’s place. Allistair is a former actor who coached Sherlock on his accents. Holmes broke his wrist during childhood, then set the bone himself. Eventually, he got a tattoo to cover the scar. He uses a magnifying lens app on his mobile phone. His manner of speech is becoming ever more archaic, making pop culture references to Charlie Brown seem very peculiar indeed.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan has no doubt that Holmes’ father will meet her to discuss her son’s case. Understandably, she’s thoroughly unamused by his rather heartless practical joke. She deduces that Allistair works in a bookshop from a brief glance at the receipt that falls from his book. Zadie Smith is one of her favourite authors.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson promises to send Holmes some cold case documents to keep him busy.

Bell actually seems to spend more time working with Holmes on the case than Watson does.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Roger Rees, who plays Sherlock’s friend Allistair, was a memorable Holmes in the 1988 BBC Radio adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. His character even makes passing reference to acting in British radio dramas - shame we haven’t seen Allistair in the series since this episode.

The second pilot at Key Star Charters is apparently named Barts (see My head is in a whirl), perhaps in reference to the London Hospital where Holmes and Watson met in A Study in Scarlet.

The clue about the strong odour of glue, first in Cooper’s office, and then on the man himself, suggests - probably unintentionally - one of the later stories, The Retired Colourman.

I have never loved: Joan is stunned when Allistair, in the role of Holmes’ father, asks her about the quality of the sex with his son.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes tries very hard not to inhale the model glue fumes in Charles Cooper’s office.

Allistair tells Joan he thought Holmes was simply dabbling, until he appeared at the actor’s door nine months ago, unable to speak. During his fits, he muttered the name “Irene” repeatedly.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: The scene where Joan is humiliated in the restaurant by the ersatz Holmes Sr is too mean to be funny, but her shock at waking to find Holmes at the foot of her bed, ready to admit the truth about his fear of flying raises a smile.

My head is in a whirl: Holmes says that his father secured Joan’s services as a sober companion via e-mail, but we discover in Deja Vu All Over Again that it was actually Sherlock himself who selected her, and that she is well aware of the fact.

It’s quite a stretch that even Holmes is able to notice the difference between particular grains of sand on a beach. It’s fortunate that he does, of course, since it has an important bearing on the plot.

According the the credits, the drug smuggling pilot is named Owen Bates, but everyone pronounces his surname “Barts.”

“You can’t expect Sherlock Holmes to relate to you the way others might. The moment you do, he’ll migrate out of your life, and you’ll be the poorer for it.” A brilliantly complex episode, piling revelation upon revelation, this is easily one of Elementary’s top five episodes. By this time, the makers have fixed it so that Joan doesn’t appear in every scene with Sherlock, regardless of whether or not she has anything to contribute. She’s conspicuously absent from several interrogations in this episode. The episode ends with Joan asking Holmes about Irene, a moment that will have massive implications.

1X07: One Way to Get Off

US Airdate: 15 November 2012

Writer: Christopher Silber

Director: Seith Mann

Guest Cast: Callie Thorne (Terry D’Amico); Keith Szarabajka (Wade Crewes); Stephen Kunken (Dr Carrow); Stephen McKinley Henderson (Groundskeeper Edison); Brian Tarantina (Walsh); Amy Hohn (Dr Ryan); Stivi Paskoski (Victor Nardin); Steven Skybell (Dr Sacco); Juan Castano (Sean Figueroa); Evgeniya Petkova Radilova (Katya); Cheryl Lewis (Allison Willis)*; Gilbert Soto (Bookstore Patron)*; Greg Wattkis (Mike Willis)*

*Uncredited

Plot: A particularly violent crime scene bears an uncanny similarity to a series of murders committed by Wade Crewes in 1999. Gregson considers the robbery-homicide either the work of a copycat or a bizarre coincidence. But Holmes believes that Crewes may have had an accomplice, who is now continuing his crime spree.

The most recent victims received threatening e-mails from contractor Julian Walsh. When questioned, Walsh is certainly anxious, but Holmes discovers that his anxiety is because he is keeping a woman prisoner in his basement. Not only has he an alibi in his sex slave, but a ballistics comparison shows that the gun used in the original Wade Crewes murders also killed the two most recent victims.

Holmes invites Gregson’s former partner Terry D’Amico to participate in the present investigation. From his cell at Sing Sing, Crewes protests his innocence, accusing Gregson of planting his fingerprints on a mug found at one of the crime scenes. He insists that he was with a married woman, Carla Figueroa, at the time of the murders, but she refused to testify. When Holmes and Gregson call at her house, Carla’s son Sean informs them that she is dead.

Viewing the interrogation tapes, Holmes sees Gregson hand Crewes the mug that was later used to incriminate him. Gregson knows that the mug was planted by his former partner, Terry.

Victor Nardan, an early suspect in the home invasion killings, is missing, but Holmes and Watson track him down to a hotel in Brighton Beach. Nardan isn’t around, but the murder weapon is found hidden under a loose floorboard in his room. After another murder, Holmes is satisfied that Nardan is innocent - he is blind in his right eye, and couldn’t possibly have shot anyone.

It seems that Crewes is supplying someone on the outside with information about his crimes. Holmes finds that one of the volunteers at Sing Sing library was Sean Figueroa, the son of Carla Figueroa and Wade Crewes. Sean committed the murders in order to establish his father’s innocence.

The best and the wisest man: After Watson’s enquiry regarding Irene in the previous episode, Holmes has decided to respond to her remarks tersely without engaging in conversation. He ditches her in the opening scene in order to respond to Gregson’s request for assistance. The ringer on his cell phone is the music from Psycho. He’s read War and Peace and recognises an Oscar Wilde quote. He uses his faultless American accent once again. He eventually tells Watson that Irene is dead.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson considers it her job to overstep polite boundaries. Having run out of options now that her charge has become uncooperative, she’s forced to visit Hemdale Rehabilitation Facility in an attempt to dig up further information. Holmes asks for her assistance when he suspects Wade Crewes may have been framed, because he considers her good at dealing with the “moral component.”

The efficiency of our detective police force: For Captain Gregson, the arrest of Crewes was “a career-defining case.” His partner at that time was Terry D’Amico. For once, he is reluctant to consider Holmes’ theories, and simmers with rage throughout the episode, particularly when Holmes tells him about the planted mug. Confronting D’Amico, Gregson tells her he is prepared to see his career come to an end should turn out that an innocent man has gone to prison.

Bell briefs the task force on the murder investigation, and interrogates Victor Nardan. This is really Gregson’s episode, though, and the young policeman has only a small part to play.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: The story The Norwood Builder concerns the planting of an incriminating fingerprint. In that case, however, the accused man was innocent; despite the fact that the evidence against him is a forgery, Crewes is actually guilty.

Though Irene’s surname is not stated, it can be seen on the envelopes: Adler.

The writers seem to have given up on including Canonical quotations in the dialogue.

I have never loved: Holmes tells Joan that his bodily fluids are at her disposal. He’s actually talking about his saliva (see A seven-per-cent solution).

He never mentioned Irene during his therapy sessions at Hemdale. Joan is given several letters from Irene which Holmes left with the groundskeeper, Edison (they became friends over a shared love of bees). Joan gives them back to Holmes without reading them, whereupon he puts them in the blender (shades of his violin-burning in While You Were Sleeping).

A seven-per-cent solution: An abrupt Holmes informs Watson that he is willing to undergo drug testing every two hours.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: When receiving a call from Watson, Holmes pretends that the signal is weak, not realising that she is stood right behind him. Busted.

Joan, upon seeing Victor’s hotel: “He’s not here. If I lived here, I wouldn’t be here either.”

Holmes: “I left some urine in your room.” Watson: “Tell me it’s in a cup.”

My head is in a whirl: In the opening scene, Holmes’ phone sounds when he receives a text from Gregson. It’s a generic alarm sound. After the opening titles, the phone plays the music from Psycho’s classic shower scene. Did he change it in honour of the case? If so, it’s a rather ghoulish thing to do, even by Holmes’ standards.

“Always nice when a psychopath grooms himself to look the part, don’t you think?” The opening sequence of this episode, with a masked intruder executing two victims with pillows strapped to their heads is positively macabre, and the cut to Joan preparing a reddish drink in a blender suggests a Hitchcokian influence (reinforced by the use of the music from Psycho). But the plot soon becomes a rather generic police procedural, with the deductions regarding Victor Nardan’s vision the only remotely Holmesian element. Holmes and Watson have gone from being inseparable to barely spending any screen time together in the first half of the show. There has to be a happy medium.

1X08: The Long Fuse

US Airdate: 29 November 2012

Writer: Jeffrey Paul King

Director: Andrew Bernstein

Guest Cast: Lisa Edelstein (Heather Vanowen); John Pankow (Edgar Knowles); Donnie Keshawarz (Earl Wheeler); Adam Mucci (Rennie James); Deepa Purohit (Himali Singh); Rufus Collins (Adrian); Dan Bittner (David Preston); Charles Socarides (Royce Maltz); Vedant Gokhale (Pradeep Singh); Steve Cirbus (Bomb Squad Tech); Caris Vujcec (Recovering Addict); Tom Titone (Lobbyist)

Plot: An explosion at the offices of Parabolic Web Industries kills two employees and injures many more. Holmes believes that the bomb was detonated remotely - a pager is found to be one of the weapon’s components.

Plumber Renny Jacobs is questioned by the NYPD, but it seems he was trying to contact his favourite deli - a simple wrong number set off the bomb.

An examination of the newspaper packed into the bomb shows that the device was planted four years earlier, at which time the wrecked offices were occupied by Vanowen Strategic Communications. Four years ago, however, the pager connected to the bomb was out of range of any signal towers, and couldn’t have been activated.

Heather Vanowen tells Holmes and Watson that she has received threatening letters from eco-terrorist group the Earth Liberty Organization. An oft-repeated phrase in those letters leads Holmes to Edgar Knowles, who reluctantly confesses to planting several bombs, but insists he did not attack Vanowen SC.

Holmes is interested by the speedy rise within Heather’s company of Pradeep Singh, who disappeared after a disagreement with his superior, Wheeler. At the Singh family home, Pradeep’s wife tells Holmes and Watson she’s certain he was murdered. Examining the living room in her absence, Holmes finds that Pradeep’s corpse has been hidden behind a wall for the last four years. Mrs Singh is in the clear, however, having been in Mumbai at the time of her husband’s disappearance. Holmes deduces that the bomb was meant for Singh.

A key found on the body leads to a videotape stored in a safety deposit box. The tape shows a young Pradeep Singh with a prostitute - Heather Vanowen. When Singh realised that his boss was a former hooker, he began to blackmail her. After her first attempt to kill her tormentor with a bomb failed, Heather simply shot Pradeep and walled him up.

The best and the wisest man: In addition to the multiple television memory test, Holmes is simultaneously reading a book. He reminds Watson how much he dislikes bankers, a reference to Rat Race. This is the second time in two episodes that Holmes uses the excuse of using a suspect’s toilet to search their home; last week it was Julian Walsh, here it’s Pradeep Singh’s wife - he does the same thing again in Details. He enjoys watching ‘70s and ‘80s police interrogations, when techniques were rawer.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson tells Holmes she doesn’t have another client lined up. She thinks Holmes will miss her when she’s gone, an assertion he disputes.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson seems a little ticked off when Holmes informs him that though Edgar Knowles is guilty of several bombings, he is innocent of the Vanowen SC incident. As a result, he’s not his usually cooperative self.

Bell has never been to Holmes’ residence (He’s first seen there in The Deductionist). He didn’t enjoy the 1980 comedy Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, over a copy of which Pradeep Singh has recorded his liaison with prostitute Heather Vanowen.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: The crossword clue element of the plot seems better suited to an Inspector Morse novel than a Sherlock Holmes adventure.

Blackmail victims who resort to murder turn up several times in the canon, most notably in The Boscombe Valley Mystery. Holmes is usually more sympathetic with them than he is with Heather. Is it because two innocent employees of Parabolic Web Industries are killed by her bomb?

In The Dancing Men, Holmes experiments with malodorous chemicals. Here, he constructs miniature fertilizer bombs, but is at least gracious enough to do so on the roof of the brownstone rather than indoors. The Canonical Holmes was never so considerate.

I have never loved: Heather Vanowen is clearly attracted to Holmes. They share a love of crosswords. He tells her he’s too busy for sex, but suggests fixing an appointment for a later date.

Holmes instantly identifies the woman in the video as a high-end prostitute. He considers the anti-prostitution laws in the US “Victorian.”

A seven-per-cent solution: Watson, knowing that her time as sober companion will be up in a few weeks, urges Holmes to find a sponsor. She introduces him to Adrian, whom he dismisses within moments. Instead, he picks former car thief Alfredo Llamosa, whom he nevertheless avoids when Watson sets up a meeting. Alfredo will appear in several future episodes, acting both as Holmes’ sponsor and as a member of his New York Irregulars.

Holmes examines the letters from the ELM at an AA meeting.

Heather accuses Holmes of being a fellow addict - she’s talking about crosswords.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Heather’s offence at Holmes’ reaction to her seduction attempts is the only really amusing moment in a pretty straight-faced episode.

My head is in a whirl: Holmes says of the wrecked Parabolic Web Industries offices, “pre-explosion, this place looked like the deck of a starship.” How does he know?

Another act of carelessness traps a killer: if only Heather had removed the safety deposit box key from Pradeep Singh’s key chain when she hid the body. Why on Earth did she go to the trouble of moving her entire business to another office building after killing Singh? Why not just remove the bomb?

“I’m entirely self-sufficient.” Apart from introducing the audience to semi-regular character Alfredo, this is a pretty workmanlike segment. The discovery of Singh’s body is nicely handled, but Heather is the only serious suspect, and her guilt is established well before the climax.

1X09: You Do It To Yourself

US Airdate: 6 December 2012

Writer: Peter Blake

Director: Phil Abraham

Guest Cast: Adam Rothenberg (Liam Danow); Kristy Wu (Jun Annunzio); Cameron Scoggins (Brendan O’Brien); Lord Jamar (Raul Ramirez); Richard Topol (Trent Annunzio); Randall Duk Kim (Old Man); Kevin Henderson (ND Detective); Andy Royce (Young Boy)

Plot: Bell invites Holmes and Watson to examine a corpse discovered in an abandoned building. Despite his fever, Holmes has no difficulty in identifying the dead man, who has been shot in both eyes, as Trent Annunzio, Professor at Garrison University.

Annunzio’s wife Jun, a former student from Beijing, claims that Trent told her he would be attending a department meeting on the night of his death, but his teaching assistant, Brendan O’Brien, knows of no such meeting.

Holmes deduces that Annunzio spent the evening at a Chinese gambling parlour. At one such club he finds traces of a shooting. Things really seem to be going the detective’s way when the proprietor - who had the body dumped far away from his establishment - reluctantly hands over security camera footage of the killing of Trent Annunzio.

Bell identifies the shooter as Raul Ramirez, who claims that he was hired to kill Annunzio by someone he only ever spoke to on the telephone. The caller specified that the victim must be shot in both eyes.

The cellphone on which the killing was arranged is discovered in Brendan O’Brien’s apartment. To Holmes’ disbelief, the young man confesses, but upon realising that O’Brien was having an affair with Annunzio’s wife, he suspects Jun may have killed her husband and framed her own lover. Jun tells the police that Annunzio tortured her and, because the two were never actually married, held the threat of deportation over her head.

Holmes learns that Annunzio was self-medicating for eye pain - he had untreatable cancer. The mysterious individual who arranged Annunzio’s death was Annunzio himself, wishing to frame Jun’s lover and destroy all traces of his untreatable illness. Gregson is unconvinced by the scenario, but Joan points Holmes in the right direction: before settling on Ramirez, Annunzio first approached sex offender Dennis Kominski. Video footage shows Annunzio leaving Kominski a payoff. O’Brien is released, and he and Jun are married.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes subscribes to several personal security journals. He’s fighting a fever throughout the episode, and blames that for his failure to note an important clue about a photo of Trent Annunzio. He’s not a fan of Celine Dion. He feels guilty that he has put Mrs Annunzio in a position where she will likely be deported. For this episode only, he’s taken to studying the evidence in the bathroom.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan is contacted by Liam Danow, a former lover who has been arrested on a hit-and-run charge. She tells Holmes that Liam was a former client, but that proves to be a lie; they met when she was still working in the ER and became a couple thereafter. After proving Liam innocent, she arranges treatment for him. By the end of the episode, he hasn’t shown up at the clinic. She has a good friend at the DA’s office (strange that fact has never come up in any of the cases she’s handled with Holmes thus far, nor will it for the remainder of the season). Using herbs purchased in Chinatown, she treats Holmes with a blend of tea her mother used to prepare for her (the same one she brews in Child Predator?). Holmes initially refuses to acknowledge its efficacy, but later requests more.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Bell used to work on the vice squad. When beating Holmes to a deduction, he wants the detective to ask him how he knew; Holmes remains tight-lipped. Like the same writer’s Flight Risk, Bell and Holmes spend more time working on the case than Holmes and Watson.

Gregson appears in only three scenes in this episode. Amazingly, he doesn’t have Brendan O’Brien charged with wasting police time. What a softie.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: The Canonical Holmes loves penning monographs on the subject of detection. They are mentioned in many stories, including The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery, A Case of Identity, The Dancing Men and The Abbey Grange. Here, he’s considering writing a monograph on the effect of the tide levels upon crime rates in New York.

I have never loved: Joan tells Holmes that the tea prepared by her mother has been scientifically proven to result in longer-lasting erections. “By your mother?” he asks.

He deduces that Liam and Joan were lovers, but insists he doesn’t judge her for it.

A seven-per-cent solution: Unlike Holmes, Liam has gone back to using drugs, and was too far gone on the night of the hit-and-run to recall whether he was driving or not. Holmes calls him “my brother in trackmarked arms.”

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: The tea sequence is typical of the byplay we will see much more of as the relationship between Holmes and Watson gradually becomes less combative.

Bell: “Tell me something I don’t know.” Holmes: “A pig’s orgasm lasts up to thirty minutes.”

My head is in a whirl: Watson’s position as Holmes’ sober companion is, according to Rat Race, supposed to be a secret between the two of them and Gregson, but at the crime scene, she talks about Holmes’ father employing her within earshot of Detective Bell.

“Not everyone’s a criminal mastermind.” Holmes’ identification of the body is a delight, pure canon. The idea of someone arranging their own murder in order to frame a faithless lover is by no means a new one, certainly nowhere near as surprising as the revelation in Blake’s previous episode. At this point, the series seems to be running on the spot. The episode title, by the way, appears to have been appropriated from the subtitle of the very splendid song Just by Radiohead, memorably covered by Mark Ronson. Pity that, like the title of While You Were Sleeping, it rather gives the game away regarding the solution.

1X10: The Leviathan

US Airdate: 13 December 2012

Writers: Corrine Brinkerhoff & Craig Sweeny

Director: Peter Werner

Guest Cast: Freda Foh Shen (Mary Watson); Gbenga Akkinagbe (Jeremy Lopez); Reg Rogers (Micah Erlich); Sean Dugan (Charles Briggs); John Bolger (David Batonvert); Tonya Glanz (Gwen/Olivia Lynch); Dee Hoty (Patsy); Glenn Kalison (Alan Kent); Jennifer Kim (Gabrielle Harper); Nathaniel McIntyre (Uniform); Sue Simmons (Reporter); Alice Niedermair-Ludwig (Physical Therapist); Rosemary Howard (Amelie Widomski); Steve Garfanti (K9 Police Officer)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Micah Erlich, head engineer of Casterly Rock Security is concerned about his company’s reputation after their “impregnable” vault the Leviathan has been cracked... twice. The four criminals who committed the original robbery have all been jailed. Erlich hires Holmes to find out how the most recent crime, in which $40m in diamonds were taken, was committed.

Charles Briggs, one of the original team of robbers agrees to talk to Holmes and Watson. He tells them that, before his death in prison, the actual safecracker Carter Averill was contacted by a legendary thief known as Le Chevalier.

Holmes takes no time at all in identifying philanthropist Peter Kent as Le Chevalier. He’s quite correct, and is even able to recover a stolen Van Gogh from Kent’s home, but Kent’s son informs them that his father suffered a serious stroke two years earlier. He is in no state to have broken into the Leviathan.

A chance remark by Watson causes Holmes to suspect that someone at Carter Averill’s trial may have deduced precisely how the heist was pulled off. A scrawled coffee order used as evidence against the conspirators holds the answer - Averill used an obscure programming language, which is printed on the other side of the order, to attack the Leviathan’s random number generator.

Holmes supposes that one of the jurors, Justin Guthrie, a former software engineer, must have cracked the code, but by the time they reach his apartment, Guthrie is dead. His murder has been disguised as a suicide, but traces of his killer’s blood are discovered. Checking the dead man’s phone, Holmes finds the names of three other jurors. Together, all four may have possessed the skills necessary to steal the diamonds. Another of Holmes’ suspects, Alex Wilson, shows up dead at his home.

Gathering the remaining jurors at the police station, Holmes favours the injured Jeremy Lopez as the killer, but, to his surprise, Lopez has no problem in supplying a sample of his DNA.

The blood at the Guthrie murder scene is found to belong to army chaplain Audrey Higuerra. But she’s been in Kabul for the past three weeks.

Watson cracks the case when she discovers that Audrey was active in assisting leukaemia patients, having donated bone marrow. Jeremy Lopez, a former sufferer, received bone marrow from Audrey and, as a result, the DNA in his blood belongs to her. His saliva, however, contains his own DNA, which is why he had no problem providing a sample.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes is initially confident that he can deduce how the Leviathan was cracked within a matter of hours; after 17 of those hours have elapsed, he attacks the safe with an axe in frustration. He’s figured out the lock code on Watson’s cellphone. He makes her breakfast but he’s also estimated how long it will take her to consume it, shower and get dressed. He’s proficient on the piano (just like the Holmes in Josh Friedman’s pilot script), playing while chatting to Gregson in Justin Guthrie’s apartment. He praises Joan to the skies in front of her family, telling her later, “I meant very little of what I said.”

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan dresses very primly to join her mother for brunch. Her brother Oren is involved in a relationship with a woman named Gabrielle. Using Watson’s cellphone, Holmes arranges a family get-together and blackmails her into taking him along. He regales the Watson clan with the story of the episode Power Play. Joan’s mother visits the brownstone at the end of the episode to say that she believes Joan would be happier as a detective than as a sober companion.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is bemused when Holmes and Watson return Le Chevalier’s stolen goods, but knows enough not to ask how they came by these art treasures.

Bell is present, but again has so little to contribute that the producers might just as well have given him the week off.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Joan’s mother is named Mary (although she’s never addressed as such onscreen). In the Canon, the doctor’s first wife was, of course, Mary Morstan.

Holmes’ famous line makes its first appearance in the series: “When you’ve eliminated the impossible,” he tells Watson, “whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.”

“I know, Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the humdrum routine of ordinary life,” is a quote from The Red-Headed League.

The bone marrow clue is very similar to a plot point in an early Patricia Cornwell novel.

I have never loved: Holmes has, apparently been “studying” female twins Gwen and Olivia Lynch in his bedroom. Watson must be a heavy sleeper. When the doorbell rings during the final scene, Joan suggests it might be triplets.

A seven-per-cent solution: Watson accuses Holmes of indulging in the obsessions of addiction without taking drugs.

She threatens him with a drug test when he disturbs her sleep playing Ode to Joy at 3AM.

He blackmails her into taking him along on her dinner with her family by saying he is feeling “relapse-y.”

Holmes’ grateful employers send him several $500 bottles of champagne, which Joan pours down the sink (she never thought to give them to her family?).

Joan’s mother mentions Liam, who made an appearance in the previous episode.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes, as per usual, outrages Watson by smashing the glass covering a lithograph in Peter Kent’s home.

Seeing evidence of Audrey Higuerra’s entirely blameless life, Holmes remarks: “If I could attribute three miracles to her, I’d nominate her for sainthood.”

A running gag about Holmes believing himself to be the smartest man in the world ends with him refuting that assertion. When Watson points out that he is being uncommonly modest, he replies, “There’s just no reliable way to test the hypothesis.”

Watson: “Someone once said, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth.” Holmes: “Sounds like a windbag.”

My head is in a whirl: Why is Holmes allowed to play the piano in Justin Guthrie’s apartment? Are Gregson and Bell not even entertaining the notion of fingerprints? Speaking of which, we see a close up of Holmes’ bare hands as he plays, but when he rises from the piano he’s wearing gloves.

“People find their paths in the strangest of ways.” It’s no surprise to us that Holmes and Watson will eventually end up working together, but this is the first episode to signpost that outcome. It’s surprising, perhaps a little disappointing, that more isn’t done with the Le Chevalier angle (which is the primary focus of the episode’s promo). As it is, the promising notion of a master thief hiding in plain sight as one of New York’s cultural elite is dismissed almost as quickly as it is raised. This episode marks the second time Holmes has visited Sing Sing Prison, the first being in One Way to Get Off.

1X11: Dirty Laundry

US Airdate: 3 January 2013

Writers: Liz Friedman & Christopher Silber

Director: John David Coles

Guest Cast: Jake Weber (Geoffrey Silver); Mark Moses (Oliver Purcell); Melissa Farman (Carly Purcell); Leigh Ann Larkin (Harmony); Cynthia Darlow (Mrs Dean); Sam Freed (Oliver’s Lawyer); Simon Jutras (French Businessman); Arash Mokhtar (Middle Eastern Diplomat #1); Al Nazemian (Middle Eastern Diplomat #2); Jennifer Regan (Agent Claudia Camden); Shirley Roeca (Estella); Natalie Toro (Marisol); Beau Allen (Businessman); Nicole J Casseri-Healey (High End Escort); Tracey Ruggiero (Terri Purcell)*

*Uncredited

Plot: The body of Terri Purcell, general manager of a swanky New York hotel, is found dumped in a washing machine. A pen is found with the body, but there are no traces of ink.

Holmes deduces that Terri’s husband Oliver is sleeping apart from his wife, his joblessness having created a rift between them. He has an alibi for the night of Terri’s death. Joan forms a bond with the Purcell’s daughter, Carly.

A nosey neighbour informs Holmes and Watson that Terri was often visited by charity worker and family friend Geoffrey Silver. Much to Holmes’ annoyance, he too has an alibi.

Informed by Detective Bell that the hotel had a problem with prostitutes, Holmes and Watson are surprised to learn that Terri actively assisted the hookers to ply their trade, introducing them to visiting UN diplomats.

Discovering hidden cameras within the hotel rooms, Holmes suggests to Gregson that Terri may have been blackmailing her guests. He examines many hours of footage, but the most incriminating images are hidden within Terri’s family album - recordings made not made for blackmail purposes, but for those of espionage. The Purcells were Russian spies, and Holmes believes that Geoffrey Silver was their handler. Silver won’t admit to his part in the conspiracy, but Oliver confesses, and claims he didn’t want their daughter to go into the family business.

Meeting privately with Joan, Carly admits to attacking and killing Terri, after learning the life her mother had planned out for her. But the evidence of Terri’s autopsy shows that she fought back, something Carly failed to mention. Holmes realises that Terri was not actually dead after Carly attacked her. Silver killed Terri in order to trick the teenager into joining his spy program, by making her believe she’d killed her own mother. The pen found at the scene of the crime was a spy gadget filled with invisible ink - under fluorescent light, Terri’s hand-print appears on Silver’s shirt, proof that they fought after Carly thought her mother dead.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes offers Watson the position of apprentice and suggests that she begin to take notes. He once spent an afternoon searching a Queen Anne secretary for secret compartments. His multiple TV viewing exercise (as seen in the pilot episode and The Long Fuse) comes in handy when reviewing Terri’s incriminating tapes. Having run out of plates, he’s taken to eating pasta out of mugs. He makes a vague reference to TV spy comedy Get Smart (and yet, a few episodes later, he doesn’t appear to know who Columbo is - to an Englishman, the cop in the mac is far better known than Maxwell Smart). This episode marks the first time he addresses his colleague as “My dear Watson.”

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan is adamant that she will not be working as Holmes’ apprentice. She gives Carly Purcell her number and is happy to talk her through her difficulties (not realising just how difficult those difficulties might be). She blames Silver for ruining Carly’s life. Later, she applies Holmes’ method by pinning the evidence in the case on her bedroom wall, and requests Terri Purcell’s autopsy report. At the end of the episode, she tells Holmes she’ll be starting work with a new client in a week.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson doesn’t relish the prospect of putting teams of officers to work examining the incriminating videotapes. He displays a particular dislike of Jeffrey Silver.

Once again, Bell is largely overlooked.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Foreign spies turn up in The Second Stain and The Bruce-Partington Plans, but there are no distinct similarities between this episode and anything in the Canon.

I have never loved: Holmes is not subtle in suggesting that Terri and Silver may have been having an affair.

He has no difficulty in spotting a high-end prostitute; Joan thinks this ability misogynistic, not the last time she will accuse him of this trait.

A seven-per-cent solution: Having taken a personal inventory, Holmes has determined that he is “excelling” in his recovery.

Carly confesses to having had a problem with painkillers.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes is counting down the time until Joan leaves, accurate to the minute. To her bewilderment and embarrassment, he addresses a prostitute with the line, “My friend and I were wondering what you might charge to sleep with us.”

He challenges Joan’s assertion than his untidiness might be a sign of relapse by emptying out the neighbours’ bins in his TV room. “I’ve been sitting here for hours, but I haven’t felt any additional temptation to use drugs.”

The promo deliberately alters the sequence in which Holmes examines Terri’s encrypted videos and warns Watson that “whatever’s on these videos is likely to be the vilest and most startling material that Mrs Purcell gathered.” Instead of mundane footage of guests in conversation (as it is in the episode), we see a clip of a cute kitten. Watson responds: “Wow, I don’t know how I’m ever going to unsee that.”

My head is in a whirl: Once again, an intelligent killer, in this case a professional spy, makes an obvious mistake. Why didn’t Geoffrey Silver dispose of the pen, instead of leaving it with Terri’s body? He knew full well that the ink had stained his shirt. Come to that, how often does he change his clothes? He’s still wearing the same shirt when he’s interrogated, several days after the murder.

For some reason, the hotel around which much of the plot revolves doesn’t appear to have a name.

“The only promise a puzzle makes is an answer.” The first episode after the mid-season hiatus is a rather muted affair, but it would hardly have been fair to uninitiated viewers to begin with the atypical M. It’s far from clear at this point, but big changes are on the way.

1X12: M

US Airdate: 10 January 2013

Writer: Robert Doherty

Director: John Polson

Guest Cast: Bobb’e J Thompson (Teddy); Marsha Stephanie Blake (Melanie Cullen); Mark Morettini (Uniformed Cop); Gabrielle Senn (Escort); Roman Blat (Orderly)*; Robert Lee Harvey (Ian Vickers)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Gregson summons Holmes and Watson to a crime scene with a lot of blood but no body. Ian Vickers has vanished from his home, and Holmes has no hesitation in identifying the crime as the work of a serial killer known only as M, who has been active in the UK for the last ten years.

Though Holmes claims the murderer has no particular grudge against him, M nevertheless leaves a threatening letter for him in the brownstone. Holmes reluctantly admits to Joan that, a year and a half earlier, M was responsible for killing Irene Adler, and that he intends to exact revenge rather than turn the serial killer over to the NYPD.

Beating the cops to the scene of M’s next crime, the home of Melanie Cullen, Holmes subdues the killer and takes him to a secret location, planning to torture and murder him. But M - alias former marine Sebastian Moran - claims to have been in Brixton Prison at the time Irene was murdered in her flat in Camden Lock. He insists that he didn’t even know Holmes was living in New York or that the brownstone was his address, He believes he’s being framed by his employer. Moran isn’t a serial killer, but an assassin, working on the orders of a master criminal called Moriarty, who sends Moran his orders in coded form via cellphone.

Joan realises that Moran is being held prisoner at one of his father’s other New York properties, but by the time Gregson arrives there, Holmes has already turned the killer over to the police.

The best and the wisest man: Preparing for Watson’s departure, Holmes plans to turn her bedroom into an indoor apiary. He has come to view their relationship as a crutch, and tells her that he’s invigorated by the serial killer case only because he failed to capture M in Britain. Without Watson’s knowledge, he has installed hidden security cameras within the brownstone (taking a lesson from Terri Purcell?). He doesn’t remove them as a result of Joan’s outrage, either - he uses them to establish an alibi for himself in the very next episode. His father’s first initial is also M - we see his name on the report Joan is struggling to write. It’s obviously an attempt to put the viewer on the wrong scent. Holmes’ father is unnamed in the Canon, but W S Baring-Gould speculated that his name may have been Siger, given that, according to The Empty House, Holmes adopted the identity Sigerson when travelling the world while presumed dead (Siger’s son, get it?). That fact that Moran is an Arsenal fan is, for Holmes, yet another reason to despise him. He considers using his bees against Moran, but fears that an allergy might kill him instantly (this angle reappears in the episode A Landmark Story, as does Moran himself). Holmes eventually apologises to Joan for lying to her.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson wants to perform “exit protocols” with her client. She sees her own therapist, who, like Joan’s mother, also suggests Joan should consider working as an investigator (though she changes her tune quite dramatically a few episodes down the line). Joan admits to Holmes that she’ll miss working with him. “I think what you do is amazing,” she tells him, as they examine the corpse of Ian Vickers. He repeats her words after Moran’s arrest. She is, though, understandably angry when she discovers his hidden surveillance cameras. She asks Holmes Sr to allow her to stay on for a while, given the traumatic experience his son has just undergone. He refuses, but she lies to Sherlock, stating that she has been given permission to remain.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson places officers outside Holmes’ brownstone, and is stunned by the consultant’s refusal to go into protective custody after Moran breaks into the building under the noses of the cops. He’s mad as hell when Joan tells him about Holmes’ plans, admitting that he too has felt the desire for revenge, but has always restrained himself.

Bell is the one who locates the building in which Holmes is keeping Moran prisoner.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds:

This is the first episode of Elementary to mention both Holmes’ famous arch-enemy, Moriarty and his right-hand man, Sebastian Moran, who appears in the story The Empty House, set three years after the Professor’s death. In the Canon, he’s a crack shot, not a sadistic killer. Holmes describes him as “the second most dangerous man in London.”

Holmes deduces that Moran is staying in one of the Betancourt chain of hotels. John Gregory Betancourt is the author responsible for the 1996 pastiche The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society.

I have never loved: Like Holmes, Moran also favours the company of prostitutes, but not when he’s trying to watch Arsenal.

One of Holmes’ informants, Teddy, mistakes Joan for a hooker.

Holmes claims to have been “smitten” with Irene, though the fact that he is intent upon committing murder to avenge her loss indicates somewhat stronger emotions.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes tells Watson that his addiction made it impossible for him to capture M in London. What he fails to mention is that he became an addict following Irene’s death.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes: “Reflection is for mirrors, can’t you just hand me a report card?” Apart from that, an episode in which a sadistic killers drains his victims of their blood is, unsurprisingly, laugh-free. Why not make up for this deficit by trying to work out which episode title becomes more amusing with the addition of the phrase “in my pants”? My candidate would be You Do It To Yourself.

My head is in a whirl: Holmes Sr’s text to Joan tells her to expect her “final check”, rather than, as an Englishman would write it, “cheque.”

We never find out why Moriarty wants Ian Vickers or Melanie Cullen dead.

The cops watching the brownstone do a pretty sloppy job, if they didn’t consider that M might enter via the back door.

“He presumed to know me. He needed to be shown that he did not.” A game-changing story, and not simply because it’s the second episode in two weeks to contain the word “bollocks.” That said, it’s not as though there aren’t a few more lacklustre episodes to come, and the lack of any mystery component in the story is regrettable. Vinnie Jones is suitably menacing as the stone-cold killer, but good luck to anyone who can seriously believe in him as a Sebastian.

1X13: The Red Team

US Airdate: 31 January 2013

Writer: Jeffrey Paul King

Story: Jeffrey Paul King & Craig Sweeny

Director: Christine Moore

Guest Cast: Richard Bekins (Harold Dresden); Michael Laurence (Walter McClenahan); Chris Sullivan (Todd Clarke); Tawny Cypress (Black Suit); Kelly AuCoin (Grey Suit); Clifton Duncan (Uniform #1); Tom Riis Farrell (Gary Sullivan); Philip Hernandez (Carlo Anillo); Robert C Kirk (Detective Harris); Reese Madigan (Sheldon Frost); Kathryn Meisle (Therapist); Nancy Ringham (Sheila Dresden); Ann Sanders (Veena Mehta); Jessica Shea Alverson (Blonde Victim)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Holmes summons Watson to the home of Len Ponticorvo, AKA Zapruder, moderator of Swirltheory.com, a popular website among conspiracy theorists. Len hasn’t been heard of in some days, and while his colleagues suspect a sinister motive behind his silence, Holmes thinks he may have suffered a heart attack. He’s quite wrong, however - Ponticorvo is found hanged. Examining the terrarium of the victim’s pet tortoise, Clyde, Holmes discovers a hidden listening device.

Studying Len’s files, he comes across one theory he doesn’t consider completely laughable: The Red Team, a group of civilian experts formed to simulate terrorist attacks upon the United States. The findings of the 2009 Red Team are classified. Could they have discovered a flaw in America’s national security? At least one member of the team is already dead.

The trail leads to a long-term care facility in Queens - Carlo Anillo was admitted with Alzheimer’s; Holmes is convinced he’s another member of the team, and that his condition if the result of a poison derived from rotten shellfish.

The murder investigation grinds to a halt when a fellow conspiracy nut Gary Sullivan confesses to killing Ponticorvo following a row over the moon landings.

Gregson gradually accepts Holmes’ theory and has all the members of the Red Team rounded up. All refuse to co-operate, but one leaves behind a note instructing them to locate an army captain who went by the code name Yossarian.

Holmes believes Todd Clark, who has been keeping Len Ponticorvo’s home under surveillance, to be Yossarian. But Clark is been shot dead, and the detective instructs Bell to put all the surviving members of the Red Team under protective custody in an hotel.

It starts to look as though one member, Walter McClenahan, is attempting to do away with the others. Another expert, Harold Dresden, shares Holmes’ suspicions, and intimates that McClenahan is attempting to drive up the price of the information they discovered by killing his colleagues. Bell, however, discovers McClenahan dead, and Holmes realises that Dresden is the real killer, killing or silencing his fellows to prevent the plan from leaking to foreign powers or terrorist organizations. Holmes convinces Dresden that he has deduced the Red Team’s plan and that the secret is already spreading. Believing that to be the case, Dresden has no option but to give himself up.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes finds cleanliness disorientating. He’s gone without sleep for five nights, amassing information on the shadowy Moriarty, after which he slept for two days. He considers conspiracy theories “pure sophistry,” and takes delight in toying with enthusiasts via Swirltheory.com. He quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” He lies about his NYPD credentials in order to question Carlo Anillo. He enjoys listening to static on the radio, finding it conducive to thought. He has no intention of apologising to Gregson for his actions in the previous episode. He carries a whistle, which he attempts to use to hail a New York cab (in Snow Angels, he blows it simply to draw attention). He comes up with the Red Team’s secret on the spur of the moment. Luckily, he’s right. “A gun to one’s head is a very powerful stimulus,” he explains.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan still hasn’t told Holmes that she is no longer his official sober companion. She diagnoses Carlo Anillo’s seizure, the sign that he does not, in fact, have Alzheimer’s. Her car, last seen in the pilot episode, is clearly long gone; she and Holmes conduct a surveillance in a rental vehicle.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Following the events of M, Gregson has, understandably, suspended Holmes. He won’t listen to Joan’s pleas because he doubts his former advisor is even sorry for what happened with Moran (he’s quite correct, of course), and is displeased to discover Holmes in an interrogation room with Gary Sullivan. He favours a bar called McNab’s. It’s there that he reluctantly reinstates Holmes, but not before punching him in the gut.

Bell attempts, without success to persuade Holmes to stay away from the scene of Zapruder’s murder. Plainly, he isn’t trying all that hard, or he could simply have ordered uniformed officers to escort Holmes and Watson off the property or have them arrested for interfering in a police investigation. (see My head is in a whirl). By the latter part of the episode, he isn’t even trying, welcoming Holmes to the scene of Walter McClenahan’s murder.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: In the opening shot, we see that Holmes has collected a variety of clippings and pinned them up around the name “Moriarty” (in a fashion not dissimilar to Robert Downey Jr’s wall of evidence in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, in fact). Among them is a drawing of Napoleon Bonaparte. In The Final Problem, Holmes memorably described his adversary as “the Napoleon of crime.”

Holmes’ casual mistreatment of Clyde the tortoise recalls the multiple “deaths” of Watson’s dog Gladstone in the Downey Jr/Law movies.

Is the Red Team a vague nod to The Red-Headed League? Probably not.

Todd Clark’s code name, Yossarian, is, of course, drawn from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22.

I have never loved: The only heartfelt relationship in this episode is between Harold Dresden and his disabled wife, Sheila. He tells Holmes that he would have sold his secrets if he truly believed a foreign power might be able to cure her.

A seven-per-cent solution: Joan’s own therapist warns her that she might be the catalyst for a relapse, should Holmes discover that she’s been lying to him. Watson has convinced herself that she’s only staying on at the brownstone until she can persuade Gregson to take Holmes on as an advisor once more.

Holmes introduces his companion with the words “This is Joan Watson; she keeps me from doing heroin.”

Despite Joan’s absence at the climax, he forgoes alcohol from the minibar in Dresden’s hotel room. He’s uncomfortable visiting Gregson’s bar of choice.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes on conspiracy theorists: “I adore them, as one would a barmy uncle, or a pet that can’t stop walking into walls.”

He and Joan battle over the fate of Len’s tortoise Clyde (surely the breakout TV performance of 2013): Holmes wants to turn the creature into soup stock, and uses him as a paperweight in the meantime. He eventually sits down to a bowl of split pea soup, concluding that Clyde is too magnificent to eat. This third member of the crime-busting team makes a very gradual reappearance in the episode Snow Angels.

Gregson and Bell share an amusing scene, with Holmes stage-managing affairs via phone. “It’d probably be easier to fire the guy if we ever actually paid him,” Bell concludes.

My head is in a whirl: Bell simply allows Holmes, a man recently suspended from a position with the NYPD for kidnapping and torturing a suspect, to walk away from a crime scene with the victim’s files, tortoise, and a recently-discovered bugging device?

Having closed the case on Len Ponticorvo’s murder and thrown Holmes out of the station house, why do the cops conduct a tox screen on Carlo Anillo?

“I’m smarter than everyone I meet, Watson. I know it’s bad form to say that, but in my case, it’s a fact; allowances have to be made.” The climax of this episode is bound to disappoint. It’s ultimately a big tease - we’re never going to find out what the Red Team discovered and what Holmes subsequently deduces. Had the scriptwriter truly come up with an infallible method of outwitting homeland security, he could probably do more with it than use it as a gimmick in an hour-long segment of a CBS crime drama. The issue of Holmes and Watson spending sufficient screen time together has been solved by this point. Oddly, although the show has no narrator, it seems to be Joan’s lot in this episode to begin each scene with an explanation of where she and Holmes are, and what has led them there.

1X14: The Deductionist

US Airdate: 3 February 2013

Writer: Craig Sweeny & Robert Doherty

Director: John Polson

Guest Cast: Terry Kinney (Martin Ennis); Kari Matchett (Kathryn Drummond); Jessica Hecht (Patricia Ennis); David Wilson Barnes (Cooper); Roger Robinson (Bruce Kushner); Napiera Groves (Sexy Woman #1); Scott Jaeck (Maxwell Krebs); Che Ayende (Vasquez); Whitney Kimball Long (Sophie); Christopher Burns (Detective); Elizabeth Masucci (Sexy Woman #2); Nikiya Mathis (Nurse); Scott Whitehurst (Doctor); Jesse Hochmuth (Reggie); Elizabeth Ariosto (Cindy); Jason Babinsky (Uniformed Cop #1)*; Nadir Hasan (Orderly)* Jesse Lenat (Homeless Man)*; Kohler McKenzie (Uniformed Cop #2)*; Gil O’Brien (Orderly)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Convicted serial killer Howard Ennis, AKA The Peeler, escapes from hospital as he is preparing for the kidney transplant that will save the life of his sister Patricia.

Kathryn Drummond, the FBI profiler responsible for Ennis’ capture is brought in on the case. But Ennis goes out of his way not to kill a young woman in a holdup at a 7/11, determined to show that Kathryn’s theories about him are incorrect. In her book on Ennis, she alleged that his father abused him, a charge that led to the suicides of both parents.

Watson realises that Patricia deliberately destroyed her kidneys, necessitating her brother’s temporary release from prison. Patricia is visited in hospital by Kathryn, who confesses that she falsified the claims of sexual abuse in her book. Holmes’ warning to Detective Bell comes too late to prevent Patricia stabbing Kathryn.

When her brother telephones Gregson, Holmes is able to pinpoint his location by tracing the source of the radio stations to which he is listening. He confronts Ennis alone, overpowers him, and hands him over to the police.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes claims - probably in jest - that he was once robbed by a man in his underwear. As in Rat Race, he again escapes from handcuffs. He considers serial killers duller than the Queen’s jubilee (a topical reference at the time of broadcast). He says “bollocks” once again - you can get a lot of mileage out of a swear when no-one in the country knows what it means, so listen out for it again in the episodes A Landmark Story and Heroine. Just as he took offence to Moran presuming to know him, he bears a particular resentment for Kathryn Drummond after she published a thinly-veiled depiction of him in an article entitled The Deductionist. He stabbed Moran for his presumption, but here it’s Ennis’ ailing sister who attacks Kathryn. Holmes’ language growing more archaic still, he refers to prostitutes as “dollymops.”

I am lost without my Boswell: To Holmes’ bemusement, Joan still maintains her apartment, returning to it whenever she’s not working as a sober companion. She discovers that her sublessor has filmed a pornographic film in her apartment, rendering her couch no longer fit for purpose. Faced with eviction, she spots evidence in the video that proves it was made with the knowledge and approval of Bruce the landlord. She leaves the despoiled apartment anyway.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is exasperated by the fact that Ennis refuses to act in the way predicted by both Holmes and Kathryn, the attack on whose life occurs right under Bell’s nose.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: This is the first time Holmes is seen practising his singlestick technique. In Chapter Two of A Study in Scarlet, Watson notes that Holmes is “an expert singlestick player,” causing many to believe that it might be some sort of musical instrument. It is, in fact, a form of fencing in which a length of wood, rather than a blade, is the weapon. Holmes is never seen to wield a singlestick anywhere in the Canon, making this a particularly obscure reference.

I have never loved: The episode begins with two scantily-clad prostitutes performing a dance routine for a seated Holmes before handcuffing him and proceeding to steal his valuables. It’s all a trap, of course, and the cops are waiting to arrest them.

He watches the porno filmed in Joan’s apartment and finds it mundane and riddled with continuity errors. He notes that her spatula has been desecrated and intimates that something similar may have been done to her toothbrush at the brownstone (by the dollymops?).

A seven-per-cent solution: In her article, The Deductionist, Kathryn correctly anticipates Holmes’ problems with addiction.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: “This place still smells like stripper,” Joan complains, the night after his spectacular bust (fner fner).

Most of the humour in the episode is derived from Holmes’ past relationship with Kathryn. Joan: “I know why you don’t like her.” Holmes: “You recall my aversion to bile-spewing pig-women?” When Joan concludes that she was an ex, Holmes replies: “More of a C+ at best.” And then there’s the porn movie...

My head is in a whirl: The credits list Ennis’ first name as Martin, but he is referred to as Howard throughout the episode.

Ennis is captured by the hoariest of cop show clichés, tuning in his radio while telephoning the cops. And why does he call Gregson, anyway? In fact, the whole plan doesn’t really make sense, given that the perfectly healthy brother, an experienced killer, is required only to publicly avoid killing in order to show Kathryn up, while Patricia’s part of the plan necessitates her ruining her own kidneys. What was stopping her from killing Kathryn while Howard was behind bars?

Kathryn’s article predicts Holmes’ descent into drug addiction, but this occurred only because of the murder of his one true love. Did she also foresee the existence and subsequent death of someone like Irene?

“I want to see if either of us can be more than our profile.” It’s odd that this distinctly humdrum episode was selected to follow the Superbowl, a prestigious slot on US television (the promo features Holmes and Watson watching the game). Miller and Liu are on good form, but Kathryn’s character becomes irrelevant the moment she’s stabbed by Patricia. The fact that Joan is given her own distinct subplot again, a standby of the early episodes, suggests there’s really not enough going on this week.

1X15: A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs

US Airdate: 7 February 2013

Writers: Corinne Brinkerhoff & Liz Friedman

Story: Christopher Silber

Director: Guy Ferland

Guest Cast: John Hannah (Rhys Kinlan); Michael Irby (Xande Diaz); Armand Schultz (Derrick Hughes); Allie Gallerani (Emily Grant); Joey Auzenne (Delivery Guy); Herman Chavez (Dominican Painter #1); Chris Nuñez (DJ)*; Mauricio Ovalle (Reynaldo)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Emily Grant, the daughter of Holmes’ former drug dealer Rhys Kinlan, is abducted from her New York home. The kidnappers are demanding the $2.2m Rhys stole from his Dominican suppliers. But most of the money is gone, and Rhys has no-one else to turn to but his old friend and most valued customer.

A smudge left on the wall of Emily’s home leads to a Dominican-themed nightclub, Hurrikane, where Rhys recognises Renaldo, an old enemy. Holmes identifies one of Renaldo’s men, Xande Diaz, as an undercover DEA agent. Diaz insists that the cartel has nothing to do with Emily’s abduction.

Emily’s Tweets suggest that her father-in-law Derrick Hughes recently asked her for money, and Holmes discovers that she’s been writing cheques to Derrick, a former real estate ace turned hard-up car park attendant. Tracking him from his place of work, Holmes thinks he’s discovered the home where he’s been keeping his stepdaughter captive, but Hughes has nothing to do with the kidnapping - he’s simply squatting in one of his old properties.

Angered that Rhys has involved Holmes, the kidnapper reduces the time he has to deliver the ransom money, and sends a box containing Emily’s severed finger to the brownstone. The clues Holmes discovers on it are not enough in themselves to indicate her whereabouts. In desperation, he requests a loan from his father in order to pay the ransom.

When making the money drop, Holmes realises he has walked into an ambush. DEA agent Diaz arrives at the brownstone, and holds Joan and Rhys hostage - he’s the real kidnapper, and speaking to Holmes over the phone, he demands that the detective transfer the money into his account. Rhys breaks free of his bonds, and is shot. Joan knocks Diaz out with Holmes’ phrenology bust.

Under interrogation, Diaz at first denies all knowledge of Emily’s kidnapping, but later capitulates when Gregson and Bell make it clear that Holmes has sufficient evidence to locate his hiding place, an empty pre-war building near his apartment.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes doesn’t deny that Rhys is a trigger “on a giant gun, filled with drugs” (hence the rather unwieldy episode title) but is satisfied - at first - that he can assist his old friend without succumbing. He considers Emily’s Twitter feed “suffocatingly inane” and “soul-crushing in its utter banality.” He has only one camera outside the house, and apparently still hasn’t removed the ones indoors. He knows how to hot-wire a vehicle. His father remains unseen and, even though they communicate telephonically in this episode, unheard. He insists that he could eventually locate Emily, but doesn’t want to spend any more time than is necessary in Rhys’ company. He informs his ex-dealer that their friendship is at an end. He returns his father’s money, but pays Rhys from his own funds to get out of his life.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan again accuses Holmes of misogyny when he tells her that he has worked out her menstrual cycle. She’s in full sober companion mode here, insisting that they attend daily AA meetings while Rhys is staying in the brownstone. She’s entirely prepared to turn Rhys over to the cops if she feels her partner’s sobriety has been compromised. She remembers that Holmes calls his phrenology bust Angus (a fact revealed in Child Predator).

The efficiency of our detective police force: This is a largely cop-free episode, given that communicating with the official forces will result in Emily’s death. Acting unofficially, Bell supplies Holmes with information of Emily’s stepfather. If this episode were set after Details, it would seem that he’s returning a favour. But it’s not, so that’s that. He and Gregson interrogate Diaz at the episode’s climax, the first time that neither Holmes or Watson have sat in on the questioning of the guilty party.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Holmes’ first appearance in the episode has him relating the events of The Crooked Man to a gathering of fellow addicts. He plans to tell them the story of The Blue Carbuncle at the next meeting.

“I can identify 140 cigarette and cigar brands by their ash alone,” He boasts, referencing a similar claim in The Boscombe Valley Mystery. “If you’d bother to read my monograph, you’d know that.” The ash distinction discussion also shows up in the Sherlock episode A Scandal in Belgravia.

The severed finger in the box discovered at the back door of the brownstone is perhaps a nod to The Cardboard Box (in which the body parts are ears).

In a rare acknowledgement of the BBC’s Sherlock, both Rhys and Joan say “I believe in Sherlock Holmes,” a reference to the tiresome internet meme that resulted from the final episode of Season Two.

I have never loved: Rhys makes the assumption that Joan is Holmes’ “bird.” Big mistake.

A seven-per-cent solution: Joan notes that his Crooked Man recollection is the first time he’s contributed at a meeting.

Rhys once delivered drugs to Holmes at Scotland Yard. He also provided him with cocaine during a locked room mystery known as the Tinsdale case. Rhys again tempts Holmes with coke, but instead of accepting, he attacks the dealer.

He’s surprisingly eager to attend another meeting at the case’s conclusion: “Others may find inspiration in my abstinence... apparently”

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Joan is to say the least unsettled at discovering a naked Rhys on the landing of the brownstone.

Holmes knows that asking his father for the ransom money will cost him something in return: “stealing candy from infants, or clubbing young seals.”

The CBS promo is, as usual, heavy on humour, but actually contains very little material from this episode.

My head is in a whirl: Hurrikane is one of those nightclubs only seen on TV, where the music isn’t so loud you can’t hear yourself talk, and filled with only as many revellers as the budget will run to.

Holmes says that Emily’s stepfather is named Derrick Hughes, but one scene later, Bell refers to him as Derrick Hume.

Having made it plain that Joan mistrusts Rhys, it’s odd that she should leave him alone with Holmes at a café table while she orders some food. In fact, given her mistrust of the man, why doesn’t she subject him to the same drug tests she gave Holmes in early episodes?

“We have just under 44 hours until the ransom is due - luxury. That’s twice what I’ll need.” The episode is less interesting for its plot or for its depiction of Holmes’ temptation than it is for the character of Rhys Kinlan, a scumbag through and through. He doesn’t know what illness killed Emily’s mother, and even though he’s concerned about his daughter’s fate, he just can’t stop himself from trying to ply Holmes with drugs - it’s simply in his nature to act in this fashion, and well-drawn though he is, we can only hope that, for Holmes’ sake, we’ll never see him again in Elementary.

1X16: Details

US Airdate: 14 February 2013

Writers: Jeffrey Paul King & Jason Tracey

Story: Robert Doherty

Director: Sanaa Hamri

Guest Cast: Malcolm Goodwin (Andre Bell); Paula Graces (Officer Paula Reyes); Anwan Glover (Curtis Bradshaw); Lynda Gravatt (Lenore); Michael Bakkensen (Reporter #1); Matt McGorry (Officer Sam Klecko); Kelvin McGrue (Cronie #1); Shawn McLean (Cronie #2)

Plot: Driving home at the end of his shift, Bell is shot at by another motorist in a 1968 Chevy Biscayne, wielding an automatic weapon. Escaping relatively unscathed, he has a good idea who wanted to take his life - Curtis Bradshaw, who served a spell in prison thanks to Bell, despite a fellow officer almost jeopardizing the case by attempting to frame the racketeer. Bell recognised the Chevy as the one belonging to Bradshaw, who insists that his vehicle was stolen some days earlier.

After being questioned by Holmes, Bradshaw shows up dead. Holmes identifies prints at the scene of the crime as having been made by Bugatti boots - and Bell happens to own a pair.

Searching Bells’ apartment, Holmes discovers a 9mm hidden in the bathroom, and, conducting tests of his own, confirms that it is the gun used to kill Bradshaw. Holmes doesn’t tell Gregson about his discovery because he believes someone is attempting to frame Bell.

The incriminating boots were given by the detective to his brother Andre, a former gang member. Andre denies planting the gun, and is later shot in his apartment, writing “was not Marcus” in his own blood.

Another set of incriminating boot-prints is found nearby. Watson realises that it was Bell who blew the whistle on the officer who framed Bradshaw, his former lover Officer Paula Reyes. Holmes identifies her as the killer, and evidence discovered at her home proves her guilt.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes gets to use his American accent for the third time this season, posing as an intruder in the brownstone. Following the climax of the previous episode (which, according to the dialogue, occurred just a week earlier), he’s taken to staging surprise “attacks” on Joan in the hope of improving her reactions. He encourages her to take martial arts classes. He also discovered during that last adventure that Joan had chosen to stay with him. That knowledge genuinely affects him, and he virtually pleads with her to join him as his assistant. “I am better with you, Watson,” he tells her. “Difficult to say why, exactly. Perhaps in time, I’ll solve that as well.” His Victorian-era lingo resurfaces, causing him to call a toilet a water closet. He tells Watson that he’s assisting Bell because he doesn’t want to have to break in another co-operative police officer. He displays his collection of locks by date of manufacture.

I am lost without my Boswell: Visiting her therapist again, Joan describes the events of A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs. Dr Reed is concerned that Joan’s life is now potentially at risk - she certainly seems to be letting a lot of his usual social infractions pass without comment these days. Despite the recommendation that she should move on and seek another client, Joan is sufficiently moved by Holmes’ speech to agree to live at the brownstone for the foreseeable future, acting as Holmes’ partner/apprentice. She likes to be paid on Thursdays.

The efficiency of our detective police force: After too many episodes with too little to do, Bell finally gets a story to himself, and a first name. There’s no shortage of people who want him dead, a cause for pride, in Holmes’ opinion. After Bradshaw’s murder, he’s placed on administrative duty.

Gregson never doubts his underling’s innocence, though he’s anxious that he might be suspected by others.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Just as the donation of old clothes to the needy causes problems in The Hound of the Baskervilles, so Bell’s gift of a pair of Bugatti boots to his needy brother gives the impression that Andre might have killed Bradshaw. In fact, the prints were made by an entirely different pair, purchased by Paula Reyes.

I have never loved: Holmes thinks that Reyes and Bell had sex at least ten times - they were certainly in a close enough relationship for him to give her a key to his home.

Holmes suggests that Reyes teaches Watson to fight. Joan suggests he simply wants to see two women engage in foxy boxing.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes suggests that his new working relationship with Watson will relieve her of all confidentiality burdens. She, in turn, insists that he continue to accompany her to AA meetings.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: “Can you think of any reason that Bell would have a lingerie catalogue in which your head has been superimposed on almost all of the models?” Holmes asks Watson after searching the policeman’s home. He adds, “He hasn’t, but can you think of any reason he would?”

The episode’s promo is built around Holmes’ mock attempts on Joan’s life.

When she sees him conducting ballistics tests in the brownstone, she asks, “Is this another test of my reflexes, because you’re about to see how quickly I can call the police.”

Holmes’ pride is hurt by the fact that he failed to deduce the existence of Bell’s brother. When Joan points out that no-one knew, he protests: “Still - I’m me!”

My head is in a whirl: It’s fortunate that Holmes volunteers his services in this episode, since it seems unlikely he’d be requested to assist in the case of a drive-by shooting where the identity of the attacker is in little doubt.

Andre wouldn’t have been shot if Holmes hadn’t shown that someone was attempting to frame his brother. But he doesn’t seem to feel any guilt over that, and neither of the Bell brothers holds it against him.

“Nothing makes a smart man stupid like a thirst for vengeance.” The turning point in the relationship between Holmes and Watson has finally been reached. Miller’s big speech in this episode is brilliantly delivered and genuinely affecting. Their relationship will always be combative, but Holmes has gone from insisting that he doesn’t need Watson to acknowledging that he actually does. Dr Candace Reed is starting to look like a possible candidate for Moriarty, but since this episode marks her final appearance in the series, that clearly isn’t going to be the case. The mystery itself feels like offcuts from One Way to Get Off, since both Gregson and Bell had female colleagues who attempted to frame a criminal when an investigation stalled.

1X17: Possibility Two

US Airdate: 21 February 2013

Writer: Mark Goffman

Director: Seith Mann

Guest Cast: David Furr (Paul Reeves); Christopher Sieber (Carter Lyndon); Albert Jones (Benny Cordero); Jennifer Lim (Natasha Kademan); Gibson Frazier (Raph Keating); Dennis Boutsikaris (Gerald Lydon); Steven Hauck (Crabtree); Michael Izquierdo (Josh Lydon); Caroline Strong (Ashley Mitchell); Tom Galantich (Brian Watt); Barbara Miluski (Agnieszka); Aleksander Mici (Ludoslaw); Patricia Connolly (Greta Dunwoody); Bennett Bradley (Ms Tompkins); George Bartenieff (Jurgi)

Plot: Returning from an easily-resolved shooting case, Holmes and Watson are approached by industrialist Gerald Lydon. He tells them he is suffering from Hereditary CAA, a rare illness of which the first symptom is dementia and the final one is death. But no member of Lydon’s family has ever had this condition; he is convinced that he has somehow been given the disorder. Holmes refuses to take the case, believing the most obvious solution - a natural illness - to be the likeliest.

Lydon attempts to bribe the detective with a valuable species of bee. Once again, Holmes declines, but later he receives a call from Captain Gregson - having temporarily lost control of his faculties, Lydon has shot and killed his driver, Crabtree.

Holmes and Watson visit Watt Helix, the genetics company responsible for diagnosing Lydon’s CAA. They speak to Raph Keating and his fiancée, Natasha Kademan. Kademan suggests that seven geneticists in the world might be capable of artificially giving someone the condition.

The clues point to a lab in Oslo, where a scientist appears to have been paid off by Gerald Lydon’s son Carter. Before Holmes and Watson can pack, they are contacted by Natasha Kademan, who sends them an unlabelled diagram of a molecule. Returning to the Watt Helix lab, they find her murdered.

Keating insists that his fiancée was most likely killed by an ex-con, Benny Cordera, who objected to the tests she conducted upon him. Joan proves that someone may indeed have tampered with Lydon’s DNA. But the case falls apart when the blood at the scene of Natasha’s murder proves to be a match for Benny Cordera, who insists that on the night she died, he was - for the purposes of blackmail - filming a neighbour engaged in an affair with the nanny.

Holmes finds that Cordera’s sample was manufactured by Raph Keating. He believed Natasha was conducting an affair with a Lincoln Dunwoody and confesses to killing her and framing Cordera, but insists he knows nothing of the Gerald Lydon matter.

Holmes discovers that the name of Natasha’s supposed lover is in fact the surnames of two wealthy philanthropic families. Unexplained cases of CAA have occurred to members of both the Lincolns and the Dunwoodys. He proves that Brian Watt, semi-retired head of Watt Helix has the same disease, and in order to attract funding for a cure, has induced the condition in some of New York’s wealthiest individuals.

The best and the wisest man: At the shooting of two guards employed by ZBZ Security, he pronounces the name “Zed Bee Zed” rather than the American “Zee Bee Zee.” He has taken to leaving piles of books outside Watson’s room to assist her in her retraining as a detective. As part of their new arrangement, he tells Watson he will clean out the fridge every month. At one point, he is seen pouring acid onto a child’s doll, no doubt in connection with some unrecorded case. He considers utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham the father of modern criminology. Holmes insists that, having first refused it, he has taken Lydon’s bee back to the brownstone because he can’t refuse a dying man’s last wish, but it’s hard not to suspect that he just really, really wants the bee. He speaks Norwegian, can pick pockets and has read Natasha Kademan’s dissertation, The Warrior Gene.

I am lost without my Boswell: In the opening scene, Holmes has a nervous Watson analyse the shooting of the two security guards in Bell’s presence. She doesn’t consider her first outing as a detective to be a failure (although Holmes ultimately solves the crime), and she does somewhat better in her analysis of the blood spatter at the scene of Natasha Kademan’s killing. She later cracks the code of the molecule image Natasha sent them before her murder, and skilfully acquires a sample of Carter Lydon’s DNA from a chewed pen. She knows about Hereditary CAA. Her trips to the dry-cleaners to pick up Holmes’ sweaters suggest to her that something strange is going on there - little actual cleaning goes on there, and the store boasts an over-abundance of security cameras. He sends her back there when the same sweaters “accidentally” become stained with ink. She eventually realises what Holmes has already deduced: that the dry-cleaners is a front for a money laundering organisation. She informs Bell, who conducts a raid on the premises.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson considers the Lydon case closed, and doubts any connection between the deaths of Crabtree and Kademan. He and Bell interrogate Benny Cordera, but they are constantly interrupted by Holmes texting and hammering on the window.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Holmes’ name is given to Gerald Lydon by a Mr Musgrave in London. The name is taken from Holmes’ university chum and one of his earliest paying clients, seen in The Musgrave Ritual.

In A Study in Scarlet, Watson considers that Holmes has no knowledge of philosophy, but in the preface to His Last Bow, Watson says that Holmes divides his time during his retirement between philosophy and agriculture. Somewhere in between the two lies the truth about his opinion of Jeremy Bentham.

Holmes has a gramophone player, as did his Canonical counterpart in The Mazarin Stone.

He encourages Watson to practice with his singlestick.

I have never loved: Holmes prefers to travel to Oslo rather than question Carter Lydon because of his previously undisclosed weakness for Norwegian women.

He suspects that Watson was romantically involved with her insomniac genetics professor, Jerry.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes tells the cops it’s not his place to tell them how to do their job, then - surprise, surprise - proceeds to do just that.

Having ignored Joan’s suggestion that he contact the world’s top geneticists, he later arranges a video conference with them all, cutting them off before they can reach a conclusion.

Lydon: “I hold 18 patents and I can do 11 pull-ups at age 58.” Holmes: “And I own exactly 16 forks. I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to be comparing.”

The promo gives the impression that Holmes accidentally squashes the rare bee, when nothing of the kind happens.

My head is in a whirl: As in The Red Team, Holmes is permitted to remove an item from an active crime scene, in this case a box containing a rare species of bee.

Brian Watt has the ability and the resources to create an artificial version of CAA, but not to cure it?

“A good detective knows that every task, every interaction, no matter how seemingly banal, has the potential to contain multitudes. I live my life alert to this possibility. I expect my colleagues to do the same.” It’s natural to assume that Lydon’s shooting of Crabtree will turn out to be a frame-up, and that the testimony of the only witness, a nurse, is a lie. But it’s not, and Lydon vanishes from the story after this incident. Possibility Two features many of the plot elements familiar from previous episodes, but somehow it fails to gel. Perhaps because the characters are mere pawns at the mercy of the plot, it’s hard to really care about anyone, and the one sympathetic character, Gerald Lydon, disappears without trace, his fate uncertain.

1X18: Déjà Vu All Over Again

US Airdate: 14 March 2013

Writer: Brian Rodenbeck

Director: Jerry Levine

Guest Cast: Josh Hamilton (Drew Gardner); Jim True-Frost (Anson Samuels); Geneva Carr (Rebecca Burrell); Andre Royo (Thaddeus); Susan Pourfar (Emily Hankins); Roxanna Hope (Callie Burrell); Timothy Sekk (Ken); Victoria Cartagena (Hope); Kenneth Tigar (Philip Armistead); Penny McNamee (Vivian Tully); Jimmy Palumbo (Security Guard); Stephen Niese (Anchor); David Gibson (Attorney)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Holmes’ father holds him to the bargain they struck in A Giant Gun, Filled With Drugs, and insists that Sherlock assist his colleagues in New York. Attorney Philip Armistead is concerned on behalf of his assistant Rebecca Burrell, whose sister Callie may have been murdered by her husband Drew Gardner six months earlier.

Holmes and Watson view a video in which Callie tells her husband she’s leaving him, having been upset by the story of a woman with a bunch of flowers being pushed in front of a subway train. Rebecca is convinced that Drew somehow faked the video and killed his wife.

Watson investigates Callie’s disappearance, while Holmes looks into the death of Vivien Tully, the young woman pushed in front of an oncoming subway train. Joan questions Callie’s husband, who mentions that the couple split up for a brief period once before. She becomes convinced that Gardner killed Callie. Holmes sends Gardner an anonymous message accusing him of murder, in order to frighten him into action.

Conducting surveillance with Alfredo’s assistance, Joan sees Gardner move a large trunk out of a storage locker and believes Callie’s body may be inside. She is caught in the act of attempting to break into the trunk, and to make matters worse, she is arrested.

Pursuing the subway murder, Holmes finds that Vivien Tully had a stalker, Anson Samuels, who proves that though he was indeed following her, he didn’t push her under a train. But Samuel’s video footage shows that a busking musician seems to have followed the pusher after Vivien’s death. The performer admits to recognizing the killer as someone whose pocket he had attempted to pick once before.

Disheartened with her failure, Joan plans to tell Rebecca that she cannot continue with the case, when she sees a photograph of Callie wearing her husband’s jacket, a jacket that matches the description of the one worn by the man who pushed Vivien Tully under a subway train. But why should Callie be inspired to leave Drew because of her death, and what reason would he have for killing Vivien?

Joan remembers that Drew and Callie were briefly separated eighteen months earlier, which was when she recorded the video in which she mentions the death of the woman with the flowers. At that time, Anna Peters was pushed in front of a train by two brawling students while carrying a bunch of flowers for a sick friend. In order to make it appear that Callie vanished of her own free will, Gardner staged a second murder, matching the accident she described in the video by killing Vivien, thus giving the impression that the video was recorded only six months ago.

The best and the wisest man: Six months have passed since Holmes and Watson first met. He selected Joan to act as his sober companion, having studied the CVs of several candidates, for reasons that have not yet been determined. He takes an interest in Vivien’s death, having lost a valuable informant under similar circumstances in London - he eventually found the killer then, as now. He still refers to the subway as “the tube” (see the pilot episode). He seems not to know who Columbo is. He has many discardable cell phones. “I have the very strongest sensation of déjà vu,” he tells Joan when he visits her after her arrest, a callback to the very first episode, in which Holmes found himself incarcerated after wrecking her car. It’s heartening that he doesn’t mock her, but instead encourages Joan for her boldness.

I am lost without my Boswell: The episode begins with a flashback set just before Watson begins work as Holmes’ sober companion. She receives a call from a doctor at Hemdale, who has just sent her Sherlock’s case file. Holmes’ sponsor Alfredo is teaching her to break into and hot-wire cars. She has yet to identify herself to anyone as a consulting detective. Watson twice forgets her dinner date with an old acquaintance, journalist Emily Hankins. When she finally makes the appointment, she finds a gathering of friends staging an intervention, of which she’s organized many in the past. Insulted, she walks out on them. Joan finally cracks the case, and makes her peace with Emily. She alters her professional status on a social networking site from “Sobriety Counselor” to “Consulting Detective.”

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson doesn’t know that Holmes plays the violin, nor has he ever seen him eat.

Bell accompanies Holmes when he questions the musician. Just like old times.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: A paraphrased line from A Study in Scarlet: “There is no branch of detective work which is as important or as neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.” It’s a rare thing for the show to quote any story other than the first novel. There are sixty tales to choose from, guys - fill your boots.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes knows nothing of the murder of Vivien Tully - he was in Hemdale at the time, without access to newspapers. The crime news overexcited him.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: The CBS promo gives the impression that Watson’s attempts at car-jacking are comedic, when they’re really not.

Holmes gets all the best lines this week: “Opinions are like ani, Watson, everyone has one” and “Have I told you how distracting I find self-doubt? If you must wallow, I ask that you do it in the privacy of your room.”

My head is in a whirl: Holmes’ phone no longer plays the Psycho music when Joan calls, as it did in One Way to Get Off, suggesting that it was indeed a cheap gag after all.

And while the ani line is funny, the correct plural is actually “anuses.”

We never actually find out what Gardner did with his wife’s body.

“It’s a case with training wheels.” The episode is derived from a line in the movie Scream, but the similarity ends there. This is a tightly-constructed mystery with plenty for Watson to do and a thoroughly satisfying solution. It’s almost a shame that she and Holmes end up working together in the story quite as soon as they do, since it’d be nice to see her find her way as a detective without any assistance, but it’s all part of an arc that works for her character, with her friends questioning her choices and causing her to doubt herself until she cracks the case and gets her name in the papers, which is always nice, unless it relates to public nudity - sorry, Mum.

1X19: Snow Angels

US Airdate: 4 April 2013

Writer: Jason Tracey

Director: Andrew Bernstein

Guest Cast: Jill Flint (Alysa Darwin); Becky Ann Baker (Pam); Frank Wood (EROC Supervisor); Candis Cayne (Ms Hudson); Karl Miller (Squatter); Bill Buell (Private Maggio); Howard McGillin (Davis Renkin); Andy Grotelueschen (Nurse Vince); Christine Rounder (Denise Castor); Curt Bouril (FRP #1); Scott Aiello (Uniform #1); Daniel Loeser (Uniform #2); Slate Holmgren (Uniform #3); Samuel Smith (EMT #1); Nick Sullivan (Frank Dempster); Lonnie Quinn (TV Reporter); Mark Elliot Wilson (Joseph Leseur)

Plot: A blizzard is approaching New York as Holmes and Watson are called to the shooting of a security guard by a group of thieves who were apparently after the latest model of Verzia cellphones. Joan deduces that one of the thieves was also shot in the altercation.

As the power goes out across the city, Denise Castor of FEMA arrives to work alongside the police department. Holmes locates the stolen phones without any difficulty - the thieves dropped them in a dumpster. The phone theft was a ruse - the actual target was a architectural firm in the same building. Blueprints have been stolen.

After a night studying documents, Holmes determines that the criminals are interested in EROC - East Rutherford Operations Centre, a cash depository and processing centre for the Federal Reserve. With no way to contact Gregson, Holmes and Watson hitch a ride to EROC with snow plough driver Pam.

At the facility, they finds that they’ve arrived too late - $33m has already been stolen, and the criminals have fled in an ambulance.

Searching for the wounded thief, Bell meets Alysa Darvin as she is about to be released from hospital. She claims she was stabbed by a mugger, but Bell believes her knife injury is actually an attempt to disguise a bullet wound.

The ambulance containing Alysa’s fellow thieves and the stolen bills cannot be located, and Holmes suspects that Denise Castor has arranged for it to pass through barriers unobstructed. Gregson fakes a powercut and a riot at the police station, which prompts Denise to attempt to release her co-conspirator. Bell stops them before they even get out of the building.

The best and the wisest man: In a rare show of interest in his own health, Holmes is seen taking cod liver oil. Attempting to save battery power on his cellphone, he uses a magnifying lens during the blackout. “Don’t you have an app for that?” Joan asks. She’s quite right; we saw it in Flight Risk. Holmes neglected to pay the phone bill, and as a result, the service has been disconnected. “In this day and age, a landline is an appendix or a vestigial tail,” he insists. He says that the idea behind the heist is so ingenious he’d let the criminals get away with it if they hadn’t killed someone. He wonders why Gregson called him in on what appears to be a pretty simple matter.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan is aggrieved that Holmes is sticking to the letter of their domestic agreement - he cleans the fridge once a month, but does nothing else (clearly, then, Snow Angels takes place at least a little over a month after the previous episode). Her detective skills are improving - she realises that the security guard didn’t die straight away before even Holmes spots it. From the startled expression on her face, it’s plain that Sherlock is lying when he tells an armed man that Joan holds several black belts - his attempts to get her trained in at least one of the martial arts failed, then (file this under A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, too). She initially objects to the presence of Ms Hudson, but later grows to like her.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Bell is seen acting on his own, visiting hospitals in search of the wounded thief. He and Gregson get a few nice scenes working without Holmes and Watson. Bell played Sky Masterson in his high school’s production of Guys and Dolls. “The stage’s loss in New York City’s gain,” Holmes observes. It’s hard to imagine a scenario during which Bell would admit such a thing to Holmes.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: “Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind of man could invent,” Holmes says, quoting the opening of A Case of Identity.

This episode marks the first and only appearance this season of Ms Hudson, this show’s equivalent of Baker Street’s trusty housekeeper. She’s an autodidact and expert in ancient Greek whom Holmes consulted on several cases in London. She’s also a pre- or post-op transsexual and an emotional mess. The brownstone looks downright homely once she’s had a chance to clean it. Despite the promise that she’ll be a semi-regular fixture in the series from now on, she isn’t seen for the remainder of the season. Candis Cayne is earnest in the role, though Kristen Johnston of Third Rock from the Sun fame might have been more fun in the role. But hey, what do I know?

I have never loved: Holmes has taken Ms Hudson in following the disintegration of her relationship with Davis Renkin of 3T Enterprises. There’s a reconciliation followed by another breakup. Holmes seems oddly edgy when Ms Hudson says she’ll see him on Tuesday. What’s going on there?

A seven-per-cent solution: Mentions of Holmes’ addiction are few and far between now that Watson has taken a new role in his life. Cod liver oil all round, then.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: “Unless the thieves are angling to steal onesies from a Baby Gap, it’s very difficult to see what they’re after,” Holmes complains as he studies duplicates of the stolen blueprints.

When Pam attempts to draw Holmes and Watson into conversation during the long drive to New Jersey, he responds: “We met your price, Pam, I assume it included freedom from small talk.” “He gets carsick... like a six year-old,” Joan explains.

Clyde the tortoise reappears, a red cross on his back to represent the stolen ambulance in Holmes’ reconstruction of the thieves’ escape.

Watson: “What if there are 50 commandos shooting up the place?” Holmes: “Well, I have my whistle...”

My head is in a whirl: Joan may wear it well, but is a miniskirt really appropriate clothing for a blizzard?

And while it’s one thing for Alysa, locked in an interrogation room, to imagine that there’s a riot going on in the police station, how is Denise Castor taken in so thoroughly?

“Well, if I have to solve this in the stone age, I suppose it might be interesting after all.” The weather effects, both CGI and practical, are excellent in this episode, convincingly conveying the impression of a blizzard powerful enough to bring the city to a halt. But because we never see the thieves after the pre-credits sequence, or know how close Holmes and Watson are to catching up with them, it’s difficult to invest any interest in their crime. Their arrest and the recovery of the money all takes place offscreen, too. Despite the presence of Ms Hudson, snow plough driver Pam interacts with Holmes and Watson far more amusingly. It would be nice to think that we might see her again, as one of Sherlock’s NY Irregulars.

1X20: Dead Man’s Switch

US Airdate: 25 April 2013

Writers: Liz Friedman & Christopher Silber

Story: Christopher Silber

Director: Larry Teng

Guest Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan (Ken Whitman); Wayne Duvall (Duke Landers); Jospeh Siravo (Anthony Pistone); Thomas Guiry (Brent Garvey); Russell G Jones (Attorney); David Mogentale (Charles Augustus Milverton); Randy Louis Swiren (Stuart Bloom); Portia Reiners (Eva Whitman); Greg Nutcher (Crime Scene Detective)

Plot: Holmes’ latest case comes not from Gregson or Bell, but from his sponsor Alfredo, who sends them to the address of his own sponsor, Ken Whitman. He tells Holmes and Watson that his daughter Eva was drugged and raped by a man named Brent Garvey, and though Garvey was subsequently jailed, Whitman has recently received a video recording of the incident along with a blackmail demand.

Tracing the blackmailer, Charles Augustus Milverton, proves to be an easy task, but when Holmes breaks into his Staten Island home to recover the videos, he sees Milverton shot dead by a masked man, who subsequently removes the body.

Holmes contacts Gregson, but is anxious that Milverton’s accomplice, who is mentioned in the demand sent to Whitman, should continue to believe the blackmailer is dead, for fear that he might release incriminating material on the web.

Suspecting that the imprisoned Brent Garvey might be that accomplice, Holmes questions the rapist. But Garvey is another of Milverton’s victims, and knows nothing of any other blackmail material.

Alfredo spots attorney Duke Landers attempting to enter Milverton’s home. When questioned by Holmes and Watson, Landers reluctantly admits knowing the blackmailer and is aware of the existence of an accomplice, but insists that he was simply a supplier of incriminating material.

Examining Milverton’s ledger, Holmes sees that regular payments were made to someone listed as Henry 8, and suspects that the codename refers to one of Landers’ clients, Abraham Zellner. Further investigation reveals that the name Zellner is another pseudonym.

Another of Milverton’s victims, Anthony Pistone, is arrested attempting to dispose of the blackmailer’s body. He confesses to the murder. The world will now know Milverton is dead. When all seems lost, Whitman receives a new blackmail demand, sent by Henry 8.

Holmes finally identifies Abaraham Zellner as Stuart Bloom. He and Watson go to confront Bloom, but instead discover his rotting corpse. The evidence suggests that Bloom was killed by Milverton, so who has the blackmail material now?

When Milverton’s autopsy report comes in, Holmes notes that Anthony Pistone stamped on the blackmailer’s head, obliterating existing scars, scars that match Pistone’s ring. It turns out that he had given Milverton a severe beating on an earlier occasion, at which time Pistone demanded a piece of his operation. Milverton’s laptop is discovered in the possession of Pistone’s brother, proving his guilt.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes is first seen touching up his tattoos. He claims he’s ambidextrous, something most of us would give our right arm to be. He hates cats (does he have allergies, like Stephen King’s depiction of the detective in his pastiche The Doctor’s Case?), considers blackmailers, in some respects, more despicable than murderers, and takes pleasure in seeing the beating Brent Garvey has received in prison. From this point on in the series, he largely dispenses with his grungy look in favour of smart suits and waistcoats.

I am lost without my Boswell: Having absorbed several volumes on handwriting analysis, Joan has no difficulty in identifying Duke Landers’ law licence as a forgery. She’s just about ready for her spinoff: Joan Watson - The Crime Doctor!

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is far from amused at being asked to watch the video of Eva Whitman’s rape without any explanation from Holmes. He has more than one daughter. He thinks Blum might have been murdered by Anthony Pistone.

Bell’s input is minor, but compared to his contribution to the next episode, it’s positively gargantuan.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: This is the first episode to draw its plot - at least in part - from a Canonical adventure. In Charles Augustus Milverton, Holmes and Watson are employed by a victim of “the worst man in London.” They break into his home in order to retrieve an incriminating letter, and witness the blackmailer being shot dead by a masked woman. Robert Hardy played Milverton in the massively overlong Jeremy Brett version of this tale, The Master Blackmailer. The makers of the BBC’s Sherlock have promised their own take on the story in Season Three, in which the villain’s surname has become Magnussen.

A seven-per-cent solution: As he adds embellishments to his tattoos, Holmes observes “It’s the only needle these arms see nowadays.”

He’s heading for his sober anniversary, at which time he’ll be presented with a one-year chip. He thinks the idea infantile: “It is absurd to measure sobriety in units of time - it is a state of being. One is either in it or out of it.” He orders a large number of chips online, in order, he claims, to see what all the fuss is about, and tells Alfredo that he can’t accept a chip because he feels it commemorates “the end of a period of great failure.” Finally, he tearfully confesses to Joan that he relapsed just after entering Hemdale - it isn’t actually his anniversary. He still refuses to accept a sobriety chip, so Joan presents him with a framed copy of the final stanza of Robert Frost’s famous Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

He challenges Watson to smell his breath and confirm that he hasn’t been drinking.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: In the absence of a sensory deprivation chamber, Holmes proposes attempting to regress Alfredo by locking him in the trunk of his car. Luckily, Joan recognises the description of the man he saw at Milverton’s home as Duke Landers before the situation becomes Tarantino-esque.

Holmes calls the garishly-coloured sobriety chips “more appropriate to a successful first year as a Vegas showgirl.”

When Joan describes Zellner as heavyset, he responds: “Orson Welles was heavyset; Abraham Zellner could pull small moons out of orbit.”

Holmes: “Captain, what is the first thing that comes to mind when I say Henry VIII?” Gregson: “Herman’s Hermits?”

As in Flight Risk, Holmes sits in Watson’s bedroom, waiting for her to wake up. It’s a rather a creepy habit, and she needs to talk to him about it.

This episode follows a brief break in the run, and from now until the finale, the promos become quite serious in tone.

Holmes’ rather blunt but factual accusation, “You’re a liar... who lies,” shows up in the promo for Season Two, for some reason.

My head is in a whirl: For the third time this season, Holmes and Watson are permitted to remove evidence from a house where a murder has just been committed - this week, it’s Milverton’s ledger. Are crime scenes the equivalent of garage sales in New York?

“I can’t recall when I was so thankful for the essential avarice of the human condition.” Like the James Bond film The Living Daylights, the original literary source serves as a prologue for an entirely new adventure. The sobriety chip storyline doesn’t really add up to much, but Miller gives it his all, and is one of the very few Holmeses to cry onscreen, along with Nicol Williamson, Christopher Plummer and Jeremy Brett.

1X21: A Landmark Story

US Airdate: 2 May 2013

Writer: Corrine Brinkerhoff

Director: Peter Werner

Guest Cast: Roger Aaron Brown (John Douglas); Byron Jennings (Phillip Van Der Hoff); F Murray Abraham (Daniel Gottlieb); Berto Colon (Will); Helen Coxe (Hillary Taggart); Tony F DeVito (Convict #1); Aaron Berg (Convict #2); Mark DiConzo (Uniformed Cop); Laurence Lau (Robert Baumann): Morgan Weed (The Girl With Rainbow Hair); Bryan A Miranda (Sikh With Turban); Carl Ducena (NYPD Officer)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Phillip Van Der Hoff is killed in a most unusual manner by an urbane killer who uses a laptop to tamper with his pacemaker unless he agrees to cast a vote concerning a particular property in New York. After voting as he is instructed, Van Der Hoff is killed anyway.

The imprisoned Sebastian Moran sees the news report about the death and demands to talk to Holmes - Van Der Hoff was to have been his next target, had he not been captured.

Examining the corpse, Holmes and Watson discover the imaginative means of murder, and subsequently the motive - Van Der Hoff and others were members of New York’s Landmark Protection council, debating the status of the famous Taggart Speakeasy Museum. Most of those who changed their votes willingly were bribed with the promise of a home renovation, courtesy of skyscraper builder Robert Baumann, who is killed by a falling air conditioning unit before he can be questioned.

It appears that someone has taken over Moran’s post as Moriarty’s chief assassin, someone who specializes in committing murders that appear to be accidents.

Holmes decides that Hillary Taggart, last surviving relative of the mobster who owned the speakeasy during the prohibition era, will be the next target and that the best way to save her life is to determine how she is to be killed.

As he and Watson watch Hillary jog, the detective is distracted by the buzzing of an Africanized honey bee. Joan has spotted that Hillary wears a medic alert bracelet. The creative killer is planning to have her attacked by “an army of bee assassins.”

Staking out the hive, Holmes stuns the killer, Daniel Gottlieb, and takes him back to the brownstone. Gottlieb, like Moran, receives encrypted texts from Moriarty. Under duress, he makes an appointment with his employer.

Watson and Holmes watch the restaurant where Gottlieb’s contact has arranged to meet, and get a photo of the man, John Douglas. Holmes tracks Douglas to his hotel room, but he is killed by a marksman before he can talk.

Another coded message is sent to Gottlieb’s phone. When he insists he can’t translate it, Holmes takes the message to Moran. He, too, claims it is meaningless. The detective eventually cracks the code, a threat to the life of Moran’s sister. Holmes is too late to prevent Moran’s suicide attempt. As he berates himself, Gottlieb’s phone rings again - the caller is an Englishmen who identifies himself as Moriarty. “I believe we’re overdue for a chat...”

The best and the wisest man: Holmes dislocates his own shoulder in an attempt to get out of a straightjacket. His doll abuse continues - he burns Barbie’s boyfriend Ken at the stake to symbolise an ongoing dispute he has with a theologist concerning Galileo. He considers Watson “an interesting project.”

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson twice gets to show off her medical abilities in this episode. She resets Holmes’ dislocated shoulder, and later, much against her will, she performs an illicit autopsy on Phillip Van Der Hoff (Well, we were all young once, weren’t we?).

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson doubts that Holmes is telling the truth about what occurred when he spoke to Moran. If he’d pressed his consultant for an answer, John Douglas might not have been killed, too (assuming that Moran is indeed dead).

Bell is seen interrogating Gottlieb, but has no dialogue.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Holmes says that he once broke into a funeral parlour during The Problem of Thor Bridge (which Miller pronounces “Tor”).

John Douglas shares his name with the victim in The Valley of Fear, whose death is arranged by Moriarty. As a target or a as a minion, he still winds up dead.

“Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable knack for stimulating it,” Holmes remarks, quoting his sentiments in the first chapter of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Joan considers it both an insult and a boast. Who can blame her? The same back-handed compliment is given in Sherlock’s The Hounds of Baskerville.

I have never loved: There’s mention of Irene Adler, and Holmes’ intentions regarding her killer.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes likens his intent regarding violence towards Gottlieb to his actions should he discover a syringe filled with heroin - unknowable.

Gottlieb was arranging an accidental overdose for Holmes in London before being advised by Moriarty that the hit was cancelled.

Joan apologises to Holmes after saying she needs a drink.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Joan critiques Holmes’ attempts at dissection. When she takes over, he praises her skill. “I am dissecting a body in the middle of the night,” she points out, “we are not having a moment!”

The funniest scene in the entire series occurs when, immediately after Joan says an air conditioning unit could not possibly be dropped onto a moving target, she is seen folding her clothes in the brownstone... as an air conditioner flies past the window.

My head is in a whirl: Holmes mispronounces jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke’s surname (it’s a safe bet that the villain in this episode is named after Danny Gottlieb, another jazz musician).

Once again, Holmes keeps hold of a vital piece of evidence with the blessing of the NYPD. Wouldn’t they want to examine Gottlieb’s phone?

Is Roger Aaron Brown being dubbed? He sounds suspiciously like the actor Colin Salmon.

Moriarty, it seems, must own the land on which the Taggart Speakeasy stands - even if intermediaries are involved, it seems like a profitable avenue of investigation, but Holmes never even considers looking into it.

“We’re obviously pursuing a lively intellect.” This is the beginning of a four-episode run that will resolve the issues with Moriarty and the murder of Irene Adler. F Murray Abraham is so striking a presence that for the early portion of the episode, it appears that he might actually be Moriarty. Vinnie Jones’ Moran is just plain terrifying, killing a prison guard who might have overheard his conversation with Holmes. His own suicide attempt, ramming his head repeatedly into a mirror is no less horrific. Gregson reports in the final scene that Moran is not expected to survive, but his fate is still left up in the air (probably in case the writers decide to bring Vinnie back). As a point of trivia, it’s a pretty safe bet that this is the first use of the word “dildo” in a Holmesian pastiche.

1X22: Risk Management

US Airdate: 9 May 2013

Writer: Liz Friedman

Story: Liz Friedman & Robert Doherty

Director: Adam Davidson

Guest Cast: J C MacKenzie (Daren Sutter); Francie Swift (Katie Sutter); Stephanie Kurtzuber (Eileen Rourke); Sean Dougherty (Detective); Con Horgan (Wallace Rourke); Perri Lauren (Leah Sutter); Adam Godley (British Man: Voice)*

*Uncredited

Plot: To Holmes’ surprise, Moriarty wants to hire him to investigate the murder of mechanic Wallace Rourke, killed in Brooklyn the previous December. In return for his services, Holmes will receive the answers he has been seeking concerning Irene’s murder.

Rourke’s widow Eileen knows of no-one named Moriarty, but mentions that her husband believed he was being followed in the weeks leading up to his death.

Examining his belongings, Holmes finds evidence that Wallace Rourke was being tracked via his cellphone. That clue takes them to the offices of upscale detective agency Sutter Risk Management. Daren Sutter admits that his company were conducting surveillance on Wallace Rourke for a client, but Holmes is convinced that there is no client, and that Sutter was therefore having Rourke followed for some personal reason.

Sutter’s autobiography mentions the murder twenty years earlier of his sister Leah by a home invader who matches Rourke’s description. It seems likely that Moriarty wishes to see Sutter Risk Management brought down by discrediting its head. Meeting privately, Holmes advises Daren Sutter that his offices are probably bugged. Hours later, Sutter walks into the police station and confesses to Rourke’s murder. But the case is far from over - Moriarty phones Holmes and informs him that Rourke was in Saudi Arabia at the time of Leah Sutter’s murder. It appears that her brother killed the wrong man.

Watson speaks to Sutter’s wife, Kate, who tells Joan that she met Daren at a candlelight vigil for his late sister. Later, Watson realises that Kate lied to her. She knew Daren before the murder. In fact, Kate - married to another man at the time - was having an affair with Daren. She was the one who found Leah’s body, not Daren. He claimed to have seen the killer to protect Kate. Years later, when Daren had grown so despondent he was contemplating suicide, Kate set Rourke up by insisting to her husband that he was the man she saw on the night of Leah’s murder.

After Holmes breaks the news to Sutter, Moriarty texts him an address in Douglastown where the answers he seeks can be found. Joan meets him there, and they enter the house together. It seems abandoned at first, but they are drawn to classical music coming from the conservatory. There, they find paintings in various stages of completion, and working at an easel... Irene Adler.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes usually considers optimism a sign of stupidity, but not in Irene’s case. He carries a device to sweep for electronic bugs - presumably, he’s used it to check the brownstone, given Moriarty’s renewed interest in him. He considers himself a scarred man, and there is the implication that he almost envies Sutter for taking revenge upon his tormentor. Frustrated at Moriarty’s failure to contact him, he kicks a football repeatedly across the living room, much to Joan’s annoyance. When she suggests that Wallace Rourke’s lack of bank activity twenty years earlier might be because his mother paid for everything, he call it “a relationship that is not unheard of,” presumably referring to his own arrangement with his father. He considers fear an unproductive filter through which to view the world.

I am lost without my Boswell: Joan is wary of Holmes’ involvement in the Rourke investigation, concerned that it might be a trap. She thinks - correctly - that Gregson is trying to get rid of her by arranging a sobriety counselling job for her. She is somewhat troubled about her own safety, despite Holmes’ assurance that he will never allow any harm to befall her. She reaches the solution to the Sutter case from her own concern for Holmes’ well-being, and her wish that she could somehow arrange matters in order to restore his peace of mind. Convinced that Holmes will try to ditch him, she tracks him via Gottlieb’s phone and meets him at the gates of the Douglastown house. She feels she deserves answers as much as Holmes.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is at his most affable early on in this episode. He asks her to act as sober companion to the daughter of his friend Eddie. In fact, he’s trying to put her out of harm’s (and Holmes’) way. “Guys like him,” he warns her, “they walk between the raindrops. They don’t get wet. People like you do.” It’s the first time he addresses her as “Joan” rather than “Ms Watson.” He’s been a cop for thirty years.

Bell reports Sutter’s arrival at the station. And that’s his sole contribution to this episode.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Moriarty repeats Holmes’ own description of him from The Final Problem: “Consider me a spider - I sit motionless at the centre of my web. That web has a thousand radiations, and I know well every quiver of each of them. I do little myself, I only plan. My agents are numerous and splendidly organised. If there is a crime to be done, a paper to be abstracted, a house to be rifled, a man to be removed, the word is passed to me, the matter is planned and carried out.”

Holmes, likewise, quotes Watson’s opening paragraph from A Scandal in Bohemia when recalling Irene: “She was, to me, the woman. To me, she eclipsed and predominated the whole of her gender.”

He mentions his singlestick skills to Daren Sutter.

I have never loved: Holmes likens Moriarty to a pimp - the subject of prostitution seems never far from his mind. Tellingly, he also likens Joan to a wife (no sex and a lot of arguments - that does sound like a wife).

He describes Irene as “difficult to explain - and I mean that as a compliment.” He held the fact that she was American against her only briefly and considered her an exquisite painter and lover. She was the only woman he ever loved.

Joan draws a gun/penis comparison in her conversation with Gregson.

A seven-per-cent solution: Astonishingly, given that Moriarty’s involvement brings Holmes’ feeling about Irene and her apparent murder to the fore, the subject of his addiction is never raised.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: Holmes wakes a snoozing Joan up by flicking a light on and off in her face. “Oh good, you’re awake.”

When she enters the bathroom as he’s brushing his teeth, he tells her: “If you want to use the toilet, I’ll just turn away. You didn’t have asparagus last night, did you?”

My head is in a whirl: Holmes still has Gottlieb’s phone. The police really don’t want that, especially since a text sent on it resulted in the (probable) death of Sebastian Moran?

“Most puzzles I see from the outside - it gives me a certain clarity. I am right in the centre of this one, it has blurred my vision to say the least.” The idea of someone setting up an ideal victim is one that has been used several times before in Elementary, notably in the pilot episode and Lesser Evils, but it is the depth of Daren Sutter’s passion that sets this story apart. Too many episodes of late have been missing the human factor, but this one has it in spades. Irene’s reappearance may not have been a surprise to anyone with access to the internet, but Jonny Lee Miller’s distress and Lucy Liu’s evident concern sell the drama of the moment brilliantly.

1X23: The Woman

US Airdate: 16 May 2013

Writers: Robert Doherty & Craig Sweeny

Director: Seith Mann

Guest Cast: John Bedford Lloyd (Lieutenant); Lucas Caleb Rooney (Duane Proctor); Christopher McCann (Dr Del Santo); Frank Deal (Detective Mike Muldoon); Henry Hodges (Student); David Boston (Hospital Patient)*

*Uncredited

Plot: In a flashback, we see Holmes first meeting with Irene in London. Investigating a forgery case, he’s been referred to her by a Mr Kirby of the British Museum, who considers Irene his top restorer. Holmes realises that she has an original Breughel on her wall, having returned her copy to the Belgian National Museum. This, oddly, proves to be the beginning of their relationship. “I appreciate your efforts to keep the vulgarities of the modern era at bay,” he tells her. As their relationship deepens, she begins work on a painting she keeps behind a locked door. When Holmes goes to her place to view the finished work, he finds a pool of blood and a message from the serial killer known as M.

In 2013, Irene is in hospital, claiming to have been kept in the Douglastown house by a masked man named Mr Stapleton. Her doctor diagnoses a case of post-traumatic stress. She is brought back to the brownstone to stay. Joan’s deductions at the Douglastown prison lead to the cops to a Dwayne Proctor, who bought Irene’s paint supplies. But Dwayne has been making the purchases on behalf of his brother Isaac, a former CIA interrogator, who shoots a cop while making his escape. On the run from the cops, Isaac betrays the Moriarty organisation and grows determined to kill Holmes.

When the security of the brownstone is breached, Holmes realises he must send Irene away until Moriarty can be captured. She agrees to do so only if he accompanies her. As they prepare to leave, he notices that one of Irene’s birthmarks has been surgically removed. He accuses her of working for Moriarty. In a fury, she walks out on him.

Holmes returns to the brownstone and is shot by Proctor, who admits to being the sniper who murdered John Douglas. Before he can finish off Holmes, though, Proctor is killed by Moriarty, whose true identity is revealed at last... it’s Irene.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes doesn’t propose investigating Irene’s abduction and incarceration, preferring instead to look after his lost love. On their second date, he took her on a tour of the tunnels underneath Camden Market. He says that he was once required to make an extensive study of London’s catacombs. With the help of a few sticks of dynamite, he discovered a quarter-of-a-mile long Roman canal. He received a garage in payment for a job he did shortly after his arrival in New York. He decided to keep it as a safe house. It’s presumably wishful thinking on Holmes’ part that Watson might dismantle Moriarty’s empire while he and Irene are on the run.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson finds herself working on Irene’s case without Holmes’ assistance, but Bell considers the experience very similar. Her recent training assignments concerned forged artwork and she’s able to put the knowledge to good use. She tells Holmes that by fleeing with Irene, he’s doing just what Moriarty wants - she doesn’t know how right she is.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is doubtful about the existence of Moriarty. He and Bell have a good deal to do this episode, following up leads relating to the Irene affair, and only narrowly missing out on an action sequence when Isaac Proctor makes his escape. Holmes trusts both men implicitly.

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: In the flashbacks, Irene makes a passing reference to the Afghan War, the conflict in which the Canonical Watson was injured, resulting in his return to London and first encounter with Sherlock Holmes.

Her non-existent captor “Mr Stapleton” is named after the culprit in The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Holmes says, “A man should know when he’s beaten,” which might or might not be a veiled reference to Irene Adler’s website masthead in the Sherlock episode A Scandal in Belgravia.

I have never loved: Irene proclaims Holmes beautiful on their first meeting. Their banter results in a “sexual marathon.” Holmes is seen making notes on the Moran case immediately after making love. Irene wonders if she’s become no more than a piece of exercise equipment to him. When she moves into the brownstone, he tells her that she’s the only woman with whom he ever empathised.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes thinks Moriarty stage-managed Irene’s “death” in order to push him into heroin addiction. Joan considers her dramatic reappearance a trigger.

He admits to dabbling with narcotics during their relationship. “I’m sober now; I’ll always be an addict.”

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: As Bell questions Dwayne Proctor about his brother Isaac, he asks: “Did he ever mention a guy named Moriarty?” Dwayne replies: “We went to high school with a guy named Maury Goldberg.”

My head is in a whirl: Holmes wonders where the blood at the scene of Irene’s murder came from. We never find out.

“I’ve never consulted without you before,” says Joan. Isn’t that just what she did in Déjà Vu All Over Again, just a few episodes ago?

In the London flashbacks, Holmes refers to “spelunkers” when an Englishman would say “potholers.”

Why does the fact that Irene has had a mole removed automatically mean that she’s working for Moriarty? If, as Holmes, suggests, it was pre-cancerous, this seems like an eminently sensible thing for a captor with limitless resources to do - what use is a dead hostage?

It’s incredibly convenient that Watson has been studying art forgery just when that knowledge becomes of practical use.

During the scene in which Proctor and his fellow minions discuss Moriarty, everybody goes out of their way not to say “he,” tipping us off that the Napoleon of Crime is actually female.

And what makes Proctor so special that he should be in on the secret, when not even Moran or Gottlieb were ever permitted to meet their employer? Considering his skills as a marksman, Proctor seems a closer match to the Canonical Moran than the brutish assassin seen in this series.

“It’s weird to see him walk away from a case.” Irene is Moriarty? For some, it’s as horrific a notion as, say, Holmes recovering from substance addiction in 21st Century New York. But in the continuity of Elementary, as established over the previous 22 episodes, it works. This episode and Heroine were originally screened in the US as a double-length season finale. The recreation of London is pretty well done, and it’s odd to have entire scenes that don’t feature Holmes, Watson, or even our two favourite cops, a sure sign that something out of the ordinary is going on.

1X24: Heroine

US Airdate: 16 May 2013

Writers: Robert Doherty & Craig Sweeny

Director: John Polson

Guest Cast: Dominic Fumusa (Jordan Conroy); Michael Aronov (Andrej Bacera); Austin Lysy (Chad Lerberg); Arnold Vosloo (Christos Theophilus); Justine Cotsonas (Jovana Bacera); Karen Ludwig (Melanie Waters); Kevyn Morrow (ND Detective); Raquel Toro (Alethea Lerberg)*

*Uncredited

Plot: Speaking with an English accent, Moriarty tells Holmes that she caused his downfall through drug addiction after he foiled a series of assassinations in London. Her existence as Irene Adler was merely an experiment. Holmes senses that he must be close to uncovering one of her schemes in New York, which is why she chose to reappear. She leaves him alive, but wounded.

At the morgue, Holmes finds the modified cellphones of the minions killed by Isaac Proctor. Decoding a text on one of the phones, he finds that Greek tycoon and former smuggler Christos Theophilus is somehow connected to Moriarty’s plot.

Watching the unloading of one of his vessels, the cops spot Theophilus himself, and find that he has been smuggling endangered animals. They confirm this by interviewing Theophilus’ son-in-law Chad Lerberg at his home, where Holmes concludes that the tycoon’s daughter Alethea has been kidnapped. Moriarty blackmails Theophilus into murdering Macedonian diplomat Andrej Bacera.

Joan is waylaid by Moriarty, who is puzzled by her role in Holmes’ life. She can only imagine that Joan is some sort of mascot for him. Joan concludes that Moriarty is afraid of Holmes.

Staying awake all night, Holmes works out Moriarty’s plan: she has purchased an enormous position in the soon-to-be outmoded Macedonian currency, the dinar. The assassination of Andrej Bacera will prevent the country joining the EU and switching to the Euro, thus netting Moriarty a billion dollars.

The cops are too late to prevent Theophilus from killing Bacera and his wife before being shot dead himself by Bacera’s bodyguard Conroy, another of Moriarty’s agents.

In immense pain, and confounded at every turn, Holmes is close to losing control. Joan convinces him that he must let Moriarty win. After Holmes returns to the brownstone, Bell - who is on guard duty - receives a call from Gregson alerting him to a recent drug store robbery committed by a man matching Holmes’ description. Kicking down the bathroom door, the cop finds Sherlock on the floor, a syringe by his side, having apparently overdosed.

Holmes is visited in hospital by Moriarty. She offers to take him out of the country. Holmes tells her that they both made the mistake of falling in love - her own condition was diagnosed by his “mascot.” Moriarty couldn’t bring herself to kill Holmes because of her feelings for him. His overdose was a fake - the police are waiting at the door.

The series ends with Holmes and Watson on the roof of the brownstone - Moriarty has been arrested and her dinars confiscated. The bee Holmes received from Gerald Lydon in Possibility Two has mated. The two friends sit and watch the birth of a new species, which Holmes has named Euglassia Watsonia.

The best and the wisest man: Holmes claims that discovering the truth about Irene is quite liberating, and that he now sees with perfect clarity. Of course, he is in considerable emotional pain throughout the episode, as well as suffering physical pain resulting from Proctor’s attempt on his life. He considers narwhals “lovely creatures.” During the all-nighter he requires to work out Moriarty’s scheme, he keeps himself awake by slamming his hand into his wound.

I am lost without my Boswell: Watson sews up Holmes’ bullet wound. She agrees to to accompany him so long as she is permitted to tend to his injury. Joan gets a call from her brother telling her that their mother has suffered a fall and is in Chandler Memorial Hospital (the scene of Lesser Evils). Moriarty becomes the second person in the show to address her as “my dear Watson.” Two of her cousins wanted to name their child Henry, resulting in a fraught Thanksgiving dinner.

The efficiency of our detective police force: Gregson is still having difficulty with the whole “criminal mastermind” thing. He attempts to warn Conroy about the assassination attempt, not realising that the bodyguard is in on the plot.

While on a stakeout, Bell tries to relate to Holmes. Surprisingly, it goes quite well. He does some pretty sterling work concerning the e-mail account opened by Moriarty in order to contact Theophilus. Despite the events of You do it to Yourself, it’s still not clear whether Bell knows about Holmes’ addiction. For some reason, Gregson doesn’t let him in on the fake overdose ploy. Surely he trusts Bell, so does he think the uniformed cops might be on Moriarty’s payroll?

There is a strong family resemblance about misdeeds: Having Watson drawn away with a message concerning a sick woman is the ruse Moriarty employs in The Final Problem (and that Sherlock’s Moriarty employs in The Reichenbach Fall). In the Canonical story, it’s so that Watson will not be on hand to intervene as Holmes and his arch-enemy fight to the death. Here, it’s because Moriarty wishes to speak to Joan privately.

She boasts that she has “plotted exactly seven murders that were carried out in crowded restaurants.” The recent Robert Downey Jr sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows begins with Moriarty killing a woman in a crowded restaurant. That woman was the woman, Irene Adler. In this story, Irene is Moriarty.

I have never loved: With the revelation of Irene’s true identity, love turns to... well... “I have about as much in common with you as I do a dung beetle,” Holmes tells her.

During their meeting, Moriarty asks Joan if she wants to sleep with Holmes. She evades the question. Perhaps that’s what tips Watson off to the nature of Moriarty’s own feelings for Sherlock.

A seven-per-cent solution: Holmes doesn’t want any non-addictive painkillers: “How good can they be if they’re non-addictive?”

Joan thinks that “marinating in his own mistakes” might push him over the edge into relapse.

He is tempted by a bottle of Vicodin in Alethea Lerberg’s home, but doesn’t take it because he knows how disappointed Joan would be in him.

A certain unexpected vein of pawky humour: When checking the pain levels after he’s been shot, Joan asks Holmes to rate his discomfort on a scale of 1 to 10. “Pi,” is his response.

The flick of the head he gives when leading Joan to his wall of evidence prior to delivering a lecture on the dinar is absolutely priceless.

My head is in a whirl: Watson questions the likelihood of Holmes having a Macedonian dinar “just lying around.” I do, too.

Shouldn’t someone be keeping Theophilus under surveillance? If they had, he might not have been able to keep his appointment with Moriarty and receive the gun he uses to kill Andrej and his wife Jovana. Also, shouldn’t a former criminal be able to lay his hands on a gun of his own without too much difficulty?

For such a complex plan, Moriarty has certainly left a lot of things ‘til the last minute - Holmes says she only bought into the dinar 48 hours earlier.

Is there really all that much in Moriarty’s recorded conversation with Holmes in the hospital that might result in a conviction? She doesn’t actually admit to anything!

“I have reserves of creativity I haven’t even begun to tap.” Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson have come a long way since their first meeting. Both were, in their own way, damaged, and though their working relationship has helped them both to heal, there is still some way to go. There are questions that have yet to be resolved. Will Moriarty go to jail, and even if she does, is that the end of her criminal empire? Is Moran dead? If not, what will he do and to whom when he comes round? Holmes has managed to remain clean for the entire season, but as he says in The Woman, he’ll always be an addict. What of Joan’s future? Is it tied to Holmes’ for the remainder of their lives? There’s plenty of material for Season Two of Elementary. But for now, let’s just leave them both, sitting on the brownstone roof, watching the bees as the sun sets behind them. They’ve earned it.