Elementary may not return to CBS until October 30, but Hypable has the perfect recap guide to help ease you into season 3.
Each week leading up to the season 3 premiere, we will bring you a recap of a pivotal episode from the first two seasons of Elementary. Coverage of Elementary will begin across Hypable in the mean time, however only the recap posts will remain spoiler-free. If you are looking to dip your toes in the Elementary pool, we advise avoiding casting announcements and other informational posts about season 3!
The pilot and first few episodes of any season struggle to gain their bearings. Elementary does its best to remind you that you are watching a Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but at the same time differentiate itself from its overseas counterpart. It is not Sherlock, nor is it trying to be. The show is a procedural. The cases drive the narrative behind them as much as provide the show with 22-24 episodes worth of material each season.
Plus, it has the best opening credits of ANY procedural show:
If you are still hesitant, just think, you may gain 24 episodes of Elementary before Sherlock series 4 goes into production!
The Basics:
Joan Watson serves as a sober companion for addicts making the transition from rehab to their daily lives. Her latest client has just broken out of rehab a few hours early, merely to prove that he could and to show the facility to flaws in their security system. The conditions of her assignment include living with her clients and total confidentiality when it comes to her role in their life. For instance, this week, she is Sherlock’s personal valet.
Enter, Sherlock Holmes. Former consultant for Scotland Yard, former addict, and current consultant for the NYPD. He crossed paths with Captain Thomas Gregson of the NYPD when he was on a homeland security assignment at Scotland Yard following September 11. Holmes called up a favor in New York, and Gregson, seeing the advantages to having Holmes on a case, took him on as an unpaid consultant.
His father, the elusive Mr. Holmes, is never seen, but remains a looming figurehead over Sherlock’s life. He does not approve of his son’s behavior, mainly because it taints the Holmes name.
The Case:
A woman is abducted from her home, or so police believe based on the struggle at the scene of the crime. The woman knew the man she let into her home and her body is found in a safe room located in her bedroom. Sherlock discovers the safe room by placing a marble on the ground to show the slight tilt the steel beams would have created during installation.
Her husband is the prime suspect, however he does not fit the size of the assailant. Their investigation leads them to a man who frequently delivered flowers to the home of the deceased. Holmes discovers the man, now deceased by his own hand, was taking steroids as opposed to the Xanax he was prescribed by his psychiatrist.
Holmes tries to frame the husband as the doctor prescribing the steroids and fails to do so without the phone holding the recordings of the sessions between the two. Sherlock drives Joan’s car into the suspect’s Porsche. With Holmes locked up in jail for the night, Watson takes a turn at the medical files of the framed killer. She notices that he has a rice allergy, and yet, his home contained an unusually large bag of rice. Holmes and Watson find that the victim placed his phone inside the bag after accidentally washing it. The guilty husband went to find the phone, but could not and killed the man, framing it as suicide.
With the phone recovered and the husband in custody, it is discovered that he hated his wife, but the only way to see any money from their pre-nuptial agreement was to have her die before him.
Joan and Sherlock:
The pilot’s main job is to begin teasing out the groundwork for the relationship between Joan and Sherlock. Platonic and professional relationship, we should add, but ship away.
Sherlock deduces, quiet rapidly, that Joan was a surgeon who left her scrubs behind after losing a patient on her table due to a mistake. She is contracted to accompany Sherlock, which, as it happens, leads her to a much more interesting line of work. Trying to break through to Sherlock proves to be quiet the learning curve, but Sherlock points out that a certain glimmer appears in her eye when she solves a part of the case.
Joan’s greatest case will be solving the emotionally crippled man, who locks everyone out of the secrets of his past. Sherlock can read Joan like a book and insists that her companion line of work is a chore for her, rather than a desire to help the common man (she does use two alarm clocks). Sherlock even tries to offer her a six week paid vacation. He doesn’t need her. He has no intention of ever returning to drug abuse. But Joan stays on, even if he is able to ruin baseball outcomes by simply scanning the field on TV.
Where are we going next?
Next week, we are going to skip ahead to season 1, episode 3, “The Balloon Man.” Holmes and Watson begin working with a new detective on Captain Gregson’s force, Marcus Bell in episode 2.
We want to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Write a comment below or submit an article to Hypable.