Multiple carjackings lead Sherlock and Joan to follow two different cases on this week’s Elementary season 3, episode 21.
Elementary typically strikes a 70/30 balance between cases and development of the main characters. That division is about on par for a procedural show that chooses to focus on the profession more so than the partnership. But Holmes and Watson is a partnership that not only deserves the spotlight every now and again, it is given it.
It is important, however, to also expand that scope to include key components of the detectives’ lives that never quite take center stage. For Joan that is her relationship with her pre-investigator friends and for Sherlock that is his sponsor Alfredo.
In contrast to “One Watson, One Holmes” this week’s episode switches Sherlock and Joan’s role between the A story and the B story. Joan steps up to hold her own as lead investigator on the case. In a nice change of pace, Sherlock is not working the case in the background waiting for his moment to provide his findings in exposition, while Joan runs around chasing dead end leads.
The case is presented with one man stopping an ambulance transporting a woman who fainted in front of a drug store. Wallace Turk hijacks the ambulance in the medical bay, pulling a gun on the two paramedics, firing, collecting his shell casings, and driving off with the woman as his hostage. Besides doing a poor job of hiding his face from the cameras, Turk missed a shell casing that linked him to other cases due to the DIY nature of the bullets.
Turk refuses to give up the location of the missing woman, choosing to protect his coconspirators since he is already booked for two murders. Marshy sand deposits found in his shoes take Detective Bell to the abandoned ambulance. Gregson, back in the picture for more than a few quick asides, examines the body of the kidnapped victim, Maggie Halburn. A hasty slice to the throat is what killed her, but the murderer went further to carefully gut her body presumably taking a few organs with him as he fled.
The wounds from the organs that were presumed stolen, a gallbladder, a bit of intestine, and a kidney were in the process of healing from a surgery a few days prior. They were not removed to prevent an illness, but rather to make room for smuggling drugs back into the country. Joan and Bell learn from Halburn’s roommate that she recently returned from a trip to San Palo, Brazil where she went under the knife for discounted gastric bypass surgery. Skeptical at first, her story checks out when her fridge is filled with the necessary provisions for a patient expecting to adjust their eating habits following the procedure.
The surgeon performing the procedures turns out to be a ghost in the wind, disappearing from the city shortly after the procedures. His only connection thus far proves to be his marriage to Wallace Turk’s sister, Connie. With a BOLO out on the doctor, Joan and Bell turn their attention to tracking the 40 lbs of heroine circulating the city. Sherlock chimes in that it would take time for that amount of medical grade narcotic to be converted to street grade. Time to knock on the doors of a few drug lords.
Sherlock takes a rain check on the drugs and decides to pay his sponsor, Alfredo a visit. Earlier in the week, he took notice of someone is a bit out of place in a meeting for recovering addicts. Confronting the man outside of a church basement he discovers that “Lloyd” was tailing Alfredo for hijacking cars with his former employers security system and moving them.
Days after receiving his five-year chip, Alfredo’s battle of his dismissal from Castle turns personal when they start badmouthing his addiction around to his other clients. A sponsor’s primary concern is the sobriety of their sponsee. This role is one that Alfredo takes very seriously and personally. But it prohibits them from being friends. Sherlock attempts to cross that line by showing his concern for Alfredo, but Alfredo reminds him that the concern only goes one way.
The DEA’s list of narcotics dealers lead Joan and Bell to the dental office of Dr. Ward, a perfect cover for drug running since medical offices cannot be bugged do to doctor patient confidentiality. Ward offers up Lenko, the lead trafficker, whose business was dwindling in the face of a bad crop from his supplier. Joan places a bit of pressure on Lenko and is paid off with a lead that takes them to an exchange. Lenko may not get the supply, but his competitors will not have the chance to do so either.
Sherlock finds himself locked in a battle of mind versus heart. Joan finds him pouring over the Voynich Manuscript Language believed to be the greatest mystery in terms of language origin. This temporarily provides his mind with another stimulus to distract from the concerns he feels for a man he is reminded is not his friend. The definition of the relationship is there in front of him. It makes sense. The Sherlock we met in season 1 would have catalogued this definition and moved on. But now, after building a relationship with Joan from the ground up, rebuilding his relationship with Mycroft, and inviting Kitty Winter into his world, Sherlock has grown enough to recognize that sometimes care and concern arise from someplace that disregards all logic.
Joan’s sting does not prove fruitful after Lenko and his bodyguards are found dead. Sherlock excuses himself from the case one final time leaving Joan and Bell to take an unexpected meeting with Dr. Ward who seems ready to talk now that Lenko is out of his office. Under advisement, Ward is prepared to give up the location of the two other bodies that brought in drugs in exchange for immunity and protection. His information does provide a few bodies, but his mouth also cost him a few fingers at the hands of the Chinese cartel.
As Joan looks over the bodies, she notices the sutures used to sew the bodies back together were done with a thread that used for procedures on more sensitive areas, especially oral surgery. A dive into the yearbook of Dr. Ward connects him to his college roommate, the fleeing surgeon in Brazil. Ward was not only trying to get away with his first dip in the drug cartel business, but he was doing it exceptionally poorly.
A parking garage sees and intake of cars all carrying Castle security systems and there is only one person to pin it on. But Holmes called Alfredo away to a meeting that would require him to show up on four different MTA videos the night in question. Alfredo confronts the incident the following afternoon with Holmes and is taken aback by Sherlock’s immediate firing of his sponsor. After wrestling with the notion of not being able to provide commentary on Alfredo’s life. Opening their relationship to a two-way street comes with a new learning curve for Sherlock.
Watch Elementary season 3, episode 22, “The Best Way Out Is Always Through,” Thursday, April 30 at 10:00 p.m. ET on CBS.
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