There is a lot missing on tonight’s episode. From people to sobriety meetings, find out what turns up in our Elementary season 3, episode 9 recap!
There are two main definitions for purgatory. As a noun, purgatory is “a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins.” As an adjective, purgatory means “having the quality of cleansing or purifying.” Tonight’s Elementary season 3, episode 9 takes the sobriety meetings that once held the “purifying” effect for Sherlock and turns them into a place of suffering.
What has Sherlock lost in the past nine months? Besides the obvious void of Joan’s constant presence, Sherlock is lacking a few routine, at least for him, presences in his life. Mycroft is no longer able to pop by for brief distractions. For all we know, Jamie Moriarty’s older letters are dripping with honey and new ones have yet to arrive. And now he has two burgeoning detectives to keep one step ahead of each week.
Pile on the same meeting multiple times a week and carving out the hours seems a pointless way to spend the remainder of his days. Eternity in a constant cycle of attend, share, listen, and repeat looms heavy on the detective’s mind.
Eternity holds a different promise for illegal drug developers. Joan’s former OR nurse turns up to report that her colleague has gone missing. Even with $150,000 in her bank records from a company aptly named “Purgatorium,” Sherlock bypasses that evidence and leads Joan and Kitty to Marissa’s body in a dumpster. Some DNA under her nails leads to another missing persons case involving a man named Christopher Jacoby.
Mason, the irregular from “Bella,” finds a photo that leads Joan and Sherlock to Jacoby’s body in the woods. It is apparent that he has been living there and suffered from mental disorientation. Jacoby’s journals reveal he was living under the illusion that he was alive for centuries. In reality his body was flooded with unidentifiable chemicals that affected his brain functions dealing with the perception of time. The doses were administered by the first victim, Marissa.
This week’s case gives Joan agency not just in relation to the first victim, but the use of her advanced medical knowledge. In a scene focused on Gregson and Bell receiving a briefing from Joan, typically the camera pans out to find Sherlock against a filing cabinet ready to steer the meeting. But he does not appear and it is a welcome change. The drug is identified as EZM 77 and the doses correspond to five trial participants. As Joan points out, if someone needed to produce research fast, it would not be uncommon for them to rush a trial illegally.
There are five victims, and one survivor. Sherlock predicts that link between each victim describing the same extended passage of time may be the result of the brain speeding up to cram in more functions in a short time. Or the brain is building a story based on the information provided from the trial. When they catch up with the last victim, he is able to describe the man who acted as if he ran the operation. Dr. Dwyer Kirk confesses and takes fully responsibility for the murders, but he will not reveal the benefactor behind the trial and he wants to promise that his research may continue.
Sherlock and Joan share a wavelength when it comes to reading each other for emotional discomfort. Sherlock checks in on Joan after she sees an old coworker dead, while Joan makes herself more present in the brownstone following Sherlock’s choice to distance himself from meetings.
There is one more person to whom Sherlock’s sobriety matters a great deal. Alfredo drops by with a new toy for Sherlock to try out, an attempt to coax Sherlock out of his shell. The puzzle provides an interesting distraction, Joan is the bait he needs. Kitty must be in the loop for this incident since Joan suddenly has a key gifted to her by the protege. In her first unannounced visit Joan tries to get Sherlock to open up, but does not push the issue.
Sherlock crosses the threshold of her open door of confidence and explains what is troubling him. “Is this it?” Everywhere Sherlock turns that question is in his face. The case, looking to extend time through chemical manipulation, presses something he has given much thought to the forefront of his mind. He sees the process of recovery as a leaky faucet that requires maintenance, but the only reward is that the dripping stops for some time. At this juncture a relapse would only be an anticlimax, rather than a crescendo at the conclusion of a grand adventure. He’s examined every possible result and there is nothing left.
Jonny Lee Miller deserves some recognition for his ability to elicit a convincing emotionally raw Sherlock Holmes from his sharp and biting detective.
Joan spends the night, despite Sherlock’s insistence that he is alright, and is treated to a bugle wake up call. (He sure did miss “rousing” Joan in the morning.) At the end of the day he recognizes that he owes it to Alfredo to attend the meetings even if he finds no meaning in them. He also shares one last note with Joan, “I am fine.”
Elementary tends to offer plenty of twists and turns in the story to keep the murders interesting. However, they tend to do more harm than good most weeks. Tonight’s episode is no exception seeing as James Connaughton (Gilmore Girls‘ Dakin Matthews) only spent a few moments of lucidity before taking his secrets into a time lapsed coma. Sometimes the strong episodes are able to brilliantly balance the case with a strong B story.
However, in this week’s episode the anticlimax was the point. After an hour of drug trials, injected patients, and solving the case, the final arrest is a disappointment. It is on par for what Sherlock finds to be an all too common problem in his life right now.
Everyone strikes again:
•The internet collective, Everyone, requested that Sherlock read aloud his reasoning for Bella and Jacob’s romance in the Twilight series. (Although he wonders why they could not make an arrangement involving all three of them work.)
Watch Elementary season 3, episode 10, “Seed Money,” Thursday, January 15 at 10:00 p.m. ET on CBS.
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