Any time Elementary gets into the head of its central character Sherlock Holmes (the excellent Jonny Lee Miller) and pushes his story to front and center, it is always a good thing. Much more than a signature CBS police procedural, Sherlock is at its heart a character study of the consulting detective, or "deductionist," as this week's episode calls him.
Scoring the coveted post-Super Bowl slot, this week's episode had the opportunity to add new viewers to its numbers. I'm glad the show's creators decided to go with an emotional, psychological character-driven story, rather than a homicide-of-the-week script.
Unfortunately, the power failure during the Super Bowl (a puzzle worthy of Sherlock!) might have affected the episode's ratings as the start time was pushed back more than half an hour, and DVRs were also unable to keep up with the time shift. (Annoyingly, even when I hit manual record, my very expensive TiVo refused to completely cooperate, ending the recording at what it thought to be the end of our local news half-hour, and preventing me from doing an immediate re-watch; something I usually require to write my commentary. Oh well.) On the up-side, CBS has already posted the full episode, on its Elementary site.
Sherlock clashes this week with an ambitious FBI profiler with whom he'd worked back at Scotland Yard. Kathryn Drummond (Keri Matchett) is an expert on this week's serial killer Martin Ennis (Terry Kinney). After he'd been convicted, she wrote a book on him, detailing her inflated theories on his childhood, including allegations of parental sexual abuse. The shame of those allegations were too much for Ennis' parents, who both died in the aftermath. But Drummond's unprofessional destructiveness did not stop with serial killers; she also had turned her eye on Sherlock himself, her observations while they worked together turned in to a monograph called "The Deductionist."
Accurately predicting Sherlock's problem with drugs, Kathryn also predicted that Holmes would eventually "self-annihilate." Her prediction has haunted him, and her return to his sphere has more than unnerved him.
Article comments
1 - LucyHoneychurch
"playing Sherlock's arrogance, his violent nature, his deep empathy, and his sadness with great nuance"
Thanks for this description. Sums up JLM's and Doherty's Holmes beautifully, I think.
2 - Meeloo86
I totally agree with you on JLM, he is phenomenal as Sherlock and even if I love the entire cast, he really makes the show for me !