Elementary "Tremors" 2.11 Recap
Sherlock is on the witness stand, describing his interactions with a man who’d come into the precinct, claiming to be a knight. This “knight” is armed with a gun and Sherlock dutifully distracts him so that the detectives in the room can disarm him. His retelling of events takes a comical turn as he describes Captain Gregson excessively complimenting his genius. The judge interrupts him and we learn that Sherlock is the one under investigation here by the NYPD to determine whether he and Watson can continue working alongside the police. No pressure, Sherlock.
Sherlock is accused of breaching protocol, in this one case and all others. Detectives have said that Sherlock has broken into apartments on several occasions however, Sherlock claims that in many instances, the doors were open or they heard cries of distress that either turned out to be puppies or loud televisions.
Back to the knight – he’s claims to have killed the queen, whoever that may be and Gregson & Bell are having a rough time gaining any useful information out of the suspect. Watson believes that he is schizophrenic and seeks out the help of a friend in a psychiatric hospital in identifying him. The knight is Silas Cole. Silas’ apartment houses a painting depicting the gruesome murder of the queen. The queen is most likely Silas’ girlfriend; he has many photos of the two of them together on his wall. Detective Bell identifies her as Rada Hollingsworth. Her apartment door is actually wide open and in it they find Rada’s body. After only a few seconds in the apartment, Sherlock’s determined that Silas is not the killer, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
Watson interrupts the proceedings to give a message to Captain Gregson. Bell is in the hospital! He suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen and during the surgery, a clot formed in his arm, putting his future as a detective up in the air.
During a short recess, we find out that Sherlock hasn’t visited Bell since the shooting, five days ago. Gregson advises Sherlock to play nice and stop making a mockery of the proceedings if he wants to continue working with the precinct.
He starts with the prosecution, namely, Ms. Walker. He’s deduced that she is an AA member and uses this as an attempt at camaraderie.
Back to the case – Their next stop was Rada’s oncologist – she was participating in a drug trial. Dr. Hobbs knew of Silas, he showed up at the office, ranting. She paid for the expensive trial with a viatical settlement from her life insurance company. If Rada was to outlive her policy, James Dylan, an employee of the insurance company, would have to pay. Sherlock found out about his criminal past from Dylan’s phone but on the stand claims that he used the Internet. Once confronted with this news, Dylan gives his alibi – he was at a bar, a violation of his parole but it checks out nonetheless. Now out of suspects, Sherlock takes to distracting himself and going over the loopholes in the timeline with Watson. Rada was shot around 7:35 but Silas received a call, presumably to come to her apartment, an hour later. Sherlock notes that Rada’s potassium levels were quite high and Watson guesses that the killer may have wanted to wait for her levels to rise to hide the true nature of her death. Upon further inspection, it is proved that Rada was poisoned with potassium chloride. Since the murder was so carefully planned and required someone with vast medical knowledge, this ruled out Silas as a potential suspect. When relaying the news of these events, Sherlock is smiling, because an innocent man wasn’t wrongfully charged. He then goes on to ignore Gregson’s advice and says that the hearing is pointless – he wishes to be thanked for his efforts, not chided. Ms. Walker says she’ll relay that message to Bell. Ouch.
In an effort to calm his nerves, Sherlock makes and then tosses a batch of Yorkshire Pudding. But what will he do for Watson’s anxiety? She isn’t happy that she has to lie under oath but Sherlock won’t apologize for his questionable actions as he feels that their methods lie in a gray area of sorts. Their results outweigh the little things they do.
Watson is on the stand and gives the same story of open doors and crying puppies. Sherlock is given permission to question his partner and asks her to tell how they found the killer.
At this point, there were no obvious suspects, so Watson and Sherlock went back to the body for further clues. They find that the killer used the gunshot wound to mask the needle mark in the heart. Rada would’ve died eventually from congestive heart failure, not a byproduct of her cancer but of her treatment. If word were to get out about her health condition as a result of the trial, Dr. Hobbs would have stood to lose millions.
Hobbs is brought back to the precinct where he confesses to murdering Rada Hollingsworth.
And while that’s great, the cause for the hearing is what happened after their victory. Sherlock, Watson and Bell are leaving the precinct, whereupon they’re confronted by a very angry James Dylan. He lost his job because someone overheard Sherlock mention his time in prison. His former boss spoke to his parole officer and now he’s going back to jail. He blames Sherlock for ruining his life and pulls out a gun. Bell jumps in front of the gun, catching the bullet meant for Sherlock.
The next morning, the judge decides that while Sherlock has been an asset to the precinct, his ‘I’m above the law’ attitude is the reason he recommends that his relationship with the NYPD be terminated.
Sherlock finally comes to visit Bell, offers his gratitude and the best treatment the city has to offer. Bell wants none of it.
Review:
Great episode. I wasn’t worried about Sherlock and Watson losing their position within the police department; that kind of goes without saying. As much as I adore Sherlock, he is a bit of a prick when it comes to anything other than solving cases. It will be interesting to see the effect this has on him in the department – seeing as how the other detectives didn’t like him before this happened.