Elementary Season 5 Episode Guide:
5.01 "Foile a Deux" - Review!
5.02 "Worth Several Cities - Review!
5.03 "Render, and then Seize Her" - Review!
5.04 "Henny Penny the Sky is Falling" Review!
5.05 "To Catch a Predator Predator" - AReview!
5.06 "Ill Tidings" - Airs November 13
5.07 "Bang Bang Shoot Chute" - Airs November 20
Elementary 5.04 "To Catch a Predator Predator" - Review:
Directed by Guy Ferland & Written by Tamara Jaron
To Catch a Predator Predator is another solid episode of Elementary and another decent case of the week that pits Sherlock and Joan up against the murderer of a vigilante who was responsible for publicly shaming sexual predators on dating sites. It's an interesting case of the week that corresponds with Shinwell's storyline which is further developing on the side, even if it isn't in any real hurry to advance the status quo massively. Its nice to know that there is some layer of serialization here, even if it is a tiny one.
The episode opens with Joan giving Shinwell some of Sherlock's clothes to wear to a job interview, and he takes a hat that Sherlock has never used. Shinwell is starting to feel dejected about the fact that this is now his fifth job interview and he is been put off from the past ones by his criminal record, Joan tells him that all Shinwell needs is to get it right once. It's going to be interesting to see how this develops over the course of the series and whether Shinwell is unable to re-enter public life and be forced to return to a life of crime or whether he'll go clean properly will no doubt be something that the writers will continue to drag out so it will be interesting to see them explore.
Joan decides that after not having any luck Joan decides that it might be a good idea to train Shinwell as a Detective, but Sherlock isn't too keen on this especially given what happened to Kitty in the past and doesn't want a repeat of bringing somebody else into his line of work. Shinwell is Joan's Kitty, and Joan decides to leave it up to Shinwell who ends up rejecting her offer. Instead by the episode's end Shinwell meets with a man who has a past with him and the man says that it would be a shame for Shinwell to die before their plans were finished, because he still has plenty of work left for him to do. What this means for now is unclear, but it's interesting to know that we'll probably have some more advancement in this storyline, maybe even in tonight's episode.
Either way, that's all the Shinwell that we get this week. The main body of the episode is focused on solving the case of a man who is gunned down at a motel Sherlock initially believes that this is a sexual predator hunting a teenage girl. He's disappointed that the hunter has appeared to escalate to murder, because up until now Sherlock admired the man's work. The deceased however, Damien Novak, is turned out to be the vigilante himself, information that Sherlock ends up discovering from an interview with Novak's wife, who revealed that Novak's sister was actually a victim of a similiar crime when she was younger, thus serving as motivation for Novak. After Gregson is convinced about the fact that Novak is the vigilante, they have a lead in the form of a man who was going to meet Novak that same night, and he provides them with who they need to look out for.
There are five previous victims of Novak, with two men abroad, one in a coma and a fourth in jail, but there's still a fifth out there who Sherlock and Joan believe is the primary suspect and would have likely have used revenge as a motive. Naturally when the suspect Jack McGill is brought in however he claims that it was a scam and he was in the middle of a sexual harassment lawsuit at the time. Sherlock and Joan trace a lead to another dating profile that Novak was actually after the woman who McGill harassed and was filing the lawsuit, Yvette Ingrim. Yvette too has a solid alibi because she had to pay off most of what she won from the suit to her law firm, and she was at a business dinner at the time of Novak's death.
This leads them back around to Novak's brother in law who is brought into questioning due to his connections with the law firm that Yevette went to for help his half-brother denies killing him, saying that he was planning on using Novak to help him in another case. It turns out that Sherlock eventually ends up discovering the main suspect in the murder after a look-over of the files, leading us to the employee of the dating website that Sherlock encountered earlier in the episode, Molly Parsons. She was abused by one of Novak's victims who fled the country, Shane Fitzhugh, before he could be convicted. It turns out that Molly arranged to meet Novak and things escalated from there into murder, which lead to Molly being arrested and the case of the week solved.
It wasn't all bad news for Molly however as Sherlock was able to determine the location of Shane Fitzhugh and the police in Bali where he is hiding out are able to plant drugs in his house leading to the rest of his life being spent behind bars due to the extreme anti-drug laws. This at least means that Fitzhugh may spend the rest of his life behind bars, even though it may have been for a different crime, ending the case on a strong note, even if it wasn't a particularly memorable episode itself.
Let me know what you thought of the episode in the comments section below and stay tuned for Elementary's next episode tonight at 10pm on CBS.
Overall Episode Verdict: C+
Positives:
+Strong resolution.
+Shinwell's past coming back to haunt him?
