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Sherlock tells Watson not to be bothered by her failure at the crime scene and that deduction is a point of view. Joan points out the limo waiting for them and a chauffeur (Steven Hauck) walks up to them. Sherlock is dismissive before he even hears there’s a proposal but he listens it anyways.
“I own exactly sixteen forks.”
The man who owns the limo, Lydon (Dennis Boutsikaris), and a company that makes quite a bit more offers Sherlock a lot to find out who gave him dementia and the hereditary genetic disorder that caused it. Our man is skeptical but the patient tells him that the labs have found no trace of the disease in his family tree. “I only take cases when I am acting in good faith.” Sherlock has the limo pull over, wishes the man luck, and they leave.
Watson goes thru Sherlock’s books and finding a note with her name on it goes to see Sherlock torturing a Cabbage Patch doll. The door rings and Joan’s main concern is putting the acid away before they answer the door. The driver, Crabtree has brought Sherlock a rare bee famed for building exquisite nests from flower petals which he is amazed by but still sends away.
The next morning, Sherlock is having Watson practice singlesticking. He then gets a call from Gregson telling him not only is Lydon insisting Sherlock works for him but also that Lydon has killed his driver. Oh dear.
At the crime scene Lydon claims to not remember the incident at all. Lydon’s son walks in demanding to see his father. Gregson informs Sherlock that Lydon will only see him. Lydon tells Holmes that Crabtree worked for him for 23 years and he helped his partner adopt their daughter. The bee sits on the man’s dresser as he pleads Sherlock to take the case.
Watson observes the bee in her partner’s hands and he informs her they’ve taken the case as denying it would have felt like denying a dying man’s wish. They wait in the lobby watching dodgy videos waiting for Keaton (Gibson Frazier) and Kademan (Jennifer Lim) to come out and talk to them,. Sherlock has heard of Kademan as she discovered the gene that makes people psychopaths. Both new people tell the duo that they’ve heard of Lydon’s claims but don’t believe it possible. Lydon’s geneticist says it is. Sherlock asks for the names and addresses of the handful of people Kademan thinks can do it.
Sherlock sits in his study talking on the phone in Norwegian. He hangs up shortly after Watson walks in asking her to get the dry cleaning in exchange for his cleaning the refrigerator once a month. They’re going to Norway to talk to a scientist because his finances don’t check out and his house was paid for by Lydon’s son. Sherlock would rather talk to a scientist than a business man and Norway has fjords and hot women. Cute smile by the way. He then texts Kademan that they know about her paper so she sends them the door code but when they arrive, she’s dead on the floor.
Bell and his team have found duck tape on the back door and theorizes that someone is trying to burgle the place. Sherlock finds that unlikely; it’s connected to Lydon’s. “She made someone nervous enough to stab her half a dozen times, I’m inclined to believe her.” There’s blood all over the place but only the blood on the portrait make Holmes think they have the killer’s DNA. Watson gives her theory and splatter analysis which earns her a “kudos”.
Her associate says he thought they were going to ask about a patient who’s DNA she used for her psychopath paper. At the brownstone, Sherlock is listening to Norwegian music and playing with molecule models to find which one might be at blame here. If he hasn’t decoded it by the morning, he’ll send out for help. In the morning, the record’s still spinning and Sherlock’s asleep on the floor after building a dinosaur. Watson sent the molecule to her old genetics instructor who has insomnia. He thinks this is the catalyst for causing Lydon’s disease. Sherlock asks Watson to pick up his sweaters. He’ll thank her when he’s warm.
Watson goes to pick them up and the woman behind the counter seems less than interested in her job. She retrieves the sweaters, noting that she’d never seen Watson before. She gets a text from Sherlock so she offers to pay the dry cleaning bill and leave. They try to severely over charge her and refuse to give her a receipt.
They’ve found the sociopath. Gregson and Bell interrogate the man while Sherlock and Watson wait on the other side of the glass. Sherlock by the way, finds the dry cleaners charming. Oh and the suspect is innocent. He sends the text to Gregson “Sociopath but not killer” and when they ignore him, he shouts a Ben Franklin quote to get their attention. Bell still wants to run the DNA but Sherlock is confident that by the time they get their results, he’ll be that much closer. Gregson is awash with disbelief.
The pair goes to talk to the son. Lydon Jr. is more concerned about his job than his father. The other son comes in and tells them that he’s been declared incompetent, Lydon not Sherlock. Watson bullshits a termination letter and learns that the one brother chews his nails. Stealing his pen, they have his DNA. After pick-pocketing the other one independent of Watson, Sherlock has the other brother’s comb already in an evidence bag and tells her to get in the habit of carrying them. Not bad advice for just every day use actually. I can’t tell you how often I need to use one.
The sociopath denies that his blood is what they found even though the lab says that it is. He offers up a long waited alibi in that he was watching the people across the way because they don’t close their blinds and taking photos. Creepy. Gregson isn’t thrilled with the alibi but it’s just crazy enough to do. Sherlock tells Watson that his sweaters are outside her door because was on his way to practice his calligraphy and got distracted. This whole scene is too funny. He then tells her that he has a sensitivity to dry cleaning chemicals and they have to go to the same place across town. Sherlock is staring at a blank white board because “possibility two has refused to reveal itself”.
Watson drops off the dry cleaning and reveals her suspicions to the dry cleaners. Hmm. That’s not smart. She claims to know why Sherlock keeps sending her there before listing the evidence against the place. She thinks she knows why he wants her to investigate the place. “Watson, I admire your enthusiasm but I have no idea what you’re on about.” She pushes further,“I wanted my sweaters!” Sherlock is actually in the middle of an impromptu web chat with the top geneticists Kademan gave them. The team has come up with the idea that because the test the police use only test thirteen markers, it could easily be faked and it has. Sherlock has gotten a sample from the coroner; only the thirteen loci that are tested were present of the hundreds that should be there. Gregson tells Keaton about this development and he calls their results crazy. Gregson tells Keaton that they have a warrant for the lab and if it was made there, they will find it. Sherlock asks why Keaton murdered his fiancée. After they were first engaged, she asked for their DNA to be tested for the gene she discovered. He had it. After that, late nights and suspicious phone calls started so he killed her when she cancelled a dinner date on his birthday. DNA never lies. Sherlock then asks about the motivation for killing Lydon before claiming he doesn’t remember what the initials CAA stand for. Neither do I but that’s because I’m not a geneticists.
Sherlock has made another murder board that he’s staring at comprised of post its and the wall. The name of the person Kademan was supposedly having the affair with is actually two different names including a man who has recently stepped down as the head of his family’s company and a woman that’s stepped down as the head of hers. Sherlock brings her flowers. Mrs. Dunwoody (Patricia Conolly) insists that she needs to continue to practice the piano so she can get into Julliard. Sherlock thinks it’s amazing that the mind decays but muscle memory remains. Someone is doing this on purpose.
Sherlock is cleaning the refrigerator as he already has the suspect of who is giving rich people CAA. She rules out Lydon’s son lining out the only people who would gain from having rich people get the disease would be the researchers. Watson knows that Kademan was a whistleblower and Sherlock hands her the photo of the person doing it; Brian Watt, CEO of the company.
Watt (Tom Galantich) has CAA which caused him to partially retire and also to get into genetics in the first place. It would be easy for him to introduce the gene into the people’s ID thru his contacts at the hospital. He confesses.
Watson walks into the dry cleaning place with Bell. Bell’s theory is that it’s only a money laundering place connected with human trafficking among other charges. The woman says something in Polish and the rest of the police come in.
The bee has gotten loose as Watson gives Sherlock the news. He thought he was going to have to send her there three more times. Sherlock wanted her to trust her instincts about the dry cleaners and is proud of her that she did.
Next week: a rebroadcast of the Superbowl episode The Deductionist. Feel free to reread my recap if you want to brush up on your knowledge ahead of time or point out my mistakes as you review it :) The week after is also a rebroadcast this time of You Do It To Yourself, an episode I don’t remember by title and was before I started recapping. The new episode, Snow Angels, will be in two weeks according to the writers and is “a doozie”.
What worked:
♥ I love that the case wasn’t initially a NYPD case; it shows Sherlock does not need to be tethered to the force to have interesting cases and also brings back some of that intelligence that Rhys was walking about that he saw a case when nobody else did.
♥ I liked that Watson, while brilliant, didn’t guess her first case correctly. She was only looking at the evidence as it was easily interpreted as many of us do in real life. And I like that she did know something was off with the dry cleaners.
What didn’t work:
≠ Nothing. Nothing didn’t work. I am in love with this whole episode.
But what did you all think?
Oh and I got one of my questions answered by the writers of the episode:
@fireflytardis Our fabulous art department and set dressers do that kind of thing. #elementary
— Elementary Writers (@ELEMENTARYStaff) February 22, 2013
How cool is that!
Oh and do let me know if you want me to recap the March 7th rebroadcast.
