review of elementary Episode 2.12 The Diabolical Kind: "I'm Not Like Everybody Else"

 

Major spoilers below.

Elementary returned January 2 with a dandy myth-heavy episode cowritten by series creator Robert
Doherty and Executive Producer Craig Sweeny (who has written or co-written ten episodes to date). The opening montage and scenes reintroduce us to the cast, reminding us of some of their struggles-- the injury that has sidelined Detective Bell (Jon Michael Hill), along with Gregson's (Aidan Quinn) ongoing struggle about the state of his marriage and Watson's (Lucy Liu) desire for some sort of romantic fulfillment juxtaposed against Holmes's (Johnny Lee Miller) ongoing correspondence with the incarcerated Irene Adler/Moriarty (special guest star Natalie Dormer, who gets a lot to do in this episode). Given that three of the four connections here involve the problematics of romance, it is perhaps not surprising that the nature of the relationhsip between Holmes and Moriarty takes center stage in this episode, though even the brief scene with Bell resonates with the episode's interest in the costs and losses the characters face. Unfortunately, Bell appears only in this scene; he's still here, anyway, which is good, but I hope to see his injury plot progress relatively quickly now.

Anyway, the episode reintroduces us to Moriarty's henchman Devon Gaspar (Andrew Howard), hitherto only a voice on the phone but now the architect of the kidnapping of a multi-millionaire's daughter for a ransom of $50,000,000--or that's supposedly what he's after, but things are never that simple, are they? Holmes naturally assumes that Gaspar must somehow be acting upon instructions from Moriarty despite her incarceration and apparent inability to communicate with anyone in the outside world except Holmes (why, exactly, the FBI makes an exception for this corresponence is not elucidated, though possibly Holmes's claim that his ongoing correspondence with Moriarty is purely scientific in nature, reflecting his interest in studying the workings of the mind of a criminal genius, carried some weight with them). Naturally, there is a way for Moriarty to at least receive communications from outside, as alert audience members will recognize the moment we learn she always reads only one newspaper, the New York Ledger. As any Sherlock Holmes fan knows, the classified ads section is a great place to conceal coded messages.

(It's always fun when audiences are given the necessary clues, but I confess to mixed feelings about it when I'm able to figure these things out before they're explained. Also not hard to figure out was that Moriarty's "helpful" sketches of the possible culprits were actually coded messages to those culprits themselves, and even the twist of why Moriarty is cooperating with the police while also communicating secretly with the kidnappers--no, she is not in fact in league with them, but is in fact the kidnap victim's real mother--was relatively easy to deduce; my wife figured it out long before Holmes did.)

The scenes with FBI agent Ramses Mattoo (guest star Faran Tahir, who will be a familiar face to many and who is a delightful character I hope we see again) are strong and help flesh out Moriarty somewhat when we see their intelelctual sparring (e.g. when she notes she's figured out seventeen ways she can escape, he tells her he's managed to figure out only ten). We have the inevitable Hannibal Lecter-style concerns about containment, here represented by almost science-fictional electrified bracelets Moriarty must wear while out of her black site holding facility (where she has painted from memory a highly creditable depiction of Watson), which naturally prove justified. (Aside about these bracelets: they looked somewhat like giant rolls of duct tape to me, but I also found myself flashing on Wonder Woman and her bullet-deflecting bracelets; given that one of the key points of the episode is that Moriarty and Holmes are almost like another species from the human--they are explicitly the "us" and humans the "them" in the episode--I wonder whether this was deliberate.)

Even more interesting are the scenes between Moriarty and Watson, and between Moriarty and Holmes, which elaborate on and tease out further the nexus of their interrelationships. Watson may not be quite Moriarty's intellectual equivalent, but she represents a different grounding for Holmes than Moriarty does; if Moriarty is a pure mind comparable to Holmes's (the only one in the show so far; it remains to be seen whether Conan Doyle's representation of Mycroft as Holmes's smarter brother will be borne out on Elementary, though I expect so), Watson, while no intellectual slouch herself, represents for Holmes a link to emotional intelligence. Tellingly, though Holmes solves the puzzle that reveals the real reason for Moriarty's involvement in events, Watson can read in Moriarty's emotions that there is something other afoot than what seems to be the case. Watching Moriarty and Watson duel is fascinating. This episode suggests very strongly that, going forward, the struggle for Holmes's soul will be carried out by these women--sort of versions of the good angel/bad angel perching on one shoulder each, themselves simplified versions of allegorized figures in medieval morality dramas. Sherlock Holmes psychomachia? Let's hope that Watson and Moriarty are more than mere foils, though that foil function seems pretty clear now.

Even more fascinating, though, is watching how Holmes and Moriarty interact. I confess that early in the episode, Dormer's choices to play Moriarty as insouciant, almost coquettish, struck me as out of character, despite the fact that the episode stresses her seductive powers (well, she's a devilish female character so has to be a sexual temptress, right?) as one of her chief threats. (Mattoo's immunity to these is  a mildly amusing element in the episode. However, when we see her shift gears later on, defeating her electronic restraints, cutting the tracking chips out of her own wrists, and overpowering Mattoo, the contrast between her earlier superficial frivolity and cold competence works very effectively. When she takes out the kidnappers single-handedly (even with blood-dripping wrists), she is believable. However, if contact with Watson has changed Holmes, the changes Watson has wrought in him ripple out to Moriarty--or seem to. In the climactic scene--which is the one-on-one between Holmes and Moriarty after the kidnappers are dispatched, not that action-oriented scene--the dialogue suggests that Moriarty too has changed, avoiding unnecessary killing not because doing so served her purposes but rather because such behavior would have been repugnant to Holmes. This final dialogue stresses the kinship of Holmes and Moriarty--they are "us" to the human "them," as noted above, which is chilling. Though a frequently-noted contrast between Elementary and Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock is that Miller's Holmes is not a sociopath whereas Cumberbatch's is, this episode hints that that may not be quite true. At any rate, on some level, Holmes identifies with Moriarty as a kindred spirit, and not with most other humans. How this will develop represents the real point of interest for this episode.

I look forward to seeing how it develops. What about you? Let me know in the comments section.