Warning: not only are there spoilers below, but there is also a picture from the episode that's a bit gross, so, be warned!
"Ears to You" is quite an enjoyable episode of Elementary, featuring a mystery that is as engaging as the character interactions, which is relatively unusual. As enjoyable as Elementary generally is, the mysteries themselves are sometimes pro forma, cliched, and/or implausible--not surprising, perhaps, in the context of series television, in which writers have to come up with over twenty stories a year--and about characters who are smarter than those writers, to boot. The plot offers up a genuine poser. Gordon Cushing (Jeremy Davidson) lives under the burden of an accusation: his wife Sarah (Cara Buono) disappeared in 2010, and ever since, he has been suspected of having murdered her. Even his story of receiving a ransom demand in 2011, in which the terrified Sarah was put on the phone to talk to him, has cut little ice, since he paid the ransom, did not get Sarah back, but has no proof of the actual ransom demand: maybe it was just a story to try to raise questions about questions his guilt. Now, in 2014, another ransom demand comes to him in the form of apackage, this time accompanied by a couple of gruesome tokens as proof of life (see the title of the episode, as well as the first picture here).
But, are these Sarah's ears? If so, she must still be alive, but what kidnapper keeps a prisoner for four years? That's just the first question, though; the plot unfolds in an intriguing series of revelations and twists: Sarah is indeed still alive, but still has her ears, claiming that she fled Cushing out of fear for her safety and has lived incognito, married to a plastic surgeon ever since. But if so, whose ears are these? Their DNA matched that of hairs on a brush from the Cushing house. But the woman Cushing thinks might be the victim--a prostitute with whom he was cheating on his wife--herself died three years past and was cremated, so could not possibly be the ear donor. And say, wait a minute, what about Cushing's story that his terrified wife spoke to him on the phone three years back, during the first ransom demand? Now that we know she's still alive, and know therefore that he didn't invent the first ransom story to try to conceal his guilt for her murder, how does that incident change things? We get some good instances of Holmes's (Johnny Lee Miller) deductive reasoning, almost as an aside, as he works through the possibilities. I won't reveal the answer, except to say that it's surprising and might see on the face of itseem pretty unlikely but is actually feasible.
![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pPrYBVmGcPI/UxoxEmA-aCI/AAAAAAAAARY/SNWLSWNem58/s1600/ears+one.jpg)
However, the running gag this episode carries with it a potentially explosive undertone. No doubt as a result of last week's bomb-based murder, holmes puncutates his investigation this week by attempting to defuse an array of dummy bombs supplied by an obliging contact. (How many specialists does Holmes have on his string, anwyay?)These are of course not rigged actually to blow up but instead to squirt him with paint or water or something, should he fail. At the end of the episode, however, Holmes has upped the ante by asking for a live bomb to defuse; this time, if he's not right, things will literally blow up in his face. As Holmes works, Watson nonchalantly remains present in the background--even when he asks whether she's leaving--demonstrating her implicit faith in him. Hard cut to black.
We can be sure, I think, that this bomb will not detonate, but I suspect it's a metaphor for coming problems, as we near the season finale.
So, do you agree or disagree with my assessment that this is one of the better episodes of the series? what did you like or dislike about it? Let me know in the comments below; I'm all ears!