Elementary - Episode 2.20 - No Lack of Void - Review

Wow, what an episode.  I can start to feel Elementary raising the stakes the closer we get to the end of the season, and it's exciting.  In "No Lack of Void," Holmes and Watson solved a murder connected to a frightening anthrax scare while Sherlock grappled with a sad personal loss when his friend Alistair died.  The hour was especially notable for featuring one of Jonny Lee Miller's finest performances as he portrayed the complexities of Holmes' grief and how he expressed it.  I felt this was Miller's biggest tour de force in the role since "The Diabolical Kind" earlier this season, and again as we get down to this final batch of season 2 episodes, doubtless the depth of the material will offer still more striking examples of his greatness as an actor.

This week's case had quite a fascinating bait-and-switch quality to it as our detectives tracked the origins of a bag of anthrax that killed a prison inmate, and somewhere between an antigovernment terrorist league and the maneuverings of a pair of brothers on a farm lay the solution to a potentially disastrous situation.  The most frightening scene was definitely when Holmes, distracted by grief over Alistair's death and keen to prevent the anthrax harming the public, climbed into the bad guys' truck, only to be quickly busted by the villains and then doused in white power.  At that point, I wasn't sure where the episode was heading.  Would this turn into a fight for Holmes' survival, and how would Watson deal with that?  Thankfully for Sherlock, the powder those baddies had was not anthrax, and he evaded that terrible fate, though not Watson's extreme annoyance, since he had been so reckless with his own safety.  Their confrontation in the hospital was just one of many excellently layered scenes between Holmes and Watson in the episode.

Holmes simply wasn't ready to share the full immensity of his grief with Watson right away, so he kept trying to push her back to arm's length, first by shrouding the true nature of Alistair's demise (saying it was a heart attack rather than a heroin overdose) and them being  evasive on the issue for quite some time thereafter.  He was also more brusque and impatient with Joan than we've seen him in quite some time, which was intriguing, as it heightened the tension between them.  Even though Holmes was determined to postpone confiding in Watson about how it felt for him to learn that his long-clean, fellow addict friend had succumbed to his old addiction, she was seemingly just too concerned about him to ignore his misery.  I loved the way she pointed out his heedlessness in getting into that truck with the supposed anthrax, even as he chafed against her concern by reminding her that he was fine.  

And the scene in which Holmes threw the dish and then Watson did the very same thing?  Beautifully played by Miller and Lucy Liu.  Holmes struggled with worrying about how he himself might one day relapse into addiction, while also angry that he was making Alistair's fate about himself, a narcissistic line of thought as he saw it. One can hardly blame Holmes for being overwhelmed by the dually disturbing facts of Alistair's death and how he died.  
As Holmes succinctly, painstakingly encapsulated it, "Alistair's death blindsided me and it bothers me. It bothers me."  All of Sherlock's personal ticks, which he typically (by this point in the show) checks to the point of their being only slightly noticeable - his social tactlessness, his little hand twitch - were amped up, further revealing the intensity of his emotional state.

Watson had some straight-to-the-point advice for Holmes as he looked at the situation from a recovering addict's perspective. She delivered it with as much necessary honesty as kind tenderness: "You're an addict, Sherlock. You woke up today and you didn't use drugs, just like yesterday. You know what you have to do tomorrow? Wake up and not use drugs."  Holmes' sadness and self doubt, and Watson's gently firm wisdom were such in that scene that I simply don't even know how Joan got through it without hugging Sherlock.  I just have to put that out there.

Of course, we also got some pensive, touching moments in which Sherlock actually spoke with Alistair's spirit, or his own imagining of it (we're essentially left to draw our own conclusions on that, which I like).  Most movingly of all, by Alistair's grave at the end of the hour, Holmes finally verbalized that he knew Alistair's death was not about Sherlock and his personal demons...it was about Alistair, and it is sad on those terms alone.  Holmes told Alistair that his friend had not let him down, and then tearfully said, "I came here to tell you that I love you and that you will be greatly missed."  A stunningly poignant scene indeed... someone give Miller an Emmy!  

All in all, this episode was unique in that it contained a case that could have resulted in a massive, deadly health catastrophe had that anthrax been released, and that concern could have carried the emphasis of the hour.  Yet instead, the weekly mystery simply provided the journey throughout which Holmes had to deal with a more quiet, deeply personal problem, an enjoyably subtle and rewarding result. 

What did you think of this week's Elementary?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

About the Author - Virginia Mae Fontana

Virginia is happy to be reviewing The Vampire Diaries, Hart of Dixie, Nashville, Beauty and the Beast, Elementary, Witches of East End, Covert Affairs, and Continuum for Spoiler TV. She is a college English instructor and enjoys obsessing over films and pop music - in addition to tv shows, of course! You can find her blog, SugarRushed, at http://virginiamaeblog.blogspot.com/ and her Twitter handle is @SugarRushedBlog