Elementary Episode 3.05 Rip Off - Review

"Rip Off" provides a decent enough mystery focusing on diamond smuggling. A Jewish man who runs a mail drop service is killed and his hand literally torn from his body. Turns out it was torn off by muscleman Dana Kazmir (Michael DeMello) as murder for hire. How Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) figures out the hand was manually removed (an experiment with crash test dummies) and how he suckers a DNA sample out of Kazmir (an experiment with arm-wrestling) are clever and amusing examples of Holmes's unique genius in action. Clever as these bits are, though, I had a bit more difficulty with the killer's being able to hire a guy with no apparent history as a hit man to literally rip off another guy's hand--even for $50,000--not to mention some difficulty with how a graduate student (as killer Amit Hattengatti, played by guest star Rafi Silver, is) could find such a hit man--even if he has gotten in deep with international diamond smuggling. The mysteries in recent episodes seem engaging enough and have bizarre twists but are not to my mind entirely plausible. Nevertheless, the murder plot passed the time entertainingly--and it was a bonus to see Leslie Hendrix (who I quite enjoyed as the pathologist on Law and Order) turn up as Hattengatti's co-conspirator.

We all know, though, that it's not really the mysteries that make Elementary interesting but the character dynamics. So, how does this episode fare on that front? Not particularly well, I am sad to report. The elements of this episode do not gel particularly well; the mystery plot does not really resonate with either the Holmes/Kitty interplay or the Gregson subplot.

Furthermore, Watson (Lucy Liu) is not present, except virtually, in the form of the manuscript she wrote documenting Holmes's cases, which Holmes has found on a laptop. Sherlock Holmes without Watson is rather like bread without butter, coffee without cream, pick your favorite simile. Kitty Winter (Ophelia Lovibond) is not, to my taste (cream, butter, or otherwise), a sufficient substitute, though her status as the "new" Watson is an important element here. Holmes's discovery of Watson's manuscript makes him paranoid, so we begin with him forcing Kitty to sign a non-disclosure ageeement, before coming to the inevitable conclusion that, actually, proteges writing about him would be a good thing. By that point, of course, Kitty has destroyed the MS by pouring the  soft drink onto the laptop, thereby frying everything--a rather melodramatic gesture perhaps indicative of lingering antagonisms between her and Watson--especially as Holmes suggests that she could learn something form reading it.

The ongoing rivalries among these three continue to drive the characterization. In addition to this
element, we also have some sort of experimentation going on with Clyde, in which his choice of which button he pushes determines whether he gets food or electroshocks his feeder. Holmes takes subtle pleasure in finding that Clyde pushes the shock button for Kitty but the feed button for him. (Aside: this is the second episode in a row to begin with a Clyde scene; perhaps we should be paying close attention to the turtle.) Otherwise, though, there's not much to the Kittly/Holmes exchanges this time out. Hopefully, Watson will be back from Copenhagen next week. . . .

Kitty is, however, given a role in the subplot. I've been thinking recently that Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Bell (Jon Michael Hill) haven't had a lot to do this season. That was addressed in this episode, with the sub plot focusing on Gregson, who we encounter off the top of the show in jail after being in a fight. Has he fallen off the wagon? Sadly, no; this turns out to be because his patrol cop daughter Hannah (Liza J. Bennett) has told him that her partner/lover has been smacking her around--"laying hands" on her, as Gregson says, in perhaps a too on the nose echo of the hand-centris main plot. Why is she surprised and pissed off that her father then lays hands on the guy? What did she think he would do, take the guy for doughnuts? That she wants to being the whole sordid mess ot an end by having her dad and her beater publicly shake hands not only really overdoes the "hand" theme but is an absurd non-solution to a serious issue. Obviously, in the real world people do dumb and counter-productive things all the time, but in a ten-minute sub-plot, there just isn't room to provide emotional subtlety and nuance, so this plot element comes off as forced and simplistic.

Back to Kitty, though. We don't know how she does it, exactly, but she manages magically to solve the problem by getting Hannah's partner to decide to quit the force. Well, this doesn't really solve the problem, of course, because if the guy is an abuser, just cutting him loose doesn't do anything more than open the door for him to find another victim.  Ironically, this is a point Gregson makes when Hannah expresses her reluctance to file a complaint about a guy. Maintaining her tough cop image is more important than dealing with an abuser. Um, okay. Badly handled.

So, for me, overall not an overly impressive episode, despite Clyde giving Kitty shocks and Holmes using an elaborate pulley system to disarm mannequins. (When he makes Kazmir punch himself in the face, that's pretty funny, too.)  But how about you? Were you satisfied with the episode? do you think Hannah's problem was appropriately resolved? Let me know in the comments.