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Last Thursday night's episode of CBS's Elementary was yet another consistent, high quality hour of television. But the segway into this coming Thursday's episode in the final moments rightfully has fans concerned.
Said segway was the discovery of a body on a pier. Captain Gregson called only Holmes to the scene as he recognized signature branding marks on the victim's back - the same marks Kitty Winter is scarred with according to her file, which Gregson, along with Holmes and Watson, has read.
That is just the beginning of what turns out to be a complex, well executed hour, titled "The Illustrious Client" - the first of a two part event that opens the doors into Kitty's past. This is undoubtedly a testing time for the team, with even Holmes, a man seemingly devoid of emotion, visibly struggling to remain impartial and keep his game face on, with a distraught Kitty and concerned Watson clearly not capable of the same approach.
Without giving too much away, the basics of Kitty's ordeal back in England trace back to human trafficking. Though the sense of urgency between the team is understandably higher than normal, that isn't enough to prevent Kitty attempting to progress things more quickly. Kitty is no stranger to autonomy, having done it before in previous weeks to garner a result that wouldn't have otherwise occurred. However this time, it doesn't go unnoticed.
As mentioned in last week's episode, Watson had decided to fold her own private investigative business, opting to work as an investigator for an insurance company, LEDA, with time to allow her to continue working alongside Holmes and Kitty. Watson make the most of her new position, leveraging its access to medical records to try to break the case. However it turns out that Watson is in fact much closer to the man responsible for Kitty's ordeal than she realizes, which serves as the cliffhanger for the following week's concluding episode.
Though the case centers on Kitty, the screen time across all five lead characters is very well distributed. Detective Bell and Captain Gregson feature more prominently than usual. As is the weekly norm, the acting was excellent, but Ophelia Lovibond delivered an outstanding series best performance. The writing and directing by Jason Tracey and Guy Ferland respectively was also top notch. You'll find yourself counting down the days to the concluding episode, rather ominously titled "The One that Got Away."
That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out Elementary's ratings on my website, www.seriesmonitor.com/elementary. Share your thoughts and theories and ask me any questions in the comments below!
"The Illustrious Client" airs Thursday, January 22, 10|9c, on CBS.
Jimmy.
WHAT?! Watson's close to that BASTARD?! wow didn't expect that, and those are brand marks?, MY GOD!!! this is insane, it was bad enough when i thought they were beating marks now i find out they branding, as if i needed any more reason to hate this guy i find this out
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued by this one but also dreading it a bit because of the subject matter. Especially considering how close to home this hits for the characters we know.
ReplyDeleteI really hope the evil creature that tortured Kitty and other women doesn't get away though. It's bad enough it happens in real life, I want the evil captured (or killed! ) in my fiction!
you got that right!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to this episode. I'm liking how this season is slowly restoring the show to the greatness it used to have in Season 1.
ReplyDeleteSeeing how not all criminals are caught in this show, the next ep's title do sound pretty ominous. Won't be surprise if he does get away and get him back towards the end of the season.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to this. Knew as soon as Kitty's past was told, this would come back to haunt the gang. Just didn't expect her actual rapist to come back though. Thought he was caught.
yeah it's scary how some criminals get away and basically outsmart The Great Sherlock Holmes, the "Bella" episode is still so haunting to me
ReplyDeleteJust shows how fallible Sherlock is despite how great of a detective he is.
ReplyDeleteis that bad?
ReplyDeleteNo. Far from it.
ReplyDeleteoh ok
ReplyDeleteWow, this is all really tantalizing.
ReplyDeleteWhen the season started, I wondered whether they'd use the fact that in her Doyle story Kitty Winter is a loose cannon, helping Holmes with a case that affected not just her but numerous other women and then in the end going quite her own way, in a pretty shocking conclusion that he never saw coming. And I like the way they've subtly played up independent Kitty so far in the season. Love it that, in "Seed Money," she worked her own case and, unlike Watson (or even Holmes, actually), solved it completely on her own, for example. Fun to see them get inspired in a sort of deep way by the Doyle stories and characters.
Very interested to see how (or whether, I suppose) that inspiration is going to play out as they move her personal story forward. Seems as if it will, given the way they've begun. Also gives me hope that she's not going to get killed in the course of all this. I think they've emphasized her strength too many times for that to happen, really. And it's certainly not what happens to Doyle's Kitty. Ultimately, she's no victim.
And I guess there was a little music foreshadowing going on in this episode, before we got to the final scenes? Sherlock was listening to Bach's Cello Suite No. 1, and I think that's the piece that the teenage girl Eva played in Dead Man's Switch, about the serial rapist and the blackmailer. Am I remembering that correctly?
They left the conclusion of her case pretty ambiguous when they mentioned it in the Orange Pipz episode.
ReplyDeleteI remember Sherlock saying that she of all people should be concerned about letting a case go unsolved just because the police had worked a theory that they *thought* solved it (or something like that). Wonder whether the UK police could have the wrong person -- or just an underling or something -- locked up in Kitty's case? I've been wondering all along about the very ominous way that Sherlock said to her in episode one -- "Do you remember our plans?" ....
I think you've just summed up the main theme of Elementary: The Human Holmes.
ReplyDeleteWhich is good in my opinion. Crime shows are too predictable because we know the killer will get caught. It's refreshing to see a show where the criminal gets away with it. It makes the show more exciting to watch and more realistic. Makes the detectives more human too.
ReplyDeleteAh! I must have missed that. What to rewatch that again.
ReplyDelete