Why
Elementary episode 3.13 is called "Hemlock" does not become clear until the final moments of the episode, in quite a twist. I'd almost forgotten the title until the final moments, as nothing in the main plot of the episode seemed to have anything to do with hemlock.
This first post-Kitty (Ophelia Lovibond) episode does not dwell on what her leaving means, but we do see that her departure does have an impact on Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) especially but arguably also on Watson (Lucy Liu), both of whom find themselves facing up to issues in their personal lives--Holmes the absence of Kitty, Watson her uncertainty about how serious she really is about current boyfriend Andrew (Raza Jaffrey). Holmes's circumstances admittedly are more directly related to Kitty's departure, as we see him looking desperately and amusingly for anyone to discuss cases with, from the threesome with which the episode opens to his mannequin sparring partner. Arguably, though, this shift in the dynamic of Watson's life--Watson and Kitty had become close--impacts on Watson's thinking about her own relationship. Well, that and Holmes's badgering her about what she really feels, that is.
Holmes's desperation for something to occupy his post-Kitty mind leads him to take the sort of case he usually despises, when a woman, Jill Horowitz (Amy Hargreaves) turns up
at his door with suspicions about her husband. One always half-suspects
the woman who hires a private investigator to look into her husband to
be herself somehow the guilty party, that being such a private eye
cliche (indeed, whis week's episode of
Castle offered a variation on that theme), so this episode's narrative trajectory is a peasant surprise in that regard. Initially, we seem to be in duplicitious husband territory: Horowitz is no longer employed by the high-powered law firm his wife thinks he works for but has begun a storefront operation of his own, the precise nature of which is unclear, but certainly shady. This becomes clear when, in investigating the vacated office space, Holmes and Watson discover not only banks of phones but also the one remaining bit of Horowitz: a piece of brain matter.
So, yes, murder, as it always seems to be in
Elementary stories, but the question is why? We learn that Horowitz had begun a debt purchase business: purchase irrecoverable debt from, say, credit card companies at a steep discount, then hound the debtors until you can coerce them into paying off at least some of what they owe. Legal, but definitely morally problematic--as Horowitz's being funded by criminals and hiring more criminals to help with the debt collection reveals. Horowits begins to look like quite a bad piece of work who has been killed by any one of the myriad folk whose debt he is trying to collect. The suspect list is literally in the thousands, leaving Holmes and Watson with quite a puzzle.
Typically of
Elementary (and most other mystery shows, for that matter), though, things are never what they seem, and the plot circles neatly back to Horowitz's original employers and a plot to use the debt recovery gambit a a way to get hold of a valuable peice of real estate. Horowitz's change of heart about the sleazy business of debt collection, rather than his own greed, is what got him killed. The episode offers up an unspectacular but satisfactory instance of Holmes and Watson sifting the evidence and eventually piecing together the clues. Holmes still gets the majority of the crucial bits, but Watson's growth as an investigator is especially evident when she is able to identify the crucial final piece of the puzzle.
We need the crimes to drive the plots, of course, but what is always more interesting in
Elementary is the
personal dynamic. This episode makes effective use of one of the show's recurring devices, the sharing of food, to help make its points. Holmes and Watson have over the run of the show often shared food as a sign of their common ground and comfort with each other (usually with Holmes cooking). The move back towards Watson's and Holmes's relationship being the centre of the show is marked most clearly in the scene when she wakes up in the morning in the brownstone, having stayed over. Holmes brings her breakfast in bed, as well as fresh new clothes he has purchased for her, showing his careful attention to her tastes. By contrast, the awkwardness of Watson's relationship with Andrew is also marked by food exchanges. The shared restaurant dinner with Andrew's father--a formal, public occasion, essentially a performance of the ritual of meeting the parent (we might recall similar moments from earlier episodes, such
as Watson thinking she is meeting Holmes's father, or Holmes meeting Watson's parents)--is what finally what forces her to realize that Holmes has been right about her ambivalence about Andrew. Even before that moment, though, we get a clear contrast between how Watson relates with Andrew and how she relates with someone with whom she is genuinely comfortable. Upon Andrew's return, she prepares dinner for him, and it does look very nice indeed, but it too is all formality and display, a performance rather than the intimate sharing of food. It's a sign, in effect, of the death of the relationship.
Is it perhaps a bit on the nose, then, that the literal death of the relationship occurs over coffee, out at a
coffee house--a neutral, commercial environment where the blow of getting dumped might be easier to bear? Here, sadly, is where the twist comes, though. I suspect I was far from the only one watching who thought there was something significant about the woman who bumped into Watson just after she picked up the coffees, and about the fact that initially the coffees get mixed up, so Andrew sips Watson's before they figure it out. As a result, we never get to know whether Watson was about to break Andrew's heart, as the mystery woman evidently poisoned Watson's coffee: Andrew drops dead (apparently) right there in the coffee shop. Hence the hemlock title.
So, what does this mean? Who is gunning for Watson? Is there a new super-bad on the horizon, or is a villain from the past returning? Will this precipitate Watson moving back into the brownstone? (My prediction: yes, after resisting doing so.) Kitty's departure can easily be set aside as this major new threat assumes centre stage.
Overall, then, this was an engaging and satisfying episode that laid some interesting groundwork for the second half of the season. Oh, and Clyde painted, too, so bonus! How did you like the episode? Let me know in the comments below!
