Elementary - A Stitch in Time - Review

"A Stitch in Time" is another episode of Elementary in which the control of information, especially via technology, is a major thematic element. Certain key themes keep popping up in Elementary, and this is one of them. This time out, a murder investigation leads circuitously to the discovery of an attempt to manipulate data transfer for personal gain--by way of an apparent haunting.

The murder of a well-known skeptic renowned for debunking scams of various kinds, notably those involving supernatural claims, initially leads Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) to realtor Collin Eisley (Eric Bogosian--most recognizeable guest star and therefore almost certainly the culprit, as these things usually go), because the debunker thought Eisley was trying to convince a home owner her house was haunted in order to persuade her to sell. Claire Renzinger (Anita Gillette) has experienced what seems to be poltergeist activity in her home--strange thumps and banging, objects falling and breaking--as well as hearing voices which she takes to be the accusing voice of her dead husband She has conveniently recorded the voice, which proves not to be her dead husband berating her for an affair but a very much alive Arabian man who was tunnelling in the basement of the house next door, in order to access one of the transatlantic cables that carries data to North America.

What initially looks like a terrorist threat to the security of data turns out instead to be a rather more

mundane, if ingenious, plot to slow down data transfer slightly. The tunneller has merely been installing a complex device that transmits the data unaffected, without taking any of it, but merely slowing down its transfer by four milliseconds. As Holmes notes, that time is imperceptible to humans but is a long time in data transfer terms. By delaying the transfer of sensitive financial data to many financial institutions, but not to his own institution, the culprit can take advantage of the lightning speed by which computers can engage in trade to benefit from said information before anyone else can. It's kind of  a technologically updated version of the big scam in The Sting, in which a set-up betting depot is in fact a few seconds behind reality, so that the scammers know which horses win, place, and show before the race seems to be run, as far as those in the booking joint know, allowing the big fish to be fleeced of what he thinks will be a sure thing bet.

Is it any surprise that the real culprit turns out to be Eisely after all, with the Arab man merely the engineer he hired to plant the device? Eisley wanted Renzinger's house because the cable ran closer to it; he wasn't scamming her with fake ghosts, but the noise from the tunnel and the shaking of the walls of her house led to apparent supernatural manifestations, leading the debunker to investigate, to discover what was really going on, and to get murdered by the engineer. Sharp-eyed audience members will notice that there is a key difference between Eisley's home the first and second time he is interviewed: the Picasso painting visible in the first interview is replaced by a different painting during the second interview (compare the first interview picture, here, with the second interview picture, above). This is a nice example of the show's attention to detail, as audience members are rewarded for their observational skills. We still need Holmes to explain the significance of this change (the Picasso has been given to the engineer in lieu of payment), but we can at least feel like we have some investigative skills.

Investigative skills (or the lack thereof) and the manipulation of information for personal gain also figures in

the B plot. The B plot sees the return of Gregson's (Aidan Quinn) beat cop daughter Hannah (Liza J. Bennett), who solicits Watson's aid in solving a series of pharmacy break-ins on her beat. Watson, naturally, quickly solves the puzzle, being a superior investigator to Hannah; indeed, Holmes dismisses Hannah as an unimpressive investigator and warns Watson about getting too involved with her. I confess I figured that this little disagreement between the two would push Watson to trust Hannah too far end end up causing problems. Instead, Hannah becomes a sort of culprit herself. Watson informs her of what the drugstore scams are about and urges her to kick the information up the chain of command so that  the thieves can be monitored, which would lead to a bigger bust of the higher-ups in the food (or drug) chain. Instead, Hannah uses the information herself to bust the thieves, thereby getting some credit and some cachet among the cops, but at the expense of stopping the larger criminal enterprise. Like Eisely, she manipulates access to information for her own gain. She even gets someone else to do the grunt labour for her before taking the profit herself (though Watson merely gets thanked, not a Picasso).

As A plot/B plot interconnections go, it is not the most significant one we have seen,  but it does offer an interesting contrast and makes the point that there is more than one way to use information for personal gain. As Elementary episodes go, this is an entertaining one, though basically a place-holder; there is no significant advance or change in the Holmes/Watson dynamic. With only four episodes to go in the season, that's a bit of a surprise. We do, however, get to see Holmes in his bee-keeping suit, so there's that.

How did you like the episode? Let me know in the comments below!