Joan enters Gregson’s office. He asks her to shut the door and “have a seat.” He launches into a story about a book his sister has been “hounding” him to read, he was certain the description would be of interest to Joan though: the protagonists in this particular book are a beautiful Chinese-American woman and a man from London, the details down to living together and consulting for the NYPD are in the book. Gregson notes that while she may not know the author, “he sure knows you.”
The murder du jour: someone’s been put through the wood chipper. Interesting concept, but it’s very hard to put a character through a woodchipper and not evoke Fargo (the 1996 movie, not the 2014 series) despite seeing neither the chopping, nor the murderer.
Back in the morgue, Gregson calls in Sherlock, informing him the murdered was an ex-FBI agent named Robert Underhill. Sherlock deduces that their victim would have had to have been dismembered, Bell immediately corroborates with a chainsaw found at the scene with blood between the teeth. The next deduction: the former Mr. Underhill was sprayed with pepper spray, leading Sherlock to the assumption that their victim knew his attacker. The obvious suspect is the wife as at the time of the murder, Underhill was missing his wedding ring and had at least one wrapped condom on his person.
At the interview, Sherlock presents the evidence that Underhill was cheating on his wife. The wife, Shelia, then supplies that they had been separated for six months. Her alibi is one that should be easily corroborated with ticket purchases and video footage, so they move on to asking who else would have had a motive. Shelia informs them that since returning to New York, Robert had been reinvestigating the cases he had been unable to close when he was with the force.
Joan goes to see her stepfather over “The Heart Bled Blue,” having pinned him as the author from his rather obvious pseudonym. He claims he was honouring her and asks what Sherlock’s opinion of the book was. Joan tells him to call him publisher and track down the rest of the copies, citing that Sherlock would “freak” if he knew about the book.
By way of finding their murderer, Sherlock had been solving the cases Robert Underhill had not been able to over his enter career. Needless to say, he’s solved all three that Underhill had been working on at his time of death, but he still thinks one of the deceased’s old cases was the reason for his demise.
Joan immediately recognizes the case that Sherlock has already isolated: that of a missing child, Mina Davenport.
They go to speak to the parents of the abducted and then returned girl. The parents are understandably reluctant to let the detectives speak to their daughter after how long it has taken them to make the progress they have with her. Once they do speak with the girl, Sherlock deduces that the girl returned as Mina Davenport is an imposter.
How was the imposter sussed out? By the ears. The DNA had matched the missing girl’s, though Holmes and Watson are assuming a lab tech was in on the scam with the imposter. Gregson is suspicious, but Sherlock wins out by suggesting the Davenports would like to know if they’re housing a killer under their roof.
In speaking with Sherlock, “Mina” gives an impressive performance, but still one that Sherlock sees right through. Ultimately he gets the order from the patriarch of the family to stay away from all of them.
At the arrival of a large shipment, Sherlock brings to Joan’s attention his knowledge of her father’s book. He informs her he’s the basis for “several” fictional characters. As her father’s book is fiction, he has no problem with the work whereas her own journal had used his name and their real cases. In the middle of discussing why Sherlock would be unbothered by one and not the other, “Mina” arrives.
Pretty soon off the bat, she admits that she’s not Mina Davenport and points the finger at the Davenports themselves at to Underhill’s murderer. Why? To hide their earlier murder of their own child. “Mina” gives her name as Cassie and offers to make a deal with Sherlock and Joan in exchange for access to Mina’s trust.
Having seen a documentary about the missing girl, Cassie thought she looked close enough to Mina to pass. She confesses that she had never been worried about convincing the police or the FBI, but the Davenports. But the suspicion never came from her “parents.” She tells the story of how her “father” had come into her room and in her mind cemented the idea that he killed his own child. According to Cassie, the mother went along with it to cover her husband’s crime. She asks that Joan and Sherlock keep their newly found information to themselves in exchange for the trustfund for her and the eventual justice for the real Mina. As she leaves to plant the bugs she was given, she promises that they won’t regret trusting her.
Joan sees through Sherlock easily and asks him what the real play is. He tells her about the one bug and one flash bang he has given fake Mina. With these, the NYPD will be able to gain access to the house without a warrant.
While searching the house, Joan tells Sherlock the reason why she’s not on the best of terms with her father. Naturally, it was an affair.
Joan’s father tells her that “The Heart Bled Blue” is about to be very hard to find and to prove it, he’s brought her the sequel. Joan is not happy that there even is a sequel. Her father admits that he ruined their friendship and that he had written the book to be close to her. Sherlock calls with news of the blood they had found at the house — not because the crime lab was that quick, but because Mr. Davenport has come to confess.
When Joan arrives down at the station, her hypothesis is that he’s confessing, even if he does know that Mina’s a fake, to save her now when he couldn’t in the past. Gregson notes that she’s played them pretty well; they have to either accept the false confession or prove he did not. Sherlock notes that they have the perfect reason to match her DNA again.
Once again, the DNA they’ve found matches her supposed parents. Bell suggests that “Mina” is related to Davenport in one way or another anyway and happened to choose this opportunity to exploit the connection for profit. Sherlock dismisses the theory immediately.
Speaking to Mrs. Davenport, they reveal that “Mina” had access to the real Mina’s hair fourteen months ago. In finding the source of the hair, they’ve found the Davenports’ real daughter as fake Mina had over a year ago. And the Davenports are then allowed a second reconciliation, this time with their real daughter.
Joan goes to visit her father, telling him that if he wants to publish the books, he can. In fact, she thinks the second one is better than the first.
Sherlock goes to talk to “Cassie” (still not her real name) to find out some more information about her and the case. She still claims that there isn’t a good explanation for the FBI agent’s murder, only the blood that she has “six different explanations for.” She asks him to come to her trial.
The idea of a returned child not being the right child is a fascinating one and one that has its roots in criminological history from a woman knowing right off that the child returned to her was not the right one (only to not be believed), to cases more in line with tonight’s episode. It must be terrifying the idea that not only could a person lose a loved one, especially a child, but then when reunited, to be reunited with someone looking to con the grieving family.
All in all, this was a very solid episode from a consistently solid show.
Next episode: Jan. 14
