Elementary Season 5 Episode Guide:
5.01 "Foile a Deux" - Review!
5.02 "Worth Several Cities - Review!
5.03 "Render, and then Seize Her" - Review!
5.04 "Henny Penny the Sky is Falling" Review!
5.05 "To Catch a Predator Predator" - Review!
5.06 "Ill Tidings" - Review!
5.07 "Bang Bang Shoot Chute" - Review
5.08 "How the Sausage Is Made" - Airs November 27
5.09 "It Serves You Right to Suffer - Airs December 11
Elementary 5.06 "Ill Tidings" - Review:
Directed by Ron Fortunato & Written by Jeffrey Paul King
If you're not familiar with Fortunato and King's works, Fortunato has previously worked as a cinematographer on multiple episodes this season for Elementary as well as having directed 6 episodes of the show along with two episodes of Gilmore Girls. King has primarily worked on Elementary again in the past, so these two know what they're doing and therefore it's easy to see why Ill Tidings is another solid episode of Elementary's Fifth Season. Again it doesn't take massive leaps in the slow-burning Shinwell plot but this has always been a case of the week show, so it's interesting to see the case tackled here.
Ill Tidings bears several similarities to Arthur Conan-Doyle's original short story The Speckled Band, and it could easily be an adaption of that for modern times (Elementary, although not delving into the Holmes stories as frequently as Sherlock has done in the past, has adapted stories like The Hound of the Baskervilles before). Here we see seven people along with a chef killed at a dining table via snake venom. Those of you who have read The Speckled Band will know that a poisonous snake was used, as a woman was targeted by a dangerous stepfather looking to claim the money that she would inherit.
It isn't long before we catch up with the rest of the cast. Sherlock is still maintaining a long distance relationship with Fiona from Philadelphia and Fiona decides that she wants to spend time with him properly, meeting at the halfway mark in New Jersey. Meanwhile Marcus is testifying at a trial for an armed robbery, and after being grilled by the defence attorney about the witness Samuel Cruz, he leaves, but has committed, albeit accidental, perjury in the process. His side story involves him getting Sherlock to help him sort things out after the case needs Sherlock's incomplete notes to be solved, and Bell's crush on the ADA involved in the case shows Sherlock how he can actually make his problems work with Fiona. Sherlock decides eventually that his relationship between Fiona has reached its end and decides to call her. Again this is something that doesn't take away from the main focus of the case of the week, but it still felt fairly abrupt and almost ended too soon.
Regardless though, the case of the week is the main focus of this episode as always, and following his first conversation with Fiona, he takes Joan with him to meet Gregson at the scene of the crime, where the chef's eyes are bleeding, and a cook is also suffering from similiar symptoms. This sounds like poison and Sherlock is able to deduce the snake venom, but it's subtle and well-planted. The cook says that the recipe is made by himself and nobody else knows the recipe other than the chef, but the food is usually stored in the fridge overnight and on this particular night they experienced a break in. It turns out that this might be a mass-murder attempt after all especially when it was for a private lunch.
They find another victim in the end in the form of Tate Orvis, who is one of seven potential victims who could have eaten the poisoned foie gras. Orvis is at a hospital but didn't make it through, and Sherlock decides to investigate Danilo Lucas, a Serbian programmer who was responsible for making the lunch reservation, but he is absent from his hotel room. Instead Sherlock and Bell end up finding a wine bottle with a false bottom, which upon inspection leads to key cards.
It turns out that Joan and Gregson are interviewing Tate Orvis' mistress and they find out that she thought he was having another affair, finding key cards which could have been proof that he was seeing another person. The key cards alert Sherlock to the rest of the potential victims who were all members of the Internet Address Organization, controlling the core security for the entire internet. It turns out that out of all seven only one member has survived, making him suspect Number One until it turns out he has a reliable alibi for when the poison was planted. This leads Sherlock and Joan to believe that the target was only one person, and the killer didn't bother who else was taken out in the process.
This is when a threat comes in claiming that the attack was just the beginning and things will escalate with Wall Street the next target. The Stock Exchange in New York is shut down as a result of this, and security is double checked. Sherlock and Joan eventually work out that this was meant to be taken seriously but it is in fact a hoax, and the killer will profit from the trading being taken offline for a short period of time, and the panic that followed. It turns out that the Stock Exchange is home to three paintings worth sixty million dollars, and would prove to be a valuable target indeed. The paintings have since been taken from the Stock Exchange.
With the police putting out a fake story that the paintings have been recovered, Sherlock tracks down a likely suspect in the form of Brian Beale, a cybersecurity expert who was responsible for working on tech security at the Stock Exchange, giving him the means to access the building. Beale however is dead and bitten by the snake venom, and it turns out that the snake is still in the room. Eventually Sherlock is able to find the snake and hand him over to a friend at the zoo, and it turns out that in the end, Beale's accomplice was found, Mateo Lima, who was the lime cook, and despite claiming not to know Beale he is arrested when Sherlock stumbles across a stolen painting from the stock exchange, which is incriminating evidence.
This then solves the case of the week on an effective note, and serves as a nice way to update the Speckled Band story with the Stock Exchange scenes to go with it. This episode reminded me a lot of one of the best Person of Interest episodes "Control-Alt-Delete", which also featured infiltration of the Stock Exchange - albeit with more tragic results for our protagonists. It's such a shame that we never got an Elementary and Person of Interest crossover, because both would fit so perfectly in the same episode, but I guess this video will have to do. Either way for now Ill Tidings marks another strong case solved, giving plenty for the main characters to do.
Overall Episode Verdict: B+
Positives:
+Stock Exchange heist.
+Sherlock/Fiona relationship...
Negatives:
-...But was the relationship over too quickly?
Elementary 5.07 "Bang Bang Shoot Chute" - Review:
Directed by Jerry Levine & Written by Celeste Chan Wolfe
The most recent case of the week revolves around a parachuter who was killed twice in one go, the first attempt on his life saw his chute cut, and the second saw him killed whilst in the air. It explains the title, and at the same time reminds me a lot of Shane Black's awesome action movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which is one of my favorite movies so certainly something that you should check out if you haven't already). Of course, the episode itself is nothing like the film, because although the episode may not reach the quality of the previous one, relying too much on stereotypes, but it does allow for a solid case of the week that once again returned to Shinwell's storyline, but we'll get to that later.
The episode itself was actually directed by Jerry Levine, who fans of the original Teen Wolf 1985 movie will recognise him for his role as Stiles in that movie. He's also directed several episodes of Elementary and Hawaii Five-0 in the past so he's no stranger to the genre and the structure of the CBS crime procedural. Celeste Chan Wolfe meanwhile has written a couple of episodes of the science fiction show Andromeda in the past, but that's about it.
Either way we open with the murder of the parachuter as he is shot out of the sky. Detective Bell is able to get Sherlock up to date on the case where we learn more about our victim, Bennett Nealy, an army veteran who loves jumping off things with parachutes. Sherlock realizes the parachute has been sabotaged and that the second man landed safely, before running away rather than sticking around to report the murder. Their first point of call is Nealy's wife who has an alibi for the shooting, however she cannot prove that she wasn't responsible for the parachute sabotage. It's about finding two potentially disconnected enemies who have one thing in common, their shared hatred for Nealy. His eight-month pregnant wife does provide enough information to direct them towards Mark Trenchman, a business partner whose relationship with Nealy was strained after an accident involving the death of another partner, Arturo, in the air. Nealy blamed Trenchman for not alerting how close they were to colliding whilst Trenchman blamed Nealy for colliding with Arturo, but it turns out that the two are over that and were planning to do the jump to honor Arturo's death in the first place.
This leads them to Arturo's sister, who is a cadet at West Point and therefore has the skills with a weapon. But there's a catch, she is monitored 24/7 by her superiors. She even says that she doesn't hold Nealy responsible for her brother's death, saying that Nealy was doing everything to make amends including finishing writing Arturo's book that would provide Arturo's children with money. She tells Sherlock and Bell that it's no surprise that Nealy died, he's an adrenaline junkie after all. Sherlock however is able to get a copy of the book and discovers a picture that pinpoint Arturo, Nealy and other men with a shipment of cash in Iraq, with the shipment in part going missing. Sherlock has a military connection that is able to get him the names of the other people in the photo and leads them to Declan Boyle, but it's in vain as Boyle has no motive to kill Nealy and says that Nealy was one of his best customers when it came to the money as Boyle was essentially a loan shark, which involved buying a skydiving plane registered in Canada.
This meant that Nealy could have some connection with the smuggling business which is confirmed when there are seats spotted in the cargo hold. The name of Nealy's pilot however is fake, but Bell is able to catch a break thanks to help of a fellow former military NYPD Officer, who is able to spot that one of the suspects in the image is wanted for his connection with the Taliban. This leads them to Qadir Durrani and his wife, who used Nealy's plane to get into Canada with their children (a son and a daughter), explaining that Durrani defected to NATO and there is a death warrant on him if he were to go back home. The Durrrani's explain that they have no motive for killing Nealy because they have more family waiting to be brought into the US and would need Nealy's connections. However, Nazri is able to provide the Detectives with information that the pilot got into a fight with Nealy and called him a traitor.
The co-pilot confesses to sabotaging the plane but Sherlock doesn't believe him. It turns out the co-pilot is the father of Nealy's Wife, and with Nealy having an affair with a woman, she decided to whilst under a lot of stress due to her pregnancy, phone her father who offered advice on sabotaging the parachute as a joke, not thinking that Nealy's wife would actually go through with it but admitted his guilt upon realizing what he had done. She did regret her decision though, and tried to convince Nealy not to go through with it. However, Nealy being Nealy, he never listened.
Eventually, Sherlock is able to find the shooter and it turns out that the woman who Nealy was having an affair with was Zohala, who ran away from the Durrani's in order to live a modern life. Zohala in turn however was being targeted by Nealy's assassin, her brother Marjan, who brought into the Taliban instructions. However the police are able to arrest Marjan in the process, reuniting the Durrani's with their daughter, if not their son.
This wraps up the case of the week on an interesting note even if it was one of the more unremarkable episodes of the season so far. Shinwell returned in the side story though as it turns out that Joan's sister, Lin - spotted Shinwell meeting with someone who could have potentially been a gang member. This gang member turns out to be Tally Boy, an old friend of Shinwell's. And what makes things more interesting when Tally Boy is brought down to the police station he confesses that it was Shinwell who wanted to meet him, not the other way around as Joan suspected. This could potentially lead to a parole violation for Shinwell if he was caught (and for Tally Boy, which is how Joan was able to get the information out of him), and Sherlock goes to warn Shinwell about the dangers of starting up an old habit. Sherlock would hate to loose a potential chess partner if Shinwell were arrested, after all.
Joan doesn't have much better luck than Sherlock trying to warn Shinwell of the dangers of falling back into his old ways, but Shinwell pushes her away and it's clear that he's doing it against his best interests. He doesn't want Joan to stumble into something out of her depth, which was again a bit annoying because you think both Joan and Sherlock, when you look at the stuff that they've handled together so far, could be able to find a way to solve Shinwell's problem. Either way, the episode ends on a sombre note, but hopefully it won't be long before we return to Shinwell's story as so far, despite its slow-burn approach, is shaping up to be an interesting one with lots of unknown factors.
On the whole though, this was another standard if not particularly mindblowing episode of Elementary, that put a bit more focus on Shinwell's narrative. It does seem to be taking its time, but then again, there needs to be enough Shinwell to drag out over by the looks of things, entire season, and as always, a case of the week needs to be solved. The Durranis could have been fleshed out a bit more as well due to their complex nature which was sort of undercut because although it was nice that the show ended up subverting the traditional terrorist stereotype that most shows seem to go with by painting Qadir as someone who wasn't a radicalized terrorist, Elementary then completely decided to undercut that by having their son turn into one such stereotype. Like I said though this is another weak spot but
Verdict: C+
Positives:
+What is Shinwell hiding?
+Double Murder
Negatives:
-Underwhelming case of the week.
-Not enough depth to the Durranis.
What did you think of Ill Tidings and Bang Bang Shoot Chute? Let me know in the comments below and check out the next episode of Elementary this Sunday at 10pm on CBS.
