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" - Review!
5.09 "It Serves You Right to Suffer - Airs December 11
5.10 "Pick Your Poision" - Airs December 28
Elementary 5.08 "How the Sausage is Made" - Review:
Directed by Michael Pressman & Written by Mark Hudis
Elementary pushed Shinwell's storyline aside to focus on the growing tensions between Joan and Sherlock as Joan discovered that Sherlock wasn't attending his Narcotics Anonymous Meetings, causing Joan to worry that this might cause him to fall back into his old habits. This storyline played out on a solid note, if a mostly unconnected one, from the main events of the investigation into potential cannibalism, and worked for the most part pretty well even if this case won't go down as one of Elementary's best.
Sherlock and Joan are called into the Morgue to investigate the corpse of a man who may be a cannibal, having eaten somebody who had horse tranquilizer in their system, with the horse tranquilizer potentially being the cause of death. Sherlock is able to detect what butcher the meat came from and it doesn't take much of a leap to guess that the butchers aren't co-operating, insisting that the meat couldn't have come from them. They do however explain that there was a recent break in, and from this evidence Sherlock is able to find hair and skin samples in the area which is good news and they could be looking for someone with albinism, only to find out that he has vitiligo instead. They work out from a video that the man was talking to a woman who works at Mount View hospital, with Bell providing a name in the form of Alma Cabrera, who in turn provides them with the name for the man matching the description, Joaquin Pereya a biotechnologist who was most likely killed due to his work.
It turns out that the man who consumed human food was doing so unintentionally as it was passed off as normal meat. But in the meantime, there's conflict in their apartment as Joan and Sherlock are fighting over Sherlock's lying about his attendance at the Meeting. Joan learns this because someone who actually attended the meetings presented a crown to Joan, saying that Sherlock would understand what the gift was. This is enough for her to work out that Sherlock isn't going to the meetings, and the conflict heats up over the course of the episode. Sherlock's reason behind not going is that he views independence as a challenge, something that has to be overcome. It may not be the first time the two have come into conflict with each other especially with Sherlock lying about where he's supposed to be, but it's really interesting to explore this development especially when the show is also testing Joan's commitment to her role as a consulting Detective. On a lesser show it may feel like forced drama to develop tension between the leads and could feel repetitive, but as always, Jonny Lee Miller's and Lucy Liu's performances help keep this storyline feeling fresh and exciting, and a welcome distraction from the main case of the week.
Speaking of the main case of the week, we turn our attention to Pereya's employees, a company developing Synthetic meat, which earns their co-operation in the investigation by Werner Platz who is willing to help Sherlock and Joan in the case. The case leads Sherlock to a suspected mole inside their organization in the form of Corrine from Mid-West Cattle Ranchers, but she admits that whilst she is willing to spy, she didn't want to play a part in a murder and decides to help Sherlock and Joan solve the case. However there's nothing in her correspondence with the Ranchers that suggest they would have the motive to murder Pereya, forcing Sherlock to turn to the hacker collective Everyone in order to find out who's responsible, and they are willing to do it on the condition that Sherlock turns up for an open mic night for a comedy gig. Sherlock does (and deliberately fails), but they are able to find a payment that the Mid-West Cattle Ranchers made to a man called Thomas Coburn, who is already under investigation for a string of murders making him suspect number one.
Coburn unfortunately has an alibi for all the murders but it soon becomes clear that he was not the only one involved and his daughter was not as estranged as he was trying to have them believe. It turns out that there is evidence at Grace Coburn's apartment linking both the father and daughter to the murders, however Grace says that she's not the one responsible for killing Joaquin, with the Cattle Ranchers having cancelled the hit that they paid her to do in the process. So that rules the Coburns off the list even though they have killed in the past. It turns out that they cancelled the hit because after an FDA ruling that Pereya's work could only be described as a meat substitute. This however does put Sherlock and Joan back at square one with no new suspect.
For help, Sherlock calls for a meeting of religious legions from both Muslim and Jewish backgrounds and is able to determine that due to the dietary laws of both religions the fact that this meat was described as a meat substitute could turn out that Joaquin's employer could actually be the one to substantially gain from the selling of the product. Sherlock determines that Joaquin wouldn't forge his work so that they could get the classification needed so the CEO, Platz, killed him whilst one of Platz's employees Brenden Farley changed parts of Pereya's research. This gives them the suspect but there's not enough proof to arrest both Farley and Platz, which is something that both of them are fully aware of. However Sherlock has a plan to force a confession and turns to the religious leaders for help, who once learning that a murder was involved would refuse to sanction the meat and would only do so if a murder was confessed. This naturally leads to Farley confessing since he wasn't directly involved in the killing himself, and this leads to the case being solved.
Sherlock eventually decides to go to the NA meetings after Joan tells him that he's bored because he doesn't say what he thinks, which gives him reasoning to go again. It's a good way to end the episode, and further continues to show just how well the series is capable of handling Sherlock's recovery. Most shows would have forgotten it after the first season or even the first episode but the fact that it's still being discussed in Season 5, over a hundred episodes in, shows just how confident the writers are with this approach, finding a way to balance it nicely with the main narrative. It'll be interesting to see whether this pops up again further on down the season as we've seen Sherlock relapse before, but for now, Season 5 is heading in a very promising direction.
Overall Episode Verdict: B-
Positives:
+Sherlock/Joan conflict...
+...and resolution.
+How the show is handling Sherlock's recovery.
Negatives:
-Not showing Sherlock's standup comedy attempt is the biggest missed opportunity of Season 5 so far.
