2.14.2013

Television: Elementary, "Details"

Time to learn more about Detective Bell. He becomes the target of a drive-by shooting and Holmes and Watson are put on the trail of a drug dealer Bell had once investigated, but they'd only been to catch the guy out on a lesser charge.

Things get flipped when the dealer turns up dead and Bell is the primary suspect.

Also, Bell's older brother Andre is an ex-con.

Meanwhile, and far more entertaining: Holmes periodically assaults Watson in an avowed attempt to teach her some self-defense. (Though when Watson mentions it to her therapist, the shrink tells her to run and find another client because this "grand adventure" is over.)

Holmes informs Watson he knows she's lied about his father keeping her on as a sober companion for him and—in what will probably be JLM's Emmy clip for nomination consideration—proposes that she drop the "sober" and just become his companion. One of the best acting moments on the show thus far and JLM nails it; he has remarkable range and gives the character of Holmes a far greater spectrum than many incarnations. Some notes are easy to hit but not all. JLM hits more than most.

Going back to the crime of the week . . . It's almost not worth the effort, actually. Once it becomes a question of who might have a key to Bell's apartment, it's pretty obvious who is the guilty party. The rest is the same maze of would-be perpetrators and dead ends as ever. And yet despite the formula, the show continues to get better thanks to the careful construction of Watson's and Holmes' relationship. So many shows and movies leapfrog straight into Holmes and Watson being besties (or start with them having been together a long while); here is the wonderful and compelling slow build. And it's done well. One supposes it's all in the details.

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