5.29.2018

Television: Elementary, "Pushing Buttons"

So in this episode, a man gets shot during a Revolutionary War re-enactment. The guy was rich and a lot of people hated him because he screwed people over when they franchised his gym (IIRC). He even had a bodyguard, for all the good that did him on the field. Then his house burns down later that night.

There is a daughter who is a suspect because of course she inherits the money, but she's joined a commune and professes not to want her dad's money; she plans to donate it all. And there's no reason for her to burn down the house.

The episode cruises along to become about the dark and dangerous world of collectors and their willingness to go to any lengths to get their hands on old stuff—or get rid of said old stuff in order to make their old stuff that much more rare and valuable.

Meanwhile, Sherlock keeps hanging out with that creepy Michael dude. For someone who usually reads other people fairly well, he really hasn't clued in on Michael being an utter creep. Are we supposed to blame the head injury?

Michael is clearly intent on testing his wits against Sherlock's because he asks Sherlock to take up the case of finding the woman we saw him burying in the first episode of the season. This will, I suppose, be a through line for the season.

I had a slight irritation with this episode because the solution to the central whodunnit felt unfair—it came down to information the viewer didn't entirely have access to. That's not clever writing, it's cheating. There's a difference.

In all, though, not a bad episode. The season feels very tame thus far despite the attempts to infuse drama: Sherlock's head out of whack, Joan's dad, this Michael guy . . . So far none of it has added up to anything particularly intense. Hopefully it's just a slow build and things get increasingly . . . something. Sort of like a river rapids ride, yeah. You float along and then WHAM! right into a wave. That's what we're waiting for: to get drenched.

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