Television: Elementary, "Solve for X"

Turnabout is fair play when a mugger is shot after witnessing a murder. And who's dead? A mathematician named Soto. (The mugger lived.)

And that kid from Smash has turned up as the son of one of Watson's deceased patients; he asks Watson for a loan, a kind of investment in a bar he wants to open.

Holmes hires a fill-in mathematician named Harlan (Rich Sommer) to try and sort out Soto's "P vs. NP" mathematical problem. It's supposedly one of the most difficult math problems, possibly unsolvable, but an offer for $1m to solve it makes for strong motivation to try. In rapid succession, Holmes and Watson identify a likely suspect—another mathematician named Nauer—only to discover he's been shot dead as well, by the same gun that killed Soto. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Back on the B Plot, Watson asks Holmes for an advance on her salary. $5000. Holmes wants to know why, wants to be sure Watson isn't being taken advantage of. Watson relates the story of her patient's death and the subsequent legal issues. But she also lets slip that she helped Joey buy a car back when he was in college (he's since dropped out for the bar idea).

Should a former sober companion really be investing in a bar?

Evidence in the murders mounts against a female college professor and mathematician named Tanya, but though she has a 9mm handgun and a Boston terrier whose bullets and fur (respectively) may match the murder weapon and the hairs found on [one of?] the bodies, she has proof she was at dinner the night and time of the murders. (The gun, she points out, was taken in a robbery a month before.) However . . . She was working on "P vs. NP" with the support of one Linus Roe whose security company had been watching Nauer. So . . . Did he have access to the gun and/or exposure to the dog?

And did I really just see a Panda Express commercial with a bunch of bees in it, after all the news about the hornet deaths in China?

Holmes gives Watson the cash advance she requested (and then some) with the intention of severing all future strings between Watson and Joey.

Tanya points Holmes & Co. in the direction of an angry ex-boyfriend named Jason. Maybe he tried to frame her for the murders? But the still-hospitalized mugger pegs Tanya as the person who shot him. But . . . her alibi?

'Round and 'round we go.

But! It turns out Tanya fiddled with the time stamp on the security cameras that provide her alibi. Go to jail, go directly to jail.

And Watson and Joey and the money? She offers him the $22,000 Holmes has given her . . . If Joey will go back and finish his college education. He says he'll "think about it."

. . . And Holmes says he'd like to go with Watson next time she visits her deceased patient at the cemetery. Sweet? Or creepy? I think we're supposed to believe "sweet," since Holmes points out this patient changed the course of Watson's life. (And so . . . He's grateful? Because otherwise he'd have no Watson? All right, sweet.)

Next week: Jonny Lee Miller revisits his Hackers days. But hopefully with better clothes and fewer Rollerblades.