Television: Elementary, "Blood Is Thicker"

A body falls on top of a delivery truck—a woman who has been stabbed in the abdomen. ("Bruce-Partington" variation?)

And Watson shows continued astuteness in spotting the balcony the body must have fallen from.

Turns out the victim is Haley Tyler from Mineral Wells, Texas. A "kept woman," possibly the mistress of Ian Gale, a high-power Steve Jobs type. But of course Gale's people stymie any attempt at investigation.

Meanwhile, Mycroft is badgering Sherlock to have dinner with him at the new restaurant because he [Mycroft] is due to return to London.

Sherlock and Watson track Gale to the private floor of a hotel, only to discover he's bed-ridden, his body rejecting a transplanted heart. Gale tells Sherlock and Watson that Haley Tyler was his daughter; Haley had been donating blood for her dad (they share a rare blood type).

So who might want to kill Haley? Gale's rival, assuming he has one, wanting to end him by cutting off his blood supply? Maybe that's a stretch. After all, said rival could just wait out the heart failure.

Haley's mother arrives and declares she knows exactly who killed her daughter: Gale's wife.

And at dinner, Mycroft gives Sherlock the keys to 221B Baker Street. And drops the bomb that Daddy wants Sherlock to come home to London.

Bell and Watson talk to Mrs. Gale. Hotel staff notes she had gone out the morning Haley was murdered. And to top things off, Mrs. Gale had been a pediatric surgeon, which means she would have known exactly where to stab Haley to kill her.

BUT. The money that had been allotted to Haley in Gale's will . . . Wouldn't revert to Mrs. Gale. It would go to Haley's mom.

A set of prints in Haley's apartment unveils Ray, also from Mineral Wells, and Haley's on-and-off boyfriend. A search of Haley's DVR leads to Ray being at the races.

Sherlock and Watson decide they'd rather stay in New York, even if evicted from the brownstone and cut off from Sherlock's trust fund, than relocate to London.

So . . . Is Holmes a backhanded philanthropist? In that he doesn't normally demand payment for his services? Or is he really as selfish as he pretends to be, simply taking on the most interesting cases, which often don't pay (because they come through the NYPD)?

Ray divulges that Haley had been getting sick: achy, feverish. Maybe the flu. And he points them to a pharmacy where he'd been buying Haley medicine at the time of her murder. But Watson is puzzled, since Haley wouldn't have been able to donate blood if she'd been sick. And yet a chat with the phlebotomist who took Haley's blood (at the time she was supposed to be sick) said she was healthy.

And here, as news of Gale's death arrives, Watson comes to the conclusion I did near the beginning of the episode: That maybe this wasn't about killing Haley so much as killing Ian Gale. Ta-da!

Mrs. Gale had, at some earlier juncture, consulted a divorce lawyer. The prenup would have given her $15m. But when she learned Ian was sick . . . In the event of his death, she could walk away with much more. So apparently Mrs. Gale cooked up a really complicated plan to induce his transplant to fail. Like, she created a disease and everything. Geez. I guess people with too much money can do that . . . And isn't it funny how, once they have a fair amount, they always want more?

Lab tests of Haley's blood will ostensibly bear out the theory.

Sherlock gives Mycroft a letter to give their father, explaining his reasons for wanting to stay in New York. Will Daddy allow it? Remains to be seen. But Mycroft promises to visit again soon. (And then tears up the letter. And calls someone who is not Dad—Moriarty? Lestrade?—to say that his gambit in attempting to get Sherlock back to London hadn't worked. Better luck next time, Mycroft old boy!)

I like the slow-growing complexity, not only in Sherlock's and Watson's relationship, but now also in Sherlock's and Mycroft's. Seeing Mycroft turn his coat is an interesting twist as well. In all, thus far I'd say this season has been much better than the first. Even when the mysteries themselves are not so, er, mysterious, at least the character development continues to engage.