Television: Elementary, "Internal Audit"

Bell, in the old cliché of a cop being wounded and gruff, is uninterested in talking about his situation.

Holmes, still taking lessons in breaking into cars from Alfredo, admits that although he's reviewed every decision he made in the case that led to Bell's being shot and believes he made correct choices, he cannot figure out why the situation continues to eat at him.

And some Bernie Madoff-type named Hauser is about to commit suicide when he is instead shot by an intruder; his body is later discovered by his personal chef with the word "THIEF" written in blood on the wall.

Turns out the chef, whose name is Chloe, is a once heroin addict whom Watson helped get clean. So Watson goes to visit her after the initial police interview and asks if it's okay for her to share Chloe's story with Holmes.

Holmes and Watson then question a Mr. Weiss, for whose charity Hauser had donated free CPA services free of charge.

And a reporter who'd broken Hauser's story is then found murdered in the same style as Hauser had been. Time of death estimated at just a few hours after Hauser. Hmm.

Holmes is able to deduce the route taken by the killer by residue left from his shoe when he kicked in the reporter's door. Time to check the surveillance tapes.

Then Alfredo nominates Holmes to sponsor a young man named Randy. But Holmes says he's too busy.

Watson finds Nelson Maddox on the surveillance video and recognizes him . . . Because he had been a "friend" of Chloe's. When she goes to see Chloe again, Chloe tells Watson her confidentiality agreement means she cannot mention Chloe in connection with Maddox. So if they want to bring Maddox to Gregson's attention, Holmes and Watson will have to take another avenue.

They do, and the end result is discovering Maddox is an artist (so says Weiss, who remembers Maddox from one of the charity fundraisers—he'd come as a guest of Hauser) and then finding Maddox's body in the Dumpster of an art gallery.

In Maddox's car: the gun and rope matching Hauser's and the reporter's murders.

Turns out the gallery is a money laundering front. Because Weiss has been embezzling from the charity. And Hauser had spilled the beans about this to the reporter as a kind of confessional prior to his planned suicide.

And Bell is offered a job in the "Demographics Unit" where he can keep an eye on "certain groups" to help protect NYC from any terrorist attacks.

Plus, Holmes invites Randy over. Because, as Alfredo pointed out to him, he's gotten a lot out of the program and now it's time to give back.

Though the conversations between Holmes and Alfredo this episode were a bit heavy handed, they drove the character development home: Holmes used not to care about other people, or at the very least not so much that it interfered with his work or preyed on his mind. But now . . . He's changed. He's made human connections. While before he could put himself in the shoes and mindset of the criminals he sought, and also the victims, now Holmes's capacity for empathy is expanding. And he's finding it a tad unnerving.

So it's good to see this, and even good to verbalize it a bit. Though maybe we didn't need Alfredo to be quite so on-the-nose with it. (But that's just me. I hate it when I feel like the writers are trying to explain something to me that shouldn't have to be explained. After all, if you write the character well enough, I'll get what's going on without you having to point it out in dialogue.)

Overall, a good episode, though it returned to the old formula. But nice additions of having one of Watson's old clients turn up, and of showing Holmes's emotional progress.