Television: Elementary, "Rip Off"

Sorry to be so late with this, but with family visiting, I was unable to watch.

Here is an episode devoid of Watson, which might have been a bad thing, but they actually put Kitty to good use and showcase her relationship with Holmes. The fact that Clyde (the tortoise) opts to electrocute Kitty in tests is funny/interesting. And the ghost of Watson rises as Holmes discovers Watson has written a book titled The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, giving rise to a kind of paranoia in him so that he demands Kitty sign an NDA. And he hasn't even read Watson's manuscript!

All that aside, the core mystery of the episode is the murder of an Orthodox Jewish man who, as it turns out, is helping run black market diamond from South Africa through Tel Aviv and into the States. Without going into the minutia, it's sufficient to say it was pretty clear early on who the actual culprit was. And yet it was a decent plot barring the fact that we're supposed to believe a dead body got stuck under a car so securely that it remained there through a towing and parking process. I mean, even if it did, it would have been in a lot worse shape than what was shown. But I could just be being nitpicky.

Unevenly shoved into all this was another story line in which Gregson deals with the fact his daughter Hannah, also a police officer, is angry with him for having slugged her partner . . . In front of all the other officers. It's not clear whether she might've been fine with it if no one else had seen? This partner had been a love interest for Hannah, but there had been a couple of domestic violence incidents (at least that's what is hinted), and Gregson understandably did not take this well. While it's nice to see Gregson get more attention, this plot was not neatly tied in with the others and felt awkward and ungainly, like an afterthought. Even when Kitty talks with Gregson about it and gives a "victim's perspective" angle . . . It's strange, actually, to see Kitty so at ease with Gregson when thus far she's been rather standoffish to everyone. Are we supposed to believe she's more relaxed without Watson around? I know Gregson knows Kitty's history, and she suggests that this is the reason she's willing to chat with him about Hannah (shared secrets), but . . . It still seems strange.

The chief problem that I see arising is that Kitty—at least in this episode—is a little too much like Watson. All the things Kitty says and does in this episode could have just as easily been said and done by Watson. If Kitty is going to be her own character, and a good one, the writers will have to take care to differentiate. Holmes's companions should not be plug-and-play.

On the whole, however, a decent episode. Holmes is fun when he's paranoid, and it's fair to guess he would be somewhat put out by the idea that Watson wrote about him and, by extension, passed judgements on him and his work. While on the one hand he might be expected to be flattered, Holmes's private nature and the idea that someone who is close to him might share what she knows . . . Yes, paranoia is a possible response. Of course, Doyle's Holmes was flattered and dismissive of his Watson's literary efforts. It's nice to see a bit of a different reaction here.