There was less haunted house in this than I would have liked. Basically, it begins with the murder of a man named Boyd who debunks parapsychological and metaphysical stuff. He had been asked to check out a house—an older woman believed she was haunted by her husband's spirit, and the daughter wanted to disprove it. What Boyd discovered, and died for, was that someone in the neighboring house was digging a tunnel in order to access Ruby, a transatlantic cable.
The old woman had a tape recording of what she said was her dead husband's voice, but Holmes realizes what they're hearing is Arabic. Terrorism? After jumping through a couple hoops, they locate the digger, only to have him burn his apartment and flee. Holmes is able to salvage one piece of equipment, something that the culprit apparently planned to splice into Ruby. Weird thing: this piece of equipment doesn't do anything. Data goes in, and data comes out the other side.
I had it figured out at this point. Do you?
Q: What's the point of giving information one more box to go through?
A: To slow it down.
It took Holmes and Watson a little longer. They opted to do their own tests on the box but got the same results. Until: lightbulb! Holmes realizes the whole point is to delay the information coming through the cable.
And then they figure out the big-time property owner who rents out the house with the tunnel in it was trying to change the game on Wall Street by changing the rate of information to various traders. Whatever. I mean, it's actually kind of clever and everything, but not all that exciting.
Meanwhile, Watson was also helping Gregson's daughter Hannah with a case. Watson tells Hannah she (Watson) doesn't want any credit for it or anything, but she does advise Hannah to kick the case upstairs because there are bigger fish than the ones Hannah is looking for. Instead, Hannah takes the credit and nabs the little fish to many accolades. Holmes had warned Watson that Hannah was not made of the right material to be a true detective, and Watson had taken offense, but it appears Holmes was right (and I had the same feeling about her). In the end, even Gregson tells Watson not to bother helping Hannah again. Wow. Tough love.
A solid episode, though hardly heart-pounding. I guess not every case can involve running and jumping and climbing trees or whatever. I do notice that Elementary has a distinctly anti-capitalist slant, though. So many of the bad guys are powerful, white-collar types. And I'm sure it's true in real life, too, that there are plenty of bad businessmen and politicians or whatever. But, you know, maybe change it up a bit?
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