Elementary: Cracking a Safe

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Okay, am I the only one who wanted more about the identical twins who spent the night with Holmes? Not only was it something that I could totally see House Holmes doing, but with monozygotic siblings, the blood would have the same DNA, which I thought would be the answer to the murderer case. I had never even thought that bone marrow donations could do that! Totally makes me think twice about it, and I definitely want to double-check that regular blood donations can't do something like that! On the drama front, Holmes going to meet Watson's family and completely talking her up was intriguing, definitely not something I would see Dr. House doing! Plus, it begins to give us a window into how Watson decides to stick around after her companion time with Holmes ends. Still, her mother describing Joan's excitement about detective work just didn't quite work for me... almost too forced, maybe? what did you think?

Elementary "The Leviathan" (S01E10): A security guy comes to see Holmes about a bank vault (fancy, like seven figures!) that was cracked, as they need to find out how it was compromised. Holmes thinks that he'll be able to solve it in an hour or two, but he spends the entire day working on it, even slamming the safe repeatedly. Well, this type of safe has been robbed before, so Holmes talks to one of the original thieves (a famous lock-picker), offering him some consulting work while he's in jail. It's somewhat of a wild goose chase, though, as Holmes winds up locating a famous thief nobody has ever even seen, though the man had a stroke and could not have committed the latest robbery. Holmes and Watson take the guy's unique goods (Holmes figured out who the guy is based on his cufflinks being based on coins that were stolen), but Holmes takes a $50M painting home for a bit before turning it in. [holy cow!]

David M. Russell/CBS

A coffee order entered as evidence in the first trial sparks Holmes and he realizes that there's a code on it - an algorithm for the password to the safe! A jury member who was a software engineer had asked to see the "coffee order" multiple times, so Holmes wants to question him. But, he died that morning. [of course.] It was believed to be a suicide but Holmes thinks he was killed, as there were some diamonds in a vase recently. [the little things he picks up on are crazy!] Holmes finds the numbers of three people from jury duty in the guy's phone, and once he realizes that they have similar skills to the original four thieves, everything comes together. [why would Holmes give that speech to the original jurors to give their DNA? doesn't seem like that would be his job.] One juror doesn't show up, because he's dead. The blood found on the scene belongs to an army chaplain who is deployed in Kabul... who donated blood marrow to one of the jurors. [this plot is getting a little too twisted..]

Watson has brunch with her mother, whom she's trying to impress. [I really liked Holmes' deduction on that one!] Her brother comes to town, and Holmes shows up to dinner to meet her entire family. Her mother later comes to explain why she doesn't like her daughter's career: she wants her to be happy and being a sober companion doesn't seem to do that. So, her mother thinks that she should work as a detective. [this begs the question of whether Watson will listen to her mother or rebel from the idea now...]