ELEMENTARY - News, Reviews, and Discussion

[Allyn Gibson]

I tweeted about Moriarty -- ie., Daniel Davis -- last night while watching, and someone replied to me, "Gd, I hope the writers are teasing & hinting at something, later in the season."

As for the episode, the case was mildly interesting on its merits, but what I found more intriguing was seeing Sherlock take an "ends justify the means" attitude, both in his extortion of the Assistant Director of the FBI in New York City and, later, genuinely threatening the life of the insurance agent in order for force a confession.

When the last scene went down, and the Assistant Director explained to Sherlock how it was going to be, how he'd written a confession himself that would implicate Joan, I realized, "Oh, this is going to blow up in Sherlock's face around episode 9 or 10. Either he's going to die and the confession will be found, or his computer or cloud accounts are going to be hacked and the confession will be released. Either way, this isn't going to end well."

 

[Christopher]

As for the episode, the case was mildly interesting on its merits, but what I found more intriguing was seeing Sherlock take an "ends justify the means" attitude, both in his extortion of the Assistant Director of the FBI in New York City and, later, genuinely threatening the life of the insurance agent in order for force a confession.

Yeah, I didn't much care for that. A coerced confession is hardly valid, since the guy would've said anything to save his life at that point. It shouldn't have even proven to Holmes's personal satisfaction that he was truly guilty, let along in the eyes of the law.

So far I'm finding the writing this season unimpressive. Maybe it's just because they have to jump through so many hoops to contrive a way of resetting the status quo, but I'm just not liking the stories much. I'm starting to wonder if it would've been better to end things where they were last season.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

But wasn't Moriarty a woman?

 

[Gov Kodos]

But wasn't Moriarty a woman?

Still is, as far as I know. I expect she'll be the one behind everything at the end of this season.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Still is, as far as I know. I expect she'll be the one behind everything at the end of this season.

Oh ok. I thought they were calling Daniel Davis Moriarty but I remember Moriarty being female and kind of glorious.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Oh ok. I thought they were calling Daniel Davis Moriarty but I remember Moriarty being female and kind of glorious.

He did play Moriarty in TNG but Natalie Dormer is fabulous as Moriarty. I loved how the show dovetailed her in as Irene Adler, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll find Moriarty was behind the whole business last season. She does have Joan as a particular target of interest.

 

[Christopher]

Oh ok. I thought they were calling Daniel Davis Moriarty but I remember Moriarty being female and kind of glorious.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/James_Moriarty_(hologram)

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/James_Moriarty_(hologram)

Oh my silly brain he was TNG Moriarty... Oh yes he was splendid there.

 

[Christopher]

And since one of Elementary's executive producers is former DS9 producer Robert Hewitt Wolfe, it's possible the use of Daniel Davis was an intentional Trek in-joke. It did seem an oddly small part for him.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Yes, I was really expecting Davis to show up again later in the episode.

 

[Christopher]

This one was rather implausible, because it hinged on a van hauling a lot of gasoline blowing up by accident and being mistaken for a bomb, and that's the sort of thing that only works in TV fantasyland. Gasoline is very hard to blow up in real life; you need to get exactly the right ratio of fuel vapor, air, and an ignition source. That's why car engines need complicated mechanisms like spark plugs and pistons and carburetors to calibrate the mixture precisely to get an explosion. So it's unlikely to happen by accident.

It also bugs me that they had that nurse try to help and get killed by the explosion, and then totally forgot about her for the rest of the episode. If her death was irrelevant to the plot, it seems gratuitous to put it in at all.

Well, at least I finally saw a show set in Manhattan that had a plausible excuse for a vehicle having a smooth, non-stop ride through the city streets.

 

[Aragorn]

Even though it'll never happen, part me is hoping that James Frain is in charge of a group of people who prevent crimes before they happen once they figure out if the person of interest is the perpetrator or the victim.

At least they're not going with terrorism.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Even though it'll never happen, part me is hoping that James Frain is in charge of a group of people who prevent crimes before they happen once they figure out if the person of interest is the perpetrator or the victim.

At least they're not going with terrorism.

But they will need a system, a machine that watches over us.

Maybe Bella

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I've watched "Into the Woods" twice now, and I'm still not entirely sure what happened.

 

[Aragorn]

Okay, maybe James Frain IS trying to stop crimes before they occur.

 

[Aragorn]

Maybe this season is based on this ad:

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[Christopher]

I see the similarity, but Reichenbach's methods are crude next to Harold Finch's. Reichenbach is just going from social media and internet activity on his proprietary systems, while the Machine had access to much more comprehensive data. Reichenbach was just making assumptions about the likelihood of people actually going through with the crimes they talked about, while the Machine was able to calculate probabilities with supercomputer precision. Most importantly, Reichenbach has the suspects killed while Reese usually just put them in the hospital -- and Reese and Finch's focus was generally more on protecting the victims than punishing the perpetrators.

Anyway, I wonder how much weight we should ascribe to the fact that they named this character Reichenbach. It certainly implies that he's going to be Holmes's downfall -- or at least will force Holmes to make it look that way. So far, though, he doesn't seem an impressive enough adversary to achieve that. He's got the unlimited resources, but I'm not convinced he can outsmart Sherlock Holmes.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The last few days I've been thinking about Sherlock's third season and its Big Bag, Magnusson. I frankly hope that Elementary's writers come up with a different and more satisfactory solution than Sherlock killing the Big Bad. (Sherlock never recovered from me from that -- Sherlock shots a guy in the face, and he walks away with no consequences. Fuck that.)

I'm intrigued by the idea of leverage, which this season has been playing with out in the open, such as the leverage the FBI has over Sherlock and Joan, the leverage the NSA has over Sherlock, and now the data leverage that Reichenbach could have. I feel like this season is going to end up with Sherlock's avenues of freedom closing in, which will drive him to further and further extremes. Maybe like House at the end of House, he'll fake his own death and go off the grid to escape the leverage. But I also see that as a very unfulfilling outcome for Sherlock, mentally and personally, not to mention for the series itself after the perfectness of the season six (and intended series) finale.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Whatever became of Bella? I wanted to see some kind of follow up to that because I wondered if Holmes thought she was an actual AI

 

[Aragorn]

Somewhat recognizable guest actress in b-plot leaves for a better job. Any chance that better job is working for Reichenbach or do you think we'll never see her again?