Elementary - Season 1 Episode 17 - Recap and Review - Possibility Two

Recap and review of Elementary - Season 1 Episode 17 - Possibility Two:

It might not actually be rare for a case of the week to blend into the development of Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) as a team, yet it invariably feels that way, since episodes tend to focus on one or the other, without really finding a way to focus on both equally. There are, of course, exceptions. "M." is still the best episode of the series for just this reason. But, for the most part, the cases on Elementary are either the best part of an episode or completely perfunctory, with hardly any room for middle ground. Except for "Possibility Two", which somehow manages to put together a pair of cases that are gripping, while simultaneously placing it with a Holmes/Watson story that is just as engaging. I felt it was definitely a good episode, as most episodes of this series are, so I don't mean it as a slight to say it doesn't reach the highs of "M.", nor do I mean to damn the show with faint praise by saying it never falls to the lows of some of the show's least successful episodes. This is simply a good, damn solid Elementary, and that's perfectly fine by me. When the show is in its wheelhouse, there are few procedurals on TV that can match it.

The case centers on millionaire philanthropist Gerald Lydon (Dennis Boutsikaris), who hires Sherlock to investigate the possibility that the degenerative illness threatening his life was given to him deliberately. This case intersects with the investigation into the murder of geneticist Natasha Kademan (Jennifer Lim). Holmes is of the belief that she was been silenced for getting too close to the truth about Lydon's sudden diagnosis with CAA (Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy), a hereditary illness that works similarly to Alzheimer's, except for the fact that it's far rarer. We see the effects of CAA on one such patient, the elderly Greta Dunwoody (Patricia Conolly), also a wealthy philanthropist, who seems to believe she's still a young woman auditioning for Julliard. Holmes suspects that Lydon is right about being poisoned, and the investigation proves it. Someone is out there, inflicting CAA on wealthy philanthropists so they'll donate tens of millions of dollars towards research into a cure. Holmes is convinced that if he solves the Kademan murder, he'll find his culprit.

However, that turns out not to be the case. Though Gregson (Aidan Quinn) and Detective Bell (Jon Michael Hill) arrest a suspect whose blood is a match to the blood found at the Kademan crime scene, it turns out that the man is innocent: the real culprit is Natasha Kademan's fiance, Paul (David Furr), who manufactured a fake blood sample to frame the innocent man. He and Natasha had been working together on a study of the "Warrior Gene", a hereditary marker that indicates a predisposition towards sociopathic behavior. After he and Natasha tested themselves, out of a sense of scientific thoroughness, they discovered that Paul was a carrier. Natasha began to distance herself from him, and he killed her in frustration, inadvertently proving the science of the gene correct (although it opens up a morally dubious question about personal responsibility. Granted, this isn't the first time I've seen a procedural tackle the Warrior Gene. Strangely enough, I caught an episode of Law & Order: UK that told a hell of a story with this premise). To Sherlock's disappointment, Paul doesn't know anything about Gerald Lydon or CAA, leaving him in stubborn disbelief, as Holmes just can't accept that the two cases aren't linked. As we ultimately find out, his instincts serve him well.

Though Natasha's murder was unrelated to the Lydon, it is revealed that she actually was on to the plot to inflict wealthy philanthropists with CAA. The culprit is Dr. Brian Watt (Tom Galantich), a geneticist who initially got into genetics to search for a way out of the "death sentence" imposed by his genetic makeup. As the disease came to life inside of him, he realized that modern medicine wasn't far enough along into research toward a cure, so he enacted his plot with the hopes that the philanthropists' donations would expedite the search for a cure. Though Watt isn't much of a figure in the rest of the episode before this point, I liked the intricacy of the criminal plot, as it was pretty labyrinthine, but not in such a way that made it impossible to follow. That said, it did read as somewhat implausible that such a learned man as renowned geneticist Watt would think that, at his age, a cure would be discovered in his lifetime, even with a multi-million dollar cash infusion. But then, it sort of makes sense in its own right, since CAA has a degenerative effect on the brain, to say nothing of how the threat of looming death would make madmen of the best of us. Though hardly the best case the show has ever done, it's certainly one of the strongest, particularly when paired with the Kademan murder case, as a kind of morbid two-fer.

There's also a subplot that continues to shape and develop the new partnership formed between Holmes and Watson last week, in which Watson is Holmes' companion (more of a partner/apprentice). She studies him as he works the crime scenes, and follows his advice (such as his recommendation to always have evidence bags handy). In addition, she begins to adopt his deductive techniques, particularly when Holmes assigns her to observe a local dry cleaning service that has come under new management - an older Polish woman and a man that could be her son, or no one at all. Though it isn't a focal point of the episode, it's fun watching Joan piece together, from the large array of security cameras and the fact that the Polish seem to have no idea how to actually run a dry cleaning business, that the entire operation is a front for a smuggling operation. Joan is really coming into her own, and it's a joy to watch. Their partnership is brand new, in this iteration, but it's already paying dividends. Holmes' show-closing observation, that he wants a partner who recognizes that within every element are multitudes, is a particularly succinct statement about their dynamic. It's easy to miss what's beneath the surface if your eyes are closed, yet Holmes and Watson are both people who see far more in the world than simply what's readily apparent.

"Possibility Two" is a rich episode for how it blends Holmes and Watson's development as a two-person detective agency with a pair of intricate cases that test their abilities (and those of the audience) to a rigorous degree. It's not the show's best episode, but it never really needed to be. All it needed to do was entertain, and to edify. By that measure, this episode is a resounding success.