Elementary - Blood is Thicker

As Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) does his best to ignore Mycroft's (Rhys Ifans) impending departure back to London, he and Watson (Lucy Liu) investigate the murder of what appears to be the kept-woman of a missing computer billionaire (William Sadler) who was stabbed before falling off her balcony and onto the roof of a delivery truck. Holmes quickly sees through the the billionaire's well-constructed alibi of being out of the country, but the detective is surprised to discover the real reason for the charade (the man is dying from a failed heart transplant) and his real relationship to the victim (his daughter).

As Watson and Detective Bell (Jon Michael Hill) question the billionaire's wife (Margaret Colin) who stood to loose millions after her husband changed his will to leave money to the estranged daughter he had started to grow close to once again and track down the victim's violent boyfriend (Kieran Campion), Sherlock digests the after dinner conversation with Mycroft who informs him his father (who owns the house in which Sherlock and Watson are living, and has control of Sherlock's trust fund he uses to pay Watson) wants his son to return to London.


Watson's discovery that the victim and the dying billionaire were both suffering from an illness with similar symptoms uncovers the true motive for the crime and points the police in direction of their killer. Talking through their options together, Holmes admits to having found a home and support system in New York that he wouldn't find easy to give up even if Watson would be agreeable to relocating to London with him to placate his father. Together the pair decide to remain in New York despite any issues that might arise.

Mycroft's warning about their father forces Holmes to admit a truth and a vulnerability that his brother find surprising. Along with the introduction of yet another classic bit of Holmes terminology, the Diogenes Club, Elementary also begins to deepen the mystery and motives of the man's brother as in the final scene we learn it was Mycroft, not their father, who was trying to push Sherlock into returning home. I've enjoyed Ifans take on the character, but this new revelation of another side of Mycroft (and his secrets) makes him far more interesting as it pushes the show's version of Mycroft a little closer to that of the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle character.