Sunday, March 9, 2014

Elementary - Ears to You


While growing wearisome of Lestrade's (Sean Pertwee) stay in the brownstone, Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) is called in to investigate an unusual case involving a former murder suspect (Jeremy Davidson) who is being extorted by a kidnapper who claims to have the man's missing wife in his possession (the same woman the police believed their suspect killed four years ago). To prove his point the kidnapper sends the man a pair of severed ears he claims belong to the man's missing wife (Cara Buono).

When the ransom drop goes wrong and the distraught husband kills the kidnapper, Holmes and Watson (Lucy Liu) attempt to help Marcus Bell (Jon Michael Hill) and Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn) untangle the mess of a case while Watson also splits her time trying to pump-up Lestrade's confidence and get him back in the game (and out of the brownstone). Things take an even crazier turn when Holmes stumbles upon the woman, alive and in possession of both of her ears, at an AA meeting.


Every lead sends the investigation in circles until Holmes makes a (somewhat gruesome) connection about the impossibility of the identical ears and the living murder victim's plastic surgeon husband. Lestrade's investigation into his mugging proves almost as complicated as he uncovers what he believes to be a conspiracy concocted by Holmes to get him back on his feet. The truth, however, is much simpler (or so Holmes would have Watson believe), but either way it gives the detective the confidence to finally return to his chosen profession.

"Ears to You" is an unusual case that even confounds the great detective for most of the episode as the truth of the young woman growing a pair of extra ears to blackmail the husband she framed for her murder four years ago certainly isn't run-of-the-mill. The episode also introduces a new hobby of Holmes in the home diffusing of bombs which I assume may play into a future storyline somewhere down the line.

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