Elementary: Déjà Vu All Over Again (1x18)

This was a great episode. One of the strongest this show has had thus far. Elementary suffers from a strong comparison with BBC's amazing show Sherlock, which is another modern-day take on Arthur Conan Doyle's famous characters. However, it has done a relatively good job carving out its own identity. It has avoided falling in to several extremely stereotypical traps, and while the week-to-week crimes are sometimes a bit bland, the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson are very interesting, and their relationship is excellent. 

This week had the added bonus of having a compelling crime that kept me on my toes. The guest actors were decent and I enjoyed the way the two crimes in the episode wove together. It was nice to see Watson learning the trade, and Sherlock teaching her. Their relationship works because it's such a give and take. Watson helps Sherlock with his addiction and gives him help on his cases, and Sherlock has given Watson a new purpose and career path. 

It was nice to see Watson take a big risk only to have it backfire on her - it shows that to be a consulting detective will not be easy, but that she has a true passion for it. The mini arc with her friends was a nice thought, but I felt it could have been fleshed out a bit more. I liked the idea of their holding an intervention for her, but it felt like the story just petered out when they saw that Watson had helped solve a crime.

Not much else to say about this one... as I mentioned earlier, I enjoyed the crime this week. The beginning scene, with the girl and the flowers, was intriguing, and I was very curious as to how the episode was going to tie together. It didn't disappoint.

One other thing I didn't like so much was the short scene of how Watson first heard about Sherlock as a potential client. I didn't mind the flashback scene on its own merit, but it was odd to have that short scene and then not really do much with it. I'd love to see a whole flashback episode that deals with both Sherlock and Joan before they met in the pilot. Maybe that would be more interesting than just this one scene.

7.5/10