Elementary: Bella (3x04)

Well apparently this is a two-part episode! We're left at the end with things still up in the air... a murderer is still on the loose! Let's see, where to begin?

Sherlock is asked to consult on a very strange case. Edwin Borstein wants Sherlock to help him catch a man who has made a copy of a computer program called "Bella," a highly advanced AI program. Sherlock is instantly fascinated by Bella, as he attempts to prove that she has no real intelligence, as Edwin and his partner suggest might be possible. Sherlock is unable to definitively prove that Bella does not have actual intelligence. He enlists a group of people to help him sort out the puzzle, including Joan's boyfriend Andrew.

Sherlock, Kitty and Joan are able to solve the case and discover the thief responsible for stealing a copy of Bella. However, a new case soon appears - Edwin Borstein turns up dead, a victim of an epileptic seizure caused by a series of brightly flashing images on the computers which house Bella. Edwin's partner thinks that Bella might have murdered Edwin, but Sherlock thinks this is preposterous. He is convinced that Bella has no real intelligence. An investigation proves that Edwin had a flesh-and-blood murderer. The images that caused his seizure were put onto a CD given to him by an internet friend who enjoyed death metal. The friend, it turns out, is innocent. The disk was switched out by a supposed cleaning service.

Who ran this elaborate scam? Apparently, a professor and his devoted student. The two of them think that artificial intelligence is going to threaten humanity, and to draw attention to their position, they decided to frame Bella for the murder of her creator. The student, a young woman, readily admits to the crime. However, Sherlock cannot trap the professor into confessing as well. He tries to blackmail the professor with his druggie little brother, but the professor rightly predicts that Sherlock will not be able to turn on a fellow addict. As the episode ends, Sherlock asks Bella if he should let a murderer go free, or if he should ensure he is caught at the expense of turning in a drug addict.

Meanwhile, Joan's boyfriend Andrew is offered a job that would mean he would be spending a lot of time in Copenhagen. Joan suspects that Sherlock set this whole thing up to get rid of Andrew, so that there wouldn't be any restrictions on her time. Sherlock denies it, and eventually convinces Joan that he didn't do it. He says he likes Andrew, because he understands the relationship that Joan shares with Sherlock. He knows there's nothing to be jealous about, but that Sherlock and Joan are linked, and will continue to play important parts in each other's lives.

Okay. This episode was insanely good. I can't wait for the second part. It's hard to form complaints about a story when you only know the first half... so really the only thing I have to complain about is the continued lack of Gregson and Bell. They are basically just background characters at this point. With all the work they've been doing to introduce Kitty, and even Andrew to some extent, it's too bad they can't keep the existing characters involved, too.

But that's really all I have in the way of negative aspects of the episode. Let's get to the good stuff.

First of all, this episode was funny. I love that Sherlock and Joan have shared custody of Clyde. That is absolutely adorable. Another great moment was when Kitty calls Joan in to help her deal with Sherlock, who is obsessively trying to disprove Bella's true intelligence. Joan seems unperturbed with Sherlock's behavior, merely saying: "You're not planning to destroy the computer, are you?" Sherlock doesn't even seem surprised to see her there, merely shouting back: "No, I'm not planning to destroy the bloody computer." Mason, the young computer expert that Sherlock calls in, was really funny as well, especially when he started quoting Terminator. Joan was pretty irritated.

Along with being funny, this episode was incredibly sweet. Joan and Andrew got some screen time together, which was nice. It looks like Joan is going to leave with Andrew to go to Copenhagen for a while. I wonder what this will mean for Sherlock and Kitty working on the case? Andrew seems like a great guy - and one of my reasons for liking him was the same as Sherlock's: he's not unnecessarily jealous of Joan and Sherlock's relationship. I love his supportive attitude and his efforts to form his own relationship with Sherlock, since he knows that Sherlock is important to Joan.

We got some cute Sherlock and Joan stuff too, of course. Sherlock admits that he loves Joan, "after a fashion," when speaking with Bella. That was really sweet. Then there's of course the conversation wherein Sherlock says: "I am an important part of your life, and whether I say it out loud or not, you are an important part of mine." Joan's response to all of this adorable-ness is to say "I kind of feel like hugging you right now." Aww.

Then there's the creepiness of the plot itself. Bella is just... disturbing. I've always been freaked out by AI conspiracies, and even though I know we're not there yet, just the very idea of computers taking over the world is so terrifying to me. Mason described it really well when he talked about the button problem. Sherlock's obsessive question-asking is really frightening in its own way, as he gets more and more drawn in by the possibility that Bella might be the real thing.

Kitty is getting more and more interesting to me. I'm really glad they're making more of an effort to integrate her into the main plot. That was something I was complaining about before, but they seem to be shifting gears a bit, which is awesome. I loved the fact that Joan and Kitty got to go off and do some detective work, just the two of them, and I also thought it was a promising sign that Kitty told Joan that the meetings she's been going to are a bit "confusing." Hopefully Kitty will continue to confide in Joan about her experiences. I'm glad that Joan has found her calling as a detective, but I'm equally glad that she hasn't lost the part of her that excelled as a sober companion - she is a good shoulder for people to lean on.

I'll stop there. This was actually a really phenomenal episode. This show has gotten really good, but I'm not usually totally drawn into it in the sense that I usually don't mind waiting for new episodes. I'm actually a bit impatient for this next one!

9/10