Elementary: Hemlock (3x13)

Oh my God! What the Hell! Are you for serious right now? That was intense! Let's jump right in.

Sherlock is bored and lonely now that Kitty is gone. He continually tries to find somebody else to work with, but nobody seems interesting enough. Eventually, in desperation, Sherlock takes the case of a woman who thinks her husband is having an affair. Ordinarily this would be be beneath him, but Sherlock is desperate for something to do.

As Joan and Sherlock get to work on the case, it looks like it's more complicated than they thought. The missing man was lying about working at a law firm, and was instead a debt collector. He basically buys debt from credit card companies and then gets people to pay him back, making a tidy profit. It looks like this man was killed, and it doesn't take them long to realize that a bunch of shady people were investing in his company. Who killed him?

Well, it looks like the victim had a change of heart and was going around forgiving people's debts instead of forcing them to pay. Because of this, one company that wanted to build a ski resort couldn't use a man's debt to leverage him into moving out of his house, which is right in the middle of the proposed resort location. It looks like a man in this company is responsible for the death.

In a subplot, Andrew has returned from Copenhagen and can now stay around on a permanent basis. Sherlock observes that Joan doesn't seem excited about her boyfriend sticking around, and Joan is made uncomfortable by the realization that Sherlock is right. When Joan goes out for dinner with Andrew and his father, she realizes that she's not feeling any of the things she should be feelings at this stage in a relationship. She talks with Sherlock about it, and realizes that she needs to break up with him.

Joan and Andrew go out for coffee, and Joan explains to Andrew that she's not really sure what she's looking for right now, and that she's sorry, because he's such a great guy. This breakup conversation is cut short, however. After Andrew inadvertently takes a sip of Joan's drink instead of his own, he begins to have some sort of reaction. As Andrew collapses and Joan desperately starts CPR, we realize that Andrew has been poisoned - and that Joan was the target.

I'll be honest - I wasn't expecting anything A-plot-ish to happen in this episode. I thought, since we had all the drama of Kitty leaving last week, that we'd be down for a standard re-establishing the norms episode, with a case to solve, and Sherlock and Joan working together. Instead we got... well, for the most part we got just that. And then there was the ending.

If I were to have any complaints, I'd maybe lodge the standard ones: Bell and Gregson are basically just set decoration at this point, and that bothers me. Although I'm extremely upset that Kitty is gone, maybe this will lead to more screen time for these two? The other thing is that after losing Kitty last week, I wasn't expecting to lose yet another recurring character so quickly. The promo for next week's episode seems to suggest that Andrew dies - and that's... well, that's shocking, for one, but it's also a little bit irksome simply because this show has such a small cast, and it seems wrong to get rid of the few additional characters that we have. Besides, I liked Andrew!

Other than that, I really did enjoy this episode. It had a lot of really great moments in it, and of course it set up a shocking cliffhanger for next week.

First of all, I liked Sherlock and Joan's frank and open conversations about Sherlock's loneliness. Joan suggests that Sherlock find a roommate, but Sherlock points out that he has pretty exacting qualifications for his acquaintances. Joan and Kitty were both special. Joan also picks up on Sherlock's wish to remain with her at the Brownstone, even though there's nothing more to work on in the case. Sherlock, in turn, surprises Joan with the thoughtful gesture of having purchased her some clothes in the event that she needed to stay the night while they were working on cases.

Joan and Sherlock also had some good conversations about Joan and Andrew. I think I voiced my slight discomfort with Sherlock's behavior before, when he commented on what he thought Joan wanted out of her relationship with Andrew. However, here I think it worked pretty well. Sherlock is still inappropriate and direct, but he clearly cares about Joan. He even points out that Joan might be doing Andrew an unkindness, which shows that he does have compassion for people in general.

The case itself was pretty interesting. I liked the way the victim eventually grew a conscience, and you could see the complexities of his situation. In the end, Sherlock offers the wife a choice - she could keep forgiving the debts like her husband before her, or she could use the money to make her own fortune. The choice is left to her, and we don't get to see what she does. I liked that little bit of moral ambiguity.

And then we've got to talk about that ending. I'm a tiny bit annoyed that this episode is called "Hemlock," because that's a reference to the last 30 seconds, instead of being thematically relevant to the whole plot. But that's a tiny nitpick.

Mostly, I'm just like... woah. What a great cliffhanger. I certainly wasn't expecting that! Who tried to kill Joan? Was it Moriarty? If so, that feels pretty sloppy. But who else could it be? What is Sherlock going to do when he realizes that somebody tried to kill Joan? Is Andrew really dead? Because that's intense! This ending, while perhaps a bit out of left field, is making me really, really excited for next week's episode. I usually enjoy this show while I'm watching it, but don't really freak out about what's coming next. I'm certainly feeling freaked out right now!

8/10