Elementary: Tag, You're Me (4x03)

Ehhhh.... kind of a weak one in my opinion. Not terrible, but not strong. Let's take a look.

Cons:

The cases themselves have never been the strongest thing about Elementary, but often they draw my interest by bringing in an interesting moral or political question. This week didn't have that. I won't go into the details, but basically this week our case involved a website that matched up people who looked similar, and proved that certain facial recognition software had serious flaws. The murderer ended up being a cop avenging his brother's death in a frat party's hazing years ago, but the crimes multiply as we find out that one of the guys from the site set up the murders. Nothing about this really clicked for me. It sort of felt like a couple of different cases being squeezed into one. There were no particularly interesting revelations, and Sherlock and Joan's involvement in the case felt lackluster. This was their first week back with the NYPD, and I wanted a bit more.

Speaking of that, we didn't have any good scenes between Sherlock and Gregson and Bell, as they welcomed him and Joan back from their brief hiatus. I thought maybe there would be some good character moments there, but there was nothing special about this case at all. It felt like any other week.

Pros:

All of the good stuff, predictably, is connected with Morland Holmes and his continued presence on the show. This week, Sherlock asks Morland why he's still in New York, and Morland says it's because of an issue he's having with one of his deals. Sherlock agrees to assist him to get him out of New York faster, but later Morland admits that he wants to stay around on a more permanent basis, and be a part of Sherlock's life again. He admits that he was a bad father to Sherlock when he was growing up, but says that nobody could have properly parented a child like him. Sherlock contests that his mother could have. Morland asks Sherlock what she would have wanted them to do, if she were there.

There's a lot of delicious stuff to unpack here. I can't help remembering Sherlock's opinion of Mycroft, and how black and white he was about his brother's nature. Is it possible that Morland, like Mycroft, really does crave a connection with Sherlock? I'd be interested to see what Sherlock would do if it turns out that Morland does have ulterior motives. But what could those motives be? The chemistry between these two actors is awesome, and I think we're in for some really interesting developments to come.

Clyde gets a few adorable scenes in this episode. I don't have much to say about it other than it's good to see him again. He's the best.

Wow, this is kind of a brief review, isn't it? I'm hoping that we can start getting in to more of why Morland is here. The show has done a really good job of establishing his character, and now I'm ready to see where it's going.

My last note is that I find it hilarious that CBS keeps using Elementary to advertise its other programming. I might find it annoying with another show, but for some reason it's just endearing here. I'm talking specifically about Joan coming down to watch football and Sherlock remarking "it's Thursday." It was a thing of beauty. Can't wait for next week!

7/10