Elementary: Wrong Side of the Road (5x15)

Kitty! Love of my life! I adore this character, and I was beyond thrilled to see her return. I'm also excited that this is a two-part episode, because that means we get to spend more time with Kitty before she leaves again and breaks my heart. Let's jump right in.

Cons:

I suppose the only thing to really complain about here is that I care more about the characters than I do about the story. That's par for the course with this show, though. And this episode, the first of a two-parter, served to highlight the problems the rest of the season has been having. I felt personally invested in the case this week because it was related to the characters. That hasn't happened lately on this show, and we've been getting what other reviewers like to call "procedural fatigue." Also, the return of Kitty just highlights how underutilized Shinwell has been all season. See what you can do with a guest character? A protege? I want Shinwell to get more screen-time stat.

Pros:

So, the case this week, as full of details as it is, can mostly be boiled down to this: Kitty returns to warn Sherlock that a former Scotland Yard colleague's death wasn't a natural heart attack, but was instead murder. Turns out that multiple people all connected to the same case have been dying, and Kitty thinks that she and Sherlock might be next, since it was a case they consulted on back in London. From there we get multiple suspects and twists and turns, until finally our main suspect (the man who Sherlock and Kitty helped to put away in the first place) falls to his death, in an apparent suicide that looks to be yet another disguised murder.

The twist comes at the end, as Sherlock, Kitty, and Joan round the corner to see the Brownstone swarming with police. Sherlock goes inside, as Joan and Kitty flee. Sherlock is arrested, for what reason we do not know. It looks like whatever is going on, it goes all the way to the top.

I don't necessarily care about the ins and outs of the case, but I did like the fact that each murder was different, and disguised as something natural. A car accident. A heart attack. A suicide. The more the detectives investigate, the bigger the whole thing seems. We see that the morgue worker who performed the autopsy was in on covering it up. Then we think the police officers who investigated the other deaths might be hiding things. And then Sherlock's arrest comes on at the end to catapult us into a whole new realm of intrigue. I'll admit I am curious to see how this whole thing untangles itself.

But the real meat of the episode comes from Kitty, whose presence has revitalized this show in a way I didn't even realize it needed. She's not quite the same Kitty we remember from a few seasons back. She's calm, collected, but with an edge of secrecy about her that instantly makes Joan suspicious. Midway through the episode, we learn Kitty's secret: she has a son, Archie. Kitty is looking to back out of the detective game once and for all, once this case is tied up. She's nervous about telling Sherlock, because she thinks he'll view it as a betrayal of their way of life. Indeed, Sherlock's reaction to meeting baby Archie is stunned silence, and then a phone call relating to the case gives him an excuse to delay a response.

Kitty is an amazing character in her own right, and I love the idea of her as a mother. When we first knew her, she was battered and broken, and she did some questionable things in order to get back to a level field. I don't know that she was ever destined for detective work, although this episode shows us that she is very, very good at it. Now that she has another purpose in life, it makes sense that she'd want to back off from her dangerous current profession. It also makes sense that Joan would be totally happy for her, and Sherlock would be conflicted. I'm really excited to see how this plays out.

Kitty is also important in how she plays off of the other characters in the story. Gregson is delighted to see her, and even gives her a hug. This was a great inversion of our expectations, since Kitty was slightly worried that Gregson would have her arrested for her near fatal attack on her rapist. Sherlock seems quietly happy to see Kitty, and completely content to let things continue on the same way as they always have. It's pretty crazy that Sherlock Holmes, of all people, wouldn't suspect something was going on with Kitty, but I think that speaks to the fact that Sherlock is leery of change. He doesn't want Kitty to have a child, because it means everything is different. Joan, meanwhile, still has that bit of natural hesitance around Kitty, and as such it's much easier for her to figure out that she's keeping a secret. Joan is the best, though. She's happy for Kitty, and supportive, even if it's obvious that these two women are never going to be good friends.

I won't say too much more, here. This is a two-parter, meaning that the answers to many of my questions are probably waiting for me at the end of the next episode. Suffice it to say, Kitty's return far overshadows any problems I might have with this episode. I love that girl. I want her around always.

9.5/10