Elementary: Pushing Buttons (6x03)

This show is by far the best procedural show I've ever watched, and there are a lot of reasons for that. Let's discuss.

Cons:

A good mystery needs to have a couple of red herrings, but I found the detours in this particular episode a little bit over the top. The daughter of the victim living in a commune? Unrelated to the crime. The crooked fireman trying to steal valuable goods from the house? Minor waste of time. The actual bad guy? A rando that we saw for two seconds at the start of the episode.

Pros:

But that stuff doesn't bother me too much in Elementary, because we still get to see the thoughtfulness of the investigation. My favorite moment was probably the fact that Joan cracked the case by realizing that the contents of the safe were important for more than just the signatures. It's always fun when she has a breakthrough. Also, there was a great moment where Sherlock took a look at a single picture and solved a case for another detective. It was a nice show-off-y, unrealistically brilliant moment. I'm glad that Elementary employs restraint and doesn't have Sherlock be perfect at everything, but sometimes a demonstration of his genius is a lot of fun.

I also like a good ol' absurd concept for an episode. In this case, the murder happens during a Revolutionary War reenactment, so when the victim gets shot down, at first people just think he's playing dead. That was creative, and also posed a good challenge for our heroes, because everybody was technically a witness, but nobody could give them anything useful.

Of course, the character work is really the reason I watch this show. We see that Sherlock's symptoms are getting worse instead of better, and the medication he has been given is making him drowsy. He's also nervous about forming dependencies. Good thing he has his friend Michael the murderer to talk to. I love the fact that Sherlock is a magnet for killers. It's so sinister, and it's one of those things that holds over from the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories to pretty much every version of Sherlock Holmes I've ever seen. I really feel for Sherlock in his medical predicament. He feels that his work is what grounds him to reality, but in order to recover, he needs to rest. A restless Sherlock is a dangerous Sherlock, but what can he do? I appreciate that Joan is giving him his space while still offering support. I suspect that things are going to get worse before they get better, so I'm excited to see how that goes.

And Michael. He's asking Sherlock for assistance tracking down a missing girl... a girl that Michael was burying in the woods the last time we saw him. This is some twisty serial killer stuff. I'm beyond interested. We now have Sherlock trying to decide whether to take this new case, or take his doctor's advice and get some rest. If I know Sherlock... I think the vacation might have to wait.

8/10