Elementary: The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out (6x17)

This was a bit of an uninspired episode, if I'm being totally honest. Not the worst, or anything, but... not much to be going on.

Cons:

I thought the main case was just a touch too silly. It involved rare worms, new scientific innovations, and a lot of twists and turns that initially dismiss the murderer, and then come back around to her by the end. There were actually two murderers, one who shot the bad guy and failed to kill him, and then another who swept in with a blunt object to finish the job. This whole thing felt odd and wholly unnecessary.

Pros:

I'm not trying to be super negative about the whole thing, but I'm honestly struggling to find positives to say about the case this week. It's not that it was so bad I was miserable watching it or anything, but I just didn't... care. I suppose it is always a little fun to see really obscure fields and types of knowledge coming through to save the day. Sherlock figures out key clues by noting the naming patterns that this scientist used when naming new species of worms, and he reminds Joan, and the audience, of the delightful time he named a type of bee after her. So... that's adorable.

The subplot this week also wasn't anything super brilliant in and of itself, but it's setting up a bunch of really cool stuff, so I had a great deal of fun with it all the same. Basically, Sherlock discovers that his doctor's office has been burglarized, and after some twists and turns, he learns that his personal information was the target of the attack: Michael. It looks like our errant serial killer is going to be coming back, just in time for the ramp-up into the end of the season.

Here's what I love about this: obviously, Michael coming back is going to make things very interesting. But beyond that, I liked seeing Sherlock's fear and distress when his doctor was robbed. It makes sense. Sherlock is an intensely private person in some ways, even while his name carries a great deal of baggage. I also liked the way he tried to help out the illegal immigrant who had stolen his information. Sherlock would never call ICE on someone, obviously, but it was kind of cool to see that. Also, occasionally the hilariousness of this story hits me - in this world, obviously Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories don't exist. If they did, that kid would have known better than to pick such an immediately suspicious name!

We're going to have a lot more to talk about very soon, but for now, I'll sign off by saying that this episode coasted by without leaving much of an impression - good or otherwise - on me.

6/10