Elementary: Hemlock Review

I was curious to see where Elementary would go with its third season now that Kitty has left the scene. This week’s episode was a confident exploration of Sherlock’s next chapter, and I loved every second of it — well, every second but for the actual mystery of the week which just made me deeply worried about my credit card bill, and that’s no way to live your life, man. That said, if this whole writing thing doesn’t work out, I’ve got my next career, malicious debt-buyer, all picked out and ready to go. 

This week’s installment was about reasserting Sherlock’s status quo. Last week we watched him go to toe to toe with his demons of addiction, this week, more demons! Only of the hilarious variety? Are there hilarious demons? Probably not. Though, admittedly, I did not pay much attention in Sunday School — too many scented markers to sniff. 

Sherlock’s loneliness was the crux of the episode and it highlighted one of the things I love about this particular iteration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective: His humanity. It’s a common thing (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, MOFFAT) to turn Holmes into an almost-alien, incapable of imbuing anything personal into his day to day interactions. Elementary’s Sherlock is driven BY his humanity. He’s a character who feels immensely, and that, to me anyway, makes a lot of sense. Because of course a person who sees everything is going to feel everything! 

The episode starts with a lonely Sherlock, alone in his massive manse. Because he is bored and without companionship, he has turned to one of his favorite hobbies: Solving famous cold cases, in this instance, the case of the Black Dahlia (which I only knew, because I’ve got a true crime thing) and doing it with the help of random ladies he is sexing and anyone who will listen to him deduce. It was a hilarious and equally touching way of reminding us that in order to thrive, Sherlock is a man who needs to be around people.

Without Kitty, Sherlock is also free to reconnect with Joan, which he does in the adorable overly-involved mother-hen way he has of picking apart her current romantic relationship. The episode itself was a great reminder that the two of them are more similar than they appear to be on the surface. That might sound like an obvious statement, but it can actually be easy to forget — especially when you’ve got an interloper like Kitty in the mix. That said, as right as Sherlock is about Joan’s dissatisfaction in her relationship, she clearly didn’t want the dude dead. The cliffhanger of this week’s episode was pretty much perfect in every way. 

Follow our new TV feed @DenofGeekTV