Positively Elementary S2E3: Joan Watson gets a client.

This week's episode of CBS's Elementary was ground-breaking from the Sherlockian perspective: Joan Watson and her partner actually got a client. Amazing how much closer to a Sherlock Holmes story that little detail makes the episode feel at first, but then two little details quickly distract: the client, not Joan's partner, insists they wait for Joan Watson to show up to tell his story (though it makes sense, given how much she's the one solving cases) and after the client leaves, Joan and her sidekick go sit in their usual meeting room at NYPD to discuss it. This is definitely a different sort of reality, non-Canonical, non-real-world . . . it's Joan Watson's world, and we're just watching it.

Elementary's Joan-centricness really is improving the show this season. It's still got little to do with Sherlock Holmes, of course, but everybody seems more comfortable with the character they cast Lucy Liu into last season, and it's making the watching less painful.

Joan Watson's detective skills are tested by her room-mate, who sends her pictures of murder scenes staged in a doll house while she's hanging out with a friend who signed her up for an online dating service. Joan wakes to find Clyde the turtle in her bed. (An erotic fanfic jumping-off point if ever there was one!) Joan and her roomie get hit with some massive identity theft, including Joan's dating profile spreading the word that she's an agreeable nude toy train enthusiast. The show still likes it's silly little titillations, of course, but the lady takes them in stride and ignores them as needed.

Joan's one legitimate connection via the dating site proves a bit sweet, and really, one can totally ignore the internet silliness of the plot, and just enjoy the goodness that is Joan. Her room-mate is still random, flakey, and nonsensical in spots, but she is now carrying the show quite nicely. She saves the day in this episode, which is becoming a happy trend. Another season and she's going to be a master consulting detective with a wacky sidekick . . . she's very close to that now.

What does all this have to do with Sherlock Holmes? Why am I blogging about it in a Sherlock Holmes based blog? I'm starting to wonder, but man, that Joan Watson is something.

P.S. Joan's arch-enemy, Jamie Moriarty, is secretly writing letters from prison to Joan's room-mate and gettting into his head, so Joan will have to take that wench down again one of these days. Hopefully off a waterfall this time. Go Joan!