E3:10. Starting the clock on Kitty.

Somewhere some scholar of Elementary study is enumerating all of the ways Mr. Elementary has woken Joan Watson, which is getting to be a dependable part of the show's formula. This week's wake-up was the world's loudest blender, which I was certain was a leaf-blower until the source of the sound was revealed. What does this say about the show?

Well, that it exists in an unpleasant world all its own. Normal rules do not apply. And people tolerate some of the most ridiculous things, just because somebody, somewhere thinks that the name "Sherlock Holmes" is representative of a random-trivia-spouting pain-in-the-ass.

Mr. Elementary is hanging upside down like Michael Keaton's Batman, Joan is becoming an insurance investigator, which we are supposed to understand will turn his world upside down, and as always "upside down" for Elementary is kind of a laid back "Huh!" kind of thing.

Amazingly, Ophelia Lovibond somehow makes every scene that Kitty Winter is in just so easy to take. The lady has something. Looking her up in IMDB just to see if her talent carries over into other project, it turns out she was the Collector's slave girl Carina in the summer's surprise blockbuster The Guardians of the Galaxy. Carina was amazing. And so is Ophelia's Kitty Winter, for a CBS procedural. Except she's not really anything like the Kitty Winter created by Conan Doyle, which goes without saying on Elementary. But when she appears in a scene with Mr. Elementary, even he becomes just a bit more tolerable . . . even occasionally pleasant.

Somebody hand that girl an infinity gem and let her blow herself into a better project!

Of course, "Del" Gruner is coming, according to the show biz press, Mr. Elementary is telling Joan that he's going to make Kitty his new partner, and given the upside down theme of things, instead of Kitty Winter taking out Baron Adelbert Gruner, as happened in "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client," I have a bad feeling that Elementary's Gruner may be the one that takes out its Kitty Winter. The Mr. Elementary/Joan Watson/Kitty Winter three-way detective team cannot last into the fourth season. Either Kitty goes or Joan goes, and I don't see them getting rid of Lucy Liu.

It's the end of the episode before we get the first glimmer that Gruner is in New York, in that odd sort of crime scene where an NYPD captain and British consultant are the only two people at the site of a serial killer's latest victim. Forensics team, anyone? Uniformed cops to secure the scene? Detective Bell?

I hope for Kitty's sake, they staff up soon.