Saturday, June 8, 2019

Elementary, Season Seven, Episode Three: The sassy captain!

Shave-headed white guys are easily swayed by Morland Holmes's evil son's blackmail.

WHOA! This week's Elementary starts off a little dark -- after turning himself into the FBI at the end of last episode, Sherlock Holmes apparently had no intention of letting the American justice system do its thing. But using blackmail to get the FBI off his back until he leaves the country? If a person didn't know he's supposed to be the good guy in this show, one might think he's the villain.

Get ready for spoilers and random reactions, it's an early morning Elementary watch.

Weird that Sherlock seems to be investigating for(?) Morland this week. I thought he was sticking around for the Captain Gregson business. Hopefully it'll connect, but that is always the one flaw with a procedural -- ongoing plots always get sidetracked by the story of the week. So this week we're seeing why a guy got squished by a statue.

Reference to "The Retired Colourman!" -- this season is Canon-reference crazy!

And Joan Watson shows up with those sort of big pants that look like they're part-skirt. And a bit circus-based. Sorry, Joan, I like the black top, though. Poor Joan has to spend her first five minutes just going "What are you doing now, Sherlock?" Furniture reappearing in the brownstone, taking the case of the squashed man, the FBI ploy.

Detective Bell and Joan go investigate a non-burglary burglary, but then he wants to print his date tickets in his own ploy to get into the brownstone and hug Sherlock. Not enough hugs on these shows, so it's nice. Did Bell really have a date? Doesn't matter, but good to see he's no dummy. This show really needs a dummy, or are we done using dummies for comic relief these days. (And I mean the human kind, not wax.)

Is Clyde still in London? Sorry, nothing to do with the episode, but I have to wonder. He's Clyde after all. And no dummy, either.

More possible blackmail, but this time it's not Sherlock, thank goodness.

Oh, wait, sassy old cop, giving Joan grief -- Captain Dwyer replacing comatose Captain Gregson. I like this guy. "I forget, you the one that murdered that guy, or was that your partner?" I love this guy!

"What the hell is all this?" Oh, I do love this guy. It's like he dropped into this show from another show and the characters don't quite know what to do with him. Forget having a dummy on this show, having a character who will call these characters on their quiet-talking, standard routines could be fun. More Captain Dwyer! More Captain Dwyer!

Aura Swenson looted antiquities. "They've agreed to give us full access to her unit." How did Bell utter that line with a straight face. Aura is played by Kate Middleton -- not that Kate Middleton. Bet that gives her a lot of grief. Ethiopia figures a lot in this . . . and the odor of methane gas is a big clue. [Insert flatulence joke here.]

Captain Dwyer, the new Gregson, is played by Rob Bartlett, who is apparently an old radio guy from "Imus in the Morning," something that probably means more to a particular city's radio listeners. He also portrayed Elvis on WWE Raw (a wrestling show). Hope he's not just one-appearance stunt casting.

The Ethiopian consul is doing a fun fake French accent with a lot of "zee" and "zat" usage.

Hmm, Joan's liking black and white outfits this episode. Somebody could do some real deep dives on her fashions in this series. Are there patterns? One wonders.

Morland Holmes, head of an international crime syndicate, gets some more mention. How this Sherlock just sits around going "Oh, yeah, my dad's a master criminal, but I'll just consult for NYPD and Scotland Yard," I don't know. Sherlock is going "bi-continental" though. Yeah. [Insert "bi" comment here.]

Hey, we're back to Sherlock waking Joan up in a weird way -- the Eritrean national anthem played on an old fashioned radio (which must not be the real thing as it has no power cord). 

Sherlock gets a confession by having an un-named friend pretend to try to kill the guy who hired the killer, bald-headed white guy shows up to threaten Sherlock with blackmail to keep him from blackmailing him, which leaves us . . . well, with several murders that aren't resolved.

The line between cliff-hanging a little tease and leaving the viewer satisfied at the end of an episode is a challenge all TV writers must deal with, and I'm not sure this one had a satisfying finish at all. 

We're about a quarter of the way through this final season, and we haven't seen "Odin Reichenbach" yet as pre-season new items predicted. (Unless he's hiding beneath an assumed name.) And no sign of Captain Dwyer in next week's preview. We could be entering procedural standalone episode mode for the mid-season, but only time will tell.

So on to next week!



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