Elementary 2.18

[selenak]

Back from the Leipzig Book Fair and in the process of catching up:



I must admit I was very very distrustful when it became clear whistleblowing was a theme in this episode and it looked for a while like yet another whistleblower was presented as a villain. Can you blame me? Still not over episode 2.03 and the Snowden and whistleblowers in general vilification here. Nor will I ever be. Elementary handled that so badly. Anyway, as it turns out whistleblowers against Big Pharma, as opposed to whistleblowers against the US government and its secret services, can be heroes on this show. Which is good, but the parallel involving Marcus Bell was for me the more engaging one.

Joan found the witness for Bell pretty quickly, and then it became unexpected, because with the way these things usually go, I expected her to get persuaded into testifying against the crime lord. But no. Instead, both Joan and Bell admitted the girl's fear for her life was valid, and Bell explicitly chose NOT to pressure her, twice. (And she didn't have a magical change of heart or anything like that, either, which was the other predictable outcome.) Moreover, the former teacher whom Marcus recalled from his own childhood was both a kind and a tragic figure, first offering to testify in her place (which Bell rightly rejected as perjury which the crime czar's lawyers would rip into shreds) and then, after a life time of trying to help his community away from crime, killing the crime czar in the knowledge he'd die as well, as he did.

I also loved how this tied, in the end, with Sherlock's ongoing unease about whether or not to attend the celebration of Bell's completed reinstallment as a gun-carrying detective. As often with Sherlock Holmes, it wasn't easy to tell whether he was being selfish or considerate (i.e. not wanting to be reminded of his part in Marcus Bell's injuries and their enstrangement or not feeling worthy? Did he want to spare Bell or himself?), but in the end, as opposed to his reaction when Bell was originally wounded and he, Holmes, didn't show up in the hospital for days, this time he does show up, and is able to help Bell not with deductions or by being part of the celebration but by being around in the cold (and offering coffee) when a shaken Marcus has just come from the morgue with two more dead bodies. They had returned to their working relationship several episodes earlier, but this last scene restarted their friendship, and it was lovely to see.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

That final scene with Bell and Sherlock was so fantastic.

[selenak]

I wanted to draw sparkly hearts around it.

[king_touchy]

I suspect it will bump up the Holmes/Bell tag at AO3. Heh.

[selenak]

Undoubtedly!

[lilacsigil]

My favourite episodes of Elementary are always the ones where they allow people to be complicated. The girl who wanted to testify and would risk her own life, but not her baby's. The teacher who was famous for an act of violence spending his entire career turning kids away from it. The drug company whistleblower who still worked for the drug company. Bell celebrating having his gun back and looking at the results of gun violence. Wonderful writing, even if the main mystery went completely off the rails at the end!

[selenak]

And we don't watch the show for the mysteries anyway. :) But yes, character wise the writing was on fire all around!

[jesuswasbatman]

I felt about this the same way you did about the earlier episode for a while, as "Adam Peer" was clearly inspired by the real-world "Clare Francis", and Sherlock and the show seemed to be assuming that being an anonymous data sleuth was somehow villainous. But I was pleased with the actual solution.