Matt Smith reviews the first episode of Elementary season 2…
Sherlock Holmes is back. On TV and in London, I mean. He travels with Watson on a case to help an old colleague, reaching the old abode known as 221B, finding that inside everything has been changed. It’s his old home, but the contents have all been swapped out for things a lot more modern.
This week we see the revelation that Holmes, indeed, has a brother. Which isn’t exactly news to anyone that knows the character, but like the previous series, the producers manage to maintain the old by making it new. On the outside, it is indeed the old relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft. But on the inside the characters have changed.
What hasn’t changed (apart from my terrible ways of linking paragraphs) is the quality of performances. Rhys Ifans as Mycroft, while possibly not the cup of tea everyone would enjoy, is excellent in showing off the inner turmoil and worry he has for Sherlock while also having that slight arrogance that makes him seem better than his brother. Jonny Lee Miller as the great detective is still brilliant and hilarious, with all the little elements that make his Sherlock unique in the pantheon of actors who’ve played the character. Fortunately the episode doesn’t turn into a game of spot the British actor, and the famous ones they have cast (Ifans, Sean Pertwee as Lestrade) do their respective solid jobs with the characters.
Lucy Liu is a little underserved by the script, following both brothers around as each tries to solve their own problems. And that links to the main thrust of the episode. The previous series seemed to easily find the balance between the personal problems of characters while presenting us with a case worthy of Sherlock Holmes’ inclusion. This time we know the end of the case from the very beginning, and Sherlock seems barely troubled and quite relaxed in solving it. And that’s because the case is nothing compared to the previous series. The smarts of series one have been lost in this one.
That might be because Sherlock isn’t actually called in on the case he ends up solving. He’s actually sent to London in order to find his old colleague Lestrade. Here is another example of taking something from the back catalogue of characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and twisting them, this time towards the more negative. Even for someone who was seen in the books as being barely capable and, in the words of this episode, the best of a bad lot.
And it somehow makes perfect sense, even more than previous incarnations. This series is fantastic in that for all the years these characters and stories have been around, no one’s taken the opportunity to add these twists. Lestrade is another type of addict. One for the spotlight. Which is ironic in that now Holmes has moved away, taking any hope of helping and making Lestrade look good, the good(ish) inspector goes missing.
So, in summary, series two opens with an episode more like Mycroft than Sherlock. A little lazy, unfortunately, given the potential, imagination and creativity shown in the past. But still more than smart enough to get by. Hopefully the return to New York sees our detective return to old form.
Matt Smith – follow me on Twitter.
Originally published October 27, 2013. Updated April 13, 2018.
