Matt Smith reviews the fourth episode of Elementary season 2….
Being a private detective naturally means you would be searching for secrets. Investigation, the discovery of what is actually going on, would be the name of the game. Obviously the real private detectives in real life aren’t like the ones we see on TV, fictional characters of course representing something as opposed to being something.
And that brings me to TV audiences. We, too, like to investigate while we view these characters’ lives on screen. The best shows or movies usually feed us information in the same way a fictional detective would find it, in a steady rhythm. Nothing too quick as to ruin the surprise, but with the knowledge that a nugget of some sort is coming our way.
This week, even more so than others, is a week where no one is what they seem. A body, dressed in latex, is found next to a glass containing alcohol and, more importantly, poison. Almost anyone and everyone related to the man is a suspect at one point or another, including a woman with a mysterious past.
This week is all about pasts coming back to play a part in the present (as they are wont to do). Seemingly just as affected by this as he was by Adler/Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’ mind is uncovered as developing the way it is thanks to this mystery woman. Thanks to mystery, Sherlock Holmes was created, in every sense.
The story starts off with some funny images and hilarious one-liners playing out. The darker nature of the story, and the routine way the main characters approach these sinister crimes, is hinted at by the casual way Holmes points out there’s a dead body waiting for him and Watson to investigate. Every character, every single one a different shade of grey, is well played by their respective actors but Jonny Lee Miller, I must say again, plays his role perfectly. Never giving too much or too little, his Holmes is one of the best, if not the best, I have seen.
These shades of grey end up all coming from the same place, the same revelations. The only thing I have to worry about, with all these revelations about Holmes’ past (two intertwined secrets spill out this week), is whether the producers are going to run out of past secrets to share. There’s only so many traumas a person can go through, mentally, physically and, not wanting to sound like a smart arse, logistically. As long as the man of mystery remains the man of mystery, in every sense, then the producers of Elementary can surely look forward to bringing us the adventures of a great adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes character.
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Originally published November 14, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
