Elementary Review 02 x 24 – The Grand Experiment
Reviewed by Liz Giorgi
Being Geek Chic For The Baker Street Babes
It’s a bad sign when your lead-up episode to the finale is more exciting than your finale. This is not to say Elementary’s season 2 finale was bad – it just felt sulking. Honestly, it felt annoyed to have to wrap things up… or maybe it was just taking on Sherlock’s general attitude about life at this juncture? Season 2 has an ending, but there’s nothing happy about it.
Last week, we were left with the revelation that Mycroft Holmes was being framed for the murder of a former MI6 agent who had discovered a mole within the organization. The key question for MI6 and for us as viewers: why would Mycroft kill him? I’m just kidding! No one believes he killed him! But there has to be a reason for all of this. Well, he was being framed not only as a murderer, but also as the mole. It’s a double framing.Watson is convinced that Mycroft’s handler is the real mole and he was framing Mycroft as the mole as a way to hide his treacherous behavior. Sherlock’s new mission is to fix his brother’s biggest problem. But not without using MI6’s resources and information – but of course – that doesn’t go as planned – because, oh yeah, the mole is in charge. Yeah, that makes it impossible and a general waste of 3 minutes.
I can only describe Sherlock’s behavior through the middle 20 minutes of this episode as “the pouting detective.” He won’t let Watson help him work on the case at night, because he has to get used to working without her in the brownstone. He begins placing passive aggressive case findings throughout the house for Watson to find. He is flat out useless when Detective Gregson calls him in to discuss Mycroft’s involvement in the unsolved murder. The very ground on which Sherlock stands is changing and he doesn’t like it. He presses on, but not without a very stiff frowny face.
Perhaps we shouldn’t expect anything different from Sherlock. He’s hurting. And it’s that hurt that propels him to commit to Mycroft that he will solve the case. Despite their less than ideal relationship in the past, Sherlock knows that he can’t repair their relationship in the traditional modes. He can, however, do what he does best and solve the case. That same sense of self-awareness makes Sherlock promise to Watson that he will change to make their working relationship functional after she moves out. He may not be happy about any of this, but he does seem to realize one thing: These two people care about him. That sounds simple, but that’s the ULTIMATE revelation for Sherlock Holmes.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
What exactly happened in the final moments of this episode? Well, Mycroft is let off the hook, but not because of Sherlock and Joan. He usurps them and goes to the NSA, who murders his handler for him. But that also means Mycroft has to disappear. Not just from a locational perspective, it seems he also has to disappear from Sherlock and Joan’s lives. Sherlock and Joan are incensed, because they think they could have resolved the case, but alas. Does this mean we won’t be seeing any more of Rhys Ifans? I sincerely hope not, but it seems like that may be the case.
The writers give us lots of dotted clues for what happens to our cast of characters in the preceding moments, but don’t necessarily draw the line for us. Watson is still going to pursue finding a place of her own, going so far as to schedule a showing. Mycroft disappears, but we don’t know where to. Holmes returns to a book with a secret compartment containing a bag of narcotics and carefully pockets them. Then, he goes and takes up a job offer from MI6, but he seems almost indignant about it. I have my theories about what happened here, but everyone is in a state of change and no one seems happy about it. That’s a hard thing to leave fans with at the end of the season. It’s not that we wanted Watson to stay with Holmes. And perhaps Mycroft really did have to disappear. But while the game may be over and the Holmes brother’s theoretically “won” – it still feels like everyone loses.
Liz Giorgi is the Baker Street Babes’ Elementary Guru and runs the fantastic nerdy blog Being Geek Chic. You can find her former reviews of Elementary here on her site.
She’s a writer and filmmaker. She’s also a contributor for Apartment Therapy and The Mary Sue.
You can contact her at elizabeth@beinggeekchic.com and follow her on Twitter @lizgiorgi
