Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing

"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing"
Season 4
Season 4
Episode 21
Episode 21
Directed by	Jeremy Webb
Written by	Nick Thiel & Jeffrey Paul King
Aired	April 17, 2016
Viewers (millions)	5.51
Episode guide
Previous	"Art Imitates Art"
Next	"Turn It Upside Down"

Cast

Main cast

Jonny Lee Milleras Sherlock Holmes

Lucy Liuas Joan Watson

Aidan Quinnas Tommy Gregson

Jon Michael Hillas Marcus Bell

Featured cast

Steve Rosenas Emcee

Jordan Gelberas Dr. Eugene Hawes

Robert Petkoffas Emil Kurtz

Tommar Wilsonas Young Uni

Andhy Méndezas Thief

Tim Bohnas Jared Talt

Michael Eaddyas Butch Callahan

Alexander Chaplinas Davis Potter

April L. Hernandezas Roxanne Ortiz

Kathleen McNennyas Ida Talt

John Nobleas Morland Holmes

Ro Boddieas Beat Cop

Plot

"A lot of these stand-ups at these open mics talk about bombing, but, hey, I've lived through a real bombing." — Dr. Eugene Hawes

At a stand-up comedy club, Dr. Eugene Hawes performs his act as Watson watches. Afterwards, Hawes tells Watson that performing is part of his therapy in dealing with the explosion that occurred in the Morgue. Excusing herself, at a bookshop, Watson meets Emil Kurtz, her mole in Morland's organization, where he provides information that the assassin who attempted to kill Morland, Ruslan Krasnov, had help escaping from jail. A policeman chasing a thief comes upon two dead men, one in an SUV and another on the pavement beside the vehicle. The next morning at The Brownstone, Sherlock shows Watson a cat he bought for Fiona's birthday while she lies about why she left the comedy club abruptly. Proceeding to the crime scene alone, Sherlock meets Detective Bell who identifies the driver as Jared Talt, a developer, and Butch Callahan, an army vet.

This is clearly a pathologist convention.

Examining the scene, they conclude that someone staged it to look like Talt and Callahan shot each other. Hearing a camera flash charging, Sherlock finds a camera in a dumpster which has blood on it and four pictures of Jared, dead in the SUV. (♫ Zoe Keating - Exurgency ♫) At the 11th Precinct, Captain Gregson and Watson are shown the pictures which differ from how the bodies were found. Puzzled why the murders were staged, Watson reasons that Talt was the target. Gregson reports that Talt's wife, Ida, was upstate for the evening and is returning. He tells Bell and Sherlock to question Callahan's girlfriend, Roxanne Ortiz, while he and Watson see Jared's business partner, Davis Potter. Potter is distraught over Jared's death and doesn't know Callahan. He says their business was failing and all they had was liabilities. He claims a property near Lake Placid, which they bought for fracking before the state outlawed it, had them involved in a law suit. He provides evidence he was at a Knicks game when Jared was killed.

Obviously, all is not as it appears.

At Ortiz's, she confirms that the gun found next to Callahan was his. Formerly troubled with PTSD, Ortiz indicates that Callahan was better and they were discussing marriage. Sherlock finds several shirts in the garbage with red stains on them, which Ortiz is shocked to see. At the Morgue, Sherlock shows Watson three stained shirts which all match one Jared was wearing when he died. The shirts were experiments to determine which stain looked most like blood for the fake murder. The camera was Callahan's and Sherlock believes they were shot while Callahan was taking pictures of Jared's staged murder. At the precinct, the evidence is reviewed with Gregson pondering what the staging was to have accomplished. Bell and Sherlock indicate that Callahan bought a pen recorder and believe that he and Jared intended to blackmail whoever hired Callahan to really kill Jared, after showing him the staged pictures.

That's not blood?

Watson posits that the blackmail target came across the staging and killed them both. Ida Talt arrives at the precinct and is told that Jared may have been targeted. Indicating that she and Jared had to sell possessions, including her wedding ring, to keep the business viable while Potter wasn't affected as he was rich, she says Jared and Potter had a fight over a property Potter refused to sell and that he has motive to kill Jared. At Potter's house, Gregson, Sherlock and Watson find he's not at home and believe that he hired Callahan to kill Jared and was at the Knicks game to provide a solid alibi. After Gregson leaves, Sherlock breaks into Potter's garage, intending to look at the contents of several file cabinets. Watson receives a text and lies to Sherlock that she needs to leave to take care of her mother. Watson meets Kurtz who shows her that Morland has set a trap to find the mole in his organization and, he refuses to help her anymore.

Who wanted Jared Talt dead?

Returning to the Brownstone, Watson finds that Sherlock has taken a vintage motorcycle from Potter's garage. By examining its mileage log, minerals found on the tires and an insect wing in the air filter, Sherlock concludes that Potter lied that he remained home the day after the murders and drove near to Lake Placid. Watson mentions the lawsuit on the worthless fracking property Potter spoke of is near Lake Placid and they proceed there. After Watson walks all over the property, she meets up with Sherlock to find he hasn't moved from where they split up. Reporting she found nothing, Sherlock points out that the property is covered with old-growth ginseng worth $20M. Potter is brought to the precinct where he's shown that he's been negotiating to sell the property to a ginseng dealer and, that he knew Callahan from high school. Admitting he hired Callahan to kill Jared so he wouldn't have to share the profits from the property, he denies knowing who killed them.

I saw a freaking bear!

As proof, Potter says he waited on a bench for hours after Jared's murder was to have happened to pay Callahan. City bus video shows Potter was being truthful and Sherlock recognizes posters behind the bench Potter sat at. Looking on-line, Bell, Sherlock and Watson see the posters are from a recording company Ortiz works for. With a police team, Bell and Watson search Ortiz's house where she angrily denies knowing about the blackmail plot. She believes Callahan picked the staging location near the posters as he helped her put them up. Watson returns to the Brownstone and finds Morland sitting in the library. He tells her that one of his security staff, Mr. Coin, is searching the basement, where Watson's office is, for an unspecified item. After Coin indicates he didn't find anything, they depart and Watson realizes he was searching for materials that would reveal who the mole is.

You do recall who owns this building.

The next morning at the Brownstone, as Sherlock looks through items collected from Ortiz's, Watson tells him about Morland's visit. Sherlock receives a text from Bell that Ortiz set fire to her home. At Ortiz's, she explains that she received several phone calls for a "Myron Taft" that a condo in Tahiti was ready for him. Believing that Callahan was going to leave her to live under an assumed name, she burned the house as revenge as Callahan grew up in it. Sherlock tells her that Callahan wasn't planning to leave her and he believes she's not the killer. At the Brownstone, as Sherlock views the evidence wall, Watson reports that the condo was paid for by Callahan but was for Jared Talt. (♫ Claudine - Ofai Tere ♫) Gregson sends a picture of Ida paying a toll in NYC an hour before the murders, showing she lied about being upstate. Looking at the picture, Watson believes they can find proof she committed the murders.

He doctored his own papers before he ran out on his wife.

At the precinct, Ida is shown her lie and told that she discovered that Jared planned to blackmail Potter and leave her. Following Jared to the staging scene, she shot Callahan and then used his gun to shoot Jared through the SUV window. She then fired her gun while it was in Callahan's hand, to leave gunshot residue. While doing the same with Callahan's gun in Jared's hand, the recoil caused her hand to hit the window frame and jar the diamond from her wedding ring loose. She lied about selling her wedding ring, as Watson shows her the diamond was found in the shattered glass in the SUV. Ida confesses that she didn't know what happened to the diamond. Later at the precinct, Sherlock tells Watson that Bell was called away to a shooting scene. At a diner, Bell meets a police officer who tells him that a robber shot four people and took the cash from the till. Retrieving the ID from the first victim, it's Emil Kurtz.

The mole was found.

Music

• Zoe Keating - Exurgency plays as Sherlock finds Butch Callahan's camera in a dumpster.
• Claudine - Ofai Tere plays as Sherlock views the evidence wall of Jared Talt.

Trivia

• At Potter and Talt's property, after Watson traipses to the edge and back, she jokingly reports to Holmes that she found nothing, not even a smoke monster, referencing the TV show Lost.
• Holmes mentions that Detective Nash told him Detective Bell was called to a scene of a shooting. Nash took Bell's desk when he went to work for Demographics. Bell paid Nash to get his desk back when he returned to Major Cases. ("All in the Family")

Quotes

You know me Watson, sticky fingers.

— Sherlock

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