Cast
Main cast
Featured cast
Plot
| "You know what Sherlock, I don't trust you. Because thanks to you, we're still basically just strangers." — Watson
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| At The Brownstone, Holmes wakes Watson with radio chatter from a police scanner. He complains that it has been a slow week for murder and mayhem. While he is listening, Watson mentions that his father emailed her, inviting them to dinner while he is in New York on business. Holmes is amused and warns Watson that he never keeps his appointments. They are interrupted by a report of an "unusual incident" at Far Rockaway Beach, which Holmes identifies as a plane crash. After hearing Captain Gregson's voice at the scene, they leave. Gregson is surprised by their appearance at the crash site of a small plane and tells Holmes to go home. Holmes ignores him and notices that one victim, Hank Gerrard, has a severe leg wound with little blood loss. He then points out to the NTSB lead, Mirani Molinari, a wound to Gerrard's head which she recognizes was made by a wrench indicating Gerrard was murdered. Molinari indicates a witness saw the plane crash shortly after take-off.
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| As Holmes notices strange sand at the beach, Watson points out that his behaviour is off, even for him. Since the police can handle the investigation, she muses that he's staying at the scene to avoid dinner with his father which he refutes. At the 11th Precinct, they question the owner of the air charter service, Charles Cooper. He speaks highly of the pilot, Joe Newell, and identifies the three passengers, Gerrard, Walter Devlin, and Ellie Wilson, as attorneys from the same law firm who flew frequently with his airline. He can't think of any reason for an attack but offers security camera footage from his company's parking lot. Watson receives a text regarding the dinner which Holmes says he won't attend but encourages Watson to. Detective Bell tells them the attorneys were working a class action suit and that Devlin and Gerrard fought over whether to accept an offer from the plantiff, Carmanto Foods. They learn the plane's black box has been found.
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| On the recording, Devlin shouts at Gerrard while Wilson and the pilot try to calm him. The pilot reports an emergency and the plane goes down. Molinari believes Holmes was right, that an attack on board caused the crash but Holmes doesn't believe so. Retrieving Gerrard's phone from the recovered debris, a voice mail is heard on it which is the same as Devlin's shouting. Holmes deduces that someone killed Gerrard before the flight took off and put his body in the cargo hold. This explains why the murder weapon hasn't been found and why Devlin left Gerrard a message, he thought Gerrard had missed the flight. The pilot didn't know Gerrard's body was in the hold and the extra weight caused the crash. Gerrard's killer wasn't on the plane.
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| At the precinct, Holmes puzzles over the board of evidence. Watson notices the conspicuous absence of photos from the crash site and asks if he is afraid of flying. Holmes scoffs and they are interrupted by Bell, indicating that Cooper has security footage. In Cooper's office, which reeks of glue, the footage shows Gerrard in the parking lot just before the fatal flight, arguing with a heavyset man whose back is to the camera. Later, Holmes notices a "Carmanto Foods" logo on the sleeve of his shirt and as Watson leaves for dinner, she points out a device on the man's belt is an insulin pump. At Carmanto Foods, Holmes and Bell interview the heavyset man, Ed Hairston. He initially denies knowing Gerrard but when Bell mentions the footage, he admits that he was helping Gerrard with his lawsuit but Gerrard was angry that Hairston wouldn't testify in court. Holmes abruptly ends the questioning and outside, explains to Bell that by examining Hairston's office and actions, he could tell that diabetes had made him so weak he couldn't have lifted the wrench that killed Gerrard. Holmes has another lead though, sand.
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| At a restaurant, Watson meets Mr. Holmes, a distinguished-looking Englishman in a suit who greets her warmly. She begins to apologize for Sherlock's absence, but he brushes this off, saying his son has always been stubborn. Even as a boy, he refused to heed his father's warnings about playing on a fence, which led to him falling and suffering a compound fracture of his wrist. Mr. Holmes laughs and says that Sherlock was so stubborn that he refused medical treatment and set the bone himself. Watson is beginning to enjoy her conversation with the elder Holmes, when he asks her if Sherlock is satisfied with the sexual services she is providing as his "companion." Shocked, Watson then realizes she's being pranked. "Mr. Holmes" confesses that he is an actor, hired by Sherlock to impersonate his father. The actor apologizes for tricking her but can't help laughing at her reaction.
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| At the crash investigation, Holmes leads Bell and Molinari to the remains of the plane's fuel tank. He explains he remembered seeing some unusual grains of sand on the beach near the crash site and realized that the plane was sabotaged. Sand was poured into the fuel tank which would have caused the plane to crash in the ocean and he believes Gerrard surprised the saboteur in the act and was killed. At the Brownstone, Holmes is looking at case files when Watson returns from the dinner, angry. Unable to get her to see the lighter side of his prank, he indicates there's a suspect he'd like to question. Watson refuses and indicates she's angry not due to the prank, but because Holmes won't share any personal details with her.
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| Holmes and Bell interview Owen Barts, the air charter service's mechanic, at his home at night. Holmes says he hadn't realized Barts was also a pilot. Holmes has noticed the same mathematical error in the flight logs for one of Barts's regular flights which corresponds to the weight of cocaine. Holmes accuses Barts of sabotaging the plane to kill the pilot who uncovered his smuggling. However, Barts claims he helping Cooper that morning and wasn't at the hangar.
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The next morning, Watson is startled awake by the sight of Holmes sitting in a chair in her bedroom. Holmes confesses that he has a certain preoccupation with plane crashes, though not for the reason she thinks. Holmes is not afraid of flying, per se, it's just that he sees so much whenever he boards a plane - the nervous tics of a pilot's hands, the unhappy shuffle of the mechanic's feet - that he can't help but imagine the plane going down. Holmes says he is attempting to demonstrate his trust in her by sharing something personal, but she finds it a pretty feeble confession. Then Bell calls, saying Charles Cooper is at the station.
Cooper admits that Barts called him the previous night, confessing that he killed Hank Gerrard and sabotaged the plane, and pleading with Cooper to confirm his alibi. Cooper refused, and Barts said he was going to flee the country.
Going to Barts's home, Gregson, Bell, Watson, and Holmes find a heavy wrench in his garage, but no sign of Barts. They are fairly sure the wrench will turn out to be the murder weapon, but also agree that it is much too convenient for the wrench to be lying in plain sight. Holmes examines it further and finds traces of brackish water, indicating the wrench was recently retrieved from its hiding place and then planted. He further theorizes that whoever planted the wrench also killed Owen Barts. Bell asks what evidence he has that Barts is dead, rather than on the run. Holmes pries open the lids of a series of synthetic motor oil cans - a curiously expensive, high-end choice for use in Barts low-performance Toyota Camry - and dumps out fat rolls of money. He facetiously invites them to consider the odds that a man going "on the lam" would purposefully leave behind somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000 of his ill-gotten gains? So, if Barts is dead, who is their next most likely suspect as the saboteur and the killer of Hank Gerrard?
Cooper is held for questioning at the precinct. Cooper is pale and sweating profusely, but he insists on his story: Owen called him, and fled after Cooper refused to support his alibi. While Holmes and Watson are watching the interrogation, Watson notices a scar on Holmes's wrist that is almost, but not quite, covered by his tattoos. Holmes shrugs and says he got it from a compound fracture after falling off a fence as a child. Watson suddenly remembers an errand she has to run, and excuses herself.
In the hallway, Gregson and Bell says Cooper won't confess, because he knows they have no proof linking him to the crimes. Holmes notices Bell filling Cooper's third glass of water from the cooler, and realizes how to trap him.
At a Manhattan bookstore, Watson confronts Alistair, the actor, who also works at the store. When they had dinner, she picked up a receipt that fell out of his book, with an employee discount on it. "You've been spending quite a lot of time with him, haven't you?" Alistair says with amusement. Watson has realized that Alistair must know Sherlock well, since the story he told about Sherlock's childhood injury was true.
Over coffee in the bookstore's cafe, Alistair says he has been an actor for several years now, and first met Sherlock when the 10-year-old boy wrote him a fan letter to congratulate Alistair on his Yorkshire accent in a London radio play. "I thought it was odd, but I was also very flattered." They became friends, and continued to correspond after Alistair moved to New York City. Watson says that Holmes doesn't have any friends, and Alistair chuckles, "not in the traditional sense." But he tells Watson not to expect Holmes to relate to her the way other people do. "The moment you do, he'll migrate out of your life, and you'll be the poorer for it." Watson asks if Alistair knows anything about Holmes's previous drug use. Alistair is uncomfortable at first, but then he opens up: he knew Holmes was dabbling with drug use during their acquaintance, but Alistair was confident he would grow out of it. Suddenly, a few months ago, Holmes showed up at Alistair's apartment, "so high he could barely speak." Alistair flushed his drugs down the toilet and sat up with him during the night. Alistair confesses that it was very hard for him, seeing a mind like Holmes's reduced to babbling idiocy, repeating the same name over and over again. Watson asks what the name was, and Alistair says it doesn't matter, he asked Holmes about it the next morning, and Holmes said it was just a nonsense word. But Watson presses, and Alistair admits that Holmes might have been lying, and Watson should know the name.
Under interrogation, Charles Cooper finishes a pitcher of water, and Holmes notes the strange fact that he hasn't asked to use the bathroom once. He also notes Cooper's sickly appearance, and the fact that he and his clothes are reeking of model airplane glue. Holmes has figured out that Cooper fought with Barts the previous night, and suffered a serious wound to his side before he killed Barts. Instead of going to the hospital, where questions would be asked, Cooper patched his wound with model glue (an old trick used by military field medics). He has been drinking water steadily to compensate for blood loss, which is why he has not had to urinate. Cooper claims that he cut his side open on a sharp piece of metal in the hangar, but was delayed from seeking medical treatment by Owen Barts's call.
Holmes and Gregson inform Cooper that they know from the wrench he planted that he likes to hide things in brackish water, and they also know that, because of his wound, he was in no condition to dig a grave the previous night. There are two local bodies of such water, which the NYPD is searching as they speak. Gregson says Barts's body will be found eventually, but Cooper could save them some time by confessing and telling them where to look. He could also give himself a chance to avoid the death penalty, since sabotaging aircraft is a federal crime frowned upon by the U.S. Government. Cooper wilts.
That evening, Watson returns home to find Holmes packing up his case files on the plane crash. Watson says she has a personal question for him, and Holmes cheerfully asks her to wait for him to go into his room and shut the door and ask it when she is positively sure he can't hear her. As he heads upstairs, Watson says, "I know about Irene." Holmes freezes on the stairs, and turns to Watson with an expression she's never seen before.
Music
- Brad - Screen plays at episode end.
Trivia
Quotes
You can't expect Sherlock Holmes to relate to you the way others might. The moment you do, he'll migrate out of your life, and you'll be the poorer for it.
— Alistair
I know about Irene. I want you to tell me about her.
— Watson
Gallery
References
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| Elementary Season One Episodes | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pilot • While You Were Sleeping • Child Predator • The Rat Race • Lesser Evils • Flight Risk • One Way to Get Off • The Long Fuse • You Do It to Yourself • The Leviathan • Dirty Laundry • M. • The Red Team • The Deductionist • A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs • Details • Possibility Two • Déjà Vu All Over Again • Snow Angels • Dead Man's Switch • A Landmark Story • Risk Management • The Woman • Heroine
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| Season One • Season Two • Season Three • Season Four • Season Five • Season Six • Season Seven | ||
