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'Elementary' Season 2, Episode 7 Recap: The Marchioness

Michael Huard |
November 8, 2013 | 1:19 a.m. PST

Staff Reporter

(CBS)
(CBS)
What a delight! Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) may not agree, but for the rest of us, an appearance from Mycroft (Rhys Ifans), his sly brother, is an absolute treat. As such, “The Marchioness” packs more character development—particularly the first five minutes—than the last three episodes combined. 

The episode opens at a sobriety meeting where Sherlock actually contributes. His story provides a tense insight into his mindset as a recovering addict. He discusses his keen observational skills and heightened senses and compares this to the deluge of stimuli occupying our lives each and every day. The attention span is dwindling due to a barrage of sights and sounds. Due to his birth in such a boisterous time, Sherlock feels he was somewhat pushed toward addiction as his escape from the downpour of noise. 

Miller delivers the speech with the familiar twitches and harnessed emotion that has made this version of Sherlock entirely his own. The speech grows in significance when it is revealed Mycroft snuck into the meeting and heard his brother’s confession. As Sherlock storms out, he and Mycroft bump into Watson (Lucy Liu), who has an exceptionally awkward greeting with Mycroft. 

READ MORE: 'Elementary' Season 2 Episode 6 Recap: 'An Unnatural Arrangement'

The visitor offers dinner to the consultants, introducing the source of the episode’s conflict. At Mycroft’s soon-to-be-opened restaurant awaits Nigella Mason (Olivia d’Abo from “The Big Green”), Mycroft’s former fiancée and Sherlock’s former fling. Her story involved marrying the Marquess of Loudwater (somewhere between an earl and a duke on the nobility ladder) and winning a prized horse named Silver Blaze in the divorce.  Her lover, the caretaker of the horse, found a burglar attempting to poison the horse and was subsequently shot. Additionally, Nigella reveals Mycroft’s fight against leukemia, of which Sherlock was unaware. 

That is the first five minutes of the episode and we learn more about Sherlock’s standing with his addiction and family than we had the entire second season, with the premiere being a minor exception. Brilliant. We need more Mycroft!

Now, the murder investigation takes a back seat similar to that of the first episode involving Mycroft and for good reason. He introduces a completely new dynamic for Sherlock and Watson. The brothers are struggling to overcome prior grievances and Watson fights an attraction to Mycroft that complicates her arrangement with Sherlock. 

In any case, Sherlock accepts the challenge of finding the murderer with the primary goal of proving Nigella is still a conniving witch. Sherlock and his cohorts find fingerprints that connect the killer to 13 other murders that coincided with a fight involving the Robles drug cartel. After a bit of digging, they discover Joaquin Aguilar, an avid horseracing fan, had paid to have his mare impregnated by Silver Blade. The resultant offspring was then sold for an inordinate amount of money.

READ MORE: 'Elementary' Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: 'Ancient History'

Sherlock deduces that the real Silver Blade had died and Nigella was using an imposter, which turned out to be the horse’s brother (a not-so-subtle allusion to her tryst with Sherlock). The murderer, an assassin known as “El Mecanico,” targets Nigella for her misdeeds, but fails to kill her. Later on, the team uses her as bait and catches him with relative ease considering he is such an expert. After a small sidetrack down false fingerprint lane, Sherlock and company get the confession they needed. 

As for the remaining meat of the episode, Sherlock coerces a confession from Watson that she indeed did have relations with Mycroft. This irks Sherlock not for romantic entanglement, but for the general lack of context involved. She rarely acts with such spontaneity and it confuses him. By the end of the episode, Mycroft and Watson come to a mutual agreement that a friendship is the proper course of action, which is only disappointing because it does not guarantee Mycroft’s appearance in future episodes. 

The episode ends with the brothers standing firm against the woman that drove them apart. Sherlock’s misguided initial attempt at showing her flaws may have broken his brother’s heart, but he played the long game successfully. And if the scenes from next week are any indication, the game might be coming to a close soon. 

Read more by Michael at MHMovieReviews.com.

Contact Staff Reporter Michael Huard here.



 

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