What I’m Watching: Elementary

Elementary: Season 1, Episode 5 “Lesser Evils” (B+)

Only Sherlock could come across a murder while he was using corpses to help fine-tune his technique and identify different possible ways of killing a person. His hunt for the Angel of Death was extremely layered and multi-faceted, once again weaving an exceptional narrative towards the truth. As soon as I recognized the fantastic David Costabile, TV guest star extraordinaire, I suspected that he would have a larger role than just as the janitor, which turned out to be right, though his Ukrainian heritage wasn’t something I had seen coming. Sherlock’s investigation into the person wearing the lab coat at the victims’ bedsides turned up plenty of suspects, and this show really knows how to make interrogations compelling without overselling them. What’s best about the crimes and the searches for the victims is that there’s always a third act at the end, in which Sherlock realizes that there’s something more to the case that can’t be explained away by the culprit that has been apprehended. Given Sherlock’s offensive nature, it’s better when the second guilty person is prickly and arrogant since watching him take them down is even more enjoyable. David Harbour, who plays Elliott on “The Newsroom,” was the perfect fit for that role as Dr. Mason Baldwin. It was also interesting to see a glimpse of Watson’s former life, as she pursued the instincts honed by her time with Sherlock to unmask a hidden condition in one of the patients being operated on by her old friend Dr. Carrie Dwyer, played by Anika Noni Rose. In addition to saving the girl’s life, her act was crucial because it helped to solidify her intellectual competence for her new partner Sherlock.