What I’m Watching: Elementary

Elementary: Season 3, Episode 4 “Bella” (B)

There’s no denying that this episode managed to be interesting over the course of the hour, but after last week’s “maths” obsession, this show could use a normal episode that just finds someone murdering someone else without much intelligence involved. Sherlock was back to his old self, doubting the existence of true artificial intelligence and then prodding Bella with questions to test how she might answer them. This episode was chock full of guest stars, starting with Michael Chernus from “Orange is the New Black” and “The Big C” as Bella’s creator who ended up murdered by heavy metal music. His murderers were played by Michael Cristofer, who recently appeared on “Smash” and “Ray Donovan,” and Halley Feiffer from “The Squid and the Whale” and “Gentlemen Broncos.” The most stirring part of this episode came at the very end when Sherlock might normally intimidate someone into confessing, but instead Isaac Pyke proved to be far more devious and villainous that his physical state might suggest, going head-to-head with Sherlock intellectually and calling his bluff on not selling out a fellow addict. We don’t usually get to see Sherlock’s more vulnerable side, and it’s a reassuring sight. It was great, however, to see Watson assume that Sherlock had concocted a plan to get Raza Jaffrey’s Andrew out of her life by pairing him up with a new business in Copenhagen and then, upon realizing that it wasn’t actually his doing, opt to accompany her beau on a vacation rather than let him go or sulk.