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The big issue is that Watson's contract to nurse Holmes through recovery is almost up. Holmes doesn't think she'll really leave, and neither do any of the viewers. But even though Holmes offers up an assortment of ways for Watson to stay on as his apprentice, she ends the episode saying she's got a new client week.
In the actual case, a woman named Terry Purcell is found dead in a hotel's industrial washing machine. She was the general manager of the hotel, but there are no physical clues on the body, what with the washing machine. Her office shows evidence of her being a kind, charitable person. So much so that Holmes naturally assumes that she was hiding something dark.
The first suspect is her husband Oliver, who has been sleeping on the couch, but he's got an alibi. Their daughter Carly is broken up about this whole thing. A gossipy neighbor sends suspicion toward Jeffrey Silver, who administrates a charity that Terry and Oliver volunteered for. He also has an alibi.
The clue is that Terry had been threatened after shooing prostitutes out of her hotel. Further investigation reveals that she actually welcomed the prostitute trade, sneaking them in the back door and setting them up with diplomats without asking for a cut of the proceeds. Holmes eventually establishes that the real plan was to record the diplomats in their non-prostitutional endeavors. Because Terry Purcell was a Russian spy! And so was her husband Oliver!
Carly tearfully confesses that when she found out her parents were spies who were grooming her for a life as a deep-cover sleeper agent, she knocked her mother down and killed her. This makes Watson sad, so she investigates further, and she and Holmes establish that Jeffrey Silver was the handler of the Purcells, and he actually murdered Terry himself so he could keep Carly as a spy. So Carly's free! Although she doesn't get her soccer scholarship to Michigan, as she and Oliver have to go into witness protection.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Watson rushes into the kitchen where a teapot is whistling. Her banter with Holmes establishes that they've reached some sort of domestic equilibrium, and also that she is vexed about there not being any clean dishes. Surely someone who works with drug addicts must be used to dealing with bad housekeeping. She's leaving him in ten days, although we all know perfectly well that she isn't. Holmes claims that his messy kitchen means that he has an active mind.
, we cut to a completely different place. Two maids bicker about some missing yogurt and one of them goes to deal with an unbalanced washing machine. There's a dead body in there with the sheets! This scene was just like a Law & Order opening.
Once we get past the opening credits, Gregson tells Bell, Holmes, and Watson that the dead lady was Terry Purcell, the General Manager of the hotel. She appeared to have been killed by blunt force and then stuffed in the washing machine to get rid of evidence. Well, that's logical. There are no fingerprints to go on and no witnesses. Holmes finds a pen that was in the machine. It was broken in half but there was no ink on the victim or the sheets. Everybody kind of shrugs at this news. The security cameras have been broken for months, which Holmes says is proof that the murderer knew it was a safe place. And there are maroon streaks on the floor showing that the victim was dragged here from somewhere else. Holmes gets us out of the scene by asking, "You mentioned an office?"
I'm not sure Gregson did mention an office, actually, but they go there anyway. There's some blood on the corner of the desk. Holmes observes that the motive of the murder doesn't seem to have been theft, since the place hasn't been turned upside down. Watson points out that the walls are lined with charity awards, so Holmes concludes that Terry wanted to be acknowledged to be altruistic. He has already decided she was a bad person. Bell says she had a wedding band, so the husband is suspect number one. Let's go bother him!
The Purcells lived in an exceedingly suburban neighborhood, which will eventually be revealed to be Westchester. Holmes and Watson take a break from the case to talk about whether Holmes needs structure in his life. Holmes claims to be excelling at recovery, which means that Watson is tearing him down because she's annoyed by his success. He suggests a weekly salon in which he can share his wisdom in exchange for housekeeping. He's just assuming that Watson is looking for an excuse to stay with him, which is annoying her. But he's clearly right.
With that out of the way, our protagonists go into the Purcell home so we can get the plot moving. Oliver Purcell (the husband) says his wife was great and everybody loved her. Especially him! But Holmes says that Oliver's been sleeping on the couch lately. Oliver claims he has insomnia. But that's not enough to dissuade Holmes, who says that the damp towel and his toiletries in the guest bedroom suggest that he's been banished from the bedroom for some time. And he has a ticket to a Monday matinee showing of a movie, and his printer had resume paper. So he's unemployed. Oliver sends the daughter (Carly) out of the room for water and he admits it. But he's got an alibi: last night he was in a "pink slip mixer" with other unemployed friends.
Watson has gone to the kitchen with Carly, and she comments that Carly has been accepted to Georgetown and Michigan. And she plays soccer. I had a bit of a problem with the college acceptance being pinned up on the refrigerator, but I soccer photo makes sense. Carly says she got a soccer scholarship to Michigan, but her mother had her heart set on Georgetown. This makes her cry, and then she says "Tough times don't last. Tough people do." Watson recognizes these as recovery phrases. Carly says that she hurt her knee a few years ago and got hooked on pain pills and that her mother helped her get clean. Watson gives Carly her phone number in case she wants to talk about anything. I like this scene, because it combines Watson's detective training with her existing skills as a recovery professional.
Outside, Holmes thinks that talking to the family was a waste of time. The father is just "blah," in his opinion, because he has a pretty good alibi. Watson points out a neighbor woman, who is trimming an evergreen bush in winter instead of June. It's time for gossip!
The woman says Terry was having an affair because a "very handsome man" used to drop by a lot. And she has a picture on her phone! Holmes likes that there's a license plate in the picture.
The man turns out to be Jeffrey Silver, who runs a volunteer organization that deals with unexploded land mines. He tells Bell, Holmes, and Watson that Terry volunteered there too, and that's the explanation for him talking to her a lot. Holmes breaks in: "Intercourse. Were you and Terry having it?" Oliver is momentarily thrown, so Holmes clarifies that he means penetration and coitus. Jeffrey denies it. Bell would like an alibi for the murder, and Jeffrey supplies, "A friend and his wife had me over for dinner." Also, he doesn't care what anyone thinks about him, but he wants everyone to know that Terry was one of the finest human beings he's ever known.
Outside, Holmes is cranky because all his best suspects have alibis. He still thinks Terry could be a bad person in spite of the volunteering because John Wayne Gacy volunteered a lot. Bell says Terry cracked down on prostitutes at the hotel recently, and that resulted in death threats to Terry. Holmes declines his offer to come look at pimps. Instead, he asks Watson, "Tell me, have you ever been whore-fishing?"
Holmes and Watson sit in the lobby of the hotel. Holmes tells her she'll never be a good investigator until she can reliably identify prostitutes. Holmes figures that now that Terry's dead, the strumpets will swoop back in. I should point out that "strumpets" is Holmes's word. He picks out a blonde at the bar and they pounce. Holmes says, "My friend and I were wondering what you might charge to sleep with us." Then he says they're with the police. Any idea who killed the manager? Their new friend would like to leave, but he convinces her to stay. She says that Terry was the reason that most of the working girls worked here. She helped them keep a low profile. She'd even sneak them in the elevator because she wanted them there for some reason. And she never took any money, so even the pimps loved her. She gives Watson her card and a wink. Well, sure. It's Lucy Liu. Come on.
Back to the police station. The police have also learned that Terry had been arranging "dates". Holmes concludes that she's the one who sabotaged the security cameras. The threats came from a lady who got thrown out after getting high in the lobby. And she's in jail, so it wasn't her. Watson wonders why Terry would risk her job to work as a free madam. It's a fair question.
Holmes goes back to Terry's office to do some more investigating. Watson says she isn't going to be his apprentice. Holmes answers, "No, of course not. Not in an official capacity. More likely, you'll peddle some fiction to my father about me not being ready to be alone yet. Hmm? Whatever your pride dictates, I shan't hold it against you." Watson again says she's not staying. I like that they've purposely set up a way for Watson to stay and then immediately turned their backs on it. Holmes ignores Watson and pokes at the desk from underneath, looking for secret compartments (and pontificating on the history of secret compartments in cabinetry). He pulls out a drawer and empties it. And then he's distracted by something he pulled out. It's a compact, but it's very heavy. And it's not Terry's shade. Inside the compact, there's a wireless connector dongle. It attaches to the laptop, and suddenly Holmes is looking at the feed from nine hidden cameras. I wonder how heavy that USB antenna is, because I wouldn't expect it to be heavy enough for someone to notice the difference.
Holmes tells Gregson that Terry was collecting blackmail. He enjoys saying "In flagrante delicto" almost as much as Tim Curry in Clue. There are hours of video, but they're not labeled. Gregson moans about how it will take days to have a team of people watching it in shifts. But Holmes happens to be great at watching multiple screens at once! How convenient! So he's just going to stream everything to his ridiculous multiple televisions and stare at them.
Watson comes in with tea. Holmes says she hasn't missed a thing. A lot of this video is prostitute-free, which he finds surprising. Also, Holmes has poured someone's garbage on the floor to see if it causes him to relapse. So far, it has not.
Watson gets a call from Carly Purcell. She says she's fine on the pain-pill front, but she just needed to talk to someone. Hey, we get to see Watson doing her job with someone who wants her to do it! Carly says her mother wasn't what people thought. But her father is sticking his head out the door, so Carly has to go. Well, that was productive. Thanks, Carly!
Holmes has finished watching the videos, and he's moved on to something more interesting: the photographs on Terry's computer. They're generic pictures of her family, but each one is over a gigabyte. That seems like more than you'd need, unless she was planning on making enormous posters of them. Aha! Holmes reveals that it's steganography! Security through obscurity! Holmes is speaking the language of my soul. It basically means that the image files have a whole lot of extra information hidden in them. But then he has a nonsense piece of decryption software, which takes it back into the realm of fantasy. Holmes warns Watson that the hidden content is probably horrible and vile. It's actually just people talking in foreign languages. Russian, I think. He grabs the phone for Gregson. Back to the Purcell home!
The police roar up as Oliver Purcell is bringing the trash in. Holmes congratulates Mr. Purcell on being such a good spy. A spy, you say? Holmes explains that the escorts made the hotel popular among diplomats. Mr. Purcell wasn't fired from his job at a financial management company; he resigned when they signed a contract with the Department of Defense. Holmes says Oliver stepped outside to shake hands, and Terry left some coins out on the desk. Both of which are Russian traits, so they must be Russian spies. Oliver would like a lawyer.
Interrogation chamber. Gregson says the feds are on their way, because this case is bigger than the NYPD. The FBI will be handling the espionage, and they're lucky they're being allowed to sit in for the murder. Watson shows up and says she's been trying to contact Carly, who is seventeen and in crisis. Watson believes it's traumatic to find out your parents are Russian agents. Holmes thinks Carly might have been a spy herself. And spies have handlers!
Holmes barges into a room and announces, "I was wrong about you, Jeffrey!" He's talking to Jeffrey Silver, the guy from the land mine organization. There's a meeting going on, but Holmes interrupts it with the announcement that Jeffrey's a Russian Handler. He gave Oliver and Terry cover and information. And one of the steganography photos was on his laptop on Monday! I'll take Holmes's word for that, because I don't feel like rewinding to check. Jeffrey denies knowing who killed Terry, and he lets Holmes on his computer. The picture is no longer there. Jeffrey requests that they either arrest him or leave. Gregson calls to let them know that the interrogation of Oliver Purvell is starting, and that the feds have said that Holmes can sit in. Really? A spy case and they're going to let someone not from the US participate?
Oliver says that his relationship with Terry was never romantic. It was patriotic. Carly is, in fact, their biological daughter, but that was the result of them obeying orders. Then he gets serious: "But you can't raise a spy. Terry and I found ourselves with a daughter." They both loved Carly. Oliver worked twenty years for the SVR, but he wanted more for his daughter. Terry wanted her to be a spy. Oliver threatened to expose the operation, and that shut Terry and Jeffrey up. Holmes notes the testimony that Jeffrey was involved. Outside, Watson gets a call from Carly. Oliver says he'll testify on the spying, but he doesn't know anything about the murder. And he'll only help if Carly is kept out of it.
Carly tells Watson she saw the police. But her father had nothing to do with the murder! Watson goes to meet her so they can have the rest of the scene outside on a bench. Watson asks, "Did you know she was a spy?" She did. And her father? Yes. Her mother told her a few days ago. Carly says she killed her mother. Commercial!
In the police office, Carly says she was happy to get her Michigan scholarship (to play soccer, which appear to be her lifelong dream), and she called her mother. She sounded weird and told her she was going to Georgetown, because she was in a family of spies. So her whole life was a lie. But she wasn't allowed to tell her father what was going on. She wasn't threatened explicitly, but she assumed the people her mother worked for were dangerous. Terry wanted her to go to Georgetown because they had a good government program. She was supposed to infiltrate the inner workings of the United States government. And this destroyed her dreams: "I was going to Michigan. I was gonna play soccer." You can't play soccer at Georgetown? She threatened to go to the police if Terry tried to stop her. But as she was leaving, her mother grabbed her. "I guess I just shoved her." And she just lay there. And Mr. Silver came in, said he was her mother's handler, and said Carly was in trouble. She was afraid, because her father was all she had left. Carly ends her tear-stricken monologue: "Whatever else you think my dad did, he didn't kill my mom. I did."
Jeffrey will not confirm or deny anything, because he doesn't acknowledge Gregson's authority. Gregson tells him that Oliver's given up enough to put Jeffrey away for the rest of his natural life. But Jeffrey figures he'll be out in a week, since high-level spies tend to be traded back to their home countries He speculates on a catalog of political prisoners. Gregson shrugs that the feds will do their thing. Watson says, "You ruined that girl's life."
Back to the brownstone. Watson has pinned a bunch of pictures and clipings up around the fireplace. She wants to find a way out for Carly, even though she's already confessed. Holmes has brought her a mug of spaghetti. Yes, a mug. She asks how Holmes deals with puzzles that don't work out the way he wants. He says the only thing that matters is the answer. How they feel about it doesn't factor in. And just then! The autopsy report arrives, and there's an X-ray of Terry's hand. She has a broken finger, which Watson identifies as a "boxer's fracture." She hit something with a clenched fist. Holmes remembers the pen. Oh yeah! That mysterious clue from the beginning of the episode that no one's mentioned since!
Jeffrey is now at the police station. Holmes observes that he's angry. Good job, Mr. Super-Detective. Jeffrey repeats that he didn't see Terry the week she died. Holmes says he saw her the day she died. Because after he got rid of Carly, he found out that Terry wasn't dead. So he had to decide if Carly or Terry was more important. Watson says Terry hit him and stabbed him with the pen. But there was no ink anywhere. Holmes brings up the concept of invisible ink. Awesome! Very old-school. Holmes admits, "You might as well have a phone in your shoe!" So it turns out that the pen has "permanent flourescing ink" in it. And Holmes went to the morgue and shone a UV light on Terry's corpse, which revealed that she was covered in invisible ink. Gregson provides Jeffrey's shirt, for which they had a warrant. There is, in fact, a handprint! Holmes says, "You didn't just see her the other night. You killed her." The US would trade a spy under the right circumstances, but not these. Jeffrey will be going to jail.
So what about the alibi? Didn't Jeffrey claim he had an ironclad alibi? He was having dinner with some random couple, remember? I guess it's possible that the couple was also a pair of Russian spies, but I feel like the show just forgot about the alibi completely.
Okay. Carly and Watson. Watson says Oliver is cooperating, so the two of them will get a new start. Carly says she still feels responsible, because she loved her mother. Watson tells her it'll hurt, and she should let it. Bell arrives to take Carly to see her father. They share the "Tough times don't last/tough people do" line. So I guess that's a happy ending for Carly, although she has to go into hiding and can't go play soccer at Michigan. In fact, if she's to go into hiding properly, she probably can't play soccer at any Division I school. And forget about pursuing it as a career, right? Surely the Russians would have an eye out for her. Yeah, her dreams are pretty much dead. Sorry, Carly! You seemed nice!
Holmes and Watson sit on a bench somewhere. Holmes says he gives her as much credit for solving the case as he gives himself. But! Watson says she took another job this morning: "I work with other therapists and I was referred to another client, so I'll be starting with him week after you and I wrap up." Holmes is thrown, supposedly because his deduction was wrong. But really because he didn't think she'd leave. You got that, right? She asks, "You okay?" He rallies, "My dear Watson, whenever am I not?" Then he gets up to leave.
I think that was the first time he's called her "My dear Watson. It's a nice reference to the name of the show without resorting to him actually saying, "Elementary."
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.