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Holmes is teaching Watson to be a detective! That mostly takes the form of making her guess what's going on before he corrects her. For example at the top of the episode, she thinks somebody shot two security guards. But what really happened is that they shot each other, because one of them was an impostor. He also sends her to a dry cleaner's several times until she deduces that they're involved in smuggling and human trafficking.
The main plot involves a rich philanthropist with a hereditary disease that causes dementia. He's convinced he's been poisoned, but nobody takes him seriously, since the disease is hereditary. And causes paranoia. But after he shoots his chauffeur, Holmes takes the case and starts talking about visiting Norwegian geneticists.
There's one lady geneticist who wrote a monograph Holmes owns. It's about the Warrior Gene, which indicates sociopaths. She sends a text suggesting that she has useful information, but she is inconveniently killed. This leads to a sidetrack where it could have been a guy who hated her and was known to get stabby. But it was really her fiancee, who went to the trouble of making blood with fake DNA markers to implicate the other guy. He did this because he thought she was cheating on him, but the name he thought he heard was really two giant charitable trusts.
When it turns out that those two trusts also had super-rich people recently struck down by the rare hereditary dementia, Holmes gets back on track with the regular case. After consulting with all the top geneticists in the world, he establishes that it's possible to create a poison that could cause it. He helps lead Watson to the conclusion that the only reason someone would be doing this is if they were trying to increase the amount of funding pointed toward curing this particular disease. So it's this one particular geneticist named Peter Watt. Case solved!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We have a crime scene in the middle of the road! Bell explains the situation: the victims work with ZBZ Security, but nothing's missing from the museum. They're left with two dead bodies lying on the ground. Holmes declines to answer because he wants to make Watson do it. She's tentative, but she says each of them have been shot in the chest one time. The scuffs on the road suggest they chased the suspect. But no! Holmes says that one guard's ZBZ patches are handsewn. And his clothes are new. What was in his pockets? Four car registration cards with the owners' addresses. Holmes explains that the guy was finding expensive cars, then breaking in to find the home address of the owner. Then he'd call his associate to rob the place. There's also a cell phone and Watson knows the last called number will be the associate. He's named "Loco Maurice," which I love.
Walking down the street, Holmes tells Watson not to be discouraged, because detection is not just a skill -- it's a point of view. She should be alert to the bizarre and unusual. Like this stretch limo, with the driver staring at them. His name is Crabtree and he was referred by a Mr. Musgrave. He works for General Lydon, who has a proposal. I have to write all these names down because you never know when one of them is going to turn out to be important at the end of the episode. Holmes and Watson enter the limo, where Lydon and Miss Tompkins (his associate) are waiting. Lydon is a little twitchy; he's kind of acting like Robert Downey Jr.'s version of Sherlock Holmes. He says he owns eighteen patents and can do eleven pull-ups at age fifty-eight. But his problem is that he has dementia: Hereditary cerebral amyloid angiopathy. Watson translates this as "hereditary CAA," which seems like cheating. Anyone can sound smart if they just acronymize whatever they just heard. Lydon feels that someone has purposely given him this disease, even though it has "hereditary" right in the name. Watson points out that paranoia and delusions are symptoms of CAA. Holmes thinks the most likely explanation is that it's naturally occurring, so he won't take the case. He asks Crabtree to pull over.
Upstairs in the brownstone, Watson adds a book to a pile in the hallway. Downstairs, Holmes is pouring acid on a doll. Watson says she has no questions about her reading, although Jeremy Bentham -- as a philosopher -- has nothing to do with being a detective. Holmes says that free will is the cause of criminal behavior so Bentham is completely relevant. The door buzzes. It's Crabtree! He has a hexagonal box with a special bee in it. Holmes is very impressed by the bee, but he declines the offer. Crabtree says that he said Holmes would do that.
Later, Watson practices single-stick and complains. It looks like fun to whack people over the head. Gregson calls in with the news Lydon's been arrested for shooting Crabtree. And he'll only talk to Sherlock Holmes!
At the scene, Lydon says he can't remember what happened. But the nurse saw everything. Then Lydon's sons bust in and shout things, but they're not allowed far enough into the scene to make sense. When Holmes is alone with him, Lydon says he's having a hard time holding on to what's real. He doesn't know where he got his conviction that someone caused his dementia. "Help me!" he begs. Holmes glances at the Bee Hexagon. He goes downstairs and tells Watson they're taking the case. Off to the genetics lab! After taking the bee home!
The genetics lab ("Watt-Helix") has a lobby that looks like a living room, but with a sleek steel spiral staircase. And there's a very expensive portrait of the owner on the wall. Holmes and Watson are met by Raf Keating (the president) and Natasha Kademan (a geneticist). Holmes recognizes her for writing a neat article about criminal genes. Keating is surprised that Lydon thinks he was given CAA. Holmes asks if it's possible and Kademan admits that it might be possible. She says that there are "maybe seven people out there" capable of it. Holmes asks for their names and addresses.
Watson finds a note on her bedroom door. She comes down to hear Holmes speaking, I think, Dutch. He taped his dry cleaning receipt to her door because he has decided that she should be in charge of dry cleaning while he keeps the refrigerator clean. He was talking to someone in Norway, but I guess it could have been Dutch. No one ever said that people in Norway can only speak Norwegian. He was speaking to a Dr. Ingvald Moller (I bet there should be a slash through that O, but we see his name spelled out without it), who has a publicly funded lab, but he recently put a down payment on an expensive house. And it was cosigned by Carter Lydon. Perhaps Carter Lydon paid him off to find a way to poison his father! They could talk to Carter about this, but Holmes prefers to talk to scientists rather than businessmen. Plus, fjords and Scandinavian women. So they're going to Norway! Except they're not, really, and no further mention will be made of their plan to fly to Norway.
Holmes gets an anonymous text with a picture of a molecule. The message is "CAA can be induced. You are close to the thing itself." Holmes gets his copy of Natasha Kademan's monograph: The warrior gene is described "the thing itself". He texts back that he knows who sent the text, so they're summoned to the lab and given a door code.
Holmes and Watson enter the lab and find Kademan dead. For the record, I typed that before it happened. I'm a WIZARD! Either that or her death was pretty obvious.
Bell says it looks like someone's burglary was interrupted. Holmes disagrees, because that expensive portrait wasn't stolen. He thinks it's related to the Lydon case. Gregson says the Lydon case is closed. Holmes brings them up to speed, because no one else knows about this theory that he'd been infected with a hereditary disease. Holmes says Kademan made someone nervous enough to stab her. And the killer's blood is on the portrait. Why is that the killer's blood? Watson is put on the spot to explain: The blood on the floor suggests that she was facing away from the portrait. Holmes barely praises her, "Kudos, Watson. Adequately done." Kademan's fiancé comes in. He's also a geneticist and he thought they were going to ask him about Benny Cordero, who was one of the subjects for the Warrior Gene study. He was in jail for stabbing someone and recently got out.
Sitting on the floor of the brownstone, Holmes makes a model of the molecule that was sent to them in that text. The elements aren't labeled on the diagram, so he's really just playing with expensive tinker toys. Watson points out that they have a list of brilliant geneticists he could ask, but those are the suspects. So he doesn't want to go to them.
The morning, Watson disassembles a dinosaur that Holmes had apparently constructed. She also has the correct molecule, because she emailed her old genetics prof. It's a man-made chemical, which is a mutagen. The question is whether they prove that someone paid a genius to create it. Holmes stands weirdly and gets Watson to go pick up his dry cleaning. Swerve!
At the cleaners, Watson is ignored by the woman behind the counter, who speaks a foreign language and is watching television. Everything she says is translated into English by a bald guy wearing sunglasses. Watson notes a fur coat, then gets a text to meet at the police station. The woman claims the bill is $75, then drops it to $19. Watson asks for a receipt, but one is not forthcoming. That was odd,
At the police station, Benny is being interrogated by Gregson and Bell. He's mad about being called an incurable sociopath in Kademan's original paper. Also he denies killing her. From behind the interrogation mirror, Holmes says Benny is a blackmailer and a blackguard, but he's innocent. Bell tells Benny that they have his DNA on file since he's a felon. Then he and Gregson get texts saying "Sociopath but not killer" and "Innocent!" Then Holmes bangs on the mirror when they won't stop interrogating him. He insists that this crime is too elegant for this guy to do it. Bell still wants to run the DNA and Gregson mocks Holmes's theory. Holmes is off to prove the validity his crazy ideas.
A Lydon son thinks Holmes is wacky. He's also not sure he can give them access to the servers. Another Lydon walks in to report that Gerald Lydon (their father) was declared incompetent earlier today. So, he concludes, "Get out!" Watson makes up some nonsense about how they can't be fired without something in writing. Outside, Watson gloats that Carter chews his nails, and maybe he chews his pen, which she kept. But Holmes stole his comb. And he's carrying an evidence bag, which he recommends Watson start doing as well. The point is that they now have his DNA. Bell calls in. Benny Cordero's blood came back as a match. They're booking him for murder.
Benny swears it's not his blood. Bell gloats that they test a number of genetic markers. This is a bit of a giveaway, since this episode is all about DNA twiddling. Then Benny comes out with his alibi. He saw a husband and nanny across from his place. He was taking blackmail pictures with a zoom lens. Well, it's worth checking out, right?
Holmes left his sweaters outside Watson's room and he insists on them being taken back to Main Moon Dry Cleaning. He's certain Benny is innocent, because he has no connection with the Lydons and there was that text they got just before Kademan was murdered. Possibility One: Benny's blood could have been planted. So what's Possibility Two? Holmes admits, "Possibility Two has stubbornly refused to reveal itself."
The dry cleaner's. Watson brings in the sweaters. Watson establishes that the woman understands English, but she doesn't speak it. Watson notes that the fur coat is still where it was, suggesting that the rack hasn't been rotated at all. The translator explains, "She say slow day yesterday." And there are six expensive cameras and two more at door. The explanation for that is, "They came when we buy place. Problem?" Watson leaves.
Watson bursts in on Holmes, but he's in the middle of several video conferences at once. He gets a lot of use out of those six monitors/televisions. He assures he doesn't have some elaborate Dry Cleaner plan. He just likes clean sweaters! Anyway, he's talking to the Top Geneticists. The new possibility is that law enforcement tests only 13 loci, and that's so few that you could fake it. Holmes got a sample of the blood from the scene for "a full workup." The 13 loci matched, but there were no other loci in the sample. None? Like, it's not even blood? Well, whatever happened, only a geneticist could carry this out. There's no shortage of them in this episode, but only one pointed the police at Benny.
Gregson is with Kademan's fiancée Paul. He works for UVN Pharmaceutical, which has the top lab in the city. Bell threatens to get a court order to check out the equipment. But Paul's boss gave them access to the lab and their people are checking it out already. It's a good thing that genetics labs don't ever clean any of their equipment, huh? Holmes asks why he murdered his fiancée. The reason is that he has the warrior gene, which says he's a sociopath. Kademan pulled away when she found out. She was "moving on and stepping out," says Paul. With someone named Lincoln Dunwoody. Last Tuesday, she cancelled their date on his birthday. According to him, this has nothing to do with inducing CAA. "I don't even know what it stands for," he admits. And I believe him, because I've also forgotten.
The name "Lincoln Dunwoody" is all over the wall. Holmes stares at it while Watson tries to talk him down. Holmes says there's no one in New York with that name. But if it's two surnames, the Lincoln Family has a long history of philanthropy, as does the Dunwoody Trust. The head of Lincoln just went down with CAA. Weird coincidence, especially since his family has no history of this hereditary problem. How about Dunwoody? Well, a woman named Greta Dunwoody recently retired and there's no further information. But the Trust just donated 20 million to St. Bede's Hospital, which could be a clue.
A woman plays piano as Holmes and Watson enter. It's Mrs. Dunwoody. She asks, "You're not my son, are you?" This is the universal symbol of "old person with dementia." She says has to keep practicing piano if she wants to get into Juilliard. Holmes notes that she still has muscle memory, even though her brain has decayed.
Brownstone. Holmes is cleaning out the refrigerator, because he's done with the CAA thing. And he's doing a very thorough job of it, even scrubbing at the shelves with a teeny brush. He won't tell Watson the solution, instead saying, "You're a detective, you tell me." I like this twist on their relationship. If gives Watson something different to do. Haltingly, she says that Carter Lydon has no apparent motive to attack the other two victims, so he's provisionally in the clear. All three victims are all rich people with charitable foundations, so maybe the idea was to encourage the foundations to donate money to study hereditary CAA? So it would be the smartest person at the company that studies the disease the most. It's Brian Watt! Of Watt-Helix! That's the genetics lab from earlier. His portrait was up on the wall. See, I told you one of these random names was going to be important later in the episode!
Watt has been brought in for questioning. And he brought a lawyer, which is a good idea. Holmes says that Kademan thought someone was inducing dementia in rich people. The lawyer answers, "That's... shocking. I assume you have evidence?" He has some. But Brian Watt has a sterling reputation. Watson says Watt has hereditary CAA, which is why he hasn't said anything. The research wasn't going fast enough, so he hatched a plan to scare giant charities into donating more. If he's enough of a genius to find a way to rewrite DNA into having a new disease, he should have figured out a way to do it in reverse. Anyway, all the victims had procedures at Stuyvesant Memorial, so they figure he snuck some kind of serum into their IVs. There are detectives going to Watt's home to look for more of the dementia drug. The case is solved! But Lydon is probably still crazy for the rest of his life and he did kill Crabtree. Still, the CIA will probably be interested in this untraceable poison, right?
Watson comes back to the dry cleaner's and she brought Bell. She makes accusations about smuggling, human trafficking, etc. And Ball brought a warrant. The woman says things in foreign. Arrests are made!
Watson busts in to a room in the brownstone and announces, "I did it!" But Holmes wants to catch the bee that he somehow let out. He wants her to trust her own instincts: "A good detective knows that every task, every interaction, no matter how seemingly banal, has the potential to contain multitudes. I live my life alert to this possibility. I expect my colleagues to do the same." He looks triumphant. I quite like that he's calling her his colleague.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.
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