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There's a blizzard! And it's not being used to trap everybody in one small location, which may be a television first. Instead, Holmes has to use techniques other than his precious mobile phone, although that might be an excuse to get him to pick up a magnifying glass. And I'm okay with that, because I like a Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass once in a while, you know?
The case starts with a security guard being shot so some robbers can steal two hundred cell phones before they go on sale. But that isn't even what they were after! They really wanted to break into an architecture firm and steal some blueprints. Holmes establishes that they needed the blueprints to break into a federal reserve station out in New Jersey. The robbers programmed the machines to automatically sort money, which normally sends worn bills out to the shredder. But they swapped in counterfeit money, so they made off with $33,000,000. Clever! The police have someone in custody from the initial theft, but she won't give anything away.
Holmes and Watson get out to Jersey by catching a ride with a snowplow operator named Pam, but the money's already been stolen. Holmes determines that the money is in an ambulance somewhere, but the ambulance has somehow vanished. But how could it have gotten out of town with so many roads being blocked by the blizzard? The answer is that they had someone on the inside: the FEMA person who was running all the police response. Once that's been deduced, all the NYPD has to do is stage a fake riot to trick their prisoner into giving away the double agent!
And a new character has been added: Miss Hudson! She's been acting as a muse for artists, which mostly translated into being kept in apartments by rich men who want time away from their wives. But that's over with, so until she finds something new, she'll be cleaning Holmes and Watson's apartment once a week. She also organizes Holmes's books, but she does it so well he can't find anything to complain about.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!A security guard reads Eli Manning: Rise to Greatness while the television news warns about an incoming snowstorm. I can tell you right now that only one of those two facts is important to the episode. Eli Manning does not feature into this episode. The snowstorm, however, will be a Nor'Easter combined with a hurricane. The guard looks up from his book because a woman is on the ground outside, calling for help. He runs outside and she says, "He mugged me." The guard helps her in, and then she pulls a gun and tells him she doesn't want to hurt him. "Just open the door," she says. He does and then she shoots him. Hey! She lied! She lets her two accomplices in, and they drag the guard out of sight. Which is a good idea because this is a building where the whole front wall is glass. The intruders go to the stairs. But! The guard isn't dead yet! He has enough to energy to roll over, grab his gun and shoot at them.
Watson arrives home at the brownstone with bottled water, batteries and soup. You know, all the usual emergency supplies. And there's a woman in the living room! Her name, she says, is Miss Hudson. She's not a new client, but she's a friend of Holmes with a problem. She asks for some tea, specifically White Darjeeling, which seems like a very Sherlock Holmes-appropriate choice. Although the only canonical reference I can find to Darjeeling is actually about the city in India.
Watson joins Holmes in the kitchen. Holmes says Miss Watson is an autodidact (a self-taught person) who has consulted with him. She knows everything about Ancient Greek and other topics and currently works as a muse. Watson is skeptical that "muse" is an actual job, but apparently Miss Hudson spends time being romantically linked with artists with creative block. Also, she has an Adam's apple. Holmes doesn't care: "All rather complicated I imagine. But life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind of man could invent."
Really briefly: I love that Elementary is so casual about Miss Hudson being a transgender woman. This is the only reference to it, and after this she's just cheerfully accepted for who she is. She's being played by Candis Cayne, who is also a transgender woman. I think the acceptance being shown here is a really important moment for television, but I also think that what's so important about it is how little importance the show itself is putting on the moment, if you see what I mean. So I wanted to point it out, but I also don't want to dwell on it. Because from now on, she's just Miss Hudson.
So! Watson would like to know why Miss Hudson is here. Holmes explains that she's recovering from a romantic problem and has been evicted now that her artist's wife has found out about her. "Muse" now turns out to have been code for "kept woman." And Miss Hudson will be staying at the brownstone for now, which Watson objects to on the grounds that she should have been asked. I'm not sure I fully agree. She's correct that roommates should be informed, but it's technically Holmes's place. Then Gregson texts them, so the game's afoot.
Holmes and Watson get to the scene of the crime quickly, since the L train is still running. I like that they used the phrase "still running," because it helps establish that the storm is definitely coming. The dead security guard's name was Frank Dempster. He'd been dead about three hours when the morning shift found him, and the security footage was gone. Holmes says Dempster let the bad guys in and was shot. The police already knew that. Then Holmes stands to some blood on the wall and waits for Watson to catch up. She realizes Dempster shot a bad guy. She adds, "A through-and-through like that would require medical attention." Bell says they've already got a call out to the local hospitals.
Bell explains that the thieves went upstairs to an electronics store and stole a new phone called a "Toshiwo Verzia 8" that wasn't supposed to come out for another day or so. They got the floor models and two hundred more from the back. Holmes finds a synthetic hair from a cheap blonde wig, so he concludes there was a woman involved. He also thinks the presence of a wig means that they weren't planning to kill the guard. His logic is that there's no point using a disguise if you're not leaving any witnesses. He seems to be wrong about that, since they killed the guard right away. Also, it seems like a good policy to always have some sort of disguise when you're on a caper. You never know if there's an extra witness or something. And he says there were at least two accomplices because someone who's been shot through the stomach isn't going to be moving a lot of boxes. Also, probably a driver outside. Holmes thinks this is a pretty straightforward, since when they find the phones, they'll have the killers. So he doesn't really need to be involved at this point. Then the lights go out. The whole block is blacked out! Holmes comments "Well if I have to solve this in the Stone Age, I suppose it might be interesting after all."
The police station is on backup power. Denise Caster of FEMA is here to tell everyone the plan with regard to rapid response and emergency services and all that. She establishes that in a few hours, the storm is going to destroy everything. And the power is not coming back until after the storm, so people are supposed to only plug in essentials. Holmes, for example, is recharging his phone to surf Instagram. Bell tells Holmes and Watson he's on rapid response, but he has some information for them first. They can't track the GPS on the phones because the New York office is down. Holmes opinion on the GPS plan is, "Good idea. But really unnecessary. Good idea nonetheless." Because he has found an Instagram picture of one of the phones being sold ahead of time. Holmes can tell it's Columbus Park by the shadow on the phone matching up to the curvature of a building in the area.
Columbus Circle. There is some swirling snow and a line of people waiting to purchase stolen phones from a homeless fellow. Holmes breaks up the line and sits down with the guy, who claims he found them at a bakery on B street. He was just hanging out when they were suddenly thrown in the dumpster. Holmes gives him a wad of cash and recommends getting a room tonight. Then he and Watson leave because Holmes thinks the phones are just a distraction. He just leaves the phones there, which the people of Toshiwa probably aren't thrilled about. Back to the Flatiron building! I've noticed that television shows are very fond of putting things in the Flatiron building. I think the Smash rehearsal space is in there somewhere.
Back to the scene of the crime. Holmes is studying the room, ignoring the radio warnings because they're for "citizens." He finds a magnifying glass on the security desk and uses it to examine a lock because that's the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes does. Watson asks if he has an app for that, which he probably does. Holmes claims that he's saving power, but I think he just likes using a real magnifying glass. He shows Watson that the doors to the stairs have some small scratches suggesting that the lock has been picked. So the phones were stolen to distract people while they went upstairs and did... something. Holmes picks the lock to follow the trail.
Up on the twelfth floor, there's more snow falling out the window. I like that the snowfall has increased since the Columbus Circle scene. Holmes finds a door with more lockpick scratches. It's an architectural firm. And someone is in there! Holmes says they're the police, but not really. Then he claims Watson holds several black belts, which makes Watson glare at him.
Holmes's nonsense has gotten them into the architectural firm. The guy who's in there is an employee who appears to be sleeping there when the place is closed. That's Holmes's allegation, anyway, and it seems to be accurate enough to scare the guy into letting Holmes look through files and stuff. He finds an empty drawer, which means the thieves stole some blueprints. There's an electronic backup, but the power's still out. So Holmes makes the guy show him where the corresponding plumbing and electrical schematics are, so that way he'll know what buildings were in the stack of blueprints that were stolen.
Back to the brownstone, where Watson is having trouble making a fire. Miss Hudson demonstrates how to make a teepee out of kindling. A Mr. Davis is calling, but Miss Hudson isn't interested because he'll just want to stick her in a tiny apartment. Mr. Davis is Miss Hudson's most recent gentleman. The fire starts very nicely, making me want to have a fire. Now Mr. Davis is banging on the door. He wants to come in and shouts the usual stuff about how he'll leave his wife, baby, he swears. Watson goes upstairs, where Holmes is in a tent with some heated rocks. He's looking through the electrical schematics on the theory that one of the blueprints that was stolen must match up to the target for the thieves. But they're all boring places like Baby Gap. Then he hurts his hand on a hot rock.
The morning, Holmes tells Watson to get up and put on layers so they can get out in the blizzard. She's not delighted by this plan, even though Holmes is willing to turn his back until she's done. For the rest of the scene, she's putting clothes on underneath her blankets. Holmes says that Miss Hudson is almost done with her Mr. Davis drama and should wrap it up in about thirty minutes. More to the point, he's decided that the target is a classified government building. The architectural firm got some special blueprints because they put in a bid for something. They're going to EROC: the East Rutherford Operations Center. It's a cash depository for the New York branch of the Federal Reserve, and they're going to strike under cover of blizzard. If they're so clever, how come they didn't just take a picture of the blueprints instead of stealing the physical copy? That seems like it's unnecessarily leaving evidence behind.
Downstairs, Holmes explains why he can't just call the police and have them deal with it. He lost cell service at 3 AM, the land line is down, and he's using his CB radio parts for something else. So they're on their own against a pack of known murderers! "It's a long trek to East Rutherford" says Holmes. And they walk out into the blizzard. There's a lot more snow than there used to be.
Eventually they come upon a snowplow, so Holmes knocks on the window. He tells the driver (Becky Ann Baker!) that they're working with the New York Police Department on a potential heist in East Rutherford and asks to be let into the cab. She asks why he's helping with something in Jersey. But she lets them into the cab, which is the important thing. Then she regrets it immediately as Holmes turns off the radio she was listening to. He asks her to use the CB to relay a message to the NYPD. This lets us know two pieces of information: She's in Greenpoints and her CB handle is "Pam." I watched Archer immediately before this episode, so just the name "Pam" is enough to make me laugh. Sherlock is not put through directly to Gregson because of the storm. He deadpans, "A storm, you say. We'll be on the lookout." Then he dictates a very clear message. The step is to go to EROC. And after that? "I don't know what's going to happen . That's why it's an adventure!" Holmes tells Pam to take them to East Rutherford. She declines and tells him to get out. So he offers her some money.
Bell comes to a hospital, looking for gunshot victims. A nurse (or doctor or janitor, maybe. I don't know!) named Vince says there hasn't been a gunshot victim in two weeks. Bell asks him to look for anyone that had any kind of wound all the way through the abdomen, on the theory that maybe they didn't just walk into the hospital and announce that they got shot. So Vince looks at the Patient Directory, which fills a whole screen. I see no obvious jokes or references here. Vince picks out Alysa Darvin, who's here for a stab wound. Bell goes in to ask her some questions. She's leaving early, supposedly because of her health insurance. "I'm all stitched up," she says. She asks if the police have found the mugger who stabbed her. Bell asks if it's okay if he looks at her chart. "Two lacerations," he notes. "Ouch." She says a guy with a beard attacked her. Bell spots a blonde hair on her coat. He holds it under a light to see that it breaks, proving that it's synthetic. He asks her, "What hurt worse? Getting shot or letting your friend stab you to disguise the wound." She's under arrest. So that blonde wig led directly to her getting caught? I guess it's not always a good idea to wear a disguise.
Snowplow Driver Pam asks what Holmes's deal is, since he's not really a cop. Holmes is snippy about not wanting small talk, given that he paid for the ride. Watson explains that they're consultants. Her phone has a bar, so she tries calling home. Their number is out of service. She concludes that Holmes didn't pay the phone bill. He points out that a land line is nearly obsolete at this point. And anyway, he asks, why didn't she call the police station instead of home? They squabble about Miss Hudson being lost and needing help. Watson has immediately started worrying about Miss Hudson, but I think that's in character for her.
They arrive at EROC. Holmes congratulates Pam on her good work. The security guards at the front gate are cheerfully skeptical about the need for a snow plow way out here.
At the NYPD police station, Bell has Alysa in the interrogation chamber. Looks like he found a way to get off the emergency response detail! He puts a piece of plastic on her palms and tells her they can't run the tests on the machines right now. So she has time to confess before they establish who she is. She tells him to shut up. Good one! Gregson comes in and hands Bell a note that says "Fairly certain E.R.O.C. will be robbed today. Connected to security guard murder. -Sherlock Holmes." See, I told you Holmes dictated a very clear message. When he wants to be, Holmes can be quite precise. Gregson asks Alysa about EROC, and her expression changes a tiny bit.
Holmes and Watson are let in to a control room by a man in suit. I didn't notice Pam, but I'd like to think they didn't just make her stay in the plow. The guy in charge says that even consultants with the NYPD will not be allowed all the way onto the floor. Then he starts spewing exposition, so I assume he's the guy in charge of giving tours: "It's all commanded remotely from rooms like these. There's no way. No chance you could get in to our vault directly. Hmm." That's an interesting time to say "Hmm." Apparently an automated sort has just finished, and he didn't know they were doing a sort today. But he's not disturbed by an unexpected sort happening right when people come to the door warning of a robbery. Normally, when a sort is finished, money that's too worn gets shredded, so Holmes would like to see wear the shredded money goes. That's apparently allowable, so they get to look at some bales of shredded currency. Holmes tastes the money. Watson says it's paper, not cotton. Johnny EROC protests, "That's not possible!" Holmes ripostes, "Well you be sure and mention that in your exit interview." So the thieves stole 33 million dollars and left almost no trace that it even happened. See, I told you they shouldn't have stolen the physical blueprints. Now Holmes has to find them!
Holmes takes Watson to a remote EROC entrance to prove it was the point of ingress and egress. There are indeed more lock pick scratches. Thieves, I advise you to find a less scratchy way of picking locks. Watson spots some cigarette butts on the ground, but they don't matter. Holmes admires the ingenuity of the whole heist and says that if they hadn't murdered someone, he'd consider letting them get away with it. He studies some tire tracks in the snow and announces that it was less than thirty minutes ago and they left in an American ambulance. Watson says the driver had a lazy eye, the other two were basketball players and one had canine lupus. But she's just doing that out of spite to show how annoying it is when someone knows something impossible. Holmes shows that the tracks mean that the truck's front tires were on a smaller axle. And the only trucks like that in America are ambulances or some U-Hauls, and an ambulance seems like a better way to get through the city unnoticed. Hey, it worked in Cannonball Run.
Police station. Bell has discovered that Alysa is really Elle Bartan and that she has lots of passports. Bell asks if the reason she won't talk is that she's married to the guy who shot her. Gregson says she'll eat the murder charge alone if she doesn't roll on the rest of her crew. She says, "You will never find my husband." They get a message from Sherlock that EROC's already been robbed. Elle (formerly Alysa) smiles a little. Very little. So little that I might be imagining it.
The power seems to be back! Gregson tells Holmes Elle has four tickets out of BWI. Holmes figures they'll have to unload the cash somewhere, since it's not like you want to bring $33,000,000 in small bills on a commercial flight. They did get a burner phone from Elle. She mostly called friends and family. But she also made a couple of calls to the director of thoroughbred racing at Oak Knoll, a Joseph Laseur. Holmes concludes they'll be laundering the money with Mr. Laseur, since who wants a bunch of bills that were so worn out they got rejected?
The snow has stopped and covers everything. Bell, Holmes and Watson are in a car across from Laseur's house. Laseur goes out and in. Holmes wants to chat with Watson about where the phrase "stake-out" comes from. But we're saved from that because an ambulance comes up and parks at Laseur's place. Two EMTs go up to the door. Bell tells everyone to wait until they see actual money. But a cop thinks an EMT made him, and they pounce. The EMTs stand there politely at the door as the police run up. They're taken down. The EMT says they got a non-emergency call to the address. Bell shouts, "You tellin' me you don't have thirty-three million dollars in the back of that ambulance?" The EMT answers, "What? Of course not!" That's a valid answer. And when Bell looks in the ambulance, there does not appear to be a huge pile of loot. Holmes says they've been duped.
Pam takes them back to the brownstone. Watson wonders if Mr. Davis is shacked up with Miss Hudson. Pam says it was a fun day and gives them her card, in case they need any other plowing done. I think it's weird that she was just sitting there waiting for instructions. I'm not in charge of a city or anything, but I feel like if Manhattan is going to be paralyzed by snow, I'd want all the snow plows on the job.
Inside the brownstone, there's a blazing fire in the fireplace. Or so it appears because it's behind the enormous banner for my local news. Miss Hudson has cleaned the place up and set out some lovely candles. Holmes is distressed and asks how the books are arranged. She answers, "By subject matter, then by author. You start with hard sciences on the north wall and then you move clockwise around the room in descending order of academic rigor. That way Physics by Aristotle is as far away from You Can Learn Telepathy by Morton Zuckerman as possible." That's pretty good. Holmes admits it's reasonable. And she's stacked the monographs by Holmes on his desk. He goes off to look and probably to sulk about not being able to complain. Miss Hudson to Watson explains that her OCD flares up after a breakup. Yes, she's not with Mr. Davis anymore. She's considering not being a kept woman anymore.
Later, Holmes is trying to figure out where the money went. Clyde the turtle is being an ambulance on a map. Padlocks represent road closures and emergency checkpoints. They know one spot where the money-filled ambulance was spotted ignoring a traffic accident, but after that it seems to have vanished. The thieves may have known they were being watched? They made a fake call to get a real ambulance to the place the copes were watching and they went... somewhere. Where? How? Watson likes the locks as a good visual metaphor for impassable streets. Watson suggests that maybe the checkpoints and road closures weren't there when the ambulance drove through. I think they should maybe be working on Laseur because it still seems like he was involved.
Police station. The ambulance is now represented by a stapler, and Holmes is ready to present his theory. Watson has a copy of the storm's dispatch log, which is probably pretty big. There are examples of people at checkpoints being recalled to different places. And some of those are no doubt legitimate, but there are also some specific cases that add up to an escape route for the ambulance. Gregson doesn't like the idea of a high-level criminal inside the police station, which is the only way all these moves could have been made. Holmes mentions Miss Caster, the FEMA agent from earlier. She's paid the same amount as the postmaster of Sheboygan, WI, and maybe she'd prefer millions of dollars. Holmes suggests that Elle is reluctant to confess because she's hoping that she can cash in her bargaining chip: knowledge of a high-level mole. And maybe she thinks her mole can get her out of this, which is why she's not scared.
In the interrogation chamber, Bell asks Elle if she knows what a mass spectrometer. No answer. He says that it's the thing that just ruined her life. That's pretty vague, and I don't think it had the snappy impact he was hoping for. The thing he's trying to get at is that she has gunshot residue all over her right palm. So unless she gives up her partners, she's going away for life. It's a good thing for Bell that Elle was the one who did the shooting. Just then! The lights flicker. He says they're closing the roads to move her. There's shouting out in the hallway. Gregson leans in to tell Bell (and Elle) that somebody's been stabbed in a holding cell. Everyone has to go help, so Elle is left alone. Bell and Gregson have a little discussion about how the chamber is locked from the outside, so surely Elle couldn't escape. Watching through the glass, Holmes tells Watson that Bell has turned out to be a pretty good actor. Elle looks around as everyone in the hallways makes noise by banging things together. Miss Caster sits awkwardly in the police station, not knowing it's all fake. Then she takes her jacket off and walks into the chamber: "Not a word. Follow me." Holmes tells Gregson the collaborators are on the way out. Gregson warns everyone they can't take them down for escape until they leave the floor. Really? So they don't mind if you sneak out of your cell as long as you don't go downstairs? Anyway as Caster and Elle head down the stairs, they run into Bell and some cops. Zing!
Holmes spatters red paint on the floor of the brownstone. Watson says their prisoners turned on their partners and the cash has been recovered. Pam is outside and is waiting to give Miss Hudson a ride to her new place. I'm worried for a second that Miss Hudson won't be a regular, but she'll be coming back to clean the place on a weekly basis. Holmes tells Watson to come back in a few minutes with a blindfold when the bloodstains will be ready. She seems a little giddy as she leaves the room.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.