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Watson gets hired by her friend Jennifer to find the guy she had a one-night stand with a year ago. She's interested in the case because there's nothing else going on, but Holmes finds it incredibly boring. This turns out to be because instead of "Tony, the globetrotting photojournalist," Jennifer actually slept with "Sherlock Holmes, the weirdo who was trying to get information about his new sober companion Joan Watson." Holmes manages to make amends with Jennifer though the novel technique of sleeping with her again. Watson is not thrilled with any of this, but she briefly makes Holmes worried that he might be a new father.
To distract her from this situation, Holmes takes Watson to the morgue so he can look for corpses that might indicate a missed crime. Leo Banin died of a motorcycle crash, but his chest tattoo tells Holmes he was an assassin in the Bratva. You know, the Russian mob? And he had wounds on his hand from garroting someone to death. So all Holmes and Watson have to do is find his victim!
His wife is alive, so she's no help. There's a business associate he fought with who hasn't been seen in three days, but he turns up with a pile of cocaine, a couple of hookers and some money that Holmes takes away. The money is from a bank robbery in 2001, and it came from awesome everygoon Mike Starr. He's also alive, but he was recently threatened by someone Grigori Andrev of the Bratva. Upon careful investigation, Grigori turns out to be dead by garrote a block away from where Leo died. Now we're getting somewhere!
Holmes declares that Leo killed Grigori, who was trying to kill him, and then drove away as someone shot at him, which made him swerve into a minivan. He and Watson pressure Grigori's psychiatrist into telling the name of Marko Zubkov, Grigori's right-hand man. But Marko was in the hospital with leg injuries when someone was shooting at Leo. Luckily, he had a tourniquet made from the drapes in the Banin home, which means that Mrs. Banin saved him. So she was the one shooting at Leo, because she was working with the Bratva. That's what Holmes says, anyway, and who are you to argue with him?
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!A motorcycle lies on its side and a man with a head wound is on the ground to it. I'm pretty sure he died from a motorcycle accident. Mystery solved!
Whoops. There's still more show to come. Watson is at an outdoor market with her friend Jennifer, and she buys a platypus skull. There are places in New York where you can just walk up and buy platypus skulls? That's amazing! She tells Jennifer it's for Sherlock, who's been bored without a murder to solve. Jennifer hems and haws and eventually says she wants Watson and Holmes to try to track down a one-night-stand. His name is Tony and he's a photojournalist. He and Jennifer met at a bar, then went to a gallery opening before going back to her place. And he flew to Paris the morning without exchanging phone numbers. Watson thinks this sort of case is beneath Holmes, but Jennifer butters her up.
Brownstone. Sherlock describes the Photojournalist Tony Quest as a wild goose chase, but without the delicious wild goose at the end. It's not proper consulting detective work, and he'd rather work on a cold case. But Watson points out that he's been doing that for weeks, and all he's solved is the theft of a pennyfarthing bicycle and an old arson. Holmes has a plan to drum up something interesting.
They are at the morgue! I'm excited by that, because it means the morgue is going to be a recurring set. Holmes wants to poke at the corpses to see if maybe the police missed some foul play. An assistant medical examiner lets him in. Dr. Eugene Hawes lets them in and Holmes plays chess against him. The bet is Holmes's money against Dr. Hawes's corpses. There's some chess-based trash-talk, which I always think is fun.
After a few rejected bodies, Holmes pulls out Leo Banin, from the motorcycle accident at the beginning of the episode. Melissa Gwyer, driver of the minivan he crashed into, is also dead. Holmes notes a weird tattoo on Leo's chest, partially covered by road rash. Then he declares, "The day he died, he murdered someone else."
Gregson's office. Gregson complains about Holmes digging up a new murder, because the police have enough to do. Watson explains that Leo Banin was a professional hitman. Holmes points to the star tattoo, which marks him as a member of the Bratva, the Russian Mob. Hey, the Bratva is also on Arrow! Leo's original name was Vitaly Andropov and Interpol wants him for a bunch of killings in Poland going back to 2005. Holmes's evidence is the straight cuts on his hands, which wouldn't have been caused by the accident because he was wearing motorcycle gloves. Holmes concludes that he had raw wounds from garroting someone, which is the way he killed people back in Warsaw. But Gregson doesn't want to investigate until Holmes digs up a garroted corpse, so that's going to take up most of the episode.
Holmes and Watson start with Mrs. Banin. She knew Leo came to America get away from Poland, but she can't believe he was a killer. She calls him Leo, not Vitaly, and says he was a wonderful man. He called her an hour before the accident to say he loved her. He gave her a necklace and they met at a church. In her opining, finding God changed him. Watson observes a medical administration degree that Leo earned a year ago. He was going to open a senior care center. Holmes talks about what happens "when the one you love is revealed to have a dark heart." He's all about making the cases all about himself. He predicts she'll feel anger soon and suggests that helping find whoever her husband killed will help repair her. She can't help.
Brownstone again. Holmes (using an extremely silly American accent) leaves a message for Travis Hardwick, who claims to be the best builder in Queens. He explains to Watson that 76% of all victims know their assailants, and Leo seemed to have stopped being a professional assassin, so he probably killed a friend. Holmes stole all of Mrs. Banin's condolence cards to look for a missing one. That doesn't make a lot of sense, because he doesn't have a list of people who should have sent them. But he started with the partners in Leo's plan to build a senior care center. And all but one of them sent a card. The one who didn't was Travis. Hardwick, and he seems to have vanished. Watson is going to go to the bar where Jennifer met Tony. Holmes thinks she should have hired a gigolo, not a detective.
The bar. Watson asks for whiskey, neat. The bartender has been working here since birth. He cheerfully mocks Watson for asking about someone who was in the bar a year ago. She gets a text from Sherlock to come back to the A-story. But as she's leaving, she spots a poster for Brazilian Day. The bar is in Little Brazil and half the parade ends up in there.
Holmes is watching security footage at Travis Hardwick's construction firm. He sees Leo follows Travis to his truck. Holmes opens the desk and pulls out a girlie mag, which the secretary complains about. Then she says he sent her a text saying he was going to Jersey. Holmes doesn't think so. The footage has no sound, so Holmes reads Travis's lips: "Pouring the concrete today." Freshly poured concrete would be a good place to dump a body, one would think.
A construction area. Holmes thinks a senior care facility run by a former assassin would have been neat to see. Yeah, I'd watch that show. Travis's truck is still here. Watson talks about digging into the concrete, but Holmes doesn't want to. She sees a darker patch of concrete and starts speculating about concrete being poured at a different time. Holmes spots a ticket in the truck and calls off the search. We see a hotel door.
Holmes bangs on the door of Room 111. Travis has two hookers in there. I like the neon heart on the wall. It's the perfect balance of tacky and romantic. But after the hookers leave and Travis verifies that they're not cops, we see a marble wall, so it's a classier hotel than I thought. Holmes just wants to know about Leo. He explains that he saw a concert ticket from after the discussion with Leo and that there were no tire tracks showing that the truck hadn't gone anywhere. So here Travis is, surrounded by cocaine and underwhelming hookers. Travis says the discussion was about running out of money. Leo gave Travis 25K he got from a loan shark, so Travis went off to party with it. That's unprofessional behavior, Travis. Holmes takes the money and they leave. But Travis gets to keep the pile of cocaine, so the day won't be a total waste.
Police station. Holmes is confident the money was stolen, so Bell is reading out the serial numbers to someone. Holmes says $20 bills don't last more than four or five years, but these are all twelve-plus. And loan sharks have a lot of currency turnover, so the odds are very low these bills have been in circulation. Bell says the money was stolen in 2001 and the gang that did it is locked up. Feds think Russell Gertz had the money. He was arrested twice for moneylending, but never indicted. There's no current address because he's hiding from parking summonses.
Brownstone. That's where we cut to when we have to reset. Holmes declares himself smarter than the city marshals who are supposed to be looking for Gertz. Gertz has a sister with a surprisingly successful phony nail salon, which Holmes believes Gertz is funding so he has a place to hide. But Watson is working on her case. Jennifer met Tony on Labor Day weekend at the Brazilian Day parade. So there's news footage of the parade and party and she got a bunch of B-roll to watch. Holmes turns it off and insists that Russell Gertz's nail salon awaits. She turns on the television back on. Holmes admits that Tony was him, and backs up his claim with knowledge of Jennifer's beauty mark. Mystery solved! He explains that when Watson first because his sober companion, he followed her whenever she left. And one time she talked to Jennifer. He contacted Jennifer to learn about Watson, but Jennifer seduced him instead. He claims it wasn't a breach of trust because Watson was new. And he apologizes. Watson is mad that she was wasting her time. Holmes redirects the discussion to the nail salon. Neither of them seem to care that Holmes really should not have been sneaking off to a bar right after getting out of rehab, even if he didn't have any drinks.
When Holmes and Watson get there, Mr. Gertz is lounging around in the empty nail salon. And he's Mike Starr! I love Mike Starr! He's been a mobster or goon in a million things. Gertz has a bruised arm, but no neck marks. He denies knowing anything about loaning anyone $25,000, and Holmes notes the locked and unplugged autoclave. Holmes makes a deal, and Gertz reluctantly gives up the information. Leo took care of his mom when she got old. He hated Gertz for his job, but he needed $50,000 for his senior care center. Gertz loaned him 25K for being nice to his mom. And what about his arm bruise? "I fell. I have vertigo." That doesn't fly. He admits that he got a visit from Grigori Andrev of the Bratva. Grigori knew he'd loaned Leo money and he wanted to track Leo down. Grigori threatened to break Gertz's arm and Gertz gave up what Grigori already knew: Leo's home address and phone. Boy, for someone in his line of work, Gertz is not good at keeping secrets. Holmes leaves. He calls Bell, but not about Gertz. He thinks Leo's death right after someone from the Bratva was hunting him might not be a coincidence.
The accident scene. Gregson gets there after like fifteen more cops. Bell briefs him on the story so far. Holmes found cheap cigarettes from Moscow, and there are .45 casings on the ground. Holmes says motorcycle tracks show Leo escaping a gunman. All this stuff is from a block away from the accident that killed Leo, which is why the original investigators found nothing. There are bullet holes in a fence and telephone pole backing up the theory that someone was shooting at Leo as he rode away. Holmes says the shots made Leo swerve into a minivan. Bell puts out a call for Grigori, who's now wanted for two wrongful deaths: Leo and the minivan driver.
But then someone finds Grigori. He was strangled and dumped in a ravine over here. So who was shooting at Leo Banin? And did he strangle Grigori without gloves on, then put on gloves, and then desperately drive away as quickly as possible? He wasn't wearing a helmet when he was found, so he couldn't have been that interested in safety. No one asks those questions, because I think the show forgot about the gloves.
The evidence room at the police station. Holmes is staring at a crazy-person wall and is listening to a YouTube video of bees. He explains to Gregson that changing your angle can help reach new insights. Really, I think he just likes to set up his collages in new places because he has an unexplored artistic streak. Gregson contacted Warsaw. Apparently Leo stole 100,000 zlotys from the Bratva, which is $30,000 USD. The ballistics say the slugs in the telephone pole match bullets found in someone who was murdered before testifying in a RICO case. The shots caused the crash, so they must have been after Grigori's death, which means someone else was shooting at him, although the shots went wide.
Watson is with Bell, visiting Mrs. Banin. Mrs. Banin finds it hard to believe that Leo killed someone. She couldn't forgive Leo for abandoning their faith, but Watson says the killing was in self-defense, which she finds as a relief.
Holmes gets a call from Dr. Hawes. The garrote wound suggests ear bud wire. And the toxicology report says that the victim had precise heart and anti-anxiety medications, suggesting professional management. Dawes suggests that Holmes should contact the psychiatrist.
Dr. Glassman's name was on the Fluoxetine prescription, but he's busy so Watson and Holmes are cooling their heels in the waiting room. Watson texts Jennifer and Holmes suggests that maybe Tony the photojournalist died doing something heroic. The receptionist says Glassman has a patient appointment in five minutes, so Holmes loudly claims he's about to commit suicide. She doesn't buy it, but she's required by law to take him back to see the doctor.
Dr. Glassman is unimpressed with Holmes's tactics, and he won't talk about the Bratva because of doctor-patient confidentiality. But Grigori is dead, and Watson tells him he has an obligation to waive privilege in this case. He didn't want to treat Grigori, but he was afraid to cut ties once he learned who he was. Grigori was very careful, but he occasionally mentioned Marko Zubkov, who may have been Grigori's right hand. Okay, then!
A lot of police are amassed in the street to talk to Zubkov, because he's just that dangerous. His daughter Sasha answers the door for Bell, and they're allowed to walk right in. Marko is on his couch with his legs under a blanket. The doctors say he's not supposed to walk, and there are bandages on his legs. He was in a hospital Sunday night (when Leo died) because he was mugged Saturday night. He assures the police that he was there the whole time. I imagine when you're a professional killer, you treasure a legitimate alibi when it comes along.
Holmes is browsing mug shots on his computer. Watson comes back from the hospital, which verified Zubkov's story. He checked in with a tourniquet on his leg claiming he'd been mugged and didn't check out until much later. There are pictures of his state when he got to the hospital, and the stab wounds on his leg they support his claim of being very injured at the time. Holmes is not confident in these mug shots, because there are a lot of them and they only cover the Bratva members that the police know about. Also he doesn't know what he's looking for. Getting back to the other plot, Watson doesn't want to lie to Jennifer about "Tony" being dead. Holmes thinks it would avoid shame and heartbreak. Watson says that Zubkov couldn't have snuck out of the hospital without starting up his bleeding or without being seen. Holmes isn't convinced and comes over to look at the pictures himself. The picture of the tourniquet makes Holmes suggest that there was another attempt on Leo's life.
Mrs. Banin is in the police meeting room. Holmes shows her a picture of a Marko and asks if it's a man and if he has a nose. She says yes to both questions, and Marko stands up in the room. That was odd. Holmes says Marko Zubkov came to their house to kill Leo, but Leo fought him off. And Mrs. Banin made a tourniquet from the drapes, saving his life. Watson says the call (which Mrs. Banin claimed was to tell her he loved her) was to meet him in Far Rockaway, so she contacted Grigori and told him where Leo was. Holmes thinks she was shocked to see her husband in action as a hit man, and she shot at him as he drove away. She denies knowing who Marko is, and Holmes asks if she won't mind that he just saw her pointing at the picture and nodding in response to questions. Gregson got a warrant and searched her home. There were bloodstains on the carpet and bullet holes in the wall, covered with newly hung pictures. She says the mobsters cleaned the place themselves, but Gregson thinks she'd notice new things being hung on her wall. He wants her to give up Zubkov.
She confesses: "Leo had his secrets but I knew enough. I forgave." But she went to the church where they met because she did "movies" to make enough money to come to America. When Leo found out, he asked for a divorce. All their money was in the nursing home, so she'd end up with nothing. She knew there was a price on his head, so she called the Bratva. So that explains everything! Or does it? This case had a lot of extra people and twists in it.
At a cafe, Watson sits down with Jennifer, who immediately says that Sherlock confessed to everything and made it clear that Watson was not involved. Well, that should make Watson's day easier! Jennifer's impressed that Watson found the footage (giving her credit for solving the case), and now she has closure! Watson says, "It happened again. You slept with him!" Jennifer denies it, badly. Then she explains, "He just was so sweet about everything!" Now she knows it was totally superficial and he's out of her system. Watson does not seem to find this resolution to be entirely satisfying.
When Watson returns home to the Brownstone, Holmes is practicing single-stick combat and praising the value of honesty. Watson claims that she's glad he had sex with Jennifer because now she can finally have a baby, and he almost buys it.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.