Review: Elementary 2x05 "Ancient History"

Original Airdate: Oct. 24, 2013

I’m a fan of this week’s episode.  It was fun having a backwards and at one point an even sideways case.  Sherlock is bored.  He hasn't had an interesting case for awhile now and his search through old cold case files has come up empty.  So of course he goes to the morgue and looks through the corpses hoping to find something that the medical examiner might have overlooked. 

There he finds the body of a man killed in a motorcycle accident, but things are not as they seem.  Upon analysis of the body Sherlock is able to determine that the man, Leo Banin aka Vitaly, is a retired hitman and had in fact murdered someone prior to his death.  Captain Gregson can’t categorize it as a murder till they find a victim so the detective duo set out in search of a dead body.  Inciting such amazing quotes from Sherlock such as “Travis, you’re alive; how unfortunate.” as well as “Alive, again. Why can’t anyone be dead today?”  In the end they discover that it was Banin’s wife who had hired a few of his old colleagues to murder him and when that failed she caused his motorcycle accident.

All the while Joan does a favor for her friend, Jen, and attempts to track down a one-night stand from about a year ago.  Plot twist: It’s Sherlock.  When Joan had first become Sherlock’s sober companion about a year ago he would follow her in his spare time.  On one of these excursions he met her friend Jen and they got to talking and then the obvious happened. 

Favorite bits from the episode?

• Joan buying Sherlock a gift because he’s bored.  She brings him a little platypus skull.
• Sherlock listening to the sounds of bees as he reviews the case files.
• Sherlock’s speech about finding out that the person you love has a dark heart.  Just everything about this scene.  It was heartbreaking and I love it best when Sherlock lets his guard down.  This is feels like definite setup for a return of Jamie Moriarty and I can't be more thrilled.  I love Natalie Dormer and will be counting down till we can see her again. 
• Sherlock helping Joan into her bullet proof vest.  I just like it when he does gentlemanly things for her and she just lets him. 
• Joan pranking Sherlock after discovering that he had slept with Jen a second time.  She almost had him there.

In conclusion: Sherlock is not a photojournalist named Tony and he’s not dead.  They both acknowledge that they have a special bond now “we didn't have this! You were new” and I want to raid Joan’s shoe collection.