"Dead Clade Walking" is the
Scooby-Doo episode of
Elementary. The best part of the episode is the tiny dinosaur, but there is also a nice bit of character development involving Sherlock's (Jonny Lee Miller) sponsorship work.
The episode starts off with Sherlock attempting to drill into a skull. He is interrupted by a text message from Randy (Stephen Tyrone Williams), the drug addict he is sponsoring.
On the way out, he meets Gay (Ashlie Atkinson).
Before Sherlock leaves, Watson (Lucy Liu) tells him about a case file she had been checking out. The file is from the time when Sherlock was continuously high, and it is therefore incomprehensible. Watson makes out enough of it to know that there is a rock she should be checking out in the backyard of a murder victim named Doug.
Watson takes Gay, a geologist, to check it out while Sherlock meets with Randy. The rock contains a Nanotyrannus dinosaur fossil.
Meanwhile, Randy is having trouble because his drug addict girlfriend wants to see him. Sherlock knows the girlfriend will drag Randy down, but Randy has trouble believing it. Consequently, he texts Sherlock numerous times throughout the day while he's trying to work.
Watson does much of the work on her own while Sherlock is off helping Randy. She finds that there may be a smuggling ring involving ice cream trucks. During a stakeout with Gregson (Aidan Quinn), they witness a deal going down in which a great deal of money changes hands for "winter ice cream." It's actually payment for illegal cigars.
The smuggler seems confused. He confesses to delivering the rock, but not his buddy Doug. Later, the rock is stolen out of evidence.
Sherlock believes that C, his dirty-talkin elderly pen-pal, can help with the case, as she's an executive at a top auction house. She says that someone who goes by the nickname Magpie could have something to do with it, but she has no way of contacting him. You have to own something the Magpie wants, and then he finds you.
In order for the Magpie to take notice, Sherlock creates a fake priceless thesis from 1895 in order to get his foot in the door.
Once again, Sherlock is interrupted while trying to drill into the skull. He meets with Randy again, and finally tells him that, if he wants to be sober, he will have to stay away from his girlfriend. He's stern, but let's Randy know that it's for his own good. It's not enough: Randy skips out.
Meanwhile, they finally hear from a buyer who sounds like the Magpie. When they go to meet with him, they find him dead, and the fossil rock smashed to pieces.
You can find most of the images below on this Tumblr post. I know this is way late, but I've had the gifs since last week, so I wanted to share them. Plus, it's worth reading just for the funny tweets! The DNA of a man named Donnelly (Joel Hatch) is found at the scene of the murder, but he is in a wheelchair. Doug's fossil would have disproven a lifetime of Donnelly's work, but he wasn't the murderer. Sherlock is spread too thin, and stuck on the case, so he decides to try a novel approach to gaining some enlightenment: he eats part of the Magpie case file.
Watson offers a small bit of insight, and Sherlock runs with it. Jerome Thomas (Jonno Roberts), a man who collaborated on a book with Donnelly, is just as opposed to Doug's work. He also has a penchant for faking fossils in order to further his career. But when Sherlock mentions that he left DNA at Doug's murder, he confesses.
Later, Sherlock makes a third attempt at drilling into the skull, when Watson interrupts him.
Watson enters with a gift: the remains of the Nanotyrranus fossil. Sherlock thanks Watson for ensuring that the case got solved, and jokingly offers to repay her by removing disturbing thoughts from her brain with his drill.
The episode closes with a visit from Randy. Randy went back to his girlfriend and relapsed. Well, at least now he knows that Sherlock speaks the truth about how to stay sober.
thesis from 1895!?
ReplyDeleteThe 95 Theses, a document written by Martin Luther in 1517, challenged the teachings of the Catholic Church on the nature of penance, the authority of the pope and the usefulness of indulgences. It sparked a theological debate that fueled the Reformation and subsequently resulted in the birth of Protestantism and the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anabaptist traditions within Christianity.