“A Stitch in Time” is a fantastic mystery-based episode of
Elementary. There isn’t much character development, which the show is known for, but it’s good to change things up once in awhile. The mystery is interesting and unique, and definitely Holmes-worthy.
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The episode begins, once again, with Watson being temporarily evicted from her home so Sherlock can save some bees from colony collapse, not realizing that the container would break Joan's table and break open, allowing them to escape within the Brownstone.
In addition, Joan seems to have become BFFs with Hannah, Gregson's daughter.
Meanwhile, a man "saves" a dead guy who he believes is merely drunk from being crunched by a train. At least he saved the evidence from death.
The dead man is Garrison Boyd, Sherlock's favorite debunker. He was murdered, but Sherlock notes that a piece of gnome hat is stuck in his eye.
Garrison had many enemies, the worst of which is a cult of Atomocism, or some ridiculousness. When the cult leader is unhelpful because he prayed for Garrison to die through crackpot "energy transference," Sherlock proceeds to "deprogram" one of their "Level 3 Conduits" in about three minutes -- a minute for each level of nonsense. She agrees to help them, and Sherlock puts an end to any thought the nut-job leader has of luring the woman back into his cult.
Amazingly, the fact that the cult stalks its victim members and enemies is helpful in this case, because they are able to obtain a photo of Garrison arguing with Colin Eisely, a real estate guy. Eisely says he didn't even know Garrison, but that Garrison was accusing him of trying to drive an old lady out of her home with fake ghosts.
When Sherlock and Watson visit the woman, she presents them with an audio recording of what she claims to be her husband's ghost angrily saying a name that sounds nothing like the Arab swearing that is actually being hollered on the old-fashioned cassette. Apparently, the ghost also likes to throw things off the shelves and make the lights flicker.
Sherlock knows it's not a ghost, but also knows that the proof leads to something else: a tunnel that was being dug from her neighbor's basement toward her own basement. Inside the tunnel, Sherlock finds the goal of the digging: a path to the fastest transatlantic data cable in the world, known as RUBY.
In the neighbor's basement, Sherlock also finds the gnome responsible for tipping his hat into Garrison's eye. Garrison had discovered the fake ghost, and was killed to keep him quiet.
The neighbors have been on vacation, so the culprit had been making his home in their house while he dug. They find bubbling yogurt in the fridge, which is sold in only a few places.
Security footage shows him buying the drink with cash, but speaking with someone he knows who pays with a credit card. The credit card then leads to a woman who says that the man is her neighbor Nadim, across the hall.
In a scene of splendid pace, Sherlock sniffs accelerant at his door, warns the woman and tells her to evacuate, sets the fire alarm, grabs a fire extinguisher, kicks in the door, scans the room and eidetically commits everything to memory, attempts to talk Nadim out of lighting up his work based on what he learned from his scan, and puts out the fire once Nadim decides to set it on fire and make a run for it.
A box is found in the burned rubble, but it apparently does nothing at all. Mason is even called in, but comes to the same conclusion. Then Sherlock has an epiphany, and we get a rare look into what a Sherlock eureka moment looks like:
The realization is that the box does nothing for exactly 4 ms, before sending the data on through. That 4 ms is exactly enough time to make Ruby 2 ms slower than the data cable used by Eisely's blind trust when trading stocks. That means Eisely (whose financials are watched carefully because of past financial abuses) can easily make millions without getting his hands dirty, because he could just hire someone to splice in a box that appears at first glance to do nothing.
In the mean time, Joan has been helping Hannah with a case. She solves it, but warns Hannah that the information should be passed up the food chain because there is a bigger crime going on. Instead, Hannah takes all the credit, and puts away the few guys involved with the lower level crime.
Sherlock had been warning Watson not to deal with Hannah, and also warns her not to tell Gregson. She doesn't have to, because Gregson knows something is off with Joan, and he also knows his own daughter. He tells Joan that it's best she not boost Hannah up onto anymore high horses.
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