Elementary - 'Child Predator', 'The Rat Race' and 'Lesser Evils'

Holmes and Watson bond over squat.

A triple bill of Elementary, courtesy of a day working from home due to a cold.

In 'Child Predator' the criminal is a serial kidnapper and murderer of children, known as the Balloon Man for the party balloons he leaves at the homes of his victims. Once more, this Holmes displays his priorities: Solving the case is more important than being nice to people, especially if it means saving a life. People may be little more than puzzles to him, but they are puzzles who matter.

A process of elimination.

Some people matter more than others, however, and in 'The Rat Race' Holmes establishes that bankers are at the bottom of his lifeboat list as he hunts for a serial killing sociopath in the boardroom. He even triples his usual rate for their benefit, making a mental note to come up with a usual rate to triple. In an establishing trend, this and the other two episodes all feature a double-blind mystery, with the reasoning and methodology pointing to one perpetrator, who masks the presence or identity of a second.

It would be a cardinal error to speculate without data.

'Lesser Evils' is much more about Watson than about Holmes. Although a not insignificant presence in most episodes, this one brings her to the fore with its hospital setting and a chance encounter with an old friend from her surgical days as our mismatched detectives search for an Angel of Death.

An interesting emergent theme is that Joan Watson is quicker than most John's to pick up something of Holmes's methods, and as a consequence notes herself becoming less trusting of humanity in general. This is touched on in at least two of the above episodes, but brought into focus in 'The Rat Race' when a chance statement by her date triggers a (at least partially correct) paranoid response worthy of Holmes. Holmes calls this the cost of seeing everything for the puzzle that it is.