ELEMENTARY Recap: Pilot

I’m not going to lie, I was a little skeptical of a woman Watson but if anyone can pull it off it’s Lucy Liu. She is one of those oddities, a beautiful woman that you can actually see handling her business. Like Angelina Jolie or Zoe Saldana. I’m glad to see her getting her own show even if I will miss her on Southland.

Watson comes with a little baggage, an ex-surgeon who after losing someone on her table is now a sober companion and as you can tell from what she does now “sober companion” Holmes is a recovering addict and from a wealthy family.
I’m a sucker for slightly crazy investigators and Johnny Lee Miller’s manic ADHD Sherlock Holmes seems to be no exception. He talks fast and is a little brusque. It’s rather fascinating to watch.
We make it half way through before Watson quits. I can’t blame her. Watching Holmes may be fun but he would be annoying as hell to work for/with.
Of course Holmes, despite insisting he doesn’t want a companion won’t let Watson quit and so they remain a team.

The case of the week revolves around a Doctor’s wife who is found dead in her secret safe room.
Holmes thinks it might be the work of a serial killer. His first suspect a violent guy with a thing for red heads ends up dead of an apparent suicide but Holmes is not convinced.
He keeps deducing until he is back to the husband as the killer. Holmes lays out all of the evidence to the husband who hypothetically confesses. Not taking this very well he crashes Watson’s car into the husbands, landing himself in lock up. He does manage to stay sober though so Watson, who is technically employed by Holmes’s father vouches for him not having been on drugs and Holmes’s Dad agrees to give him another chance.
Ever the resourceful side kick Watson finds the evidence needed to arrest the husband while Holmes was in lock up. In true Holmes fashion the case all comes down to something as mundane as a bag of rice. In the end Holmes and Watson get their man.

As far as pilot’s go it was pretty good. I can see the show will be just as much about Holmes and Watson and their dynamic as it will be about the current case. The show runners have said there will be no romance between Watson and Holmes and I for one think that is great. I am all for TV relationships, I love rooting for couples but what Holmes and Watson have is a dependent relationship and is best left to coworkers and hopefully eventually friends.

Elementary airs 10/9c on CBS