ELEMENTARY Recap: The Long Fuse

Sherlock is watching seven TV’s at once while reading a book, it’s his way of exercising his brain, Watson however wants to talk. Sherlock needs a sponsor since Watson’s appointment as his companion is up in a few weeks. He agrees to go to coffee with the person she has in mind.

At an office building filled with young people, skateboarders and basketball hoops a phone rings from inside a vent. Actually it’s not a phone; it’s a timer to a pipe bomb. Moments later it explodes.
A little later Captain Gregson walks Sherlock and Watson through the blast site. It killed two people and injured eleven more.
Sherlock takes this moment to tell Watson he bets she won’t miss seeing crime scenes when she is gone. She agrees, but not too readily.
In the debris Sherlock finds parts of the bomb including a motherboard from a pager, something that wouldn’t be used by any of the guys working at a high tech company.
They have a few hours while the police trace the account the pager belongs to so Watson drags Sherlock to coffee. The sponsor she has in mind works for the FCC and spent some time in London. It seems she has thought this paring through. Adrian shows up and she leaves Sherlock to talk to him alone. Sherlock starts throwing questions at Adrian and he doesn’t answer in an acceptable manner so Holmes walks out. Watson says he is being difficult on purpose but they will find him a sponsor before her time with him is up.

Captain Gregson calls Holmes to tell him before the bomb went off the same number called it three times. The number that called the pager is registered to a man who just did six years for arson/insurance fraud. The Captain has Mr. Jacobs in interrogation so Holmes and Watson go to to the precinct. Mr. Jacobs claims he was trying to call in a breakfast order, not detonate a bomb. He must have misdialed. Holmes doesn’t think he is lying.

The bomb squad is looking over pictures of bomb parts, Holmes notices how old the batteries are (thanks to a logo on one of them) and thinks it is odd someone would use four year old batteries to build a bomb. Watson then notices a date on the shreds of paper that were packed in the bomb; they are also four years old. Since Mr. Jacobs was in prison four years ago it couldn’t have been him.

At Van Owen’s (image consultants) Watson and Holmes are waiting in the lobby. They are the former tenants of the building that was blown up this morning. Sherlock thinks the bomb was meant for them.
Heather Van Owen, the ever lovely Lisa Edelstein, sits down with Sherlock. She is stunned; she couldn’t believe the bomb was for them. When questioned why the bomb didn’t go off back in 2008 Holmes says it is because there wasn’t a cell tower close enough to the building, there is now though, obviously.
Heather remembers in 2008 a group called the ELM (Earth Liberty Militia) sent them threatening letters. The CFO says they still have the letters in a record room, they give Sherlock and Watson copies.

During an AA meeting Sherlock is going over the letters and generally not paying attention, per his usual. Per her usual, Watson finds this annoying. Watson reminds him he has 23 days and then their time is up, it does shut Holmes up for a moment, but only a moment. An addict named Alfredo who was a car thief/felon starts to share and Holmes says he wants Alfredo to be his sponsor. Watson isn’t amused and if you ask me Holmes picked him because he knew Watson would feel that way. Holmes doesn’t like change and he likes working with Watson even if he won’t admit it. This is his way of putting off the inevitable.

Back at home Sherlock fins a phrase in the threatening letters that he is sure he has heard before, “On your beam ends”. It takes him a moment but he remembers when he heard the phrase, on a talk show about whaling where two guests got into an argument.
Detective Bell tracks down the talk show guest to question him. Shockingly enough, he denies being the ELM or having anything to do with bombs, until Sherlock shows up with evidence to the contrary. He admits to the letters and five bombings, but he didn’t leave the bomb that blew up that morning.
That night Holmes is on roof of his apartment exploding tennis balls to try to match the chemical composition of the bomb from the office building. Sherlock thinks the bomb was made with potassium chlorate which isn’t something an eco-terrorist wouldn’t use as it isn’t natural, it is chemical.

At the precinct Holmes is putting together the pieces of paper from the bomb; he tells the Captain what he found, an indentation of the word Novocain. Someone has written that on top of the paper, the handwriting doesn’t match the eco-terrorist convincing Holmes for certain he isn’t their guy. The Captain is less than sure, which as you can tell from all of my recaps I find annoying. WHO DOESN’T BELIEVE SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!! When is the last time the man was wrong about a case???
Holmes doesn’t let it go though; he wants a subpoena of Van Owen’s employee list from 2008. The Captain says no, no subpoena.

At the coffee house Watson is waiting with Alfredo, Holmes texts that he will have to be patient. The funny thing is when Watson tells Alfredo they will have to reschedule he says it is okay, they have to be patient; newcomers don’t always understand the scope of the work involved. Watson is impressed. Even though Alfredo has never been a sponsor before his sponsor was great and he really wants to be a sponsor. Alfredo says no has ever asked though. He seems like a good guy.

At Van Owen’s Heather agreed to let Holmes go over the employee files. She sits down with him and flirts. In true Holmes fashion he just comes out and asks her if she wants sex. He isn’t adverse to it he is just busy right now so you know, maybe later. Watson gets there before Heather can respond.

Holmes thinks he found something, an employee, Mr. Sing, got into an argument with the CFO in October of 2008, was written up and then there is nothing else in his file. Heather says that is because he disappeared, he never came back to work. The police never found him either despite a search.
He stared out as a model employee but then he became more arrogant and wanted more power, more control. Finally he yelled at the CFO that he would be sorry for not okaying his latest raise request and disappeared.
Sherlock and Watson track down Mr. Sing’s wife, she is sure he was murdered, why else would he have left her. Holmes looks around the room and asks her if she has done any remodeling, he can see that she has, even though she says no. He makes up an excuse about looking at her back yard and when Watson and Mrs. Sing get up and leave the room Holmes goes over to the wall he thinks was remodeled. He is sure Mr. Sings body is in the wall. That would explain the slight mold problem Mrs. Sing had and why the pictures on the wall are hung slightly differently than a picture in front of that wall that is on the mantle. Someone killed Mr. Sing, wrapped him in plastic, put him in the wall and then rewalled to hide the body.
Holmes knows this because he took it upon himself to knock part of the wall down.

Mrs. Sing is at the precinct where Captain Gregson pulls up her file. She was in India at the time of her husband’s death so it couldn’t have been her. Holmes doesn’t think it was Mr. Sing who planted the bomb anymore anyway. He has a picture from a Van Owens company newsletter; Mr. Sing’s desk was by the vent where the bomb was. The bomb was meant for him, not planted by him.

Detective Bell drops off Mr. Sings effects; in his pocket was a safety deposit box key, from Sequoia Liberty Bank. They take the key to the bank and find a Cheech and Chong movie. The tape has been recorded over so they head to Sherlock’s apartment, because he actually has a VCR.

While Sherlock is setting up the VCR he tells Watson he doesn’t think he wants Alfredo as his sponsor anymore, they can do better. They will just have to keep looking. Watson knows what is going on, she asks him if he is being difficult because he doesn’t want her to leave. Holmes will absolutely not admit that.

Bell comes back in the room and Holmes plays the tape. It’s Mr. Sing meeting with a prostitute, a high end one. Turns out it is Heather Van Owen. No wonder Mr. Sing kept getting promoted in the company, he had serious leverage. They bring Heather down to the precinct where they show her the tape. Holmes says she built a successful life and when Mr. Sing started working for her it all started to crash down. She “payed him off” by promoting him. She denies it. Holmes tells her when it became too much she took the eco-terrorist’s letters, built a bomb intent on framing them but when it didn’t go off she just shot Mr. Sing instead. Detective Bell arrests her for murder.

That night at home Alfredo shows up, he has something he wants to show Holmes. It’s a very nice car, Alfredo actually works for companies that have him test their security systems. If it can keep Alfredo out then it must be good. Alfredo thinks since Holmes is a good lock pick, according to Watson, he may want to try to break into the car. Holmes can’t resist a challenge; he does take a moment to chastise Watson for setting him up.

Elementary airs Thursday 10/9c on CBS