Elementary, the hit detective show featuring Sherlock Holmes and Watson, will be returning tonight for its second episode of season 2. Tonight’s show is titled “Solve for X,“ which we can only assume has to do with another one of the good detectives’ crazy cases that only their two minds can solve. We love the pairing of Lucy Liu (Dr. Joan Watson) and Jonny Lee Miller (Sherlock Holmes) in this show, and we can’t wait to see where their adventures lead them tonight.
On last week’s episode (FULL RECAP HERE in case you missed it), Holmes returned to London where he was reunited with his ailing brother. Meaningful relationships are hard for Holmes to form and sustain, but by the end of the episode Holmes managed to smooth things over with his brother — who wanted so badly to reconnect with him.
Tonight’s episode summary: Elementary Season 2 Episode 2 “Solve For X” – When a well-respected mathematician is found dead, Holmes and Watson set out to solve a murder and the purpose of the highly guarded equation he was trying to decipher. Meanwhile, Watson is conflicted when the son of a former patient approaches her for a loan, on ELEMENTARY, Thursday, Oct. 3 (10:01 – 11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Will you be watching this episode? Let us know what you’re most excited to see during this second season of Elementary, and don’t forget to come back here tonight at 10 PM EST to get your LIVE recap!
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page for Updates
A man is being held at knife point. The guy holding the knife tells him to give him everything he’s got then punches him in the face. The robber walks by a window and sees/hears someone get shot. He turns to see the door open and the shooter shoots him too!
Joan is visiting a grave site when a young guy – Joey – walks up saying it’s been a long time and it’s nice of her to visit his father’s grave. She says he was a nice man. He offers to buy her a coffee and catch up. She says not but then he convinces her to come along.
Sherlock apologizes to Bell for being late and he says he didn’t need call Sherlock. He shows him a text and Bell says it was from a year ago and from a girl named Bella. They head in to see the crime scene.
The victim was a math tutor – Felix – that lived alone. He tells Sherlock that another man – Bennie – was shot in the driveway. Sherlock says wrong place wrong time. Bell says it was more like karma since he had mugged someone.
The second man shot in the drive is in critical condition. Bell asks where Joan is and he says one mystery at a time. Sherlock is inspecting an empty room and asks Bell if he was this observant before he worked with him. Bell says that they had never closed a case before he came and were thinking of all retiring.
Sherlock sniffs the wall and goes searching for a black light because he has an idea. He explains he smells a chemical on the walls that is exposed by UV. They close the shades and find and turn on the black light on to see equations all over the walls. Bell asks what it is and Sherlock says “maths.” They wonder if it has anything to do with the victim’s death.
Joey says he can’t believe Joan is a cop but she insists she’s not. She asks what he’s been doing. He says he’s had a rough time during school because of his dad dying and that he has dropped out. He shows her a picture of a bar he’s trying to buy. He says it’s funny that they met and “offers her a chance” to invest in the bar. He makes it like it’s an opportunity for her rather than a favor to him. She’s clearly uncomfortable.
Joan gets home and finds a shirtless man going over the math from the crime scene projected on the wall. Sherlock tells her that Harland is a math genius. She asks why he’s shirtless and he says that everyone has their own process and that he will ring a bell if he decides to get naked but he can’t promise that he won’t sit on the furniture.
Joan asks Sherlock for an advance of $5,000 to give to Joey.
Harland shouts that he knows what the formula is. Sherlock says that it’s the work of two people. He can tell by the hand writing. Joan explains why the second mathematician is also likely a male.
Harland says the formula is P versus NP. He describes it as an intricate formula that proves that if a problem can be verified by a computer it can be solved by a computer. Harland says it’s worth a million dollars from the Clay Mathematics Institute that pays that amount for anyone who can solve one of the “millennium problems.”
There is an entire P versus NP community they need to dig into. They meet with Professor Tonya Barrett who knows about the community. They ask her if she knew who was working with Felix and she says he was a loner. Sherlock finds a journal in her office that has the same handwriting from the crime scene – it’s a man named Cyril and they call Bell to tell him they have a suspect. But then he tells him he has another dead math dude named Cyril!! Their suspect is now another victim.
Sherlock and Watson are with Felix’s and Cyril’s bodies that were murdered within hours of each other. Joan asks to continue their conversation about the money. Sherlock asks who it is that asked her for $5,000 and what their relation is to the patient she lost three years ago. He asks her why she’s been lying and hiding when she went to the grave site.
Sherlock says he just wants to make sure that she’s not being taken advantage of. She tells him that Joey’s father Gerald was the patient she killed. She says it was a pretty straightforward procedure but she nicked his femoral artery and didn’t know how. He bled out into his abdomen. She tells him Gerald’s wife sued her but then Joey (who was 17 then) wrote her a letter saying the he didn’t blame her and forgave her for what happened. Sherlock asks if it’s the first time Joey has asked for money. She tells him he needed a car for college.
Her phone rings – Bell calls them to Cyril’s place. They show and Bell gives Sherlock a bug that he found inside. Sherlock calls a taxi and climbs on top of it. He offers him $20 for going nowhere. He pulls off a signal jumper from the traffic camera across the street from the apartment. He tells Bell if he finds the receiver they’ll find the guy who was spying on their victim.
They are next at Roe Encryption Services and ask about the jumper that they know was linked to their company’s server. Roe denies knowledge but then caves when they tell him Cyril is dead. He admits to them surveilling him because of the P vs. NP formula.
Roe explains how P vs NP would be very dangerous to the world because it would allow the solver to break any encryption technology. Roe says that he wanted Cyril to solve it and that he offered him money and then Felix money to give them the solution.
Roe says the broke in to Felix’ place and took photos but another expert told them they weren’t even close to the solution. It’s Tonya! They bring her in for questioning and she says she told Linus Roe that they weren’t close so he would leave Felix and Cyril alone.
Sherlock asks if she is a dog owner and she says yes and he already knew because of her dog registration as well as the registration for her gun that she reported stolen a month ago. She gives them the name of her friend Wayne who she was out with the night that the guys were murdered. Bell gets security footage from her alibi restaurant and she’s cleared.
Sherlock is doing sit ups to get his mental prowess geared up while he thinks about the case. He tells Joan that calisthenics are conducive to productive thinking. She asks who the pictures are he’s looking at and he says it’s the other contenders for the P vs. NP throne.
He tells her that he has decided against his better judgment to give Joan the advance she asked for even though he finds it suspicious that Joey was at the grave when she was there – since he knows she visits each year… He also doesn’t like that he’s asked for money regularly and that it says something about Joey’s character. He tells her the money is in the box.
Joan opens it and says it’s over $20,000. He tells her it’s all the cash he had on hand. He wants her to use it to buy Joey out of her life once and for all. He says she doesn’t deserve the guilt that she’s putting herself through and that everyone makes mistakes. He says that he knows after all the years of substance abuse that nothing is more toxic than guilt.
They discuss that maybe Tonya has a partner or if she’s being framed. They talk to her. Sherlock doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that the evidence points to her and asks if anyone may have a grudge against her to put her through this. She says it’s crazy and tries to walk away. He says she’s thinking of someone and he asks who it is.
She says her ex-boyfriend Jason threatened her once and knew about the P vs NP work. They bring the ex in for questioning and ask about the breakup. Sherlock brings out some of the emails that he sent to her. One of them says that she deserves to be hurt that way the she hurt him. Bell says that they know he knows the victims because he met them at a conference once because it’s in one of their emails from back in 2010. He says he didn’t write it. There’s also a receipt for 9 mm ammo. Doesn’t look good for the ex…
Bennie is awake and the captain sends them down to get a description of the shooter. They go to visit him at the hospital and he tells them it was a woman and describes Tonya. Sherlock shows a photo and he confirms she shot him. He says it’s her without a doubt.
Sherlock and Watson are going over the bar footage again. Watson notices a purchase at the bar that was much cheaper than it should have been. $10 for four beers – happy hour prices! That leads them to think the time stamp on the video was tampered with. They go to question Tonya again.
Sherlock brings up again the serious consequences to the computer security world if P vs. NP was solved. They say that she got her buddy Wayne – an encryption specialist – to sub in the other footage. They tell her that once they approached him about that lie he caved. They’ve got her cold on the kill! Numbers don’t lie baby!
Watson goes to meet with Joey and tells him that she wants to invest in him but not the bar. She offers him $22,000 to pay for him to finish his engineering degree. She says that’s what his father would want and he says that his dad isn’t there because of her. He apologizes. She tells him she always be there for him but no more money except for education and he says he will think about it.
Watson finds Sherlock looking at P vs. NP again before the NSA takes it (and Tonya the killer) away into federal custody because they want to “protect” the world from her discovery. He asks how things went with Joey and she tells him. He said that she showed her generous character while doing what she thought was right.
Sherlock asks to go to the grave site with her the next time so he can pay his respects to the man who had such a monumental effect on her life and the person that she is today. She says she would like that very much.