Elementary, one of our favorite detective drama/comedies returns to CBS tonight with an all new Thursday April 16, season 3 episode 20 called, “A Stitch in Time,” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s episode, Holmes [Jonny Lee Miller] and Watson [Lucy Liu] investigate the murder of a professional skeptic who debunked paranormal, religious and scientific phenomenon for a living. The probe uncovers a potential threat to homeland security. Meanwhile, Gregson’s [Aidan Quinn] daughter asks Joan for help with a case.
On the last episode, Holmes and Watson found themselves in the middle of a civil war being fought on the Internet when a member of Everyone, the anonymous hacker group they periodically work with, was murdered. Did you watch the last episode? If you missed the episode we have a full and detailed recap right here for you.
On tonight’s episode as per the CBS synopsis, “Holmes and Watson investigate the murder of a professional skeptic, a man who debunked paranormal, religious and scientific phenomenon for a living. The case becomes urgent when his homicide reveals a potential threat to homeland security. Also, Captain Gregson’s daughter and fellow NYPD officer, Hannah (Liza J. Bennett)asks Watson for help with one of her cases.”
Are you looking forward to the season 3 episode 20 tonight? Be sure to come back here later tonight at 10 PM EST for our awesome recap of this episode. In the meantime, hit up the comments below and let us know how excited you are for season 3.
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#Elementary begins with Joan and Sherlock talking. She asks why he brought the bees in the house and he says he was concerned with colony collapse. He says the bees are loose and says to give it two hours. She talks to Hannah and they leave to get coffee that wasn’t made by a cop. She shows Joan some crime scene photos of pharmacy robberies. She says it’s oxy and hydrocodone mostly. She says it’s the same crew but she hasn’t been able to make headway. She says Hanford is the detective on the case but his plate is full right now.
Hannah says it’s the neighborhood she works and has to look these people in the eye every day. Joan says she’ll check it out and see what she can find. A guy drives and talks on the phone when a car revs up past him and almost cuts him off. He says a drunk almost hit him then drives on. He pulls up to a railroad crossing that’s live and sees the car is on the tracks and the train is coming. He gets out to help and runs up to the car. He opens the door and a bottle of booze drops out.
He pulls the brake off and pushes the car off the tracks. He calls the guy a drunk idiot. The guy is already dead though. At the morgue, Sherlock tells the ME that Garrison, the victim, was head of a local skeptics association and was a great mind. The ME says a crowbar killed the guy. He says the killer was probably hoping the train would cover up COD. He found something under the guy’s eye stuck in his skin. Sherlock says it’s the tip of a hat from a garden gnome.
Sherlock says Garrison made a practice of exposing hoaxes like phony medical cures, ghost tours and the like. Sherlock and Marcus go to a local church that’s very Scientology looking. Sherlock says the place is a cult and he sees a woman then walks off. Marcus talks to Finn, the leader, and says the victim posted threatening letters he sent him. Marcus reads one of the threat letters and the man says he only meant energy transfer and he prayed for intervention. He says praying for the man to die is not a crime.
Sherlock says the woman, Aria, told him that Finn had them follow people like Garrison and says she’s sending them the files and leaving his church for good and threatens Finn with some energy transference. Joan tells Gregson that she’s helping Hannah with a case in addition to the murder case. Sherlock asks her about the Hannah case and she says she doesn’t have to help. They look over the stalking photos that Finn had taken of Garrison.
Sherlock says two cult members were assigned to Garrison and that may show them a suspect called Collin Eisley. They go see him and show him the photos of him and Garrison arguing. They tell him that Garrison was murdered. He says he didn’t know Garrison but he was waiting outside his building and accosted him. He says he’s in real estate and made an offer on a house in Long Island then Garrison came after him and accused him of trying to scare her into moving.
Garrison says the woman thought it was ghosts but he says he moved on and gave up on the property. Sherlock says Colling seems pretty competitive and he says he was at a retirement party last night and will give them names and numbers of people who can confirm where he was. Joan says maybe other developers were interested in the property. They go talk to the woman who says it was her husband Harry haunting her and that he died a year ago.
Joan asks if anyone else has made an offer on the house. She says the only other offer on the house was 20 years ago. She says she told her daughter about the voices and says she called Garrison. She says her daughter never heard the voice. She says her husband knocked glasses out of a cabinet and sometimes shook the whole house. She says they had an open marriage sometimes and then other times, she cheated and thinks he knew what she was up to once he was dead.
Sherlock says someone may be trying to take advantage of her. She says she recorded what Harry said. She says she heard it clearest in the basement so she left her tape recorder down there. She plays it for them. Sherlock replays the tape and says she’s not imagining things and he goes to a wall and hits it with a hammer. He asks how well she knows her neighbors. She says they’re snowbirds and are out of town for weeks. He asks if she has their spare key.
He and Joan head over and Sherlock tells her that he heard “im haram” which is an Arab swear phrase. He says he heard a banging and a low rumbling noise. He says someone was using digging equipment near the foundation. They go into the basement of the neighbor’s house and poke around. Sherlock moves a piece of plywood and exposes a tunnel. He says the tunnel ends near the other woman’s basement. He heads into the tunnel and says he thinks it’s the work of terrorists.
He’s found a pipe or something. They call in the captain and the troops. Sherlock says it’s the transatlantic data cable that’s the backbone that connects Europe to the US. He says the optic fibers carry data between the nations. He says they are vulnerable terrorist targets. He says the cable ties into a landing house nearby where the security is tighter. Sherlock says he thinks Garrison found what he did and says the garden gnome is what killed Garrison and he was murdered there.
Sherlock says the internet has redundancies and cutting a single cable wouldn’t matter much but if they were going to cut several simultaneously, that would be a much bigger threat. Joan tells Sherlock he was right and says the diggers came upstairs. She says the toilet seat was up and they found a carbonated yogurt drink in the fridge. She says the found six stores in the city sell it. She says they can check security footage to see if anyone stands out.
Joan tells Hannah she has good news and says she found a candy machine vendor came by all three stores just prior to the robberies. She says she got photos from the candy machine company that match the three perps. Hannah thanks her for cracking this. She thinks they’re storing the pills there and tells Hannah to leave her name out of it when she shows the detective the information and say the PD may sit on it awhile looking for bigger fish.
Sherlock says he checked out security footage looking during key hours when the person was not digging. He asks if she’s done with the beat cop’s case and asks what Joan thinks of Hannah as an investigator. She says she’s green and did all the leg work but couldn’t connect the dots. Sherlock says it’s sad that she’s middling since Gregson has hopes for her. He says she’s a capable cop, but not a detective and she says Sherlock taught her. He says Hannah doesn’t have it.
Joan wakes and calls Sherlock based on a note. He also left her video footage of a suspect. The guy is in coveralls and Sherlock says the guy was there five times in two weeks and his clothes kept getting dirtier. She says he may be a plumber. He says the woman in the red coat knows him and he traced her and is at her place now. He says he’ll call when he knows more. She answers the door and asks for a badge. She says that’s Nazim or Nadim, but she’s not sure.
She says he’s her neighbor and points out the apartment. Sherlock sniffs and says she needs to leave the building right now and says the man is dousing his apartment with accelerant. He pulls the fire alarm and kicks the door in. Sherlock says he’s there to help him. He says if he drops the lighter it will be attempted murder on 200 people in the building. He drops it and runs. Sherlock has to put out the fire and can’t chase him.
Sherlock brings in the device that Nadim was trying to burn. He says the contraption was on the drawings on the man’s wall and says he wasn’t going to sever the cable but splice the device onto it. An IT guy is there and says he hopes they can figure it out. Sherlock says he thinks it’s to grab data. Sherlock says according to Edward Snowden, the NSA regularly grabs data from these cables all the time. He says the man may work for a corporation, foreign government, or even our government.
They find out Nadim is from Iraq but has US citizenship. He was an electrical engineer back in his old country and is a cable layer now. Joan sees a photo of Hannah hung up on the wall that says “Chip off the old block” and Marcus says Hannah made a big bust of some drug thieves. Joan says she has to run an errand and leave. Marcus shows his boss the info on Nadim and Sherlock looks it over too. Sherlock says Nadim’s apartment was owned by Collin Eisley and made a bid on that house a month ago.
Marcus and Sherlock come back to talk to Collin who says he doesn’t know any tenants in his buildings then Marcus asks him about his name change after he was imprisoned for insider trading. Sherlock says he knows he was a ruthless cutthroat trader back in the day. Collin says prison changed him but Sherlock says he doesn’t think so and says he knows he likes to trade in secrets. They tell him they know he hired Nadim to tap into the transatlantic cable.
Collin asks why he would do that and Sherlock says so he can turn information into gold for his investment strategies. Collin says he can’t trade and is banned for life by court order. He says all his money is in a blind trust. He says the feds audit him every year and he can’t win at bingo without being audited. Collin says he’s not biting and asks them to leave. Joan chases down Hannah and congratulates her on the bust and says it was interesting that she spotted the guy.
She says she should have kicked it upstairs and Hannah says he never would have given her any credit and says it’s different for her. Joan says she thought she was looking to help people in her neighborhood and Hannah says she got bad guys off the street but Joan says she could have gotten more. Joan asks Sherlock about Collin and he says his money is in a blind trust that he can’t even know how it’s managed. Sherlock says it’s managed by a second tier firm and his money is all in computer traded funds.
Sherlock says he thinks Collin was trying to profit and they just need to figure out why. He shows a photo of Collin and Nadim in Iraq when Collin was touring the oil fields there. Marcus says the IT guy is there with news. He says the device doesn’t store, transmit or change anything. It’s just data in one end and out the other. Sherlock brings in one of his irregulars, Mason, to work on the device. Joan says Nadim still hasn’t cropped up. She says she thought he was grounded from the internet.
Mason says this is not the internet. Sherlock says Nadim did not dig a 50 foot tunnel to attach a device that doesn’t do anything. Joan gets a call and heads up to eat without answering. Sherlock asks if it was Hannah she sent to voice mail. She says Hannah wanted to thank her but she thinks Hannah wants to know if she’s going to tell her dad what happened. Sherlock says the truth will disappoint him. She says she should tell him but Sherlock says she should not. He says it will benefit no one.
Joan thanks him for not saying I told you so and he says he knew she was sub-par but didn’t know she was also so cunning. He says it’s a box that does nothing. Then he hits on something. He says it delays it by four milliseconds. He says trading on Wall Street is automatic and milliseconds can give you millions of dollars. He says Collin’s trading firm is on a slower server. They go back with Marcus to see Collin. Marcus says he plotted to slow the data line down by four milliseconds for his gain.
Collin says it’s a brilliant plan but he can’t link him to any of it. Marcus says he thought the same thing too but then wondered about him hiring Nadim and says it didn’t include murder to start with. He says he saw Nadim escape and he took a poster tube with him. Marcus says he couldn’t pay him directly since his funds are so heavily watched. Sherlock notices that a Picasso was missing and a new painting in its place. Joan says they reported the painting missing so no dealer will touch it.
Marcus says Collin’s only chance is to make a deal before they find Nadim and he cuts a deal. Gregson tell Joan he’s sorry and then asks her to come into his office. She asks if Hannah told him. He says she seemed off and says he knows she and Sherlock doesn’t care about credit so he knows that wasn’t it. Gregson says she shouldn’t help his daughter again. He says Hannah has to do better on her own or not at all and says he loves her but can’t let it happen again.
THE END!
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