Elementary, one of our favorite detective drama/comedies returns to CBS tonight with an all new Thursday February 18, season 4 episode 13 called, “A Study in Charlotte,” and we have your weekly recap below. On tonight’s episode, Holmes and Watson search for a murderer who used poisonous mushrooms to kill a botany professor and a group of the instructor’s students.
On the last episode, Holmes was asked by Narcotics to orchestrate a perfect heist inside the heavily armed and virtually impenetrable compound of a drug-dealing biker gang. Meanwhile, Watson assisted Fiona Helbron on a case and made a surprising discovery about Holmes. 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 search for a murderer who used poisonous mushrooms to kill a botany professor and a group of the instructor’s students. Meanwhile, Joan learns that her neighbor is renting his home through a vacation site that caters to hard partiers.”
Are you looking forward to the season 4 episode 13 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 4 and what you think of it so far.
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#Elementary begins with Joan waking to loud music blaring and her wall rattling. She goes down and tells Sherlock they’re at it again. He’s in a strait jacket with headphones and a blindfold on. She complains and says it’s the third night in a row.
He says she sleeps too much and should be testing her abilities like he’s doing. She says the noise canceling headphones are a sign it’s bothering him too. Sherlock says it sounds like he mastered the riff and the guitar stops. She stomps off.
A man spoons up cups of some liquid and says simple mushrooms can open your mind to the spirit. He sets the tray of cups down and says it tastes like crap and the nausea and discomfort are part of the process. They all drink up.
He says it takes about 30 minutes. They hear loud noise and he says it’s his annoying neighbor. He asks Chad to put on headphones and the guy says save some magic tea for me. He says he will if he keeps quiet. The guy comes back down to his place.
Everyone is down and choking and gagging. He starts to get sick too and dials 911 as he goes into a death spasm too. A cop is there and says Joseph Ballantine hosted the party and is a botany professor. He says the man picked bad shrooms.
Sherlock is there and says he’s wrong. He says Ballantine was an expert and would never have made a mistake. The captain gets a message from Gregson and says Sherlock has two minutes. He sniffs and says those shrooms are blue angels and are rare and potent.
He says every good detective should know fungi. He says they died quickly where they fell so it was a concentrated poison. He says he thinks it’s the death cap mushroom and says the students were likely just collateral damage.
He says he has a motive and suspect in mind and walks out telling them nothing. Joan goes to see the neighbor early in the morning and says he was up til 5 am playing bass. He says the landlord told them the walls are thick.
She says she can hear everything and rants about the party weeks ago. He says that wasn’t them and says he’s been there just five days. He says they’ll be gone by week’s end. He says this place is an AwayKay. He says it’s a vacation rental and the drummer booked it.
He says it’s a party pad rental and says she better get used to it. Sherlock goes to the university and he’s got Marcus with him. The chemistry lecture ends and they approach. Sherlock asks about cortisol and says he left it out of the fight or flight lecture.
Marcus flashes his badge and says Ballantine was murdered. Harper says he thought Joe’s research could cause trouble but not murder. Sherlock says he knows they wrote books together and then had a falling out.
Harper says it’s not like that. Sherlock says he published an article repudiating him and calling his work pseudo-science. Marcus says that got their books pulled which lost Harper money. He says he chose to walk away from Ballantine.
He says Joe wanted him to take the mushrooms and he didn’t like the effects and asked for the books to be pulled. He says Ballantine liked the article because it made him seem more like a rebel. Harper says they were on good terms and made peace.
Joan shows up to meet Sherlock at the prof’s office. He says he’s looking for clues on who might want him dead and where the lethal mushrooms came from. She says she met the new neighbors. She says it doesn’t matter because they’re short term renters.
She says it’s now a party pad rental next door. He says it’s an unfortunate sign of gentrification. Joan says everyone is complaining about them. She says she’s talking to the owner tomorrow. Sherlock checks under the sofa and finds a safe.
He cracks it quickly. Inside is the guy’s stash of shrooms. There are three bags of mushrooms and Sherlock says these are the blue angels. He finds a note attached from CK. Joan says she saw a manuscript by Charlotte Konig that he was proofing. That’s the CK.
Joan and Sherlock get out of the cab and ask it to wait. Charlotte is Joe’s former TA and they are at her house. They ring the bell and Joan asks should they wait on Marcus in case she’s a killer. Sherlock says she’s a poisoner, just don’t eat anything.
Music blares but there’s no answer so he picks the lock. He says he smells mushrooms. He goes inside and Joan follows reluctantly. They go down into the basement and find a rotted body with fungus growing on it.
Sherlock says she died from death cap poison. They are with Gregson in the morgue. Sherlock says he thinks she was the target, not Joe. Joan says she shared her crop with Joe that she grew. Marcus is there too and says someone must have known she grew them since her crop was tainted.
She was born in Germany and studied under Joe but was not into social media. She was into tattoos and Marcus lists off the ink. Gregson spots one on her back and it says Rache. Sherlock says in German that means revenge.
Joan says they have a good idea. They call in a woman whom Charlotte was suing over a chemical process. The suit was worth $100 million. Joan says her company has a bad reputation for bribes and corporate espionage.
She says they were crushing her in court and had no reason to kill her. She says they would just get a restraining order instead of hurting her. The woman says death cap couldn’t kill that fast and says synthesizing the poison is a better way to get that result.
She says she can tell them facilities that do work like that. Joan goes to see the landlord next door and he calls her the girlfriend. She says she’s not. She tells him about the noise complaints and he smirks. He says she and Sherlock are the reason he can’t leave there or keep tenants.
He says they brought it on themselves. He says he moved out because he couldn’t take the bees, noise and explosions. He says this can’t be news to her. She says he went out of his way to attract problem tenants and he says it’s karma basically.
He says he emailed Sherlock dozens of times about being more considerate then the roosters were the last straw. She says she forgot about those. She asks if he she can see the emails. A woman at one of the labs says Charlotte used to work there and was really nice.
Sherlock spots a guy with ink and asks about Charlotte and if them sleeping together had anything to do with her death. He asks how Sherlock knew and he says the tattoos are almost identical on their forearms. He says they were together almost a year.
He admits she used to be fun and took shrooms and MDMA. He says chemists get the best stuff and she was a non-stop party. Then he says about a year ago, her biological clock started ticking and she started talking about marriage and kids.
He says Charlotte wasn’t happy when they split but then she met some guy she was going to marry. He says it was a win win. They ask the fiance’s name. He says he was high when she told him. Sherlock asks about her revenge tattoo and he says she didn’t talk about it.
The guy says Griffin was the guy’s name but he doesn’t know the last name. Sherlock says the gryphon tattoo on her is new and asks the guy what ink shop they used. Sherlock tells Joan that Aviv is the tat artist and says Griffin came in with Charlotte.
Sherlock says Griffin chickened out on getting his tattoo and says he’s a Mormon and said he couldn’t get the tat. He says Aviv is searching his files. Joan says the problem next door is all his fault and shows him the emails. He says hmm…
He says when he met Garby, he gave him a fake email address he hadn’t used since the 90s. He asks why the guy didn’t knock on the door and she says he was scared. He says she lived there for two years before he moved and didn’t stop him.
He says the people at 221A in London didn’t like him either and he took care of it. He gets a text from Aviv and they go see Griffin who seems like an odd match for Charlotte. He says they were putting their past behind them.
He says she was thinking about converting and they were making plans to marry and have a kid. Sherlock spots a ventilator hood on the garage and excuses himself. Griffin says she went home to Germany once without him and says they argued over the tattoo.
She sees Sherlock outside and keeps Griffin talking as he breaks into the shed. Griffin finally notices and runs out to stop him but it’s too late. Sherlock says how do you explain the drug lab in your backyard.
They take Griffin in and he says it was Charlotte’s idea. They were making fake drugs. They were making erectile dysfunction drugs – they were the same as the name brand, but were fake. They ask where the money was going to since it’s not in their bank accounts.
Griffin says he doesn’t know and Sherlock says he does and has the skills to make the toxin that killed her. Griffin says Charlotte handled the money and he had no idea. He says she told him it was going according to plan and they would be set for life soon.
He says maybe whoever she worked with wasn’t paying and then killed her over the money. He says that’s the only thing that makes sense. Marcus calls Joan and says they can’t find any evidence of the mushroom poison in the lab or the money.
Joan says Sherlock is working on a plan and then she says she has to call back. She sees a firetruck out front. She asks if he burned down the place. He says he did not burn it down because he was oiling his chain saw to do some sculpting.
He admits he was the obvious suspect and says the fire marshal says it was likely electrical. He then says he ordered ED pills from several online sources. He says if he can find pills that look like their fakes, they might find this.
Sherlock, Marcus and Joan go see a guy who was selling the pills. They tell Fong that Charlotte was killed and he says she made a great product and he had no reason to kill her. Sherlock asks where’s the money and he says he paid her in real estate.
He says she had him buy up properties in Newark with interest only loans and says he thinks she was going to unload the properties but never told him. They ask for a map and they see they are near Zerakem facilities.
Sherlock says that’s her revenge. They all border Zerakem facilities. They bring the woman back in from the company. Sherlock asks why the facilities have to be a certain distance apart. She says it’s an EPA issue for pollution regulation.
Sherlock draws on the map and says that by implementing Charlotte’s technology they pay millions more in fines and taxes unless they can expand the other way. Charlotte bought up the properties to block them and force them to pay her.
The woman says the trust that owned the properties wanted $15 million which was well above market. Sherlock says it sounds like motive. The woman says she worked her whole life at Zerakem and says she never believed the rumors of wrongdoing there.
She says if Charlotte was behind the trust and is now dead, she won’t work for them anymore. She asks what they need. She says she will burn the place to the ground to get them what they need. Sherlock tells Joan that Pal delivered them tons of memos.
He says the memos show that they didn’t know it was Charlotte behind the trust yet. Sherlock says the corporation has motive, but no individual person. Joan gets an email from Trent who says the insurance company won’t pay out on the fire because he was renting it.
Sherlock says that works out and they can buy the place at a discount. She says he is giving them first crack to buy it along with another neighbor. She asks doesn’t he feel bad about this and Sherlock says it’s the way of the world.
He says feel bad about not identifying the killer. Joan says what if Joe was the target. She says maybe they gave up on Harper too quickly. She says let’s look at him again and see if they missed anything. Sherlock says he thinks Harper wanted to kill Charlotte.
Her rache tattoo started out as Harper’s initials then she added the R and E to cover up her boyfriend’s initials. Harper finds Marcus, Joan and Sherlock in his lecture hall. He asks if they came for the lecture. Sherlock says he’s being arrested for Charlotte’s murder.
Joan says he married her when he was high in Germany four years ago. He says they never divorced and he says they were estranged and says he broke with her when he broke with Joe. Joan says that was the revenge plan.
Joan says he pulled the books to spite Charlotte. Sherlock says they found the PI that he hired to look into her when Charlotte finally asked for a divorce. Sherlock says he found out about her real estate deal with the chemical company.
Joan says she found love and was about to get rich but as her husband, he would inherit the property and could sell them. Sherlock says they found the residue for the poison in his equipment. Not only did he kill Charlotte, but Joe and five other innocents.
Marcus cuffs him. Joan comes to see the landlord. She says if he can prove arson, he can collect on insurance and she hands him proof. She says a van was parked outside before the fire and their security cameras caught it.
A boutique hotel nearby hired the electrician to start the fire to shut down the AwayKay rentals. She says they will have soundproofing insulation installed as a housewarming gift so he can rebuild and move back in. She also hands him some of Sherlock’s handmade honey and says they’d like to get to know him.
THE END!
