Elementary Recap: “The Deductionist”

Elementary Recap: “The Deductionist”
Original Air Date (CBS): Sunday, February 3, 2013
Season 1 Episode 14

by Solomon J. Inkwell:

I believe “The Deductionist” is definitely one of the more suspenseful episodes of CBS’ Elementary. I was very impressed that the network chose to air it after the Super Bowl event Sunday evening, as we all know networks tend to reserve the coveted time slot for their most impressive shows. It was unfortunate that the episode had to air so late, however. You see, there was this big power outage at the Superdome that was caused by my running the hairdryer while Beyoncé was on stage. My sincerest apologies…

Once upon a time, there were two prostitutes and a dude in a chair. Said dude is enjoying a psychedelic erotic disco romp until said prostitutes handcuff him to his chair and begin to rob his apartment. As is typical of Holmes, he remains absolutely calm while in his precarious predicament. The ladies threaten to use force should Holmes continue to be snide and uncooperative. Out of nowhere, Holmes signals for the police, who pour into the apartment. An undercover operation has been carefully orchestrated to apprehend two serial-prostitute-disco-buglers who have been terrorizing unsuspecting patrons of love. Before the ladies are ushered away, Holmes (who has managed to free himself from his constraints without effort) asks them if he may retain their premium handcuffs.

The following day, an armored van arrives at a hospital carrying the sinister serial killer, Howard Ennis. His sister is a patient at the hospital and is in desperate need of a kidney transplant to save her life. Naturally, Ennis is the best match and his donation will keep her from a lengthy wait on the transplant list. After Ennis is given instructions, he is taken to pre-op. They wheel him into the operating room, handcuffed and dazed from sedation. As they inject him with anesthesia, they ask Ennis to count backwards. Soon, he falls unconscious. Unbeknownst to the occupants of the room, Ennis is still completely aware. Once the presiding officer removes Ennis’ handcuffs so that he may be prepped for surgery, Ennis leaps from the table, snatches a scalpel, and murders the officer. Taking the officer’s gun, Ennis proceeds to kill everyone in the room.

At home, Holmes is practicing using a “single stick” to bring down an opponent, his opponent—a sparring dummy which stands in his living room.  He conveys to Watson that a single blow to the head should take the opponent down. They are interrupted when the NYPD calls Holmes for assistance with Ennis’ recent escape. Later at the scene, Holmes and Watson enter the hospital operating room and Holmes begins to appraise the area. He believes that Ennis managed to pull the IV from his vein to prevent being put to sleep and that he had faked his sedation by slowing down his circulatory system, a common practice in many religions. He goes on to say that Ennis then managed to subdue the room and remove the uniform of one of the residents to escape the hospital undetected. For reasons unknown, on the back of the hospital door written in blood, Ennis has referenced a star that resides in the constellation Cassiopeia.

As they exit the hospital, Holmes sees a familiar person in the crowd of reporters, FBI Criminal Profiler, Katherine Drummond. Drummond had been elemental in the capture of Ennis some years before and has reentered the picture to once again aid in his apprehension. There is a sharp exchange between Drummond and Holmes, who worked together on a case in London with rather unsuccessful results. Holmes references a book that Drummond had written on Ennis and his criminal profile. In it she had alleged that Ennis has been sexually abused by his father, an instance substantiated by a neighbor in whom Ennis had confided. Ennis and his family later sued Drummond for libel, claiming this was completely untrue. With noses in the air, the two part ways.

Watson is summoned by her landlord to visit her apartment, which she has sublet. Holmes has urged Watson to simply leave her apartment behind, room with her clients, and become a sober nomad, but Watson still desires her own space. As she walks in the door, she sees the landlord fixing her radiator with electrical tape. The landlord tells Watson that the son of another tenant in the building had been secretly watching pornography online. His mother had caught on and in her research the mother had determined the video had been filmed in their apartment building. Not only that, but it has been determined the location of the adult flick was none other than Watson’s apartment, produced by the man to whom she sublets. Talk about your bad tenants…

Watson meets up with Holmes at the police station, finding him lying on top of a conference table staring at the ceiling. He asks Watson why she seems so distracted, especially since she’s said nothing about his odd position, prompting Watson to confess that her sublet got her evicted for his pornographic productions. Watson then asks why Holmes is staring at a string of holiday lights pinned to the ceiling. Holmes replies that the lights represent the Cassiopeia constellation over the city of Manhattan and that he feels that Ennis has used this as a way to convey where he will strike next. Holmes believes the move is far too obvious. He thinks that Ennis is trying to lead the police on a goose chase. At that moment, Holmes catches a glimpse of Drummond walking through the station with Gregson. When Watson asks why he despises Drummond so intensely, he confesses that the two carried on a physical relationship that was a “C to C+ at best.” Holmes abruptly interrupts the meeting between Gregson and Drummond to spill his latest deduction of Ennis’ intentions and claims the NYPD needs to avoid Drummonds’ quest to satisfy her professional egotism. Gregson addresses the obvious tension between the two and say that Drummond, too, has concluded that Ennis’ clue in the stars was meant to be misleading.

A few miles away, a young blonde is standing in line at a convenience store when a man dressed in a hooded jacket, baseball cap, and sunglasses enters. He stands in line behind her, his creepy appearance arousing suspicion. It is Ennis, who suddenly holds her a gunpoint. Without thought, he shoots the clerk as well as the other customer in the store. Then, instead of killing the girl, he asks her to take his picture. He removes his disguise and holds up a paper that headlines his escape. The girl snaps the picture, and then cowers to the floor. Later on the scene, Holmes and Drummond continue to argue. Holmes calls out that Ennis’ actions are far outside of the clean and controlled profile that Drummond had previously painted for him. The girl, a blonde, was Ennis’ direct MO in the past, yet he had let her live. Why?

At home, Watson further questions Holmes’ hatred of Drummond. Through online research, Watson has found a previous article written by Drummond titled The Deductionist. In it, she talks about a master of deductive reasoning from London destined to become a hopeless drug addict whose self-depreciating actions would ultimately lead to his death. Watson realizes this was about Holmes. Holmes confirms her suspicion and says that Drummond used him for her research and then violated his trust by writing the article. Watson had also been correct about his eventual dive into substance abuse. Holmes has always resented her profile of him and refuses to believe that it is true.

In a bold move, Ennis calls the station to speak to Gregson. Everyone enters the room to listen. Ennis tells Drummond that he is killing because of her. Holmes intersects the conversation with Ennis and tells him he believes Ennis is angry because Drummond attempted to profile him, that she attempted to “figure him out.” After a moment of silence, Ennis agrees and even goes so far as to say he likes Holmes. Ennis says that his crimes were bad enough on his loved ones, but Drummond’s book with its accusations had actually destroyed Ennis’ family, leading his father to hang himself and leaving his mother to die of a broken spirit a year later. Ennis tells Gregson that they need to deliver Drummond to him to make the killings stop. Then, he hangs up.

They are able to track Ennis’ cell phone, which has conveniently been left in a storage area amidst all too obvious items, including dolls, articles of Ennis’ murders, and other select items, which Holmes states Ennis wanted them to find. Away from the others, Holmes begins to question Drummond about her allegations of sexual abuse toward Ennis’ father and the mysterious neighbor who just happened to back up her story at the last minute. She denies any wrongdoing and walks away.

Later, to her embarrassment, Watson finds Holmes watching the adult film that was filmed at her apartment. Holmes points out the unseemly use of Watson’s spatula by the actors and states she will definitely have to buy another one. Holmes also points out the gross errors in continuity: a clock at one time and then another, changes in accessories, and overall sloppy editing. As Watson stops the video, she notices that in the film her radiator is fixed with tape, and then mysteriously it isn’t. Holmes then receives a call from the police stating that the home of Ennis’ sister has been vandalized now that people realize who she is. While investigating the residence, Holmes notes a drinking glass that smells of oil extracts, oils which are actually toxic to the renal system if ingested. It is at that point that Holmes and Watson deduce that Ennis’ sister had been involved in the plot the entire time and has actually been poisoning herself.

Drummond, being moved by Holmes’ dissection of her past intentions, visits Ennis’ sister and confesses to inventing the abuse. She had created the allegations to push her book, and when the libel suit was filed, she paid the neighbor to back her story. In the hall, Detective Bell receives frantic call from Holmes telling him that Ennis’ sister is part of the plot, but by the time Bell gets to the room Drummond is lying on the floor in a pool of blood. “You can arrest me now…it’s done…,” the sister says.

They interview Ennis’ sister, who confirms that Ennis had concocted the plan of her self-poisoning in order to get back at Drummond for the irreparable damage done to their family. Shortly thereafter, Ennis again rings Gregson’s phone. Drummond is still alive, but in critical condition. While Ennis speaks, he tinkers with a small radio in his lap. Holmes notices the odd sound and finds a radio at the hospital. Quickly dialing through stations, Holmes validates his suspicions and quickly leaves Watson.

As Ennis arrives back at the old vacant store in which he has been hiding, he is surprised by Holmes, who calmly sits in a chair listening to the same local radio stations that Ennis was tuning during the phone call. Holmes had noticed the weak signals from nearby college radio stations, used the broadcasting area to validate where proper hiding places might be, and then selected Ennis’ hiding place from the obvious locations. On the desk before him, Holmes has laid out a set of handcuffs and a gun. He tells Ennis that they both despise Drummond for trying to shove them into a neat little box. Drummond labels Holmes as an addict and Ennis a coward by nature. Holmes says if Ennis wishes to prove her wrong he will go for the gun. If he is the coward Drummond claims, he will surrender. However, Holmes warns if Ennis goes for the gun, he will go for Ennis. Has Drummond actually dissected the both of them? Were they that simple to unravel? Ennis knows the true issue burning at Holmes: is Holmes to end up the drug-riddled corpse Drummond predicted?

Ennis dives for the gun. Holmes pulls the stick with which he was practicing earlier from behind his back and uses it to take Ennis down. The police swarm the store and cart Ennis away. Gregson soon approaches Holmes who says that before Gregson punches or suspends him, he wants to explain that he infiltrated Ennis on his own because there was something Holmes needed to learn. When Gregson asked if he learned it, Holmes tells him it will “be years” before he knows for sure.

In conclusion, Watson visits her landlord to say that she believes that he was involved in the making of the adult movies. The continuity issues in the film allowed her to see the differences in the radiator, so she knows he was present. She proceeds to say she believes he has done so to violate her lease and evict her so he could remarket her rent-controlled apartment for more rent. At first the landlord denies this, but Watson nails him to the wall telling him that she has talked to the actors involved in the filming, and they have confirmed his presence. She demands that he and her sublet pay for storage until she can find a new place, and that they also give her $1,200.00 for her couch, which she could no longer use in good conscience after seeing what all it had been through. The landlord agrees.

Outside, Holmes waits for Watson at a cab. He gives her a gift: a brand new spatula decorated with a bow. He also gives her another present—a brand new toothbrush. But…why would she need a new toothbrush?

Ha! Excellent episode!

See you later this week, Elementary fans!

You can view the episode, via CBS, here.

DarkMedia contributor Solomon J. Inkwell (James Grea) is a screenwriter and author of juvenile horror. He is the author of Vickie Van Helsing and Haunting Thelma Thimblewhistle from the Dead Anna series.  His forthcoming works include The Frighteneers and the screenplay The Winter Files. You can find out more about Solomon and his not-so-dead friends here.