- Title: Elementary – Paint It Black
- wiki: link
In an episode of that marks Lucy Liu‘s directorial debut, Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) and Mycroft (Rhys Ifans) are forced to work together when Watson (Liu) is abducted by members of the French criminal organization having clandestine meetings in his New York restaurant. In exchange for Joan’s safe return, Mycroft agrees to deliver them a missing banker and a list of secret accounts he stole shortly before his disappearance that everyone, including the NSA, would like to get their hands on.
Despite the tumultuous relationship and the fact the Holmes blames Mycroft for Joan’s abduction, the pair are able to find banker (who it turns out is a dead patsy) and eventually recover the needed intelligence to trade for Joan’s safe return. Meanwhile we also get scenes of Watson putting her medical training to use attempting to save the life of a member of a group who will no doubt try to kill her before the episode ends.
“Paint It Black” offers the opportunity to showcase Holmes without Watson. Although he is able to use his brother for a sounding board, its obvious that Joan’s absence is felt throughout every moment of her abduction. Watson may never be in any real danger as despite the show’s departure from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original characters there is no chance of Watson being killed off in the show’s Second Season, but the situation her kidnapping presents is well-executed. The torture scene where Holmes extracts the hiding place of the list is unexpected but works well, especially as we already know how far Holmes will go for the small list of those he truly cares about, and its conclusion marks a big reveal.
And speaking of that twist. Not surprising for anyone who knows the history of the character, but certainly well-played over the episodes in which he’s appeared, we get Joan’s eventual rescue by Mycroft who is finally revealed to be far more interesting than a simple restaurant owner offering the episode’s title as a kill order to save both of their lives. I’m curious to see how much of Mycroft’s true motivations and purposes will be revealed to Holmes and/or Watson over the season’s remaining two episodes (including possibly the reasons why Mycroft wants Sherlock to return to London?) and how Holmes deals with the revelation of such an enormous secret.
