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Elementary - Lesser Evils
episode 1.5
USA 2012
produced by Alysse Bezahler, Geoffrey Hemwall, Carl Beverly (executive), Robert Doherty (executive), Craig Sweeny (executive), Sarah Timberman (executive) for Hill of Beans Productions, Timberman-Beverly Productions/CBS
directed by Colin Bucksey
starring Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Jon Michael Hill, Aidan Quinn, David Harbour, David Costabile, Ben Rappaport, Jenni Barber, Anika Noni Rose, Eric Deskin, Jonathan C. Kaplan, Jay Klaitz, Shauna Miles, Eric Engleman, Rozi Baker
written by Liz Friedman, series created by Robert Doherty, based on characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle, music by Sean Callery
TV-series Elementary, Sherlock Holmes
review by Mike Haberfelner
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While routinely examining a few bodies in the morgue, more as a hobby,
Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) rather by chance discovers that one of
the corpses has not been killed by cancer as the charts suggest but was
euthanized. Of course it's immediately off to the hospital that treated
the man for Holmes and Watson (Lucy Liu), and before they know it, Holmes
rather unorthodox methods get them into trouble, but eventually - police
Captain Gregson (Aidan Quinn) of the police backing him, Holmes can prove
that over the years no less than 9 people have been euthanized. And from a
witness he learns that at least one of the victims had a doctor, but not
one of the staff, talking to him about passing over to the next world - so
Holmes suspects an "Angel of Mercy". The first suspect Holmes
comes up with is Dr. Cahill (Ben Rappaport), a guy a bit too jumpy for his
own good, but it eventually turns out that has more to do with his opiate
addiction and the fact that he steals opiates from the hospital supplies
than anything else. Next in line is Dr. Baldwin (David Harbour), who's
defense is that he's much too arrogant to be an "Angel of
Mercy", as the life of others doesn't really interest him - and he
also has an alibi for one of the murders. It's rather by chance that
Holmes discovers that one of the victims was Ukrainian and hardly spoke
any English - which would have hampered the Angel of Mercy's efforts to
talk her into the next world ... well, unless the Angel spoke Ukrainian,
too. And indeed, one of the hospital's janitors, Gura (David Costabile)
does, and upon further investigation it turns out that Gura was a surgeon
back in the Ukraine. And once interrogated, Gura quickly confesses, too,
as in his mind, he has done nothing wrong, only released terminally ill
patients from their pain a little early - which is right in 8 of the nine
cases, with the ninth, the victim was on her path to recovery. This Gura
strongly denies, even though hospital records don't lie. But Gura, who has
already admitted to the murders, wouldn't lie about that detail either -
which leads Holmes back to Dr. Baldwin, who might have used Gura without
his knowledge to cover up one of his little mistakes ... A parallel
narrative thread sees Watson meeting up with an old surgeon friend, Carrie
(Anika Noni Rose), and second guessing if it was the right decision to
leave the medical profession behind like she did. Probably the
best episode of Elementary so far, as less of an emphasis is
put on sensationalism and more on actual deduction. Also Holmes is less
erratic in that one (though still erratic enough for some fun), which
gives the story more room to breathe. And all that said, Jonny Lee Miller
and Lucy Liu once again make a great pairing in the leads.
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