- Sherlock's brother, Mycroft, arrives in New York and enlists Holmes and Watson to help solve a case involving his former fiancee. Meanwhile, Sherlock has a difficult time accepting Mycroft and Joan's relationship.
- Sherlock has mixed feelings about a surprise visit from his brother Mycroft, but Watson eagerly accepts the case of his ex Nigella Mason, a marquess' widow, who desperately needs a murder solved where she's an obvious suspect. Holmes digs into the case, which involves mob saboteur 'El Mecanico'.—KGF Vissers
- "Elementary' - "The Marchioness" - Nov. 7, 2013
Sherlock sits in an AA meeting and the leader asks about the "craziest thoughts about your disease." Sherlock says he often thought that he should be born at a different time, a quieter time in which there wasn't so much constant assault on his unnaturally keen senses. Suddenly, another voice chimes in. Mycroft is there and it so startles Sherlock that he leaves.
Mycroft arrives at the brownstone. He has been in NYC for a while and will be around for about a month while opening a restaurant in Tribeca. He asks them to come to dinner. He wants their help with his former fiancée Nigella Mason. She is the one that Sherlock had sex with to prove that she was after Mycroft's money, not his heart.
Over dinner Nigella explains that after Mycroft she fell in love with and married a Marquis-- a title sort of between an Earl and Duke, making her a Marchioness. He was gay. She turned to the stable boy Dalton. She also fell in love with one of the horses and in her divorce she got her title and the horse Silver Blaze. He can't race anymore but was earning lots of cash being put out to stud. When Dalton and a friend were tending to Silver Blaze at his stable they came upon a man trying to break in and poison the horse. The man shot and killed Dalton. She wants them to find the killer and potential horse poisoner. Sherlock doesn't appear interested but she notes that when Mycroft fell sick and she helped him, he managed to forgive her and hopes Sherlock can as well.
Of course, Sherlock didn't know that Mycroft had leukemia. Sherlock expresses a kind of curt sympathy and says he needs to leave the awful toxic creature that is Nigella and he leaves.
Back at the brownstone Sherlock wonders why Watson is uncomfortable around Mycroft and asks if his brother made advances in London. She says no, she isn't, she's uncomfortable around the two of them and their tension. She says she thinks he is mad he didn't know about the disease. Sherlock says that he is more annoyed that Mycroft's spiritual awakening is tied to illness and therefore a cliché.
Mycroft arrives and explains that Nigella helped mobilize a bone marrow drive for his treatment within her posh crowd and found a donor. And he says if they could work on her case together maybe they could put the bad blood in their relationship behind them.
Sherlock, Mycroft and Joan go to Silver Blaze's stable and speak to the local sheriff. They determine which way the perp ran, but the trail ends at a clearing and they don't understand how he could've gotten away. Then Sherlock realizes he must've climbed a nearby tree. He dusts the tree for prints and finds a perfect set that shows the man is missing his left ring finger.
The prints match up to an assassin known as El Mechanico who works for the Robles drug cartel. When the number 2501 comes up in the investigation and it turns out to be the same number as Nigella's room, they realize she's in danger and call her away from the window just as a sniper fires at her.
They do some research into the head of the cartel, Joaquin Aguilar, and it turns out that he's a passionate horseman.
Mycroft serves Watson and Sherlock a delicious risotto. She is lovely about it, but Sherlock is churlish and keeps working. He realizes that Aguilar paid Nigella to impregnate one of his mares. They sit back down but Sherlock can't let go of the idea of tension between all of them. Mycroft leaves. Watson finally admits that they slept together and it was no big deal. Sherlock is aghast.
The three of them go to visit the foal in its stable in New Jersey. On the way, Sherlock gives Joan and his brother a hard time. They don't rise to his bait. At the stable Sherlock takes a photo of the foal, Nutmeg.
By looking at photos of Nutmeg and Silver Blaze Sherlock realizes that Nigella lied. Silver Blaze is not the foal's father. Nigella was passing off Silver Blaze's brother as the real thing, except that means her customers weren't getting top studding services. One of those clients was Joaquin Aguilar, the head of the drug cartel, and he was not happy. He came for her and the horse and Dalton. Sherlock confronts Nigella with his proof. She confesses.
In watching the video of a statement of the one man to have survived a massacre by El Mechanico, they realize it's the man himself when they see that he is missing his left ring finger. Sherlock also wonders aloud why Joan would've slept with Mycroft. It's not the act itself that bothers him but he says their partnership is very intimate and very successful and she must've known he would figure it out. And it seems unlike her to introduce such a "free radical" into their relationship. She tells him he's overthinking it. He thinks he hears her message. She says there wasn't one.
They go to Gregson and explain that they believe the police arrived on the scene of the massacre before El Mechanico could get away, so he disguised himself and gave this statement and had the identity in place as a failsafe. No one knew they were pursuing a four-fingered man since they only had partial prints.
They decide to bait him with Nigella, via her cellphone. They bust him on the roof across from the restaurant where Nigella said she would be. Mycroft congratulates Sherlock on catching a mass murderer. El Mechanico is very calm in the face of his arrest. Bell enters with new info. Mechanico's prints don't match those of any of the other murders for which he's been accused. They realize they will have to let him go soon since they can only hold him for trespassing.
Everyone is confused at first until Sherlock realizes that, because of his distinct handprint, the man used altered prints to throw off the scent. They go to El Mechanico's neighborhood because they realize of the three crimes he was accused in, one was a standard liquour store robbery. They figure it was that guy's prints he was using. They go to see the retired sheriff who investigated the robbery, in which a man stole all the Straw Dog wine in the place. They went to see the place where the guy slept. One tree is bigger and taller than the others. Sherlock thinks the tree is stronger because the homeless guy is buried there.
Sherlock is right. The man was there, with no hands. El Mechanico's hairs were found near the body and he's busted via DNA. Case closed.
Later that night, Mycroft shows up to see Sherlock. He and Joan wait in the living room uncomfortably. They make small talk about his restaurant. He asks her to be his guest for the opening. She's about to say she'd love to and then thinks better of it and wonders aloud if that will complicate things with Sherlock. Mycroft says setting aside what happened in London, he thinks she's extraordinary and is glad she's in Sherlock's life. He says he wants to become friends with her.
At the restaurant Sherlock and Mycroft meet with Nigella and tell her the news and that she should no longer be in danger. They say she's out of the stud business and that she will repay her victims and take the remaining money and start a new, legit life. He and Sherlock will be overseeing this.
With that behind them Mycroft asks Sherlock: "What would you like to talk about?"
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