TV REVIEW: Holmes and Watson Surprise Each Other in Elementary’s “Seed Money”

By Cindy Jackson

This week’s Elementary episode “Seed Money” begins with Kitty at a support group meeting. Another woman hears her talking about being a detective and asks her for assistance in finding her missing teenage daughter. She tells Kitty the girl’s father is “the reason I attend these meetings.” Well, that’s just all kinds of terrible. Of course, Kitty agrees to help.

Meanwhile, Joan shows up at a crime scene.

“What’s up?”

“Certainly not the Kellys. They’ve been dead for days.”

Oh, Sherlock. I’m so glad your “temporary malaise” isn’t affecting your adorable and completely tactless wit.

He explains to Watson and Bell that the elderly couple was unintentionally poisoned by toxic gas. Their neighbor, Clay Dubrovinsky, appears to have been burned by a drug cartel for whom he supplied marijuana.

The next morning Sherlock wakes Joan in an obnoxious manner, this time by breaking into her apartment and making a smoothie in her very loud blender. Not as good as the bugle, but I’ll take it. She tells him that she is closing her private detective business and will be going to work for an insurance company. He gets the same look on his face as when she tried to use a Magic Mike reference on him earlier. To soften the blow, she tells him she will still be able to work with him on cases.

Captain Gregson finds the place where Clay grew his drugs. Sherlock meets him there and sees another reason Clay may have been murdered. An extremely rare, valuable and stolen flower was found among the marijuana plants.

They find out later that there are more flowers like that one and that the rare orchid had been cloned. A woman named Barbara Conway thought she was buying the original flower for an exorbitant amount of money. When she realized it was a fake, she claimed she wasn’t upset (really??) but rather impressed by the replica. Her company then tried to recruit him from the cartel.

Meanwhile, Kitty finds the girl she’s looking for, Tess. Apparently, she was trying to get back at her father for what he did to her Mom by framing him for her disappearance. Kitty explains to her that even though he may have it coming, her mother doesn’t deserve to relive what happened. Tess agrees and repays her with a giant hug, which catches Kitty completely off-guard. Awkward.

Holmes and Watson have one of their lovely talks, in which Sherlock opens up and says wonderful things to Joan, about Joan. (How amazing is his character development!? It’s really beautiful to watch him very slowly and steadily grow as a person.) He tells her he also is planning on making a change and intends to make Kitty his partner. He feels she is ready, and says he has Joan to thank for a big part of that. She is visibly upset, but of course she congratulates him.

Joan goes to meet Clay’s ex-girlfriend at his apartment because the super wouldn’t let her in without police permission and she needs some very important plant food. (I found this to be a bit of a stretch to get Watson from point A to murderer-revealing point B, but she arrived wearing what I am fairly certain was my grandfather’s favorite hat, so all is forgiven.)

The plant food is actually a special blend made by Clay, the same kind that Barbara Conway had at her office. Snagged.

Gregson asks Sherlock to come to a crime scene without Kitty. When Holmes gets there he sees why. The victim has markings on her back identical to Kitty’s. “The man who hurt her is here in New York,” he deduces.

Overall, this week’s offering was solid.  The case wasn’t one of their most interesting, but there were just enough comedic moments and meaningful conversations to still be enjoyable. It’s perhaps a smart move to put Kitty in the background in certain episodes like this as well. Not that she isn’t likable, but the writers and fans both know the core of the show is Holmes and Watson, and we get just enough of that to keep us tuning in.

Elementary airs Thursdays 10/9c on CBS.