Elementary - The Illustrious Client - Review

The Kitty-centric story line begun last episode picks up steam this week in "The Illustrious Client"--which echoes the title "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client," the original Doyle story in which Kitty (Ophelia Lovibond) first appeared. This episode, therefore, is one of the occasional Elementary episodes to be grounded in the Doyle canon, so Doyle fans may be interested to see whether the plot resolves itself in similar or surprising ways. Nobody needs to have read the Doyle story to get what is going on, however.

Viewers familiar with how television murder mysteries work will have relatively little difficulty anticipating at least some of how this episode will unfold. For instance, when we seem to have a clear identification of the killer who left the mutilated body discovered at the end of the previous episode by the first commercial break, I suspect most viewers will know that he can't possibly be the real culprit. It doesn't really matter how much evidence there is against Simon de Merville (P. J. Sosko)--the victim's engagement ring is in the same room where he hides another kidnapped and beaten brunette woman, and there is a poker by his fire that matches the scars on the victim and Kitty, for instance--the logic of television drama means he can't really be the culprit.

He is of course a culprit,a vicious man engaged in the sex-slave trade, as his houseful of other imprisoned and abused women, not to mention his connections with Albanian gangsters, indicates. He's just not the culprit. Consequently, well-done as this week's A plot is, it is also primarily a red herring. Whether the pinning of the crime on de Merville is part of the real culprit's long game or sheer chance is not clear in this episode, though the former seems more likely. The hunt for de Merville effectively isolates Kitty, thereby perhaps easing her being set up fur more victimization; it also weaves Watson into the real rapist/killer's web.

One of the strengths of the episode is how it weaves together not only its own strands but elements of earlier

episodes. Kitty's essentially outsider status is again reinforced, especially early in the episode, as she is consistently staged in scenes in ways that isolate her or place her in oppositional positions--even to Holmes and Watson, when they tell her that her attacker is in New York. On the other hand, her kinship is also stressed, perhaps most tellingly when she does off the procedural book to "persuade" de Merville's sister Violet (Tammy Blanchard) to help the police track her brother. This persuasion involves Kitty's expert use of her baton--which goes back to her initial appearance on the show--and further ties her to Holmes, who fans might recall also went well off the reservation back in season one, himself kidnapping and torturing Sebastian Moran (Vinnie Jones). Holmes even began his assault on Moran with his own baton. As Holmes came close to going vigilante over a personal case before (the apparent murder of Irene Adler), so does Kitty veer towards vigilantism now, to the point that Gregson (Aidan Quinn) bars her from further work with the NYPD. Will Kitty be able to control her demons, or will she end up crossing the line? One's speculation smight vary depending on one's familiarity with the original story, perhaps, but Elementary does a good job of setting up suspense on this front.

Because, of course de Merville isn't the real killer. That would actually be Del Gruner (Stuart Townsend), again probably to the surprise of relatively few. Doyle fans will recognize the variation on the original story's villain name, and TV crime show buffs will know Gruner must be more than he seems because he is played by the episode's major guest star, Stuart Townsend. What he seems to be is Watson's new boss at the insurance firm for which she now works. I don't recall whether the firm sought out Watson, but if so, one must assume that the connection forged between Gruner and Watson (he even helps her by providing crucial information for tracking down de Merville, via his access to insurance files) that this entanglement of Watson as well as Kitty is part of a larger plan. Many questions remain unanswered: why was the victim's ring in de Merville's house? what is the connection between Gruner and de Merville? etc.

Plausibility issues aside, the climax of the episode sets us up for a powerful resolution, after teasing us. We

end with Watson in her apartment with the television news playing in the background. We see an unknown figure loom behind her as a news story about Gruner appears on the TV. For a moment, perhaps, we suspect that the real culprit is not after Watson, but instead we learn that the figure is actually Kitty, seeking out Watson for help, with the bonus of recognizing Gruner's voice on TV and therefore identifying him as her attacker.

So, the police think they have the real killer in custody, Kitty's been alienated from the police, and the real killer obviously is a man of power and influence. Hmmm, how will it end? We will find out next week, presumably! See you then.

How did you like the episode? let me know in the comments section below.