Elementary Recap/Review: "Step Nine"

Megan Miller ’17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
As Elementary begins a new season, they piggyback off of a huge reveal that shaped the end of the first: that Irene Adler (Natalie Dormer), Sherlock Holmes’ presumed-dead lover, was in fact his nemesis, Moriarty.  Now that she’s been captured and brought to justice, however, where do Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) and his companion Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) go from here?
The answer to that question is London.  The pilot finds the consulting crime-solving duo traveling to Sherlock’s home when he receives a call that an old colleague, Inspector Gareth Lestrade (Sean Pertwee), has gotten himself into trouble and is on the run.  Though he initially comes to bring him in to Scotland Yard, Sherlock quickly learns that Lestrade’s motivation is catching a suspecting killer who has already been ruled out as a suspect and teams up with Lestrade in bringing the man to justice.

While in London, Joan takes the chance to encourage her addict to continue his program to Step Nine, making amends with those Sherlock believes he has wronged or have wronged him.  First on the list is his brother Mycroft (Rhys Ifans), who has taken up residence in Sherlock’s home, 221B, which was passed from him to Mycroft during his absence.  He is initially hesitant to rebuild bridges, as he considers Mycroft lazy and unmotivated (despite Mycroft’s restaurant chain across the city).  Mycroft isn’t too fond of him either, considering Sherlock slept with his fiancé seven times, supposedly to prove that she was only interested in the family fortune. Further resentment arises when Mycroft asks Joan out to dinner, and Sherlock believes she only wants to go in order to sleep with a facsimile of Sherlock himself—not to mention that Mycroft may want to get back at Sherlock for his fiancé.  However, Mycroft only wants to tell Joan that he has been very sick and that Sherlock doesn’t know, and she encourages him to try to make amends between the brothers.  Mycroft’s version of this appears to be blowing up the remainder of Sherlock’s possessions in London.  He calls it even and leaves Sherlock to leave for the States again.
Meanwhile, Sherlock tries to fix things with Lestrade as well, whom he feels has started to use fame as a drug.  When they worked together, Lestrade often took credit for the cases Sherlock had solved, knowing that Sherlock would never come forward to challenge him.  Though throughout the whole episode Sherlock warns him not to do that again, saying that he’s taking away the drug, Lestrade ultimately returns to his old ways after they’ve cleared his name and solved the crime.
Sherlock’s attempts to build bridges don’t work all that well in this episode, but for Sherlock Holmes himself, the resolution he receives is closure enough.  He returns to New York with Joan at the end of the episode having completed both tasks he was given, ready to move onto the next step.