Recap / Elementary S 01 E 21 A Landmark Story

The episode opens up with a man, Philip van der Hoff, receiving an electric shock. We see another man, Daniel Gottlieb, on a laptop. Gottlieb explains that he has hacked van der Hoff's pacemaker and shocks him again. Gottlieb tells him to change his vote, and when he does so, kills him by giving him a heart attack. In prison, Moran sees a report of van der Hoff's death. He sets up a meeting with Sherlock, tells him that van der Hoff was killed by Moriarty, and kills the supervising guard to keep their conversation a secret.

Sherlock and Watson try to investigate the murder, but everyone believes it was an accident. Sherlock decides to break into the funeral home to investigate. The first thing they note is bruising on the victim's palms which is consistent with electrocution. Watson refuses to do an autopsy, but when Sherlock tries, she caves in because of his inexperience. When they cut him open they see bubbles in his blood vessels suggesting it boiled.

Sherlock finds out that Philip van der Hoff was one of the voters deciding the landmark status of the Taggart Speakeasy Museum. In fact, changing his vote was the last thing he did before he died. Sherlock also finds that many of the voter received home renovations from Robert Baunman. Suspecting bribery, Sherlock sets out to meet him. Baunman is walking down the street chewing out an employee, when a air conditioning unit falls and kills him. Sherlock notes that such a thing can be targeted, and drops one off his roof to prove it.

Sherlock realizes that there is only one living relative of the Taggart Speakeasy's owner, Hilary Taggart, a supporter of its landmark status and likely to be the next victim. Sherlock and Watson follow Hilary to the park where she takes jogs, and sees she has a medical bracelet for bee allergies. Noticing the amount of bees in the park, Sherlock finds a bees' nest and a trough with sugar water. He decides to come back at nightfall, when the killer will refill the station.

That night Watson expresses concern what Sherlock will do when he finds the killer, asking what is different about him than when he found Moran. Sherlock tells her that what is different about him is her. The moment is cut short when they see Gottlieb tending the bees. Sherlock confronts Gottlieb, noting the diagrams in his notebook are the ways he could drop the air conditioner and kill Bauman. When Gottlieb protests that studying physics does not make him a killer, Sherlock tasers him and takes him to the brownstone.

Sherlock ties up Gottlieb in a straitjacket and questions his connections with Moriarty. Gottlieb states that one day a man who claimed his name was Moriarty arranged a meeting with him. At the meeting, Moriarty told him that he was a serial killer and hired him as an assassin. He points out that he was told to give Sherlock a drug overdose, but the job was cancelled which had never happened.

Sherlock sends Moriarty a text message from Gottlieb's phone, arranging a meeting at a diner. Sherlock and Watson wait outside the diner and watch. Sherlock sees a man waiting for someone, and when he leaves, follows him. They are cut off by a train and Sherlock pulls out a camera and takes pictures from different angles. Sherlock goes back to the brownstone, takes out slices of the photos, and pieces them together. He determines the man was John Douglas, who was imprisoned for murdering a group of boys who killed his friend, but was released on lack of evidence.

Sherlock arranges a meeting with Douglas and threatens to torture him unless he explains why Irene Adler was killed. Douglas is about to talk, but is killed by a sniper. Watson and the NYPD come in, and Watson opens up the bag of "torture tools" to find it is filled with legos.

Gottlieb's phone receives another text, and he is not able to interpret the code. They take it to Moran who is shocked, but also does not seem to be able to translate it either. Sherlock goes to Brownstone and tries to interpret it himself. He then realizes it was an order for Moran to kill himself or his sister dies. Moran bashes his head against the mirror, and Gregson informs Sherlock that he went into a coma and is not expected to survive. And then Moriarty himself calls Sherlock for a talk...

This episode contains examples of the following tropes:

• Attention Whore: When Gottlieb is caught, he doesn't bother asking for a lawyer. He just quite eagerly spills his guts about every job he's ever done, happy to finally have an audience.
• Blunder-Correcting Impulse: Sherlock forces Joan to break into a funeral home with him to perform an autopsy on the murder victim. Joan refuses, so Sherlock attempts to perform the autopsy himself. After getting frustrated with Sherlock's evident lack of medical training, she grudgingly performs the autopsy herself.
• Cold Sniper: Proctor kills Douglas this way.
• Driven to Suicide: Sebastian Moran when Moriarty threatens his sister.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Moran commits suicide when Moriarty threatens to kill his sister.
• Evil Old Folks: Daniel Gottlieb is an effective assassin despite his age, due to his subtle M.O.
• Foil: Daniel Gottlieb is this to Sebastian Moran. While Moran is a large muscular man who sticks to the same method and makes his killings seem like the random acts of a Serial Killer, Gottlieb is a scholarly old man who kills in various ways and makes them look like accidents. Sherlock even describes him as the scalpel to Moran's sledgehammer.
• Friendship Moment:
  • Subverted when Sherlock brings Joan to a morgue in the middle of the night, gets her to do an autopsy and compliments her skills. To say she's unhappy about it would be an understatement.
    Joan: No. I am dissecting a body in the middle of the night. We are not having a moment.
  • Played much more straight when Sherlock mentions that this time, he will not go haywire after finding Moriarty.
    Sherlock: The thing that's different about me, empirically speaking...is you.
    Joan: That is the one of the nicest things anyone's ever said to me.
• Funny Background Event: Watson is taking care of the laundry in her room, we see an old air conditioner falling off the roof through her window. She stops for a moment and then discovers that Holmes was doing experiments.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After Sherlock has captured Gottlieb and has him tied up in their house to interrogate him about his connection to Moriarty, he asks a frantic Joan if she wants tea. She responds with this. The teetotaling addict in recovery gives her the face.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: This is Daniel Gottlieb's M.O as an assassin. He shocks a man to death by hacking his pacemaker, drops an air conditioner on another, and plans to use killer bees against a woman with a severe allergy. When captured he mentions that he was meant to give Sherlock a drug overdose, but the job was canceled.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sherlock once he realized that the coded message that he showed to Sebastian Moran to decipher is actually a death order.
• Mythology Gag: When Holmes and Watson are discussing whether Holmes has ever needed to break into a funeral home before, Holmes remarks that there was "The Problem of Thor Bridge".
• Surgeons Can Do Autopsies If They Want: Watson performs one on Phillip van der Hoff's body, proving that he was killed by his pacemaker.
• Weak, but Skilled: Gottlieb is a scholarly old man with no evidence of any advanced combat training. He's also a successful assassin with an effective and uniquely subtle M.O.