Ezra Kleinfelter is inside a cab, writing on his blog. The driver tell him he is at his destination, but when he tries to swipe his card, is is rejected. He realizes that his accounts have been drained, and the Secret Service arrive. Ezra runs away, while the cab driver shouts furiously at him and honks his horn to alert the authorities.
Watson is at a playground with her friend Emily, who states that she created a dating profile for Watson that she can accept or reject. She receives text messages from Sherlock, with crimes scenes simulated with dolls that she describes as practice. Upon returning to the brownstone, Watson finds Sherlock with a client who Sherlock states will not state his business until she is present. He claims to be searching for Ezra Kleinfelter, who has gone missing.
When the client leaves, Sherlock and Watson follow him, and figure out he isn't who he claims to be. His name is Elliot Honeycutt and he works for the Redding Company, where Ezra was working. Sherlock looks up Ezra, and finds a journalist that he spoke to. Sherlock and Watson interview the journalist who claims to be unaware of Ezra's whereabouts. They don't believe her, and notice a security guard who might be her link to him. Sherlock takes the guard's cellphone and finds out he has links to an internet hacker group called Everyone.
Sherlock tries to contact Everyone, but none of them will reveal anything to him. He is able however to find out the real name and whereabouts of one of the members who he believes is harboring Ezra. The woman is named Vanessa Hiske, and Sherlock and Watson find her apartment. They break in, only for no one to respond. They soon find the corpse of Vanessa, and immediately suspect Ezra.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Skill: Pickpocketing. Sherlock first mentions it when stealing the phone of a guard, stating that you need to use eye contact to distract the target's gaze. Later Watson uses this to steal a suspect's watch tying him to a murder.
- Continuity Nod: Emily, Joan's best friend introduced in "The Rat Race", has a brief appearance.
- Death Glare: After being interrogated by the Secret Service for three hours, Watson gives a big one to Holmes.
- Debate and Switch: Sherlock and Watson discuss whether Ezra is a traitor or a whistleblower for publishing documents revealing corporate and governmental wrongdoing and whether they should turn him into the authorities or help him escape. They don't come to a consensus before they discover that he killed his accomplice Vanessa for reasons only tangentially related to him publishing the documents. The plot shifts to the pair tracking him down for the murder while not really focusing on the previous dilemma.
- Hacker Collective: The titular "Everyone" who make Sherlock and Joan's lives hell to try and stop them from investigating Ezra.
- Hanlon's Razor: Rephrased by Sherlock, venting about an internet argument:"Are governments capable of evil? Yes, of course they are, all institutions are. But they're more capable of incompetence."
- Mythology Gag: Watson starts a text file called "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes."
- No True Scotsman: Holmes says the man that hires them is faking because "No Belgian is that bad at backgammon".
- Ripped from the Headlines: The episode was obviously inspired by the Edward Snowden scandal. Like Mr. Snowden, he is helped by a Julian Assange-type character (sans the rape allegations). It should be noted that the Snowden expy is portrayed totally unsympathetically, being willing to kill and endanger lives rather than face the legal repercussions of his leaking national security secrets (and it is implied that he did it just to get attention).
- Take That!: When Watson notes that a man has a lot of Ayn Rand quotes on his site, Holmes calls her "Philosopher-in-chief for the intellectually bankrupt".
- Took a Level in Badass: Watson learns pickpocketing by herself, impressing Sherlock and collecting evidence to capture the killer of the week.
- Wham Episode: Joan Watson starts writing the Sherlock Holmes chronicles and Sherlock reads a love letter from Moriarty.
- Wham Shot: Two in the very end:
- Watson starts writing the chronicles of Sherlock Holmes and the camera is focused on her computer screen.
- Sherlock reading a letter from Jamie Moriarty who still writes him letters from prison.
