In the Season 4 premiere, the Alpha Holmes finally arrived.
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
When it was announced that Fringe’s John Noble would be recurring on Elementary this year as Morland Holmes, it was hard not to think of it as perfect casting. Noble was fresh off a two season stint on FOX’s Sleepy Hollow where he played a *slight spoiler* relative of Tom Mison’s Icabod. And while Noble was excellent in the role, there wasn’t that resemblance factor. That clincher. Here, there is. And when Morland turned around on the roof to face his son at the end of “The Past is Parent,” it was clear that Noble was perfectly chosen for this part. He and star Jonny Lee Miller could easily be blood.
We want to hear it.
So that was certainly a cool moment. And I’ll easily give this episode the line “My compliment to the virgins whose blood you bathe in.” And I anticipate many more Holmes Family barbs and bickering to come. The downside here however was that Morland was only in the final thirty seconds of the episode. Yes, just as Sherlock himself had probably spent much of his life waiting for his father to arrive, we too had to wait on Morland to show up. And that works just fine when viewers don’t know who’s coming. Because then you’d get that “ah ha!” moment when he spins around and – hey! – it’s John Noble. But we all knew it was Noble. The casting was part of the big pre-hype for the season. So to hold Morland back in this way was fairly frustrating.
In the meantime, while waiting on both Morland to maybe possibly pop up, and to hear back on whether or not the D.A. would prosecute Sherlock for beating Oscar to near death, the two superb sleuths worked a cold case – one tied to Jonathan Bloom, the creep Sherlock encountered in the Season 3 finale who was a suspect in his own wife’s disappearance. And in the most engaging part of this season premiere, Sherlock took on a case (with the intent of giving the full credit to Joan so she could keep her gig with the NYPD) that would work to clear Bloom of his wife’s suspected murder. Right after Bloom shot himself right in front of Sherlock, naturally.
And the case was going along just fine – until Dexter/Gotham’s David Zayas showed up as the second guy they questioned. Thusly showing the episode’s hand way too much and way too early. Because when you see Zayas, you instantly know he’s the killer. For a look at a better use of Zayas, mystery series-wise, check out Person of Interest’s “Super.”
We want to hear it.
Anyhow, the stunt casting element sort of spoiled anything resembling an end reveal about the killer, so the case wound up being somewhat of a minor bust. What did work here though was the strong bond between Joan and Sherlock. One where she refused to coddle him during his recovery, or play the sober companion in any shape or form, but also one where she didn’t care where she worked. Or for whom. As long as she was working with Sherlock. So the news that the two of them had been canned by the cops didn’t faze her much because Sherlock’s the only part of the equation she truly cared about.
The thing that helped push last season’s finale out front and center, stakes-wise, was Sherlock’s relapse and the announcement that his father was flying out to make a showing. Here, not only did they hold back on Morland until the very final moments, but there also wasn’t really any fallout from the heroin use. Aside from Holmes now being back in recovery, determined to once again stay straight. They teased him possibly going to jail, but we knew that wouldn’t pass. And how long do we think Holmes and Watson will be gone from the NYPD? So while there wasn’t anything necessarily bad about “The Past is Parent,” it just failed to capitalize off the momentum from last season.
