‘Elementary’ season 3, premiere review: Does Holmes have a new protege?

ElementaryLast season of “Elementary” left Holmes and Watson in a weird place, but tonight starts a new chapter where they can hopefully resolve some of their issues and come together once again (and hopefully there will be no more Mycroft/Watson hook ups since this was just odd).

Watson has her own apartment now and is working as a private investigator on her own. Seems she doesn’t really need Holmes to continue working, but at the same time the candid banter they used to share helped cases get solved quicker.

It has been 6 months since Watson has seen him Holmes after he left for London to work with MI6. With everything going wrong in her current case, she decides to show up at Holmes’ brownstone to look for help (it was sad to see all of his stuff boxed up). She is surprised to find that Holmes is back in town and living at the brownstone. He hoped that by meddling in Watson’s case he would be offering an olive branch, but she doesn’t want his help, telling him that he ended their partnership in his goodbye letter (that was 5 sentences). Holmes opens up to Watson and says that he laid his hands on a small amount of heroin before he left and that it happened at the same time Watson left him. It was all too much so he left and his sobriety was intact.

Watson learns that Holmes has a new partner, Kitty, who is following Watson around on Holmes order to find out how well she’s been doing since he left.  He tells Watson that he learned that he could be a mentor and a teacher and that he was so afraid of losing the relationship he had with Watson, but realized that he could do it again with Kitty. Really though it seems that his relationship with Kitty isn’t going as well as he’d hoped and he is courting Watson in hopes of winning her back.

Holmes of course will never take no for an answer and shows up at the police station to talk to Gregson. He apologizes to him for leaving without a goodbye, but Gregson calls him out on getting fired from MI6 and wanting his old job back. He tells Holmes that coming back to the department will depend on Joan wanting him back, because if she’s not okay with it, then Gregson is not okay with it. Watson says that she’s fine with it, but makes it clear that she and Holmes are no longer partners. They do agree that although they work alone now, they will be willing to help each other some times on their cases.

It took 20 minutes before Holmes showed up, which is a little long considering what a huge part of the show he is. We hope that this won’t be standard this season. Also, we aren’t sure about Kitty yet, but we are happy there’s a new dynamic being introduced. Episode grade: C+

What did you think of the premiere episode of “Elementary”? Share some of your thoughts right now with a comment, and head over here to get a sneak peek for next week’s all new episode.  Also, you can sign up now to get some further TV clues and updates on all we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo via CBS.)

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