Elementary Review: Unfriended (Season 7 Episode 11)

Sherlock and Joan finally gain the upper ground on Elementary Season 7 Episode 11 “Unfriended,” but it comes at a tragic price.

The threat of Reichenbach’s name has come to pass. Until halfway through this episode, though, I’d never have been able to predict just what that would mean.

The episode hits the ground running, telling us that Odin has indeed been setting up murders, including the supposed murder suicide meant to be leaving our heroes wracked with guilt. Odin Reichenbach is no vigilante. He’s just a serial killer.

Over the course of the hour, we establish that he’s been tracking down people who threaten his business and setting them up to look dangerous. From there, he manipulates largely ordinary people into acting as assassins.

Making his plans even crueler, he selects killers based largely on vulnerability, like the third grade teacher left devastated after a school shooting. They are the ones who must live with the fact their own victims are innocent.

I give credit to the storyline for just how much I want to see this man taken down. There’s something almost Shakespearean about how he uses everyone around him and maintains his own image, perhaps akin to Iago from Othello.

How do we take down someone who has such power through notoriety? Get someone who has many of the same qualities. Yet doing so here means going down a path we can’t return from.

Through his various appearances through the series, Morland Holmes has always existed in a gray area, especially when it comes to his relationship with his son. He’s always claimed justice and Sherlock’s best interests, regardless of whether it was true.

No matter what he’s believed, this is a man who has flaws and a notable dark side. Still, we believe he cares for his son. He proves it here, showing up when he is needed to do what’s truly right. It winds up costing him his life.

The actual murder happens off-screen and is jarringly abrupt. The direct link to Reichenbach is even more blurred than usual as he dies at the order of a friend and at the hands of either her men or his own, turned against him.

It’s cold and quick and the kind of thing I would normally feel wasn’t given proper time, but somehow it works here. In a way, the end he meets seems to fit his character—someone who we only see occasionally, but who leaves much in his wake.

Worse still is Sherlock’s reaction, shock briefly turning to grief in the few moments we see. Whatever else has happened, he loves his father too. Now he’s lost the only remaining member of his biological family.

Of course, we must consider the possibility that this entire thing is another set up. Morland’s done it before, and it even fits the theme of return after Reichenbach in many Holmes canons. I just don’t see it here.

First, all interpretations of the Reichenbach story share a lesson of loss. It’s the kind the alters the entire narrative and here, it’s the kind that establishes Odin Reichenbach as the ultimate villain of the series.

Then there’s the look of rueful acceptance on Morland’s face, the devastating way he asks only of his son’s well-being, and the way Sherlock doesn’t question it, even when he knows his father’s thwarted death before.

Finally, we’re just too close to the end. The final adventure will be one for both justice and revenge now that it comes at such a cost. I have to believe it will be a battle that our heroes will win.

The tiny silver lining here is that, since the Reichenbach name has indeed meant the death of a man named Holmes, I think we are now waiting only for the return. Morland might not come back, but Sherlock can still rise for him.

The end of the series will be bittersweet at best, now more than ever.  We at least deserve the satisfaction of that final win against this enemy. I can’t wait to see it play through.

 

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Elementary airs Thursdays at 10/9c on CBS.

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