Watson Season 2 Episode 16 Review: Respect the Process, Respect the Quirks

On Watson Season 2 Episode 16, “Respect the Process, Respect the Quirks,” a woman named Shelly takes her daughter, Cora, to Laila, believing the girl has cancer.

Laila brings the case to the Holmes Clinic, where Watson realizes much more is going on. Shelly herself is deeply troubled, another younger daughter is shut away, and all three family members have skin that blisters in the sun.

While treating Cora, the team must track down Shelley when she flees to protect young Annie. She returns to the hospital herself, trying to take Cora again, and John realizes she’s suffering from schizophrenic hallucinations.

The girls’ symptoms are tracked down to too much celery juice (really), but Shelley still can’t be a mom alone. Thankfully, her sister is able to come help. John is able to relate so well thanks to Sherlock’s continued and imagined presence.  

The detective argues against being banished via medication and tells John to tell Laila about his near affair. His final push comes when the couple is in a car together, distracting Watson enough to cause a major accident.

The fellows have their own struggles: Ingrid lashes out over being denied therapy and Sasha writes to her “mother”, who is of course Beck. When Ingrid goes to negotiate with the man, she glimpses the photos he’s been sending.  

The elephant in the room has somehow gotten larger. There’s something to imaginary Sherlock’s continued presence with both his insistence that the real man is still alive and the references to Shinwell’s search for him.

Does that mean a living Sherlock will walk through the door with Shinwell before the series ends? I have no idea. His best friend being in a major wreck could expediate the matter, but I still won’t be holding my breath.

The dramatic ending makes it hard to argue that the hallucination is doing much good, but I am on its with Laila. She deserves the truth of John’s feelings for his ex-wife, and if they really were fleeting, he’d have said as much already.

Even with the show ending, I’m almost certain it won’t close by killing its title character. I can’t rule out them hurting Laila largely to hurt him, but I’m most worried for Sasha, whose earnest voiceovers to her “mother” feel foreboding.

Our best hope is Ingrid. She’s certainly smart enough to figure out what she’s seen. Will she listen to her better angels? Her desperation to get back to her doctor may work against them, but I believe she’s grown enough to do so.

With everything our main characters are going through, it can be difficult to spare attention for the case of the week, though it helps that Laila is so involved. And, as ever, it’s a solidly-written story with people who deserve to be helped.

I wish we’d spent a little more time with the psychological side of Shelley’s story, especially given just how relevant it is to John right now. Seeing her symptoms may be part of why he so desperately pushes away the image of his friend.

We’re speeding into the season finale with some characters in immediate life-or-death circumstances and others unknowingly facing peril. I’d like the full stories told, but for now I’m more concerned that they all make it through alive.  

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Watson airs Sundays at 10/9c on CBS. 

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