Synopsis of 05×03: Paige asks Sherlock to look into something for her, and he gets into the middle of her and Captain Gregson’s relationship. Ever the double tasker, Sherlock worked with Joan and Marcus to solve the case of a missing woman and a murdered naked dude.
As promised, Paige returned and viewers witnessed a sweet moment between her and Captain Gregson as they shared lunch and fortune cookies. Shortly thereafter, Paige tracked down Sherlock and introduced herself right before she enlisted him to help her with a problem she needed to have investigated.
In the woods, a curiously naked fellow crouched in the grass and took video through the window of a cabin. He was caught, then promptly shot, providing the case of the week. Joan and Sherlock were on it, after he pillaged Paige’s neurologist’s office to gather documents that may point to wrong doing, and showed up to a “clothing optional” retreat which explained why the gentleman who had been shot was in his birthday suit.
Kenny, the dead guy, had been a regular at the retreat and no one believed he had any enemies or anyone who would wish to see him harmed. However, one of the other individuals who knew him showed the detectives a text she received from him that night. It was video of the cabin, and in the image was a young woman – Beth Stone – who had been kidnapped earlier in Long Island (because nothing good happens in Long Island). Odds were that he had been shot for snooping around where he was not welcome.
While Sherlock was stumped about how Beth tied into all of it, he did figure out what was happening at the neurologist’s office. At least three of his clerical staff were double billing prescriptions, reaping the rewards and committing insurance fraud. Paige’s observations had been spot on. In the search for information, Sherlock had to read Paige’s file, and realized very quickly that her health insurance had lapsed and she was putting all of her treatments on credit after a couple of checks bounced.
Marcus, after they visited the missing woman’s husband, had been sent to look for an old TV van that had been sold which was featured in the kidnapping video. He lucked out and found it, but the van had been torched and left in an empty lot. Joan found a phone in it and while it had been badly damaged, the SIM card remained untouched and they were able to pull data from it.
Apparently three calls had been made from the burner phone, and all three were made to Aaron Stone, Beth Stone’s husband. He became very edgy about the ordeal, refusing to answer questions even though it was clear to Sherlock and the team that he was being blackmailed to get his wife back. They were asked to leave and the husband remained firm even after Sherlock implored him with the odds of finding her alive.
Turning to employees, Sherlock talked with Dennis who admitted that he had heard Beth and Aaron getting into it recently, but claimed that Aaron would do anything for her and could not have been the one to hurt her. Another gentleman who rented out an editing room said he heard Aaron yelling about something they had on film one evening, and when they reviewed the film they found that in the background someone was being stabbed. Their newest hypothesis was that Aaron had been blackmailing whoever was in the tape, and in return they decided to blackmail him.
When reviewing the tape, Joan revealed herself to be a huge mob nerd and believed that the man being murdered in the video was a gentleman named Latham who had presumably been taken out by the mob. This launched them onto another trail, thinking the mob may have orchestrated Beth’s capture and ransom to get the video and keep Aaron from turning them in.
Sherlock took a pause to brief Paige on what he found. Right after, he confronted her about her finances and inquired into her “intentions” with the Captain. She, naturally, got a bit offended and claimed that not only did she not want money from Gregson, she would go ahead and pay Sherlock even though he waived the fee. To be fair, Sherlock stuck his foot in that one.
Joan accompanied Marcus on the arrest of the young mobster they believed was behind Latham’s murder, but of course nothing was quite as it seemed. He cleared up the “misunderstanding” by demonstrating that the video had been altered. Aaron and Dennis had come to him for startup money for a CGI program that Dennis had created which was beyond anything currently in the industry. He had them create the video as an example of the work that could be done and provided proof. They didn’t arrest him. It was back to square one.
Then, in an overnight epiphany, Sherlock roused Joan from her sleep and insisted that Dennis was the one who had arranged the kidnapping, as proven by the song playing in the video Kenny captured before he died. A closer look at the security video revealed that it had been edited, probably be Dennis’ software, and the man who took Beth was none other than Dennis himself.
Since they were at the station, Sherlock pestered Gregson about his relationship with Paige. He insisted that the two of them should marry so that she would be able to use his insurance for her treatments. After all, nothing says “I love you” quite like health insurance. Of course, a suggestion of marriage from a man personally against it threw Gregson into a tizzy, before he admitted that while he wanted marriage, Paige was of Sherlock’s school of thought about the whole thing.
After bringing Dennis in and questioning him, Beth turned up at a diner and Dennis was temporarily freed. When questioned, Beth insisted she had been taken by two Pakistani men who held her first in the cabin, then in a tent in the woods. Sherlock didn’t believe it for a moment (neither did we) and believed that she was lying, and Dennis was lying, because both of them were covering for each other.
They eventually got the proof they needed, in the form of a prenuptial agreement that was about to expire, Dennis’ desire to reap the full rewards of his program, and a pesky tan Beth had that should have been impossible if she had been kept indoors like she insisted she had. Since she was not the one to pull the trigger that killed Kenny, she was offered the chance to roll over on Dennis in exchange for a plea bargain. She took it.
Once more Sherlock meddled in the Captain’s personal life, this time through arranging a meeting between the Captain and Paige after speaking to her about marriage. Apparently he got her to “lower her defenses” and then, touchingly, told the Captain they should get married because Gregson said he wanted it. Sherlock even provided the rings and suggested that eloping during an upcoming vacation would be quick and easy.
Gregson took one of the rings and made the decision – he was going to propose! We are getting an Elementary engagement as promised.
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