Synopsis 05×14: Sherlock and Joan investigate the death of an eSports gamer while Shinwell handles a problem with his daughter.
Across town a gamer, O.G. Pwnzr, started to host his live video show. Apparently he was considered the “old guard” in video games, a former competitor who had been caught up in the start of eSports. Now he makes strategy videos for the next generation to watch. Two young women watched from their room and saw him get pistol whipped on camera, one of which turned out to be Gregson’s niece who contacted him about the issue. Joan arrived at the precinct to get briefed on the case without Sherlock, as he was MIA.
Gregson had his niece explain to him the world of professional gamers. The young man who had been killed on camera was apparently part of the original crew who made eSports a thing and now shared his wisdom with others. Joan received a phone call from Sherlock only to find that he was already on the case and had found the crime scene that no one could locate. Owen was definitely dead.
Meanwhile, Shinwell went to meet with his daughter after school. She seemed surprised to see him due to a texting mishap, since her phone was taken during the school day. She explained that she needed his help because she was in trouble.
The team further investigated the eSports murder and found out that Owen had a recent argument with the manager of a famous eSport team. Apparently they had argued about a player named Tendu (real name Marcel) who was supposed to sign with the team. Owen was actively trying to get him to sign with a different team, but the manager had not heard from either of them, even though Marcel did eventually sign with him. The player was MIA.
From there, Sherlock went to the hotel room where Marcel was staying. It appeared that he had fled out the window, probably with a woman, and they found Owen’s murder weapon in the closet. It was a native seal hunting tool and, though the evidence was damning, Sherlock believed Marcel had been framed. Since Marcel was a seal hunter he would have known how to use the tool correctly, which would be to use the blunt end to kill someone. Instead, whoever used it used the sharp, pointy end. Clearly they were a n00b.
Since the only person who could shed light on what is going on was missing, Joan started going through Marcel’s instagram account to find clues as to his whereabouts. That led them to a woman who headed up an anti-seal hunting campaign who may have been holding a grudge since Marcel was a major supporter of native seal hunting. They called her into the precinct with her lawyer and she said that while they’d had their differences, the pair had come together in favor of native seal hunting and against commercial seal hunting. Marcel had signed a deal regarding the subject, so she was eliminated as a suspect.
Thankfully she did end up helping with the case because she was able to give them the name of Marcel’s girlfriend, presumably the one he fled the hotel room with.
Joan finally met up with Shinwell to discuss how his meeting with his daughter went. He explained that she’s having trouble with a gangster, Lucien. Apparently Lucien is well known for trying to take what he wants, even when whoever he wants does not return the sentiment. As such, he has been pressuring Shinwell’s daughter into a relationship and she wants Shinwell to get him to stop. Naturally, Shinwell is all game for helping her but shared with Joan that he realized his daughter doesn’t need a father like he had hoped. She needed a gangster.
The name of Marcel’s girlfriend led to another break in the case: she was Czech, and they had met other Czech women earlier. They had come out to entertain the eSports team. Thanks to some information from one of the models they got the girlfriend’s full name and inspired a bit of drama when one of the models accused the manager of setting her friend up to get hurt. It was then that the manager admitted to Sherlock that the girls were escorts, used to keep the teammates’ interest, and Marcel had wanted to “buy out” his girlfriend from the service.
When they went to investigate the service they found the building burned to the ground and the fire department had no leads. Sherlock, with his crazy sensitive nose, smelled gasoline on the ground and was able to identify the car the suspect drove away in. They had enough to put out an alert.
Shinwell took care of business and went to Lucien’s apartment. Instead of hurting him he made him an offer: leave her alone and Shinwell can make sure some of his gang members move out of Lucien’s territory so that he can expand.
With the car’s description the police were able to bring in a woman named Carla who headed up the escort business. She said she had been blackmailed by Marcel – let him buy out his girlfriend, or else he would reveal information on the higher ups in her organization. Figuring she would cut her losses, she took his money and burned the place down because if he had been able to figure everything out, someone else might too. She had no reason to want him dead, either, especially not after getting his money. So Sherlock looked into the money since Marcel had just been signed to the team and hadn’t earned anything from them.
Apparently at some point he had received sponsorship from a headphone company. They gave him a cash advance and were also paying 20k to key leaders in his village in Canada.
The team successfully tracked down Marcel and stopped a fixer from taking him and his girlfriend out. They got the kids to safety and brought the fixer in to answer some questions. Sherlock proposed that he worked for a law firm looking to secure ports along a now de-iced water channel, the Northwest Passage. The passage would save ships a lot of fuel and make the firm a lot of money if they could secure the land for their clients. However, the indigenous people did not want to sell and Marcel stepped in to give them the financial benefit they needed to continue to refuse the deal.
Therefore the firm figured if they killed Marcel the money would dry up and the leaders would give up the land in exchange for a nice payday. They offered the fixer a deal if he would turn on his boss and he took it, leading them to the lawyer who had earlier represented the anti-seal hunting woman. Apparently she stood to make partner with the deal and was willing to go to any length to get the land. She got arrested, the team concluded their case.
Shinwell let his daughter know that Lucian would not be a problem anymore and then admitted he had enjoyed walking her home the other day. He wanted to do it again, maybe make a habit of it, but his earlier suspicions were confirmed. She did not want a relationship with him. The only reason she reached out was because she needed his skills as a gangster to take care of a problem. His help did not make them family and he agreed to give her space.
English