Elementary: Hurt Me, Hurt You Recap

Synopsis 05×24: Joan and Sherlock have their sights set on SPK when a fight breaks out between SPK and Mara Tres. With a gang war on the horizon, the team scrambles to stop the bloodshed while Sherlock grapples with his own demons. 

The finale is here, and it opened with a frantic Sherlock testing his memory. There were random items packaged up in a box he had wrapped and appeared to grab at random. He got the items correct and hid them quickly when he heard Joan return home. She confronted him and asked him if he was using again, to which he took offense and showed his arms to prove he was not. Joan was not particularly convinced, aware that something was off. 

Elsewhere, SPK members were having a party to celebrate someone’s freedom from prison. Two gang members discussed Joan, having been given her name by Tall Boy, and prepared to go pay her a visit. Those plans were put on hold when the party abruptly ended in gunfire. Mara Tres, a gang Sherlock worked with earlier in the season, was behind the attack and the NYPD wanted to put a stop to it before it became a full on gang war. Sherlock offered to be the in and tried to get a message to the leader of Mara Tres through a priest used to launder gang money. 

With war on the horizon, Gregson talked with Tyus, who continued to deny his involvement with SPK. He did however indicate that no retaliation was not an option, not in the face of an obvious attack. 

Back at the Brownstone, Sherlock had a run-in with the mystery woman from last week. She wanted to be recognized and for Sherlock to “do what needs to be done” lest he never see her again. Of course Sherlock wants to deny what she is saying and his conversation with her is interrupted by gang members coming to pick him up.

He was taken to the leader of Mara Tres who said they were not the ones to make the first move. SPK killed his younger sister who had nothing to do with the operation and the attack on SPK was retaliation for that. 

Sherlock took the DVD that had come with the sister’s body back to Gregson. He and Joan believed that SPK had actually been framed for the murder. Back to Tyus the crew went, bringing up the new evidence. Finally dropping any pretense about not being the leader of SPK, Tyus admitted that his gang would not have picked the fight because they knew they could not win. He wanted to help try and bring peace and would try to get the name of someone who might be trying to destroy the gang from the inside out. 

Joan spoke with the roommate of Carmen, the murder victim, and got her to admit she saw her friend get kidnapped. Whoever took her was dressed like a gang banger but she noted that he did not have any visible tattoos and did not seem comfortable holding a gun. If she had to take a guess she would say that he was not a gang member. 

Sherlock returned to the Brownstone to check in with Joan who asked him to accompany her to Shinwell’s memorial service. It was important to her and he agreed to go. Further discussion was squished when they got news that Tyus had come back with more than just a name. He was selling out the entire gang in exchange for immunity. He also claimed that one of the gang members had killed Carmen but was now dead as a result of Mara Tres’ actions. 

Knowing it all seemed to be too good to be true the team came up with a different working theory: Tyus had killed Carmen. He was not a typical gang banger, like the roommate described, and would have everything to gain by killing Carmen. She dies, Mara Tres goes nuclear, and he sells out his gang to get the best deal for himself since he knows the police are onto him. Gregson asked the DA to let them lean on him and try to test the theory but they were shut down. The hundreds of arrests and closed cases were too sweet. 

Joan turned up at Shinwell’s memorial and was the only one. Sherlock was absent. Before the memorial began she received a call from Tyus who taunted her, informing her that she was the reason Shinwell was caught and got killed. They found her phone number on his phone and the ball rolled from there. Everyone who had died, died because of her. 

Upset, and rightfully so, Joan returned to the Brownstone and gave Sherlock an earful. How could a man who remembers everything have forgotten something so important? He then misspoke, telling her she was angry at Tyus and should not take it out on him. Joan, angry, tore off and ended up having a meeting with the leader of Mara Tres. She asked him for his sister’s body, letting him know that they could use it to prove Tyus’ guilt and he would be free game in prison. 

Sherlock received a call from May, his hallucination, and admitted that he had been forgetting. His mental memory exercise had not been working. He heard something just as May was saying her goodbye and it appeared that the brownstone had caught fire. He threw a chair through the door. 

Joan was victorious and they got Tyus on Carmen’s murder. He lost his immunity because he perjured himself and they were able to match his DNA to a sample found in Carmen’s throat after she bit him. Yet not all the news was good because Joan returned home and found the smashed door, as well as a living space that had been trashed (but thankfully not burned). She ran, probably to find Sherlock who by that time had checked himself into a clinic. 

May sat with him at the clinic and the audience had the hallucination confirmed, as well as the hallucination coming in the form of Sherlock’s mom. He admitted he was scared moments before they were ready to test him. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until next season to see what they find.