Poison Pen

Part of the virtue of Elementary’s 24-episode season structure is that there is no pressure to dump on character development every week. Like a sitcom that tacks on its short, sweet heartwarming moments late in the third act, Elementary shifts its narrative camera from the weekly crime plot to remind us that Holmes and Watson are real people dealing with personal conflict. Occasionally, that conflict will take center stage, but more often than not – and in the case of “Poison Pen” – it is painted in light strokes on the episode’s much larger canvas.