Elementary (TV series)

Plot

Episodes

Cast and characters

Main

• Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is a former Scotland Yard consultant who now lives in New York City after completing drug rehabilitation. He is a deductive genius with a variety of unusual interests and enthusiasms that assist him in his investigations. Feeling that the more interesting criminal cases are in America, he stays in New York. He contacts an old associate, Captain Thomas Gregson of the New York City Police Department, to resume his work as a consulting detective. He is forced by his father to live with Dr. Joan Watson, his "sober companion" who provides him with aftercare. Miller's Holmes displays many canonical aspects of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character, while his familial relations, most notably his resentment for his father Morland, have been added into his narrative. In between seasons 2 and 3, Sherlock spends eight months in Britain working for MI6 and returns to New York in "Enough Nemesis to Go Around" with a new protégé, Kitty Winter. At the conclusion of season 3, Sherlock suffers a relapse, but his father's connections allow him to resume working for the NYPD. In season 4, Morland reveals that Sherlock's mother, May Holmes, was an opiate addict like him. In the last few episodes of season 5, he is violently assaulted by Shinwell, an aquantance of Joan's, resulting in a severe head injury. He subsequently suffers from severe headaches that affect his concentration and memory, leading to an incident where he is in possession of a severed head, without knowing who the victim was, or if he was the killer, as well as hallucinating about a woman who is based on his mother; the season 6 premiere reveals that he is suffering from post-concussion syndrome, requiring him to be put on a carefully balanced system of medication, as well as taking on assorted mental activities to try and help his brain heal, albeit hampered by Sherlock's 'need' to use his work to escape his past addictions. By the beginning of season 7, Sherlock is officially recovered, although he notes that one more hit to his head could have serious consequences for his health. In the penultimate episode of the series, following his father's murder at the hands of Odin Reichenbach, Sherlock has a showdown with Reichenbach in which he fakes his death, allowing Reichenbach to be arrested and finally convicted of his numerous crimes some time later. In the series finale, after three years in hiding, he returns after his nemesis / former lover Jamie Moriarty lures him out by making a fake threat against Joan's life. He later opts to stay with Joan as she undergoes cancer treatment, and the two partner up again a year later when she recovers. With 24 episodes per season, by the end of season 2, Jonny Lee Miller became the actor who had portrayed Sherlock Holmes the most times in television and/or film, overtaking Jeremy Brett and Eille Norwood.
• Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson. Holmes' sober companion, Joan was previously a successful surgeon, which adds to her complement of skills; she had grown close to a patient and his family, and when she accidentally nicked his vena cava during surgery and he bled out in seconds, she gave up her medical career. She comes to Holmes when she is hired by his father as his sober companion, to help him remain abstinent after his release from rehabilitation. After her contracted time is finished, she remains on after lying to Sherlock that his father had continued to retain her services. He gradually comes to value her input and grows to trust her as she helps him come to terms with his life after addiction. Eventually, Sherlock reveals that he found out that Joan is no longer being paid to stay as a companion. He offers her a position as an apprentice, telling her how much she means to him and how she helps him to focus. Joan accepts and starts her training as a detective with Sherlock. After Sherlock leaves for London, Joan becomes the go-to consulting detective for the 11th Precinct, while also taking on more traditional private investigator-type cases that Sherlock eschews. The two resume working together after Sherlock returns to New York, although Joan takes the occasional case independent of Sherlock. Joan has a brother, Oren, and a half-sister, Lin Wen. In the final two seasons, Joan starts to take steps to become a mother, and in the series finale, three years after Sherlock fakes his death, she is revealed to have adopted a son named Arthur. During this time, she has also written and published a book recounting her partnership with Sherlock and continued to consult for the NYPD. Near the end of the episode, she reveals that she has cancer and is starting chemotherapy, prompting Sherlock to stay with her through her recovery.
• Aidan Quinn as Captain Thomas "Tommy" Gregson. He heads the 11th Precinct. He was previously assigned to Scotland Yard to observe their Counter-Terrorism Bureau, where he crossed paths with Sherlock and was impressed with his work. He genuinely likes Holmes, and the two have a mutual respect, with Sherlock describing Gregson as an investigator he both respects and admires, though Gregson admits that Sherlock is a "pain in the ass". In season 2, Gregson separates from his wife of over 20 years, Cheryl, and they are divorced by season 3. In "Rip Off", it is revealed that his daughter, Hannah, is an ambitious patrol officer with the 15th Precinct; by season 6, Hannah has been promoted to sergeant. In "Absconded", Gregson is offered a promotion to Deputy Chief due to the outstanding work of his unit, but despite hints that some higher-ups want him to accept the offer, he decides to remain where he is, as he values his current role and ability to interact with people more than the possibilities offered by the promotion. It is also mentioned in that episode that he was put in charge of the Major Case Squad at age 40. In season 4, Gregson begins dating Paige Cowan, a former detective who quit the NYPD after her unit was accused of taking bribes; they briefly break up after Joan runs into them at a restaurant, as Paige claims she does not want people to think ill of Gregson, even if she was not involved in her unit's actions, but Joan soon learns that Paige actually has multiple sclerosis and convinces Gregson to give the relationship another chance; the two later marry. During season 6, when Bell contemplates a transfer to the United States Marshals Service, Gregson observes that Holmes, Watson and Bell make a good partnership because Bell stops them from bending the rules too far when they are conducting investigations. In the beginning of season 7, Gregson is shot and wounded while investigating a cold case, which leads to the revelation of a conspiracy helmed by social media mogul Odin Reichenbach. In the series finale, it is revealed that he retired from the NYPD a year earlier to spend as much time as possible with Paige, who eventually succumbed to her MS.
• Jon Michael Hill as Detective First Grade/Captain Marcus Bell. Bell is a junior officer with the 11th Precinct with whom Sherlock and Joan prefer working. While initially against the idea of getting help from Sherlock, he comes to recognize Sherlock's abilities and readily takes advice from him. Gregson explicitly observes that Bell is a good partner for Sherlock and Joan as he recognizes when circumstances require them to bend the rules without letting them break anything that would compromise later court cases. He is briefly reassigned to an observational role in season 2 after sustaining a potentially serious shoulder injury at the hands of a hostile witness Sherlock had questioned earlier; this strains his relationship with Sherlock, but a confrontation with Holmes helps Bell overcome the psychological issues that were hindering his recovery and he soon returns to his old role. In season 4, Bell considers taking the sergeant's exam for the increase in pay to help support his ailing mother. In season 6, Bell is offered a position with the United States Marshals Service and decides to put in an application for transfer upon completing his master's degree. However, he later passes up the job after Sherlock takes the blame for the murder of serial killer Michael Rowan to protect both Joan and Gregson's daughter Hannah from prosecution, and then again when Gregson is shot and critically wounded at the start of season 7 to help investigate the conspiracy. In the series finale, Bell is revealed to have married and become a father, and has been promoted to captain of the 11th following Gregson's retirement.
• John Noble as Morland Holmes. Sherlock's much loathed father arrives in New York after Sherlock suffers a relapse at the end of season 3. He works as an influential business consultant, making arrangements for various companies to achieve their goals regardless of what they might be, with Sherlock describing him as a 'neutral' party in that he has no concern about the consequences of his clients' goals so long as they are achieved. He decides to stay in New York for unknown long-term reasons involving Sherlock, with Joan speculating from independent research that he suffered serious stomach damage from a failed murder attempt two years before, and may believe that he is being targeted again. With a view to resolving the threat, at the end of season 4, he accepts the leadership of the imprisoned Moriarty's organization, intending to dismantle the group from within and thereby shield his son and Joan from any further harm. Morland later returns on two separate occasions: once during season 6, following his older son Mycroft's death, when he and Sherlock mend any remaining fences between them, and then again during season 7, where Sherlock recruits his help to bring down Odin Reichenbach. However, after Morland's machinations cripple Reichenbach's company and nearly result in him being ousted, Reichenbach retaliates by having Morland murdered by one of his own associates, setting the stage for a final showdown with Sherlock.
• Nelsan Ellis as Shinwell Johnson. He is a previous patient of Joan's and an ex-convict and gang member for the SBK. He and Joan become acquainted once more when he is released from prison and placed on probation. During his time on probation, Joan helps him settle back into his life outside of prison while also assisting him in his attempt to build a relationship with his daughter. He was briefly an unofficial informant for an FBI agent and is now an official informant for the Bronx Gang Squad. His relationship with Sherlock and Joan falters when Sherlock discovers that Shinwell was responsible for the death of a friend of his during his original time in the SBK, but Shinwell writes a confession for this crime after beating Sherlock in an alley, as he is preparing to bring down the gang, only to be killed by another member of the SBK.
• Desmond Harrington as Michael Rowan : A recovering addict who becomes impressed with Sherlock's methods of dealing with his addiction and becomes his friend and leaning post as he tackles his post-concussion syndrome. He is later revealed to be a murderer after burying a woman's body in an unknown location; eventually, he is revealed to be a serial killer, who has killed an estimate of more than a dozen women in multiple states, and has credited Sherlock with convincing him to focus on his "work" in order to kick his heroin addiction. When Sherlock's health problems diminish his investigative abilities, Michael leaves New York for a time to allow him to recover. He returns near the end of the season where, after he is revealed to have murdered the addict husband of one of his friends years earlier, he attacks Joan, only to flee after being seriously wounded, and is later found dead; the murder is later revealed to have been committed by Gregson's daughter Hannah as retaliation for Michael's earlier killing of her roommate.
• James Frain as Odin Reichenbach. The renowned tech mogul hires Sherlock and Joan to find who threatened to kidnap his niece. It is soon learned that he made up the claim as a way to test the two, believing that he had found kindred spirits due to their willingness to go the distance to protect the innocent. It is also revealed that he was indirectly responsible for triggering the events that led to Gregson's shooting at the beginning of the season. Odin later reveals to Sherlock his intention to use his enormous resources, both online and offline, to create a system that prevents future crimes by flushing out the would-be-perpetrators and having them killed before they can carry out any offenses. However, despite Reichenbach clearly wanting to do good, Sherlock feels that his system does not work, citing how he killed a bus driver who was ranting on social media about her plans to kill her passengers; a brief study of the woman's media history confirmed that she had made similar rants in the past at the same time of year and never followed through. While presenting himself as willing to listen to Sherlock's input, Reichenbach soon proves himself extremely ruthless in proving that his system works, to the point of having a target and the target's parents killed in a staged murder-suicide, and then later having Sherlock's father Morland murdered after the latter assists his son in crippling Reichenbach's company and nearly getting him ousted. The latter action later results in a showdown between the two, wherein Sherlock fakes his murder at Reichenbach's hands in order to finally see him arrested for his crimes. In the series finale, after a lengthy trial, Reichenbach is finally convicted of numerous murders and other crimes related to his conspiracy, and is sentenced to 148 years in prison.