'Elementary' Season 1, Episode 22: 'Risk Management' Recap

Moriarty is on the phone. He thanks Holmes for sending the message to Moran. Holmes asks about Irene Addler, and his interest in Holmes.

Moriarty wants to hire him as an investigator. He says a man named Wallace Rourke was murdered and there were no leads. He says if Holmes brings the murderer to justice, Moriarty will give him answers.

Holmes looks up the man. He was found stabbed to death in Brooklyn. Watson wants to talk about what happened, but Holmes thinks their interaction on the phone will help him identify Moriarty; whether the man on his phone is a minion or the man himself. Holmes knows he doesn’t want him dead—so why does he want him?

At the station, Gregson wants to speak with Watson. He has a friend looking for a sober companion and wants to recommend her. She tells him she doesn’t do that anymore, but she’ll give him other names.

They go to speak to Rourke’s widow. She says that her husband thought he was being followed. Police chalked the murder up to a mugging. They ask to look at his things. Watson finds an old phone—she remembers in the report the phone on him was stolen. The widow lets them take some of his things to go through.

At home, Watson looks at the autopsy and notes the stabs indicate he was still when he was killed. Holmes notes he was stunned with a blow to the head, and both lungs stabbed. This was more than a mugging.

Watson asks about Irene. Holmes tells her she was American, and a painter. She restored Renaissance paintings. She was intelligent, and optimistic about the human condition.

“She was to me, the woman. She eclipsed and predominated the whole of her gender.”

Holmes, going through things, thinks perhaps Rourke was right about being followed. He finds an envelope from the new phone and suspects someone tracked him by it.

They go to see Darren Sutter and his wife Kate at a risk management business. They run the firm tracking him. The phone he ordered was intercepted, and was given an identical phone by their shipping company. A man at the shipping company identified their company as the one who sent Rourke the phone.

They admit they watched him for a few days. Rourke made threats against a client but found that the claims were unfounded.

Holmes believes Sutter killed Rourke. He thinks the book Sutter published is basically a confession. Sutter’s older sister was killed when he was in his twenties. Sutter gave the police a sketch, but the man was never found. Holmes notes the sketch resembles Rourke. The karate Sutter studies also was used on Rourke.

Holmes things Moriarty wants Sutter taken out because his security firm is a lead in the country. It would make Moriarty’s clients more vulnerable. Holmes says he’s meeting with Sutter in private.

He meets him and sweeps for bugs. He asks him how he feels since he killed Rourke. He thinks Sutter seems to be free. He says he can find proof—or they can divert his attention. He asks about Moriarty. Holmes wants access to client files, but he is turned down. Holmes gives him proof—he says that Sutter sweeps his home regularly for bugs. He suggests sweeping unexpectedly, and meeting back with him.

Watson meets with Gregson, who still wants her to leave. He wants to keep her safe. People close to Holmes are in danger. Darren Sutter comes to the station to confess to the murder of Wallace Rourke. Holmes is annoyed he didn’t follow instruction and go to him. However, he did what Moriarty wanted.

Moriarty calls. He tells him he’s slipping—he’s referring to Rourke’s alibi for the murder. He was in Saudi Arabia doing work for the army. Sutter killed the wrong man. Moriarty tells him to finish it.

Holmes gets angry he missed the clues. He goes back to the things regarding the murder and finds unidentified fingerprints were found on the door. Watson tries to talk to him about what Moriarty wants. She hints that there are ways of hurting him without hurting him.

He promises her he will never let Moriarty hurt her.

Holmes goes to talk to Sutter in prison. He thinks he was somehow misled into killing Rourke. Watson takes a recording of Moriarty to Sutter’s wife, but she says she has never heard it before. She won’t release any client lists to her. They talk about Leah—Darren is certain he saw Rourke. The two met at a candlelight vigil for his sister. She is sad Darren is in jail, but glad he found peace.

Watson finds Holmes sitting on his desk. He slams over the evidence board. The past few days have taken their toll. She sends him to get something to eat while she cleans up. She finds a picture of Sutter and his wife.

She talks to Holmes, noting the similarity between his case and Sutter’s. She suggests maybe someone was looking to lift Sutter up rather than bring him down. She puts the picture in front of him.

They go speak to Kate again, asking again when she met Darren. Watson talks about the prints on the door—they matched the ones on her phone. She was married to another man when Leah was killed. They were having an affair.

Sutter never saw the killer’s face—Kate did. They had to lie to cover their affair. To give her husband peace, she had to find someone for Sutter to kill. She insists it was Rourke, but they tell her he was out of the country.

She says that what happened that night changed Darren. The 20^th anniversary of her death put him back into a depression. She found him with a gun, ready to kill himself. She had to do something to bring him back up.

Watson says she feels lousy despite knowing the truth. Holmes thinks that was the point. Holmes goes back to see Sutter. He says he will find the man who murdered Leah and bring him to justice. Sutter says there will be no justice unless he can kill the man himself.

Holmes talks to Moriarty, who says he hopes they never meet, but offers him his answers. He texts him an address. Watson calls and he lies about going home.

He stops at the address, a huge house. Watson asks what’s inside—she cloned his phone and followed him. She gets mad he keeps sidelining her. She deserves answers too.

They open the gate and walk toward the house. A key is in the door. Holmes turns it. Inside, the home is mostly empty. They walk around—they hear faint music and follow it. Holmes opens a door and finds paintings. It is someone’s studio. A blonde woman paints in a corner. Sherlock goes weak.

It is Irene.