'Elementary' Season 1, Episode 10: 'The Leviathan' Recap

A masked group of men break into a bank vault. They steal an assortment of jewelry from safety deposit boxes.

Watson goes downstairs,  calling to Sherlock to get the door. She runs into a woman in a t-shirt…  and then another. The twin sister. Watson finally answers the door. A bearded men said he was referred to Sherlock by a colleage in London.

His name is Earlig, and he is the head engineer of the bank vaults. The Leviathan, their “impregnable” vault, was robbed. It had been robbed by a group of 4 masterminds a few years previously, who were all sent to prison but the odds of having another group rob it… not good.

Holmes goes to look at the bank, noting the security system. There is a ten-digit access code that changes constantly. Holmes tells them he will need time with it, and sits, staring, trying codes, and trying to figure it out until Watson comes to check on him.

She falls asleep waiting for him, after the bank manager comes and asks them to leave and Holmes refuses. Holmes has been downstairs the entire day. She notes he’s indulging in obsessions of addiction. He wants to try one more thing before they leave—and he grabs the axe from the fire extinguisher box and attacks the lock.

The repair bill will be huge, Watson tells him later. He tells her they need to find out who not how… He believes that one of the original team members who broke into the vault sold the know-how. One of the men died, and the other three haven’t responded to a request to meet with them in prison.

Watson prepares to go meet her mother for brunch, and Watson notes she looks prepared for a job interview. As they eat, Watson’s phone rings, but she sets it aside. Her mother tells her that her brother called—and he’s coming to the city and they want to do dinner as a family. Holmes calls her again and tells her to meet him at Sing Sing.

They meet with Mr. Briggs, one of the men who broke into the first Leviathan. Holmes offers him a chance to use his brain. Briggs tells him they were specialized—each one had a task. He tells Holmes the man who died had told him that someone had called him and asked about the vault.

Watson and Holmes go off with information about “The Chevalier,” a thief almost mystical in his skill. He looks over photos of paintings and coins that were stolen. He notes that Peter Kent, a man of high society, is standing at the art exhibit, and wearing Greek coins as cufflinks.

They go to see Kent, and Holmes notes a poster of the stolen painting. He breaks the glass over the poster, and rips it open. The original painting is underneath. His son comes in, and informs him that his father had a stroke the night the safe was opened. Holmes admits Briggs sent them on a “snipe hunt.”

Watson and Holmes walk nervously back through the city, with some of Kent’s spoils in tow as neither wanted to turn in a stroke victim who could no longer walk. As they talk Holmes thinks perhaps that an expert witness at the trial might have pieced together the method.

They bring back the stolen goods to Gregson, who is obviously suspicious that they are returning stolen goods without explanation.

Except that Holmes keeps the painting—a $50 million dollar painting.

Watson gets a call from her brother, answering the “text” she sent him agreeing that she and her client would meet him for dinner. She is not pleased that Holmes broke into her phone, and now she has to bring him since he threatened a “relapse.”

The next morning he wakes her with breakfast, urging her to get up so they can go look at the final exhibit from the trial. A hand written note found—a Starbucks run from the heist. The jury looked at the coffee order three times.

He shows her, the coffee order on one side… an impenetrable code that looks like gibberish on the other side. It was a message in plain sight. Holmes looks in the records and finds a software engineer named Guthrie was on the jury. Holmes works out that the code will break the digital number code on the safe, allowing them to break in.

They go to see him but are blocked at a door by an officer. They say they are there for Guthrie, and the officer points to Guthrie—who leapt from his apartment and is hanging dead from a balcony.

Gregson comes in as Holmes plays Guthrie’s piano. Holmes suggests that there was a violent altercation—he shows Gregson a small blood splatter. He also points out vases with decorative rocks, some of which are missing—he shows them an uncut diamond left behind in the rocks.

Watson tells him they need to start getting ready, and he notes that it’s a murder investigation now, so he won’t make it to dinner. She doesn’t seem disappointed.

However he is there before she is, chatting up her family. He tells her they’re waiting on DNA results from the blood, so he had time. Holmes talks her up over dinner.

“She rebuilds lives from the ground up.”

After dinner she thanks him for explaining what she does in a way that her family could appreciate. He tells her he meant very little of what he said.

He goes through Guthrie’s phone and notes three others from the jury stored in there.

At home he “basks” in the evidence, matching up the original masterminds with the other members of the jury, by skill set. Including the brother of the bank manager. One of them is killing the others to keep the proceeds.

They call the members in for DNA samples, noting that one of the men has a damaged nose that would attribute to the blood splatter in Guthrie’s apartment. The man, Lopez, hesitates, but gives them DNA swab. Holmes no longer believes it was him—they need to find the one member they couldn’t find to bring in, Alex Wilson.

They go to Wilson’s apartment. Flies alert Holmes to Wilson’s body hidden under the stoop.

The DNA from the murder scenes trace back to an army chaplain named Audrey who has connection to the jury. They break into the home and find no trace of a murdering lady just a very kind one. In fact, she’s not even supposed to be in the country right now.

Watson notes that she nursed her sister through leukemia, and she notes a ribbon—she is a bone marrow donor.

They bring Lopez back in. He admits to having leukemia. Saliva DNA is his own, but blood DNA, from a donor… would show different DNA. Murder solved.

As Watson dumps the champagne sent to Holmes as a thank you down the drain, her mother comes to the door. She tells her she doesn’t disapprove of her job because it doesn’t seem to make Watson happy. However she can see that Watson enjoys what she is doing working with Holmes.

Holmes brings them to see on the television that an anonymous donor has returned the stolen painting to the museum.