'Elementary' Season 1, Episode 19: 'Snow Angels' Recap

A storm is coming. A security guard at the closed building sees a woman crying for help in the rain. He goes to help her—she says she has been mugged. She pulls a gun and has him open the door. When he touches his waist she shoots him. Men come inside and drag the body away. The guard recovers somewhat, grabs his gun, and shoots.

Watson comes in yelling to Sherlock that she got supplies. She sees a woman, named Miss Hudson, crying. She says she is a mess.

Holmes tells her that Miss Hudson is an amazing autodidact woman. He tells her his job is a muse. She is in the company of powerful men in crisis. Watson points out that at some point they have to realize Miss Hudson is a man.

He tells her that she is in the library because her recent lover kicked her out. She will be staying with them. Watson gets annoyed he didn’t run it past her. Holmes gets a call from Gregson.

They go to see the body. Holmes points out no forced entry. He waits for Watson to step in and point out he wasn’t dead yet; he shot someone through the abdomen.

Bell shows them the “hot new toy,” a state-of-the-art phone, they stole. It was supposed to break soon. Holmes finds fake hair from the woman who shot the guard. He is expressing surprise Bell and Gregson need him on a simple robbery/homicide, when all the lights go out.

At the station all the power is out. Gregson has an assistant from FEMA, and they work on divvying up issues. She tells them the power is not coming back. Holmes keeps his phone plugged in and checks it.

Bell tells them they can’t check down the phone’s GPS without the power. Holmes shows them a photo on Instagram where someone has posted they got their phone a day early. He can tell by the background where the phone is.

A homeless man has the phones, and is negotiating price with a line. Holmes interrupts. He tells Holmes he found the phones at a bakery. Asleep in the alley, he heard something big get thrown in the dumpster. He found all the phones. He saw a few “big white dudes” run off. Holmes tells him the prices he is setting are too low. Holmes gives him money and tells him to get a room for the night.

Holmes tells Watson the phones were a distraction from what they were really stealing.

At the office, Watson gets nervous, listening to the weather report, while Holmes looks around. He thinks they must have gone upstairs—Watson reminds him the keys were still on the guard. Holmes thinks it was to keep people off the track.

They find scratches on the locks at an architectural firm. They start to go in but a man with a knife stops them. He tells them he was camping out at work until things get bad. He says nothing is out of place. Holmes goes through drawers and finds blueprints are missing.

At home, Watson is trying to make a fire without success. Miss Hudson comes and assists. Her phone rings—Davis, she says. They guy who kicked her out. He says he made a mistake and wants her back, but Miss Huston won’t answer. He just wants to own her.

Someone bangs on the door—Davis. Watson tells him to leave. Davis yells that he will “leave her this time,” and Miss Hudson says it is okay.

Watson goes upstairs and finds Holmes looking over blueprints.

Holmes wakes her in the morning, throwing warm clothes at her. He tells her Davis and Miss Hudson have mostly made up, and he will be leaving. He tells her that he has noticed that the plumbing blueprint is missing for a government building—a federal reserve. He thinks the storm is a cover for their attack.

Holmes gets ready to go, telling her he hasn’t been able to contact the police. They begin the long walk through the snow.

Holmes knocks on the window of a plow worker on stand-by in her truck. He explains they are police asks to come in for a minute to escape the cold. He asks her to contact the police on her radio. He asks to speak with Gregson—but he is not at the station. He asks to give Gregson a message about the robbery he anticipates today.

He commandeers the truck, but the woman isn’t having it—so he rents it.

Bell goes to the hospital, but no one with a gunshot has been admitted. He says he’s looking for anyone with an abdominal wound at this point. The nurse says there is one woman who was stabbed. Bell goes to talk to her. She is leaving because she has no health insurance. She asks if they found the guy who stabbed her.

He asks to look at her chart. Two lacerations. She tells him about the mugging where she was stabbed, but Bell notices a blonde hair on her coat. She claims she lent it to a friend. He holds it under a light and it melts. He asks what hurt worse—being shot or being stabbed to disguise it.

The truck driver, Pam, drives them to their destination in New Jersey. Watson gets a bar on her phone and calls home to check on Miss Hudson—the number is out of service. Holmes forgot to pay the bill. They argue about Miss Hudson—Watson insists she likes her.

Bell tells the woman, at the station, that she has time until the power comes back up to decide to tell the truth. Gregson comes in—he has the message from Holmes.

At the building, Holmes and Watson are lead in and showed that no one can break into the vault. As he is explaining it, the man is surprised to see there is an unexpected “sort” that day. Nothing is missing however. Holmes asks if they destroy old currency, and they show him where it is done. Everything is all done, he says.

Watson points out that one bale is regular paper, not cotton. It is fake currency being destroyed.

Holmes shows her where they unscrewed a keypad and reattached it—they escaped into a tunnel. Holmes says it’s an ingenious plan—if they hadn’t killed someone he might let them get away with it. He drops, observing a line in the snow. He says they haven’t been gone more than an hour and left in an ambulance. Watson gets annoyed so he shows her how he deducted it.

Gregson and Bell come in with files on the woman, who used a fake name at the hospital. They say she is married to someone with a robbery record. She tells them they will never find him. Holmes calls and they tell him she had plane tickets to Belize.

He says they’re carrying money in the back of an ambulance and will need to unload some of it. Holmes asks about her phone record and Bell tells him she called a man who worked at a racetrack. Bell goes to stake the man out, and Pam drops them off there.

Bell gets a radio call that an ambulance was seen driving near them. They watch it arrive at the man’s house. The police swarm them and knock them down. They insist they got emergency calls to that address. Bell opens the ambulance and finds it empty.

“We’ve been duped,” says Holmes.

Pam takes them home as Holmes puzzles it out.

Inside, they discover that the place has been cleaned. Miss Hudson has cleaned and organized.

“I have a touch of OCD.”

She admits that she and Davis broke up after all.

Holmes struggles over a map with road closures. He points out where an ambulance was reported ignoring a large accident. He presumes the thieves knew they were being looked for, and called in a fake distress call to distract. He is confused because there is no way to get around all the road closures to get out of the city.

He gets an idea. He shows Gregson the new map. He has Watson read her blizzard journal. Watson reads out a few notes about unnecessary checkpoints. Someone on the inside was organizing the checkpoints.

He asks how the woman from FEMA is working out. They discuss the woman, who won’t share any information. Is it possible she won’t give until the insider she is putting her faith in is caught?

Bell goes and talks to the woman, Elle. He tells her they found gunshot powder on her hands. They will put her away for life. A commotion begins outside. Gregson comes in and tells them someone just got shot—the door locks from the outside, so he brings Bell and they leave Elle in the room. Holmes and Watson watch through the window as men make fake riot noises. The FEMA worker waits, and when things clear, gets up and goes and lets Elle out. They wait to charge her with escape until she clears the floor, and then they stop her.

Holmes experiments with splatter patterns on the floor. He tells her he has engaged Miss Hudson to clean the place once a week.