'Elementary' Season 1, Episode 2: 'While You Were Sleeping' Recap

Watson and Holmes are at an AA meeting, listening to people talk. Watson eyes Holmes, who seems a little dazed. She touches his shoulder and he shoots up, yelling. Shaking himself, he leaves. It turns out he has put himself in a trance with word repetition, to block out the talking. Watson wants to know why he doesn’t listen, if he won’t share. He tells her about the Attic Theory—the brain can only hold so many facts, so he blocks out the useless stuff to keep in what he needs to be the best version of himself.

Watson tells him she is going to be gone for a few hours that night with a friend, but will give him a drug test when she gets back.

Captain Gregson calls, with a victim in an apartment hallway who has been shot in the face. Since his wallet and watch are missing, and he and Detective Bell are classifying it as a robbery/homicide. The neighbor saw the body and called 911. Watson gets a little green and leaves, surprising Holmes, who thinks she should be used to dead bodies. He struts into the apartment, eyeing his surroundings and the blood spray on the wall. He sniffs the leather arm chair, and announces that it is two separate events: a robbery, and a murder. A woman was sitting in the chair when she shot the man, Casey—he can tell by the deodorant she was wearing. The robbery was committed by a man, as the large armoire is missing from the apartment. Bell is skeptical but Watson finds a framed picture with the missing armoire in it. Holmes kicks down the neighbor’s door, revealing the armoire.

Back at the station, the neighbor confesses he found Casey dead and robbed the body and took the antique armoire before calling the police. Holmes, watching Bell question him, gets increasingly annoyed.

Watson sends him to the lobby to get a bag of chips. She asks Gregson about him coming to New York and asking to help with cases—Gregson mentions that Holmes reached out to him from London about coming back, which is not in-keeping with what Holmes has previously told her.

“He was a pain in the ass… but he was also very, very good.”

They rendezvous later. Bell admits the neighbor said he saw a woman leaving, but he is certain that he made her up because of what he heard Holmes saying. Gregson says to get a sketch artist in anyway.

Holmes thanks Watson for helping with the picture of the armoire. He also notes that he is fully aware her few hours out is dinner with an ex, and that he can tell it’s an ex because she hasn’t had sex in a while—she’s lacking a certain orgasmic gait.

 “My advice: sleep with him. It’ll do wonders for your mood.”

Watson goes out to dinner and it is indeed an ex, named Ty, who confesses he and her parents (who have reached out to him) are worried about her and this road she is on.

Back at Holmes’, Watson makes coffee, and Holmes says he can tell didn’t that sleep with her friend. He is going over the autopsy report on the victim, and notices grey clouding of the cornea, which is a rare genetic disorder. Watson asks again about London but he refuses to tell her.

The police call: they have found the woman from the sketch generated. She’s at the hospital. Turns out it is a woman in a coma. She tried to kill herself 3 days ago. Holmes yells at her, then looks for a syringe, determined to stab her to see if she is faking. Watson checks her vitals and says it is consistent with a coma.

Holmes is frustrated. It is a dead end—somehow they have the right face but wrong girl.

Right? He says he noticed the book on her nightstand, with an inscription for two on their fifth birthday. Yvette, the coma victim, has a twin, Rebecca. And it turns out the two are twin sisters and the daughters of the town’s recently deceased shipping millionaire.

They hunt down Rebecca, but they are surprised to see she is nothing like Yvette, with red hair and brighter eyes. They are fraternal twins, not identical.

Back at home, a frustrated Holmes is working on picking a lock while he talks the case out with Watson.  Watson shows him the violin she found in the closet. She wants him to play to relieve stress. Holmes says he doesn’t play anymore because of the Attic Theory. Watson’s ex calls, and as she moves to take it, he sets the violin on fire in the living room.

Holmes gets a call from the captain; there has been another shooting death, and the same gun was used. The neighbor has been in custody so it is clearly not the same guy, Bell finally admits.

At the victim’s home, they note that the murdered woman has the same genetic disorder. Holmes concludes that she and the other victim were brother and sister--half siblings, with the same father.

The woman, Anna Webster, did not know she had other family. She had previously filed complaint a few weeks ago about a guy following her, and snapped some pictures of him in his car. It is not the dad. Gregson knows him, and they go to see him.

He says didn’t recognize her, but admits finally that he can’t say anything because of client privilege, but he had been hired to watch her. Holmes hustles him out of the room. He says he can tell that he works late nights, and has turned to meth to stay awake. He can tell that the stash is nearby. He recommends his rehab and says he won’t tell the captain if he gives them the information. The man puts the file on the desk and walks out.

It turns out that Rebecca hired someone to investigate both Anna and Casey. Her father told her and her sister about their existence on his deathbed. She is legitimately surprised to find out they’re both dead. Holmes notes that they could have sued for a portion of the estate. Rebecca tells them that she and Yvette debated about what to do. They decided to get an attorney to look into them before they decided to divvy up their fortune—to see if they were good people. That’s around when Yvette started seeing a married man and drinking, and tried to kill herself.

Sherlock questions the suicide attempt. He thinks Rebecca hired someone to compel her to take the pills—she slaps Holmes. He wants to know why she disguised herself as Yvette when murdering the victims.

In the cab, Watson smirks as he nurses his face.

“This one, leathery from slaps, this one, baby’s bottom.”

When they get back to their home, Ty is waiting outside. It turns out Holmes hacked into Watson’s account and emailed Ty about a dinner party. Ty wants to know if Holmes is her boyfriend. Watson is not happy. She dismisses Ty, and Holmes and Watson have an argument about learning more about each other.

The police let Rebecca go, as security camera confirm she was home during the murders.

Watson and Holmes go to AA again, while Holmes fumes because he is sure that Rebecca tricked them. Watson has a tack to poke him with if he puts himself in a trance. They listen to the story of a drug addict who got involved with a married doctor, who went to jail for supplying her. Holmes has a breakthrough.

He rushes off, Watson behind. He insists that they need to find Rebecca right now. Watson says that he needs to trust her and let her in on this so she can help him.

They storm in on Rebecca reading to Yvette in the hospital. Holmes yells that he knows she tampered with security cameras, and that he knows all about 3^rd heir, Mary Margaret. When Rebecca plays dumb, he yells her information and address, insisting she knows all about her. Bell shows up, Watson having texted him. He tries to subdue Holmes but Holmes throws him. Bell arrests Holmes for assaulting him.

At the address Holmes has shouted, later that night, someone is breaking in. As she moves to murder the woman, the police catch her—it is Yvette.

Yvette, it turns out, has been in a medically induced coma. Her married doctor lover was able to put in and bring her out as needed. She enlisted his help in faking the suicide and putting her into a coma, because Rebecca wanted to share the money with their half siblings. She was still weak from the coma, so that is why she had to sit when she killed the other victims. Holmes invented the 3^rd heir and made sure the doctor heard him yelling about it to lay the trap.

Rebecca wants to help her sister and get her a lawyer, but Holmes points out that she could have made a miraculous recovery after the half-siblings were killed. Why did she stay asleep? He implies that Yvette was planning to kill Rebecca, as well.

Gregson wants to get drinks with him after the case is wrapped up, and Bell shakes his hand, but Holmes ducks out of it to get bad take-out with Watson. She wants to talk about him listening at the meeting. She thinks he is doing some kind of penance for what happened in London, but not knowing it. He walks out, essentially admitting it.

“You always know it, Watson. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be penance.”

Later, looking sad and thoughtful, he opens a violin case.

Watson, in her bedroom, hears him playing.