'Elementary' Season 1, Episode 3: 'Child Predator' Recap

Flashback to Brooklyn 2005, as a boy leaves his house and heads to school. A janky old car pulls up beside him and hails him by name—Adam.

“Remember me?” the driver, wearing gloves, asks. Adam hesitantly says yes. The driver offers him a ride to class. Adam asks why there are balloons in the back of the car—the driver says they’re for his parents. Get in and he’ll explain. Adam gets in the car, and it screeches away, leaving only an eerie collection of “Thank You” balloons on the sidewalk.

Watson wakes up to see Holmes has not gone to bed. She prompts him to go jogging with her, since he had agreed, but he tells her he only agrees with her when he’s not listening. He’s staring at pictures spread out on the floor, and Watson recognizes it as the Balloon Man serial killer, who took 6 kids.

7 as of last night, Holmes says. Marianna Castillo, 10, has disappeared from her room—he heard it on the police scanner. He’s expecting a call to come in and assist, and voila, the call comes in.

They go to the Castillo house, noting that the abductor forced a lock on Marianna’s window around 9:30 pm. Her mother, a painter, was at her art gallery, and her father had run down to the corner bodega for a bottle of wine. They notice broken vines on the plants near the window where Marianna tried to grab a hand hold as she was dragged away.

Inside, the media is set up to interview the parents, but Holmes insists they stop. When they don’t listen, he spray paints their camera lens. He explains that there were discrepancies in the bodies found, and it seemed that there was a pattern: the children stayed alive longer the less media exposure. If they didn’t go to the media, they might have 2 days to find Marianna if they do everything he says.

He wants Joan to go outside, she is distracting him, but he opens the fridge and finds a bottle of wine, alarming her. But, it has nothing to do with his addiction—he races to the living room and informs the father it was his fault and that he is lying to authorities. He notes that the bodega on the corner always puts their price tags on top of their goods, while this has a tag on the bottom. Why was he really out? He knows he must have a mistress because of the double kitchen utensils, indicating he and his wife had separated but he had moved back in. He also noted a 15 second call from Long Island on his cell. The father tells them that yes, he dated someone when he and his wife split, but that it was over. She had called, wanting to chat about something. He went outside to talk to her and told her to stay away. They met a few houses down.

Holmes tells him they need to talk to her. If she was parked on the block, maybe she noticed something.

Holmes offends Watson by telling her that he needs her to listen to him, not the other way around, as the mistress, Miss Thomas, gets brought in, feeling terrible that she is the reason the girl is gone. She says she never got out of the car, and then when she was leaving, another car ran a stop sign and almost hit her. Holmes explains that there had been a domestic assault case a few blocks down that night, and police had been called. The killer had probably heard the sirens and rushed. Marianna hadn’t been chloroformed like the other victims if she had grabbed the plant, so something had startled him. Miss Thomas explains that it was a dark brown van.

Outside as they look around the neighborhood for a dark brown van, Holmes explains to Watson that it is easier for him to work out a case if he says it out loud, but her speaking to him is distracting. Although, he admits, it’s kind of like white noise now, and sort of helps him think. He notices a car that has been parked a long time judging by the tickets, but it has skidded sideways and been sideswiped. The paint from the other car is dark brown with streaks of blue and white. He tells the police they are looking for a decommissioned NYPD van with a scrape on the side.

Trying to make amends to Watson, Holmes explains that the service she is providing is valuable. He has found he does better speaking to animate objects. Before he had worked out cases to a bust named Angus.

“I’m glad I made it to the ‘animate’ category,” she retorts.

The police find the van, and they all take off after it. The police manage to cut it off, and a man in a hoodie runs out. The cops take him down, but it’s a young man, much too young to be the killer. Holmes recognizes that it is a grown up Adam by his birthmark, and they take him into custody.

Watching Adam in the interrogation room, Watson mentions a similar case: Stockholm Syndrome. Holmes is confused about the case, because the other victims showed that the killed enjoyed killing them. Why was Adam left alive, and what, if any, role did he play in the other deaths? To what degree did he sympathize with his captor?

Gregson says they will run out of time if they don’t find out soon. Holmes wants to go in to speak with him, but Gregson objects. Finally he agrees to give him five minutes.

Holmes goes in and tells Adam he is the only person who will talk to him who won’t lie. They don’t know the story, do they? he asks. They don’t know how the killer took care of Adam, and loved him. He tells a story of when he was in boarding school. A boy named Anders especially didn’t like him, and took his anger out on him. The more he hurt him the more Holmes felt gratitude that he was paying attention to him, that he was correcting what was wrong in himself. Holmes notices a scratch on Adam’s wrist. Adam says he cut it opening a window in his room, but his “dad” took care of him. He does everything for him, he even comes home every morning with donuts. Gregson comes in reluctantly and tells him to stop talking—the kid has lawyered up. His parents have come and arranged it.

Watson asks if the story was true. Holmes says, well I went to boarding school. The lawyers, meanwhile, have worked out an immunity deal, but Holmes ducks out. He has learned something from his talk with Adam—the killer works nights, since he arrives home in the morning with the donuts. He and Watson go home, and Watson wants to help but he won’t let her. So she decides to help him stay awake, and shows him squats she used to do to stay awake in school.

The next morning, Holmes has a break through. There had been a theory during the early murders that the killer was an exterminator, as each house had been fumigated. However after the 3^rd murder there was no more connection. Holmes concludes he changed jobs. He noticed the same newspaper, the “Investor’s Post” in some of the old pictures, and at Marianna’s house. He calls them and gets the name of the person on the route—Samuel Abbot. It matches on the list of the exterminators.

The SWAT team heads to Abbot’s apartment, Holmes, Watson, and Gregson watching from the van. The place is empty, and clean of people. The only things in there are a collections of “Congratulations!” balloons. Attached is a flash drive.

They watch. It is a video of Samuel Abbot. He tells them he wants his son back by noon, or he will kill the girl.

Marianna’s parents insist they make the trade. Adam is 19, they reason. Has anyone asked him if he wants to go back? Gregson says he can’t do that, and they inform him that they will call for his head in the media if anything happens to their daughter.

Gregson approaches Holmes. The lawyers have a legal wall up—no cop can talk to him. But Holmes isn’t a cop. He goes in, and Adam wrestles with his emotions. He could sign the immunity deal and turn in Abbot, but how can he trade in his “dad?”

 “I’d trade my dad for a Tic Tac,” Holmes quips.

Adam confesses he helped take the other kids out of love for his dad, but he knows now it wasn’t okay. He’s confused. He asks if he tells Holmes where to find Abbot, will it make up for the things he’s done? Holmes say no, but it will start. Adam agrees to sign the deal and he tells the police where to find Abbot.

The police bust in and find Samuel. He grabs Marianna and holds a gun to her, but they stand off.

“Tell Adam I’m sorry,” he says, and shoots himself.

Marianna is not hurt. Holmes is confused. Abbot is not what he was expecting. He’s feeble, with a back brace. Not a dominant man, not virile. Watson points out Adam’s room—sparse and dirty. Holmes hears whistling, and goes into the master bedroom, which is nicely kept, with a television. He sees the broken window pane, and notices certain hair on the pillow.

Holmes goes to see Adam, sneaking in his window and awaiting in the room. He tells him he knows Abbot was not the Balloon Man. Adam said he sliced his hand opening his window. It was his hair on the pillow in the nice room. He was the dominant, Samuel was his lackey.

 “You tricked me, Adam. That doesn’t happen very often.”

Adam explains that Samuel’s IQ is extremely low, and it was easy to turn the tables on him. He also got “off” on seeing his parents on the television when he was kidnapped, and enjoyed watching the other kids’ parents as well. He made sure to tell Samuel if he was ever captured to execute the plan, and knew he would be given an immunity deal. Now no one can touch him.

“Are you here to kill me, Mr. Holmes? Because I have to admit I find the possibility very exciting.”

Calmly, he goes to brush his teeth. He tells Holmes not to worry, he thinks he will move soon.

At home, Watson admits that it’s an iron-clad immunity deal, freeing Adam of any persecution for crimes committed in consort with Samuel.

“I handed a psychopath a get out of jail free card.”

He can’t sleep and he doesn’t want to do any more squats either, they hurt his back—oh, brilliant.

Holmes goes to see Adam at the park where he is watching children. Holmes reminds him of the 5^th victim, Billy, in April of 2009. The police found his body—Adam says yes, they buried them deeper after that. And, Holmes says, they found Adam’s DNA under the boys’ nails. The thing is, Samuel Abbot was laid up in the hospital with 3 broken vertebra at the time the boy went missing. Adam reminds him of the immunity, but Holmes points out that it’s only for murders in conjunction with Abbot, and this one he did all on his own.

Adam tells him it’s only one murder, he was abused, and he’ll be out soon, as the police come for him.

At home, Watson starts closing blinds and doors, despite Holmes’ manic desire to keep working. She goes to make him some drowsy time tea, but he’s out before it’s done steeping.