Elementary, one of our favorite detective drama/comedies, continues tonight with an all new episode entitled “Corpse de Ballet.” On tonight’s show Watson embarks on a solo inquiry to find a homeless veteran. Did you watch last week’s episode before the hiatus? We did and we recapped it right here for you.
On last week’s episode when Joan revisited one of Sherlock’s cold cases, she discovered an unsolved murder was connected to a rare prehistoric fossil. Meanwhile, Sherlock found himself in uncharted territory when his duties as a sobriety sponsor crossed his personal boundaries.
On tonight’s show Holmes’ latest investigation takes him inside a professional dance company when an up-and-coming ballerina is murdered. Meanwhile, Watson embarks on a solo enquiry to find a homeless veteran when his friend alleges he was abducted.
Are you looking forward to Elementary season 2 episode 15 “Corpse de Ballet.” Be sure to come back here later tonight at 10 PM EST for our live recap of this episode, which is sure to be an awesome one. In the meantime, hit up the comments below and let us know what you think has been the best part of this wonderful season!
Tonight’s episode begins now – Refresh Page for Updates
Coffee brews and Sherlock has left a note “coitus in progress” for Joan. She offers coffee to Tatiana who emerges from his room. She gives her a to-go cup and says it’s not sign she needs to rush off. Sherlock says she has to rush off to give her sermon. Joan asks her last name and he has no idea. He’s also shagged a mortician, magician and a number of scientists. She says she’s not judging but he needs to buy some more to-go coffee cups.
A ballerina is called to rehearsal and stalks to the stage. The rehearsal is called to order and the music begins, the curtain rises. The dancer turn on pointe and begin the ballet. The columns descend and there’s a noise. There’s a dead dancer lying at the back of the stage!
Sherlock and Joan meet Gregson. Nell is the dead dancer and she’s been cut in half. The cameras all over the place feed to a hard drive that was stolen. They bring over Vincent – the manager – who says that she was to be the lead but he had to cast someone else because she wasn’t focusing enough. They uncover the body and it’s bisected. Sherlock says it’s been a while since he’s seen one of them. Joan says there should be more blood and he says the bisection wasn’t the cause of death. Her throat was cut the night before and she was hung by a wire so she would be sliced in two and fall when the columns came down.
Marcus is there and Joan is happy he’s off desk duty. They think she was killed in the dressing area. Marcus found what may be the murder weapon and it’s been wiped clean. There is a flower on the handle – an iris. The lead dancer – Iris – says it’s her knife but it was stolen. Sherlock says they don’t know who she is because they don’t follow the ballet. He says he’s been thrilled by her. Marcus asks why a ballerina has a box cutter and Sherlock explains they all have tools to repair their shoes.
Joan asks if she was a rival with Nell but she insists she wasn’t. Sherlock asks if she has an alibi and she says her housekeeper lives in and can vouch for her. She tells them Nell had a boyfriend that she broke it off with and she heard he could be violent – Nicholas – he was a dancer with the company. Sherlock tell her it was an honor to meet her.
Sherlock asks to accompany Marcus and Joan tells him he went fan boy on Iris. She says he’s never that polite to a suspect and he says that she’s not a suspect. He says Iris didn’t see Nell as a threat and Joan shows him some news stories about Iris’ diva behavior. Sherlock isn’t impressed. Joan gets a call and says she has to go see someone who’s in the hospital. The guy is Morris and he took a swing at a couple of cops. Joan says he’s schizophrenic and has no history of violence. He was looking for someone named Freebow. She asks if they know who Freebow is and they tell him they’re not looking for his imaginary friend. Morris tells her that his friend was taken and they have to find him. He struggles with the restraints and she says she’ll find him if he’ll calm down. He does.
Marcus and Sherlock go to see Nell’s ex and they find out he’s a stripper now. He tells them that she said she needed her space but he thinks she got a new guy. He’s busy washing his thongs while they talk. He tells them maybe her new guy killed her. Sherlock says maybe he was jealous and killed her. He shows them a hat full of money and says he was working and has a room full of alibis.
Gregson says Iris lied and her housekeeper was off last night. Iris comes to the station with her lawyer who says she didn’t know her housekeeper wasn’t in the house and had changed her night off. Sherlock asks if she knows who Nell started seeing after she broke up with Nicholas. She doesn’t think she was seeing anyone and thinks Nicholas is throwing off guilt. Gregson says that he has an alibi and she doesn’t.
Iris has a flight to Montreal for a class she’s teaching. She tells Gregson that she didn’t hurt Nell and if he keeps saying she did, she’ll sue them for slander. They go ahead and arrest her. Sherlock tells Gregson he has some doubts about her guilt and Gregson says she left him with no choice.
Joan comes to the station and says she heard about the arrest on the news. Marcus says the tabloids are on fire. Iris made bail and is at home.
Joan shows Marcus a photo of Freebow – he’s a real guy and Morris didn’t make it up. He agrees to help her find the guy.
The coitus note is back up and Joan pours a cup of coffee and is shocked to see it’s Iris! She asks for cappuccino. Joan is floored.
Joan is livid with Sherlock for sleeping with Iris. She says she’s a suspect and if anyone finds out he’ll be in trouble. He tells her that Iris found him after she made bail. He says he did it to learn about her. Joan isn’t buying it. He says he noticed a stiffness in her right shoulder – he thinks it’s a rotator cuff injury that would make it impossible to operate the pully. He says during sex he observed her movements and is convinced she’s innocent. He tells Joan if she doesn’t believe it to sleep with her herself.
Iris tells Sherlock he can go to Nolan’s office and look through the files. They think maybe one of Iris crazy fans may be framing her.
Joan is off to hunt for Freebow and he tells her they often just fall off the grid but she’s convinced she has a solid lead.
Sherlock comes to Nolan’s office and he says he’s glad someone in the police department isn’t pre-judging Iris. He asks for the files and the lawyer says she’s very complicated. Sherlock opens up the files and Nolan tells him he doesn’t represent her for the money but because he likes her. He says Iris is completely committed to her craft and he’s learned from her. Sherlock wants to take the files but Nolan says he can’t. He tells him he can stay in the office as long as he likes to go through them. The lawyer heads out and thanks him before he goes.
Joan finds Rachel Brown and asks about Zeke Freebow. She says a neighbor saw him arguing with her. She says Freebow is her brother and that he’s been on the streets since he came back from Afghanistan with severe PTSD and drug addictions. She says she tries to find him at least once a month. She says she’s begged him to stay with her but he didn’t want to. She says they argued before he left. She tells Joan he said he would be at St Ignacius shelter. Joan tells her it’s not his fault. Rachel is worried because it’s been so cold. Joan gets a text from Sherlock to meet her and Joan says she’ll let her know if she finds him. Rachel says it means a lot that someone else is looking for her brother.
Sherlock says that most of the leads in the files are worthless. They are at the apartment of a papparazzi. Sherlock tells her she stinks of cheap cigarettes and tells her the brand. Sherlock says Iris just renewed the restraining order against him. He tells Sherlock and Joan that he was fired because of what Nolan did to him – he accused him of being a druggie and he can only find limited work. Sherlock asks where he was the night that Nell died and he says he was out stalking a kid from a vampire show.
He tells them that Iris has them snowed and they would have no idea what kind of manipulative crap she’s into. He refuses to tell them more.
Marcus texts them and they come in. A thumb drive was sent in anonymously and it’s a voice mail from Iris to Nell. It seems like Iris and Nell were hooking up and Iris wasn’t happy she had dumped her.
They go to see Iris and Sherlock asks if they were having an affair. Iris says she was but would never have killed her. She says they started sleeping together before the show. Nell broke up with Nicholas to be with her. Joan asks if she seduced Nell to get her to step out of the lead role so she could have it. Iris says she’s done it before and it was okay until Nell talked to another dancer who told her she had pulled the same thing with her. Joan asks why she cared and Sherlock asks if she was falling for Nell. Iris says she had deep feelings for Nell and was finally seeing why someone would give up a role for her. She says she apologized for the message and they made up and Nell deleted it while she watched. Sherlock says when he held her phone while they were together he noticed it was hot to the touch. She says it’s been that way for a while. He says that the heat is a sign of spyware and he thinks he knows who it was.
The paparazzi is at the station but he’s lawyered up. They found the spyware that led back to his IP address. He says he didn’t leak the voice mail or kill Nell. He says that he can prove it by showing where he was the night Nell died. He says he needs immunity on other charges before he gives up where he was. He says he was going to shoot a porno in Nell’s apartment of her and Iris. He was going to plant cameras to film them. He says he set up three cameras in her bedroom and shower and they can check the feeds to see that he was there.
Sherlock tells Joan that de Carlo is clean – the cameras showed where he was. Sherlock thinks the killer is the most likely source of the voice mail leak. He says he thinks the recording is a recording of the message so he’s trying to get the ambient sound broken down. He says it was someone that had access to Nell’s phone. Joan is packing up clothes to donate to the homeless shelter and going to see Morris about Freebow. He asks why she’s so concerned and she’s hesitant but then tells him that her father is schizophrenic and homeless.
Sherlock says her dad lives in Scarsdale and is an author and she says that’s her stepdad who had adopted her. She says that her dad got sick and they divorced not long after she was born. She says he was institutionalized for a long time and then on the streets for the last 15 years. He asks if she sees him and she says sometimes but he doesn’t always recognize her – only when he’s on his meds. She says she’s tried to help him but he’s refused all attempts. She says it’s been two years since she’s seen him.
She leaves and Sherlock listens to the audio file.
Morris apologizes to Joan and she tells him it’s okay. She asks what he remembers about Freebow. He says he was put into a van by some men who were roughing it up. She tells him he hasn’t been at the shelter or with his sister. He has Freebow’s stuff and she asks to look at it. She unzips the bag and finds the brand of smokes that Sherlock said she smelled like. She sees a photo of the family. The girl in the photo is not the woman that Joan met and Morris says the photo is Rachel.
Sherlock comes to see Nolan and tells him he knows he recorded the voice mail in his office. He heard the door closer the guy uses in the recording. He says he remembered that Nell had threatened a restraining order against Nicholas and he admits that he did consult with her about it. Sherlock says it was complicated when Nell asked for help dealing with Iris. He tells Nolan that if Nell died at Iris’ hands there would be a media sensation he would benefit greatly from. He says he knows that he took Iris’ box cutter, killed Nell and strung her up and then sent the call to the press.
Nolan tells him other people have the same door opener and he has no proof. Sherlock says that Iris may provide proof but he can’t find her. Nolan says by the time he finds her he’ll have her convinced that Sherlock has turned on them. Sherlock tells him he’s a mediocre attorney and Nolan says Iris won’t go to jail and he needs to get out. He clicks the door open.
Joan goes back to Rachel’s house with police and she says he’s not there. Joan says that she knows Freebow isn’t her brother but she’s been cashing his checks. They have a warrant and go in. There’s a locked door and Joan demands to know who’s down there. The cops bust it open and find three homeless men they had chained in their basement so they could steal their checks. The story is on the news as Joan tells Sherlock the news. He tells her she should be proud of herself. He says that he wishes he could get justice on their other case.
Sherlock says that since Nolan is the actual murderer he’s positioned best to get her acquitted of the crime. Sherlock says he thinks he’s holding back some piece of evidence that would exonerate her. He says maybe he took a selfie with a thumbs up of him and Nell’s body. Then he has a thought and says he thinks Nolan does have photos he’ll use to exonerate Iris.
Nolan is getting ready to talk to the press when Sherlock find him in the bathroom. He says he remembered that Nolan told him that he underbilled Iris and he says he must have overbilled others to make up for it. They got a warrant for his office based on this and found the missing hard drive in the safe that showed a man in a ski mask that fits his description. Gregson arrests him.
Iris makes a statement saying that she’s glad the killer was caught but will miss Nell terribly.
Sherlock comes in with blankets and tells her they’re not needed and he thought they might go find some people who need to keep warm. Joan is appreciative and goes to get her coat.
THE END!!
