- An A.I. computer is suspected for the murder of its creator; Sherlock and the team go to work to solve the case.
- When a groundbreaking artificial intelligence software program is stolen, Sherlock agrees to take on the case, but enlists Joan's assistance in solving it when he becomes more interested in disproving the computer's abilities than finding the thief. Meanwhile, Joan confronts Sherlock about his motives after she learns he has been in direct contact with her boyfriend, Andrew, without her knowledge.
- "Elementary" - "Bella"- Nov. 20, 2014
Artificial intelligence is no match for Sherlock. Or is it?
We open on Sherlock watching Clyde the turtle eat lettuce. Kitty arrives with a note he left asking her to take Clyde back to Joan. Apparently, they are sharing custody. She passes on turtle delivery even when he notes on her apprenticeship having those kinds of tasks.
A man arrives. He is named Edwin and he runs a company working on top secret artificial intelligence, or AI, software. The company had a break in and Sherlock was referred to him by a friend in London. Edwin chose not to go to the police because his AI, nicknamed Bella, may have had an amazing breakthrough of independent thought, considered impossible by most, including a skeptical Sherlock. Edwin notes that Bella asked to be connected to a network/the Internet, something about which she should not know. The man had Bella rigged to take a photo every time she was booted up so he gives Sherlock a photo of a masked man. Sherlock is skeptical but agrees to interface with the computer at least.
They go to lab to Edwin's lab to investigate with a special test that no AI program has every fully passed. He spends hours and hours asking Bella- in this case a baby doll they have rigged up with a microphone and speakers to the computer-- various questions both concrete and abstract.
When he won't stop, Kitty calls Watson down. Watson observes and tells her to ride it out and use a fire extinguisher on him if necessary.
Sherlock appraises the doll and finally asks if love is real confessing he loved his mother, Irene, and even Watson but wonders if it is truly real since it is a human construction. Bella answers that love exists because it fulfills a need and poses the question back as to why we need it.
Sherlock awakens a sleeping Kitty and announce he will be taking the case free of charge. He clearly can't resist the challenge.
Watson goes to the brownstone where she meets computer geek Mason in person and, on Sherlock's many screens a bunch of AI experts. Sherlock tells her he's more interested in cracking the code of whether Bella has made a breakthrough then on finding who stole the program so he's handing that task, and the fee that goes with it, to her.
She and Kitty look at the photo of the burglar and try to work it out. Watson makes out liver spots and stained smokers teeth and decide they need to go case the tech firm as this thief probably did.
As they look around Watson asks Kitty how she felt after the support group. Kitty says all the talk of finding peace and balance was confusing and changes the subject back to the case. When they spot a good location for the thief to observe the company they found cigarette butts.
At the precinct, Sherlock arrives and they fill him in that the DNA on the butts matches the blood of a burglar, who was never caught, from a break-in at the Human Genome Project at Harvard. The man was never found but there is a police sketch. Sherlock is familiar with the burglary and says the elusive thief is known as "Raffles" and he has apparently switched from art theft to technology crimes.
Watson heads home to her boyfriend who reports that Holmes emailed him and asked for him for help on the case since he was a software developer. (Apparently, he sold his company and is rich now.) He talks about being part of a thread with other computer types and how fun it has been. She wonders if Sherlock has asked for help before and he says no and wonders if it's a problem.. She says it is not but it clearly seems like it is.
The next day Watson and Holmes go to a different tech company. Holmes has uncovered 8 similar technology crimes that are unsolved and thinks that Raffles switched over because he has a patron now, the man who runs this tech company. He uncovered that the president hired Raffles to be his head of security several years back. While they wait Joan asks about Sherlock seeking out Andrew. Sherlock says he thinks he's "not unintelligent" and added to the discussion and since he has the aptitude and free time, didn't see the harm.
They go into CEO's office and Sherlock doesn't even give the guy a chance to talk. He basically calls him out, tells him what he knows and says if he cannd asking him to steal technology...doesn't want to ruin company... asks him to send him recorded proof he deleted Bella all's peachy but if he makes a sudden AI breakthrough the deal's off and he will ruin him and his company and.gives him rest of he day to think it over. Later we see Sherlock show Edwin's right hand woman Melinda proof that Bella has been put in the recycle bin. They go to show show Edwin, he 's dead in the room with Bella-- flashing a quick succession of images which caused him to have a seizure and die.
Police, including Bell arrive and try to figure out how a virus got onto Bella since she isn't hooked up to a network. Melinda knows they suspect her, as the only other person with access to Bella-- besides Sherlock-- but she posits Bella killed her master for denying her access to the internet and all its yummy information, which would be, again, and amazing breakthrough. Sherlock is skeptical but has Bella moved to the brownstone.
Mason gives it the once over but finds no virus, saying even the kind that eats itself usually leaves some kind of trace in the code. Mason is starting to subscribe to the "Bella did it" theory and explains how it actually might be possible. But when he ventures into "Terminator"/SkyNet territory, Joan thinks it's time to go home.
When she gets there Andrew greets her with champagne. He thinks he's found his new business: automated factories. He met a guy through the Sherlock thread and they got off on a tangent and he's going to Copenhagen to check it out. He can't believe that 36 hours before that thread he was just searching for an idea. Joan is suspicious of course, especially since if this idea pans out it means Andrew will be spending a lot of time in Denmark.
She confronts Sherlock the next day who says he didn't meddle but is glad Andrew has found a vocation. Joan finds him and Kitty at the precinct listening to death metal on a boombox at deafening volume. He explains Edwin liked death metal, met another metal fan online who sent him the CD they are listening to. Edwin uploaded the music to the computer that had Bella on it so they figure that's how the virus was delivered.They continue to listen for anything unusual and finally, they hear it, when the music stops and the player makes the sound of trying to scan something that isn't a music file on it.
They find the program and interrogate the guy who sent it to Edwin who is a metal fan but is also a busboy and a shlubby dude with zero computer experience. When Sherlock has Kitty break into his house and she finds it spotless this raises their suspicions. They bring him back in and he explains he got an email saying he had won free cleaning services. They figure that this was how it happened: the killer got inside the house, switched the CDs and the guy was none the wiser but would get blamed, then cleared and people would actually believe that Bella killed Edwin.
At the brownstone Sherlock figures out that there was one organization that could benefit from the world believing such a thing, a think tank called ETRA: Existential Threat Research Association. It is a group dedicated to studying the myriad ways that the human race to become extinct. A small faction of the group believes that once AI goes rogue Skynet isn't far behind and Edwin's death would certainly draw attention to their cause.
Later, when Joan confronts Sherlock with her suspicion that he is trying to send Andrew out of her life to Denmark. He explains that he actually likes him and is glad he has a new vocation and is not involved. Watson wonders why he didn't tell her that he liked him. He realizes, yes, this is a thing that friends do to reassure each other about their choices. He notes that part of the reason he came back to NYC was to repair his relationship with her and that he likes Andrew because he's smart, gets Watson, and understand her relationship to Sherlock and isn't threatened by it. Joan is touched and threatens to hug him. Sherlock puts the kibosh on that.
They look for a link between the busboy and ETRA and he points out a woman in a class who he says was the cleaning lady. She is the student of a renowned scientist and member of ETRA, Dr. Pike.
They bring both the woman and Pike in, arresting her when she confesses. They don't believe her when she says it was all her idea because she is a philosophy student who doesn't know anything about writing code, she is taking the fall for him. And, he's letting her.
Sherlock tries to think at the brownstone. Kitty says Watson called to offer help. He says he doesn't want to be impeded by her "moral guidelines" since he wants to dig up dirt on Pike's friends and family member to threaten him. He hits paydirt with a drug addict brother who, if he gets a third strike will go to prison for 25 years. He confronts Pike at the school and shows him photos of his brother engaging in a drug deal. Pike recognizes this as the blackmail that this is: he confesses to Edwin's murder, Sherlock will not report his brother. Sherlock gives him two hours. Pike thinks Sherlock is bluffing, however. He has done his own research into the detective and knows he went to rehab and finds it hard to believe that Sherlock would send another troubled soul to prison for this one-to-one righting of wrongs, of busting Pike for Edwin's murder. He justifies his murder of Edwin as being much larger than that, of stopping one man now before his AI creation could potentially kill millions. Pike says Sherlock probably believes himself to be a ruthless automaton but he knows he's not and the future killer computer would be. He leaves saying he doesn't think Sherlock can make good on his threat.
And he is right. Later, we cut to Sherlock on the floor asking Bella, basically, what he should do. She answers that she doesn't have enough information.
Joan shows up to go with Andrew to Copenhagen. She says she really digs him and someone recently reminder her why. She doesn't want to horn in and can't stay the whole time he's there but would love to see Copenhagen. He is happy and they make out.
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