On-Season Week 26

WEEK 26

Things are starting to look much less crowded overall for these roundups now, and this week we've only four shows to review. Elementary concludes the two-part return of fan favourite Kitty Winter, Sam goes undercover to capture a drug lord in NCIS LA, Scorpion sees its team head to the Amazon to stop a deadly virus outbreak and things go badly for the Kingdom in The Walking Dead.

Elementary - 5x16 "Fidelity"

"Sherlock investigates after receiving a warning to back off the case from a rogue DIA agent with a shady motive for the murders."

So that's it: Kitty Winter is no more. She's not dead, of course, but her character and Sherlock have both received their closure, and despite disliking Kitty I must admit to enjoying her brief visit. She confronted Sherlock over his anger about her having a child and he admitted his issue was that she never contacted him when she left; happily, they made up and Kitty's story is concluded. This is what the writers should have done in season 3, because a focus on her and Sherlock's relationship and not her boring traumatic past is actually quite interesting to watch. (And of course, who doesn't like Ophelia Lovibond?)

Kitty leads Sherlock to Archie's christening

   Cleverly titled "Fidelity" was actually nothing of the sort, but it takes a bit of simplification to understand why. The case drove us all into a million obstacles as Sherlock was warned to back off, but this only led to the presumption the murders were only indirectly linked to the Kotite manslaughter trial; cleverly, rogue DIA agent Anson Gebhart's plan had been set in motion 3 years ago when he decided he wanted to provoke the US into war with Iran. He ordered a top attorney to help, and that attorney then confided in a close friend, Cy Durning, who turned out to be a paranoid schizophrenic: when he went off his meds during the Kotite trial he blabbed about Gebhart's plan for a Venezuelan toilet bomb which, only 2 days prior, had exploded, nearly killing the Venezuelan President. The sympathy vote then helped the President improve his poll position, and he thanked Gebhart by giving him the "Fidel Files", a treasure trove of intel on Castro's regime; Gebhart then released them online with a video he faked of Iran building nuclear weapons, in order to trigger World War 3.
   I'm not one for two-parters that wind up as some elevated government conspiracy just to get through the full 85 minutes, but this one was above average: the link between the Kotite trial and the current murders of everyone involved with it being one of the lawyers going off meds and blabbing that there was a plan to blow up the Venezuelan President was a clever way to spread out the opening episode as a focused murder investigation and the second as a giant conspiracy. It was fantastically intricate writing.
   VIEWERS: 4.50m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.6

VERDICT: A little lowkey (Gebhart's warning never amounted to any actual threat), but thrilling, clever, intricate, emotional and closed off Kitty's story satisfactorily. 8.5/10

NCIS: Los Angeles - 8x17 "Queen Pin"

"Sam goes undercover to find an elusive drug lord who goes by the codename 'King'."

NCIS LA bounced back from its jumbled episode last week with one that had a much stronger central plot and a very minor sideplot.
   The main strand was Sam's undercover operation to identify King and destroy his operation; using a dealer he blackmails into cooperating, Sam meets with King and his henchwoman, only to be clued into the operation and discover that the woman is actually King. Clever disguise. I liked this format, the deceptiveness of King operating in every scenario as the right-hand woman: that's how you avoid being the focus and staying silently clued into every detail of your operation.

Anna gives Hetty the thumbs up after being assigned to
work a prisoner transport with Callen

   I feel like King was a great adversary and would have preferred if she had stayed alive and been turned into an arc, but NCIS LA already had a failsafe in its second plot strand. Callen and Anna, after being interrupted by Hetty, are assigned to fly to Arizona and collect Asakim, the terrorist who shot Kensi in Syria, who has promised to give information on a terrorist group. They have to move him soon because people are coming for him. Sabatino? The real CIA? Or terrorists? Who knows at this point, but it's an intriguing extension of the Syria mess way down the line.
   In the episode's flyaway comments, Deeks is informed that Detective Whiting, the IAB officer who had been trying to prove he killed his partner (who was shot during the mole operation), had woken up in ICU. The worry on Deeks's face ... I do wish we'd seen Whiting this episode, but I suppose she'll be back in the future. Deeks's past isn't fully behind him yet.
   And how cute are Callen and Anna? Every time I see Anna I'm pleased, and this whole Callen relationship is even better - especially since Anna is so understanding of his closed-off nature and genuinely happy to give him whatever time he need. But Hetty catching them in the act was pure gold.
   VIEWERS: 9.26m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.1

VERDICT: An excellent episode, a good marker of what NCIS LA can do. 8.5/10

Scorpion - 3x19 "Monkey See, Monkey Poo"

"To stop a potential pandemic, Scorpion travel to the Amazon rainforest in search of a monkey believed to be immune to the virus."

I'll say it once again: reference arcs. Scorpion is just the best at it - but it's clearly also good at recurring characters. Penn Jillette returned for his third episode (and first since season 2) as counsellor Dr. Cecil Rizzuto, trying to counsel Toby and Happy whose bickering was reaching an all-time high. Thus he furnished them with the "Bicker Clicker", a machine Toby could use to track how often he was triggered by things Happy said; after reaching a record 131 clicks and still determined to be married, Dr. Rizzuto confirmed they were perfect for each other. It was heartwarming clarification and the means justified the ends - but the means were frigging hilarious!

Toby does a mating dance to attract the monkey

   Onto the monkey virus, and the episode actually didn't hold that much in the way of obstacles, merely things the team needed to do (like get a Wifi signal to track gun-wielding loggers) so they could freely retrieve the monkey. However, Simian Freud (as Toby named the monkey) was not actually immune, but its immune system had been bolstered by eating the fruit of the Von Von tree. Next, all Scorpion had to do was overcome the tarantulas that lived in the Von Von tree and then eat the fruits to survive. A cure could then be synthesised and spread to fight the pandemic. A light episode with almost no gun battles, and it was a good one too.
   Elsewhere, Sly fretted - as ever he does - over the bite from a caterpillar received in the new hydroponic garden he installed in Tim's office, while Paige struggled with Ralph's wanting a new haircut and Cabe continued to hurt after breaking up with Ally. Which led to another breakthrough moment: Walter recognising pain in another human and empathising. And as Toby happily points out to Paige, Walter can empathise with a broken heart because she broke his. Traction with #Waige! Yes!

   VIEWERS: 6.61m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.1

VERDICT: Packed full of goodness and a decent plot to boot. 8.5/10

The Walking Dead - 7x13 "Bury Me Here"

"Relations between the Saviours and the Kingdom fracture as one member of the Kingdom makes a dangerous move."

Another slow Walking Dead episode, although this one was boring to boot. Richard's growing belief that the Kingdom should fight the Saviours reaches fever pitch, but with none of them convinced yet he's an outlier in his views, and thus decides to take action to force everyone's hand.
   But a hidden cantaloupe from the drop with the Saviours isn't quite enough in the end; despite Benjamin being shot to death by one of the Saviours, the Kingdom isn't convinced they have to fight. And Morgan deals with the problem that is Richard by going against his newfound beliefs about the importance of life and killing Richard. They were both good ways to deal with two recurring characters, but the problem is that neither death held any weight because neither character was ever interesting at all. So while the outcome - that the Kingdom would finally agree to fight - was inevitable, the episode spent on reaching that conclusion was another wasted episode.
   Hell, Carol was the most interesting part of the episode, when Morgan went to visit her to admit that Negan had killed Glenn and Abraham. I may not like Carol, but Melissa McBride is a damn good actress the way she portrays Carol's pain in that moment. I was waiting for this scene and, while it came earlier than I expected, it was still very good.
   VIEWERS: 10.67m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 4.9

VERDICT: Not worth a comment. A generous 5/10

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Callen and Anna (singing to wind up their terrorist passenger): "You're the one that I want! Oooh ooh ooh! COME ON ASAKIM!"

BEST EPISODE THIS WEEK:

There's very few shows to choose from this week, but I think I'm going to give this to Elementary. I know your first thought: how could a Kitty Winter episode make it to the best episode of the week? Well, I wanted to give it to NCIS LA for rebounding well from its poor effort last week with the great elusive drug lord King, but I felt there were things missing from the episode (like Deeks visiting Whiting in hospital); Elementary had no such issues. "Fidelity" was compact, complex, fast-paced, extremely intuitive, unpredictable in its endgame and offered excellent closure to one of its characters. It was definitely the best episode this week.

LAST WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 25

NEXT WEEK'S ROUNDUP: (will be posted here when complete)

Final thoughts

There's little to say this week, what with the limited number of shows to discuss. Elementary may have pulled off the best episode, but its ratings remain below replacement-level as it traipses towards cancellation; NCIS LA continued its good run of form with good Sunday ratings and a strong episode; Scorpion meanwhile is a certain renewal, despite a decline of two-tenths, due to the Third Season Rule, and offered another good episode itself; The Walking Dead, already renewed for season 8, had a disappointing week.
   Next week we've only got one show to add to this roundup, and that's the returning Quantico - will we see Caleb finally return? Otherwise, everything remains the same!

Thanks for reading everyone and I'll see you next week!

Sam