'Elementary' season finale: Let's talk about it

WARNING: This post contains spoilers about Elementary‘s season 2 finale. If you haven’t watched, proceed with caution.

Our sleuthing duo has become more of a trio. Raise your hand if you feel like it’s a little crowded in here? While I love Rhys Ifans, I’m really resenting Mycroft for coming between Joan and Sherlock. He’s mucking everything up.

Sherlock has been pulled into MI-6’s web, despite knowing that Mycroft is being framed, he must continue the charade of hunting his brother for the agency’s benefit. He turns up late to his tete-a-tete with the bigwigs and delivers this gem: “Apologies, this is my first cabal.” I’m going to start saying that every time I’m late for lunch meetings.

As our two detectives scramble to find the real mole, they’re also dealing with the fallout of Joan’s pronouncement that she is moving out. Sherlock is touchingly scared to let her go, while Joan knows that she needs real personal space to have her own life outside of their work. As they piece together what the tattooed numbers mean (date/time/place of the mole’s phone calls) and track down the subsequent murders, Sherlock makes a beautiful speech about what their partnership means to him: “Our partnership works. Even when things are less than ideal between us. This works. When I look back on the last 18 months, I often categorize it as a kind of grand experiment. The results of which have demonstrated to me, much to my surprise, that I’m capable of change. So I will change. For you. For the sake of our partnership, for the sake of our work, stay.” Best apology/entreaty ever. I would stay for you, Sherlock.

“You have this kind of pull, like gravity,” Joan replies. “I’m so lucky that I fell into your orbit. But if we live together that’s how it will always be, me orbiting you.” And just like that, she turns him down and stands her ground. And at the end of the episode we hear her on the phone with a broker. I get it, Joan. I do. But since this is TV fantasyland, I really just want you to forget your personal life and stay the hell in the brownstone.

The mole turns out to be Mycroft’s handler, Sharington, who’s got a chip on his shoulder about being working class while the other operatives are aristos. Sherlock and Joan wisely enlist Capt. Gregson’s help. (Aiden Quinn solves all problems.) At the same time, Mycroft enlists the NSA’s help. (The NSA creates all problems.) Holmes and Watson end up with enough evidence to convict Sharington based on testimony from the Iranian spy he was feeding secrets to. But their break through comes too late. The NSA has already exposed Sharington to Le Milieu, knowing that he would be executed. But this in turn means that Mycroft will be targeted by the crime syndicate. To protect his identity, the NSA staged his death by pretending he burned in a kitchen fire. Even though Holmes and Watson could have saved him, what’s done is done and Mycroft must disappear forever. (Thank you, CBS.)

Joan and Sherlock are both distraught. I’ll admit, even though I was getting sick of Mycroft, I cried when he hugged Sherlock. What a sad pair of brothers they are. I want Joan to give Sherlock a hug. He needs human contact even though he pretends he doesn’t. Show him some love, Joan. Instead, she storms off to her room and calls a broker to finalize her departure from the brownstone.

Sherlock is left isolated and upset, so he grabs the hidden baggie of heroin from his bookshelf and puts it in his breast pocket (No, Sherlock, Nooooo!). But he doesn’t shoot up, he goes to visit the MI-6 bigwig, Sir Walter and tells him that he’s ready to join British Intelligence. What? Why did he grab the heroin and then join MI-6? What is happening? Can Joan really move out? We’ll just have to wait until Season 3 to find out.