The episode begins with two glasses full of water falling on the floor; the broken pieces are scattered all over. We then see a woman being strangled by someone (face not shown). She falls and cuts her hand on the broken pieces; a little blood is smeared on the floor. She then manages to escape and runs into her bedroom. The unknown killer follows her and she struggles. Cut to the scene where Joan Watson is enjoying her morning jog. She then arrives to pick someone up but she is informed that he escaped. She then calls the guy’s father and tells him that his son left a little early. She is on her way to meet him. She then goes to meet the guy who escaped; Sherlock Holmes.
She arrives at his house and sees that the room has around six televisions playing different shows. Holmes actually escaped from the rehab. She tells him that his father hired her to be his sober companion and is there to enable the transition of his life from the rehab experience to the normal routine. She will be living with him for the next six weeks. Holmes manages to predict the dialog of a show; spot on, and Watson is shocked. Judging by her hands, Holmes figures out that Watson is a surgeon. He also knows that she has a car; he saw the parking ticket when she dropped her purse. She is marveled by his keen observation. He then tells her that he was a consultant with the Scotland Yard.
He tells her that he has devised a post rehab regime that would keep her busy; he has decided to resume as a consultant with the cops. They arrive at a crime scene and he introduces her to Capt. Gregson as his personal valet. He also tells him that she is crucial to his process. Gregson educates Holmes and Watson about the murder. Dr. Richard Mantlo arrived home and found his door kicked in and his wife Amy Damper missing. Mantle is a “head shrink “in a hospital and he was called for an emergency and didn’t get home till 5 am. The first officer on the scene reported signs of struggle in the kitchen and bedroom, but no Miss Amy. Holmes then asks for Amy’s cell phone.
He checks her pictures and infers that she lost a lot of weight and underwent a number of plastic surgeries in the past two years. He then goes into the kitchen and concludes that Amy knew her attacker and she let him in the house herself. There are two glasses of water that appear to be broken; obviously, she was pouring one for her guest. He then tells Gregson that the boot prints on the wall has blood on it and he is sure it would test positive for Amy’s blood; this means he kicked the door after the assault took place. He was familiar to Amy and he kicked the door while he exited. Also he took something from the living room as he sees an empty space disturbing the symmetry of the two sides.
It was an old ring box Amy’s grandma gave her. He tells the group that kidnappers don’t take trophies but killers do! He then goes to the bedroom and discovers a safe room, cleverly concealed in the wall. But the slope of the floor gives it away. But they also discover Amy’s dead body lying in her blood poll inside the safe room. Holmes hates it when he is right! Next, Mantlo is being interrogated and he says that he wasn’t aware of the safe room and he did not hurt his wife. Holmes tells Watson that he knows that she changed her profession as the death of a dear one affected her a lot. And she wonders how he knew about her father’s affair; Google!!
Not everything is deducible. Detective Javier Abreu comes out of the interrogation room and thanks Holmes for his help. Since they have their guy now, they would take it further from here. But, not so soon! Holmes believes that Mantlo didn’t kill his wife. The reason; his feet are a size 8 and the killer was a size 11. Moreover, the strangulation marks suggest that the hands are bigger than Mantlo’s, which leads to the conclusion that the killer is around six foot one-three. Holmes then asks Mantlo to list the names of all tall men in his life and he gives Homes six names. There are only two names that have been in any trouble with the cops; Joseph, the guy who redesigned the house and his record has a string of parking tickets.
And the other is Harrison Polk, an administrator at San Bridge hospital and was charged for stalking a neighbor. Holmes believes that they should first talk to Polk. They go to his office and they notice a shoe box on the chair, and the shoe size is 11! He says that he didn’t kill Amy. He had only asked her about her plastic surgery. He then shows them a picture of hers that was taken two years ago, and it is clearly evident. The next day, at work Holmes tells Watson that serial killers are the ones who generally take trophies after a killing. So, to get an insight, he researched about some earlier killings and found one similar to this one; a size 11 shoe and a missing jewelry box.
A striking similarity between the earlier victim and Amy; both were curvaceous with long red hair and the only significant difference; Irene survived her attack. They go to talk to Irene. Holmes questions Irene and he realizes that she is lying. She knew her attacker and she protected him. Irene loses her calm and Watson asks Holmes to leave. Watson comes out and tells Holmes that the man, who attacked Irene, is Peter Saldua; a florist. Holmes calls Gregson with this information; but Gregson already knows the name as he is looking at him lying dead on the floor in his pool of blood. Javier tells Holmes that Peter delivered flowers at Mantlo’s house every week. That’s why she might have let him in.
They also find the ring box at his place. Holmes notices the messed clothes falling out of the washing machine and also notices that the phone is missing. Also, Peter was on a drug named Xanax. Next, we see Mantlo thanking the police for finding his wife’s murderer. At home, Holmes notice Amy’s earlier photos and sees that she had a mole removed. But he wonders why as he knows that she liked it; she always flashed it at the camera when her pictures were taken. Also, going by Peter’s cell phone records, it is clear that he constantly used his phone; but he stopped using it three days ago. Why? There are several checks made out to Dr. Roland, a psychologist, but he is dead. Later, Watson and Holmes get into an argument and Watson tells him that she will arrange for a new companion.
Holmes arrives at a bar and Gregson is waiting for him. He manages to get peter’s reports and it seems that he hasn’t mentioned about Irene’s attack. He also notices that Peter wanted to recover and he used to listen to his session recordings over and over again. But his phone is still missing. He then goes to meet Watson at an opera. He tells her that Peter felt rage but he also had some control measure. He then asks her the description of Xanax and he then calls Javier. He knows that the pills aren’t white and ovular. Instead they are round and pink. He admits that she was a great help with Peter’s angle and requests her to take him to the hospital. He finds Mantlo there. He tells Mantlo that he knows that Peter was consulting him after his previous shrink died.
Mantlo recognized his obsession with red haired woman and so he forced his wife to change her looks. He also gave Peter wrong drugs which increased his craziness and enraged him. Mantlo then made arrangements where Peter delivered flowers to Amy every week and then, he gave into his obsession and killed Amy. Mantlo used Peter to kill his own wife and then killed Peter and made it look like a suicide. Peter was anyways crazy and there is no proof. This outrages Holmes and he rams Watson’s car into Mantlo’s. At the station, Watson arrives to meet Holmes. She is going to continue to be his companion. She tries asking him about what happened in London. But he doesn’t answer. She realizes that he tries too hard and he cannot connect with people. Watson returns home and goes though Holmes’ desk.
She then notices a paper and pulls off a photo from the board. Next, Holmes is released on bail. Watson arrives and tells him that she saw a medical form that Peter filled out and saw that he is allergic to rice, but when they had gone to his house he had bought a sack of rice. Why did he do that? Next, Mantlo is in Gregson’s office and Watson and Holmes arrive. Holmes then tells them what happened. Peter had accidentally put his phone in the washing machine as he forgot to remove it from his pants. Now, he couldn’t listen to the session recordings and this drove him furious. He then overturned his washing machine in rage; thanks to the steroids. Rice absorbs moisture from electronic devices.
So, Peter went to the store and bought rice. When they went to his house to check the sack, they found Peter’s phone. They play the recordings in front of the cops and prove that Peter used to consult Mantlo. At home, Watson is watching a game and Holmes wants to go for dinner. And so he predicts the score. Well, as usual he is right and they leave for dinner. The episode ends.
