The episode begins with a man wearing a creepy mask and a hoodie robbing a house. He then arrives in a room where a couple is tied up and their faces are covered with pillows. The masked man shoots both of them. At home, Holmes and Watson are still not talking properly with each other. Watson tells him that this has to stop. She knows that she overstepped her boundaries by talking to Alister and asking him about Irene. But this is her job. Holmes gets a text from Gregson about the double homicide. He tells Watson that she is right and that he was sulking. But now he respects her job and suggests that they should start over. He goes to get coffee. Watson is surprised.
He gets up and goes; but then Watson hears the sound of the front door shutting. He left without her. Holmes arrives at the crime scene and tells Gregson that Watson has the day off as her cousin is ill. The victims are Jay and Amy Myrose. Gregson tells Holmes that walking into this crime scene was waking up in the middle of a nightmare. Holmes knows why; this scene resembles the Crews murders where Wade Crews murdered wealthy couples and empty the safes. But he was brought to justice by Gregson. Gregson is surprised that Holmes knows about this. He thinks that this is a copy cat. But Holmes thinks there is another possibility. He tells him that Crews always took one high heeled shoe from the scene as a trophy.
They go to the closet and see that in this case as well, the killer has taken a high heeled Jimmy Choo. Holmes thinks that despite Crews’s confession that he worked alone, he might had an accomplice that he didn’t tell the cops about. Holmes is avoiding Watson’s calls. He tells Gregson that they should talk to Wade Crews about his accomplice. But Gregson says that won’t happen as it is not yet a lead. Watson arrives and Holmes tells her that she can do whatever tests she wants every two hours but he says that his personal life is his own and he doesn’t want it to share it with anyone. She is fine with the arrangement and storms out saying that she would get in touch with him after two hours.
Bell tells Holmes and Gregson that Myrose received some threatening emails from a guy named Julian Walsh, a contractor who Jay fired after six weeks of hiring him for remodeling his kitchen. He also has some priors. They go to meet Walsh. He has no proper alibi. But judging by his body language, he guesses that Walsh is hiding something in his basement. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom and sneaks into the basement. He finds a scantily dressed woman chained inside a small room. Holmes tells her in her language that they are cops. She cries in his arms. Meanwhile, Watson talks to Holmes’ therapist and he tells her that he doesn’t know anything about Holmes’ life.
Holmes tells Gregson and Bell that the woman is a sex slave who was sold to Walsh and he spent every night in her room including last night. So, a sex slave is Walsh’s alibi. Holmes once again tells Gregson to order a task force to go find the four missing shoes including the latest one. He also wants Gregson to check if Crews was telling the truth when he said that he dumped the murder weapon in the East river. Holmes then checks the bullet from the crime scene and says that the grooves and the dents are similar to the ones found in the earlier scenes and is caused due to some problem with the barrel. Whatever it is, Crews lied that he dumped the weapon; it was used last night.
Next, Gregson is surprised to see Terry; his investigating partner in the Crews murders. Holmes called her. The entire team is going over the options; and Holmes thinks that Crews made a false confession. Gregson dismisses that possibility. Later, Holmes asks Gregson if things were alright between him and Terry. Watson then talks to another therapist and gets nothing. She then notices the gardener, who is interested in bee keeping and she mentions Holmes to him. He tells her that Holmes kind of liked him. She tries asking him about Irene but he says that Holmes never talked about her. He then hands her some letters that Holmes left behind; they were from Irene Adler. Gregson and Holmes talk to Crews.
Crews tells him that he was innocent and that the woman he was with could not testify as it could end her marriage. He also states that the evidence they found was planted. Holmes notices that he quoted Tolstoy; but according to the confession, Crews is supposed to be illiterate. He says that he has some raw intelligence but no one cared. He tells Gregson that hi arrest worked the best for the then Detective and now Captain. Gregson doesn’t want to dignify that remark with a reply. Holmes wants to talk to Carla, the woman Crews claimed to be with but they learn from her son that she died of leukemia. Holmes wonders why Gregson’s reactions were different while talking to Crews; looks like there is something he is hiding. Moreover Crews claimed that the coffee mug with his prints was planted at the scene.
Gregson tells him to watch the tapes of Crews’s interrogation to see if Crews is guilty. Holmes watches the interrogation video and sees that in the second video, post the second murders, Gregson brings coffee for Crews in a cup and the same mug was found in the third crime scene. Holmes calls Watson and shows him the picture and it is the same mug. The evidence was planted. Holmes confronts Gregson but Gregson tells him that he never took any perks that were offered to him and he did not plant any evidence. At home, Watson hands over the letters to Holmes and tells him that she did not read them. He takes them and puts them in the blender and destroys them. Back to the case, Holmes goes through the list of suspects and finds that one of them, Victor Nardin, was arrested 12 years ago for some crime and the murders stopped miraculously and started after his release.
From his tattoos, Holmes infers that he was a huge football fan and checks for bars and motels that play the satellite recordings for the games he missed. He narrows down a list of motels and manages to find where Nardin is. Meanwhile, Gregson confronts Terry. He knows that she planted the evidence and tells her that he is not going to be quiet if Crews turns out to be innocent. They go to the room and Watson finds the floor sticky as Nardin has dropped orange juice. They pull off the rug from the floor and remove a bar from the wooden floor. Holmes finds a gun hidden. Gregson calls him; it has happened again but this time it is a triple homicide. The third one was a guest whose presence killer wasn’t aware of. The neighbors noticed a man smoking across the street and they have collected the cigarette buds.
At the station, Holmes walks into the interrogation, throws an orange at him and declares that Nardin is innocent. He then tells Bell and Gregson that after examining Nardin’s room, he found out that Nardin is blind in his right eye. So it is impossible for someone like that to aim at a running guest from 20 feet. Also the cigarette buds seems to be put off in an ash tray; they were taken from Nardin’s room and placed at the scene and also planted the gun. Nardin is being framed. At home, Holmes notices that Crews is quoting Oscar Wilde in one of his interviews. This means that someone taught him to read in prison. But he didn’t take any classes. After digging around about the prison lib, they see picture of Carla’s son with Crews.
He belonged to an organization that funded to keep the library running. He goes to visit Sean, and notices that he has blue eye-unusual for someone with a Mexican descendant. He knows that Crews is Sean’s father and Sean found out about that. Sean says that his mother had a diary and he knew where it was hidden and that is how he knew everything. He was the one who helped Crews with the latest five murders. He asks Sean if Crews will stand up for his son when he is sent to prison forever and Crews gets his freedom.
Next, Holmes places the four shoes in front of Crews and tells him that Sean told them where to find it. So, Gregson and Terry were right; Crews did commit those murders. Planting the evidence was the only way to nail him! Crews, goes back to prison for conspiracy charges and his son is sentenced for life! At home, Holmes tells Watson that Irene died and he did not take her passing well. The episode ends.
