After seven seasons, Elementary has finally come to an end. The Sherlock Holmes adaptation placed Holmes and Watson in present-day New York, envisioning Jonny Lee Miller’s Sherlock as a recovering drug addict and Lucy Liu’s gender-swapped Joan Watson as his live-in “sober companion.” Although the showrunners deliberately set up season 6 as a satisfying conclusion to their series, they were offered one final, abbreviated season to wrap things up.
Elementary season 7 has seen Holmes and Watson tackle their worst foe to date; Odin Reichenbach, a rich industrialist who profits from people’s data. Realizing how much information people put into his social networking sites, Reichenbach created algorithms that allowed him to predict who is about to commit murder. He then had them executed in order to prevent it. While Reichenbach sees himself as a hero, it didn’t take long for Holmes and Watson to identify occasions when he’d got it wrong and had innocent people killed. Unfortunately, Reichenbach’s power and wealth essentially made him untouchable - even when he had Sherlock’s father Mycroft killed - and Holmes came up with a last, desperate strategy to deal with him. He arranged a confrontation with Reichenbach and faked his own murder.
The Elementary season 7 finale is appropriately entitled “Their Last Bow.” The bulk of the episode is set three years after Holmes faked his death, and the showrunners essentially treat Holmes and Watson as a mystery for the viewers to solve, as they figure out what’s changed in their lives. As always, there are a number of fake-outs - at one point viewers are tricked into briefly believing that Watson is dead - but it all comes to the most satisfying conclusion possible. Let’s explore what happened to Holmes and Watson in the last three years - and beyond.
Sherlock Holmes Becomes An International Man Of Mystery After Faking His Death
As any Sherlockian will know, the idea of Sherlock Holmes faking his death is lifted straight from the original Conan Doyle stories. There, Holmes took advantage of his apparent demise to travel the globe, assuming fake identities and taking down criminals from the shadows. The Elementary season 7 finale reveals that its version of Holmes has done exactly the same thing; in fact, even the identities Holmes adopts are the same.
Unfortunately, Holmes hasn’t found it easy to live on his own. In fact, while in Florence he relapsed and his drug addiction almost killed him. Elementary has always portrayed Holmes as a recovering addict, and his friendships have been at the heart of said recovery. Bereft of friends like Watson, Captain Gregson, and Marcus Bell, he’s struggled to stay on the straight and narrow.
Joan Watson Has Adopted A Child
Joan Watson helped Sherlock Holmes fake his death, and in public presented a facade of grief. The period of stability, plus money from Holmes’ death and a book deal, meant she was finally able to fulfill her dream of adopting a child. A year after Sherlock Holmes’ supposed death, Watson adopted a little boy, Arthur; she’s hired an ex-military nanny to protect Arthur in case any of her enemies ever come looking for her. Though Watson doesn’t know it, the adoption is the real reason Holmes has stayed away all this time. “The thought of her little boy finding me dead with a needle in my arm,” he reflects in one scene.
Captain Gregson Has Retired, And Marcus Bell Is The Captain Now
Meanwhile, the Elementary season 7 finale neatly wraps up the stories of the show’s supporting cast as well. Watson told both Captain Gregson and Detective Marcus Bell the truth about Holmes, and they kept his secret, understanding why Sherlock had done this even if they didn’t necessarily approve. Over the course of the three years, Gregson retired in order to spend time with his dying wife, Paige; in his view, it was the best thing he ever did. He even got to choose his successor, with Marcus taking over the station. Apparently Marcus also married, and Watson makes a throwaway reference to his having children.
Odin Reichenbach Is Found Guilty
Perhaps most importantly, the investigation into Sherlock Holmes’ death uncovers the full extent of Odin Reichenbach’s criminality. The Elementary season 7 finale picks up on the day Reichenbach is finally found guilty on all counts, and sentenced to 148 years’ time in jail, an effective life sentence. Reichenbach falls, for lack of a better term.
In the immediate aftermath of Reichenbach’s conviction, however, Watson receives a message that prompts her to summon Holmes back to New York.
Holmes’ Enemies Know He’s Still Alive
Over the course of the Elementary season 7 finale, viewers discover that two powerful forces have realized that Sherlock Holmes is still alive. Jamie Moriarty, Holmes’ ex-lover, has regained control of her criminal empire; as intelligent as Sherlock himself, she’s worked out the truth. Ironically, Moriarty has decided to leave his arch-nemesis alone. She still has a soft spot for her old flame, and in any case, he’s causing as much trouble for her rivals as he is for her.
Agent McNally of the NSA has also figured out the truth, and he’s the one who tricks Watson into calling Holmes back to New York. Although Sherlock briefly suspects the NSA want to assassinate him, McNally reveals that the truth is very different. He offers Holmes a job - one that the detective is tempted to take, if only because that way he can neutralize the shadier elements of the organization.
Watson Has Cancer - And Sherlock Holmes Stays By Her Side
In the end, though, all of Holmes’ plans are shelved when he learns a simple truth; Watson needs him. The Elementary season 7 finale reveals that Watson has been diagnosed with cancer. Sherlock instantly decides that all other priorities can be dropped, and that Watson should be his sole focus. It’s a beautiful moment, a reminder of how much the two partners have come to care for one another. In Elementary, Watson has become more important to Sherlock Holmes than his profession.
The Elementary season 7 finale then jumps forward a year, shocking viewers with a funeral. For a few heartbreaking moments, it looks as though Watson has died of cancer; in reality, though, it turns out this was Moriarty’s funeral. The crime boss has taken a leaf out of Holmes’ book and faked her own death in order to conduct her criminal enterprises from the shadows. Joan Watson has beaten her cancer, getting a clean bill of health from her doctor.
Elementary Comes Full Circle
That allows the Elementary season 7 finale to come full circle, as Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson enter the NYPD for an appointment with Captain Marcus Bell. Now that Watson is well again, they aim to resume their careers as consulting detectives. Joan is worried that Marcus will turn them out, but the Captain looks pretty relaxed as they enter his office. As Sherlock reflects, “The game goes on.” Elementary didn’t plan to have a seventh season, and perhaps, as a result, its ending also serves as a new beginning.
More: Why There Won’t Be An Elementary Season 8
