#elementarystaff

221Brownstone + 221A Baker Street

The official Season 6 Joan Watson action figure will come with surgical mask and hairnet...

When we thought this really was the end... we decided we simply had to see the bees again.

How far would you go for YOUR partner, folks?

How amazing are Jonny and @LucyLiu?

This Lord's problem is another case from canon.  Google away!  [The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor]

This is one of my favorite songs.  I've listened to the Stone Roses A LOT while writing Elementary over the last six years.

Case of the week

A very special thank you to the incredible Desmond Harrington.  Season 6 wouldn't have been the same without you!!

Agent Malick is, of course, played by the remarkable @parmindernagra  We were so lucky to have her join us!

Jeff King has the missing square

Denny is played by Dan Butler, an actor I adore.  Fun fact: He also acted in my first produced hour of television, playing an alien named "Steth" on Star Trek Voyager.

.@JeffreyPaulKing I forget -- who killed Michael?

Uh-oh.  Not the name you were expecting, right??

Ooh.  BIG scene here, folks.

I love the music in this scene so much.  So dark, so intense, so perfect.  Thank you Sean Callery!!

["I think there are certain crimes which the law cannot touch and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge."]  This is a quote from canon.

Behind the scenes

Hey everyone.  Rob Doherty here.  Thanks so much for joining me and Jeff.

A confession... when this episode was written... we thought it was the series finale.

It was the 13th episode of last season.  We didn't know if there would be more, and we didn't want to risk not having a true end for the show.  So we tried to wrap everything up in our 12th and 13th episodes.

And then 8 more were added.  And so we tried to come up with stories that would fit BETWEEN numbers 11 and 12.  So if you're wondering why Michael had to disappear for a while... now you know!

That was a special cameo by George The Dog, loyal friend of the amazing director of this Elementary episode (and many others), Christine Moore.

This garage was FREEZING.  I was there that day.

That guy was loosely based on my Dad, who I'm pretty sure would help me dispose of a serial killer's body if I asked.

Jeff and I are exactly where we belong tonight.  WITH YOU.  So thanks for joining us.

Jeff and I will be signing off in a moment... but just to be perfectly clear... Elementary WILL RETURN.  We're already filming episodes.

And that's a wrap for Season 6.   We can't thank you enough for spending your Mondays with us.  We don't last this long without you.

Until the next time... we're more than just partners.  We're people who love Sherlock and Joan and Gregson and Bell.  Good night!!!

Season 7

[Lin, Alfredo, Ms. Hudson, Kitty] I can guarantee the return of at least ONE of them.  Maybe we'll see more before all is said and done...

[Gregson, Bell] Absolutely!!  We do this together, or not at all.

[Kitty in London?] Ain't tellin'!  But wouldn't that be amazing?  Ophelia is the absolute best.

[NYPD or Scotland Yard?] Why not both?  :)

England is hard to beat.

[Will Joan become a mother?] An excellent question.  It's something we'll address in the season premiere.

[Will Sherlock become a father?] Isn't Sherlock sorta Clyde's father??

We'll have you crying again before you know it.  :)

Brownstone business + Morland Holmes

Mycroft. /cry. 

Morland, meet Clyde. Clyde, meet Morland. 

How great is it to have @thejohnnoble back? So great! 

The cases that Sherlock connected to Morland's efforts to unravel the Moriarty netword are all canon references. Also this is the first and only time we've done an "The Adventure of..." title. 

Damn it. Okay. 2nd time.

"A final problem to face." BOOM.

Case of the week

"My girl parts say that we are almost there." I wrote that, but @tjaron said it was okay, so it's not my fault. 

We shot these opening scenes in actual tunnels under New York. Urban spelunking is like, real, and stuff. 

So... yeah. People have actually forged mummies out of corpses. DON'T DO THAT! That's really terrible. 

The "Persian Princess" forgery was a real thing. 

Who's Sobekneferu?  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobekneferu

Historically accurate murder weapon for the win! 

Yes, Sherlock has a specialized frame for holding a pig leg for carving and/or sword testing. 

Khopeshes were really nasty weapons. I watched a lot of videos of modern smiths testing newly made khopeshes. Everything you need to write a good murder mystery is on @YouTube. 

Also watched a lot of recreations of historical fighting techniques. 

Marcus Bell as Indiana Jones! 

Easiest interrogation ever! 

ZyngyChat. Copyright 2017 by @writergeekrhw. 

NOW you ask for a lawyer. I mean... Dude. 

I mean, this guy is scummy, but not murderer scummy. So, good for him, I guess? 

LOOK, VAN FAUX IS AN AWESOME HANDLE AND NOT AT ALL GOOFY! Don't pun-ish me for my cleverness.

I hope we're all khopesh-setic.

Of course Sherlock can draw like a trained artist. Because... Sherlock. 

"So your theory is that Van Faux has a time machine?"

I mean, on my previous shows, that would have been a perfectly valid theory. 

Hurray, Julian Sands. We got such a great guest cast for this one. 

I tried to make sure Van Faux frequently spoke about things in visual terms. Light, shadows. He speaks in art. #TVWriting 

Time for ACT FOUR. 

Skeevy undercover cop, I see you. 

I mean, look... I had to kill her. Right? So go easy on me? 

Also I'm a rich white dude. So, we're good, right? NOPE.

Behind the scenes

Hi. @writergeekrhw here. I'll be livetweeting tonight's @Elementary_CBS! 

Okay, got my DVD cued up, got my timing sheet, got my glass of red wine, managed to remember the password for this account, so LET'S DO THIS! 

Apologies in advance that I don't have any behind the scenes stuff for tonight's #Elementary. I decided to live tweet at the last minute and @Elementary_Post just got back from hiatus today, so kind of winging it. 

Today is apparently #WorldUFODay, which has nothing to do with tonight's #ElementaryCBS. But there's Egyptian stuff in the episode and UFOs built the pyramids* so there's that. *UFOs did not build the pyramids.

Confession: I thought this was the last episode of #Elementary I would get to write, so there's a lot of stuff about death and endings and stuff. Also I stuffed in some extra canon references, because I thought, might as well. 

I'm really glad I was wrong.

"Sherlock solves a 3000 year old mystery" was a card I had on my idea board for 5 years. DONE! 

Our awesome art department really did translate Mischa's information into hieroglyphs. 

"She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever laid eyes on." Editors cut to @LucyLiu. I see what you did there! 

That's the second Gilligan cut in this episode, in case you're keeping score. #TVWriting  tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GIlliganCut

One thing I struggled with building this #ElementaryCBS was making the mystery a natural outgrowth of the body drop. I wanted it all lived in the art forgery world. But initially the killing and the motive weren't as well connected. I think it all works now. I hope. 

/I wanted it all to live in/

In one of my initial efforts, I used this mummy-maker body drop to kill the small town police chief in "Moving Targets," but it just didn't feel properly connected. So I split the ep in two, killed her another way, and saved this body drop for later. #TVWriting 

In post, we carefully timed out the space between the shattering glass in this scene and the splat and scream at the end to make sure the gap was long enough for the fall. Physics!