Watson Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: “Lucky” – Locked-In Secrets, the Angel of Death, and Sherlock’s Return

A nurse enters the ICU ward at Van Kirk Memorial Hospital, a ward where coma patients are kept. Alicia Santos, a nurse in the ICU ward, noticed a patient’s eye movement, but was told by another  nurse that it’s just an uncontrolled twitch. It doesn’t mean anything. Alicia’s not so sure.

Meanwhile, in Watson’s bedroom, John is awakened suddenly when Sherlock Holmes drops in and says good morning.  John threatens him if he continues to arrive without notice. He still can’t figure out how Sherlock keeps getting into his home. John gets out of bed, and Sherlock comments about how ‘ripped’ he looks. Sherlock says he is still waiting for his six pack to arrive, after many years of doing jumping jack exercises. They chat and Sherlock is ready for breakfast.  

Downstairs, Sherlock already prepared breakfast, toad-in-the-hole. John turns up his nose, and pours himself coffee. Sherlock turns on the TV and they see his brother, Mycroft Holmes, denying a possible crisis at his company, Diogenes Technology.  It catches John’s attention, and he asks Sherlock what he knows about the company. Sherlock is not giving out any information. He does tell John he’ll be in town for a while.

Ingrid is at her group meeting and tells her therapist that his technique for helping them control their actions are working. She’s even doing well with her fellows team. She’s supposed to accompany them and go see Watson on grand rounds at Van Kirk Memorial Hospital. Her attitude is more positive now. She admits that she’s happy.  Beck comments that she’s lying. He talks to Ingrid as they leave the group meeting, and questions her true feelings. He tells her his experience of having an empty feeling, caused when he asks himself what he wants after he gets what he wants. He says it has happened to him a lot. 

Watson does a presentation at Van Kirk Memorial Hospital on the CRISPR genome editing and research they are doing at UHOP. He says people will experiment on their own genomes, and he corresponds with people who do. They ask the audience for questions, and Alicia Santos asks Dr. Watson for input about Lewis Collier, a patient in a persistent vegetative state. She’s told that she was out of line by the presentation host. Watson later talks to Alicia, and she gives him a complete history on her patient. She takes Watson and the fellows to the ward. She tells Watson Lewis hasn’t had family or a visitor in the last decade.  She says he may be trapped inside himself, and no one has helped him since it happened. Ingrid points out that this is how a person with locked-in syndrome slips through the cracks of bureaucracy.

Watson says they need to devise a test to determine if Lewis’ movements are random. Sasha reminds him they don’t work there.  Stephens looks up Lewis’ history and finds out he was a civil engineer whose wife died a few years after his stroke. He built bridges throughout Pittsburgh. He was known as Lucky. Watson leads them to his bed. Lucky opens one eye as Watson asks him a question. He responds correctly. Watson asks him if he’ll let him be his doctor. 

A new mystery is found by Watson and the fellows, this time at another hospital. This involves a patient in a vegetative state, who was forgotten. He was thought to be a coma patient, but was actually suffering from locked-in syndrome. They begin creating a test to learn Lucky’s story. His wife died, and no one told him.  Watson tells the team they need to transfer him to UHOP. They include Mary in their brainstorming to make that happen.  One fun thing about Lucky is his terrible sense of humor, he loves puns. 

John got a call from Mycroft Holmes, but didn’t answer. He gets home and Sherlock challenges him to a singlestick fight.  He asks him why his brother is calling him. Sherlock says Diogenes Tech was built on a chemical formula he created and gave to his brother. Sherlock says the formula had flaws, and Watson realizes Sherlock started a chain reaction of bankrupt companies when contracts were issued to produce the product. Sherlock’s enjoying seeing his brother’s company go bankrupt.

Shinwell goes to observe Lewis and arrange for his transfer. He asks him if there’s anything he wants to discuss before he’s moved. Shinwell finds out that someone on their floor died today. Ingrid and Adam go to see Dr. Schiff, her old boss about the brain-computer interface he created. He tells her he’s no longer working on that project, and he’s now tied up in several lawsuits with his partners. He gives her a list of promising alternatives, and leaves them. Adam notices that Dr. Schiff is drunk. He knows because he learned a lot from his personal experience with people pretending to be sober in meetings he’s attended.

There is another mystery within a mystery developing as they become more involved with Lewis’ care. Shinwell tells Sasha and Stephens that someone else just died in the ICU before they arrived. Lewis has a flashback to the year 2020, and a nurse is in the background injecting something in a patient’s IV.  Back to the present as Watson meets with Detective Lestrade, another iconic Sherlock Holmes character, at UHOP.  A travel nurse known as an “angel of death” pays Lucky a visit. Sherlock profiles the murderer for Watson. 

1. What name does Watson and the fellows call the “angel of death”?

2. What happens to Lucky at UHOP?

3. How does the “angel of death” murder the patients?

4. Who helps Dr. Schiff and his company?

5. How long does Sherlock stay this time?

6. Who wins Watson and Sherlock’s singlestick fight?

7. What does Mycroft Holmes do to the Holmes Clinic?

A simple act of kindness and caring does an extraordinary life saving thing in this episode. It felt like reading a good can’t-put-down mystery within a mystery story. It was quite good to watch with multiple moving parts that fit together easily.

There’s science, medicine, mystery, romance, humor, danger, camaraderie, and entertainment all wrapped together and making viewers smarter without realizing it. They sprinkle in characters that pay homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s world’s greatest detective story.  There were three guest appearances who played Doyle’s characters in this episode.  Add to this a main character that doesn’t speak and communicates by a single eye movement, and a surprise ending just when you’ve gotten used to the flow of this season’s Watson. The show is truly improving as it progresses. It’s got a feel-good feel.  

I give this episode 5 Stars out of 5. 

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