Editor’s Note: The recap below contains spoilers for Watson Season 2, Episode 3.
With Sherlock Holmes (Robert Carlyle) in the rearview mirror (for the moment), Watson has returned to what it does best. Strange and unusual medical maladies. Ever since the Morris Chestnut-led series debuted earlier this year, it has been compared to the early-aughts hit drama House, which drew less obvious inspiration from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic mystery series. One of the long-running bits in Hugh Laurie’s series was how his patients’ illnesses were never lupus — but that isn’t the case in tonight’s episode of Watson.
Episode 3, titled “Expletive Deleted,” opens with Mary Morstan (Rochelle Aytes) dealing with an unusual case in the ER. The patient, Max, claims to be a 30-year-old woman; however, she appears to be no older than ten. Everyone in the ER is skeptical about her age, despite the fact that she is in the ER for wrecking her Mustang while traveling through Pittsburgh on her own. Naturally, Mary calls upon the one person she knows who could help her unravel the mystery with enough time to operate on Max before her broken arm causes further issues.
It’s unclear just how much time has passed since last week’s episode, but Watson (Chestnut) seems to have moved on from Holmes’ sudden appearance and has now immersed himself in a new mystery which is wrecking havoc on his personal life. When Shinwell (Ritchie Coster) comes to retrieve Watson from his office, because it’s time to begin remote consultations with the interns, he’s sleeping on the sofa. He checks his texts and finds two messages. One from Mary about her medical mystery, and the other from Laila Bynum (Tika Sumpter), who is concerned about his sudden disappearance that morning.
Unsurprisingly, Watson chooses to focus on Mary’s text and rushes down to the ER, offloading the consulting work onto the interns. But, before rushing head-first into the medical mystery of the week, Watson teases a new mystery that’s keeping Watson up at night. “The Pittsburgh Mystery,” which — for some unknown reason — he has scribbled onto the window pane in his office. Shinwell seems intrigued by whatever it is, but Watson shuts down his questioning in favor of focusing on the patient in the ER.
‘Watson’ Brings Dr. Derian Back Into the Fold
From the beginning, Watson has struggled with figuring out how to handle its core cast of characters — namely, Dr. Derian (Eve Harlow), Dr. Lubbock (Inga Schlingmann) and the Crofts (Peter Mark Kendall) — and Season 2 hasn’t necessarily improved upon those narrative issues. Derian’s plotline has been ill-conceived from the start, and much of it is because Watson has attempted to pack five seasons worth of character development and plotlines into merely sixteen episodes. It would be like Bones condensing the whole of Zack Addy’s (Eric Millegan) storyline into one season, and then having him get off scot-free.
With Episode 3, Derian is officially back in the clinic after nearly killing both Crofts at the end of last season. Despite both brothers making the case to bring her back, they express reservations about it actually happening, which is another example of Watson’s wishy-washy writing. The characters constantly seem in conflict with the writing that came before it, which can work, but it rarely does with this series. The smartest thing Watson has done with Derian’s character is introduce a second space for her to develop as a character. At the top of the episode, she is given the opportunity to talk through her own feelings about her return to the clinic during her group therapy session.
However, the series quickly rushes into a new subplot for Derian, which seems to be setting up new trouble for her. A fellow group member — Beck (Noah Mills) — turns up late and immediately seems intrigued by Derian’s whole shtick. He turns up again at the very end of the episode, waiting for her outside the clinic. She is immediately put off by his presence and tries to politely tell him off, but he’s persistent. He tries to convince her that they should get to know each other because he runs a tech incubator that could pair nicely with the Holmes clinic’s offerings, but she is actively aware of the fact that they met in a meeting for sociopaths. When he doesn’t take “no” as an answer, she warns him off by threatening to kill him, and he is entirely unfazed by the fact that she claims she’s killed before. Hopefully, Watson isn’t setting Derian up with another Moriarty-like plotline, which will undercut what little development she’s achieved so far this season.
While Episode 3 is mostly focused on Watson’s patient and his not-quite love triangle with Mary and Laila, Derian does have a few nice moments with Lubbock. Their black cat/golden retriever friendship in Season 1 was a rare highlight, and some of that is brought back here. When Derian first arrives, she brings a cake for Lubbock that she remembers as being her favorite, which is a nice touch. Later on, she expresses that she’s disappointed that her absence in the clinic has deprived her of gossip about Lubbock and Stephens’ relationship, which Lubbock remedies by revealing how great their love life is behind closed doors. It’s these little moments that showcase how great Watson could be if it didn’t constantly feel like it’s speed-running through key character moments in favor of the next big storyline.
‘Watson’ Leans Too Heavily on an Awkward Gimmick
The question of Max’s age is quickly answered once Watson takes a peek into her mouth. Not only does she swear like a thirty-year-old, but her teeth are very clearly those of an adult woman. Mary quickly rushes her into surgery, but not before Watson gets the chance to question her about her condition. Max explains that she stopped developing at the age of ten and tried to remedy the issue with hormone therapy, which only made her sick. While there were other options presented at the time, her mother wasn’t able to finance traveling to different clinics for treatment, so she was forced to simply deal with everyone treating her like a child for the rest of her life.
The mystery of Max’s medical condition and the way the plot plays out is one of the better episodes that Watson has delivered, but the series completely undercuts the power of the writing by employing a cheap gimmick. Max swears like a sailor in a misguided effort to be taken seriously, and because Watson airs on CBS, they can’t just repeatedly drop the “F-bomb” at 10 PM on a Monday night. So the series covers her mouth with a little animation and bleeps her out like an episode of SNL. It’s jarring and very out-of-character for Watson, completely taking the audience out of the moment. It’s cute, in a roundabout way, but also juvenile and symptomatic of Watson’s insecurity in the series’ identity.
Max’s situation is very compelling — and extends far beyond her broken arm. When Mary performs the operation on her arm, she discovers that Max has what appears to be lymphoma. After the surgery, Mary and Watson speak with Max, and their patient is very nonchalant about her potential cancer diagnosis. In fact, she’s known that something is wrong with her for a while now, and she’s completely content with dying. In fact, she was heading out west with her mother’s ashes and her last $7,000 in hopes of dying soon. Max explains that she has no quality of life and no real prospects because she can’t make friends, can’t hold a job, and can’t even rent an apartment. While Watson is sympathetic to her desire to simply die, he tries to convince her that she should live instead.
Watson tasks Shinwell with inspiring Max to live while he pairs the interns off into two teams: “How to Stay Alive” (Lubbock and Derian) and “Why Stay Alive” (the Crofts). They work in tandem to uncover new information about Max’s medical history, while also tracking down other patients with the same condition. Max pulls a fast one on Shinwell, playing upon his good nature and making a break for it. In the end, Watson tracks her down and convinces her to live by betting on the fact that she can’t possibly be the only person living with the condition. After running additional tests, they discover that it isn’t cancer, but rather lupus — and that can be treated with medication. Watson also tracks down another woman, Pauline, who is 41, but looks roughly ten, which gives Max renewed hope to keep on living. It’s a very sweet conclusion to a heartbreaking situation.
‘Watson’ Is Setting Up the End to One of Its Worst Plotlines
In the midst of all of this, Max also serves to push the Mary-Watson-Laila dynamic forward, saying what the audience is thinking, in the exact same way that Holmes did last week. And after this episode, it doesn’t feel like Watson and Laila are going to remain coupled for much longer.
Early in the episode, after seemingly ignoring Laila’s concerned text about his morning absence, Watson runs into her in the hospital. Laila seems a little upset about him leaving without leaving her so much as a note, but she plays it very cool. When he promises to make it up to her over the weekend, she informs him that her son, Micah, is staying with her now after a change of plans with his father, and Watson awkwardly tries to invite himself along on their plans. Laila politely shuts him down, but it’s awkward. Later on, she brings him coffee and pastries after he pulls another all-nighter at the clinic. Watson tries to apologize for the blunder, and she acknowledges that it was awkward, and calls him out for being weird and distant lately. Watson blames his behavior on falling into bad habits, but it seems pretty clear that Sherlock got under his skin with his comment about Mary.
Toward the end of the episode, Mary walks in on Watson changing in his office, and he makes a glib comment about how it isn’t anything she hasn’t seen before. It’s a relatively innocent comment — especially given the fact that they used to be married — but it also feels like the heavy-handed foreshadowing that Watson has become known for. They both play the comment off, but there’s still a very real sizzle of chemistry between Watson and Mary, and it’s only a matter of time before Watson does away with its ham-fisted attempt to put a legitimate roadblock between them.
New episodes of Watson premiere Mondays on CBS and the next day on the Paramount+ app. Season 1 is streaming now.
- Release Date
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January 26, 2025
- Showrunner
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Craig Sweeny
- Directors
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Larry Teng, Bille Woodruff, Jeffrey W. Byrd, Jennifer Lynch, Kristin Lehman, Mario Van Peebles, Ron Underwood, Tara Nicole Weyr, Christine Moore, Clara Aranovich
- Writers
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Craig Sweeny, Jason Inman, Charly Evon Simpson, Shardé Miller, Anna Mackey
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Morris Chestnut
Dr. John Watson
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Eve Harlow
Dr. Ingrid Derian
- Watson returns to form with a well-crafted medical mystery, and compelling character development.
- Watson continues to undercut its best episodes with showy gimmicks that fall flat.
- Watson rushes through key character moments, which leaves most plotlines feeling forgettable.
