Elementary Boss Talks [Spoiler]'s Prognosis, Teases 'Great Risk' Ahead

Warning: The following contains spoilers for Thursday’s Elementary premiere.

It was the shot heard across the pond: On Thursday’s seventh and final season premiere of Elementary, Sherlock received a troubling phone call from Detective Bell, alerting him that Captain Gregson has been shot and that the doctors aren’t sure if he’s going to survive.

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“The attempted murder of Gregson is not an episodic story. It won’t wrap up very quickly,” showrunner Rob Doherty tells TVLine. “It’s something that we will mark over the course of the season, and in many respects, it will drive the season. It’s a complicated case… it goes down even windier paths as Sherlock and Joan start to investigate.”

The captain’s “prognosis is something that will hang over Sherlock and Joan and Bell, certainly, over the first handful of episodes,” Doherty continues. “That’s something that’s going to resolve itself one way or another, and they need to keep their heads down and do the only thing they can to help him, which is try and find out who tried to kill him and why. It won’t be neat work. They’re going to have to exhaust a lot of resources to find the culprit and put themselves at great risk.” In fact, Doherty warns that the closer the PI duo come to resolving the case, “the closer they find themselves to an incredibly dangerous person.”

Needless to say, Sherlock and Joan will be making the trek from London back to New York City, but it’s not so much a homecoming as a temporary visit. “As far as they know, they’re coming home to help with ‘a family problem,'” Doherty says. “The circumstances don’t necessarily dictate them staying in New York forever, and in fact, Sherlock is not welcome there.” Since he took the blame for Michael Rowan’s murder before departing for England, “a return for Sherlock is dangerous. If he’s detected, he could go to prison for the rest of his life. So he’ll have to consider the possibility of working with Joan remotely, or risking a life sentence in the U.S.”

Meanwhile, Bell — who was on the verge of leaving the NYPD — “is going to quickly find himself on the horns of a dilemma in that he has this incredible opportunity to move on to the U.S. Marshals,” Doherty previews. “But he also has a friend and borderline father figure dying in a hospital room. He certainly knows what the captain would want him to do, but he has his own extremely strong sense of what’s wrong and right.”

Elementary fans, what did you think of the final season opener? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments!

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