ELEMENTARY: "The Woman" and "Heroine"

I've enjoyed this telling of a present-day Sherlock Holmes aided by a female Watson in New York. CBS aired the final two episodes of Season 1 last night, revealing Holmes' femme fatale Irene Adler and his elusive nemesis Moriarty, both powerfully played by Natalie Dormer.

"The Woman" showed Holmes falling for art expert/forger Adler. His belief that she had been murdered drove him to drugs. Her reappearance as the victim of brainwashing compelled him to aid in her recovery. Dormer affected a convincing American accent as Adler and switched to British as she told Holmes she let him to think she was dead to stop him investigating crimes that would eventually point to her.

Moriarty's weakness, though, was her fascination with Holmes to the point she didn't want him harmed. On the verge of letting Moriarty get away with a plot to rig Macedonian currency, Holmes and Watson appeared to have a falling-out and Holmes appeared to overdose. As he lay in the hospital, he was visited by Moriarty, who unwittingly incriminated herself.

I expected the season to end instead with Moriarty's escape, as popular as nemeses have become. But Moriarty appeared sparingly in Doyle's works, most notably in the tale he intended to be Holmes' last. Drawing things out with Moriarty weakens Holmes' crime-solving reputation.