Watson Season 2 Finale Recap: ‘The Cobalt Fissure’

The final episode of CBS’ “Watson” was anything but elementary.

The medical procedural, which the network cancelled in March, wrapped its second and final season with an hour that had a lot going on. Some mysteries were solved! Some cliffhangers were left dangling! At least one couple had a happy ending!

In a moment, we’ll want to know what you thought of the series finale. But first, a brief recap:

Mary and John consult with a doctor at Washington Jefferson Memorial Hospital, but the visit soon turns into a hospital admission: Watson needs surgery on his glioblastoma right away. Watson fights them but eventually acquiesces… until he gets hold of his phone and sees messages from Shinwell letting him know that the real, corporeal, absolutely-not-a-hallucination Sherlock Holmes is a UHOP patient.

So Sherlock sneaks out of the hospital in the middle of the night, leaving Mary dozing in an uncomfortable chair by his bedside, so he can see his old friend. When Watson’s team realizes that he’s sacrificed his own health in order to help treat Holmes, they’re really not happy. John understands, but he’s also not going to do anything differently.

They do get him to agree to rest for a while; Shinwell drives him home, along the way dropping the news that he’s getting married to Nurse DaCosta.

The next morning, Watson runs into Mary at the hospital. Surprisingly, she’s not mad about getting ghosted, but she was hoping to have him “taken care of” before she announced that she was leaving UHOP. She says the doctor they saw in Maryland is willing to come to Pittsburgh to do the surgery: All John has to do is call.

Watson is pleased to see that Holmes is awake and aware when he enters his hospital room. His memory is patchy, but he recognizes John, and he remembers going over the falls… but that’s about it. When John tries to discuss a potential diagnosis, he can’t quite recall the name, which indicates to Holmes that something is wrong. “Is it me you should be looking after,” the legendary detective asks gently, “or is it yourself?”

Watson is pondering this question in the break room when he’s joined by a stranger who introduces himself as Sebastian Moran (played by Eddie Izzard, “Hannibal”), who says he’s had Holmes all this time. He reveals himself to be a follower of Moriarty’s — he’s also a sniper who killed an oncology nurse at the start of the episode — and he says he needs Sherlock back in good health in order to help further Moran’s evil agenda… or something. He also lets Watson know that if he decides not to help or tries to go to the police, he’ll kill Mary.

John wants Mary to skedaddle, especially because they don’t know who within the hospital is working with Moran. But she refuses, which angers him. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it?” she shoots back, deservedly. “Someone you care about refusing your advice about how to stay safe?”

Meanwhile, Holmes gives Watson and Shinwell some insight on how to find Moran… and then Holmes’ heart stops! Shinwell and the medical staff are able to shock him back to life. Soon after realizing that Watson is nowhere to be seen, Shinwell finds him in the hospital hallway, having a seizure.

Watson recovers and has a spark of an idea which leads to his figuring out exactly what’s wrong with Holmes. But John has another seizure before he can tell anyone, and this one lasts for a very long time and essentially puts him into a coma. Holmes, who is doing much better by this point, comes to Watson’s bedside and tells him that his genes were mutated by their exposure at the Cobalt Fissure, aka the same cause of Watson’s brain tumor; the genetic alteration made it hard to figure out what was wrong with him, but that mystery has been solved.

Meanwhile, Shinwell tracks down Moran and beats him up a bit before handing him over to the police, who take the villain into custody. The whole situation creates tension between Shinwell and his bride-to-be, who doesn’t love that he knocked a man’s teeth out in order to get information he needed.

After Watson is awake but unable to speak or engage much with the world, all of his fellows, as well as Shinwell and Mary, come to his bedside to tell him how much they love him. During Mary’s visit, he’s able to speak for the first time since his long-lasting seizure. He blurts out that the day he saw her kissing Josh in the conference room, “I was there to say ‘I love you.'” He goes on to say that he has a mental picture of them living together, happily, on Baker Street in London. “I love that picture,” she says, crying, as she bends to him and kisses him.

Soon after, Watson goes into surgery. And the final scene of the episode/series is of Watson returning to his apartment on Baker Street on a rainy evening. As he checks the mail, Mary opens the door from inside. “You’re home early!” she says.

Also of note:

* Ingrid gives Sasha all of the information she learned about her birth mother, who does exist, even if she didn’t reach out to Sasha.

* Ingrid is allowed to return to group therapy.

* Det. Lestrade knows Ingrid killed Beck, but she can’t prove it.

* Stephens tells Sasha that he wants to have kids with her, and if that means that she wants to get married, he’s into it. But she surprises him by telling him that she’s going through some stuff, and she’s not sure they should be together right now.

Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the “Watson” series finale? Grade it — and Season 2 as a whole — via the poll below. Then hit the comments with all of your thoughts!