Season 5

Complete listed story — includes the ending

1. Folie à Deux

An IED hidden in a soccer ball kills a man; this is similar to a string of explosions from half a decade earlier. While Sherlock and Joan are briefed at the scene, Sherlock notices someone suspicious looking and chases him. Sherlock is knocked down by a car, but the suspect leaves a hand print and is found in the system. It turns out he was in prison for vehicular manslaughter. Sherlock likes him as the suspect, but some things do not add up. Joan asks Shinwell Johnson, one of her last patients as a surgeon and also someone who was in the same prison as the suspect, for information. He points her to the suspect's best friend in prison. Eventually, this friend admits to being responsible for the earlier bombings. Sherlock figures out that they were working together in a scheme to help the first suspect, a real estate developer, win a very valuable contract by targeting the neighborhood of a rival's site for a massive new entertainment center. Sherlock encourages Joan to help Shinwell. Shinwell hides a gun when Joan knocks on his door.

2. Worth Several Cities

Gang leader Halcon wants Sherlock to discover who killed the gang's favorite smuggler. Sherlock offers to do so in exchange for the identity of a drug dealer selling poisoned drugs. Halcon instead has the dealer killed. The smuggler's murderer was after the Imperial Jade Seal of China, a valuable artifact, which in actuality is believed to have been carved in the year 221 BC, 221B of course being Sherlock’s address number. Representatives of both mainland China and Taiwan want the seal, the latter offering Sherlock $50 million for it. While examining the site of the auction for the seal, Sherlock notices two indentations on a metal rail under a garage door; they come from an armored luxury car. This leads to Wayne Vachs, the CEO of a large energy company which faces government fines that will ruin it. Vachs won the auction, but did not have the money to pay for it, so he had the smuggler killed. He planned to give the seal back to the mainland Chinese in exchange for a concession on a recently discovered Chinese mineral deposit, worth billions. Sherlock threatens to reveal Vach's identity to Halcon unless he confesses to the police. Meanwhile, Shinwell asks Joan to locate his teenage daughter, with whom he lost touch while being incarcerated.

3. Render, and then Seize Her

A murder at a clothing-optional retreat leads to the investigation of a week-old kidnapping for ransom; the kidnapped woman's husband, the head of a post-production company, had not reported it due to fear for her life. Sherlock investigates the husband, discovering that he stands to make a fortune from a software program's invention, which manipulates video footage. The recording of the wife's kidnapping seems to use the software. Eventually the wife escapes her kidnappers, but Sherlock realizes she faked the kidnapping to gain enough sympathy from her husband, who was looking into divorcing her, that he would wait to divorce her and let their prenuptial agreement expire. This would then net her half of his fortune (including the profits from the new video program) rather than the negligible amount specified under the prenup. Meanwhile, Sherlock learns that Gregson's girlfriend Paige is going broke because she has lost her insurance and he tries to persuade Gregson to marry her for financial reasons.

4. Henny Penny the Sky is Falling

Russell Cole, an investment analyst at the firm Barrett White Capital, is murdered. The killer took Cole's laptop. Cole's boss, was Mitch Barrett. Barrett's wife Laurie was having an affair with Cole. Laurie provided a secluded cabin near Bear Mountain where Cole worked on projects. Cole had written a controversial astronomy article about the identification of asteroids that are potential threats to human existence. Cole's claim convinced NASA to cancel a $500 million infrared telescope project. However, Cole's paper is actually a deceitful manipulation. Grant Huber, a congresswoman's science advisor and Cole's secret research partner, was a lobbyist for asteroid mining companies and was being bribed to ensure that government decisions would benefit them. The delay or loss of government funding for asteroid research would benefit the mining interests. Huber would also profit from buying stock in the contractors' companies. When Cole demanded more of a cut, Huber killed him. Oil from poison ivy from Cole's laptop got on Huber's office couch. Sherlock informs Huber that they may manage to match the DNA to the poison ivy growing near Cole's cabin. If not, someone who ate at the diner where Huber and Cole regularly communicated secretly will probably identify him.

5. To Catch a Predator Predator

When Damien Novak, a vigilante who outed dating site sexual predators and publicly shamed them, is shot to death, Sherlock and Joan look into the men he humiliated. Among Damien's targets was Shane Fitzhugh, who fled to Indonesia after he was publicly shamed. Shane had engaged in many past sexual abuses and Sherlock realizes that one of his victims is Molly Parsons, an employee at the dating site Damien used. Molly admits she killed Damien out of anger because his actions caused Shane to leave the country before he could be arrested. Afterwards, Sherlock arranges to have Shane framed for drug possession. Shinwell, meanwhile, cannot find work because of his criminal record. Joan suggests training him as a detective, against Sherlock's advice.

6. Ill Tidings

A chef and several patrons are poisoned after dining on foie gras containing snake venom. The diners were all members of the IAO group, the Internet's first line of defense. The sole survivor, a vegetarian, says that there are many more defenses, as well as replacements for his deceased colleagues. A video is released, claiming credit for the poisoning and threatening to target the New York Stock Exchange. The NYSE shuts down operations for a security check by outside experts, allowing the heist of three paintings worth $60 million. Sherlock has an art forger create copies of the stolen works, and their "recovery" is reported in the media. From darknet chatter claiming the recovery was faked, a robber – one of the security experts who checked the NYSE system – is identified, but turns up dead, bitten by a coastal taipan. His murderous partner is a cook who worked for the chef. The cook took the precaution of injecting himself with small doses of the venom to build up an immunity, so he could "milk" the taipan; this proved a wise move, as he was bitten, though it later proved to be his undoing as well.

7. Bang Bang Shoot Chute

Sherlock and Joan search for two murderers after a base jumper is shot out of the sky by one killer and has his parachute sabotaged by another. The victim had bought a small plane and was smuggling people into the USA across the Canadian border. Both murderers' motives stem from the victim having an affair with an Afghan woman. His wife sabotaged the parachute, while the woman's brother shot him in an honor killing. Meanwhile, Joan takes drastic measures to try to ensure that Shinwell is not drawn back into a life of crime after her half-sister Lin sees him with a member of his old gang.

8. How the Sausage is Made

Sherlock has been lying to Joan about attending recovery meetings. Meanwhile, a man's death is caused by eating poisoned sausage made of human meat. The second victim is Joaquin "Joaq" Pereya, a researcher who made a breakthrough in the artificial meat industry. A rival company hired a father-daughter team of assassins. Confronted with evidence for various murders committed by the pair, the daughter admits to eight killings, but denies murdering Joaq. That hit was called off after Joaq's product was tested and classified by the Food and Drug Administration as a meat substitute, not meat. However, the data was doctored to produce that result. The motive was to get it recognized as non-meat, as that would bypass the kosher and halal meat restrictions and open up a vast market. The CEO and a researcher at Joaq's company did the killing and data tampering, respectively, after Joaq refused to fake the data himself. The kosher and halal certifying boards refuse to recognize the artificial meat as pareve (neither meat nor dairy) unless Joaq's murderer is convicted. The researcher is offered an immunity deal, as he is only guilty of data tampering. He takes it, and the CEO is arrested.

9. It Serves You Right to Suffer

Los Espectros gang member Ricky Morales is murdered with a vintage Nambu pistol, but Shinwell's.38 pistol is found near the scene, and he matches the description of a suspect fleeing the scene. Shinwell had been recruited as an FBI CI by Agent Calvin Whitlock to return to his gang, the SBK (South Bronx Killas). Whitlock, asked to subpoena the.38 to save Shinwell being implicated, refuses, claiming treachery from a prior CI by which he was stripped of authority to recruit more CIs. Since he recruited without authorization, Whitlock disavows Shinwell. Whitlock killed another CI, Ricky, who wanted to quit, and threatened to expose Whitlock after realizing that he had used Ricky's information to rob Los Espectros. Whitlock used CI intelligence to rob four gangs with ex-FBI partner in crime, Lionel Trafoya, who was wounded during the last robbery. Trafoya is interrogated, and his blood is tested for a match to the robbery scene. Whitlock commits suicide after phoning Joan to come by and pick up the evidence. Trafoya refuses to cooperate, so Shinwell's role as a CI cannot be confirmed. Sherlock breaks into Evidence and wipes Shinwell's fingerprints from the.38 before it can be tested.

10. Pick Your Poison

Joan has her DEA number and identity stolen, leading to the discovery of two dead bodies, those of a rheumatologist who stole her identity and the mother of one of her patients. The crooked doctor was illegally writing drug prescriptions using five stolen identities. Joan realizes the patient had been secretly poisoned by his mother all his life for the attention she got to bask in. The doctor had stumbled upon this when the mother contacted one of her stolen identities and gave an entirely different medical history for her son. The doctor informed her patient. The patient murdered his mother as revenge and the doctor because she would have guessed he was the matricide. Meanwhile, Sherlock deals with an unwanted gift from Shinwell while trying to prevent Shinwell from possibly ending up dead - he proposes he and Joan train Shinwell to be a criminal informant.

11. Be My Guest

While wrapping up a murder investigation, Sherlock discovers evidence of a woman being held prisoner for years by Ryan Decker and races to track her down before she is disposed of by her captor. Decker's ex-wife is not surprised, saying she divorced him after catching him watching perverted porn. Blood found at a beach is feared to be that of the captive but is not. The NYPD rescue a captive, but she is not the one Sherlock is looking for, but rather a woman taken only a few months before. Joan notices that the brand of soy milk in the fridge at that site is the same as that preferred by the ex-wife. The couple were working together. The ex-wife is arrested before she could dispose of the captive. She had murdered her ex-husband at the beach. Meanwhile, Joan discovers that Shinwell is not taking his informant training seriously, opting to spend his time on a shady drug deal that could get him promoted within his old gang.

12. Crowned Clown, Downtown Brown

Clown Dale Schmitt is killed. Near the murder site, there is a manhole cover, below is the pipeline delivering New York City's drinking water. The news sparks panic buying of bottled water. However, the virus introduced into the water only causes diarrhea. Virologist Raymond Thorpe created it before fleeing the country. Gio Bianchi is a suspect, as his construction company had repeatedly won the contract to build a water filtration plant for the city, a contract that would only be implemented if NYC's disinfection methods are no longer enough. But the one to gain immediately from the superbug is Wendell Hecht, Vice President of Water Integrity at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), who holds the patent for the only home water filter recommended by the DEP. Since it would take years to build the filtration plant, Hecht would have become rich. Hecht hired Thorpe to contaminate the water supply. Schmitt saw him doing it, so Thorpe killed him. Meanwhile, Bell gets provoked into a fight by the ex-husband of his girlfriend (an assistant district attorney). It is actually a scheme to get her removed from a particular case.

13. Over a Barrel

Jack Brunelle, the father of a now-dead assault victim takes a diner hostage to force Sherlock and Joan to solve his son's murder; the police and Sherlock had brushed him off when he tried to get them to investigate. He gives them until midnight to find the culprit, as that is when the statute of limitations runs out. The first hostage Brunelle plans to execute is the detective who botched the initial investigation. With Joan remaining behind as an additional hostage and having hours before the gunman's deadline, Sherlock works with Bell. Apparently, the Shoreline 99s, after losing a turf war with a rival gang, switched from smuggling cocaine to maple syrup, using trucks and barrels. Connor Brunelle was a security guard at the warehouse and was mugged by Shoreline 99s thug Frank Trimble to stop him being on duty on the night of the smuggling. However, Sherlock makes his breakthrough after the deadline apparently expires. However, he finds television footage showing Trimble at a hockey game in Montreal; time spent outside the United States does not count towards the statute of limitations ( tolling ), so Trimble can still be brought to justice.

14. Rekt in Real Life

eSports agent and commentator O.G. Pwnzr is attacked while live-streaming. His body is found in a hotel room, after being tortured for the location of Inuk Marcel Otolik, aka Tendu, who recently signed with ProFine Peripherals' eSports team. Animal activist Rayna Carno has been working to ban seal hunting. After Tendu posted a social media photo of himself eating seal meat to promote seal hunting as a vital part of Inuit culture, Carno posted threats. Carno later negotiated a deal in which Tendu would oppose commercial hunting, while Carno would support less extensive Inuit hunting. Law firm Mather & Kline was hired to secure Inuit land to build ports on. Tendu and his girlfriend are rescued from Kurt Godwyn, the law firm's "fixer". Godwyn's gun was the one used to beat Owen. Carno's lawyer Lundquist is arrested for helping Carno pressure Tendu's village to end seal hunting, leaving them destitute; thus more willing to sell their land. Tendu's photos turned public opinion against Carno, and money he sent to Maniitok enabled the village elders to resist selling; Lundquist ordered the hit on Tendu. Godwyn implicates her. Shinwell trades SBK-controlled street corners to end a gang leader's harassment of his daughter.

15. Wrong Side of the Road

Cy Durning supposedly dies of a heart attack, but Kitty Winter warns Sherlock, Durning was murdered and he and she are targets. They had worked a London case in which Eli Kotite was convicted of a fatal hit-and-run while driving drunk. Released after four years, his defense lawyer Tom Saunders, the judge, and prosecutor Durning died, supposedly of natural causes. They suspect Kotite hired a hit-man, having been maimed and disabled in prison by resentful inmates, therefore unable to commit murder himself. Durning's body is exhumed and incinerated; the culprit's gray-red hair, indicating a Caucasian. Sherlock draws a sketch from memory of the henchman at Kotite's private club. They discover M.E. Dr. Wilkerson was bribed, insisting Durning died of natural causes. Kotite phones Sherlock, saying he knows the real killer, but Kotite is murdered. FBI agents and soldiers raid the brownstone, led by DIA Agent Anson Gephardt (the red-haired suspect), who specializes in Middle Eastern affairs. Meanwhile, Joan discovers that Kitty has an infant son, Archie.

16. Fidelity

Rogue DIA agent Gephardt admits to the murders (from " Wrong Side of the Road "), but threatens Sherlock to end his investigation or be linked to Morland's crimes. Kate Durning gives Joan audio recordings of Cy's court hearings at Kotite's pre-trial, in which Gephardt's murder victims had heard Tom Saunders ranting about conspiracies, including a secret plot to end Venezuelan democracy. Lawyer Sydney Garber reveals Saunders was a paranoid schizophrenic, but two days before Kotite's murder, a 50-pound cyclonite toilet bomb exploded in the Caracas National Library, narrowly missing the Venezuelan president. A document proves Garber knew about the bombing before it occurred. Gephardt tries to kill Garber, who tells the NYPD, his college roommate Alberto is the head of Venezuelan intelligence. Gephardt had hired him to acquire Fidel Castro 's secret files. Garber provides his USB copy, which is slightly different from the Fidel Files Gephardt uploaded to the internet, containing video of Iran's nuclear weapons program. After raiding Gephardt's family home, Holmes provides NSA Agent McNally proof that Gephardt faked video of Iran possessing nuclear warheads in order to instigate a war between the U.S. and Iran. Kitty asks Joan and Sherlock to be Archie's godparents.

17. The Ballad of Lady Frances

Drywaller Darren Azoff is seized by D'Agostino and Reese Vennek, who tortures Azoff, demanding to know where "the Lady Frances" is. Azoff denies knowledge and Vennek kills him. Audio of the shooting is monitored by Cosmo Dellis and recorded by BulletPoint, a surveillance device, activated by gunshot, of which the pilot is politically debated between the mayor and Councilman Slessinger, who is running for mayor on a 'be tougher on crime' platform. NYPD mounts a search for the kidnapped "Frances." At Azoff's mistress Marjorie's home, they realize "Lady Frances" is a vintage guitar originally owned by Eric Clapton, worth $5 million. Azoff stole it from Herman Wolf, who hired Vennek to retrieve it. Vennek betrays D'Agostino, and admits killing Azoff but denies killing Cosmo, who was beaten to death after Cosmo used the BulletPoint recording to steal the guitar for himself. Thea Moser reports Cosmo who created fake gunshot incidents for months. They arrest Councilman Slessinger for murdering Cosmo, who he used to manipulate his election campaign. Meanwhile, an attempt on Shinwell's life is made by Damon, in revenge for a shooting death from Shinwell's prior thug life.

18. Dead Man's Tale

Xavier buys an abandoned storage unit's contents, finding the corpse of Manhattan Public Administrator's Office employee Travis Unger, who stole from people who died intestate. Also found, is the 18th-century seafaring equipment chest of Captain Emerson Barker, aka the pirate Black Peter, whose missing captain's log included the location of the gold-laden sunken Spanish galleon, Santa Leticia. Unger had offered Lars Vestergaard half in return for salvaging it. Lars claims he rejected the offer, having already obtained salvage rights from the Admiralty courts. But someone beat him to the treasure; Farhan Al-Asmari admits to salvaging it, after buying the log on the dark web. They learn from a marine archaeologist, who once sabotaged Lars' salvage equipment, that the Seville archives show there was no treasure on the Santa Leticia. It leads to Lars' arrest for defrauding his investors, and killing Unger after realizing he'd owe his investors ten times the treasure's value if it was actually found. Meanwhile, Jameel's murder is probed, prompting Shinwell to ambush and beat Sherlock, revealing that SBK manipulated the killing. Shinwell insists he'll "take SBK down...and anybody who get in my way gonna get hurt."

19. High Heat

Two murder victims' remains are found illicitly burned alive in a crematorium, including PI Fred Kirby, whose numerous restraining orders cause Sherlock to examine a 1987 shooting spree upon new citizens at their swearing-in ceremony. Virginia Spivey organizes a memorial, but Kirby secretly swapped bloodstained Constitution pamphlets, to have a lab assistant perform DNA tests, seeking a paternity match to Carter Gibson, who's convinced the shooter was not his father. Sherlock realizes Kirby and Carter were killed by blows from a ball-shaped award Carter received for work related to his Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease. Virginia's son Houston is called to the Precinct: Carter had announced evidence that he was not the son of the courthouse shooter, but it's also revealed that the Spivey family had CMT. Having CMT jeopardizes Houston's career as a college baseball star pitcher, expected to gain a major league contract. A loud bang that the neighbors heard was caused by Houston who, after killing with the award, threw it the remarkable distance of 245 feet with spot-on accuracy into a metal dumpster, where NYPD finds it covered in the blood of both victims, and having Houston's fingerprints.

20. The Art of Sleights and Deception

Magician Claude Rysher dies performing a bullet catch with a poisoned bullet. They question rival magician Angela Newsome, and banker Keating, who paid his poker debt with information regarding the 1963 book The Art of Sleights and Deception. A possible motive is a two-million dollar prize to whoever identifies the real name of its author, who published under the pseudonym Walker Elmsley. But Farraday Books division head Ballard Clifton readily reveals it's Albert Lange, his grandfather. Rysher also bought a rare Nazi anatomy book by a concentration camp doctor, beating Mr. Frye at auction. Sherlock examines Frye's replacement copy, solving the case; Lange illustrated both books, and Clifton killed Rysher to conceal that Sleights and Deception was written by a war criminal, which would have ruined Clifton's company. Meanwhile, an irate motorist, Gorham, raises accusations of inappropriate behavior, jeopardizing Bell's career. After discovering Chantal's ex-husband Roy Booker arranged the bogus complaint, both Booker and Gorham are charged. Later, Bell finds his girlfriend Chantal's bloody body.

21. Fly Into a Rage, Make a Bad Landing

Chantal is brutally beaten and hospitalized (after events in " The Art of Sleights and Deception "). Bell is convinced Chantal's assailant is her ex-husband Roy Booker. While urine found on Chantal's bed matches Booker's DNA, his alibi is verified. They find Booker shot dead, an apparent suicide. Attorney Ted Winthrop, Booker's boss at Sawyer Winthrop Rose (specializing in finding divorcing spouses' hidden assets), implicates Fyodor Ukhov, who's hiding $20M from Winthrop's client Lara Ukhov. Fyodor admits detecting Booker's surveillance and hitting his car, which explains his fingerprints. Sherlock injures Fyodor to prevent his flight to the Caymans, and to save Bell's career. They confront Fyodor's PI, Joseph Tommolino, who didn't provide details on Booker and Chantal until after the assault. They discover Booker used herbs to pass a drug test, and a client list with $100,000 in the bank. They uncover that Winthrop lied to his clients, low-balling how much money their husbands hid so he could steal the difference. Booker discovered Winthrop's scheme, extorting him for a cut. Learning of Booker's issues with Chantal, Winthrop attacked Chantal and staged Booker's suicide. He ordered his staff to take drug tests to obtain Booker's incriminating urine from the lab tech.

22. Moving Targets

When a small town police chief is killed while participating in a reality TV show where all the contestants "hunt" their assigned targets, the team initially suspects her current target, a former child soldier turned doctor from Africa, but soon realizes that the deceased had uncovered a complex network of police bribery and corruption. Meanwhile, Shinwell recruits Joan's help in exposing the role a member of the SBK played in another murder so that he can rise up in the ranks of the gang. He also provides her with a written confession of his earlier crimes, so that she may turn him in whenever she thinks best. Joan receives a text from Shinwell and discovers him dead in his apartment.

23. Scrambled

Shinwell's back-stabbing murder angers Joan; Sherlock determines to finish taking down Shinwell's former gang, SBK. Detective Guzman indicates SBK's leader Bonzi Folsom rarely leaves his guarded apartment. No one knows how he communicates with underlings. Bonzi's estranged half-brother, Tyus Wilcox seems like a legitimate businessman. Hoping to end NYPD's investigation, Bonzi reveals Shinwell's killer is Tall Boy, who willingly accepts his arrest and imprisonment. Sherlock notices Bonzi's Enigma machine, and Joan cracks his window-blind signals by which he communicates his cipher key to unscramble online instructions. But NYPD's raid on SBK's next drug deal fails; Bonzi deletes his social media, precluding future stings. From Bonzi's past communications, they link contract killings of rival company personnel, tying Tyus to SBK. Confronted by Sherlock and Joan, Tyus refutes that he's SBK's real leader, but reacts haptically to Carol Logan's murder. Connecting Carol to Bonzi, they obtain a DNA warrant, but find Bonzi in a vegetative state, having snorted bleach-laced cocaine. They suspect Tyus somehow supplied it to silence Bonzi. Throughout, Sherlock is distracted by a separate strangulation case, in which in his mind manifests his mother, May.

24. Hurt Me, Hurt You

SBK gang members at an outdoor party plan to kill Joan when Mara Tres gang members ambush and kill them, two women, and two children; ten in all. The NYPD prepares for a gang war. Mara Tres' leader Julio "Halcon" Zelaya shows Sherlock the murdered body of his sister Carmen, with a video of her reading a message implicating SBK. But Carmen's roommate Tanya, who witnessed her abduction, doubts the kidnapper, who lacked tattoos, was a gang member. In return for immunity, Tyus provides ADA Nelson Lewis information on SBK, including every gang hit, and admitting he poisoned Bonzi, but claiming Duane (who does have tattoos) killed Carmen. Despite Joan's insistence, Lewis has no interest in prosecuting Tyus. She meets secretly with Halcon to reveal Carmen's killer is in witness protection, but if Halcon returns Carmen's corpse for autopsy, she'll assure Tyus' imprisonment, where Mara Tres can exact revenge. On the video, Carmen's lip was bloodied, and her restraints changed; she had bitten Tyus, and blood in her throat matched Tyus' DNA. Having perjured himself, his immunity deal is voided. At a health clinic, Sherlock imagines his mother May before undergoing an MRI.