Mysteries: The Importance of Grunt Work & The Greatness of Marcus Bell

One of the elements I really love about Elementary is the tribute paid to grunt work. 

Sherlock and Joan are often shown sifting through boxes and pouring over papers. Sherlock habitually has to examine documents a second or third time to figure out their significance. In one episode, he papers all the rooms in the Brownstone with reports from different cases. Granted, he then solves the cases very quickly, but the need to hunt up information and to place it in its best context is a vital part of every investigation. 

Our detectives don't simply rush about being geniuses.

Consequently, "All In the Family" has some of the best scenes in the show where Sherlock does everything he can to woo, persuade, and argue Bell back to the 11th Precinct. 

At the episode's beginning, both Sherlock and Joan express dissatisfaction with Bell's replacement, a police officer who bungled their case when he didn't track down the suspect's priors.

And it matters that someone tracks down the suspect's priors. 

Later, to Lestrade, Joan points out that Sherlock could have worked with anyone at Scotland Yard. He didn't. At the NYPD, when Bell was away, Sherlock went through several detectives, yet none of them measured up to his expectations--or to Joan's. Lestrade needs to get his act together and behave like...Bell. 

"I refer to most detectives around here as 'Not Bell'," Sherlock states at one point.

It is not simply that Bell is reliable and does his job (such as remembering to run priors). It is that he has the imaginative discipline to consider what running the priors might reveal. He anticipates questions and concerns. This ability is one reason that my process writing assignment (explain how to do something) in English 100 and in Technical Writing is, oddly enough, the most imaginative of all assignments. Sure, you've done that task a million times your way. Now, can you anticipate what a user other than you might do? 

Bell has that capability.