'Watson' Puts Ingrid Against the Wall & Into Moriarty's Clutches

Watson returned this week after a week off. We got to know a little bit more about John's (Morris Chestnut) time with Sherlock through Irene Adler's (Whoopie Van Raam) visit in the last episode, but this week we learned a lot more about our enigmatic Doctor Ingrid Derian (Eve Harlow). Her sister Gigi (Kiera Allen) was admitted to the ER after experiencing intense pain in her arms, which Ingrid refused to admit could be connected to the spinal study she lied to get Gigi into. 

Gigi's attendance at UHop was a big risk for herself and her sister. If the hospital found out that she and Ingrid were sisters, Ingrid would lose her job, and Gigi would get kicked out of the study, ruining her chances of walking again. Ingrid made some bolder moves in the episode to get her sister the help she needed. Of course, John was one step ahead and figured out the game, which left Ingrid in a position that may be more dangerous to her boss than anyone else. 

The concluding moments of the episode revealed why Ingrid spends so much time at that creepy lake and exactly what leverage Moriarty (Randall Park) holds over her. Let's run it down.

Flashbacks revealed that Mary (Rochelle Aytes) was Gigi's surgeon on the night she was brought into the hospital with a spinal injury. She fell through a railing at the apartment building, and young Ingrid strongly suspected their father had something to do with Gigi's fall. Gigi had a ruptured spleen and a swollen spinal cord from the fall. Ingrid convinced a young Mary to remove Gigi's spleen before doing the spinal surgery so that Gigi wouldn't be confined to a wheelchair around their abusive father. 

Mary went above and beyond to get the surgery approved, but her department chair disagreed with the approach. He forced Mary's hand and had her stop the surgery, which allowed Gigi's spinal injury to be exacerbated and left her paralyzed. 

Ingrid left the hospital determined to make changes in their lives. She drugged her father with Fentynol she stole from the hospital and buried him in a shallow grave at the port we've seen her hang out at multiple times this season. That is the body that Moriarty stole and used to try and coerce Ingrid to come and work for him at the end of Episode 7.

Mary and John were reconnecting on Valentine's Day after Mary was stood up when Ingrid called for help with her sister after the emergency room doctors couldn't figure out what was causing Gigi's intensifying systems. They returned to the lab for a diagnostic brainstorm with the rest of the team when John immediately clocked that Ingrid was being defensive about this patient. It didn't take long for John to figure out that Ingrid and Gigi were sisters. He confronted his neurologist, who roped Mary in to explain what went wrong the night Gigi first came into the hospital with a spinal injury. 

Together, they figured out that Ingrid's home treatments of Gigi's depression, combined with a rare mutation, had caused Gigi to develop hyperthermia. John put Gigi on the proper medication, and her stats returned to normal. Mary knew she could have saved Gigi from paralysis but let the senior doctor bully her out of the surgery almost 20 years prior. The guilt over what happened convinced her to allow Gigi to stay in Ingrid's study and continue on the path to being able to walk again. 

However, Mary didn't feel guilty enough to cut Ingrid any slack for her lying and manipulation to get Gigi into the study in the first place. She gave the doctor two months to find a new job, or she'd be fired from the Holmes Clinic and forbidden from coming to UHop again. John sympathized with Ingrid's predicament but not enough to intervene. We've already seen what Ingrid can do when she feels even remotely pressured. Now Mary has pushed her back against the wall. Without her position at UHop, Ingrid has few options for what to do next or to ensure that she helps her sister. Mary has inadvertently pushed Ingrid right into Moriarty's grasp, making Ingrid an even more significant threat to John than Shinwell (Ritchie Coster). 

While Ingrid, John, and Mary were wrapped up in the Gigi drama, Sasha (Ingla Schlingmann) was out to do some good. She set up Stephens' (Peter Mark Kendall) dating profile and even lent him her foster dog to help entice future matches. The ploy worked so well that Stephens adopted the foster dog himself. He named the three-legged babe "Soc" (pronounced Sauce), short for Isosceles, like the triangle. Before you think that is insensitive, Sasha called the dog Tripod before Stephens intervened. 

Eagle-eyed viewers could clock that Adams (Also Peter Mark Kendall) picked up on the flirty vibe between his twin brother and their coworker. That's awesome, because we've been watching their relationship develop since at least the second episode. Stephens adopting Soc made it even clearer that those two are heading for a romantic collision. We can't wait because we need something good to root for while Moriarty continues his chess game against John. 

Watson continues Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on CBS. Episodes are available to stream the next day on Paramount+.