Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Watson Episode 3.
The third episode of a new series tends to be a turning point. You typically have a firm grasp of who the characters are and where things are headed. However, with the third episode of Watson it still feels like we don’t really know who these characters are — because most of them aren’t being truthful about who they are, even in private. As with the previous episode, “Wait for the Punchline” opens with this week’s medical mystery.
Molly Jones (Djouliet Amara), an up-and-coming comic, takes to the stage with jokes about losing her anxiety medication backstage — and it’s clear she needs them. As she starts to tee up a joke about her mother, her vision begins to blur and her speech slurs, and she collapses onto the stage before she can reach the punchline. But the patient isn’t the only character dealing with slurred speech and blurred vision: Dr. John Watson’s (Morris Chestnut) TBI side effects are getting worse, not better. Of course, Watson doesn’t know that his struggles are because Shinwell Johnson (Ritchie Coster) switched his medication at the behest of Moriarty.
Despite being unwell, Watson still turns up to work to worry about his soon-to-be-ex-wife Mary Marston’s (Rochelle Aytes) lunch dates with her colleague “Gummi” (Bethany Brown), and treat his new patient. While Molly Jones’ mystery illness is tempting enough to take her on as a patient, Dr. Watson is a geneticist, and Molly’s curly red hair is the biggest draw for him. He asks her to join his “red-headed league,” which is an ongoing medical study into the red-headed gene and how it leads to different variables with anesthesia and pain medication. He takes her into a patient room to run preliminary tests on her, hoping to rule out the common theory that she has epilepsy. He makes note of how her heart rate spikes when he asks her about her mother, who she claims died from cancer, but before he can press any further, Watson keels over and collapses — right in the middle of the very same joke Molly was telling when she landed herself in the hospital.
Helping an “Alarm Clock Kid” Is a Wake-Up Call for Watson in Episode 3

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With Molly’s help, Watson manages to convince everyone that he cracked his head open by slipping on some water. While their lies assuage some concern, everyone is still quite worried about the fall compounding Watson’s pre-existing TBI complications. Including his soon-to-be ex-wife, who offers to let him stay at her house overnight just in case he has a concussion. Watson brushes off the offer, noting that he has Shinwell to keep an eye on him. The entire encounter feels a little off-kilter because just before Mary approached, Watson thought he saw Sherlock Holmes at the end of the hallway. Of course, he can’t exactly confide in anyone that he’s “seeing” his dead friend, especially not when he has taken on a new patient who needs him.
The fellows — Dr. Lubbock (Inga Schlingmann), the Crofts (Peter Mark Kendall), and Dr. Derian (Eve Harlow) — are understandably quite surprised to learn that Dr. Watson is taking on Molly as a patient. Especially when it seems like she just has epilepsy. But, he isn’t convinced, especially not after he realizes she was lying about her mother dying from cancer. He directs the Crofts to look into her actual family history, and, sure enough, “Molly Jones” first appeared online when she was around seventeen years old, and there are no obituaries for her late parents, nor any reports on the car crash that allegedly killed her father.
They discover that Molly has a good reason for changing her identity. Her mother, Felicia Mancini (Lisa Arrindell), went to jail twenty-three years ago for the murder of her siblings. Watson confronts Molly with the truth, and presses her to provide an accurate medical history so they can figure out what’s wrong with her, but she begins to panic and has a seizure. While the episode is bad for her, it does allow Watson and the fellows to identify that there is no epileptic activity when she has these seizures. As Watson addresses the team about these findings, his own illness starts to rear its head, and he rushes out of the room before any of them can see the way he’s unsteady on his feet.
The next day, Watson and the Crofts pay Felicia Mancini a visit in jail. En route to the prison, Watson discusses the “odd” details of the case, particularly Felicia’s account that her children mistook the idiom “I’m going to eat you up” as fact, panicked and died. When they arrive at the prison yard, it takes Watson all of two seconds to crack the case of Molly’s medical mystery and the true cause behind the children’s alleged murders. He makes note of her eyes, nose, and ears, and identifies all the hallmarks of a carrier of the gene mutation behind Long QT Syndrome — a syndrome that can cause sudden death in children and adults who are frightened. These “alarm clock children” are quite literally capable of being scared to death.
While Watson has gotten to the bottom of Molly’s mystery, his own malady comes to a head once he’s back at the clinic. After another episode, Dr. Derian comes to tell Watson to go home and threatens to report him to the medical director if he doesn’t. He takes this to heart and makes a scene directly in front of the medical director. After spying on Mary through his office window and seeing that she’s having lunch with Gummi, Dr. Watson rushes down to accost them, ranting and raving about them eating where they used to have lunch together and alluding to them having an undisclosed workplace relationship. It’s very uncharacteristic behavior for the soft-spoken Dr. Watson, and he immediately apologizes for the outburst and retreats from the table. Later, he confides in Shinwell about the “poison” inside of him, and how he’s been seeing Holmes and Moriarty everywhere, in addition to his erratic behavior.

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Rather than going home, Dr. Watson heads back into the office and finds Molly sitting in the clinic, reading through the letters that her mother sent back with him. He tells her that he believes she and her mother have a rare genetic mutation that can cause cardiac attacks, which was likely what killed her siblings. Molly starts to panic about her mother being innocent and feels guilty for leaving her in jail and never responding to any of her letters. Watson tries to calm her down, but it’s too late. Molly goes into a cardiac episode that lands her in the OR to have an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator placed.
Watson heads down to the observation room to watch the surgery, but he loses track of time and suddenly Mary is standing in front of him hours after the surgery ended. She’s understandably worried about what happened at lunch, and worried about whatever is going on with Watson. She warns him that she will have to write a letter to the board about the incident, as it puts the entire hospital in jeopardy if he isn’t able to do his job, and Watson sort of just accepts this outcome. It seems as though this case has been a real wake-up call for him.
Watson doesn’t stop at just diagnosing Molly with Long QT Syndrome and giving her the tools to have a long and healthy life. He also visits the medical examiner, Dr. Conrad Tran (Mas Morimoto), who worked on Felicia’s case and misrepresented the children’s cause of death. He presses the doctor to right this wrong, and shortly thereafter a delivery man turns up at the clinic with a voice-recorded message from Dr. Tran declaring that Felicia Mancini is innocent and admitting to falsifying his findings. A week later, Molly comes to check on Watson and asks him to come with her to reunite with her mother, which he is more than happy to do. It’s a relatively satisfying conclusion to the story, but we all know that the wheels of the judicial system turn slowly.
‘Watson’ Doles Out New Details About the Odd Fellows in Episode 3

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As with last week’s episode, Episode 3 breadcrumbs a few new details about Dr. Watson’s fellows. Namely, the fact that there is bad blood between the Crofts because Adam is dating Stephens’ ex-fiance. Throughout the episode, Adam tries to get his twin to come over for dinner and meet some girl he’s trying to set him up with, and Stephens keeps putting him off because he’s seeing someone (presumably the woman he video chatted with in the previous episode). But there is more than meets the eye, because it’s also quite clear that Stephens has feelings for Dr. Lubbock — who has her own subplot playing out throughout the episode.
Early in the episode, Dr. Watson spots a ring on Dr. Lubbock’s finger and everyone congratulates her on her engagement. She’s quite mum on the subject, which only makes the fellows want to know more about her long-awaited engagement. In the final moments of the episode, Stephens takes a moment to privately congratulate her and ask her if she’s happy about the engagement, since she’s been acting off about the whole thing. She claims she’s happy and heads home to her boyfriend — not fiance. As it turns out, her boyfriend still hasn’t proposed to her yet; she simply found the ring in the dresser and decided to wear it. When he comes home, he doesn’t seem entirely upset about her finding the ring, but he also puts off proposing to her once again, brushing it all off with a simple “soon.”
After “Redcoat” delivered revelatory details about Dr. Derian’s past, she takes a bit of a backseat this week. She spends the first half of the episode trying to get herself a prestigious job running the Spinal Signal Project — which she swears won’t interfere with her work at the clinic — but, by the end of the episode, she has been rejected from the program, and she’s visibly upset about it. It remains difficult to get a real feel of who she is as a character, and her antagonistic dynamic with Dr. Watson feels off.
Shinwell spends most of the episode grappling with the fact that Dr. Watson’s health is declining and it’s all his fault. He meets with Porsche (Sofie Kane), who wants an update on Watson’s health, and Shinwell snaps and essentially tells her that she (and, by extension, Moriarty) should just kill Watson if they want him dead, instead of making him slowly kill him, and Porsche simply instructs him to stay on the current course. As Watson’s symptoms grow worse, Shinwell goes to Mary with his concerns, as Watson asked him to, which earns him another meeting with a disgruntled Porsche. Porsche casually threatens to send one of Moriarty’s henchmen, Sebastian Moran, after Shinwell’s pseudo-parents if he doesn’t comply with their demands. Luckily, it seems like Moriarty has decided to torment Watson in new ways, as Porsche gives Shinwell a new bottle of pills — and this time, it’s the correct prescription Watson was supposed to be taking.
It does feel like there are too many undercooked subplots playing out throughout the episode, which ultimately leaves audiences with more questions than answers. One thing is for certain: Watson and Mary continue to be a compelling dynamic. They both clearly care for each other, and even as the episode winds down, we’re shown Mary hesitating on formally reporting Dr. Watson to the board, even though she is entirely justified in filing a complaint after his outburst. While the fellows aren’t necessarily hitting the mark, at least Watson does have a reason to keep us coming back for more.
New episodes of Watson premiere Sundays on CBS.

Watson

Watson and the fellows treat a comedian who collapses at an open mic night in Episode 3.

Release Date

January 26, 2025

Network

CBS

Showrunner

Craig Sweeny

Pros & Cons

Morris Chestnut remains a charming lead, and the plots directly related to him are the most compelling.

The cast of Watson are giving great performances, but the characters feel underdeveloped and uninteresting.