In the newest episode of "Elementary," which recently returned to CBS for its fourth season, a troubled, newly sober detective Sherlock Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) tries to pick up the pieces of his life, as he deals with his estranged father coming into town.

A teaser for Episode 2 of Season 4 shows Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) bracing herself against Morland Holmes (John Noble).

Talking to her onetime employer, Watson says, “I don’t think I should trust you.”

“I’m curious,” counters Morland. “Why kick over rocks when you really don’t want to know what’s beneath them?”

The 67-year-old Australian actor has brought some droll acting chops to the contemporary interpretation of the classic Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories.

In a recent interview with IGN, the star of such shows as “Sleepy Hollow” and “Fringe” described his character in "Elementary" as a mysterious and reserved man.

“He’s very calm, he’s very strong, he’s very articulated,” Noble said. “But he loves his son, that’s evident, he’s come back to save his son again for the second time.”

Noble also offered a few details about the coming season, saying that Morland would pop up periodically throughout the year, before his character comes to a kind of climax.

“To know the father is to understand the son to some degree,” said Noble, who feels that introducing Sherlock’s father adds an interesting dimension to the series.

“In the company of our parents, it doesn’t matter whether we’re sixty or six, we revert to children, I mean it’s the most fascinating thing to observe, and the status changes,” Noble added. “For the first three years Sherlock has always had the status, he walks into a room and he’s in control of it. When he walks in with his father, he’s not.”

The next episode of “Elementary” airs Nov. 12 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.