"The Game is afoot."
Hello everyone!
I'm back after yesterday's rather exclamation-filled watching of the second episode in the current Sherlock season.
Now, I'll admit, I tend to be quite vocal when I watch the shows I like - mainly because my reactions are just that explosive on more than one occasion, but also because I'm alone when I watch this. Occasionally, I do watch things with my friends - like, say Sherlock specials - but that being said, more often than not it's just me and my poor, over abused laptop.
If this thing could speak ...
It would probably complain how much I keep talking to it. But then, I wouldn't NEED to if the shows I watched wouldn't be bad for my blood pressure.
Sherlock, of course, being the rather prime example, seeing as there is literally no one on this planet Earth who can annoy people quite so much as the good detective from Baker Street.
As always, any previous reviews on the topic can be found at the bottom of this blog post.
Briefly, however, last week's episode gave us an insight into John and Mary's married life (which didn't seem to be that grand, just the everyday thing, of course), Sherlock being as obnoxious as ever, and an incessant hunt for Mary's former life which ended up with her sacrificing herself to save Sherlock.
Now, in this second episode of the season, life has fallen into some sort of pattern.
Actually, we just see John Watson going through stages of grief and talking to a female therapist in her home.
But BEFORE that, newcomer to the series Toby Jones (who people may or may not remember as him of the Murder on the Orient Express fame where he portrayed the child-nabber and murderer Cassetti opposite David Suchet's Hercule Poirot) gathers a group of people around himself and tells them a secret - a secret they will forget because of drugs he's pumping into their blood.
That secret brings his daughter Faith to Sherlock, because, three years later, she is convinced that her father might have probably murdered the person he had wanted to kill already, but she can't remember who it was.
Just that it was a name, one word.
So Sherlock - who is so high on drugs it's actually hilarious - figures out that it wasn't, actually, a name, but a word: ANYONE.
Meaning, Culverton Smith might potentially be a serial killer.
At this point in time, John Watson's earlier words 'If Sherlock Holmes wants to talk to you, it's not something you can miss' come back to haunt him as, after a high-speed chase, Mrs. Hudson careens to a stop in her race car (former drug dealer's wife, as you do) and tells Watson that he needs to get a grip and look at Holmes before the other man kills himself.
Which leads to her opening the trunk of the car and revealing she has a handcuffed Sherlock Holmes inside.
This just proves the old lady is much tougher than she looks, but Watson wants a second opinion - that of Molly Hooper, who does in fact arrive, via ambulance, almost before he requests her, because Sherlock has asked her to be there two weeks ago.
But all things aside, Smith ALSO wants to see the detective, and sends a car for him and Watson both, which infuriates Watson further because ... is he THAT predictable?
Watching Smith filming his ad for a cereal (him being a 'cereal killer') makes Watson question just how high Holmes REALLY is, since this doesn't sound like anything bad to him, especially with Smith actually being a charitable, rich individual who seems to want to help people (other than freaking little kids out in hospitals and beheading Barbie dolls in the process, because that's not creepy at all).
And John still doesn't get any bad vibes when Smith explains his favourite hospital room is the mortuary, because that just makes all the sense in the world.
Anyway, Sherlock, being in the drug-induced haze he's in, goes a bit off the rails, then Watson goes off the rails, and lands Sherlock in the hospital (beating him up, natch), before leaving and meeting up with Lestrade, whom he talks things over with, sort of.
By and by, John has been imagining his dead wife still around and chatting with him ever since her death, and her apparition makes surprisingly life-like comments throughout the episode.
This includes asking Mycroft Holmes a pertinent question about 'something that happened before' when Watson and Mycroft meet in Sherlock's appartment, where the Government is pretty much packing everything up. It's where John gets the epiphany that there's a THIRD HOLMES sibling somewhere, and also that Mycroft really doesn't get his brother at all.
Surprisingly, Mrs. Hudson does, and she and John figure out that Sherlock left a clue behind - a stabbed envelope containing Mary's last message, which John forces himself to watch.
And, as scenes intercut between him and the hospital, where Smith has actually come into Sherlock's room with the intent to kill him, learns that his deceased wife told his best friend to STAGE a situation where he would be so deep in the pit John would have no choice but to save him - and in doing so save himself.
This, coupled with some casual Smith remarks, sends John rushing back to the hospital (in the nice racecar, because Mrs. Hudson decided he needs all the help he can get) where he's just in time to break down the door and save his best friend.
Of course, Smith wants to play it all off, but Sherlock is smarter - he planted a recording device into John's former walking stick, which he'd left behind in the hospital room.
Even Inspector Lestrade needs to take a break listening to THIS serial killer for a while.
Also, spoiler alert: John and Mary (or well, just John) figure out The Woman is still alive when Sherlock's phone gives off a very satisfied sound. Which earns him a happy birthday from his best friend (a brilliant deduction, that) and a rather long explanation about how human interaction makes us better.
This happens during the watch that Sherlock's friends have set up around him so he doesn't get back into drugs, and during which John admits to being unfaithful to Mary (or Mary's apparition, who it SEEMS Sherlock might also see) by texting another woman.
Proving himself human, but wanting to be who Mary saw him as, and earning a hug from Sherlock who deduces it might be the best way to comfort his best friend.
Or, you know, he might just not be a robot after all.
After this, things seem to go back to normal (Sherlock is shooing random people out of his appartment who need his help), Mycroft and Lady Minister seem to be starting something, and John talking to his therapist again. The scenes cut back and forth between her revealing SHE was the real Smith's daughter who visited Holmes (since, previously, the actual one had no knowledge of it) and SHE had been the one John flirted with, and that, coincidentally, SHE is the third Holmes sibling, Eurus.
After which she proceeds to (apparently) shoot John in the head.
TO BE CONCLUDED
xx
*images and video not mine
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