I hope it is back to normal this week and just focuses on a solid case.
I get the feeling it’s going to be even stranger this season than last. They seem to be trying too hard to make it a connected arc across the season. Not sure why they moved away from the simple and elegant and entertaining model of the first season.
I really liked this one, much better than last weeks. Yes, there’s the usual Moffat jiggerypokery - particularly in the first half hour or so - but it gets way better.
For non-UK viewers I think some of the resonances will be lost unless you know about what is in the spoiler box (it’s not much of a spoiler for the episode, it’s just context)
I can see that reddit’s initial reactions are much, much better than last week. I hope it’s true.
I can assure viewers that British police do not customarily halt a willing stream-of-confessionness to resume after a good night’s sleep.
Also if Sherrinford was Watson’s wanton lady on the bus, and Watson’s psychologist, and the False Faith it seems a little remiss of Sherlock not to recognise his own sister.
I am sure it will turn out she is the real genius of the Holmes family, because, subversion and all that crap.
Agree, much better.
Kind of convenient bringing in a new lead female as the previous one expires, Moffat ever mindful of demographics.
Also, shades of Jimmy Saville I thought at times - hospital access, worst ever, no one would ever believe it, media loved him, lone personality type, etc.
At least it held the attention this time 
The bit about getting the keys to the hospital together with his favourite room were absolutely Saville. (Saville had free run of a number of UK hospitals because of his charity work but the thing that you really couldn’t have made it up was that he became a leading member of a task force directly involved in running Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital housing a number of dangerous criminals).
I have to wonder if the sister was one of the other people present at the first confession.
I loved this episode, all the way to the “great reveal” at the end.
They pushed that way too hard. I’m the master manipulator! Who also tricked Sherlock into taking this case! And I’m also his hitherto unknown sister! Who spent a full evening with him without being recognized! And I have heterochromia! Also, I slept with you in disguise! And now I’m going to kill you in the weakest cliff-hanger ever!
Halfway through I was genuinely expecting it to be Moriarty in full-on body suit.
That’s enough plot twists for a season. A bad, kitschy season. Of another show entirely. Like Desperate Housewives of Battlestar Galactica.
It was a better episode than last week’s because:
a) most of it was spent simply watching Holmes and Watson try to defeat a dangerous adversary
b) the Saville parallels gave it a degree of grit
c) Toby Jones
d) the emotional stuff was done well and kept where it belongs: i.e. out of the main story
There were still some annoyances, of course:
- Talking to the hallucination of the dead person - old, naff and terribly on the nose
- The Sherrinford reveal:
2a) Mycroft gets regular updates on her security so he must be a bit shit then, mustn’t he?
2b) How did she know enough to fake the letter or did she somehow get it from Culverton Smith after he took it from the real Faith? When did she actually visit Holmes? Presumably during the period Mycroft thought she was secure. He must be a bit shit then, mustn’t he?
2c) The Watson family have a nasty habit of waiting for the monologuing villain to produce a gun rather than taking pre-emptive measures. John Watson, the ex-military, steely-nerved man of action whose at his best in a crisis and who regularly is confronted by dangerous psychos, just sits there listening instead of e.g. punching her in the face.
No mention at all of Moriarty or his posthumous game.
No indication of how Sherrinford could have possibly come to know the “real” story of the villain of the week. Information like that is like having a zero-day. Spending something that special on manipulating a detective… Seems like a terrible imbalance.
The fact that Mary is still not out of the show… Groan.
The show runners spent their Sherrinford currency to buy a psychopathic sister… sigh. Is that really the best we can do? I’m sure that the big show-down will involve at least one explosion and loads of yelling.
It was foreshadowed that another character is the real mastermind at the center of the story. If that person doesn’t emerge at the end of the episode next week, I’ll be fairly disappointed. It’ll just remain a loose thread, waiting to be pulled.
Huh. To me the reveal was that there was no Moriarty posthumous game … “Miss me?” was Eurus.
I still suspect that Ajay’s “escape” had been no escape at all but had been planned by “the villain” … currently apparently Eurus.
They only texted.
I’m pretty sure there was something about her having an acquaintance who handled his trash and gave her the letter. But wouldn’t he have just destroyed it instead of tossing it into a garbage can?
Did anyone else in the USA notice they were censoring a lot of language in this episode? I’ve never seen any censoring before in this show. Even Sherlock’s walking route message in the beginning got censored - they only showed “CK OFF” on screen. British viewers, I assume all the “shits” etc. were normally broadcast for you?
I would imagine it’s only the USA where you can kill 50 people an hour on TV but can’t say an everyday word.
Surely not. It’s not as if people who dose their friends with a memory-wiping drug are in any way paranoid or anything.
We got all the “shits” and “cocks” but the screen only showed “Uck Off” for us too.
Quite. Plus Sherlock performed a startling series of deductions with the note, based on its heavily pressed crease and distinctive smells. “It’s been screwed up and thrown in a bin” didn’t form part of those. (I mean, obviously those deductions were unrealistic, but if I accept them as plausible for Sherlock, then I get to ask why he can’t spot the effects of the note going through the trash).
Yep, I noticed that as well. Though I thought he hadn’t finished his “word” yet which is why it wasn’t shown fully. I thought he was trying to write “Piss Off” in typical British fashion.
I really don’t know what to make of the new sister. The villain part was rather interesting this week, but some of the other parts not so much. It was nice to see Ms. Hudson deal with Sherlock and John quite well. She played them both which was funny.
I loved the rug in the therapist’s house that looked like a huge bloodstain.
When they were searching 221B, Mycroft said to John that Sherlock was “Spending all night talking to a woman who wasn’t even there.” But the video footage they showed of him being tracked earlier did show Faith/Eurus a few times. And you’d think they would have tried to find who Sherlock was walking with and interviewed them on the night it happened. So did Mycroft recognize Eurus that night and is protecting her, or was it just an error in editing the episode, and Sherlock was in fact wandering the streets by himself?
Thanks. We definitely only got “CK OFF”, and they rather obviously blurred out the map to the left of “C”, so apparently even the last 3 letters are too much for us.
Honestly, I don’t remember if previous episodes just didn’t have shits & cocks, or if it didn’t get censored. Or if I watched the old episodes on netflix. I’m pretty sure last week’s episode didn’t have any language worth censoring though.
I liked the episode. Lots of just weird Moffat stuff plus a lot of sherlockian deducing. A little bit of action (John beating down Sherlock) and then a little bit of “action” for the fangirls (THE HUG, OMG THE HUG!)
Still feel goofy about Freeman and Abbington’s split and them working together.
Also I think Martin Freeman might be the most important actor of my generation. He’s in everything that matters! (Well, looking at his resume maybe he’s just in “everything” and 1/3 of the time lands in the super important shows/films)