Absolutely. I love that John punched, headbutted, and otherwise hurt Sherlock. Sherlock is such a jerk that everyone deserves to hurt him.
Also Anderson. Anderson and his little weirdo fan club were fun. Actually, I think I liked all of it. The terrorist threat was just there to provide impetus- the whole thing was about everyone reacting to Sherlock’s reappearance. Oh, and Mycroft and Sherlock playing that surgery game was hilarious.
Indeed, and Anderson said “but how did that get in place, and why would you tell me?”
Moffat is flicking the audience in the nose. I enjoyed the episode, but Moffat’s disdain for the audience is pretty amazing. We’ll never know the details, and to him it doesn’t matter. It was all fan-baiting.
How did he really do it? Moffat cheated, just like old serials where we see “in the last episode” and there’s new footage that couldn’t have worked out as it originally aired.
See, I thought the whole scene with Anderson talking to Sherlock was him hallucinating. At the end, Sherlock vanishes (and at that point in the plot he’s in the train car). Or was Sherlock talking to Watson in the train and recounting the story of how he told Anderson how he did it? Now I’m confused.
I loved the scene with his parents and all the scenes with Mycroft and Sherlock talking. And at the beginning of the episode, I was shouting ‘NO NO NO’ when Sherlock kissed Molly, but then I burst out laughing when it was revealed to be Anderson. As for the second conspiracy (Sherlock and Moriarty are in love) I can’t help thinking they took that from some speculating fan site.
I loved the first episode of season 1. Hated, hated hated the second episode, and thought episode 3 was only OK. I thought Season 2 was better overall, but last night’s episode is easily my favorite of all the episodes so far…
…except I knew that ‘underground’ would mean ‘the Underground Tube system’ within a minute or two of the first time the mention of an ‘underground terrorist’ group, a) because it’s stupid - by definition, a terrorist organization would almost certainly be ‘underground’, and b) the long tube montage sequence in the opening. My wife called the ‘blow up parliament’ angle very early on, piecing together the kids begging for a penny ‘penny for the Guy mister?’ (which is a bit silly - I can’t imagine any children actually still say this) and ‘anti-terrorist vote’ bit.
Also noted that the scene of Sherlock looking out over London was the same shot from Skyfall.
But overall, wonderfully acted, beautifully shot, loved the banter, loved Watson going postal on Sherlock, and I really really hope they come up with a clever angle for Watson being targeted like he was. It’s very odd - kidnap someone, put him in a bonfire, then send a ‘you can save Watson’ message…in *code…*to Mary?(And yes, that Mary would solve it so quickly is a bit far-fetched…).
I liked it 
The actress playing Mary, Amanda Abbington (Martin Freeman’s real wife), reminded me somewhat of Mel Giedroyc crossed with Victoria Wood.
“i am the smart one” was very amusing. sooooo, sherlock is the “pretty one”?
It’ll be interesting to see if allusions to the intel zeitgeist (Snowden’s revelations about the NSA and GCHQ) were intentional or not. Mycroft and the guy at the end certainly seem part of that world while Sherlock was - demonstrably - all about old skool HUMINT.
I’m not aware of a political bone in Gatiss, except maybe gay rights, but all writers use the real world …
Mark Gatiss wrote this episode.
Today only (Jan 2);
I ordered the one on the left.
I think he just noticed that He looked a lot like a younger, taller version of Sherlock himself, complete with coat and scarf.
Then it’s catching. (I blamed Moffat because if his similar slap in the face in the Dr Who Christmas episode.)
I think Tom is dodgy on the basis that Sherlock said something about it being better for her not to be infatuated with a psychopath, meaning himself and Molly muttered something about maybe that was her type.
What annoyed me most about about this episode was the gratuitous torture scene at the start. I guess Mycroft stands in those audience members who want to see Cumberbatch getting hurt.
The only point that may be of concern is that Moriarty used a “clone” that looked like Sherlock for his schemes.
However, I think the main deal is that Molly is dating a Sherlockish guy. John noticed, too.
what are you talking about?
Moffat’s writing for Doctor Who has gotten increasingly shoddy, with him more interested in creating convoluted questions than in actually providing the audience with a resolution. The recent Christmas episode being a prime example.
Sorry, I don’t mean to hijack the thread. Both series had a great deal of speculation based on what would happen in the current episode (and both are run by Moffat). In both cases speculation was rampant (Dr Who: how will doc regenerate the 13th time, Sherlock: how did Sherlock pull off his fake death). In both cases, the show blew off the fans. In the Dr Who episode, he actually broke the 4th wall telling the audience, “Don’t tell me the rules!”
Sherlock’s case is more egregious of the two, because the show threw out ideas that couldn’t work, but never actually told us how it was done. In fact it proved that Sherlock couldn’t have faked his death based on what we were shown in the prior episode (as Anderson pointed out). Which means they cheated the audience and thumbed their nose at us telling us they don’t care they cheated.
I still enjoyed the episode, but only because I assumed they would cheat. The rest of it was fabulous.
Fwiw, the recent Christmas episode was a beautifully crafted farewell: whoa, another opinion!
I’m no fan of Gatiss’ but I do acknowledge Moffat does get first principles right; he informs and educates children - and he did that in buckets in the Christmas episode.
Thanks for the reply. I really don’t take issue with what you say of Gatiss’s work in this episode or generally - I am not a fan.
But as per the reply just above, imo Moffat got the Chrismas episode really very right. In particular, the 4-minute dénouement was absolutely amongst the best writing on Dr Who I’ve seen. Especially if you were a child, which is the most important thing.
I liked how they managed to work in the tale of the Giant Rat of Sumatra. Finally!