Ladies and Gentlemen.
The moment you've all been waiting for.
The game, as they say, is.....
Really, really disappointing.
Welcome to the finale of series 1 of Sherlock.
We begin in Minsk, Belarus. With a scene displaying Sherlock's total lack of regard for human life. He is talking to a murderer. All well and good. He corrects his grammar, which is… patronising. But fine.
Listen again, though, to what the murderer is actually saying. He clearly describes the method he uses to commit a murder, admits to stabbing his victim repeatedly… then insists it was an accident? Shoddy defence work going on there. This also raises another question; why did Sherlock travel to Minsk to get involved in such an obvious case?
But then, after mocking the killer several times, he jokingly points out that “no, he won’t be “hung”. Hanged, yes.”
And… title sequence.
This is Cold. Brutal. Shows Sherlock has no compunction about allowing people to be killed in an act of state-sanctioned murder.
In short, this sequence is unnecessary, doesn’t relate to the plot at all, and only serves to set up a really, really unpleasant character trait in Sherlock. I’m really starting to believe my “Sherlock is actually a murderer” theory from last review.
And why does that bit exist? I mean, it’s superficially really, really cool. Until you stop and think about the reality of it, and the coldness Sherlock displays towards another human being.
But anyway……the episode proper.
Sherlock is shooting a wall. This is… funny?
I mean, illegal, impractical, probably going to get the police coming any minute…oh yes, and really dangerous!!!
But also… funny. Undeniably.
Also, the smiley face on the wall? Painted in the same yellow as is used in the previous episode? Iconic. Cool.
This episode is off to a good start. Then, as it turns out, there’s a human head and torso in the fridge. I won’t harp on about the human tissue act again, but…. I am 99% sure this would be generally considered a bad thing.
Also, either this body part is unpreserved, and would therefore be unhygienically leaking, or it is preserved in formalin, and would be seeping a carcinogen into all the other food items in that fridge. Either way, Mrs Hudson is probably going to have to get a new fridge. And that’s bad for the environment.
Also, the justification is that Sherlock is “measuring the coagulation of saliva”.
Which is interesting as, as far as I know, saliva… doesn’t coagulate? Coagulation is actually a term with a really specific meaning, and saliva doesn’t fall within the bounds of the word.
In short, Sherlock (and Sherlock writers), do your research.
Of course, even if you were looking at the changing viscosity of saliva over time after the moment of death, you would want to be doing this experiment in a controlled environment. Presumably replicating the environment that a corpse involved in a crime might be left in.
So, um… not in a fridge? Cold slows the activity of enzymes, the proteins responsible for breaking down… other proteins. And things. Anyway, temperature will almost certainly affect what happens to saliva post-mortem!
And, of course, most importantly, you can’t use data collected from one body to draw any kind of scientific conclusion at all. Whatever murder case this experiment is performed to solve, this data could never be used in a court of law. So it’s a waste of time.
I certainly feel like I’ve wasted time, writing a scientific explanation of why studying the “coagulation” of saliva using a corpse in a fridge in a random flat in London is a REALLY STUPID IDEA.
Also, someone should really be fired for allowing this guy to just… take a corpse home.
How did he even get it home? Do you think someone dropped it off for him? Did he take it in a taxi???
Anyway….
We get to the stories.
This is always an interesting moment in any Sherlock Holmes adaptation. John has written up his first case with Sherlock for his blog. Sherlock doesn’t like it, of course.
I really love this bit, actually. It references the original conversation, the original first meeting between these two characters really nicely, it sets up some important plot points for later in the episode, it shows us something interesting about how Sherlock operates, and teaches us something about his mind palace method of remembering things.
It’s a good scene. I like it.
Wow… I think I’ve liked two things so far this episode. Is that a record?
Maybe this episode won’t be too bad after all!
And then a bomb goes off.
No-one is actually hurt, obviously, although Sherlock is knocked to the ground amid a storm of broken glass. Obviously his hands are toughened by all that rigorous collar flicking he does.
Anyway, John knows nothing about the explosion, because he’s gone to spend the night with his girlfriend from the last episode. Or…well, to sleep on her sofa?
But they watch morning TV together, and we get to another thing I like about this episode!
(Is something wrong with me? can someone please check???)
The TV. All the way through this episode, there are references and points made that explain or hint at the things to come. In this case, the discovery of a rare and expensive painting.
And then the news of the bomb hits, and John rushes home.
He finds Sherlock at home with Mycroft, windows neatly boarded up.
Mycroft is asking Sherlock for help with something, Sherlock is insisting he’s too busy.
I mean, maybe the bullets buried in the wall might be a bit of a giveaway that you’re not…exactly overworked, Sherlock. But Mycroft clearly doesn’t notice that.
Sherlock is also playing… a violin. By which I mean plucking out a few chords. I’m sure I will talk more about Cumberbatch’s violin…. Skill? Is skill the right word? Well, it comes up more later. We’ll cover it then.
Mycroft realises he’s getting nowhere with his brother, so hands the file to John. A government worker has had his head smashed in on a train line, while in possession of a memory stick containing some secret plans.
Ooh, I forgot it happened so soon. Mycroft leaves, and Sherlock… “plays” is too kind a word, so… he makes some noise with his violin. I think this is actually Cumberbatch playing, and he… can’t. He makes a noise so awful that a trained violinist would probably struggle to replicate it.
But in this moment, Sherlock is, I think, trying to irritate Mycroft. So…
Look, I don’t expect an actor to be able to play a violin any more than I expect myself to be able to extract a tooth. I think dubbing is not just acceptable, but actually absolutely the correct way to go about this sort of thing. If you were filming a fight scene, you would hire a stunt double. If you are recording a song in a Disney musical… well, you either dub them, or edit the actor until their voice is hardly recognisable.
But if you are dubbing, you need to… well, do it convincingly. If you’re singing, you need to learn to lip sync. If you’re playing an instrument… I suspect the problem is that actors in this position aren’t given enough time to familiarise themselves with an instrument, and aren’t given enough coaching in how to mime playing. This is something that Cumberbatch clearly improves at as the series goes on. But now, in his first violining performance… he holds a violin and bow like he’s never even touched one before, and certainly hasn’t been shown how to do it properly.
Oh… oh dear…
I really wasn’t going to harp on about this. This wasn’t Cumberbatch’s fault. You can only do THIS badly if you are given next to no time to learn what to do.
But still… I look at that bowhold and cringe. The violinist in me wants to carefully reach out and take that poor instrument off him before he breaks it. This is the look of a man who has turned up on set one day, been handed a musical instrument and been asked to play it, with no time to prepare, have a couple of beginner lessons, or get comfortable with the instrument. This is a man who knows that he sounds terrible, but also hasn’t been given the opportunity to fix it.
This…. This is just painful. To see, and to hear.
Ok, well I literally just took a week’s break in the middle of writing this. Let’s see if I’m ready for anything beyond the 10 minute mark.
Where were we? Ah yes, Sherlock is insisting he doesn’t have a case, refusing the case Mycroft offers him because… sibling rivalry?
Fun fact, in the original stories, the sibling rivalry consists of Sherlock and Mycroft throwing deductions at each other in a fun, casual way. Sherlock openly admits that Mycroft is brighter than him. They love each other, support each other, and Mycroft often brings cases to Sherlock’s door.
So nice to see that relationship accurately portrayed. “I won’t take the case because my brother asked me to.”
Very, very nice.
Then Lestrade calls to move the plot forwards, and John and Sherlock head to new Scotland Yard. Lestrade has something to tell them about the explosion in the house opposite. It wasn’t an accident.
In fact, a letter was left for Sherlock in the ruins of the exploded house. Inside the envelope…. A pink phone. Similar in appearance to THE pink phone from episode 1.
A voice message left on the phone- the five Greenwich pips. And a picture, a clue.
Can I just say…. I love this interpretation of the 5 pips from the original stories. It’s a lovely bit of lateral thinking. An example of things the show does well.
The photo, on the other hand…. Is a disappointment. It isn’t a riddle, a puzzle. Oh no. It’s a picture of a room Sherlock recognises. 221C Baker street. Just a bit… boring, really.
Also, I am now very confused by the numbering system of the flats in that building. Anyway.
Sherlock walks into the flat (despite knowing there is possibly a bomb there somewhere). And he finds… shoes. Someone is clearly leaving a crumb trail for him.
As he arrives, he gets a phone call. From a terrified woman, with a bomb jacket strapped onto her.
Moriarty’s plan, basically, is to strap explosive jackets to random people, get them to call Sherlock, and give Sherlock a time limit in which to solve the problem. My biggest problem with this is… a random person in a crowded space, wearing an explosive jacket? And I mean, they are designed to very obviously look like explosive jackets. Wires and all.
Maybe the British public are just more aware of terrorist threats now, but…. Managing to ignore that, is a bit extreme, no?
Anyway, Sherlock has set to work on the shoes. There’s another classic Sherlock moment, where he asks John to pass his phone. From inside the pocket of the jacket that he is wearing.
Yuck.
Anyway, Molly turns up, with her boyfriend. Jim. Who Sherlock quickly reads as “Gay”.
This really kind of irritates me actually. Partly because it suggests that Sherlock is willing to judge someone’s sexuality on their physical characteristics. Partly because he outs someone, who kind of obviously isn’t out, as gay in front of their girlfriend. And, of course, the fact that he chooses to do this to Molly. Because he enjoys manipulating Molly. He wants her to break up with Jim, because he wants to abuse Molly’s attraction to him. It’s cold, callous and calculated. It’s cruel.
Anyway, Sherlock and John move back to the shoes. Sherlock asks for John’s opinion, then insults him about it. Of course.
Turns out the shoes are 20 years old. Moriarty, clearly, knew that he would one day play “the game” with Sherlock 20 years earlier. So he made sure that the relics of Sherlock’s first case were carefully preserved.
The shoes vanishing was what made Sherlock interested in the case. How could… I mean…
It just doesn’t make sense. You get that, right? This is a case Sherlock didn’t even get involved with, he just read about it. So Moriarty had no way of knowing that it was significant to Sherlock.
Back at the flat, Mycroft is still bugging both Sherlock and John. Sherlock convinces John to take up the case.
The problem is that this version of Mycroft is certainly willing and capable to undertake the case himself. So asking Sherlock, much less John for help would be… pointless. Yet another unravelling thread.
Anyway, it seems Sherlock has solved the case. Claustridium botulinum in the eczema cream. The toxin killed the young swimmer, making him seize and drown in the pool.
That… isn’t how botulism works. It causes weakness, not seizures, not loss of consciousness. And given that it was mixed in a cream… well, assuming that it would cross the skin at all (which is a big assumption), it would be absorbed slowly. Gradually. There would be no reason for his symptoms to come on suddenly and severely, especially when he was in a pool, and most of the cream washed away. If this was Moriarty’s first kill, it’s… a strange one.
In short, this one doesn’t get a pass.
Let’s move onto the second problem.
A picture of an abandoned car. And a new hostage, this one stood in the middle of a crowded street. For eight hours, at least.
Anyway, the abandoned car was surprisingly easy to find. Inside, there is a large amount of spilled blood, no body.
Also, the blood has apparently already been DNA checked, and confirmed to belong to Monkford, the owner of the car. Then, as Sherlock walks away, he asks for a sample of the blood to be sent to the lab.
So how did they do DNA testing?
Just a small, careless mistake.
Anyway, Mrs Monkford meets Sherlock, he lies and says that he knew her husband. If she was actually bereaved, his lies would be very cruel.
Then Sherlock walks off, having stolen some key evidence about the company who owned the car.
As you do.
Sherlock goes to Janus cars, the car hire company. Sherlock quickly deduces that Janus cars is a cover for a people smuggling business.
Again, the conversation works surprisingly well. We can see Sherlock digginf ro specific pieces of information.
Then he performs a test on the blood. To see if it’s been frozen, we later find out. A nice link to Holmes’ history as a chemist.
I’m definitely liking this second puzzle more than the first.
With only three hours left, Sherlock reveals his theory. Defrosted blood donated earlier, spread on the car-seat to fake Monkfort’s death. Monkfort vanished to Columbia. Sherlock walks away triumphantly, and lets the bomber know that he has solved the case. The hostage is freed.
The next message, case three. A reality TV star, Connie Prince, is the picture. The next hostage calls.
She reveals that she’s blind. Significant because she is hearing Moriarty’s voice, rather than just reading his words. Later this is important. It’s why she dies.
Question one. Why does Moriarty use his own voice to talk to her? At this point it’s very clear that he has a lot of lackeys, able to read out a script.
Question two. These hostages are being chosen entirely at random. Why choose someone who couldn’t use the very safe system Moriarty has set up? What are the chances? He knows that this means that he’s at a higher risk.
Oh, and question three. Less related to the hostage, but by this point don’t you think Sherlock should be trying to solve the murder of the swimming boy, problem one? He knows Moriarty just admitted to the crime, and to knowing the dead boy. Why doesn’t he go back, dig through the files as get to know everyone who knew the victim? Why not, I don’t know, try to work out who is playing this “game” before it reaches its conclusion?
Anyway. Sherlock has 12 hours. On with problem 3. Connie Prince was found dead, a wound on her hand. Rusty nail being the presumed source of infection.
So… presumably she would have been treated for that infection. No?
No. Apparently the accepted story was that she just died really quickly. She hadn’t had an autopsy, even.
The wound the infection came through supposedly is too fresh to be the real source. Sherlock and John go to try and find the connection between the victims.
This ultimately goes nowhere. Except the bomber cuts Sherlock’s working time drastically. I don’t know what the point of that was.
After presumably staring at the puzzle board for a while longer, John goes to visit the family house. Sherlock starts watching Connie Prince’s TV show. Good use of the three hours left.
John is trying to dig for information, being appropriately awkward. He decides that the cat did it, with some toxin on its claws. This is a terribly unreliable way of committing a murder, I don’t know why John really considered it. Then the pair run off, John congratulating himself. Sherlock knocks him down.
Sherlock dug into the assistant, Raul, and concluded that he had stockpiled botox to use to poison Connie. He solved it hours ago, apparently, and waited until close to the deadline to gain himself a few hours of thinking time.
As I alluded to earlier, the hostage tries to describe Moriarty’s voice. Why she had to do it then, before the explosives could be removed, I don’t know. I suppose she must have been terrified.
And so she died. It’s horrifically sad, actually.
Sherlock is waiting for information on the next puzzle. If he wanted extra time to go back and try to solve the whole game, this is it. But he spends it quarrelling with John instead. John, the soldier, the doctor, can’t understand why Sherlock is approaching these puzzles from a cold, distant perspective.
I think they must have forgotten that John’s training and experience would drill into him the importance of focusing on the living who need to be saved, and waiting to mourn the dead until no-one else is likely to join them.
Anyway. Puzzle number 4. This one is a dead body found on the banks of the Thames. Sherlock quickly deduces that he is a museum guard. John decides he has been dead for 24 hours (raising the question of unreliability in Moriarty’s plan again, this body could have been spotted at any point in that day, ruining his plans to have Sherlock involved in the case).
Sherlock quickly recognises the MO of someone asphyxiated with a pair of bare hands.
Then he announces that the Dutch Old Master painting recently discovered is a fake. The Golem, the assassin is the killer. The job suggests that the guard saw something at the museum.
John asks Sherlock to take them through the evidence and the lines of reasoning. After exasperatedly calling Sherlock and Lestrade “Girls!” to stop them squabbling with each other.
Using the word “girl” as an insult is… deeply irritating.
Sherlock goes through the reasoning. It’s actually OK, as these deduction episodes go. Though he does seem to be able to access things like, I don’t know, police reports, really quickly from his seemingly normal phone.
So, anyway, Sherlock sets off after the Golum. Why he thinks he can take down an assassin with his bare hands…
Anyway, Sherlock employs his “homeless network” for the first time. I get that they were going for a “Baker Street irregulars” kind of vibe, but it really lacks any charm or light-heartedness the original irregulars brought to the stories.
Anyway, John Head to the dead man’s home. He has a telescope, and there was a break-in the night before. And a Professor called the man and left an answering message saying that he was Right. About something.
While John was busy, Sherlock breaks into the art gallery, dressed as a guard. He accosts the gallery owner, and tells her that he knows the painting is fake. This is… peak Sherlock. The ridiculousness carried off by the excellent acting.
John, meanwhile, has gone back to investigating Mycroft’s case. He learns that the dead man’s fiancé had done nothing suspicious, and happened to run into the fiance’s brother. Definitely no significance to that chance meeting. Chance, one-off meetings in Sherlock are always completely unimportant, as we know. Jim, Molly’s boyfriend, no further part to play. The brother, nothing.
Anyway, John goes back to Sherlock, who has just received a note through the homeless network, saying where the Golem is. Or was. Or where he might be. The note doesn’t explain.
Again, they go on their own. This is a great idea. The Golem runs, jumps into a conveniently waiting car and leaves. That was… unclimactic. But it’s OK, because John reckons that the Golem might be going after the professor the dead man mentioned.
Luckily, he’s correct. Unluckily, they arrive late. Luckily, the Professor may survive the assault. Unluckily, Sherlock and John now have to fight this gigantic serial killer.
John points a gun at the Golem, the Golem kicks it out of his hand. John is clearly a bit less trigger-happy now. Is that character growth?
I mean… maybe???
Anyway, the Golem gets away again, but John and Sherlock survive. The professor’s state is… never confirmed.
We cut back to the museum. Sherlock tells the killer he knows the painting is fake, but he’s only given ten seconds to prove it.
As he works, it is revealed that the hostage is a child.
With three seconds left, Sherlock realises that an astrological event depicted in the painting didn’t happen until 1858, and so couldn’t have been painted in the 1640s. It’s quite an elegant solution to a complex problem.
I mean, I don’t know why the Professor didn’t reveal it earlier, given that she had figured it out. But anyway…
Mrs Wenceslas, the gallery owner, explains how the whole “consulting criminal” thing works. She described how Moriarty helped her solve the problem of getting the painting authenticated. She confirms, for the first time this episode, that Moriarty is the villain playing the game against Sherlock.
We cut to John investigating Mycroft’s case again, trying to work out how a dead body ended up on the tracks. John notices that there isn’t any blood at the place where the body was found, and (correctly) deduces that the murder didn’t occur at the place where the body was found. Then, the points change. John realises the truth, and Sherlock appears. They go and meet the dead man’s brother-in-law. The Fiance’s brother. The one that was definitely, totally subtly introduced earlier. He is revealed to have killed the victim.
Apparently, it was all an accident. They quarrelled over the plans, the brother needed money. You know the rest. The body was put on top of the train, and fell off when the train jolted and turned at the points.
It’s another really quite elegant little problem. Maybe simple, but… pleasant.
I’m starting to think the shorter stories compiled into this episode are actually much better written than the fully expanded 90 minute versions. I mean, the problems are still there, but I’m finding this episode more compelling to watch.
Anyway, apparently there’s a break of a day or so. Despite there being one problem left, Sherlock is watching TV rather than trying to find Moriarty.
John leaves to visit his girlfriend (Still Sarah the GP).
Sherlock opens his laptop, and invites Moriarty to a swimming pool.
The famous swimming pool. He offers the Bruce-Partington plans as a lure.
And so we begin. One of the best executed tension-building scenes in TV history. The cinematography, the music, the slow footfalls…. It’s gorgeous. I wasn’t watching Sherlock at this point, but I can see why people were willing to hang onto this moment for months, waiting for the conclusion to the cliff-hanger.
Sherlock calls out, telling Moriarty he’s there, he’s ready to do business.
And John steps out from behind a curtain.
For a moment, just a moment, you think that John might be the one. John might be Moriarty.
Then we find out that it is worse. John is wearing an explosives vest, acting as a mouthpiece.
And then Andrew Scott steps in. Moriarty.
“I have you my number”.
Jim.
The set-up was irritating, but the pay-off…. Glorious.
In the original stories, the moment Holmes and Moriarty meet is shrouded in mystery. We get a note from Sherlock describing it, we get Watson’s interpretation, but we never get to see it unfolding in front of us.
This scene lets us sit back, relax, and watch a modern-day interpretation of that confrontation between giants.
I would be lying if I said my heart wasn’t racing, that I wasn’t grinning despite myself when I watched this scene.
The tension ratchets up again. Snipers are dotted around the building, their guns trained on John.
The discussion between Jim and Sherlock is golden. Sherlock is revealed to be right. Moriarty was bored. He wanted to play. It’s hammered home even more when Jim throws away the Bruce-Partington plans…
And then Watson grabs Jim around the throat. Willing to die so that Sherlock can run.
But Moriarty is clever. Another sniper takes aim at Sherlock. John releases Moriarty.
It’s an intricate dance. Moriarty is showing off. Telling Sherlock to back off, while inviting him to join in the dance. It’s as if he doesn’t really mind which way it goes. He will enjoy battling Sherlock, but he would prefer to have Sherlock out there, alive, staying out of his business, ready for another game whenever Moriarty chose.
If Sherlock is good enough to be worth the fight, Moriarty will enjoy it. If Sherlock runs, Moriarty will know he was never worth the attention.
And then Moriarty leaves. The snipers leave. The tension breaks. Sherlock pulls off the explosive jacket. The relief is palpable. They’re coming down off their adrenaline highs. They’re realising that they have survived.
And then the sniper lights come back. Moriarty has changed his mind. He has decided to kill them now.
Or perhaps he just wants to play one more round in this game.
Snipers are aiming at Sherlock. Snipers are aiming at John.
And Sherlock aims at the explosives vest, where it has fallen close to Moriarty.
The music is back. The tension returns.
And the season ends.
I still remember being thrilled, the first time I watched this. I am thrilled watching it again.
I began this series trying to see if Sherlock had been ruined for me forever. After watching this scene…. Perhaps not.
This episode as a whole probably has the fewest gaping plot problems of any in this series. Still problems, for sure, but nothing that detracts from the joy of watching. I think the format, lots of small problems, played a big part in that. Even if one was too simple or didn’t make sense, it doesn’t matter so much because ten minutes later the problem is solved anyway, and things have moved on.
This episode did do the “introduce random, seemingly insignificant character only for them later to be vitally important” thing twice, which is irritating. It’s kind of lazy, I have always thought, because if you are paying attention you can tell that, for example, Molly suddenly having a boyfriend, and that boyfriend being given several minutes of screen-time, is probably important.
Besides that, this episode is fairly well structured… I mean, apart from the whole “Sherlock sending John off on Mycroft’s case” thing. That was really unnecessary. John hasn’t yet learned enough from Sherlock to solve a case like that on his own, and it feels like an idea that should have been saved for later (like the Hounds of Baskerville, for example).
Still, I’m glad that this series goes out on a high note. I suspect I will have to move onto covering series two… but I might need another long break first.
Thank you for reading, see you next time 😊
Muddles
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