I am Sherlocked: The Six Thatchers

 Ok, so.... I started writing this review literally months ago. So long ago, that I can't actually find that half-post stored anywhere on my computer. So long ago that series 4 of Sherlock isn't even on Netflix anymore. (Or Netflix has just decided that series 4 of Sherlock should be erased from memory). 

I am here... I am going to try again.

This is where it all goes wrong.

Now, we begin with the kind of Sherlock material we've all been LONGING for. Moriarty in a secret meeting with Sherlock (still very high). We get a special focus on the secretary. I'm sure she won't be important later. Sherlock spends the meeting tweeting.

When did Sherlock start tweeting?

Also, despite the fact that he basically OD'd minutes ago, he insists that he is definitely not high. This is just.... awkward. 

Anyway, Mycroft's big plan is to edit the footage of Sherlock killing CAM to make it look like a random squaddie fired by accident, delivering the killing blow. Sherlock is now off the hook, completely.

Now, when I first saw this, I couldn't help but wonder...

Did Sherlock send the "did you miss me" Moriartiy video that everyone is so het up about? Because... this kind of shows that he had an excellent motive. Now, that kind of thing would be completely out of character for Sherlock Holmes... and oddly in character for Sherlock. Personally, I think that would be a cool direction to take this in.

But... nope.

Sherlock tells everyone that Moriarty is dead, but he is... still going to do something next. As in, he had a long term "if I die" plan. This would be kind of out of character for Professor James Moriarty... and totally in character for Jim Moriarty. Jim from IT.

Jim Moriarty was prepared to implode his entire criminal network, and end his own life to beat Sherlock, and because he was bored. Professor James Moriarty was entirely calm, focused and self-interested. Jim Moriarty saw death as the next play in the gane. Professor James Moriarty wanted very much to live, and continue his rule.

Urgh. Anyway, Sherlock's plan is to wait for the "game" to start. This feels like quite an assumption, given that the message was broadcast around the country, and that Mycroft actually had a closer relationship with Jim thant Sherlock did.

The episode proper begins with Sherlock telling a... This is actually a cool story about a man trying to escape death, but inevitably ending up dying anyway. Cumberbatch is always amazing as Sherlock, even when the script... well, leaves something to be desired. 

It's an eerie and elegant way of beginning a story, except… you know, it doesn’t actually relate to the rest of the episode very well.

In 221b, Mary is heavily pregnant, Sherlock is very busy. He has a massive caseload, and juggles many cases simultaneously.  I noticed references to “The Engineer’s Thumb”, and “The Lion’s Mane”, but then the story is interrupted by Mary giving birth. Sherlock, however, continued to blog/tweet while Mary labours.

The baby is born in the back of the car (of course), and Molly, Mrs Hudson and Sherlock are made Godparents.

Um… interesting choice…

Sherlock tweets through the service, of course. The baby is named “Rosamund Mary”. Rosie for short.

Next scene, is actually quite funny. Sherlock lectures “Watson” about observation skills…..

Rosie Watson, of course. That raises a smile.

Oh.

Oh no.

The next scene is….

John flirting with a stranger on a bus.

John Watson.

Deep breaths.

Now. The time after the birth of a baby can be challenging for a relationship. I’m sure many people struggle through this time, and maybe people do start looking for things outside their marriage/relationship at this point.

But… John isn’t shown to be having a hard time of it otherwise. He is shown as loving Mary, there’s no hint that he feels anything is missing from his life.

There is no reason. NO. REASON. For this storyline to exist. At all. All it does is make John seem… like the kind of person who would cheat on his wife just after their first child is born.

Thankfully, it ends. We move onto the actual crime of this episode.

A man gets a call from his son on his 50^th birthday. The boy is supposed to be on holiday in Tibet. He asks his Dad to go out to his car, then the call drops off suddenly. A week later, the car catches fire, and a body is found in the front seat. The son.

We get a… OK, this is where I gave up on this review first time around. Basically because this, the conversation between John, Sherlock and Lestrade is so… it feels formulaic.

Sherlock asks ridiculous questions. John looks puzzled. Lestrade supplies information.

John reads a medical report. Guess what? The kid had been dead for a week before catching fire. Sherlock demonstrates inappropriate joy at the unusual manner of death of this teenage boy.

Lestrade complains that, although Sherlock tells him to take credit, John’s blogging means that the public always know Sherlock was involved. Lestrade insists Sherlock takes the glory.

Sherlock get’s Lestrade’s first name wrong, pretends he was joking, but actually doesn’t know.

Even John admits that this is repetitive, asking Sherlock if he’s going to say that he already knows the solution. “That’s what you normally do at this point”.

We finish up with Lestrade insulting Sherlock, but Sherlock (because he’s a sociopath, you know) doesn’t get that he is being insulted.

Ta daa. One Sherlock crime solving scene.

Now, to the scene. Mary is on the phone, trying to be involved in the case. John texted  her all the details, apparently.

Oh yay. Another joke about the titles John gives his stories. How original. Never heard that one before. Sherlock says that humans are stupid, then is incredibly disrespectful to the grieving parents.

Then, instead of solving the death of the teenage boy, he get’s caught up on the absence of a Margaret Thatcher statue.

Oh, and then a “Sherlock doesn’t know who Thatcher is” joke.

OK, this one is kind of true to the original…. I would give it a pass.

Except.

Except.

In the Hounds of Baskerville, Sherlock uses knowledge of Margaret Thatcher to deduce the password of a computer. Therefore, he knows who she was. This has been established.

Grr.

John actually calls him up on this, saying that he is “playing for time”. Except he has no reason to need to “play for time”.

Anyway, Sherlock discovers that there was a break-in, and that a bust of Thatcher was smashed outside the house by the burglar. He also tells the parents that he knows how their son died, then spends several moments rambling about how the bust was broken in a lit area, rather than in a dark room.

Nice. Classy. The parents are in tears, desperate to know what Sherlock has deduced about their sons death. Sherlock doesn’t care, obviously.

Finally, however, he reveals the truth. The son, the call, it was meant to be a surprise. The teen boy had called his Dad, lured him to the car where he was hidden, and planned to leap out and surprise his Dad on his birthday.
But before he could reveal himself, he had a seizure and died. His Dad didn’t notice, and thought that the call had dropped.

It’s a tragic story. Sherlock apologises to the parents (who he kept in suspense, regardless of their sadness mere moments before), and leaves to solve the case that actually interests him. That of the broken bust. Sherlock has a “strange feeling” that it is related to Moriarty.

Sherlock abandons both cases to go and chat with Mycroft. Sherlock wants to know if Moriarty had a Thatcher interest. Mycroft basically says “no, but look, there’s a missing pearl, would you mind hunting for that?”

Sherlock says no, then goes on a rant about how premonition, in fact completely accurate prediction of the future, is fully possible if you pay attention to the lives of people around you.

Spoiler alert…. It isn’t. This is a completely nonsense theory.

Also, this episode now heavily revolves around Sherlock having a “premonition”, something that revolts against logical ideals and would be unconscionable to Sherlock Holmes.

Ah well. I can’t really bring myself to care anymore.

Another bust of Thatcher is broken. We cut to… something. Not sure what. Then the image of another broken bust.

A police officer is waiting outside 221b when Lestrade arrives. She is here to ask Sherlock to track down the same missing pearl that Mycroft mentions. Lestrade takes the opportunity to tell us about his first case with Sherlock, a woman found in a sauna, cause of death hypothermia.

Sherlock tells them to be quiet, then returns to his client. Sherlock deduces things, then turns to see that John has replaced himself with… a balloon with a smiley face. And Sherlock didn’t notice for several hours.

Sherlock Holmes.

Gah.

Right. Apparently this client’s wife is a spy, planning to drug and influence the US president to obey Moriarty’s wishes and precipitate a nuclear war. Or so Sherlock says.

But apparently he was just kidding.

Sherlock dismisses the pearl case again, but embraces the smashed Thatcher bust that Lestrade brings.

Sherlock calmly announces that the “game is on”.

Whoopty-do.

Apparently, three Thatcher busts are smashed. John puts it down to a medical condition.

Sherlock spots some blood on a smashed fragment. In case you’re wondering, the image that he is, apparently, looking at… doesn’t look the way that some dried blood smeared onto some smashed plaster would look under a conventional light microscope.

Also, by handling this evidence in 221b, without proper protocols in place, that evidence is now probably no longer admissible in court, and any DNA that could have been harvested may now be contaminated.

Sherlock dismisses Lestrade, telling him that his current relationship is doomed to fail. Another charming Sherlock trope, by this point.

Then he sets off to find Toby. Toby the dog, from the original stories? Yay!

Mary turns up and passes the baby to John. Apparently, Sherlock thinks that Mary is better than John, so decided to trade Watsons. But, kindly, they agree to bring John anyway.

The plan is to let the dog follow a trail… of some kind… from some scent…

Um…actually, I’m not sure what trail they get the dog to follow. But they arrive at a butcher’s shop.

Oh, then they reveal it. They just went to the place where the statue-smasher was injured, and set the dog to follow… his…. Trail….

I don’t think that’s how sniffer dogs work.

Blood trail. But not a trail of blood, just a person who bled slightly walking along a street.

So weird.

Anyway, Sherlock decides that this is DEFINITELY Moriarty. Too weird not to be.

Mind of a generation, right there. Impeccable logic.

Mary and John have a nice evening chat about their baby vomiting. Mary leaves to look after Rosie as she cries, John checks his phone. Later, we find out that he’s flirtatiously texting the woman he met on the bus.

THIS.

DOES.

NOT.

NEED.

TO.

EXIST.

Sherlock goes to his pet hacker, and finds out the origins of the Thatcher busts. They all came from one workshop. Lestrade calls at the same time, telling Sherlock that another pair of statues have been smashed, and this time their owner has been murdered. Sherlock concludes that, as both busts are broken, whatever is hidden inside them might not have been found.

Can I just say that the odds of the sixth bust to be smashed being the one containing the concealed object are absolutely tiny?

Imagine rolling a six sided dice 6 times, and rolling 1,1,1,1,1,6. The odds of that happening should be the same as the chances of getting the statues in this order.

Anyway. Sherlock goes to the home of the final Thatcher bust. There is a convenient swimming pool here, to allow for dramatic fight scene. Sherlock sneaks in without disturbing his host, and waits for the thief to arrive.

Sherlock’s plan is a bad one. Firstly, he could be caught by the bust owner. Secondly… the thief has a gun. Sherlock is unarmed. He is now in a fight to the death with a highly trained assassin, who is clearly highly motivated to get the bust.

He also spends most of the fight explaining how, when the thief was on the run, he hid a precious item inside the base of an un-set plaster bust of Thatcher.

The two men fight. The fight choreography isn’t awful. Just a big…. Mcguffinish. A hand sensor turning on a water fountain plays a part. That’s all I can say.

Sherlock finally knocks the thief down (using the bust as a weapon), and asks him whether he knows Moriarty.

Nope. He doesn’t.

Eager to be wrong twice in a minute, Sherlock then deduces that the statue contains the missing Pearl that everyone keeps trying to get him to find.

Nope. It doesn’t.

Greatest mind for a generation, everyone.

Instead, he finds a memory stick. One with “AGRA” written on it.

Mary Watson’s secret life. Mary had a copy, and it was burned.

OK, so… these memory sticks are massively valuable. Mary gave hers to John. This guy hid his inside a bust. Then he goes looking for it.

In the end, it turns out that it’s about Mary. The police arrive, and the thief is forced to retreat, leaving threats against Mary scattered in his wake.

Sherlock gets to keep the memory stick.

Now, flashback time.

Oh my gosh, we’re only 40 minutes into this episode, and already the multiple overlapping stories thing is giving me a headache. This episode might actually be the second worst in the series, for unnecessary complication alone. Sherlock thinks he’s tracking down Moriarty, John is flirting behind his wife’s back, there’s a new baby to be looked after, there’s a natural death, more smashed statues than I can count on one hand, Sherlock’s vindication, a missing pearl, loads of assassins running around, a thief with a  grudge against Mary, Lestrade’s girlfriend…

This flashback is of a hostage situation. Yay. Another plot thread. A team of people with guns arrive to free the hostages. AGRA, apparently. And Mary is one of them. The thief is there too, another one of AGRA. Things go downhill, but before we can see how things progress, we go back to the present day.

The Thief is googling Sherlock, looking at pictures of Mary on her wedding day. Oh, and flashing back to the plaster workshop where he hid the memory stick in the first place.

He is caputed soon afterwards, and tortured for information about the word “Ammo”.

The two torturers talk about “The English Woman”, who apparently was a traitor. The Thief deduces that this means Mary betrayed him.

Cut back to the present, and the Thief is getting drunk.

At this point, I needed to take a week long break from the episode, because I realised I was basically only half way through and that made me sad.

So anyway. Thief getting drunk. Person in a hooded coat walking through a churchyard in the rain. It’s Mary, and she’s meeting Sherlock. Sherlock has the AGRA memory stick. Sherlock wants Mary to tell him what to expect to find on it. So Mary tells her story.

Four agents. Alex, Gabriel, Mary and Ajay. Each of them had an AGRA memory stick, containing information enough to destroy each other, guaranteeing total loyalty between the four of them.

There was a job. A codeword, “Ammo”. They went on and something went wrong. Hostages died, AGRA were scattered. Mary believed she was the only survivor.

She wasn’t.

Ajay made it out to, and has seemingly developed a grudge. He’s looking for the memory stick that he hid so that he can bring Mary down. Mary insists that this can’t be true, because they were family.

Yeah. Family who stayed together by carrying around blackmail material on their “family members” with them at all times.

 Mary is convinced, finally, and despairs that her nice, peaceful life is over. Sherlock promises to protect her, and Mary passes him a…..

Drugged…. Piece of paper?

Um…I… can’t think of a drug that would work like that. But… you know… magic?

Sherlock drops unconscious, and Mary begins to run.

Why does Sherlock always end up getting drugged?

Wow. That does happen a lot, actually, doesn’t it?

Anyway, while he’s dreaming off the anaesthetic, he dreams of a time when he was playing on a beach with his dog.

Sure.

He goes straight to Mycroft, and asks what he knows about AGRA. Mycroft pleads ignorance, Sherlock doesn’t believe him. Mycroft tells us more about the Tbilisi incident, the one where everything went wrong. Hostages died, Mycroft mopped up “loose ends”.

Sherlock also puts “Ammo” to Mycroft. He really doesn’t know what that one is. Sherlock tells Mycroft that he is going to protect Mary. Mycroft says that he isn’t optimistic that she will survive.

We cut to John reading a letter from Mary, asking him not to hate her. Then to Mary on a plane, being “inconspicuous” by playing the part of an American tourist who is afraid of flying. Cut back to John reading his letter. Back to Mary, who now has apparently taken sick. Back to John. Still reading.

Back to Mary, who has swapped clothes with a hostess. She explains that her plan is to use dice to generate random numbers to inform her every move. This is… actually fairly sensible. I mean, we aren’t told how she avoids little things like international borders, passport checks or how she pays for any of the many journeys she’s taking, but… I’m sure that it would be hard to come up with a sensible explanation of how all those things work, so why bother, right?

In her letter, Mary apparently promises to return once she’s “moved the target” away from John and Rosie.

That… I don’t think that’s how it works?

Anyway, we see her in Norway, picking up some ID documents from a hole in a wall. Given that she, apparently, chose that destination at random, isn’t it LUCKY that she had these things stashed away there? Or, being generous, that she had a friend nearby who could arrange that for her?

But I’m sure that people capable of creating perfect forged passports are ten a penny. Next, it seems, Mary goes on a road trip to Russia. Then somewhere sandy. Then somewhere by the sea. Then Iran. Apparently, each destination generated at random. Morocco comes next.

Mary enters a house, carrying a gun. It sounds like someone is being threatening inside, but it’s actually Sherlock playing happy families with a local.

Mary, quite reasonably, asks how Sherlock found her. “Every move I made was random, eery new personality a roll of a dice!”

I don’t know how you can randomise personalities… maybe a massive wheel? Sherlock initially says that he used advanced mathematics and the rules of probability to….

It’s nonsense.

Complete nonsense.

But at least he admits it. He actually popped a tracer onto the memory stick Mary has been carrying around with her.

This is actually a vaguely funny moment. Odd that Mary, super spy, didn’t… you know… check, though. That she wasn’t being bugged.

Oh. And John’s here. In fact, he says that bugging the memory stick was his idea.

Hold up. So, before Sherlock arranged a meeting with Mary, he went and had a chat with John which went along the lines of:

“John my old mate, I think your wife is about to go on the run because she’s afraid people might hurt you and Rosie to get to her.”

“Wow, Sherlock. That’s quite something. I know, why don’t you pop a tracer on the memory stick?”

“Memory stick? How do you know about the memory stick?”

“Oh, we had another conversation previously about that, but I don’t think there’ll be time to show that in the finished episode, so I’m just going to reference it now and hope that the audience doesn’t think too much about the timescale of events here.”

“Oh. Sure. So, anyway, popping a tracking device on your wife. Don’t you want to, I don’t know, maybe have a chat with her, see if you can talk her around and stop her from going on the run in the first place? It might save quite a lot of time and expense.”

“Nah, don’t really feel like it. I exchanged flirtatious glances with a woman on the bus the other day, so my marriage is basically over anyway. Besides, it would be much more dramatic if we let her think that she’s got away, but then we fly out to where she’s hiding (allowing anyone looking for her to just follow us) to confront her. I can’t foresee any adverse consequences to that at all.”

 

The three of them wait until nightfall, then John and Mary have a chat about AGRA. John tells Mary that she lied when she said that it was her initials.

Yes. She did.

Why did she lie, when literally everything else was out on the table, and it would make 0 difference?

Well… that was, like, two episodes ago, so this series probably hadn’t been written when she said that.

I can’t think of another reason.

Anyway, John realises that Mary names their daughter after herself. Rosamund.

Weird, given that they seemed to be looking at LOTS of names at the start of this episode.

Oh, it gets better. Her name was Rosamund Mary. So when Mary picked her new identity, she… made sure she could use the same name as in her old one.

Very clever.

And then, to make sure that, if anyone was looking for her, they could find her… she names her baby girl after her original name.

John berates Mary for not staying to discuss the whole “someone is trying to assassinate me” thing. John, who moments ago admitted that he had prior knowledge of this whole thing, and chose to bug his wife rather than initiate that little chat himself?

Urgh.

Mary makes a big deal about how good a man John is (which feels icky, given that he is flirting with other women behind her back), and says that all she wanted to do was keep him safe.

Sherlock promises that he will keep Mary safe, if they go back to London.

Before Mary can make a decision, a sniper’s laser appears on John’s head. A firefight ensues, Ajay vs. Mary. Mary insists that she thought that he was dead, and that she didn’t betray them.

And how did Ajay know where Mary was?

HE FOLLOWED SHERLOCK AND JOHN WHEN THEY WENT LOOKING FOR HER.

SERIOUSLY.

Ajay also monologues for a while. Alex, another one of AGRA, was tortured to death. Ajay was tortured nearly to death. He blames Mary, because she wasn’t there, and because his guards talked about the English woman.

This character could be played as a really, really tragic guy. A victim of torture, a traumatised man looking for vengeance and healing. A man who was tortured… just for fun. That is despicable. Just despicable.

But instead of being portrayed as traumatised… it seems like they are going for insane and dangerous.

Oh, and also, logically… he says he was locked in a cell and forgotten for six years.

Six years is a long time to be “forgotten”, as he says… I mean, clearly they remembered to… feed him? Bring him water?

And if they were keeping him “just for fun”, and were prepared to torture him for fun, why would they not kill him once they were done torturing him?

And we still don’t know who “they” are.

In short, this makes no sense.

A train passes, somehow giving Mary a chance to move. They freeze, with Mary and Ajay pointing their weapons straight at each other.

Stand-off!!!

I think stand-offs used to be interesting. I mean, they still are, if you can think of a clever way of resolving it.

Sherlock, standing nearby, asks Ajay what he heard them say about Mary. Exactly what he heard.

Finally, he’s being clever. Took him long enough. I suppose he had to wait until Mary had put her life directly in danger for his brain to kick in.

So what did he hear? “Ammo”.

“The English woman”.

Someone walks in, and shoots Ajay in the back. Wait, I’m confused, who shot him?

I went back and rewatched it…

A random police officer.

Oh, well… that was not a clever way of resolving that stand-off. Not at all.

Sherlock calls Mycroft, and asks him who betrayed AGRA. Sherlock has an idea. Amo, not Ammo. Amo, amas, amat. I love, you love, he/she loves in Latin.

I love the latin reference 😊

Sherlock says “Amo, meaning…”

“You’d better be right, Sherlock” Mycroft replies.

Cut to Lady Smallwood. You know, one of the people in the meeting at the beginning of this episode, former victim of CAM? Her security clearance has been restricted. She’s led away, with her secretary watching. Meanwhile, John and Mary are flying back, and, while Mary sleeps, John is feeling guilty about the woman on the bus.

This is when it’s revealed. They did more then just smile on the bus. She followed him off. They chatted. They flirted. She gave him her number. He took it. He thanked her. He… kept it.

He put it into his phone. Her name, E, and her number.

He texts E. She replies.

We see a repeat of the scene we saw earlier, Mary and John being woken to go and look after Rosie. Once Mary has left the room, John opens his phone, and texts. Texts E.

“Miss you” she sends.

“You’re up late” he replies.

“Or early”

“Night owl?”

“Vampire”

“😊”

They’re flirting. Flirting while his wife comforts his crying child.

Finally, on the bus again, John texts her. He ends it, the flirtatious chat. He tells her that he isn’t free, that they should stop. She sits there and looks at him, and, later, on the plane, he thinks about her.

So he ended it. He did something good.

It’s… it’s hard, because it’s completely benign, right? Making a new friend?

No. If you’re making a new friend, you don’t feel guilty. You don’t hide it from your wife. You don’t tell her that you can’t talk any more because you’re attached.

It’s out of character for John Watson. It’s nonsensical, because it’s never explained. It never makes sense.

I hate this storyline.

Cut to Lady Smallwood. Apparently, her codename was once “Love”, when she worked in the foreign office. Weird code name. Technically, we were told it earlier though, so some credit there.

Lady Smallwood was, apparently, the one who controlled AGRA, but she insists that she did not betray them.

John and Mary are back at home, talking about the future. Talking about raising Rosie together.

Meanwhile, Sherlock goes to pose dramatically on a bridge. As per usual.

Another idea comes to him. Mary said that receptionists know everything earlier, so… blame the secretary?

Why? There’s literally no evidence that she has done anything. None at all.

John is about to tell Mary that he was flirting behind her back, when Sherlock invites the pair of them to the London aquarium. Sherlock=drama queen. At least there’s some consistency here.

Why invite them, though? Why not, say, ask Mycroft to surround the place with soldiers, and keep the people who are most at risk here far, far away?

Because Sherlock… is not very clever. He would rather give a dramatic performance than keep his friends safe.

Mary goes on ahead, John will stay behind to find a Rosie-sitter.

In the aquarium, Sherlock finds her. The secretary. It’s a place where agents used to meet up, apparently. She says that she always knew that there would be a showdown someday, and when she realised it had come she picked the aquarium as the fighting-ground.

Why she didn’t decide to, I don’t know, run away, is anyone’s guess.

The secretary tells the same story that Sherlock told earlier. She says that she tried to outrun the inevitable, but always knew that it would come.

Why do people in Sherlock monologue when they could just escape? Ammo came here with a gun, planning to kill Sherlock and leave. Why not… just leave??????

Mary arrives, and Sherlock introduces her to Ammo. Ammo admits to selling secrets, and to betraying AGRA to ensure that the one person who knew about her crime, the ambassador in Tbilisi, couldn’t tell tales.

I mean… coincidental. Very. Also, ruthless, and a big first step into villainy. Also, suggests that she was much more capable than her previous criminal experience would suggest. She organised the killing of the hostages in Tbilisi, and all of AGRA, for a little peace of mind.

She… also brought a gun with her, and proceeds to threaten Sherlock and Mary with it, asking to be allowed to walk away.

Well…. She didn’t have to show up in the first place, you know? Grr.

Sherlock decides that the best way to handle this whole gun-pointing situation is to… rile her? He seems to go out of his way to irritate Ammo (whose real name we still don’t know, by the way). He accuses her of acting out of jealousy. He continues deducing. Basic summation: he calls her a sad old cat lady, living in a small flat, unappreciated by everyone, lonely, alcoholic.

Mycroft arrives, and we finally get to know her name. Mrs Norbury.

Norbury being a reference to a famous case that the original Sherlock Holmes got wrong.

That… bodes well.

Sherlock tells her that there’s no way out. A cold blooded killer, carrying a gun. She suggests that she can still surprise him.

Lestrade (when did he get here?) tells her to be sensible. Norbury fires. Mary throws herself in the way of the bullet.

I’m not sure that she would actually have time to do that, unless she started moving before the gun was fired…

Which… she definitely didn’t.

Anyway, Mary takes the bullet in the middle of her abdomen. John runs over, and cradles her in his arms. He, sensibly, puts pressure on the wound instantly. Mary says nice things like “look after Rosie” and “you gave me everything”

She apologises to Sherlock for shooting him that time. She tells John that he was her whole world. That being Mary Watson was the only life worth living. She loses consciousness and, rather than continuing to treat her, John hugs her and decides that she’s dead.

OK, well… medical opinion. Firstly, a bullet hitting in the centre of the abdomen could definitely cause damage to the aorta, which would lead to catastrophic bleeding and potentially death very quickly. But, it wouldn’t necessarily lead to that. John did the right thing immediately, putting pressure on the wound, but there are other things that could be done to keep blood flowing to her brain. He could, for example, have got one of the many people standing around doing nothing, to elevate her legs. Losing consciousness in TV land often means that someone has died, but in reality, that is something you would never much expect as a result of blood loss, or possibly just because of the pain of the injury.

Basically, you keep treating. Pressure on the wound, legs elevated. Once she was unconscious, John should start concentrating on maintaining her airway. Again, he’s surrounded by people. They could be helping.

Of course, he was in a state of shock, someone he loves is potentially dying in front of him. Other people there, including police officers with first aid training, are not. They should have stepped in, possibly sent John off to the side, and taken over all of the above. You notice that this DID happen when Sherlock faked his death- John was taken away, because he was clearly in no state to help his friend. (even if that hadn’t all been faked).

Right, well anyway. It’s not the least accurate medical scene ever.

John screams. He groans. Then he turns to Sherlock. He protests, Sherlock made a vow, Sherlock gave his word.

Sherlock just stands there. He doesn’t step in to comfort his best friend. He doesn’t try to help Mary. He does nothing.

We cut to Norbury being led away, then to John in a graveyard. Then to John at home, surrounded by Rosie’s things. His phone buzzes.

Then we’re in a scene with a therapist. She asks about recurring dreams. The patient is Sherlock. He asks her what he should do about John.

Mycroft goes home, finds his fridge empty, and the number “13” written on a post-it not on the front of it. He makes a call, asks to talk to Sherriford.

Back in 221b, Mrs Hudson is crying. Sherlock is looking for a new case.

Ah. Finally, the reason for the name “Norbury”. Sherlock asks Mrs Hudson to whisper the word “Norbury” into his ear, if she ever thinks that he’s becoming full of himself.

Hmm. Interesting. So this is basically exactly what happens in the original story featuring Norbury. I… do I approve?

I don’t really know. What it implies is that Sherlock believes that his over-confidence led directly to Mary’s death. Which… I mean, it did. But given the tragic consequences, I would hope that Sherlock would be capable of remembering Norbury himself. I would hope it would prompt a real, genuine change in him.

This feels like he’s passing the responsibility on to other people.

Anyway, Sherlock sorts through the post, and finds a CD with “miss me?” written on it.

Sherlock assumes that it is Moriarty. Instead, it’s Mary, using the phrase to get his attention.

It’s a “in case I die” video. It’s not completely clear when Mary sent it. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting to die on the day she went to the aquarium, so… maybe when she went off on the run? Odd choice, though, given that she wrote her letter to John. Why make a video out of this?

Anyway, Mary’s message is simple. She wants Sherlock to take on a case. The case of saving John.

Sherlock goes to see John, but Molly answers the door, carrying Rosie. John left instructions, and a note. John doesn’t want Sherlock. He doesn’t want to see him, he definitely doesn’t want his help.

Why?

Um… well, his wife did die jumping in front of a bullet meant for Sherlock, after Sherlock was a pompous, arrogant fool. But Mary herself clearly didn’t bear a grudge. It feels like this is an over-reaction, especially given that this is days, at least, after the tragedy.

Sherlock sets off on his path, to save John. Sherlock finishes by wondering whether death can be avoided.

No. No it can’t.

 

And wow, we’re there.

So, why do I like this episode do little? Well… maybe it’s because it feels like its only purpose is to kill off Mary. Every aspect that is normally a key part of a detective story is sacrificed for that one goal. The villain is one-dimensional, at best. We’re introduced to her as a sweet woman who likes ice-cream, it never becomes clear why, exactly, Sherlock suspects her. The plot is confused and confusing, and the main threat of the episode, Ajay, could be disarmed with a simple conversation. Sherlock makes lots of very, very important mistakes, and puts the lives of those around him in danger needlessly and carelessly. A lot of the scenes that are meant to be charming and fun are cheap copies of better scenes that came before. John acts in ways that are totally out of character.

And then there’s Mary. The woman introduced four episodes before as John’s fiancé. The woman who, two episodes later, is revealed to be a super-spy in retirement. A spy who shoots Sherlock. A woman who insists that she really does love John.

I don’t find myself falling in love with Mary, not through any of it. Sure, she’s fun, she’s witty, she has obvious chemistry with John when they have their quiet moments together. But that’s all her character is allowed to be. She is basically another  version of Sherlock’s Irene Adler, only without the whip.

We never get to see who she is when she is away from John and Sherlock. Even in this episode, when she spends a lot of time on her own, she is always playing a part. She is never herself.

How can we claim to know who Mary Watson is, if we know so little about her? She was an assassin. A freelance spy. How did that happen? Why did she give it up, was it because AGRA fell apart, or because she was tired of killing people for money? What made her get a job as a receptionist?

Mary Watson could have been an interesting character. But she wasn’t, or, well, not to me. And, like so many female characters, she is most prominent for the changes she brings to the male main characters, rather than for her own actions.

So, on to the next episode. The episode that, supposedly, adapts my single favourite Sherlock Holmes story.

I’ll see you then.