Some 12 hours before the next one airs
Jan. 15th, 2017 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessSherlock 4.2 The Lying Detective
I was more engrossed by this episode and found the final reveal VERY EXCITING.
I really wouldn’t mind if Sherlock took a Randall and Hopkirk deceased turn with Ghost!Mary snarking about in all further investigations (yes, I do know the next episode has the word ‘final’ in the title). I know Mary was fridged to give the men angst, but she (and Amanda Abingdon) did get a decent send-off with John’s hallucination and with Mary instigating Sherlock ‘saving John Watson’. And the moment where Sherlock played along and referred to her was very sweet, because at that point, he thought he’d been ‘seeing ghosts’ too, whilst off his head.
Except he hadn’t and I’ll get to that.
Probably the boss of the episode was Mrs Hudson, though, who put Sherlock, John and Mycroft in their respective places. Between the driving, the handcuffs, the matter of factness, how she turned into a lioness over letting John see Mary’s video in peace and the vindication of not being their housekeeper she was brilliant.
I wish I knew exactly when this was filmed, because the beard was a little too groomed for high!Sherlock, and a little more Cumberbatch preparing for Hamlet or Stephen Strange or something. There were other meta-y references to those parts: the Shakespearian riffs and some of the visualisation of his mental process (MUCH more of that than in the last episode), and they did convey the impact of the drug use in how we were kept on our toes in a way that made more sense than in the previous episode with the sharks and stuff.
I am not entirely sure what I think of Culverton Smith. Toby Jones was very good, but the more I thought about the extremely crooked teeth, the more I disliked them. As for the character, they’d obviously borrowed from Jimmy Saville with the hiding in plain sight motif and the special relationship with a hospital, and that was creepy, but also tipped over the edge into being tasteless, for me. I also thought they were referencing other individuals – I won’t name who came to mind, because as far as I know they’re not criminals, although celebs who have been accused of bullying.
It’s also interesting that the opening scene of Smith must have been a hallucination, one that Sherlock had imagined, because we saw him replaying it, based on Fake!Faith’s suggestions and clues. Smith did have a desire to confess (to E?) but he later said he’d mainly done it to dead bodies, until he got to unburden himself to the police. Graves played Greg’s sickened weariness at that perfectly.
And yeah, the big reveal – the third Holmes sibling we’ve assumed was a brother like in the stories is a girl. I’m presuming Sherrington s the institution Mycroft thought she was kept safe in. Oh, Mycroft, Mrs Hudson was right, you are stupid, because she seems to have been in touch with Moriarty and Smith. It’ll be interesting to see what her motivation is – to mess with Sherlock? I really liked Fake!Faith and thought the actress had a chemistry with Cumberbatch, a warmth (turns out she was Ophelia to his Hamlet so that explains it), so I’m looking forward to their next encounters – not least she shot at John… And they’ve almost redeemed the cheating (it was cheating emotionally, so shut up Sherlock) by the twist, because John was cheating with SHERLOCK’S SISTER. Ahahahahah. (But Mary would have known. Maybe not Sherlock. I’ll buy that.)
I did not suspect that Fake! Faith and/or the therapist was E, despite my suspicions that E was a plant and possibly involved with Moriarty. Great performance by Sian Brooke as Eurus.
But given that John has met Sherlock’s parents and seen their house, I would like to know how he missed out on the fact that there was another child. Did she do something so awful that they erased all signs of her? Or did something awful happen to her?
Anyway, watching Sherlock spiral and spiral – I did buy that it was self-destructive guilt over Mary, although it didn’t tally with his telling Fake!Faith that she had no right to kill herself, hearing what he initially told John, and watching John fight himself/not!Mary over blanking Sherlock, blaming himself and grieving probably hit others emotionally more than me. I felt for both men, certainly, and agree with Mary that it’s better for both that they are working together. Just what an extreme way to go about it/typical Sherlock. And in an episode that was pro romance (John’s paean to Mary…and I’ll get to the rest of it) they doused Sherlock/Molly (yeah, okay, rationally I know canon doesn’t support it). Although I do hope she has less babysitting of Rosie to do in future.
But because of the sending off of Mary, we had the return of Sherlock/Irene (fine, bring her back, but WRITE HER AND IT BETTER if you do) and the introduction of Mycroft/Lady Smallwood. Heh.
Also amusing that Mycroft could and would use the intelligence services to spy on his own brother.
So, to recap, last weekend involved The Witness for the Prosecution, Career of Evil and Sherlock. I was craving a bit of lightness for balance.
I was more engrossed by this episode and found the final reveal VERY EXCITING.
I really wouldn’t mind if Sherlock took a Randall and Hopkirk deceased turn with Ghost!Mary snarking about in all further investigations (yes, I do know the next episode has the word ‘final’ in the title). I know Mary was fridged to give the men angst, but she (and Amanda Abingdon) did get a decent send-off with John’s hallucination and with Mary instigating Sherlock ‘saving John Watson’. And the moment where Sherlock played along and referred to her was very sweet, because at that point, he thought he’d been ‘seeing ghosts’ too, whilst off his head.
Except he hadn’t and I’ll get to that.
Probably the boss of the episode was Mrs Hudson, though, who put Sherlock, John and Mycroft in their respective places. Between the driving, the handcuffs, the matter of factness, how she turned into a lioness over letting John see Mary’s video in peace and the vindication of not being their housekeeper she was brilliant.
I wish I knew exactly when this was filmed, because the beard was a little too groomed for high!Sherlock, and a little more Cumberbatch preparing for Hamlet or Stephen Strange or something. There were other meta-y references to those parts: the Shakespearian riffs and some of the visualisation of his mental process (MUCH more of that than in the last episode), and they did convey the impact of the drug use in how we were kept on our toes in a way that made more sense than in the previous episode with the sharks and stuff.
I am not entirely sure what I think of Culverton Smith. Toby Jones was very good, but the more I thought about the extremely crooked teeth, the more I disliked them. As for the character, they’d obviously borrowed from Jimmy Saville with the hiding in plain sight motif and the special relationship with a hospital, and that was creepy, but also tipped over the edge into being tasteless, for me. I also thought they were referencing other individuals – I won’t name who came to mind, because as far as I know they’re not criminals, although celebs who have been accused of bullying.
It’s also interesting that the opening scene of Smith must have been a hallucination, one that Sherlock had imagined, because we saw him replaying it, based on Fake!Faith’s suggestions and clues. Smith did have a desire to confess (to E?) but he later said he’d mainly done it to dead bodies, until he got to unburden himself to the police. Graves played Greg’s sickened weariness at that perfectly.
And yeah, the big reveal – the third Holmes sibling we’ve assumed was a brother like in the stories is a girl. I’m presuming Sherrington s the institution Mycroft thought she was kept safe in. Oh, Mycroft, Mrs Hudson was right, you are stupid, because she seems to have been in touch with Moriarty and Smith. It’ll be interesting to see what her motivation is – to mess with Sherlock? I really liked Fake!Faith and thought the actress had a chemistry with Cumberbatch, a warmth (turns out she was Ophelia to his Hamlet so that explains it), so I’m looking forward to their next encounters – not least she shot at John… And they’ve almost redeemed the cheating (it was cheating emotionally, so shut up Sherlock) by the twist, because John was cheating with SHERLOCK’S SISTER. Ahahahahah. (But Mary would have known. Maybe not Sherlock. I’ll buy that.)
I did not suspect that Fake! Faith and/or the therapist was E, despite my suspicions that E was a plant and possibly involved with Moriarty. Great performance by Sian Brooke as Eurus.
But given that John has met Sherlock’s parents and seen their house, I would like to know how he missed out on the fact that there was another child. Did she do something so awful that they erased all signs of her? Or did something awful happen to her?
Anyway, watching Sherlock spiral and spiral – I did buy that it was self-destructive guilt over Mary, although it didn’t tally with his telling Fake!Faith that she had no right to kill herself, hearing what he initially told John, and watching John fight himself/not!Mary over blanking Sherlock, blaming himself and grieving probably hit others emotionally more than me. I felt for both men, certainly, and agree with Mary that it’s better for both that they are working together. Just what an extreme way to go about it/typical Sherlock. And in an episode that was pro romance (John’s paean to Mary…and I’ll get to the rest of it) they doused Sherlock/Molly (yeah, okay, rationally I know canon doesn’t support it). Although I do hope she has less babysitting of Rosie to do in future.
But because of the sending off of Mary, we had the return of Sherlock/Irene (fine, bring her back, but WRITE HER AND IT BETTER if you do) and the introduction of Mycroft/Lady Smallwood. Heh.
Also amusing that Mycroft could and would use the intelligence services to spy on his own brother.
So, to recap, last weekend involved The Witness for the Prosecution, Career of Evil and Sherlock. I was craving a bit of lightness for balance.
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Date: 2017-01-15 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-18 06:44 am (UTC)