SHERLOCK: HIS LAST VOW
So, Sherlock comes and goes in three episodes. Again. What the hell is wrong with Mr Moffat? He should stop writing Doctor Whats the point and write more Sherlocks. It is very frustrating watching three episodes and then having to wait a year for more. Surely a series of six is not asking for too much.
This only adds to my annoyance, which arose when I heard that Ripper Street was being cancelled. And why is it being cancelled you may well ask? Because it wasn't getting good ratings. Cobblers! You are the BBC for gods sake. Here's how it should work : you make us pay for a TV license and if we don't buy one you take us to court. Either way you force us to pay you. The license money is what pays for making programs. You do not need to advertise because we pay you. SO WHAT THE HELL DO YOU NEED GOOD RATINGS FOR? You have no reason to compete therefore you have no reason to pull programs because of low viewing figures.
What sort of ratings do you get for the pompous proms or the crap cricket or useless University challenge? I have been praising the BEEB recently, well I take it all back, unless they bring back Ripper Street and get Mr Moffat to concentrate on writing Sherlock. Anyway, here are some thoughts about the last episode.
So Watson is now married to Mary, and it transpires during the opening scenes that Sherlock is dating Janine ( the attractive Irish bridesmaid at J and M's wedding). Fans will of course know that he is up to something as he never dates anyone. We see a scene with John Watson going in to a drugs den with a crowbar to retrieve the son of a friend of Marys. Holmes is there. Watson thinks he is taking drugs again (I thought that this incarnation of Holmes was merely a cigarette smoker. Drugs haven't been mentioned before). Sherlock says he is under cover but Watson doubts him and phones Mycroft, who brings members of the Empty Hearse around to search Sherlock's flat. Mycroft asks what kind of case would necessitate going to a drug den and Holmes replies Magnussen. He is the guy that was being questioned by some kind of committee at the start of the episode. Magnussen has a massive store of data at a place called Appledore and has sensitive information about everybody.
As the story unfolds we learn the reason for Sherlock dating Janine. She is Magnussens PA. He goes as far as to pretend he is going to propose to her so that she will let him in to Magnuss's office. Once in Watson and Holmes find her unconscious on the floor. The intruder and Magnussen are still there. Holmes walks in to an office and sees a woman in black holding a gun to Magnussen's head. Holmes thinks it is Lady Smallwood, a potential client. It turns out to be Mary. (This is groundbreaking, the mighty Sherlock gets it wrong!) This means that he also missed spotting that Mary was hiding a past. Or did he?
I was pleased because I had noticed that she knew what a skip code was in a previous episode so I was already thinking that she was under cover.
Mary shoots him in the stomach.Once shot Sherlock goes in to his mind palace. I like it when he does that. The viewer gets to see Sherlocks thought processes at work. It is a nice touch, just like the words that spring up from the evidence that Holmes is examining. Anyway, in the mind palace he talks to Molly who tells him to fall backward because the bullet has not gone straight through him and this will stop him from bleeding out. He also sees Mycroft who visualises Sherlock as a little boy. Does this mean that this is how Mycroft sees him, I wonder, or how Sherlock thinks that he sees him?
As he slides towards death his old enemy Moriarty shows up and goads him into fighting for his life. When conscious he gets a visit from Mary telling him not to tell John what had happened. He next wakes up to a visit from Janine who is showing him tabloid headlines and telling him that she sold her story to get revenge on him. She has also turned off his Morphine. As she leaves she tells him that he shouldn't have lied because she understood him and they could have been friends. I think that this is significant, as I shall explain in a moment. I believe that she knew what Sherlock was up to all along.
Holmes arranges a meeting with Mary to disclose what he knows. He found the grave that she took her name from and tells her that he knew there was something when he mentioned her side of the Church at the wedding didn't have many people. He also knows that she deliberately shot to injure and not to kill him and that he also noticed that she knew what a skip code was. Holmes agrees to get back the data that Magnussen has on her. She begs him not to tell John but he is there and has heard every word.
In the next scene the Watsons and the Holmes brothers have gone to the boys parents. They are all together so that Sherlock can drug them then he and Watson can go after Magnussen who is at Appledore. We learn that Magnussen was the one that had John dragged away in episode one and put in to a bonfire. He did this to affirm to himself that Watson was a weak point for Sherlock. Holmes has agreed to get top secret information for Magnussen in return for a visit to Appledore. He takes a laptop from Mycroft. Obviously he must have a trick up his sleeve because surely he wouldn't commit treason?
The next "bombshell" is more like a damp squib : there is no secret storage system under the house or anywhere else, for that matter because he keeps it all in a mind palace just like Sherlock. Magnussen gives a little talk on leverage. Then points out he knows there is a GPS in the laptop and secret service will be arriving. Not for him though, but for them. He goes through a little act of entering the vaults then makes the announcement. We then see him pretending to read the documents. This looks a bit stupid, actually. He then tells them he doesn't need proof because he owns papers and can print what he wants and it will be believed. Tomorrow they will be front page news.
They wait outside for the secret service during which time Magnussehn humiliates John as he explains haw it works. Holmes wont intervene. Magnussen tells them that he did this to Janine as well. When Mycroft arrives Sherlock takes Johns gun and shoots Magnussen in the head. Now it looks like Sherlock will have to take a dangerous mission in east europe that Mycroft had mentioned at their parents house. Just as his plane takes off, however.....
...we see various TV screens around the country getting a message saying "Did you miss me?" with a picture of Moriarty accompanying it.
How, you may ask yourself, is this possible when he blew his brains out? This is what I think. At the end of the last series, when Holmes and Moriarty were on the roof Moriarty told Holmes that he had hired a Sherlock look-a-like to scare a kidnapped girl. It stands to reason then that he could hire a double of himself. He tells the double "Do what I say or your family die" just like he did with Sherlock and everyone thinks that Moriarty is dead.
Mind you, I have some other ideas. Janine, for example. Who else has an accent like hers? Moriarty of course! She could be connected to him, a relative or a girlfriend. Maybe Moriarty didn't have a double, and is actually Janine, who has been behind everything from the beginning. Or, how about this : Moriarty gets a double to kill himself. Then to avoid detection he has a sex change operation and becomes Janine. That would be funny. Talk about sleeping with the enemy!
To conclude, this run of Sherlock has not disappointed. It has retained the excellent mix of humor and drama and has expanded the characters biographies, letting us learn a little bit more about them. Who is the other brother that Mycroft alluded to having dealt with in the past? My only complaint, as I said at the opening of this piece is that three episodes is not enough.
Come on, Mr Moffat, we're waiting.....
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