WHAT???
WHAT???
The Evil Sibling trope has struck???!!! :-O :-O :-O
But first, let’s back up a little.
Yeah, Sherlock has gone off the rails, he’s going after a person who is pure evil, blah blah blah — but I never feared for his life. He’s Sherlock! He always has a plan. (Though when he thought he hallucinated the whole encounter with Faith Smith, I was wondering what to believe, because she must have been real. The piece of paper was proof of it!) It didn’t occur to me that Mary would be the brains behind Sherlock’s idea of putting himself in harm’s way, and all of it was just to save John. But when they showed her full video recording, it was an “of course it was her!” moment that she told Sherlock to do such a thing.
John’s hallucination is a realist, whilst Sherlock’s is just mind-trippy. And since Mary was all John’s subconscious (love the way they managed to include her in this episode even though she’s dead), we can deduce that John is actually pretty brilliant himself. Perhaps it’s all the trappings of social norms that hinder him from seeing things as clearly as he did when he was “crazy”.
(By the way, one of my favourite moments in the episode was watching Benedict recite the famous battle monologue in Henry V with such relish as Sherlock goes mad in his apartment. That must have delighted the inner classically trained English actor in him.)
(Oh yes, and catching the teacup in slow-mo.)
(And finding out that Sherlock is still in contact with Irene Adler. Please let her come back!)
Culverton Smith is a really creepy villain. One whom I (and any other person with eyes) would have pegged to be a psychopath, if not a serial killer, if I met him in real life. Shows what rich billionaires can get away with with lots of power and fame. (Totally not implying anything here. *whistles*)
But a late stage revelation complete overshadows Toby Jones’ guest appearance, because it turns out that he is not the actual “big bad” in this episode — it’s Sherlock and Mycroft’s hitherto unrevealed sister who is working on the dark side! A sister that Sherlock couldn’t even recognise despite spending an entire evening with her. (How long have they not been in contact with each other?) Now I’m really curious to know who is this mysterious Sherrinford that Mycroft keeps mentioning. I bet he/she/it has something to do with their dark family secret. With the way the show is going, it might even be a fourth sibling.
Once again, John proves that he really is in love with danger. Even his housekeeper landlady has an Aston Martin that she drives hazardously through the streets of London. No wonder he cheated on his assassin wife with his sociopath, psychic best friend’s secret evil sister.
