SHERLOCK OMG
I've heard a lot of complaints about the last fifteen minutes or so of "A Scandal in Belgravia." Really, my only big issue is with the "SHER" code business & accompanying malarkey-but it's okay, because I have fanwank for that at the ready. It was just yet another manipulation of him-just putting something in the bank.
And it paid off, as we know from the last scene. :P
(That said, I agree with
kian15 that said final scene undermines the Gritty Realism of the presence by proxy of the middle east through John… but, well. This is the show that gave us "The Blind Banker." I was too unsurprised to get hung up on it too much. And too well-trained by years of fandom to edit around weak bits with likely improvements automatically.)
OH AND ALSO: In S1, I just thought Molly was a kind of sad side-character. I was a little annoyed that she was so cheaply written-I mean, come on, how eye-rollingly easy and obvious is it to write the Pathetic Lovelorn Hopeless Awkward Chick?-but I wasn't much invested in her. A little sympathetic toward her, by default, because boy, do I ever know what it's like to be lovesick and know the object of your affections probably thinks you're laughable and/or revolting and/or pathetic. And there was something I liked about the actor. But, again, there just wasn't much there, so… meh.
Now, though? I'm sorry, but she has won me over with her sheer perseverance. It takes serious fucking guts, to put yourself on the line like that, and think that maybe, just maybe you're good enough and that it's worth a try. And now that she's been revealed as having a morbid sense of humor-I sort of hoped, what with her dwelling in the morgue and all, but it's nice to have the confirmation!-I am squarely in her fanclub.
Molly's stones > Sherlock's. There. I said it.
In sum:
OUR FANDOM IS BOUNTIFUL AND GOOD, Y'ALL, OUR FANDOM IS BOUNTIFUL AND GOOD