Sherlock Episode 1.3.2
Back again, for the middle of The Great Game. Gatiss runs through two plots in this one, picking up the pace a bit, and leaving Police Squad! completely out in the cold.
Sherlock 1.3.2
We rejoin our merry band back at Police Squad!, where Lestrade recaps the Mysterious Madman’s crime for the audience; kidnapping and carjacking a woman, dressing her up in a bomb jacket, and forcing her to read his script from a pager, under threat of sniper. All to set a puzzle for Sherlock. Sherlock is thrilled, John is sickened, and Lestrade is just confused. So confused, apparently, that it never crosses his mind that Sherlock has just become an attractive nuisance and should probably be given his own detail of attentive cops. Assuming that Lestrade can find any, of course.
Anyway, the PP2.0 bleeps again, with four pips and a photo of a car. Lestrade goes to check if it’s been abandoned, while Sally Donovan enters to report that she’s just received a call for Sherlock . . . the Mysterious Madman can track him down wherever he is, it seems.
The latest patsy nearly breaks the thread by which my disbelief is suspended. It’s a man this time, whimpering into the phone, reading from a pager, and decked out in a bomb jacket as per spec. Standing in the middle of a crowded city block. In fact, as we will see later on, he’s in Piccadilly Circus, one of the most heavily foot-trafficked drags in the entire city. Literally thousands of people are walking past in a day, some of them patrol cops. Why, for the love of Pete and little green fishies, does not one of these people seem to care about a guy standing in freakin’ Piccadilly Circus wired and crying? Again, I remind you that this is Post 7/7 London we’re talking about here. The Kitty Genovese effect only goes so far.
The patsy is being kept in line by the red dot of a sniper’s laser sight. This means that the sniper has to be up in one of the office buildings or theaters in Piccadilly Circus, and none of those buildings are exactly the Texas School Book Depository, if you know what I mean. You gotta wonder how someone managed to sneak not just an illegal handgun, but an illegal sniper rifle up onto the roof of one of those buildings.
Well, best not to think too closely about that. Sherlock has eight hours to solve this second puzzle. Fortunately, Lestrade is on the ball, and has tracked down the car, which is abandoned by the Thames. It was a rental, in the name of Ian Monkford, a banker, who has subsequently vanished. Sherlock goes to peer at the bloodied interior of the car, while Sally takes this opportunity to snipe at John for having the bad taste to still be hanging around Sherlock. You know, I get that there’s not much for Sally to do in this episode, since Police Squad! has to be kept out of it as much as possible, but does it have to be this? Is there no other way to fulfill Vinette Robinson’s contract than to bring her in for the sole purpose of being relentlessly, needlessly bitchy?
Apparently, Police Squad! is in possession of either a portable chemistry lab or a TARDIS, since they’ve only just arrived at the car, and already they’ve done a DNA match between the blood and Ian Monkford. That’s far better than Law and Order cops can manage, let alone Real World Cops™. Remind me what they need Sherlock for, if they can pull off this kind of investigative badassery?
Oh, yes. Drama queening. There’s a brilliant scene coming up here. Mrs. Monkford is on the scene, and Sherlock walks up to her, crying on cue, pretending to be an old friend of her husband’s who is just devastated at the death, getting every single detail of his life wrong. Mrs. Monkford is understandably confused and tries to set Sherlock straight . . . which is exactly what he wanted, since she’s now given him a clear picture of Monkford’s situation and state of mind (neither of them good) without even realizing it. Does Sherlock share this vital investigative tidbit with Police Squad!? No, he does not.
Monkford rented the car from an outfit with the not-at-all-suspicious name of Janus Cars, so that’s where John and Sherlock head next. They have a chat with the office manager, who claims not to know anything about Monkford. The setup is very well done here, and it really shows how Sherlock is learning to work with John. Since John has better social skills than Sherlock, he’s the one actually conducting the interview, while Sherlock kind of stands around, asks the odd personal question about cars or vacations, and tries to beg some change for the cigarette machine, and wow, that’s something I haven’t seen in at least twenty years. I didn’t know anyone still had cigarette machines any more. The office manager checks his wallet, comes up short on change, and John and Sherlock take their leave. Sherlock’s figured out everything he needs to know. Specifically, that the office manager is a liar.
There’s a quick sequence of Sherlock running some lab tests on part of a blood sample, incorporating some shots from the opening credits, when the PP2.0 rings. The Mysterious Madman is ostensibly giving Sherlock a hint -- that the clue is in the name “Janus Cars” -- but, really, he just wants to chat. Sherlock is briefly puzzled, but not for long.
With three hours to go, Sherlock, John, and Lestrade convene in the police impound garage for the big reveal. There’s exactly a pint of Ian Monkford’s blood on the seat of the rental car, and Sherlock has discovered, via Science, that it’s been frozen and thawed. Janus Cars isn’t just a car rental place. Their VIP service includes Faking One’s Death with Optional Relocation, probably for tax purposes. They don’t seem to do much advising, though, since Monkford’s destination of choice was apparently Colombia, of all places. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, which could explain how he got into financial trouble to begin with. The clues are pretty basic, though the bit with Sherlock seeing the spot of blood and the itchy bit where Janus Cars’s office manager had his travel vaccination makes me think that it’s been a while since the director had a shot -- injections aren’t administered through clothing, the site is bandaged, and itching is rarely a side effect of an intramuscular injection (though soreness and stiffness is). Anyway, time for Lestrade to toddle off and arrest Mrs. Monkford for insurance fraud, as Sherlock storms happily out of the garage, dramatically taking the lights with him, leaving Lestrade in the dark.
A quick e-mail whoosh later, and the latest patsy can be set free, with cops running towards him, just as though they’d only just spotted the crying guy in the wired-up jacket who’d been standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus for hours and hours.
The next morning sees John and Sherlock having breakfast at a local greasy spoon. John tries to point out the obvious, that Sherlock himself is the focus of this new crime wave, but Sherlock doesn’t seem to care. The phone bings again, with three pips and a photograph of an overly made-up middle-aged woman. Here’s where the case really gets interesting, because it hints at just how much the Mysterious Madman knows about Sherlock’s personal life. Sherlock has no idea who the woman is, but John does. John is better acquainted with pop culture than Sherlock is, and recognizes the woman as Connie Prince, hostess of a daytime makeover show, who’s just been found dead. So far, the Mysterious Madman has been playing directly to Sherlock’s strengths -- his pre-existing interest in Carl Powers, his quick eye for clues in the Monkford case. This case initially plays to one of Sherlock’s weaknesses -- his lack of interest in pop culture -- but it’s a weakness that’s shored up by his relationship with John. Clever, that Mysterious Madman.
The current patsy is a little old blind lady, who’s having her script fed to her by earpiece. Sherlock has twelve hours. Sherlock takes the opportunity to ask why this is all happening, and is told that the Mysterious Madman likes to see him dance. This news does not sit well with Sherlock.
The scene in the greasy spoon is subtle, clever, and well written. The scene that follows is none of the above. The most immediate problem is one that one would think that Gatiss, of all people, would not have, but go figure. It seems that Gatiss has forgotten that John is a doctor. The scene takes place in a morgue, where Connie Prince’s body is laid out. Logically, this is the sort of setting where one might turn to John for a rundown. He’s not a pathologist, but as a combat medic, he’d have seen a lot of dead bodies, and between him, Sherlock, and Lestrade, he’s the closest to being a pathologist (and why is there no actual pathologist in the room?). Anyway, John’s contribution to a scene involving diagnosis of post-mortem injury and the identification of injection sites is . . . precisely nothing. This is the one scene in the whole episode where one could show John and Sherlock really working together as a team, as the seamless whole that history has made them, and Gatiss totally blows it. Bad showrunner. No cookie.
Anyway, the ruling is that Connie Prince died of tetanus (who dies of tetanus these days? That’s why God invented the DPT shot.), and Sherlock delegates John to go and investigate Connie Prince’s background for clues as to how she might have contracted it. Lestrade tries to get Sherlock to let him in on the Mysterious Madman’s ultimate motive, but Sherlock is having none of it, and the chief of Police Squad! just can’t muster up the wherewithal to go out and seek answers on his own. Alas.
Lestrade follows Sherlock home and watches like a lump while Sherlock frantically tries to figure out connections between all the victims so far. The PP2.0 rings again, and jumpin’ Jaysus on a pogo stick, why have Police Squad! not put a tap on that phone already? It’s the Mysterious Madman, calling to say, via patsy, that Sherlock has three hours left, which is odd; the light doesn’t seem to have changed enough for nine hours to have elapsed since breakfast at the greasy spoon.
Never mind that. Here we are chez Connie Prince. John is ushered into the fussily decorated living room by Connie’s brother, who offers him a spot on the loveseat, where he is promptly investigated by the Sphynx cat. The tall, dark, and handsome houseboy, Raoul, lurks around while Brother Prince spouts platitudes.
Back at Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson is also distressed at Connie Prince’s death, and puzzles Lestrade by sharing with him some fashion advice she got from the show and decrying celebrity use of Botox, while Sherlock takes a call from the Home Secretary. He’s been catching up on Connie Prince via old episodes and fansites on the internet, another clever Gatiss writing trick. It’s another way of illustrating some back story -- specifically that Brother Prince was often the butt of jokes on his sister’s show -- and it’s also a nice little tip of the hat to the general institution of contemporary fandom, for which the Sherlock Holmes stories were largely responsible. When Gatiss is on, he’s really on, which makes his moments of being off that much more painful.
And back to John, who’s trying desperately to keep up his chosen facade of tabloid reporter, while Brother Prince stares intently at him in a way that suggests either “seduction” or “serial killer.” The cat meows, and John has an idea. He calls Sherlock and tells him to come over right away. Sherlock arrives chez Prince in character as a photographer -- brilliant move, John! -- and flashes away at Brother Prince as John takes the opportunity to examine the cat.
The whole exercise amuses Sherlock greatly. John is sure that the tetanus bacteria came from the cat, but, charmed though he is, Sherlock shoots this idea down, both the cat and the tetanus. It was Raoul the houseboy, with the Botox shots, instead. Alas. I kind of wish it had been the cat. Not just because it’d be nice to see John getting one right for a change, but also because . . . well, dammit, because the cat story is just more interesting. Ah, well. What did we learn from Assassins? “Murder is a tawdry, little crime.” This one certainly was that.
With one hour to go in the countdown, Sherlock breaks the news to Police Squad!, along with the tidbit that the Mysterious Madman is repeating himself; Botox is botulinum toxin, the same thing that was used on Carl Powers. Which, admittedly, was over twenty years ago, so I don’t know that this necessarily counts as “repeating himself,” but Sherlock thinks it does. He also lets slip that he’s known the solution for hours already, but he’s been stalling on freeing the patsy in order to do other research. Which is exactly why Police Squad! should be doing something here. Their responsibility is to the public, patsies included, and, whatever judgement one might bring down upon Sherlock for ignoring little old ladies wired to blow, one must surely judge Police Squad! all the more harshly for ignoring her as well.
Sherlock sends off the information that will free the little old lady, and instead of immediately saying where she is, she starts to describe the Mysterious Madman’s voice. This is a mistake. She gets blown up for her pains, along with a dozen other people in the building. Sherlock looks supremely pissed off.
Later, John and Sherlock are watching the news report about the explosion. This leads to another one of those really wonderful scenes where writing, directing, and acting all combine to show you not only who these characters are, but who they were in the past, and who they need to become. John, not-at-all-randomly dressed in the softest, fluffiest cable-knit sweater we’ve seen yet, is just devastated at the death and destruction. The sight of the bombed-out building is probably triggering his PTSD like nobody’s business, though he’s covering well, God love that stiff British upper lip, and he’s horrified not just at the senseless murder, but also at the fact that Sherlock doesn’t appear to share his grief over the little old lady and her eleven neighbors.
For his part, Sherlock is still looking more annoyed than anything else. The world has once again failed to operate according to the strict rules of logic he’d love to impose -- he solved the puzzle, but the little old lady died anyway -- and for someone who’s as much a control freak as Sherlock is, this has to be terrifying. He’s been told flat-out that the Mysterious Madman is manipulating him, doing all of this just to watch him dance. These aren’t cases that he’s taking for the fun or the challenge; he’s taking them because someone else is controlling his life right now, and he hates that. Being Sherlock, though, he finds it difficult to think outside of his own box, and the only way out that he can see is through. He’s got to keep on dancing to the Mysterious Madman’s tune, solving the puzzles laid out for him, and the only way that he can do that is to turn off his emotional reactions and focus all of his energy on his intellect.
This, of course, puts him directly at odds with John, and they have a bit of an argument over it. The thing that makes this conversation good, that makes it really memorable, is that John and Sherlock are both right. It’s a horrible thing that people are dying, but Sherlock cannot afford to waste time mourning the losses. They’re both right, and more importantly, they cannot function without each other. John has to rely on Sherlock to solve the puzzles, and Sherlock essentially has to rely on John to express the grief and frustration that he can’t allow himself at the moment. I think it’s this scene, more than any other, that really captures the key to their relationship.
In the middle of it, the next challenge shows up. It’s once again the banks of the Thames, and whatever it is, it’s pretty fresh; there’s nothing in the papers or in the police duty reports. Sherlock duly calls up Police Squad!, and they congregate at dawn around a corpse. At this point, Police Squad! has totally given up. Sally isn’t there to speculate about whether or not Sherlock caused the corpse, Anderson hasn’t been seen all episode, and Lestrade is really only there to feed Sherlock straight lines. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh breath of John Munch around here.
While Sherlock examines the body, let me make an observation of my own here. Both John and Sherlock have changed in appearance a bit since A Study in Pink. John is more relaxed, and his hair has grown out from its military trim. The change suits him. But Sherlock looks terrible. Part of that is that Benedict Cumberbatch was working through a nasty case of pneumonia (and Moffat and Gatiss are sure lucky that the HSE didn’t come crashing down about their heads and shoulders for allowing that), but part of it is that he hasn’t gotten a haircut, either. The problem is that, for most people with curly hair (and I am one of them, so I know this well), a medium-length cut doesn’t work. Curly hair looks cute when it’s kept really short, and it can be very dramatic when it’s long. But, as everyone who’s tried to grow out a cap of curls knows, there’s a bit in the middle where it’s awkward, overwhelming your face, and incapable of looking anything but horrifically scruffy. Sherlock is at that stage. He’s not curly enough to be sporting the serious Jewfro that I had in junior high school, which is good, but he has let his bangs grow out enough that they give the awkward illusion of a receding hairline where there really isn’t one.
Dear Moffat and Gatiss: For Yule, please give Sherlock a haircut!
John kills some time establishing time of death with Lestrade while Sherlock examines the body and looks up a few facts on his phone. The immediate conclusion that he draws is that the “lost Vermeer,” which has been advertised throughout the episode, is a fake. Hold on, says Lestrade, back up, where did you get that? Sherlock doesn’t have time for this and babbles about the painting’s £30 million value and asks if anyone has ever heard of the Golem.
John, showing a fair bit of education for a goy, gets as far as “horror story,” and Sherlock gets it a little closer with “Jewish folk story about a gigantic man made of clay.” It’s more than that, but enough for now. Apparently, the particular Golem in question is a famous Czech assassin-for-hire who likes to do in his victims personally, by strangling them. That’s quite the VIP service, especially since this guy is so world-famous and still not caught and in prison.
Sherlock is once again annoyed at the relative slowness of the rest of the world and starts to bitch, and ex-Army John breaks up the fight with a quick “All right, all right, girls, calm down,” which is a cute little touch, since it’s absolutely a trick he would have picked up in the service. The trick works, and Sherlock calms down, stops bickering, and lays out his observations. The corpse is a security guard who worked a night shift at a museum or gallery. It just so happens that the Hickman Gallery has reported one of their security guards missing, and it’s probably this guy. There must have been a good reason for someone to spend good money and time hiring an A-list celebrity assassin to take him out, and £30 million worth of forged Vermeer seems like a good bet. What do we think about that, eh?
John: Fantastic!
Sherlock: Meretricious!
Lestrade: And a Happy New Year!
Audience: Ba-dum-tssshhh! (Facepalm)
Sherlock takes off to chase the Golem, with John right behind, pausing only for a quick patented Martin Freeman Exasperated Expression. As well he might; we’re getting yet another cab ride here. Sherlock is antsy, grabbing at the oh shit bar, changing their destination, and scribbling something in a little notebook.
The cab pauses, and Sherlock hops out and heads to a random bench under an overpass. Seated on the bench is the cleanest, tidiest young homeless lady you’ll ever see. She spare-changes Sherlock, and he gives her his note, wrapped up in whatever British currency denomination is sort of salmon pink, possibly a fifty, but Cumberbatch mumbles that line a bit. Whatever it is, it’s a sizeable enough sum to make her smile. What’s Sherlock doing? “Investing.” He has the cab drop him off at the gallery, and sends John on to check into the background of the late, marginally lamented gallery attendant.
John meets the dead man’s roomie, a sweet lady who’s pretty distressed over the whole thing. Being the personable doctor that he is, he reveals that the dead man was a hobby astronomer, and that he received a call from a professor shortly before he died. The roomie shuffles away, and John receives a text from Mycroft, nagging him about the Andrew West case again.
We will leave them on this melancholy note. But tune in next time for a thrilling conclusion mixed with some truly epic fail!
Sherlock 1.3.2
We rejoin our merry band back at Police Squad!, where Lestrade recaps the Mysterious Madman’s crime for the audience; kidnapping and carjacking a woman, dressing her up in a bomb jacket, and forcing her to read his script from a pager, under threat of sniper. All to set a puzzle for Sherlock. Sherlock is thrilled, John is sickened, and Lestrade is just confused. So confused, apparently, that it never crosses his mind that Sherlock has just become an attractive nuisance and should probably be given his own detail of attentive cops. Assuming that Lestrade can find any, of course.
Anyway, the PP2.0 bleeps again, with four pips and a photo of a car. Lestrade goes to check if it’s been abandoned, while Sally Donovan enters to report that she’s just received a call for Sherlock . . . the Mysterious Madman can track him down wherever he is, it seems.
The latest patsy nearly breaks the thread by which my disbelief is suspended. It’s a man this time, whimpering into the phone, reading from a pager, and decked out in a bomb jacket as per spec. Standing in the middle of a crowded city block. In fact, as we will see later on, he’s in Piccadilly Circus, one of the most heavily foot-trafficked drags in the entire city. Literally thousands of people are walking past in a day, some of them patrol cops. Why, for the love of Pete and little green fishies, does not one of these people seem to care about a guy standing in freakin’ Piccadilly Circus wired and crying? Again, I remind you that this is Post 7/7 London we’re talking about here. The Kitty Genovese effect only goes so far.
The patsy is being kept in line by the red dot of a sniper’s laser sight. This means that the sniper has to be up in one of the office buildings or theaters in Piccadilly Circus, and none of those buildings are exactly the Texas School Book Depository, if you know what I mean. You gotta wonder how someone managed to sneak not just an illegal handgun, but an illegal sniper rifle up onto the roof of one of those buildings.
Well, best not to think too closely about that. Sherlock has eight hours to solve this second puzzle. Fortunately, Lestrade is on the ball, and has tracked down the car, which is abandoned by the Thames. It was a rental, in the name of Ian Monkford, a banker, who has subsequently vanished. Sherlock goes to peer at the bloodied interior of the car, while Sally takes this opportunity to snipe at John for having the bad taste to still be hanging around Sherlock. You know, I get that there’s not much for Sally to do in this episode, since Police Squad! has to be kept out of it as much as possible, but does it have to be this? Is there no other way to fulfill Vinette Robinson’s contract than to bring her in for the sole purpose of being relentlessly, needlessly bitchy?
Apparently, Police Squad! is in possession of either a portable chemistry lab or a TARDIS, since they’ve only just arrived at the car, and already they’ve done a DNA match between the blood and Ian Monkford. That’s far better than Law and Order cops can manage, let alone Real World Cops™. Remind me what they need Sherlock for, if they can pull off this kind of investigative badassery?
Oh, yes. Drama queening. There’s a brilliant scene coming up here. Mrs. Monkford is on the scene, and Sherlock walks up to her, crying on cue, pretending to be an old friend of her husband’s who is just devastated at the death, getting every single detail of his life wrong. Mrs. Monkford is understandably confused and tries to set Sherlock straight . . . which is exactly what he wanted, since she’s now given him a clear picture of Monkford’s situation and state of mind (neither of them good) without even realizing it. Does Sherlock share this vital investigative tidbit with Police Squad!? No, he does not.
Monkford rented the car from an outfit with the not-at-all-suspicious name of Janus Cars, so that’s where John and Sherlock head next. They have a chat with the office manager, who claims not to know anything about Monkford. The setup is very well done here, and it really shows how Sherlock is learning to work with John. Since John has better social skills than Sherlock, he’s the one actually conducting the interview, while Sherlock kind of stands around, asks the odd personal question about cars or vacations, and tries to beg some change for the cigarette machine, and wow, that’s something I haven’t seen in at least twenty years. I didn’t know anyone still had cigarette machines any more. The office manager checks his wallet, comes up short on change, and John and Sherlock take their leave. Sherlock’s figured out everything he needs to know. Specifically, that the office manager is a liar.
There’s a quick sequence of Sherlock running some lab tests on part of a blood sample, incorporating some shots from the opening credits, when the PP2.0 rings. The Mysterious Madman is ostensibly giving Sherlock a hint -- that the clue is in the name “Janus Cars” -- but, really, he just wants to chat. Sherlock is briefly puzzled, but not for long.
With three hours to go, Sherlock, John, and Lestrade convene in the police impound garage for the big reveal. There’s exactly a pint of Ian Monkford’s blood on the seat of the rental car, and Sherlock has discovered, via Science, that it’s been frozen and thawed. Janus Cars isn’t just a car rental place. Their VIP service includes Faking One’s Death with Optional Relocation, probably for tax purposes. They don’t seem to do much advising, though, since Monkford’s destination of choice was apparently Colombia, of all places. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, which could explain how he got into financial trouble to begin with. The clues are pretty basic, though the bit with Sherlock seeing the spot of blood and the itchy bit where Janus Cars’s office manager had his travel vaccination makes me think that it’s been a while since the director had a shot -- injections aren’t administered through clothing, the site is bandaged, and itching is rarely a side effect of an intramuscular injection (though soreness and stiffness is). Anyway, time for Lestrade to toddle off and arrest Mrs. Monkford for insurance fraud, as Sherlock storms happily out of the garage, dramatically taking the lights with him, leaving Lestrade in the dark.
A quick e-mail whoosh later, and the latest patsy can be set free, with cops running towards him, just as though they’d only just spotted the crying guy in the wired-up jacket who’d been standing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus for hours and hours.
The next morning sees John and Sherlock having breakfast at a local greasy spoon. John tries to point out the obvious, that Sherlock himself is the focus of this new crime wave, but Sherlock doesn’t seem to care. The phone bings again, with three pips and a photograph of an overly made-up middle-aged woman. Here’s where the case really gets interesting, because it hints at just how much the Mysterious Madman knows about Sherlock’s personal life. Sherlock has no idea who the woman is, but John does. John is better acquainted with pop culture than Sherlock is, and recognizes the woman as Connie Prince, hostess of a daytime makeover show, who’s just been found dead. So far, the Mysterious Madman has been playing directly to Sherlock’s strengths -- his pre-existing interest in Carl Powers, his quick eye for clues in the Monkford case. This case initially plays to one of Sherlock’s weaknesses -- his lack of interest in pop culture -- but it’s a weakness that’s shored up by his relationship with John. Clever, that Mysterious Madman.
The current patsy is a little old blind lady, who’s having her script fed to her by earpiece. Sherlock has twelve hours. Sherlock takes the opportunity to ask why this is all happening, and is told that the Mysterious Madman likes to see him dance. This news does not sit well with Sherlock.
The scene in the greasy spoon is subtle, clever, and well written. The scene that follows is none of the above. The most immediate problem is one that one would think that Gatiss, of all people, would not have, but go figure. It seems that Gatiss has forgotten that John is a doctor. The scene takes place in a morgue, where Connie Prince’s body is laid out. Logically, this is the sort of setting where one might turn to John for a rundown. He’s not a pathologist, but as a combat medic, he’d have seen a lot of dead bodies, and between him, Sherlock, and Lestrade, he’s the closest to being a pathologist (and why is there no actual pathologist in the room?). Anyway, John’s contribution to a scene involving diagnosis of post-mortem injury and the identification of injection sites is . . . precisely nothing. This is the one scene in the whole episode where one could show John and Sherlock really working together as a team, as the seamless whole that history has made them, and Gatiss totally blows it. Bad showrunner. No cookie.
Anyway, the ruling is that Connie Prince died of tetanus (who dies of tetanus these days? That’s why God invented the DPT shot.), and Sherlock delegates John to go and investigate Connie Prince’s background for clues as to how she might have contracted it. Lestrade tries to get Sherlock to let him in on the Mysterious Madman’s ultimate motive, but Sherlock is having none of it, and the chief of Police Squad! just can’t muster up the wherewithal to go out and seek answers on his own. Alas.
Lestrade follows Sherlock home and watches like a lump while Sherlock frantically tries to figure out connections between all the victims so far. The PP2.0 rings again, and jumpin’ Jaysus on a pogo stick, why have Police Squad! not put a tap on that phone already? It’s the Mysterious Madman, calling to say, via patsy, that Sherlock has three hours left, which is odd; the light doesn’t seem to have changed enough for nine hours to have elapsed since breakfast at the greasy spoon.
Never mind that. Here we are chez Connie Prince. John is ushered into the fussily decorated living room by Connie’s brother, who offers him a spot on the loveseat, where he is promptly investigated by the Sphynx cat. The tall, dark, and handsome houseboy, Raoul, lurks around while Brother Prince spouts platitudes.
Back at Baker Street, Mrs. Hudson is also distressed at Connie Prince’s death, and puzzles Lestrade by sharing with him some fashion advice she got from the show and decrying celebrity use of Botox, while Sherlock takes a call from the Home Secretary. He’s been catching up on Connie Prince via old episodes and fansites on the internet, another clever Gatiss writing trick. It’s another way of illustrating some back story -- specifically that Brother Prince was often the butt of jokes on his sister’s show -- and it’s also a nice little tip of the hat to the general institution of contemporary fandom, for which the Sherlock Holmes stories were largely responsible. When Gatiss is on, he’s really on, which makes his moments of being off that much more painful.
And back to John, who’s trying desperately to keep up his chosen facade of tabloid reporter, while Brother Prince stares intently at him in a way that suggests either “seduction” or “serial killer.” The cat meows, and John has an idea. He calls Sherlock and tells him to come over right away. Sherlock arrives chez Prince in character as a photographer -- brilliant move, John! -- and flashes away at Brother Prince as John takes the opportunity to examine the cat.
The whole exercise amuses Sherlock greatly. John is sure that the tetanus bacteria came from the cat, but, charmed though he is, Sherlock shoots this idea down, both the cat and the tetanus. It was Raoul the houseboy, with the Botox shots, instead. Alas. I kind of wish it had been the cat. Not just because it’d be nice to see John getting one right for a change, but also because . . . well, dammit, because the cat story is just more interesting. Ah, well. What did we learn from Assassins? “Murder is a tawdry, little crime.” This one certainly was that.
With one hour to go in the countdown, Sherlock breaks the news to Police Squad!, along with the tidbit that the Mysterious Madman is repeating himself; Botox is botulinum toxin, the same thing that was used on Carl Powers. Which, admittedly, was over twenty years ago, so I don’t know that this necessarily counts as “repeating himself,” but Sherlock thinks it does. He also lets slip that he’s known the solution for hours already, but he’s been stalling on freeing the patsy in order to do other research. Which is exactly why Police Squad! should be doing something here. Their responsibility is to the public, patsies included, and, whatever judgement one might bring down upon Sherlock for ignoring little old ladies wired to blow, one must surely judge Police Squad! all the more harshly for ignoring her as well.
Sherlock sends off the information that will free the little old lady, and instead of immediately saying where she is, she starts to describe the Mysterious Madman’s voice. This is a mistake. She gets blown up for her pains, along with a dozen other people in the building. Sherlock looks supremely pissed off.
Later, John and Sherlock are watching the news report about the explosion. This leads to another one of those really wonderful scenes where writing, directing, and acting all combine to show you not only who these characters are, but who they were in the past, and who they need to become. John, not-at-all-randomly dressed in the softest, fluffiest cable-knit sweater we’ve seen yet, is just devastated at the death and destruction. The sight of the bombed-out building is probably triggering his PTSD like nobody’s business, though he’s covering well, God love that stiff British upper lip, and he’s horrified not just at the senseless murder, but also at the fact that Sherlock doesn’t appear to share his grief over the little old lady and her eleven neighbors.
For his part, Sherlock is still looking more annoyed than anything else. The world has once again failed to operate according to the strict rules of logic he’d love to impose -- he solved the puzzle, but the little old lady died anyway -- and for someone who’s as much a control freak as Sherlock is, this has to be terrifying. He’s been told flat-out that the Mysterious Madman is manipulating him, doing all of this just to watch him dance. These aren’t cases that he’s taking for the fun or the challenge; he’s taking them because someone else is controlling his life right now, and he hates that. Being Sherlock, though, he finds it difficult to think outside of his own box, and the only way out that he can see is through. He’s got to keep on dancing to the Mysterious Madman’s tune, solving the puzzles laid out for him, and the only way that he can do that is to turn off his emotional reactions and focus all of his energy on his intellect.
This, of course, puts him directly at odds with John, and they have a bit of an argument over it. The thing that makes this conversation good, that makes it really memorable, is that John and Sherlock are both right. It’s a horrible thing that people are dying, but Sherlock cannot afford to waste time mourning the losses. They’re both right, and more importantly, they cannot function without each other. John has to rely on Sherlock to solve the puzzles, and Sherlock essentially has to rely on John to express the grief and frustration that he can’t allow himself at the moment. I think it’s this scene, more than any other, that really captures the key to their relationship.
In the middle of it, the next challenge shows up. It’s once again the banks of the Thames, and whatever it is, it’s pretty fresh; there’s nothing in the papers or in the police duty reports. Sherlock duly calls up Police Squad!, and they congregate at dawn around a corpse. At this point, Police Squad! has totally given up. Sally isn’t there to speculate about whether or not Sherlock caused the corpse, Anderson hasn’t been seen all episode, and Lestrade is really only there to feed Sherlock straight lines. What I wouldn’t give for a fresh breath of John Munch around here.
While Sherlock examines the body, let me make an observation of my own here. Both John and Sherlock have changed in appearance a bit since A Study in Pink. John is more relaxed, and his hair has grown out from its military trim. The change suits him. But Sherlock looks terrible. Part of that is that Benedict Cumberbatch was working through a nasty case of pneumonia (and Moffat and Gatiss are sure lucky that the HSE didn’t come crashing down about their heads and shoulders for allowing that), but part of it is that he hasn’t gotten a haircut, either. The problem is that, for most people with curly hair (and I am one of them, so I know this well), a medium-length cut doesn’t work. Curly hair looks cute when it’s kept really short, and it can be very dramatic when it’s long. But, as everyone who’s tried to grow out a cap of curls knows, there’s a bit in the middle where it’s awkward, overwhelming your face, and incapable of looking anything but horrifically scruffy. Sherlock is at that stage. He’s not curly enough to be sporting the serious Jewfro that I had in junior high school, which is good, but he has let his bangs grow out enough that they give the awkward illusion of a receding hairline where there really isn’t one.
Dear Moffat and Gatiss: For Yule, please give Sherlock a haircut!
John kills some time establishing time of death with Lestrade while Sherlock examines the body and looks up a few facts on his phone. The immediate conclusion that he draws is that the “lost Vermeer,” which has been advertised throughout the episode, is a fake. Hold on, says Lestrade, back up, where did you get that? Sherlock doesn’t have time for this and babbles about the painting’s £30 million value and asks if anyone has ever heard of the Golem.
John, showing a fair bit of education for a goy, gets as far as “horror story,” and Sherlock gets it a little closer with “Jewish folk story about a gigantic man made of clay.” It’s more than that, but enough for now. Apparently, the particular Golem in question is a famous Czech assassin-for-hire who likes to do in his victims personally, by strangling them. That’s quite the VIP service, especially since this guy is so world-famous and still not caught and in prison.
Sherlock is once again annoyed at the relative slowness of the rest of the world and starts to bitch, and ex-Army John breaks up the fight with a quick “All right, all right, girls, calm down,” which is a cute little touch, since it’s absolutely a trick he would have picked up in the service. The trick works, and Sherlock calms down, stops bickering, and lays out his observations. The corpse is a security guard who worked a night shift at a museum or gallery. It just so happens that the Hickman Gallery has reported one of their security guards missing, and it’s probably this guy. There must have been a good reason for someone to spend good money and time hiring an A-list celebrity assassin to take him out, and £30 million worth of forged Vermeer seems like a good bet. What do we think about that, eh?
John: Fantastic!
Sherlock: Meretricious!
Lestrade: And a Happy New Year!
Audience: Ba-dum-tssshhh! (Facepalm)
Sherlock takes off to chase the Golem, with John right behind, pausing only for a quick patented Martin Freeman Exasperated Expression. As well he might; we’re getting yet another cab ride here. Sherlock is antsy, grabbing at the oh shit bar, changing their destination, and scribbling something in a little notebook.
The cab pauses, and Sherlock hops out and heads to a random bench under an overpass. Seated on the bench is the cleanest, tidiest young homeless lady you’ll ever see. She spare-changes Sherlock, and he gives her his note, wrapped up in whatever British currency denomination is sort of salmon pink, possibly a fifty, but Cumberbatch mumbles that line a bit. Whatever it is, it’s a sizeable enough sum to make her smile. What’s Sherlock doing? “Investing.” He has the cab drop him off at the gallery, and sends John on to check into the background of the late, marginally lamented gallery attendant.
John meets the dead man’s roomie, a sweet lady who’s pretty distressed over the whole thing. Being the personable doctor that he is, he reveals that the dead man was a hobby astronomer, and that he received a call from a professor shortly before he died. The roomie shuffles away, and John receives a text from Mycroft, nagging him about the Andrew West case again.
We will leave them on this melancholy note. But tune in next time for a thrilling conclusion mixed with some truly epic fail!