Sherlock 3x03, His Last Vow -- episode review
Finally, this is my "His Last Vow" review, full of swearing and spoilers. Anyone is welcome to debate it, because if I missed something I want to know and I want to understand what the fuck was going on in this episode.
So I said that His Last Vow reminded me of Doctor Who's recent writing (or shall I say, "trainwreck"). Tumblr user claudiaboleyn describes pretty well the kind of frustration that is spawned from Moffat's fuckery on Doctor Who and I wanted to share it with you:
"Steven Moffat’s idea of an exciting teaser/plot goes rather like the following scenario:
It’s Easter and many excitable children are led into a massive beautiful garden decorated with Easter-y things like gorgeous little fluffy chicks and rabbits. Moffat announces that there is to be an Easter egg hunt, and that the children ought to start looking now, because every chocolate egg is hidden somewhere in plain sight! So the children rush off in every direction and search the garden.
Two hours later they return looking a little disheartened and say they haven’t found any yet, to which Moffat cackles and declares they’re all ‘idiots’, they haven’t been looking hard enough, and should look again.
They do so, and find nothing. It starts to rain and after four hours the game is no longer enjoyable. In fact, they’ve quite lost their taste for chocolate.
They return to him once again, damp and tired and without any chocolate to their name.
To which Moffat announces the eggs were never in the garden to begin with! They were all in the house, and also weren’t actually eggs, they were chocolate coins! Also the door to the house was locked so the children couldn’t have got in anyway, and looking in the garden when they were obviously in the house made them all fools!
He pats himself on the back, laughing, and trots inside to eat all the chocolate coins while the children cry in the garden and get rained on for the remainder of the day."
http://claudiaboleyn.tumblr.com/post/68059820354/the-day-of-the-doctor-review-critique-by-claudia-boleyn
That's kind of like what The Empty Hearse felt for me, and I hope next season of Sherlock (what with the big reveal at the end of the episode and all) won't turn out to be more of the same shit. I'm tired of it, TBH.
berylia summed it up more succinctly when we watched the episode together:
"Moffat is Magnussen, he keeps flicking us in the face and we all have to endure it for the good of Sherlock."
So anyway, on to His Last Vow; the good, the bad and the ugly in bullet points:
The good stuff:
-I ship Wiggins/Molly, I think they would be super awesome together
-Literally the only thing that made this episode worth watching was Moriarty. Everything that had to do with Moriarty, those were the best bits (yeah I loved that scene where Sherlock gets shot and tries to escape death. I'm still not convinced that Mary *had* to shoot him, but, whatever). TBH and as stupid as it might turn out, yes I missed Andrew Scott's Moriarty and yes I'm glad to have him back. If it's true. If it turns out to be another "clever" Moffatian mindfuck, screw it, I'm out. I'm tired of being strung along and disappointing pay-offs that don't make any sense. I don't care about Moffat's mind-palace and the awesome could-have-been stories he has in there, I just want something tangible, some good story to sink my teeth into. Is that too much to ask? I do think Moriarty's death came way too early, and I did want to have seen more of him before his last bow (see what I did there?). But I don't want Moffat to turn Moriarty into his own private little Dalek that he can bring back willy-nilly when things get too dull and they realise they have no stakes and their story is shit. Ah, man, I don't know. I just want him back, I don't care, I just want to FEEL something again, be excited for my favourite show again. I love Moriarty and his time with us was way too short.
-Ah and we've had a Mystrade scene FINALLY!!!!!
This is what I wrote about it on tumblr:
No but guys listen
-Lestrade was on the phone with Mycroft so he has his number - also he phoned him right away
-Lestrade was in Mycroft’s SUPER SIKRIT OFFICE the one where the only other people we saw there were Sherlock and Anthea (and I guess it has to be a super protected place since Mycroft brought Sherlock fresh from Serbia and still dead to the world in it). Remember he has another office that doesn’t look like this one where he received John in The Great Game (we can assume that other office is the “official” one, the “minor position in the British government” one). SO Lestrade is ALONE is Mycroft’s SUPER SIKRIT OFFICE, he knows where it is and Mycroft trusts him and feels comfortable enough to have Greg in it and probably have Greg bent over the desk as he fucks him too
Basically what I’m saying is
GOLDFISH
The bad and/or utterly baffling stuff:
-uuuuugggghhhhh did we REALLY have to do the whole River Song thing with Mary again? Mary could have been cool and badass and awesome without being a super secret agent with super awesome marksman skills; Magnussen could still have something to hold over her and she could have killed him herself in the end. Like, Mary could have grown up on the streets or could have been a runaway teen and done some shady things to survive. I mean she could have been a simple HUMAN BEING. But then we wouldn't have had the "you're only attracted to psychopaths John" line with Moffat AGAIN throwing the word around without fully understanding its meaning.
-So, about the plot and Magnussen: dude, no. I don't buy that a guy who has everything in his head can actually blackmail anyone. It's super dumb. And flicking John in the face in answer to his "I really don't understand" doesn't actually answer anything, it's a diversion not a logical explanation. If you go up to someone and say "hey this woman killed someone you loved look it's all in my head" that person can and will call you a liar if you don't have proof to show them. Like... idk it's so fucking dumb that I can't even wrap my head around how someone would think this is a logical and acceptable plot twist that would work in a universe that is similar to ours.
Plus Magnussen does have tangible proof he fucking SHOWED Lord Smallwood's letters to Sherlock so why all the mind palace bullshit?
Finally -- okay, you have everything in your head, that's great, man, good for you. How about I KILL U? Problem goes away. As Sherlock so helpfully demonstrated. But, er. Why hasn't this happened before? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before Sherlock? It seems the most logical solution to anyone's problems with Magnussen. And just how rubbish is Mycroft's secret service if they can't bring down an individual who holds sensitive secrets that threatens the well-being of the state and just lock him away in a cell? (You know, kinda like what happened... WITH MORIARTY????) It's not like the guy has a loving family that will worry about him... Like, okay, maybe Mycroft didn't know CAM had it all in his head (again, so stupid... so stupid...) so once Sherlock learns it, there's absolutely no reason for Sherlock to do the dirty work himself. Just fucking send Anthea to kill the guy in his sleep, or better yet, send Mary after she's delivered the baby; find a baby-sitter, let Mary put a bullet in the idiot and she'll be right back in time to breast-feed little Shezza. Or just send a team of men in black, whatever, my point is: WHY all the drama queen with the helicopter and the gun and shit? It's not like there were journalists all around you -- it's just Mycroft and his minions. What the fuck is wrong with you? I kept shouting "what the fuck? What the fuck?" as I was watching that scene, and then Sherlock has to go in exile because... Because Mycroft can't tell his own men to shut up and then bury the story? There was nothing emotional behind the exile thing because it didn't have to happen. There was no danger, no dilemma, no NEED for all that.
Look, Mycroft can threaten complete peasants of planting evidence in their computers in order to get them to keep chtum:
http://ibelieveinmycroft.tumblr.com/post/73147313240/bamf-finally-i-always-knew-he-had-it-in-him
IN THE SAME FUCKING EPISODE. This isn't Doctor Who, you can't claim that continuity is difficult when there's 50 years of canon behind you! This is just ONE episode, why can't you do continuity right in the span of an hour and a half??
But let's pretend Mycroft cannot spirit Magnussen away just like that because "democracy" or Magnussen is too important as a media tycoon or some shit... well I believe Mycroft can forge any fucking excuse under the sun (he's MYCROFT, he's supposed to be CLEVERER than Sherlock) and then plant evidence on the guy if he gets too annoying, why couldn't he? It's not like he's the most ethical character ever, he filled a whole plane with dead people for the good of England once for fuck's sake!
And he totally CAN spirit someone away just like that, even someone important, he did it to FUCKING MORIARTY like, Moriarty is a criminal, maybe juste maybe you actually risk MORE abducting and arbitrarily imprisoning a guy like that, especially with Moriarty's web that's supposed to be so dangerous that Sherlock has to take it down himself. Magnussen doesn't have a web like that, only people who hate his guts and would be very glad indeed to see him locked away somewhere.
OR here's how the scene could have unfolded:
MAGNUSSEN: So basically there's nothing tangible everything's in my head and I can blackmail anyone, muahahahahaaaa
SHERLOCK: Cool story bro, except now I can blackmail you right back.
MAGNUSSEN: Hell's bells and buckets of blood! How so?
SHERLOCK: I suppose people didn't take action against you because they didn't know that everything you have against them was only in your "mind palace"... But what would they do if they knew? If I told them, I'd just have to sit back and see who murders you first, fucknuts, I wouldn't even have to touch a gun. You see, THIS IS WHY BLACKMAILERS ACTUALLY NEED REAL MATERIAL TO BLACKMAIL WITH. Now get the fuck out of my face.
And finally:
-Mrs Hudson's only "pressure point" is marijuana? BITCH SHE RAN A DRUG CARTEL DO YOUR RESEARCH
You know what? After all is said and done, I love hiatus. I love this fandom, I love its theories, I love its crack, I love its art, manips, vids, meta, fanfictions that are so much better than the original material. Yes there are crazy annoying people in it but those people would be crazy and annoying with or without the show, whereas what the fans express as love (and not hate) in this fandom is unique and beautiful and to me shines better and brighter than anything else in the world.
And now I can say I probably enjoy the hiatus between each season more than I enjoy the show.
I love you, Sherlock fandom, and this is all that matters in the end.
P.S.: and you, Mystrade shippers, are the most ADORABLE shippers this side of the galaxy
So I said that His Last Vow reminded me of Doctor Who's recent writing (or shall I say, "trainwreck"). Tumblr user claudiaboleyn describes pretty well the kind of frustration that is spawned from Moffat's fuckery on Doctor Who and I wanted to share it with you:
"Steven Moffat’s idea of an exciting teaser/plot goes rather like the following scenario:
It’s Easter and many excitable children are led into a massive beautiful garden decorated with Easter-y things like gorgeous little fluffy chicks and rabbits. Moffat announces that there is to be an Easter egg hunt, and that the children ought to start looking now, because every chocolate egg is hidden somewhere in plain sight! So the children rush off in every direction and search the garden.
Two hours later they return looking a little disheartened and say they haven’t found any yet, to which Moffat cackles and declares they’re all ‘idiots’, they haven’t been looking hard enough, and should look again.
They do so, and find nothing. It starts to rain and after four hours the game is no longer enjoyable. In fact, they’ve quite lost their taste for chocolate.
They return to him once again, damp and tired and without any chocolate to their name.
To which Moffat announces the eggs were never in the garden to begin with! They were all in the house, and also weren’t actually eggs, they were chocolate coins! Also the door to the house was locked so the children couldn’t have got in anyway, and looking in the garden when they were obviously in the house made them all fools!
He pats himself on the back, laughing, and trots inside to eat all the chocolate coins while the children cry in the garden and get rained on for the remainder of the day."
http://claudiaboleyn.tumblr.com/post/68059820354/the-day-of-the-doctor-review-critique-by-claudia-boleyn
That's kind of like what The Empty Hearse felt for me, and I hope next season of Sherlock (what with the big reveal at the end of the episode and all) won't turn out to be more of the same shit. I'm tired of it, TBH.
berylia summed it up more succinctly when we watched the episode together:
"Moffat is Magnussen, he keeps flicking us in the face and we all have to endure it for the good of Sherlock."
So anyway, on to His Last Vow; the good, the bad and the ugly in bullet points:
The good stuff:
-I ship Wiggins/Molly, I think they would be super awesome together
-Literally the only thing that made this episode worth watching was Moriarty. Everything that had to do with Moriarty, those were the best bits (yeah I loved that scene where Sherlock gets shot and tries to escape death. I'm still not convinced that Mary *had* to shoot him, but, whatever). TBH and as stupid as it might turn out, yes I missed Andrew Scott's Moriarty and yes I'm glad to have him back. If it's true. If it turns out to be another "clever" Moffatian mindfuck, screw it, I'm out. I'm tired of being strung along and disappointing pay-offs that don't make any sense. I don't care about Moffat's mind-palace and the awesome could-have-been stories he has in there, I just want something tangible, some good story to sink my teeth into. Is that too much to ask? I do think Moriarty's death came way too early, and I did want to have seen more of him before his last bow (see what I did there?). But I don't want Moffat to turn Moriarty into his own private little Dalek that he can bring back willy-nilly when things get too dull and they realise they have no stakes and their story is shit. Ah, man, I don't know. I just want him back, I don't care, I just want to FEEL something again, be excited for my favourite show again. I love Moriarty and his time with us was way too short.
-Ah and we've had a Mystrade scene FINALLY!!!!!
This is what I wrote about it on tumblr:
No but guys listen
-Lestrade was on the phone with Mycroft so he has his number - also he phoned him right away
-Lestrade was in Mycroft’s SUPER SIKRIT OFFICE the one where the only other people we saw there were Sherlock and Anthea (and I guess it has to be a super protected place since Mycroft brought Sherlock fresh from Serbia and still dead to the world in it). Remember he has another office that doesn’t look like this one where he received John in The Great Game (we can assume that other office is the “official” one, the “minor position in the British government” one). SO Lestrade is ALONE is Mycroft’s SUPER SIKRIT OFFICE, he knows where it is and Mycroft trusts him and feels comfortable enough to have Greg in it and probably have Greg bent over the desk as he fucks him too
Basically what I’m saying is
GOLDFISH
The bad and/or utterly baffling stuff:
-uuuuugggghhhhh did we REALLY have to do the whole River Song thing with Mary again? Mary could have been cool and badass and awesome without being a super secret agent with super awesome marksman skills; Magnussen could still have something to hold over her and she could have killed him herself in the end. Like, Mary could have grown up on the streets or could have been a runaway teen and done some shady things to survive. I mean she could have been a simple HUMAN BEING. But then we wouldn't have had the "you're only attracted to psychopaths John" line with Moffat AGAIN throwing the word around without fully understanding its meaning.
-So, about the plot and Magnussen: dude, no. I don't buy that a guy who has everything in his head can actually blackmail anyone. It's super dumb. And flicking John in the face in answer to his "I really don't understand" doesn't actually answer anything, it's a diversion not a logical explanation. If you go up to someone and say "hey this woman killed someone you loved look it's all in my head" that person can and will call you a liar if you don't have proof to show them. Like... idk it's so fucking dumb that I can't even wrap my head around how someone would think this is a logical and acceptable plot twist that would work in a universe that is similar to ours.
Plus Magnussen does have tangible proof he fucking SHOWED Lord Smallwood's letters to Sherlock so why all the mind palace bullshit?
Finally -- okay, you have everything in your head, that's great, man, good for you. How about I KILL U? Problem goes away. As Sherlock so helpfully demonstrated. But, er. Why hasn't this happened before? Why hasn't anyone thought of that before Sherlock? It seems the most logical solution to anyone's problems with Magnussen. And just how rubbish is Mycroft's secret service if they can't bring down an individual who holds sensitive secrets that threatens the well-being of the state and just lock him away in a cell? (You know, kinda like what happened... WITH MORIARTY????) It's not like the guy has a loving family that will worry about him... Like, okay, maybe Mycroft didn't know CAM had it all in his head (again, so stupid... so stupid...) so once Sherlock learns it, there's absolutely no reason for Sherlock to do the dirty work himself. Just fucking send Anthea to kill the guy in his sleep, or better yet, send Mary after she's delivered the baby; find a baby-sitter, let Mary put a bullet in the idiot and she'll be right back in time to breast-feed little Shezza. Or just send a team of men in black, whatever, my point is: WHY all the drama queen with the helicopter and the gun and shit? It's not like there were journalists all around you -- it's just Mycroft and his minions. What the fuck is wrong with you? I kept shouting "what the fuck? What the fuck?" as I was watching that scene, and then Sherlock has to go in exile because... Because Mycroft can't tell his own men to shut up and then bury the story? There was nothing emotional behind the exile thing because it didn't have to happen. There was no danger, no dilemma, no NEED for all that.
Look, Mycroft can threaten complete peasants of planting evidence in their computers in order to get them to keep chtum:
http://ibelieveinmycroft.tumblr.com/post/73147313240/bamf-finally-i-always-knew-he-had-it-in-him
IN THE SAME FUCKING EPISODE. This isn't Doctor Who, you can't claim that continuity is difficult when there's 50 years of canon behind you! This is just ONE episode, why can't you do continuity right in the span of an hour and a half??
But let's pretend Mycroft cannot spirit Magnussen away just like that because "democracy" or Magnussen is too important as a media tycoon or some shit... well I believe Mycroft can forge any fucking excuse under the sun (he's MYCROFT, he's supposed to be CLEVERER than Sherlock) and then plant evidence on the guy if he gets too annoying, why couldn't he? It's not like he's the most ethical character ever, he filled a whole plane with dead people for the good of England once for fuck's sake!
And he totally CAN spirit someone away just like that, even someone important, he did it to FUCKING MORIARTY like, Moriarty is a criminal, maybe juste maybe you actually risk MORE abducting and arbitrarily imprisoning a guy like that, especially with Moriarty's web that's supposed to be so dangerous that Sherlock has to take it down himself. Magnussen doesn't have a web like that, only people who hate his guts and would be very glad indeed to see him locked away somewhere.
OR here's how the scene could have unfolded:
MAGNUSSEN: So basically there's nothing tangible everything's in my head and I can blackmail anyone, muahahahahaaaa
SHERLOCK: Cool story bro, except now I can blackmail you right back.
MAGNUSSEN: Hell's bells and buckets of blood! How so?
SHERLOCK: I suppose people didn't take action against you because they didn't know that everything you have against them was only in your "mind palace"... But what would they do if they knew? If I told them, I'd just have to sit back and see who murders you first, fucknuts, I wouldn't even have to touch a gun. You see, THIS IS WHY BLACKMAILERS ACTUALLY NEED REAL MATERIAL TO BLACKMAIL WITH. Now get the fuck out of my face.
And finally:
-Mrs Hudson's only "pressure point" is marijuana? BITCH SHE RAN A DRUG CARTEL DO YOUR RESEARCH
You know what? After all is said and done, I love hiatus. I love this fandom, I love its theories, I love its crack, I love its art, manips, vids, meta, fanfictions that are so much better than the original material. Yes there are crazy annoying people in it but those people would be crazy and annoying with or without the show, whereas what the fans express as love (and not hate) in this fandom is unique and beautiful and to me shines better and brighter than anything else in the world.
And now I can say I probably enjoy the hiatus between each season more than I enjoy the show.
I love you, Sherlock fandom, and this is all that matters in the end.
P.S.: and you, Mystrade shippers, are the most ADORABLE shippers this side of the galaxy