"Sherlock, episode 1x03: The Great Game" Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves, Mark Gattis, Una Stubbs, Louise Brealey, Andrew Scott Minsk, Belarus, says the chyron before the episode even starts. We’re in a prison visiting room that is empty except for two people: Sherlock and some guy in prison orange. Sherlock prompts the prisoner to tell him what happened from the beginning. The guy tells a story about going to a bar and chatting up one of the waitresses, which made “Karen” unhappy so when they got back to the hotel they ended up having “a bit of a ding dong”. Chrissy: Well, she did anyway. Diandra: Though if he did and she didn’t she was probably REALLY unhappy. Sherlock sighs loudly. Chrissy: Don’t mind him. It’s been a while since he’s had one of those and he doesn’t like being reminded of it. Apparently it’s winter because their breath is making big clouds in front of their faces. The prisoner says Karen was always accusing him of not being a “real man”. Except he’s speaking with a low class British accent, complete with terrible grammar, which Sherlock interrupts here to correct. Yes, condescend to a guy who probably murdered someone. That’s a great idea. Prisoner says he’s not sure how the knife suddenly appeared in his hands and, you know, since his father was a butcher he knows exactly how to handle sharp, pointy instruments because his father “learned” him. “Taught,” Sherlock corrects. Prisoner clenches his jaw a bit and says yeah, well, that’s when he “done” it. “Did,” says Sherlock, bored. Chrissy: I see nearly getting killed approximately half a dozen times so far has taught him nothing. The prisoner, now sufficiently riled, shouts that he DID IT. He OJ Simpsoned her! “And I looked down and she weren’t...” Sherlock sighs and the prisoner grits his teeth and corrects “wasn’t...moving no more.” Sherlock looks at him like ‘are you fucking kidding?’ and he corrects again: “any more”. Chrissy: This is part of his rehabilitation program. If he can improve his grammar while resisting the urge to smash Sherlock’s head into the table repeatedly, he might just be ready to re-enter society. Diandra: Although if being able to resist the urge to smack Sherlock is a requirement for being in civilized society, I think there’s probably a LOT of people who wouldn’t qualify. Anyway, the upshot is that the guy swears he honestly doesn’t know how it happened. Sherlock gets up and starts to walk away. Prisoner begs him to help because everybody says he’s the best and if he doesn’t help “I’ll get hung for this.” Sherlock says no he won’t. He’ll be hanged. Then he smirks and walks away, hopefully past some security guards hanging around by the doors in case the prisoner got violent because Jesus, he’s a walking liability. We come back from the credits with the sound of gunshots. Sherlock, dressed in pajamas and a robe, is slumped in his chair in 221b, staring at the ceiling. There’s a sound of a door slamming in the distance and he sighs, raises his left hand and fires four more bullets into the yellow smiley face painted on the wall over the couch. John runs up the stairs and demands to know just what the HELL he thinks he’s doing. “Bored,” Sherlock moans, standing up and firing a couple more shots – one from behind his back – before shoving the gun into John’s hands and grumbling about criminals these days. John pops the magazine from the gun and puts the pieces on the desk before concluding that Sherlock has decided to take his frustrations out on their wall. “The wall had it coming,” Sherlock mutters, flopping onto the couch. John asks what happened with that Russian case. Sherlock says well it was Belarus, actually, and it was an open and shut domestic homicide that he concluded was not worth his time. John gives a sarcastic “oh, shame” and heads for the kitchen, stopping to look at all the crap piled on the table and making a silent gesture like ‘one of these days I’m going to strangle him’. He asks if they have anything to eat because he’s “starving”. Then he opens the refrigerator door and we get a glimpse of a human head staring back at him before he slams it shut and groans. He screws up the courage to open the door again and take another, longer look at it to confirm that he did, in fact, see it and closes the door again, shouting that there’s a “severed head”. “Just tea for me, thanks,” Sherlock calls back. John says no, see, there’s a SEVERED HEAD in their REFRIGERATOR. Sherlock asks where else he was supposed to put it and adds, as an afterthought, “you don’t mind, do you?” John splutters and massages his temples as Sherlock explains that it came from St. Bart’s and he’s measuring the coagulation of saliva after death. Chrissy: Well, as long as there’s a good reason. At least I can be reassured you didn’t go out and murder some hobo for your little experiment. As a bonus? I am no longer hungry. Sherlock says he noticed John wrote up the taxi driver case on his blog. “A Study in Pink. Nice.” John defensively points out that there was an awful lot of pink involved with that victim because she was ridiculous. He asks if Sherlock liked it. “Uh...no.” John asks why not: “I thought you’d be flattered.” Sherlock, channeling his inner diva... Chrissy: Inner? ...says oh, really? “Sherlock sees through everything and everyone in seconds,” he quotes. “What’s incredible though is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things.” And we have the theme of today’s episode: domestic squabbling. Chrissy: Oh, come on, baby! You know I didn’t mean it like that. Diandra: Oh, are we still doing the role play thing? Okay. [clears throat] Oh, so you meant ignorant in the sense of “stupid but adorable”. Chrissy: Well... Diandra: Oh, that hurts. That really hurts. Chrissy: What? You call me stupid all the time. Diandra: Yeah, to your face. Not behind your back to EVERYONE. Chrissy: Whatever. You know you can’t stay mad at me. Diandra: Oh, really? Here, let me get up off this couch because you’re going to be SLEEPING ON IT FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE. Ahem. Sherlock says it doesn’t MATTER to him who the Prime Minister is or which celebrity is sleeping with which. “Whether the Earth goes around the Sun,” John adds. “Not that again,” Sherlock groans. “It’s not important!” This is taken from the books and, while it was somewhat excusable in Victorian times when Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it, it comes across as completely baffling now because, as John points out, you learn this shit in primary school, which in modern days is no longer optional in Western societies. Also, satellites, space stations and the fact that we have put men on the moon kind of makes the basics of the way the solar system is arranged common knowledge for all but the most dense of religious fundamentalists. Sherlock, grinding his palms into his forehead, mutters that even if he did know this at one point, he “deleted it”. Because his brain is a hard drive and he only stores stuff in there that is USEFUL and not the bullshit most people store like names and birthdays and how the world works in general. He says this makes it easier to access information. John bites his lips, decides he can’t just let this one go and blurts “but it’s the SOLAR SYSTEM.” Sherlock yells that it doesn’t MATTER if the Earth goes around the Sun, the Moon or “round and round the garden like a teddy bear” because it makes no difference. Okay, A) yes, it would make a big difference actually and B)...what does that last one even mean? He says all that matters to him is “the work” and his brain would atrophy without it. “Put that in your blog. Or better yet, stop inflicting your opinions on the world!” Rant over, he turns his back on John and curls into a ball facing the back of the couch like the petulant child he is channeling. Chrissy: Somebody is asking for a spanking. Diandra: Why is that your answer to everything? Chrissy: Because it’s fun? John clenches his jaw, sighs, and heads for the door. Sherlock twists around and demands to know where he’s going. John growls that he needs to get some air and brushes past Mrs. Hudson, who is just coming back from the store with a single bag of groceries. Sherlock faces the wall again and pouts. Mrs. Hudson enters the room and innocently asks if they’re having a “bit of a domestic”. Chrissy: Yes. Diandra: He started it. Sherlock climbs over the coffee table and peeks through one of the windows to watch John storm off while Mrs. Hudson continues to cluck about how it’s “nippy” out there and John should have worn something a bit warmer. Sherlock stares out the window for a minute silently, then says “look at that, Mrs. Hudson.” Before we can guess that he’s going to say something like ‘I hate letting him go, but I love watching him leave’ he looks around the street and says “quiet. Calm. Peaceful. Isn’t it HATEFUL?” Mrs. Hudson, who obviously knows him frighteningly well, assures him that he’ll get a nice murder case soon to cheer him up. She finishes putting things away in the kitchen – not the fridge, obviously – and goes to leave, hesitating when she notices the damage over the couch. “What have you done to my bloody wall?! I’m putting this on your rent, young man!” She leaves and he smiles stupidly at the wall for a couple beats. And then there’s an explosion outside and the windows blast inward and he is knocked to the floor. The next morning, John is sitting on the couch in what is either a really nice hotel room or Sarah’s flat. She comes around the corner in a bathrobe and says good morning. He turns to look at her and immediately winces and rubs at his neck. She notes this and says she TOLD him he should have “gone with the Lilo”. He says no, he’s fine, and thanks her for letting him crash here. She says yeah, well, next time maybe she’ll let him sleep on the end of her bed. “What about the time after that,” he asks. She smirks, turns on the TV to the morning news and asks if he wants breakfast. He says yeah, sure. She says okay, well he can make it himself then because she’s going to go take a shower. Yeah, I still like her. She saunters off just as the news story switches from a piece about a lost Vermeer painting to a report about a building exploding on Baker Street. John goggles for a second, then leaps up and grabs his coat, shouting that he has to leave. Chrissy: He was only gone for, like, two minutes before it happened. How could he POSSIBLY have been far enough away to not hear that? Diandra: Plot convenience. Baker Street. John runs past all the emergency vehicles and personnel, gapes at the hole blown in the building across the street and runs through the scuffed door to 221b. Upon locating Sherlock, he throws his arms around him, babbling apologies and vowing, between frantic kisses, never to leave like that again because he nearly LOST him and he doesn’t know how he could have lived with himself if that had been their last conversation. Chrissy: Congratulations, you got a whole three hours into this series before going off into fan fiction. Diandra: Oh, I doubt it. You probably just weren’t paying attention when I did it before. Chrissy: Sorry, did you say something just now? Diandra: Haha. Cute. No, actually he just finds Sherlock sitting in his chair plucking randomly at his violin, staring sullenly at Mycroft, who is occupying John’s usual chair. John gasps that he saw it on the news and asks if Sherlock is okay. Sherlock is like ‘what? Why wouldn’t I be? Why are you looking so upset?’ He glances at the blown windows and says oh, yeah. Apparently there was a gas leak. Then he turns back to Mycroft and says he can’t help him because he’s just got too much going right now. He doesn’t have time to spare. Mycroft says this is of NATIONAL importance. Sherlock non-sequiters to ask how his diet is working for him. Mycroft sighs and turns to John. “Perhaps you can get through to him? I’m afraid my brother can be very intransigent.” Chrissy: Pfft. There’s an understatement. He’s barely housebroken. Sherlock asks why Mycroft doesn’t just do it himself. Mycroft says he can’t possibly be away from the office for long right now, what with the Korean elections and stuff they don’t have clearance to know about and besides, it would involve “legwork”. The violin emits a screeching note and Sherlock asks John how Sarah is doing and how the “Lilo” was. Mycroft corrects that it was the sofa, actually. Sherlock looks at John and mutters “oh, yes, of course.” John starts to ask how the HELL they know all of this and cuts himself immediately with a “never mind” and drops onto the couch. Mycroft tells John that Sherlock’s “business” seems to be doing quite well since he and John became “pals”. He puts a highly suggestive stress on that last word and then asks John what it’s like living with him. Chrissy: Well, he’s always critiquing my performance, but otherwise...oh, you said LIVING with? Sorry. John says he’s never bored. Grossed out and annoyed maybe, but not bored. Mycroft gives him a big syrupy grin and says that’s good. He stands and tries to hand Sherlock a folder, but Sherlock just stares at him like ‘fuck you’. He sighs and gives it to John instead. The case involves a civil servant named Andrew West, or “Westie”. He was found on the train tracks in Battersea with his head bashed in. John theorizes that he jumped in front of a train. Mycroft says that’s the logical assumption. “But,” John prompts when he doesn’t elaborate at all. He points out that Mycroft wouldn’t be here if it was a simple accident. Mycroft says the ministry of defense is working on a new missile system called the Bruce-Partington program and the plans for it were on a memory stick that is now missing. John notes that it doesn’t seem smart to put something so top secret on a flash drive and Mycroft snits that it’s not the ONLY copy, but they think “Westie” took this one. They need to recover it before it falls into “the wrong hands”. “Don’t make me order you,” he threatens Sherlock. Sherlock jams the violin under his chin, snots “I’d like to see you try” and plays a series of screeching notes in a frantic, sliding scale as Mycroft says goodbye and leaves. Once Mycroft is out of sight, John asks why Sherlock lied just then. He reminds him that he was SO BORED because he has no cases whatsoever that he was shooting at the wall, so why is he telling his brother he’s too busy to help him? “Why shouldn’t I,” Sherlock asks sulkily. John’s like ‘ah, so it’s just the usual sibling rivalry bullshit then. Lovely.’ Well, yes. You do remember Mycroft saying Sherlock would call him his arch enemy, right? Sherlock’s phone rings and he fishes it out to answer, his face lighting up immediately upon hearing whatever the person on the other side is saying. He says yes, absolutely, he’ll be there, then hangs up, dumps the violin on his chair and tells John that Lestrade is summoning him. “Coming?” John blinks and says “uh...if you want me to.” Sherlock says of course he does: “I’d be lost without my blogger.” Well, yes, but you have funny ways of expressing it. Diandra: That’s because I swear sometimes you deliberately set out to annoy me. Chrissy: Wait...are you doing your OWN call and response now? What do you need me here for? Diandra: Because I love you and I’d be lost without you? Chrissy: I know we’ve turned your resemblance to Sherlock into a sort of a running gag, but really. Sometimes it scares me. At the station, Lestrade is pointing out how Sherlock always seems to especially appreciate the weird cases so he should love this. The explosion across the street from their place wasn’t actually a gas leak, it was just made to look like one. The only thing left in the place was a strongbox containing an envelope addressed to Sherlock. Lestrade says they x-rayed it to make sure it wasn’t booby trapped or something. “How reassuring,” Sherlock says sarcastically. He holds the envelope under the light and declares it to be nice “Bohemian” stationary. Lestrade doesn’t know what that means. Apparently he can tell it came from the Czec Republic. He verifies that there were no fingerprints on it, then turns to the ink, which he says came from a particular kind of fountain pen. Also, he refers to the sender as a “she”. John repeats this part and Sherlock just says “obviously” with no further explanation. Sherlock opens the envelope and pulls out an iPhone with a pink case. John blurts that it’s the phone from their first case. “What, A Study in Pink,” Lestrade asks. Because it takes a few seconds for this to sink into Sherlock’s brain, his next statement comes out like this: “obviously it’s not the SAME phone, but it’s supposed to look like – A Study in Pink? You read his blog?!” Lestrade says yeah, they all do. And seriously, dude, how can you NOT know that the Earth goes around the Sun? Donovan, who has just entered, barely stifles a giggle and John tries not to look at anyone. Sherlock re- focuses and grumbles that it isn’t the same phone because this one is new. He says the fact that someone has gone to the trouble of making it look like the one in that case means John’s blog has wider readership than they realize. He says the word “blog” like it’s some other four letter word he’s hurling in John’s direction and John still pointedly doesn’t look at him. Sherlock somehow instantly opens the voicemail on the phone and an electronic voice announces that there is one unheard message. Five beeps follow, which John identifies as five “pips”. Hmm...might be a good name for your next blog entry. The message comes with an attachment: a picture of a room that looks to have been abandoned at least two decades ago. It’s empty except for a fireplace and a very stained, half peeled ironing board. Lestrade looks over his shoulder and asks what the hell they’re supposed to do with THAT. “An estate agent’s photo and the bloody Greenwich pips.” Chrissy: The Agent and the Pips? Diandra: Not everything has to be the name of a rock band, Chris. Sherlock concludes that it is a warning and explains that some secret societies would send things like dried melon seeds or, you know, orange pips. Like the Ku Klux Klan maybe? You know, I’ve been reading the original Doyle stories for the past year and this was one I came across recently that I really liked. Maybe because it was tied to a part of history I know a fair amount about. I have a hard time believing though – as Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffat seem to – that this sort of thing doesn’t still happen. How many mafias are there in the world? Also, judging by the commentary on this episode, Mark seems to be under the impression that the Klan no longer exists. I envy his innocence. Chrissy: I assume there’s a point to this rambling? Diandra: Oh, shut up. Sherlock says it’s a warning that this is going to happen again. Also, he’s seen this room before somewhere. John chases after him as he goes to leave, asking what, exactly, is going to happen again. Sherlock, ever the master of eloquence, makes an explosion hand gesture and says “BOOM”. Lestrade follows them all the way back to their flat and, once inside, Sherlock stops in front of a locked door marked 221c and calls for Mrs. Hudson. She fetches the key, muttering something about how he just HAD to look in there when he first came to see about the flat. Chrissy: Well, I know you seem to be a sweet old lady and everything, but you expect people to NOT question what you might be keeping in the creepy room under the stairs? There could be bodies in there. Diandra: Or wizards. Sherlock says the door has been opened recently. Mrs. Hudson says it can’t have been because that’s the only key. She bemoans that she can’t seem to get anyone interested in renting this flat, which she’s sure is because it’s in the basement and therefore damp. Chrissy: Well, it could also be the ghost of that guy she killed who hovers in the corners vowing to get revenge one day. Diandra: Oh, that’s just her husband. He’s still bitter about the Florida thing. She starts describing the place where she lived years ago that had black mold climbing the walls, but once Sherlock gets the door open he just walks away from her, not listening. This would be typical of him, but John and Lestrade follow suit, slamming the door behind them. Well. Fine then. See if she remembers any of you ungrateful jerks in her will. 221c. The boys enter the room from the picture, which actually doesn’t look as hideously dilapidated as it did in the picture. Also, there’s a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor, which wasn’t in the picture. Sherlock heads toward them, but John stops him by reminding everyone that they’re dealing with a bomber. Sherlock hesitates, then gets on his hands and knees beside it and slowly creeps closer. And then a phone rings. Sherlock startles, then gets up and pulls the pink phone from his pocket, which has that retro, old phone ring on it. The number is blocked. He answers it, waits a few seconds and mumbles a quiet “hello?” The sound of a woman breathing heavily spills from the speakers. “Hello...sexy,” she says. Chrissy: Benedict, I thought you were going to stop carrying your personal phone on set! Diandra: Or at least tell your girlfriend to stop calling you at work. The woman sobs and Sherlock asks who the hell this is. “I’ve...sent you...a little puzzle...just to say hi,” she gasps between whimpers. Sherlock asks who this is and why she’s crying. We get a shot of a crying woman holding up the phone to her ear and a pager front of her face as she reads “I’m not crying, I’m typing. And this stupid bitch is reading it out.” “The curtain rises,” Sherlock mutters. John asks what the hell that’s supposed to mean. Sherlock says oh, nothing, he’s just been expecting this for some time now. The woman reads that Sherlock has twelve hours to solve the puzzle “or I’m going to be so naughty.” We pan away from the woman, who is sitting in the driver seat of a car with some sort of explosive strapped to her torso. St. Bart’s. We get a brief montage of Sherlock inspecting the sneakers from 221c and scraping particulates from the soles. Then he’s peering through a microscope and John is asking who he thinks the crying woman is. Sherlock says she doesn’t matter – she’s just the hostage so she can’t provide any leads. John makes a disgusted face and says he wasn’t thinking about LEADS. The “you psycho” part is implied. Sherlock says John can’t be any help to her anyway at this point. John asks if they’re tracing the call. Sherlock thinks whoever is doing this is too smart to have not made the call impossible to trace. A phone beeps and Sherlock asks John to hand it to him. John asks where it is. Sherlock says it’s in his jacket. John looks at Sherlock, who is clearly wearing his jacket, clenches his jaw and comes around the table, reaching into his inner jacket pocket roughly while Sherlock continues to stare into the microscope. “Careful,” Sherlock admonishes. Chrissy: Oh, come on. We both know you like it when I’m rough with you. John says it’s a text from Mycroft. Sherlock tells him to delete it because the missile plans have long left the country and there’s nothing they can do about it anymore. John says Mycroft apparently thinks there is because he’s texted eight times. “Then why didn’t he cancel his dental appointment,” Sherlock mutters. And before we can wonder how the hell Sherlock knows his brother’s appointment calendar he explains that Mycroft only texts if he can’t talk. “Look, Andrew West stole the missile plans, tried to sell them, got his head smashed in for his pains. End of story.” He says the only mystery here is why Mycroft keeps trying to distract him from this far more interesting bomber case. John thinks he should try to keep in mind that a woman might die here. Sherlock points out that people die all the time and invites John to go cry about it at the bedsides of some of the terminally ill patients in the hospital and see what good it does them. His eyes light up as a computer beeps and announces it has completed its search. Molly enters the room just then and asks if he’s having any luck. Before he can say anything, some dorky guy wanders in after Molly and apologizes for intruding. Molly calls him “Jim” and invites him in, nervously introducing him to Sherlock. She tries to introduce John too but forgets his name. Guess she’s not one of the people reading the blog then. Jim doesn’t even look at John as he is too busy acting like a star struck ninny who is just so thrilled to finally be meeting the person Molly has already told him everything about. He keeps absently scratching his arm which is probably significant. Molly explains that Jim works upstairs in IT and they’re dating. Sherlock takes one look at Jim before refocusing on his microscope and muttering “gay”. Molly’s like ‘I beg your pardon, asshole?’ and Sherlock covers lamely with “nothing, um...hey.” He smiles at Jim, who is so flustered that he promptly knocks a tray off the counter and babbles apologies as he picks it up. He goes back to scratching his arm as he tells Molly he should really get going and he’ll see her tonight at The Fox. He says a giddy goodbye to Sherlock, who totally ignores him. Molly waits until he leaves and asks Sherlock what he means by “gay” because, you know, obviously he’s not if he’s dating her. Oh, honey. You really are clueless, aren't you? Sherlock says yes, “domestic bliss” obviously suits her since she’s put on three pounds since he last saw her. Instead of hitting him with the heaviest object she can get her hands on, as most women would have, she just meekly says that it was only two and half, actually. He says nope, it’s three and she starts shouting that Jim is NOT gay and Sherlock always has to RUIN EVERYTHING for her. Sherlock thinks no straight guy goes through that much personal grooming. John scoffs that this is just about the product in the guy’s hair. “*I* put product in my hair.” Well, as long as you’re bringing it up... Sherlock says no, it’s because Jim has tinted eye lashes (which I assume is a mistake and was meant to be tinted eyeBROWS) and cream around his frown lines. Also, he has “tired clubber’s eyes” and his underwear – which is very visible above his waistline – is a very “particular brand” whatever that means. Oh, and there’s the fact that he left his phone number under the petri dish beside Sherlock after practically salivating over him. There is something seriously wrong with the way he presents his evidence for any given conclusion. He throws out shaky bullshit like anti-aging cream and UNDERWEAR because apparently gay men are known to buy a particular brand in the UK and then as an afterthought adds ‘oh, yeah, and he was clearly hitting on me.’ Chrissy: And how does he know what particular brand of underwear gay men buy anyway? Diandra: I’m going to go with the explanation given on an episode of Family Guy: “just from...like...books and stuff.” IT WAS RESEARCH! Chrissy: Oh, yeah. Very deep cover research. In fact, it was so deep cover that absolutely nobody else knows about it. Sherlock advises Molly to spare herself the pain and just break it off now. Molly purses her lips and storms out of the room. “Charming. Well done,” John says. Sherlock, clearly baffled, says he thought it would be kinder to cut to the chase now than let her find out about it later. John says yeah, well, whatever that was, it was NOT kindness. Deciding that this conversation is going nowhere, Sherlock shrugs and nudges one of the shoes toward John, prompting him to see what he can make of it like a teacher handing out a pop quiz. John says no, he’s not falling for that because he knows how this will end. Chrissy: Somebody will walk in when one of them has their pants down? John says he will not let Sherlock humiliate him. Chrissy: Although he might be willing to humiliate Sherlock a little as long as they have a safeword. You know. If he’s into that sort of thing. Maybe as part of a military kink. Diandra: Get out of my head. Chrissy: You get out of mine first. Sherlock says he needs a second opinion and it would be very useful to him. He stops just short of begging. Chrissy: Because he’s saving that for later. Diandra: I swear to god, I will turn this recap around and go write fan fiction instead. Chrissy: Oh, good. Maybe you can make some progress on that story you’ve supposedly been writing for months. Diandra: [grumbling] They stare at each other for a minute... Chrissy: While the music swells. Diandra: STOP IT. ...and John caves. He picks up the left shoe and, slowly and with some more goading from Sherlock, says they’re sneakers and they’re in good shape. He’d say they were pretty new “except the sole has been well worn”. The style is “very 80s”, but they’re unlikely to be THAT old, so it must be a retro design. “You’re in sparkling form,” Sherlock comments drily and prompts him to keep going. John says they’re big, so they must be a man’s but there’s traces of a name written inside in felt-tip pen and most people stop doing that when they’re old enough to vote so he must be a kid with really big feet. Sherlock stares at him practically starry eyed and says that’s “excellent” and prompts him for more. Chrissy: Yes, more, John, MORE! Diandra: I mean it. I’m not saying it again. John says that’s it. Sherlock says well, he did really well. “I mean, you missed almost everything of importance, but, you know...” John sighs and hands him the sneaker, again instead of clobbering him over the head with it which shows a great amount of restraint on his part. So Sherlock goes through his analysis of the shoes. The owner clearly loved them as he kept them clean to the point of whitening the patches that became discolored. He changed the laces four times and there are still flakes of skin on them which leads Sherlock to think he has eczema. He flips it upside down and notes that the soles are more worn on the instep than the outside, meaning the wearer has weak arches. Oh, and they aren’t retro, they are actually twenty years old. He pulls up a listing for that particular shoe as limited edition, sold in 1989. They look new because the owner took great pains to keep them that way. He analyzed the mud on the soles and determined that the bottom layer came from Sussex, but there’s a layer from London caked over it. John is understandably baffled by this, but Sherlock points to the computer that just dinged and says he can tell by the pollen. Conclusion: the kid moved from Sussex to London twenty years ago. John asks what happened to him then. Sherlock doesn’t know exactly but it must have been bad because somebody who takes care of their shoes better than some people take care of their children wouldn’t have just left them behind without a reason. He stares off into the distance as some sort of realization dawns. “Carl Powers,” he murmurs. John has no idea what he’s talking about. Sherlock says Carl Powers is “where I began.” He waits to explain further until they are in the taxi for some reason. He says in 1989 a school swimming champion came to London from Brighton for a tournament and drowned in the pool. Nobody thought that was strange except Sherlock who was, what, TWELVE at the time? John drily notes this and says Sherlock started young. Sherlock ignores this, still going over the details of the case. Carl had some sort of fit when he was in the water and by the time he was pulled out it was too late. There was one detail he couldn’t make sense of at the time: the kid’s shoes were missing, even though the rest of his clothes were in his locker. He says he “made a fuss” about it and tried to get the police interested in the case, but they didn’t think it was important. Likely his parents had to apologize for their possibly autistic savant son meddling in police business too. We get a brief, superimposed shot of the woman with the bomb strapped to her and the number six, accompanied by a ticking sound. Also, we see Trafalgar Square outside the window of the taxi as a double-decker bus passes. Because I guess a minimum of one scene establishing that this show takes place in England is required per episode now. Chrissy: Because otherwise we might notice that some of the locations are actually in Wales. We morph back to 221b, I think, where Sherlock is sitting at a desk, staring at various news clippings and pictures from Carl’s case, half scattered over an open laptop. John pokes his head in the room and asks if he can help. Sherlock doesn’t even acknowledge him, so he rephrases that he WANTS to help because they only have five hours. His phone beeps and he fishes it out of his pocket to find a text message from Mycroft. He tells Sherlock his brother is texting HIM now and...wait...”how does he know my number?” Sherlock doesn’t even look up and just mutters that he must have had a root canal. John sighs and comes into the room, reminding Sherlock that Mycroft said this was of national importance. Sherlock thinks that’s adorably quaint of John to be so concerned about queen and country. John says he can’t just ignore this. Sherlock says he isn’t – in fact, he’s putting his best man on it. John says oh? Who’s that? And we cut to John sitting in an office dressed in a business suit because DUH, JOHN. Mycroft enters, eyes fixed on a piece of paper in his hands, and says it’s nice to see him and how can he help him? Chrissy: I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or just instinctively polite. Diandra: Yes. He has his back completely to John as John says Sherlock sent him to collect some more information about the stolen missile plans. Mycroft turns to look at him, wincing and touching his jaw pointedly, and says ‘oh, did he now?’ in a tone that I take to mean he totally sees through this bullshit. John smiles and says yes, um...Sherlock is totally investigating the case right now (ha). He asks if Mycroft has any more information on the dead man. Mycroft says he was a 27 year old clerk at Vauxhall Cross, MI6 and he was just a minor player in the missile plans. He didn’t have any terrorist affiliations and his security checks came up clean. We get a little flashback scene of Adam and his fiancée, who Mycroft says was the last person to see him yesterday evening, and realize there is one detail about the man that nobody mentioned before: he was dark-skinned and Arabic looking. This would have been the first thing mentioned if this show took place in the U.S., along with the assumption that he was a terrorist regardless of his known affiliations. Chrissy: But we’re totally not racists or anything. Diandra: Nope. Not at all. The people flying the battle flag of the failed rebellion against the Union are totally doing it out of pride in their heritage (of slave owning and failed attempts at secession). Flashback Adam looks out the window of his apartment and stiffly tells his fiancée he has to go...see someone. And we cut to his crumpled body laying next to some train tracks. John says yes, he was found in Battersea, so he got on the train... Mycroft says no, he didn’t. He had an Oyster card that wasn’t used. John suggests he just bought a ticket then. Mycroft says there wasn’t one on his body, neglecting to point out that buying a ticket would be stupid if you have a card that functions like an all-purpose ticket for all the transportation lines. He says this is why he thought Sherlock could help because it’s kind of weird that Adam ended up in Battersea on a train track when he DIDN’T TAKE THE TRAIN anywhere. He asks how Sherlock is doing incidentally. John babbles that he fine and he’s totally focused on the case, which is going very well. We get a quick cut of the crying woman with the bomb strapped to her while the number 3 hovers beside her head. Back at the flat, Sherlock is squinting into a microscope again while Mrs. Hudson brings...something into the kitchen. “Poison,” he blurts suddenly. She asks what he’s going on about and he slaps the table and barks “clostridium botulinum!” Bless you. She runs away like a skittish cat and Sherlock turns to find the just-returned John standing behind him looking baffled. He (sort of) explains that that is one of the deadliest poisons on the planet. John just blinks. “Carl Powers,” he snaps. John finally interprets this to mean that he’s saying Carl was murdered. Sherlock flits over to the clothesline he’s using to hang evidence from and reminds John about the shoelaces pointing to the boy having eczema. Poisoning his medication would have been easy and when it took effect two hours later in London his muscles would have become paralyzed, at which point he drowned. John asks why the autopsy wouldn’t pick that up. Sherlock says it’s undetectable and, more importantly, nobody was looking for it, but there were still very small traces in the cream that rubbed off on his shoes from his feet. He types furiously on his laptop while he talks, entering this information in a post on his “Science of Deduction” blog John mentioned in the first episode. He adds “apply 221b Baker Street” at the end of the post and sends it off as he concludes that this is why the shoes went missing. John asks how they let the bomber know they’ve solved it then. Sherlock looks at his watch and just says “get his attention” cryptically. Chrissy: Well, if you’re looking for ways to get the attention of somebody who called you “sexy” in your last exchange, wearing that lovely purple shirt that looks ready to pop a button or two probably wouldn’t hurt. Diandra: Are we a little distracted right now? Chrissy: Possibly. A little. John marvels that the killer hung on to those shoes for twenty years. “Meaning,” Sherlock prompts. “He’s our bomber,” John concludes. The pink phone rings and Sherlock lunges for it. The sobbing woman reads “well done, you. Come and get me.” Sherlock asks where she is. Or he. It’s not really clear who he’s supposed to be coming for here. Chrissy: Besides John, but that’s much later. Diandra: *groan* I walked right into that, didn’t I? Chrissy: Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t know what you were saying. And the next shot is of people in bomb disposal gear approaching the woman’s car while sirens wail. Police station. Lestrade exposits that the woman is from Cornwall and she ended up in that predicament when two men in masks broke in and forced her to drive to that parking lot. Then they strapped enough explosives on her to level an entire house and gave her a pager and instructions to call Sherlock. Sherlock, pacing with his hands in his usual thinking pose, concludes that she was told a sniper would set off the explosives if she deviated from the text provided on the pager. Or, John adds, if they hadn’t solved the case in time. “Elegant,” Sherlock breathes and John gets an “are you fucking kidding?” look. Lestrade wonders why anyone would do something like this: what’s the point? Sherlock murmurs that he can’t be the ONLY person in the world who “gets bored” and we get a little flashback reminder of what HE does when he’s “bored”. Chrissy: Not John, unfortunately. The pink phone beeps and he opens a voicemail message with a recording of four pips. He shows Lestrade the accompanying picture of a car and explains that this is the second test since he passed the first one. He thinks it looks abandoned. Lestrade grabs the phone and mutters that he’ll check to see if it’s been reported missing. Another phone rings somewhere and Sally sticks her head in, holding out a phone and announcing “freak? It’s for you.” “It’s okay that you’ve gone to the police,” the man on the other end says shakily. “But don’t rely on them.” We see a man standing on what looks like a busy street, wires poking from under his bulky coat, reading from a pager some rambling praise for Sherlock figuring out the Carl Powers thing and he never liked Carl because “he laughed at me” so he stopped him from laughing permanently. “You’ve stolen another voice, I presume,” Sherlock says. Um...duh? “This is about you and me,” the man reads. A noisy motorcycle drives past him, followed by another red bus and Sherlock asks where he is and what that noise was. A reminder that this show is still set in London? The man reads that it’s the sounds of “life”, but he can fix that. A red dot appears on the man’s chest and he sniffles and reads that last time Sherlock solved the puzzle in nine hours, but this time he only has eight. Lestrade gets off the phone and announces that they’ve found the car. Some abandoned area just off the Thames. Police are already milling around the car. Lestrade explains that the car was hired by a banker named Ian yesterday. He told his wife he was going on a “business trip” and then just disappeared. Sally and John hang back a little and she notes that John is still “hanging around” Sherlock then even though she warned him it was a bad idea. He sort of shrugs and she says “opposites attract, I suppose.” John starts to protest again – as he always does – and she just barrels on to suggest he get a safer hobby like stamp collecting or model trains. We rejoin the A plot as Lestrade leans over to where Sherlock is poking through the glove box and says DNA confirms the blood IS Ian’s. Sherlock says there’s no body though, huh? Sally confirms that they haven’t found it YET. Sherlock says they should get a sample sent to the lab and Lestrade looks at Sally pointedly until she stomps off to do that. Though I’m not sure why they wouldn’t have done that already. Sherlock wanders over to where Ian’s wife is hovering at the edge of the scene, John trailing behind him. She whimpers that she’s already spoken to two police officers already. John starts to explain that they aren’t police officers but Sherlock interrupts to introduce himself as an old friend of Ian’s, his voice warbling like he’s trying not to cry and failing miserably. The wife blinks, confused, and says her husband never mentioned him. Sherlock brushes this off like she must have just forgotten and babbles tearfully about how AWFUL this is and he just can’t believe it because he just saw Ian the other day and he was so happy. Wife says that’s strange since he’s been depressed for months and who did he say he was again? Sherlock, tears actively spilling down his cheek, says it’s weird that he would have hired a car, isn’t it? Why would he have done that? Wife says no, it isn’t, because he forgot to renew the tax on his own car. Sherlock sob-laughs that that was totally like Ian. Wife, getting increasingly perturbed, is like what? No it wasn’t. Seriously, WHO ARE YOU? Sherlock drops the act immediately and says “wasn’t it? Interesting.” He marches off, John trailing him, demanding to know what that was all about. Sherlock, wiping away tears, points out that he referred to her husband in the past tense and she automatically did the same thing even though they don’t have any reason to believe he’s dead yet. “You think she murdered her husband,” John asks. Sherlock says no, a murderer wouldn’t make a mistake like that. “I see,” John says, then immediately adds “no, I don’t. What am I seeing?” Oh, John. It’s so adorable when you pretend to know what’s going on when you clearly don’t have a clue. As they walk past Sally away from the crime scene, she loudly suggests John take up fishing. So Sherlock and John visit the rental place Sherlock found a card for when he was searching the glove compartment. It’s called Janus Cars. I would like to take a moment to note that in the commentary for this episode, Mark Gattis – who is, by all indications a grown man – giggled at the sight of the logo for the fake company because the “J” and the “C” are written in fainter script than the rest of the letters (apparently even fainter in an earlier incarnation) so that if you are far enough away – or if, like now, you position the camera so that Benedict is covering those two letters - all you can read is “anus ars”. This is the co-writer for the series, ladies and gentlemen. Chrissy: You expected British men to be more mature than Americans? Diandra: Apparently not. John is questioning the head honcho of Anus Ars. The guy just talks about how nice a car it was like a typical guy who drools over fancy sports cars. Sherlock points at a picture on the wall behind him and asks if that’s the same type of car. The guy glances behind him and mutters that Sherlock obviously is not a “car man” because those are all Jaguars. Chrissy: No, he’s more of an “ars” man. Diandra: Oh, good lord. You know, in hindsight, I have to wonder about the marketing decision that car company made in hiring Benedict to play Sherlock in their commercial. If he was just being himself it makes sense, but... here’s a guy who doesn’t know the Earth rotates around the Sun to tell you why you should buy a particular car he probably knows nothing about! Chrissy: Yes, because the audience they’re marketing to would totally get hung up on something like that. Diandra: Yeah, I just realized how stupid that sounded. Ignore me. Sherlock says okay, but he could afford one of these, right? A Mazdar? Head honcho says yeah, he gets what he’s saying. It’s like working in a candy store. Yeah, I'm really not sure that's what he was saying. Honcho starts scratching his arm as he talks. Sherlock looks at this pointedly but says nothing. You know, in hindsight the clues all look obvious, but since I can’t remember what this arm scratching is supposed to mean I’m guessing this has more to do with the nature of recapping than anything. Chrissy: In hindsight it also seems obvious that the bomber who is greeting Sherlock as “sexy” is probably the same guy who was practically licking his face earlier. Diandra: SHH! We’re not supposed to know who that is! Chrissy: Yeah, it’s been five years since this first aired. Anybody who has even casually watched the show recognizes the guy who plays Moriarty. Diandra: Okay, fine. I was trying not to get ahead of myself and have you accuse me of acting like Sherlock again, but whatever. Chrissy: Oh, nobody’s buying that, Locky. Diandra: ...you’ve already switched from role playing John to role playing Moriarty, haven’t you? Chrissy: I have no idea what you’re talking about, sweetums. Diandra: Well. There’s no way this is going to get creepy. John says the guy didn’t know Ian then? Er, no. Strictly a business transaction. “Nice holiday, Mr. Ewart?” Sherlock blurts suddenly. “You’ve been away, haven’t you?” Mr. Ewart gestures to his face and says no, the tan is thanks to the old artificial cancer lamps actually. Although his wife would LOVE it if he had time to take a vacation. Sherlock asks if he has change for the cigarette machine outside. He holds out a bill and Mr. Ewart fishes for his wallet, peeks inside and apologizes that he doesn’t. Sherlock smiles, thanks him for his time and heads for the door, calling “come on, John,” like John is his pet spaniel or something. Chrissy: I told you not to talk to me like that in PUBLIC. Diandra: And I told you to behave or I’ll get out the paddle again. Chrissy: Yeah, I think I like being Moriarty better than John. Diandra: Oh, really? That is so surprising! Chrissy: News flash, honey. You may have a lot of things in common with Sherlock, but acting ability is not one of them. Diandra: That wasn’t acting. It was just sarcasm. Outside, John offers to give Sherlock that change if he still needs it. Sherlock reminds him that he’s using nicotine patches and he’s doing just fine without the actual cigarettes, thanks. Also, way to be an enabler, JOHN. Sherlock says he was just trying to see inside Ewart’s wallet. John asks why he needed to do that. Sherlock just says Ewart is a liar. Lab. Sherlock drops some sort of clear liquid onto what looks like a drop of blood in a petri dish and it fizzles. This shot will be used in the opening credits for the forseeable future, along with any other artsy shot from this episode, apparently. The pink phone rings. It’s the new puppet of the bomber, explaining that the clue is in the name: Janus Cars. Chrissy: Yeah, anus ars. We got it. Diandra: No, he means the clue to solving this particular case. Not the clue to understanding what the bomber ultimately wants from him. Sherlock wants to know why the bomber is suddenly giving him clues. The puppet asks why anybody does anything. “Because I’m bored. We were made for each other, Sherlock.” “Then talk to me in your own voice,” Sherlock says in a low, smoky tone. I imagine if the puppet wasn’t scared to death of that little red dot still floating around on his torso he would protest the fact that he’s basically being used as a go-between for some psychotic form of phone sex. As it is, he just spits “patience” and hangs up. Chrissy: Don’t worry. I’ll reveal myself in due time. And when I say reveal myself I mean... Diandra: Yes, we get the picture. Car park. Er...police holding area? I don’t know. All three boys are standing around the car, which is surrounded by plastic sheeting and some tube lights. Sherlock asks how much blood Lestrade would guess was in the car. Lestrade guesses about a pint. Sherlock says yes, it was EXACTLY a pint, which was mistake number one. The blood was Ian’s, but he ran some tests to confirm that it had been frozen. So he probably donated it some time ago and “they” just dumped the bag on the seat of the car. John asks who “they” is. Janus Cars. “The clue’s in the name.” John apparently knows Roman mythology well enough to identify Janus as the god with two faces. Sherlock says they provide a “special service”: they help people who want to escape financial or marital problems disappear. Sherlock is guessing Ian had financial problems he needed to escape since he was a banker. John asks where Ian is then. Sherlock says Columbia. Because Mr. Ewart had a 20,000 Columbian peso in his wallet, a tan line from a tan he could have only gotten while wearing a shirt (i.e. not on a tanning bed) and he kept scratching his arm, where he had irritation from a booster shot, probably for hepatitis. So obviously he had just come back from helping Ian get settled in Columbia. Now Ian’s wife can cash in his life insurance and split it with Janus as payment. Oh, yeah, by the way, his wife is totally in on the plan. He tells Lestrade he can go arrest them now and happily adds that he and John can tell the bomber they solved the next puzzle. 221B. “Congratulations to Ian Monkford on his relocation to Columbia,” Sherlock types into his blog. The phone rings two seconds after he hits “send” and the puppet, who has started speaking for himself again, begs them to please help him now. Several police officers run in his direction, but we just focus back on Sherlock, who is grinning at John like a lunatic. Chrissy: Like? They go to a restaurant somewhere and, as usual, John is eating while Sherlock just stares. He asks if John is feeling better. Chrissy: Well, it’s still a little difficult to sit, but... Diandra: Oh, shut up. Nobody asked you. John says they’ve hardly stopped for a breath since this whole thing started. “Has it occurred to you...” “Probably,” Sherlock interrupts. John is undeterred. He asks if it’s occurred to him that the bomber is just playing games with him. Well, obviously. John asks if that means it’s “him” then: Moriarty. Chrissy: Yes. Sherlock says it’s possible. The pink phone, which Sherlock has left on the table beside them, rings and Sherlock opens a message with three pips and a picture of a smiling woman. He complains that that could be anybody. John says yeah, well, it would be to Sherlock, but luckily he’s been unemployed for a while and had the opportunity to watch far too much television with Mrs. Hudson. He goes over to grab a remote and flips through stations on the diner’s television until it lands on what looks like one of those daytime talk shows with the woman in the picture – who looks like a British Kathy Bates – as host. The pink phone rings again and Sherlock answers it. An old woman is playing puppet now. We focus on what looks like a hearing aid in her ear as she says “this one’s a bit defective. Sorry. She’s blind.” We pan around so we can see that yes, her eyes are staring blankly at the ceiling and therefore she’s reciting words that are being spoken in her other ear. Also, she seems to be sitting on a couch. Moriarty – because fuck it, yes, that’s obviously who this is – says through her that because this one is tricky, he’ll give Sherlock twelve hours to solve it. Sherlock asks why he’s doing this. “I like to watch you dance,” the puppet says and sobs a bit. Chrissy: Well, I like to watch you do anything, really. Hell, I’d happily watch you paint a wall. Diandra: I’m sorry, are you talking to Sherlock as Moriarty right now or Benedict as yourself? Chrissy: Does it really make a difference? Diandra: No, I guess not. Just checking. Sherlock hangs up and glowers at the television, which turns out to be a news report announcing the woman on the screen - Connie Prince – was found dead at age 48 two days ago. Obviously Connie, like many women, was lying about her age because the next thing we see is Lestrade escorting Sherlock and John into the morgue to see the body of 54 year old Connie. He says she had a makeover show that was very popular and asks if Sherlock ever saw it. Oh, sure. He doesn’t know the basic properties or location of the planet he’s living on, but he watched a stupid daytime reality show. That’s likely. Sherlock exposits that she’s been dead two days and according to one of her staff people she cut her hand on a rusty nail in the garden. The obvious conclusion being she died of tetanus. But clearly it can’t be that obvious or the bomber wouldn’t have brought it to his attention. He bends closer to inspect some marks on her arm and whips out a miniature magnifying glass to look at something on her forehead. Moftiss just needed an excuse to have Sherlock Holmes use a magnifying glass, didn’t they? He asks John to confirm that a wound like the one on Connie’s hand would have bled a lot and points out that it’s perfectly clean and looks fresh. He asks how long the bacteria would have needed to incubate. John says about eight to ten days, then slowly concludes that that would mean the cut was made AFTER she was infected. After she was DEAD, in fact, Lestrade chimes in. Sherlock asks how tetanus could enter a dead woman’s bloodstream. He reminds John that he so desperately wanted to help earlier and says he can do that now by getting everything he can on Connie’s background. John runs off to do that. Lestrade notes that they haven’t asked themselves why the bomber is doing this. Why point out a suspicious death? “Good Samaritan,” Sherlock brushes off. “Who press-gangs suicide bombers?” “Bad Samaritan,” Sherlock smart asses. Lestrade snaps that he’s being SERIOUS here: there’s somebody out there with a bomb strapped to their chest and he’s trusting Sherlock to solve this crazy person’s puzzles before it goes off. He asks what, exactly, they’re dealing with here. “Something new,” Sherlock smiles. 221B. Sherlock has turned the shot up wall behind the couch into his new evidence wall. He paces back and forth in front of the couch, muttering that there MUST be a connection between the victims. Lestrade, who has apparently followed him home, just stands nearby with his arms folded, staring at him as he goes over all the details again. The bomber said himself that he knew Carl Powers, who died twenty years ago. The phone was sent in stationary from the Czech Republic. The first hostage was taken from Cornwall, the second from London and based on her accent he’s pretty sure the third is in Yorkshire. He gestures at parts of the evidence wall as he talks and then just throws his hands up and asks what the HELL this guy is doing working his way “around the world”. What, is he just showing off? Well, yes. Probably. Also, I hardly think four cities in England plus one other European country counts as “around the world”. Chrissy: Sure it does. Just like anything that happens in multiple American cities in an American movie can be considered “worldwide”. Diandra: Wow, this episode is really poking holes in my assumption that Brits are better than Americans. Chrissy: Where did you think we got it from? The pink phone rings and he yanks it from his pocket. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you,” Moriarty’s Yorkshire puppet asks. “Joining the dots?” She reminds him that he has three hours until (sob) “boom”. And we’re in some fancy looking flat somewhere watching one of those hairless Egyptian cats crawl around on a black and white couch. An aging prima donna escorts John in and a younger, prettier man asks if he can get John anything. John says no thanks and manages to find a spot on the couch next to the cat, who immediately starts crawling onto his lap. Chrissy: Well, of course animals are drawn to him. He’s just so cuddly. The prima donna smiles at the retreating man and tells John that “Raoul” is his “rock” and he could never have managed without him. Chrissy: There’s a joke in there about a “hard place”, I know it. Diandra: Oh, come on. That’s just low hanging fruit. Chrissy: Well, it’s some sort of fruit. Diandra: Okay, that’s just tasteless. Chrissy: Oh, how would you know? Have you tried it? ANYWAY. The guy is apparently Connie’s brother and he says they didn’t always see eye to eye, but she was very “dear” to him. He keeps rambling about how people ADORED her and she was amazing at what she did while John lifts the cat from his lap and places it back on the couch. The cat complains loudly and crawls right back up into his lap, possibly digging its claws in this time. Chrissy: We have found Sherlock’s spirit animal. Diandra: Something skinny and funny looking that keeps trying to crawl on top of John? Chrissy: I meant something that demands attention from him in an annoying manner, but sure. That works too. Back at the ranch, Mrs. Hudson has joined the boys in staring at the evidence wall. Sherlock is finishing a conversation with somebody on his phone and walks away from the other two, leaving poor Lestrade to listen to Mrs. Hudson ramble about how Connie taught her how to combine colors with skin tone and she’s an autumn or something so she shouldn’t wear red. Or some bullshit. Mercifully, Sherlock comes back over and, at Lestrade’s prompting, explains that that was the home office where the secretary owes him a favor. Mrs. Hudson, who apparently wasn’t finished, starts babbling about how Connie was such a pretty girl, but she had WAY too much work done because so many people do and it’s just awful because they can barely move their faces. She realizes Sherlock is not responding and asks if he ever saw her show. I thought she knew him better than that. He says not until now and pulls out a laptop with a video queued. Connie and her brother are having some sort of inane conversation. Mrs. Hudson says there was no love lost between the siblings if the gossip pages are to be believed. Sherlock says he’s figured as much from the chat he’s been having online with some of her fans. “The fan site’s indispensible for gossip.” Chrissy: Also for a lot of gushing nonsense and general craziness from hormonal women. Oh, wait...that’s my fan page. Diandra: Again, are we talking about Sherlock or Benedict here? Chrissy: Is there a distinction between those fan groups? Diandra: Well...many Sherlock fans seem perfectly sane. I try to give the majority of Benedict’s fans a wide berth because about half of them seem to be contradictory nutbags with the maturity of a middle schooler and the self restraint of a crack whore and I can never tell which half is which until they start acting like catty little bitches. Chrissy: ...been holding that in for a while, have you? Diandra: Maybe. Chrissy: I thought it wasn't PC to refer to them as "bitches". Diandra: Let me guess: one of them chastised you for it while displaying a flagrant inability to grasp WHY you shouldn’t do it? Chrissy: She didn’t give any reason at all, come to think of it. Diandra: Yeah. Did I mention that several of the nutty middle schooler half responded to pictures of him at a premiere of "Black Mass" by making nasty comments about Johnny Depp? Chrissy: Never mind. Screw the bitches. Diandra: Somehow I thought you’d say that. Meanwhile, John is talking about how tetanus is a whole lot more common than most people think because it’s in the soil and a very high percentage of English gardens probably have thorny roses. He trails off as the brother suddenly flops onto the very small couch beside him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now,” he announces. John looks incredibly uncomfortable. Before he can reach for his rape whistle though, the brother continues that Connie left him this place, which is nice, but it’s just not the same without her. John, whose cover story is that he’s a reporter apparently, says that’s why his paper thought they should get the story directly from him, but if it’s too soon... Brother says no, go ahead. The cat runs across the floor and John swipes at his nose like he’s suddenly realized he’s allergic to the one type of cat that is totally hypoallergenic or something. Sherlock’s phone rings again. It’s John, quietly murmuring that he’s on to something and he needs Sherlock to get over here fast. But he’ll have to pick up some “stuff” first, so he should write this down. Sherlock has perfect memory and doesn’t need to write anything down. Chrissy: It’s just the usual, right? Handcuffs? A pulley? Maybe a belt or two? Diandra: Down, girl. Back to Brother’s place. Sherlock breezes in with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, calls Brother “Mr. Prince”, which baffles me because I could have SWORN Lestrade said Connie’s last name was “Price”. And when I went back to verify that I found out that he did, actually, say “Prince” so apparently either my hearing or my memory is failing me. Chrissy: [mumbling] Yeah, it’s probably one of those things. Diandra: What? Chrissy: Hmm? I didn’t say anything. He goes to dump the bag on the couch and pulls out a camera while John mutters that the infection definitely got into her bloodstream some other way. Brother Prince, who has been combing his hair, says he’s ready and Sherlock lunges at him and starts snapping pictures. Then he stops, looks down, and says “oh, who’s this?” “Mreow,” his spirit animal answers, which I believe is feline for “pay attention to me or I’ll trip your stupid ass, human.” Brother Prince says her name is Sekhmet because of course you would name an Egyptian cat after an Egyptian goddess. Sherlock asks if she was Connie’s. Brother says yes, but she was a gift from him, so... “Sherlock, um...light reading,” John asks in what is apparently some sort of code. Sherlock says yep and sets off a flash right in Brother Prince’s face, followed by a whole series of flashes from the camera again. While Prince is trying to blink the spots out of his vision and wondering what the HELL this guy thinks he’s doing, John does something with Sekhmet’s front paw. He announces that they have what they came for and herds Sherlock out the door while Prince splutters in confusion. Outside, John is laughing giddily as they walk away from the house. Sherlock sort of smiles, amused, and says despite what John obviously thinks “it wasn’t the cat.” John says it HAS to be the way he got the tetanus into her because the cat’s paws reek of disinfectant. Obviously he coated the cat’s claws, knowing that being a new pet it would be crawling all over her and scratching. Sherlock says yeah, well, he thought of that when he noticed the scratches on her arm. “It’s too random and too clever for the brother.” John, not at all dissuaded, says the brother murdered her for her money. Sherlock says um...no, this was about revenge. John asks who could have wanted revenge. Sherlock says Raoul the houseboy was tired of watching her publically bully her brother and they had a row. She threatened to disinherit her brother and Raoul couldn’t have that. John stops walking and asks what about the disinfectant on the cat’s claws. Sherlock says he came through the kitchen door, he must have noticed how obsessively everything in that house is cleaned. “YOU smell of disinfectant.” John sniffs tentatively at his jacket while Sherlock mutters about Raoul’s internet records and whether or not they can get a cab from here. John glares at the back of Sherlock’s head as he walks away like “one day, I will murder you in your sleep and nobody will be surprised.” With one hour to go, Sherlock marches into the police station holding a folder and informs Lestrade that his killer is Raoul DeSantos. According to the second autopsy, she didn’t die of tetanus poisoning – it was botulism. Oh, and this is an awful lot like the Carl Powers case so, you know, apparently we have learned NOTHING from that. The killer is repeating himself. Lestrade asks how he got the poison into her. We flash back to Sherlock hovering over Connie’s body with the magnifying glass as he explains that botox is basically just a diluted form of botulinum and one of Raoul’s duties as houseboy was to administer facial injections to Connie. Sherlock’s contact at the home office found some online purchases of bulk orders of Botox injections in Raoul’s internet history. All he had to do was overdose her. He goes to follow Lestrade to his office, but John, who has been watching this exchange open-mouthed, stops him to ask how long he’s known about this. Sherlock says well, this one was obviously very simple and as he just said, the bomber is repeating himself, so... John points out that the old woman has been sitting with a bomb strapped to her this entire time. Sherlock says yeah, well, they had twelve hours and he knew he could save her so that gave him time to work on other stuff. “Don’t you see? We’re one up on him,” he concludes, marching toward Lestrade’s office, leaving John to purse his lips and contemplate the fact that he is, in fact, living with a psycho. Chrissy: Sociopath. Diandra: No. The next scene has Sherlock sitting at Lestrade’s desk typing into his blog, this time without any sort of flowery descriptors. “Raoul de Santos, the house boy, botox.” The pink phone rings and the old blind lady begs for help. Sherlock says they need her address. “He was so...his voice,” she babbles. Sherlock orders her not to tell him anything about the man. Because that would be cheating, I guess. She continues anyway: “he sounded so soft.” Her image flashes out suddenly and the pink phone starts bleating a dial tone. Lestrade and John ask what happened, but he just puts the phone down and stares straight ahead. 221B. John and Sherlock watch a news report of an explosion that killed twelve people on several floors of the apartment building. Apparently they think it was a faulty gas main again because it happened to be an old building. Sherlock mutters that he obviously lost that round even if he did technically solve the case and puts the TV on mute. John stares at him like he’s debating whether he should point out that that is NOT how a normal human being should respond to something like this. Before he gets a chance, Sherlock says that the woman was killed because she tried to describe the bomber to him, which means he’s put himself on the “firing line”. Since John has no idea what he’s talking about and is probably still processing this new evidence that he is an unfeeling robot, he explains that the killer is normally hands-off. He arranges everything, but has never had direct contact with a victim. John can’t quite wrap his brain around the fact that this guy is arranging murders for other people like the mafia version of a travel agent. Or just...you know...the mafia. On the screen, Raoul is escorted through a media circus into the back of a car. Sherlock stares at the pink phone and mutters that the bomber is certainly taking his time calling this time. John says so...um...anything new on the Carl Powers case? Chrissy: Basically, their version of ‘how was your day, honey?’ Sherlock says none of the living classmates have any connection to him and they’re all clear anyway. John suggests the killer wasn’t a classmate but somebody older. “The thought had occurred,” Sherlock says. John asks why the killer is playing this game with Sherlock. Does he want to be caught? Chrissy: Why does a cat play with a mouse before killing it? Diandra: That would assume Moriarty wants to kill Sherlock and end this game and any future ones his deranged mind can envision. Chrissy: Right. Let’s just call it foreplay then. John seems to come to this same conclusion because when Sherlock suggests the killer wants “to be distracted” he rolls his eyes and goes to leave the room, muttering “I hope you’ll be very happy together.” Sherlock asks what the hell THAT’S supposed to mean. John yells that these are people’s LIVES they’re playing with. He asks again – even though I can’t imagine he actually wants an honest answer – if Sherlock cares at all about these people. Sherlock asks if caring will help save them. John says no and Sherlock is like ‘well, FINE THEN. Would you quit bugging me about this?’ John asks if it’s really that easy for him to NOT care about people. Sherlock says yes and is that really so surprising? John says no, unfortunately, it isn’t. Sherlock stares at him for a moment and says “I’ve disappointed you.” John snarkily applauds him on his brilliant deduction. “Don’t make people into heroes, John,” Sherlock rants. “Heroes don’t exist and if they did I wouldn’t be one of them.” Okay, sure, but I don’t think we were talking about heroes here. Just average human empathy. Chrissy: Sociopath. Diandra: Again, while this is probably true of both antisocial disorders, it is even more true of a psychopath. Before John can respond to that bullshit, the pink phone rings. Sherlock picks it up as the message beeps twice and describes the picture to John. It’s a picture of the Thames from somewhere between the Southwark Bridge and Waterloo. He says he’ll look online while John checks the newspapers. Then he notices that John is just standing still with his head bowed and snots “oh, you’re angry with me, so you won’t help.” John says no, but Sherlock is already flicking through headlines on his phone. John sighs and drops onto the couch, flipping through a newspaper dejectedly. He flatly announces reports of a suicide and two kids being stabbed, both of which Sherlock brushes off, and comes to a story about Andrew West’s body found on the train line. Sherlock gets frustrated with his searching and calls Lestrade to ask if he’s found anything on the south bank in that area. Cut to police swarming around the body of a man still mostly dressed in a suit washed up on shore. Sherlock and John head straight for Lestrade, who asks if this is connected to the bomber. Sherlock says obviously, but this is strange because he hasn’t been “in touch” this time. Um...maybe because the last time he did that it didn’t end well? But they will operate on the assumption that somebody somewhere has another bomb strapped to them. “Any ideas,” Lestrade asks. Sherlock cocks his head at the body and says “seven...so far.” Chrissy: Does one of them involve ducking into the nearest alley with John for a quickie? Diandra: Is that all you ever think about? Chrissy: Says the slash writer who would totally be all for that. Diandra: Yes, but TIME AND PLACE. He pokes around the body for less than a minute and stands back and makes a vague head gesture for John to take a look. John, without the benefit of any tools whatsoever, announces that the body has been dead at least twenty four hours and asks if he drowned. Why are you here? Lestrade says there wasn’t enough water in his lungs, so he seems to have asphyxiated. John points out the bruising around the mouth and nose and agrees. Also, he says the guy was in his late thirties and not in very good shape. Yeah, well, you’re not exactly a body builder yourself, are you? Sherlock, who has been searching Interpol databases on his phone, says the body has been in the water for long enough to destroy most of the evidence (well, I say evidence because it makes more sense than “data”). Oh, and that stolen Vermeer painting that was in the news earlier in the episode is obviously a fake. Lestrade gapes at him like ‘the what now’? Sherlock just rambles about how they need to identify who this victim is and who his friends are and... Lestrade is like yeah, okay, but seriously WHAT painting? Sherlock says he must have heard about it by now. It was supposedly destroyed centuries ago and it’s worth thirty million pounds. Lestrade says okay, but what does it have to do with this case. Sherlock says it has EVERYTHING to do with the case actually. “Have you ever heard of the Golem?” Funny looking creature obsessed with a ring? No, wait, that’s not right... John pipes up that it’s a horror story. Sherlock says close enough: it’s a Jewish folk story about a giant rock monster, but it also happens to be the name of an assassin named Oskar Dzundza who “squeezes the life out of his victims with his bare hands” and this dead body has the hallmarks of one of his kills. Lestrade says okay, so this was a hit then, but he still doesn’t see what the painting has to do with it. Sherlock snaps that he sees just fine, he just doesn’t OBSERVE. John interrupts this little spat with what may be one of his best lines yet: “Yes, all right, all right, girls. Calm down.” Lestrade looks at the ground and Sherlock kind of shifts around uncomfortably. Having successfully established he has the biggest dick, John then asks Sherlock to walk them through it. Sherlock blinks at him like ‘well, as long as I have your permission, DAD.’ Chrissy: Yes, we will deal with your attitude later. In private. Diandra: Which is also the only place you are allowed to call me that. Sherlock gestures at the body and notes that the killer didn’t leave them with very much, but the clothes he’s wearing are pretty formal, if cheap polyester and too big for him. He suggests it could be a standard-issue uniform for his job. He points out the remnants of a hook on the guy’s belt that would have held a walkie talkie. Lestrade suggests he was a subway/bus driver. Sherlock makes a face. John suggests security guard and Sherlock immediately latches onto that as more likely and it would explain why he’s both flabby and out of shape and has more varicose veins in his legs than there are streets in Chicago. He does a lot of walking AND a lot of sitting. And going by the alarms set on his watch, he probably did a lot of night shifts. Lestrade notes that he could have just set that the night he died – it doesn’t necessarily point to a routine. Sherlock dismisses this as he says the buttons are stiff like they’ve hardly been used. He set it a long time ago and his routine never changed. Also, he had some sort of badge or insignia on the front of his shirt that the killer ripped off, so wherever the guy worked must have been recognizable. Sherlock holds up a water logged clump of ticket stubs he found in the guy’s pocket and concludes that he worked in a museum or gallery. Then he puts it in his pocket because he clearly has no respect for chain of evidence. He says one of his searches a couple minutes ago told him the Hickman Gallery reported one of their guards missing, so this guy must be Alex Woodbridge. Oh, and that gallery happens to be unveiling the recovered Vermeer tonight. He concludes that the only reason somebody would pay an infamous assassin to kill a museum attendant is if they knew something that would stop a thirty million dollar payout. Ipso facto: it’s fake. John blinks at Sherlock and declares this elaborate explanation based on so little physical evidence “fantastic”. Sherlock scoffs that it’s “meretricious”. “And a Happy New Year,” Lestrade mutters because he apparently doesn’t understand words with that many syllables. He says he’ll put some “feelers” out for this Golem guy. Sherlock tells him not to bother because he’ll never catch him. But he thinks HE might be able to. He swaggers off and John chases after him with a look like ‘the FUCK do you think you’re doing now, you idiot?!’ In the taxi, Sherlock stares at the pink phone and wonders aloud why Moriarty hasn’t called yet. Maybe he’s just not that into you? Chrissy: No, it’s definitely not that. He says he’s breaking pattern and there must be a reason. Then he suddenly orders the driver to take them to Waterloo bridge. John says the Hickman is a CONTEMPORARY art gallery, so why the hell do they have an old Vermeer painting? Sherlock says he has no idea and it would be dangerous to jump to conclusions without more information. He scribbles something in a notebook, rips out the page and folds it into his coat pocket. Then he orders the driver to stop in the middle of the road and wait for a minute. He hops over the railing beside the road and runs up some steps to a little waiting area beside the river. John sighs and follows him. A homeless woman sitting on one of the benches asks Sherlock for some change to buy a cup of tea. He hands her a fifty and the note from his pocket and heads back for the car, past a spluttering John who is demanding to know what the hell THAT was about. “Investing,” he says cryptically. Then he pushes his luck by asking John, as they get back in the cab, if he has any cash to pay the driver. Sherlock hops out when the cab stops again, but turns to John before he can follow to say that he needs him to find out whatever he can about the gallery attendant. He can get the address from Lestrade. Chrissy: So why didn’t we just get separate cabs back at the crime scene and save some time and cut down on all the driving back and forth across town? Diandra: Because I’d be LOST without you. Also, you have the money to pay the cab driver. Chrissy: Ah. I barely get settled in to my new job and you’re already treating me like your sugar daddy. A woman shows John into an attic room of a flat, explaining that she and the dead attendant, Alex, have been sharing it for a year now. “Just sharing,” she stresses defensively. Chrissy: Oh, you don’t have to tell me, honey. Wink wink. John kind of wanders around like he has any fucking clue what he’s supposed to be looking for here and pulls a sheet off a telescope. He says oh, he was a stargazer then? Chrissy: No, the woman in the flat one block over likes to do yoga naked. The woman says yes, he was obsessed with the cosmos and spent all his spare time with that thing. Her voice warbles a bit as she notes that he was a really nice guy and she’s going to miss him. Chrissy: You two should really talk and compare notes. Diandra: What, like how to get your flatmate to notice and appreciate you BEFORE their untimely death? Chrissy: Oh, are we spoiling that now too? Diandra: Everybody knows the Reichenbach Falls story. It was in “Game of Shadows” and probably every other version of the ultimate Sherlock Holmes VS Moriarty showdown ever done. I wonder if, wherever Arthur Conan Doyle is, he is able to appreciate the irony that his failed attempt at killing his most famous character so he could get on with his life has become the most POPULAR of all the Sherlock Holmes stories. John asks if Alex knew anything about art. She says it was just a job. He asks if anyone else has been by to ask about Alex. She says no, but they did have a break-in last night. Nothing was taken though. But somebody left a message on the main line, which she offers to play for John. She fetches a cordless phone and plays the voicemail, which is from a woman named “Professor Cairns”. She just says Alex was RIGHT, by God, and he should give her a call when BEEEEEEEEEP. Well, that’s not suspicious at all, lady. I can see why you neglected to mention it before. John asks if he can try a callback. Roommate says it won’t work because there’s been all sorts of sympathy calls coming in since. And the caller ID didn’t register the number? John’s own phone beeps as the roommate walks away. It’s Mycroft, asking if he’s talked to “Westie”s fiancée yet. Gallery. A woman in absurd heels and a slinky black dress is wandering the halls when she finds a security guard standing in front of a painting on a wall in the middle of an absurdly large, empty room. Seriously. Are we in a gallery or an airplane hangar? She asks if he has something else he should be doing. The man doesn’t turn around, but Sherlock’s voice says he’s just admiring the view. She says yeah, it’s nice, now GET BACK TO WORK. Sherlock whirls on her and asks if it bothers her that the painting is a fake. I mean OBVIOUSLY, it has to be. That’s the only possible explanation. “You are in charge, aren’t you, Mrs. Wenceslas?” She asks who the hell he is, but he just keeps babbling on about how Alex knew it was a fake so somebody had to send the Golem to take care of him and was it her? “Are you working for someone else? Did you fake it for them?” Chrissy: No, dear, I never fake anything for anybody. Diandra: Well, that’s obviously a lie. Chrissy: What? Diandra: Nothing. She insists that the painting isn’t fake. Sherlock says there’s SOMETHING wrong with it. She threatens to have him “sacked”. He points out that this will be kind of difficult seeing as he doesn’t really work here. She asks how the hell he got past the actual security guards. He just spews some bullshit about disguises working best when you can hide in plain sight and walks away, pulling off the hat and jacket and dropping them wherever. She asks if she’s supposed to be impressed by this little party trick. He says she should be and makes a big show of exiting the excessively large, dull warehouse filling in for the gallery. Chrissy: Show off. Diandra: You say that like you’re surprised. Elsewhere, John is apparently talking to West’s girlfriend, who is insisting that he couldn’t possibly be a traitor. But that’s what his bosses think, isn’t it? John apologies that it DOES seem a logical conclusion for a young man up to his eyebrows in debt. The girlfriend thinks that’s ridiculous because EVERYBODY has debts and Westie was hardly the type of person to sell out his whole country just to clear them. John decides to start over and ask what exactly happened that night. She says they were spending the night in, just watching a movie, which, you know, he normally falls asleep halfway through but he stayed awake this time and then he suddenly announced that he needed to go see someone and disappeared. John asks if she has any idea who that could have been but she just cries. Well, thanks for the suggestion, Mycroft. That was an excellent waste of time that provided absolutely nothing you didn’t already know. Brilliant. As the girlfriend – Liz – is showing John back outside, her brother Joe arrives and demands to know who this guy is. He looks John up and down very pointedly like he’s calculating how long it would take to beat him to a bloody pulp while Liz explains that he’s just investigating what happened to Westie. Joe asks if he’s with the police. “Sort of, yeah,” John lies. Joe tells him to tell them to quit fucking around and get on with it. He disappears into the house and John apologizes to Liz again and thanks her for her help. She insists again that Westie was a good man and did NOT steal whatever it is they think he stole. Night. The homeless woman is begging just outside 221B when Sherlock emerges. John pulls up in a taxi and by way of greeting announces that Alex didn’t know squat about art. “And,” Sherlock prompts. “Is that it? No habits, hobbies, personality?” John, quickly getting annoyed, splutters that he was an amateur astronomer. Sherlock tells him to get the cab to wait while he goes to talk to the homeless woman. She hands him a slip of paper that says “Vauxhall arches”. He saunters back over to John, announcing that fortunately for them, HE has actually been doing something useful today. He crawls into the cab and miraculously John, instead of telling him to go fuck himself because he was just doing what everyone TOLD him to do, damnit, climbs in behind him. Chrissy: I have a theory, based on the fact that literally every version of Watson seems perfectly happy to take abuse from his psychotic roommate, that he is deeply masochistic. Diandra: Yeah, I think this version of him might have slightly more backbone, but Arthur Conan Doyle wrote him as a total doormat-slash-lapdog who practically worships the ground Sherlock walks on. One of the things I like about the more modern versions of the characters is that they seem to be breaking away from this. As they’re walking down an alley, Sherlock looks up at the clear night sky and notes that it’s “beautiful”. John frowns and says he thought Sherlock didn’t care about... “Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate it,” Sherlock interrupts. This exchange is just weird enough that I have to wonder if Sherlock is being bratty to make a point. Though I’m not sure complete unawareness of the basic workings of the planet is quite erased by “isn’t it pretty?” John shrugs it off and fills Sherlock in on the message Alex’s friend left on his phone. I assume the reason he didn’t mention this before is that they were both too busy stewing in angry silence the whole cab ride over. He finally notices they are in a less than savory part of town and asks if Sherlock is planning to explain what they are doing here anytime soon. “Homeless network,” Sherlock says. They are his eyes and ears all over the city. John is like oh...okay then. “So, you scratch their backs and...” “Yes, then I disinfect myself,” Sherlock deadpans. They turn on their flashlights and wander gingerly through some underground tunnels, barely illuminating several sleeping people before the camera cuts away dizzyingly. John panics when a shadow that he somehow instantly identifies as belonging to the Golem appears on a far wall and pulls Sherlock around a corner to hide. Sherlock explains that the assassin has a very “distinctive” look and this is probably a good place for him to lay low. And in the continuing vein of odd exchanges, this happens: John: Oh shit... Sherlock: What? John: I wish I... Sherlock: Don’t mention it. Chrissy: What’s so odd about that? John is clearly wishing he had taken the time to tell Sherlock how much he loves him and Sherlock doesn’t think they need to actually say the words to understand each other completely. Diandra: I thought I told you to get out of my head? Chrissy: And I thought you were going to get back to writing that story you keep saying you’re working on. Diandra: Nag. Chrissy: Slacker. The shadow runs off suddenly and they follow, coming around the corner just as a tall bald guy in a suit gets in a waiting car and peels off. Sherlock rages that it will take weeks for them to find him again. John says actually, he may know where he’s going because, as he started to say earlier, someone left Alex a message. They just have to find Professor Cairns. At an observatory, a woman is cuing up a documentary on the planets in the solar system (because we are NOT letting this theme drop at ANY point in this episode) when a door slams somewhere behind her. She squints at the projection lights and asks if that’s Tom. Apparently she is Professor Cairns because the Golem appears suddenly and grabs her, attempting to smother her with his bare hands. She flails and the video plays randomly, illuminating the auditorium in erratic bursts as Sherlock and John run in and Sherlock throws all attempts at caution to the wind by shouting “Golem!” Amid the seizure- inducing flashes that follow, John, gun in hand, runs to cut Golem off while Sherlock just stands in the front of the auditorium and demands to know who the Golem is working for. Having successfully alerted an assassin to his exact position, it takes about three more flashes before Golem appears behind him. You know, this Sherlock-as-damsel-in-distress thing is threatening to turn into a pattern with this show. Chrissy: Threatening? It’s happened at least once per episode already. John returns immediately, pointing the gun at Golem and growling “let him go, or I WILL kill you.” The next part happens pretty quickly and between flashes of light, so it’s kind of hard to tell, but it looks like Golem throws Sherlock aside and kicks the gun from John’s hand before launching at him. And then Sherlock is up again and throwing a wild punch at Golem, who is clearly a good foot taller and easily catches his arm and knocks him down before going right back to trying to smother him. John jumps on his back and just hangs on until Golem throws him off, which takes about three seconds. Golem apparently decides – even though he’s totally winning here – that these guys aren’t worth it and chucks John off the stage before running off while Sherlock fumbles for the gun and fires a few feeble shots after him. Hickman Gallery. Sherlock and John, who seem to have come out of that little scuffle without so much as a tiny bruise on EITHER of them, are standing in front of the painting with Lestrade and Mrs. Wenceslas hovering behind them. Mrs. W is insisting that that painting has been subjected to every test possible to prove its authenticity. Sherlock, who seems to be scrolling through a list of those tests on his phone, mutters that it’s a very GOOD fake then. Then, in frustration, he accuses her of being in on the plan. Mrs. W pleads with Lestrade to stop wasting her time and get his friends out of her gallery. The pink phone rings. Sherlock puts it on speaker and barks that the painting is fake, so THERE. He waits for some sort of response and, getting none, repeats that Cairns and Woodbridge were killed because it was a fake. Wait...Cairns died? Must have been terrible at holding her breath because Golem spent at least twice as long trying to suffocate Sherlock. Chrissy: I wouldn’t be surprised if Sherlock decided some time ago that being able to hold his breath for a really long time was a worthwhile talent to acquire. Diandra: ...oh, is that all you were going to say? I thought you were going a completely different direction with that. Chrissy: Well, the suppression of a gag reflex is useful too, but for completely different reasons. Diandra: There it is. Silence. Sherlock groans that proving the painting is fake is a minor detail – the important part is that it IS fake and he SOLVED it. Silence. He sighs and says fine, he’ll prove it if he can just have some more time. There’s a ticking clock sound and a small child’s voice starts counting back from ten. Sherlock starts frantically scanning the painting while John and Lestrade wring their hands over the fact that the victim is a child. Because who cares about all the other people who were senselessly killed? Sherlock tries to prompt Mrs. W to explain how they can tell the painting is a fake because she doesn’t want a child to die, does she? She opens her mouth and he changes his mind and tells her to shut up because apparently HE has to come up with the answer or it doesn’t count. He frets over it some more and suddenly gets an “o” face and tells John the answer was at the planetarium and they both heard it. He hands the pink phone to Lestrade and starts pacing while typing into his phone, taking the pink one back as the kid says “one” and shouting “The Van Buren Supernova!” The ticking stops and the kid asks if anyone is there and can someone help him? Everyone starts breathing again and Sherlock hands the phone to Lestrade so he can go retrieve the kid. Then he points to a star on the painting and explains that it is a supernova that only appeared in the night sky on Earth in 1858. He waves his phone with a corresponding picture at Mrs. W and John points out for the slower audience members that it couldn’t possibly have been painted in the 1640s or any other time during Vermeer’s life for that matter. His phone beeps with another message from Mycroft, who is annoyed by the lack of progress they are making on the case. He sighs and chases after Sherlock, who has already swaggered off somewhere. Chrissy: Really need to think about investing in a leash... We’re in Lestrade’s office and Sherlock is murmuring about how between the bohemian stationary and the Prague legend assassin and Mrs. Wenceslas this whole case is so very...Czech. He stares at Mrs. Wenceslas, who is sitting next to him silently, and asks Lestrade what they’re “looking at”. Lestrade starts listing the possible charges against her. When he gets to the murder of the blind woman, Mrs. W blurts that she didn’t know anything about any of that. She just wanted the 30 million she was promised. Lestrade and Sherlock just stare at her until she elaborates. She met a little old guy in Argentina who was a brilliant art forger. She babbles about convincing people the painting was real and “he” turned a spark of an idea into a flame. He who, Sherlock prompts. She says she doesn’t know – she was “put in touch with his people” and never made any actual contact with him. Sherlock asks if she has a name. “Moriarty,” she says to nobody’s surprise, really, at this point, but the music crescendoes crazily anyway. Railyard. A worker shows John the spot where West’s body was found. John bends to look at the rails and notes that there’s hardly any blood on them. He asks if they were cleaned. The worker says there wasn’t much blood. John asks how that’s possible if his head was smashed. The worker clearly has no clue, so he just wanders away with instructions for John to call him when he’s ready to leave. John, starts muttering to himself, theorizing that West got on the train at some point...or not because he didn’t have a ticket anywhere on his person. A section of rail shifts suddenly, changing the direction of one of the tracks and he stares at it. Sherlock suddenly and silently appears behind him to say “the points. Knew you’d get there eventually.” Okay, are you actually a vampire or something? He states the obvious conclusion from the lack of blood: West wasn’t killed here. “How long have you been following me,” John asks. “Since the start.” Chrissy: I think that might have been an admission, but I’m not sure. He asks if John really thinks he’d abandon a case just to spite his brother. Um...yes? I mean, would that be surprising, really? He says they have a little “burglary” to do and leads John away. Chrissy: Why am I always the one people go to when they need to commit a burglary? Is it something about my face? Diandra: Quiet, Hobbit. Chrissy: Ugh. Doesn’t that make you the dragon? That’s not fair. Diandra: Makes you think twice about pissing me off now, doesn’t it? Chrissy: Hmm, no, because if I remember that movie – and our recap discussions thereof – all I have to do is... SQUIRREL! Diandra: [looks] Where? Hey, wait a minute... As they’re crossing a street somewhere, Sherlock says the missile plans have obviously not left the country yet or Mycroft’s people would know. So whoever has the memory stick either doesn’t know what to do with it or can’t sell it for whatever reason. They reach a flat and Sherlock goes to pick the lock on the door. John protests that there might be somebody in there, but Sherlock confidently promises that there isn’t. John asks where the hell they are anyway as Sherlock shoulders his way in. “Oh, sorry, didn’t I say,” Sherlock says in the flat tone of someone who is obviously not the least bit sorry. “Joe Harrison’s flat.” John doesn’t know who that is. Sherlock goes to the nearest window and pulls back the curtain, smiling down at the railroad track that runs RIGHT NEXT TO THE HOUSE. He says Joe is West’s fiancee’s brother. Otherwise known as the guy John met earlier when he was talking to the fiancee, so yes, John, you SHOULD know who that is. Joe stole the drive and killed West. Sherlock bends to look at the windowsill through his little portable magnifying glass and the camera angle creates a double mirror image of him in the reflection, making another artistic shot to be used in the opening credits. John asks why Joe would do all that. Sherlock turns to the door where a key audibly jostles in the lock and unworriedly offers to just ask him. John reaches for his gun and goes to greet Joe at the door, but he probably didn’t have to worry much because Joe doesn’t seem to be armed with anything but his bicycle. I mean, he acts like he’s going to throw it at John, but... Chrissy: I'm thinking that would be the lamest way possible to die. Diandra: Unless the bicycle was thrown by Jackie Chan. Chrissy: There is that. A few minutes later or so... Joe is seated on his couch and John asks why he killed West. Joe swears it was an accident. Sherlock says yeah, but stealing the missile defense plans was hardly accidental. Joe babbles that he was dealing drugs and he can’t really remember how it all started anymore, but it definitely got WAY out of hand and he owed money to some really scary, impatient people. West was apparently a security nightmare because once he got a few pints in him at his engagement party he started babbling to his future brother in law about this top secret government plan and WAVING THE FLASH DRIVE IN FRONT OF HIS FACE. Jesus. So, Joe just waited until he was so drunk he could barely stand upright and took it from his pocket on the assumption that it could be worth a lot of money. Except once West sobered up, he figured out pretty quickly who could possibly have taken it and confronted Joe. We see a little flashback of this confrontation taking place in front of the apartment. It ends with Joe shoving West so that he falls down the narrow stairs leading to the door. Joe says he was going to call an ambulance, but it was too late, West was already dead. So instead he dragged his sister’s fiancé’s dead body back up into the flat and, when the train stopped outside, lugged him across onto the roof of one of the cars. Sherlock concludes that the body was carried all the way to Battersea when the tracks shifted, creating a curve sharp enough for momentum to knock him off. John asks if Joe still has the flash drive then. Joe nods and slowly shuffles off to retrieve it. Sherlock says now that they’ve taken care of this little “distraction” they can get back to the more interesting case. John suggests maybe that’s done with too since they haven’t heard from the bomber. Sherlock reminds him that the calls have all started with a decreasing number of beeps and the first one had five. There have only been four “victims”, so there has to be a fifth coming. Chrissy: Did it ever occur to you that maybe he decided messing with you isn’t as fun as he thought it would be and he’s grown bored? Diandra: What are you saying here? That I’m not exciting? That I can’t keep a man interested? Chrissy: ... Diandra: You know, sometimes I really hate you. So apparently the plan is to go back to 221b and just wait for Moriarty to call because the next scene has Sherlock curled in his chair, coat still wrapped around him because the apartment windows haven’t been replaced after the explosion, shouting at the television, the pink phone sitting on the arm of the chair next to him. Judging by the nonsense he’s shouting at the television, he seems to be watching the British equivalent of one of those daytime trailer trash shows we get in the states that revolve around whether or not some sleezeball is the father of some other sleezeball’s baby. John, plunking away at his laptop at the desk behind Sherlock, mutters that he should have known it was a bad idea to introduce Sherlock to that garbage and asks if he’s given that drive to Mycroft yet. Sherlock, not taking his eyes from the screen, says yes and he was so thrilled he “threatened me with a knighthood again”. “You know, I’m still waiting,” John says. Oh, give up. He’s never going to propose. Wait...what are we talking about? John says he’s waiting for Sherlock to admit that a little knowledge of the solar system might have helped him solve the fake painting thing a little faster. “Didn’t do *you* any good, did it,” Sherlock points out petulantly. “No, but I’m not the world’s only consulting detective,” John snots back. Chrissy: GIRLS! Diandra: SERIOUSLY, HE STARTED IT! John closes his laptop and announces that he’s going to Sarah’s and he won’t be back for “tea”, but there’s still some risotto in the fridge if Sherlock is hungry later. He mutters that they need some milk though. Sherlock says he’ll get some. John stops, eyes lighting up like really? You’re offering to do domestic stuff like shopping? Chrissy: What did you do? Diandra: What? I can't do something nice without having an ulterior motive? John reminds him to get some beans too then and slowly, warily leaves. Sherlock waits until the front door closes and whips out his own laptop, which he was apparently storing between the cushions of the chair and types the following into his blog: “Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The pool. Midnight.” And we just fast-forward to Sherlock arriving at the completely deserted pool. He holds up the flash drive he swore he had given to Mycroft and announces that he brought a little “getting to know you present.” He says this is what it’s all been about, right? “All your little puzzles...making me dance. All to distract me from this.” John, dressed in a parka, emerges from the changing area, accompanied by a dissonant bleat from the soundtrack. “This is a turn-up, isn’t it, Sherlock,” he says. “Bet you never saw this coming.” And then before we can come to some ridiculous assumption that HE is Moriarty, he pulls open the parka to show the bomb strapped to him and adds “what would you like me to make him say next?” Chrissy: Should I describe how I’d like to tear that lovely, expensive looking suit from your body with my teeth? Diandra: I’ve lost track. Are you John or Moriarty? Chrissy: Shut up and recap, dear. Diandra: Moriarty. Got it. Moriarty-as-John rambles about how his choice of the pool where Carl died is a nice touch while Sherlock creeps closer, looking around for where Moriarty is hiding. “I stopped him. I can stop John Watson too.” John swallows nervously and glances at the little red dots floating around his chest. “Stop his heart.” “Who are you,” Sherlock calls. A door opens at the other end of the pool and an Irish-accented voice calls “I gave you my number. I thought you might call.” Jim, Molly’s gay boyfriend slinks slowly out into the open and asks if that’s a gun in Sherlock’s pocket or is he just happy to see him? Those are his actual words. I’m not trying to be funny. Sherlock pulls out a gun and says it’s both, actually. Again, not making this up. In an annoying, sing-song voice that he will be using for the foreseeable future, Moriarty introduces himself as Jim Moriarty and reminds Sherlock that they met back at the hospital. Sherlock just stares at him down the barrel of the gun and he bemoans that Sherlock doesn’t remember and did he really make so little an impression? Then again, he says that was probably the point, wasn’t it? Then for no apparent reason he points out that he isn’t actually the one behind the rifle aimed at John’s chest right now because he doesn’t like “getting [his] hands dirty”. I say there is no apparent reason to say this because he’s standing far behind John right now, so, you know... OBVIOUSLY. He babbles that he’s given Sherlock a “teensy glimpse of what I’ve got going on out there in the big bad world. I’m a specialist, you see. Like you.” “Dear Jim,” Sherlock growls. “Please will you fix it for me to get rid of my lover’s nasty sister?” What the hell do you have against Harry? You’ve never even met...wait, you’re talking as somebody else right now, aren’t you? Never mind. Chrissy: Forget John, darling. He is so beneath you! Diandra: Only if I ask nicely. Chrissy: And really, I only let you think you’re in charge then. Diandra: You’re having a bit of a multiple personality crisis over there, aren’t you? Chrissy: Yes. No. Shut up! I’m perfectly fine! Sherlock concludes that Moriarty is basically an evil version of him: a “consulting criminal”. He says it’s brilliant. “Isn’t it,” Jim burbles. John looks at Sherlock like ‘really? Would you two like to be alone together or something?’ Chrissy: Mmm, don’t worry. We’ll get to that later. Diandra: You can watch. Chrissy: I’m sorry, who are you supposed to be now? Diandra: The warped shipper. Chrissy: So...yourself. Diandra: Basically. Jim says nobody can trace anything back to him. Sherlock cocks the gun and says HE did. Jim, unfazed, says he’s come closer than anyone, but now he’s getting in the way. “Thank you.” Jim says he didn’t mean that as a compliment. Sherlock says yes he did. Moriarty quickly agrees that yeah, okay, he did, but enough flirting. “Daddy’s had enough now.” Again, seriously, NOT MAKING UP ANYTHING HERE. Chrissy: I love how this shit just writes itself after a while. Jim says he’s shown Sherlock what he can do and all that bullshit from the past few days was designed to get his attention. “So take this as a friendly warning, my dear. Back off.” Diandra: Is anybody else getting mixed messages here? Chrissy: Pretty clear to me. "You are the only one who gets me and I absolutely need your attention to validate my existence and I totally want to fuck that brilliant brain out of your pretty little head, but if you cross me I WILL CUT YOU." Diandra: The fact that you think that’s clear worries me. Jim says he’s enjoyed the hell out of this little game they’ve been playing though. Pretending to be Jim from IT. Playing at being gay. Chrissy: Yeah, I was just pretending. Totally. [cough] Seriously, why didn’t you call me? Jim asks if Sherlock liked that little detail with the underwear. Seriously, what is up with this? Sherlock has finally gotten his priorities straight, apparently, as he points out that people have DIED for this little game of his. Moriarty shrieks that dying is what people DO. Sherlock calmly says he will stop him. Jim says no, he won’t. Sherlock asks if John is okay. John just stares straight ahead like ‘yeah, why wouldn’t I be? I mean, it’s not like I have a BOMB STRAPPED TO MY CHEST OR ANYTHING.’ Moriarty slinks up, gets really close to his ear and prompts him to answer. John just nods slightly. Sherlock holds the flash drive out to Moriarty. Moriarty swaggers over and takes it, waits a beat, then grins crazily and tosses it into the pool with the declaration that the missile plans are “boring” and he could have “got them anywhere.” John decides to use this moment of distraction as an opportunity to be a hero. He grabs Moriarty from behind and yells at Sherlock to run. Sherlock doesn’t move a muscle. Moriarty thinks this is hilarious. John points out that if the sniper shoots him now, they’ll both blow up. “Isn’t he sweet? I can see why you like having him around,” Moriarty tells the still hesitating Sherlock. Then he corrects that it’s actually pretty normal for people to get all sentimental about their pets since they’re so loyal and all. Except, he points out that John has totally revealed his weak point. A little red dot appears on Sherlock’s forehead and John lets Moriarty go immediately. Chrissy: Yep. They can always be used as ammunition against each other because they are each others’ weakness. Diandra: Not sure I would have put it quite that way, psycho, but yes. Chrissy: Oh, now I’m a psycho too? Diandra: Actually, if you’re Moriarty, you’re more of a sociopath. Chrissy: Okay, hold on. Moriarty is basically Sherlock turned evil. Either they’re both sociopaths or they’re both psychos. Diandra: Nope. Those mixed messages he was giving earlier? Signs of a disorganized personality. Add that to the dramatic mood swings he’s displaying here and the ability to manipulate OTHER people into doing his “dirty work” and you have a textbook sociopath. Whereas Sherlock’s ability to manipulate people, intelligence, careful planning and reasoning skills coupled with a lack of understanding of other people’s emotions and inability to express them appropriately himself makes him more psychopathic. Chrissy: I keep forgetting I’m arguing with a psych major. Diandra: Yep. Jim asks if Sherlock knows what will happen to him if he doesn’t leave him alone. Sherlock sarcastically guesses he’ll be killed. Moriarty scoffs at this idea and says well, obviously he’s going to kill him ONE DAY, but he doesn’t want to rush that quite yet because he wants it to be special. Chrissy: He did say “kill”, right? Diandra: You watch “Criminal Minds”, don’t you? Some sadists actually derive sexual pleasure from murder. Chrissy: I thought we just established that he’s totally giving off confused messages because Sherlock is the only person who UNDERSTANDS him and he NEEDS him. Diandra: Well, yes. Hence why he doesn’t want to kill him YET. Also, please see the above reference to him being bipolar and disorganized. No, he promises that if Sherlock doesn’t back off he will “burn the heart” out of him. “I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one,” Sherlock mutters. Jim says they both know that’s not true. Chrissy: Which is why you hesitated instead of running like John told you to. Diandra: Exactly. Then he announces that he needs to leave now and he’s glad they had this little talk. Sherlock asks what would happen if he shot him right now. Moriarty says he could “cherish the look of surprise on my face” for the second before the sniper sets off the bomb and he and John are turned into smears on the walls. He makes an exaggerated surprised face and says really, he would honestly be surprised if Sherlock did that. And disappointed. But anywho. Ta! Sherlock, gun still raised, tracks him as he goes out the nearest door, muttering “catch you...later.” “No, you won’t,” Moriarty calls in an obnoxious squeal before shutting the door. Sherlock waits a couple seconds and then drops the gun and kneels in front of John... Chrissy: Really, NOW IS NOT THE TIME. No, apparently there’s some sort of strap holding the bomb in place and once he has it unhooked, he gets up, rips the whole parka with bomb still attached from John’s shoulders and throws it toward the other end of the pool walkway. He asks again if John is okay and John insists he’s fine, but once the bomb is off he staggers and has to sit against one of the walls of the changing area, panting. Sherlock paces, using the barrel of the gun to scratch his head because apparently he doesn’t really know how to handle a deadly weapon. Chrissy: He doesn’t really know how to handle a not so deadly weapon either. Diandra: I don’t usually hear you complaining. Chrissy: That’s because you don’t take criticism well. Diandra: You’re still sleeping on the couch. Sherlock awkwardly stammers that that thing John offered to do just there was um...it was er...”good”. You mean that thing where he tried to sacrifice himself to save you and take out Moriarty before he could kill anyone else? Yeah. John sighs that he’s just glad nobody saw that. “You ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk.” That’s an interesting way to diffuse the tension of narrowly avoiding death by explosion, John. Chrissy: He’s just deflecting so Sherlock won’t notice the weird adrenaline boner he has going on. “People do little else,” Sherlock mutters and grins at him. John snorts and goes to stand, stopping when the red dots appear on his chest again. Another cluster of red dots appear on Sherlock’s chest and Moriarty bursts into the room at the other end again, burbling that he’s changed his mind because he’s just SO indecisive. “You can’t be allowed to continue. You just can’t. I would try to convince you, but everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.” Sherlock and John look at each other and have a little silent conversation. John nods and Sherlock says this answer has probably crossed HIS mind then. He turns and points the gun at the still blinking bomb now lying halfway between him and Moriarty. They stare at each other for a moment while the music builds frantically and...the screen goes black and the resolution to this scenario didn’t air for two years. Chrissy: Yeah, I bet people were really wondering if they would kill all the major characters after three episodes. Diandra: Especially since there’s a good thousand pages more Arthur Conan Doyle wrote of them. It looks like the next episode has Irene Adler. Do you promise behave yourself? Chrissy: I won’t if you won’t. Diandra: Deal.