It was her complete disregard for the officers who wanted to deal with her afterwards. It wasn’t the fact that she’d driven her Aston across London at high-speeds with Sherlock in the boot that was brilliant. Oh you are most definitely not a housekeeper. I also thought his reaction to Smith’s clear enjoyment of confessing to all his murders, the disgust, was a brilliant touch. Lestrade was a far smaller part this time, but he had a similar weariness and resigned despair when dealing with interviewing John after the scalpel incident. Her weary appraisal of Sherlock’s abuse of his body, a mixture of concern, disdain, and fatigue, worked well and served nicely as a stark contrast to his very carefree and unconcerned nature. Last week I lamented the loss of Molly’s nervous energy around Sherlock, but this week it made sense to me. The supporting cast were all back in force this time. There was genuine fear and it set-up the line about Mary’s sacrifice putting a value on his life that he didn’t know how to spend, perfectly. It was different from the other types of near-death struggles we’ve scene Sherlock in, and it seemed conceivable that maybe this time he might actually meet his end. The emotionally charged ‘I don’t want to die’ scene and acting out the attempted strangulation was acted really really well. The would-be death scene though was still a revelation. I know Benedict Cumberbatch is a great Sherlock Holmes. Talking of acting, I know Benedict Cumberbatch is a great actor. Proof that Sherlock is as much about worthy adversaries, big bad villains, acted profoundly well. Toby Jones was brilliant as Culverton, although how could anyone believe that Smith was a genuinely kind-hearted philanthropist every syllable he uttered and toothy smile he gave sent shivers down my spine. Instead the focus was on outmaneuvering a calculated serial killer who had money and power on his side. The actual story was less about unravelling an earth-shattering mystery, he solved the riddle of who Smith wanted to kill very quickly. It was great that she was constantly reminding John that she wasn’t there, that he was just imagining her, that all the cleverness and reasoning was coming from his own mind. Whilst we’re on the subject of the mind, Mary’s presence in the form of John’s imagining of his departed wife was a welcome addition, surprisingly. The signs were there early that Sherlock was still there. The demonstration of his superior deductive brain continually whirring at a 100 miles per hour, and him being unable to keep up in his drug addled state. The chalky resemblance of Sherlock’s mind palace, especially given there was a distinct lack of it at all in the first episode, and that way that he brushed it away. But there was plenty to keep me watching and giving me hope that Sherlock was on his way back to us – when he said he had a plan, I found myself breathing a small sigh of relief, it was like the writers were telling us to hang in there, all would be revealed. There were moments where I was genuinely concerned about where the episode and perhaps the season were headed when Culverton Smith’s ‘daughter’ suddenly disappeared and when his actual daughter showed up in Smith’s favourite room. I didn’t want to go through the trials and tribulations of drug usage, hitting rock bottom and inevitably making some massively catastrophic blunder. I’ll confess that until about half-way through the episode, I was fearing the worst. Thank goodness for that! Just when concern was creeping in what if the mediocre ending of series three was a rip-roaring success in their mind and thus that was now their guiding tone for this new series? What if this series was going to be us having to drudge through drug-addiction and unrequited friendship, just to reach the point we started? I had clung to the hope over the last week that the first episode had been necessary for the wider plot, and we would be rewarded in the long run when the entirety of the series had played out, and having lived through The Lying Detective, I think it’s fair to say, my optimism was not misplaced. **WARNING: I am sounding the spoiler claxon**
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