LII WATCHES: BBC Sherlock - "His Last Vow" PART I
I AM SO SCARED RIGHT NOW I AM TOTALLY NOT READY OMFG okay let me take a breather okay okay okay okay I can do this I can totally do this--
...eep.
(I should mention that this was more of a liveblog. I reacted as I watched it. Also, spoilers.)
Last time on As The World Sherlocks, John got married, Mary was revealed to be pregnant, Sherlock solved a case at the wedding, and departed early and sadly because getting married changes people. Oh, and a mysterious CAM was sending coded messages to Mary that were making her nervous. DUN DUN DUNNN.
We open with C. Augustus Magnussen (NOT MILVERTON, THE BLACKMAILER FROM CANON) being interrogated. He is asked about the nature of his relationship and influence over several British Prime Ministers, and he calmly (and almost teasingly) replies "why would I?" It is revealed that Magnussen is the proprietor of a newspaper and a foreigner, and that he is getting major side-eye because of his chumminess with various Heads of State. Oh, and he has StarkVision glasses. Or the Sherlockian equivalent of them. No, I'm not kidding.
Dude is creepy in a way that I want to see the team from Criminal Minds take down. Hell, I'll take Leroy Jethro Gibbs handing him his ass.
Hahaha, can you imagine Cumberbatch!Sherlock working with Gibbs? *shudders*
Magnussen heads back home to an opulent house and goes straight downstairs. He has quite an impressive basement archive, and this doesn't bode well for our protagonists.
Magnussen finds a file on one of the MP's that interrogated him earlier (his StarkVision specs gave him some juicy tidbits to use against her) and goes to visit her. He brings up her husband and some little-known information that the poor woman wouldn't want going public. It turns out her husband had a penpal relationship with an underage girl that went explicit before he found out her actual age and called it off. This all happened before his marriage to the MP, of course, and the MP tries to handle it cooly and calmly. Magnussen persists. He hits her pressure points and she folds. He declares that he owns her, now.
Sherlock Holmes, in canon, despised blackmailers. I can see why.
The MP later angrily says that there isn't a man or woman in England who would dare stand up to Magnussen, but halfway through her sentence has a Eureka! moment.
Cue the opener.
Oh shit, this was written by Moffat... he' struck out two for two in the past, I'm afraid (I'm not a fan of A Scandal in Belgravia and I found his version of the Pilot to be lacking the charm that Steve Thompson's rewritten A Study in Pink managed to have) so let's see how he manages this time.
Cut to John and Mary, the happily newly wed couple, sleeping. John's having nightmare-flashbacks, both to Afghanistan and his very first case with Sherlock. He's violently awoken by knocking on their door, and he throws it open to reveal their neighbor (I thought it would be Sherlock, tbqh. The Canon supports me.)
The Watsons' neighbor tearfully tells them that her son has run away from home after she confronted him about drugs again. John is a bit short with her (I'd say because of the early morning) and it turns out Kate (the neighbor) has never heard of Sherlock Holmes, whom neither John nor Mary have seen in a month (sadface). John asks where the son may have run to and volunteers to go retrieve him.
Mary asks why he's so eager to do so, and John can't really answer her. Instead, we get this beautiful exchange as Mary climbs into their car:
John: You can't come, you're pregnant.
Mary: You can't go, I'm pregnant.
I love Mary. Just reiterating.
They arrive at the drug house, and John takes a tire iron in with him just in case. Mary thinks it's kind of sexy.
Maaaaryyyyyyy.
I know what happens to her in the Canon, but I reject your reality and substitute my own. /gross sobbing
John muscles his way in, to the shock of the doorkeeper. John demands to know if his neighbor's son is there, and the doorkeeper pulls a knife on him. John is appropriately badass. I'm being vague because y'all really ought to watch the episode.
John goes upstairs to find the neighbor's son, Issac, and I'm half expecting it to be something out of Canon (where Watson goes into an opium den to find a friend and finds Sherlock Holmes on a case inside). He finds the boy, and...
...called it.
This is why we read, y'all. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, READ THE CANON. And WATCH THE SHOW. HAHAHAHA.)
Have I mentioned how much I love Mary? And Molly. MOLLYYYYYYYY.
WIGGINS
WIGGINSSSSSSS
WIGGINNNNNSSSSSSS
I am S C R E A M I N G.
Also, Sherlock was banking on some stuff leaking and newspaper and THE GAME IS ON.
Mycroft is waiting at Baker Street, there to Big Brother Razz Sherlock about his recent "relapse". Oh, and Anderson has come along, too.
Also the Holmes parents like linedancing in Oklahoma.
It comes out that Sherlock was on a case. He mentions Magnussen's name and sends Anderson and his Empty Hearse buddy away.
Mycroft tells Sherlock to back off, and Sherlock refuses. Violently.
John is forced to diffuse the situation.
Sherlock entices John to join in on the case, and of course, John can't help himself. Also, the Maid of Honor from John's wedding is in Sherlock's bedroom, wearing one of his shirts. OMFG.
Apparently she's around a lot...??????
Whaaaaaaaaat..............????????
Sherlock is trying to draw our attention back to the case, but we the audience and John are still stuck on the girlfriend thing.
OH. MAH. GAWD. MY JAW IS SCRAPING THE FLOOR.
I'm going to eat my banana cream pudding to keep my brain going. Holy shit.
JOHN GET YOUR MIND BACK ON THE CASE.
Oh, and Magnussen shows up at 221B. Turns out that Magnussen is the Napoleon of Blackmail. Huh. Also, he doesn't keep things on computers.
Also FUCKING REDBEARD.
EEEEEEWWWW, OKAY. EEEEEWWWW. MAGNUSSEN JUST PISSED IN THE FIREPLACE.
I am so completely... I cannot... I have no... I AM NOT PREPARED.
So apparently Magnussen doesn't live at that house we saw earlier. And his home is actually armed to the teeth. And also SHERLOCK'S GIRLFRIEND WORKS AT THE BUILDING WHOOPS
WHOOPS
WHOOOOOOOPS.
I will admit, I did not see that coming. Huh. /studies the Canon harder.
AND WHA
WH
*choke* *hacking cough* *pound on chest*
HAHHhhh.
Okay, so Sherlock is a dick. Thank you, Moffat. And here I hoped he was having a character arc/redemption/evolution thing. Nope. Nope. Is Moffat really trying to do this? I have no idea what Moffat is trying to do here... is he seriously lampooning his own take on Sherlock Holmes when the series is already - unfavorably, I might add - being compared to the likes Elementary? Did no one raise their hand in the writers' room and say, "Yo, Stephen, that's kind of a dick move? Maybe we shouldn't have our hero do that, especially after his character development in the last episode?"
However promising this episode started off as, it is now on my shit list. Get. Better. Now.
...oh. Shit.
Shit.
Sherlock and John get into Magnussen's office, and they find Sherlock's girlfriend, Jeanine, unconscious inside. At first we're led to believe she fainted after Sherlock proposed to her (he's been dating her the whole time just to get access to Magnussen's office, GODDAMMIT MOFFAT) but then there's BLOOD ON THE WINDOW HOLY SHIT.
Jeanine got hit over the head, blunt-force trauma. So did the security guard. John suggests the police, but Sherlock tells him off. Sherlock sniffs the air and smells a lady's perfume, deducing that someone else is in the office with them. It's a perfume that we already recognize, and John adds that Mary wears it too.
Goddammit, Moffat, WE KNOW WHO IT IS AND WE KNOW HOW THIS IS GOING TO GO. Here, let me do a bullet list of my predictions:
SO ANYWAY...
...holy shit. Okay, I didn't see that coming.
HOLY SHIT.
HOLY FUCKIGN SHIT.
Guys. It's Mary.
And she shoots Sherlock.
... so I'm in shock. Redbeard is his dog. Doge. Doggie. And... um... so there's... um--
Okay, you know what, go watch the episode. I'm going to do a reaction post continuation later.
...eep.
(I should mention that this was more of a liveblog. I reacted as I watched it. Also, spoilers.)
Last time on As The World Sherlocks, John got married, Mary was revealed to be pregnant, Sherlock solved a case at the wedding, and departed early and sadly because getting married changes people. Oh, and a mysterious CAM was sending coded messages to Mary that were making her nervous. DUN DUN DUNNN.
We open with C. Augustus Magnussen (NOT MILVERTON, THE BLACKMAILER FROM CANON) being interrogated. He is asked about the nature of his relationship and influence over several British Prime Ministers, and he calmly (and almost teasingly) replies "why would I?" It is revealed that Magnussen is the proprietor of a newspaper and a foreigner, and that he is getting major side-eye because of his chumminess with various Heads of State. Oh, and he has StarkVision glasses. Or the Sherlockian equivalent of them. No, I'm not kidding.
Dude is creepy in a way that I want to see the team from Criminal Minds take down. Hell, I'll take Leroy Jethro Gibbs handing him his ass.
Hahaha, can you imagine Cumberbatch!Sherlock working with Gibbs? *shudders*
Magnussen heads back home to an opulent house and goes straight downstairs. He has quite an impressive basement archive, and this doesn't bode well for our protagonists.
Magnussen finds a file on one of the MP's that interrogated him earlier (his StarkVision specs gave him some juicy tidbits to use against her) and goes to visit her. He brings up her husband and some little-known information that the poor woman wouldn't want going public. It turns out her husband had a penpal relationship with an underage girl that went explicit before he found out her actual age and called it off. This all happened before his marriage to the MP, of course, and the MP tries to handle it cooly and calmly. Magnussen persists. He hits her pressure points and she folds. He declares that he owns her, now.
Sherlock Holmes, in canon, despised blackmailers. I can see why.
The MP later angrily says that there isn't a man or woman in England who would dare stand up to Magnussen, but halfway through her sentence has a Eureka! moment.
Cue the opener.
Oh shit, this was written by Moffat... he' struck out two for two in the past, I'm afraid (I'm not a fan of A Scandal in Belgravia and I found his version of the Pilot to be lacking the charm that Steve Thompson's rewritten A Study in Pink managed to have) so let's see how he manages this time.
Cut to John and Mary, the happily newly wed couple, sleeping. John's having nightmare-flashbacks, both to Afghanistan and his very first case with Sherlock. He's violently awoken by knocking on their door, and he throws it open to reveal their neighbor (I thought it would be Sherlock, tbqh. The Canon supports me.)
The Watsons' neighbor tearfully tells them that her son has run away from home after she confronted him about drugs again. John is a bit short with her (I'd say because of the early morning) and it turns out Kate (the neighbor) has never heard of Sherlock Holmes, whom neither John nor Mary have seen in a month (sadface). John asks where the son may have run to and volunteers to go retrieve him.
Mary asks why he's so eager to do so, and John can't really answer her. Instead, we get this beautiful exchange as Mary climbs into their car:
John: You can't come, you're pregnant.
Mary: You can't go, I'm pregnant.
I love Mary. Just reiterating.
They arrive at the drug house, and John takes a tire iron in with him just in case. Mary thinks it's kind of sexy.
Maaaaryyyyyyy.
I know what happens to her in the Canon, but I reject your reality and substitute my own. /gross sobbing
John muscles his way in, to the shock of the doorkeeper. John demands to know if his neighbor's son is there, and the doorkeeper pulls a knife on him. John is appropriately badass. I'm being vague because y'all really ought to watch the episode.
John goes upstairs to find the neighbor's son, Issac, and I'm half expecting it to be something out of Canon (where Watson goes into an opium den to find a friend and finds Sherlock Holmes on a case inside). He finds the boy, and...
...called it.
This is why we read, y'all. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, READ THE CANON. And WATCH THE SHOW. HAHAHAHA.)
Have I mentioned how much I love Mary? And Molly. MOLLYYYYYYYY.
WIGGINS
WIGGINSSSSSSS
WIGGINNNNNSSSSSSS
I am S C R E A M I N G.
Also, Sherlock was banking on some stuff leaking and newspaper and THE GAME IS ON.
Mycroft is waiting at Baker Street, there to Big Brother Razz Sherlock about his recent "relapse". Oh, and Anderson has come along, too.
Also the Holmes parents like linedancing in Oklahoma.
It comes out that Sherlock was on a case. He mentions Magnussen's name and sends Anderson and his Empty Hearse buddy away.
Mycroft tells Sherlock to back off, and Sherlock refuses. Violently.
John is forced to diffuse the situation.
Sherlock entices John to join in on the case, and of course, John can't help himself. Also, the Maid of Honor from John's wedding is in Sherlock's bedroom, wearing one of his shirts. OMFG.
Apparently she's around a lot...??????
Whaaaaaaaaat..............????????
Sherlock is trying to draw our attention back to the case, but we the audience and John are still stuck on the girlfriend thing.
OH. MAH. GAWD. MY JAW IS SCRAPING THE FLOOR.
I'm going to eat my banana cream pudding to keep my brain going. Holy shit.
JOHN GET YOUR MIND BACK ON THE CASE.
Oh, and Magnussen shows up at 221B. Turns out that Magnussen is the Napoleon of Blackmail. Huh. Also, he doesn't keep things on computers.
Also FUCKING REDBEARD.
EEEEEEWWWW, OKAY. EEEEEWWWW. MAGNUSSEN JUST PISSED IN THE FIREPLACE.
I am so completely... I cannot... I have no... I AM NOT PREPARED.
So apparently Magnussen doesn't live at that house we saw earlier. And his home is actually armed to the teeth. And also SHERLOCK'S GIRLFRIEND WORKS AT THE BUILDING WHOOPS
WHOOPS
WHOOOOOOOPS.
I will admit, I did not see that coming. Huh. /studies the Canon harder.
AND WHA
WH
*choke* *hacking cough* *pound on chest*
HAHHhhh.
Okay, so Sherlock is a dick. Thank you, Moffat. And here I hoped he was having a character arc/redemption/evolution thing. Nope. Nope. Is Moffat really trying to do this? I have no idea what Moffat is trying to do here... is he seriously lampooning his own take on Sherlock Holmes when the series is already - unfavorably, I might add - being compared to the likes Elementary? Did no one raise their hand in the writers' room and say, "Yo, Stephen, that's kind of a dick move? Maybe we shouldn't have our hero do that, especially after his character development in the last episode?"
However promising this episode started off as, it is now on my shit list. Get. Better. Now.
...oh. Shit.
Shit.
Sherlock and John get into Magnussen's office, and they find Sherlock's girlfriend, Jeanine, unconscious inside. At first we're led to believe she fainted after Sherlock proposed to her (he's been dating her the whole time just to get access to Magnussen's office, GODDAMMIT MOFFAT) but then there's BLOOD ON THE WINDOW HOLY SHIT.
Jeanine got hit over the head, blunt-force trauma. So did the security guard. John suggests the police, but Sherlock tells him off. Sherlock sniffs the air and smells a lady's perfume, deducing that someone else is in the office with them. It's a perfume that we already recognize, and John adds that Mary wears it too.
Goddammit, Moffat, WE KNOW WHO IT IS AND WE KNOW HOW THIS IS GOING TO GO. Here, let me do a bullet list of my predictions:
- the MP from before, Lady Elizabeth, is in the office. It's her perfume Sherlock is smelling, and it was a clue that Moffat beat us over the head with in the opener.
- Magnussen is clearly based off of Milverton, who was murdered by one of the unfortunate people he was blackmailing in the Canon.
- Lady Elizabeth is going to murder Magnussen, it'll be on-screen, but we won't see her do it.
- Sherlock will try to find Magnussen's killer and it will turn out to be Lady Elizabeth.
- Something will come out about Mary.
SO ANYWAY...
...holy shit. Okay, I didn't see that coming.
HOLY SHIT.
HOLY FUCKIGN SHIT.
Guys. It's Mary.
And she shoots Sherlock.
... so I'm in shock. Redbeard is his dog. Doge. Doggie. And... um... so there's... um--
Okay, you know what, go watch the episode. I'm going to do a reaction post continuation later.