Here's what you need to know; genius detective Sherlock Holmes may have just met his match in this seemingly unsolvable mystery, a string of murders supposedly perpetrated by a dead bride. But the game is afoot, and Sherlock must dig deep inside himself to find the key to solving the mystery.
Second spoiler warning if you didn't spot the first one.
This episode of Sherlock is an enigma to me, but like all things I find enigmatic, I'm fascinated by it. It starts off in a very typical Sherlock fashion, albeit with a very different coat of paint, this time set in the 19th century rather than the 21st. That isn't to say this episode is bad in that regard, even the weakest episode of Sherlock; The Hounds of Baskerville, still has some very good Sherlocky things and I still like it even if it's the worst in the series. When I say this episode starts off in typical fashion, I mean it still has the awesome characters and fast, clever and funny writing I've come to love in this series. But the Sherlock mode scenes in this episode are far cooler then they were in series 1, and they were stupidly cool in series 1, but here time freezes and they're still in the living room but at the crime scene, as the crime happens around them in real time, I adore it. I also haven't been this intrigued with a mystery in this series since The Great Game, which I still hold with A Study in Pink and The Reichenbach Fall as the best episodes of this series, I was really interested in seeing how this murderer could blow her own brains out and then keep killing afterwards, more on that later. Now for something Sherlock has never made me feel, I've been paranoid while watching Sherlock in the past, but I've never been on the edge of my seat from tension with this series, not like I was with the maze scene here, that shit was intense, and the bride was really creepy. And now for some episode ruining spoilers, I feel like the solving of the case could have been smarter, but I'm fine in a way with how the whole conspiracy story comes out. What I'm a bit on the fence about, and what I know is a very can of worms subject, is this episode's representation of the Suffragettes, I get that to some they were freedom fighters and to others they were terrorists, and I am aware that to an extent they were both, again, can of worms, but here we're supposed to see them as both, and they don't go together all that well, they're fighting injustice, by conspiring to commit revenge murders, I get that they're going for sympathy, but it's hard for me to feel sorry for a cult of murder conspirators.
Of course this was after the episode started with the mind fucking, seriously, I watched it when it aired, then I watched it again immediately afterwards just to make sure I got everything, this episode gets really weird, think like the scene in His Last Vow when Sherlock gets shot, but for the rest of the episode past a certain point, and while Sherlock's running around in the 19th century, he's actually returning home from his exile while overdosing on drugs, and the events in the past are a fantasy in his mind to try and solve how Moriarty survived. In that I really, really loved the scenes with Moriarty and Sherlock in this episode, they reminded me of the very best from series 1 and 2, and 3 for about 30 seconds. In these scenes both characters really shine, and it really is a fascinating idea that while Moriarty may be dead, he will never really be gone, as he says himself, Sherlock's brain is a hard drive, and he is a virus, I love how Watson is always there too to save him equally as much, and I must be honest, I laughed when Watson kicks Moriarty over the waterfall. This episode's mind fuck element is Inception level crazy, as he descends deeper into his Overdose and reality becomes impossible to define, it does remind me a lot of the levels from Inception, as be ends up bouncing back and forth from the 19th century to the 21st. It makes more sense to me now after a second viewing, but it's hard to follow, for sure. The ending also makes little sense, but to my credit, one of my theories from series 2 was Moriarty really did die and that he had planned his return in advance, it looks like they are going that way, but my concern is that it sounded preposterous when it was just a theory, now it appears to be true, and I'm still worried that it won't live up the inevitable high expectations of fans of this show. I'm also however curious to see just what they do now, for obvious reasons.
I take issue the conspiracy element of the mystery to an extent, and the ending makes me concerned, but also equally intrigued to see what comes next. But I don't really have any other issues with this episode, I still love the great characters and writing, I really was interested in the mystery, and I adored the mind fuckery, something I didn't expect and really loved. I can genuinely say this episode is brilliant, I loved it, and it's definitely, beyond doubt, worth watching.
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