Last night, the BBC’s “Sherlock” returned after an extended absence, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s Sherlock Holmes and John Watson reuniting after the faked death of Sherlock in the last season finale. This episode, titled “The Empty Hearse”, is Multiversity’s first look at the show, and sure, it may be a reach for a comic site to review this show, but who cares: it’s awesome and I want to talk about it.
So with that in mind, I’ll be providing five thoughts – at least – on each episode of the third series, starting with this week’s episode. As a note, spoilers will be extensively discussed, so if you’re waiting for the PBS broadcast…well, don’t read this.
1. Back together, and it feels so good
Say what you want about what makes this show special – Mark Gatiss and Steven Mofatt’s incredible scripts, feature level direction work, the brilliant music, the effortless and engaging style, the exceptional supporting cast, MORIARTY – but when you really get down to it, it’s all about Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Freeman’s Watson. Everything else is really window dressing, including the actual plots in the show.
After two years of Sherlock being “dead” and with Watson having moved on with Mary, his new fiance, their reunion could and should have went far worse than what Sherlock would have expected. And sure enough, it did, as the show hilariously laid it out in a series of physical altercations in progressively worse restaurants around London. By the end, the dynamic duo are back in sync, but Freeman’s performance as a highly pained, highly hurt Watson was truly astounding throughout. While Cumberbatch often is the showier role of the two, in this episode, Freeman’s emoting isn’t showy in an in your face way, but in a realistic, heartbreaking way. He can’t understand why his friend would have done that to him, in a way that Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson, two people who have hugely different relationships with Sherlock, couldn’t understand.
I love the way those two first interacted with Sherlock upon his reveal, but this episode more than anything was about laying the foundation for this season and bringing Sherlock and Watson back together in a realistic and fitting way. Job well done.
2. The Empty Hearse
Many others may have already realized what the Empty Hearse was. I didn’t know that coming into it, and before the exceptional “Many Happy Returns”, I had no idea what to expect from the once skeptical CSI man Anderson’s role in this season would be. The fact that he became some sort of Sherlock believer, starting up a quasi support group, sort of cult based around the idea Sherlock was alive was…just amazing. The open of the show being an elaborate theory Anderson has that he was sharing with Lestrade was alternately the best fan baiting way to open the show and a hilarious bit of exposition. In one bit, we get laid out all kinds of important context: Sherlock was exonerated, Anderson and Donovan were vilified for it and the world was wondering just like we were as to what really happened to Sherlock.
That the story kept touching on Anderson’s group and the crazy theories – including the incredible slash fiction idea one Empty Hearse member brought to a group meeting – was an extremely amusing highlight, and I’m fully supportive of this group having a little bit of a role in this season. Anderson’s meltdown after Sherlock leaves alone made this episode a stand out, and there is more where that came from.
That said, I would say that splintering the episode in the middle of the pulse pounding bomb sequence to show what Sherlock told Anderson really was…well, it was the only fault of the episode. It really harmed the flow, even if it was a whole lot of fun.
3. Oh yes! The case!
There was plot in this episode, as Sherlock was brought in to sort out an “underground terrorist network” by Mycroft, and it was a very fun, very engaging if perhaps very slight story. Ultimately, the plot of a politico attempting to blow up the Parliament but failing due to the dread on/off switch on bombs (because terrorists want to be able to make up for mistakes, according to Sherlock) really just acted as set up for the new overarching villain – who saw an eyes only reveal this week – and so we could establish a new status quo with Mary, Watson’s new fiance (played by his real life lady Amanda Abbington), Molly Hooper’s hilarious replacement Sherlock, and getting the rest of the pieces in the right places.
Continued belowMary in particular is a great fit for the show, as Abbington (shockingly) has exceptional rapport with Freeman, and she even has a very fun chemistry with Cumberbatch already. So yeah, a slight plot that was a remix on the Gundpowder Plot everyone knows Guy Fawkes for (well, they really know him for V for Vendetta and those masks, of course), but it worked out extremely well in getting the pieces in place and having a ton of fun in the process.
4. The man who likes to watch
While the whole Fawkes-ian plot is certainly a thing that happened, the real plot of substance here was everything connected to Watson’s abduction. When Watson was abducted and put into a pyre to either a) be burned to death or b) flush Sherlock out for study, we were given a look into what this season will really be all about. Someone is playing Sherlock and using the person closest to him to get there, and everything we saw here indicates a rather formidable foe. When the episode closes with this new villain studying footage of Sherlock savagely pulling burning pieces from the pyre Watson is trapped in, we know this is the entree in an episode that was mostly appetizer.
But what a lovely appetizer it was.
5. Meta Death
The death I mentioned before – the one Sherlock walked Anderson through – was the story Sherlock himself told on camera, and really is the most realistic of the three even in its wholly unbelievable nature. That whole scene though, ultimately, was a very meta take on the perception of the death and what the answer could be. When Anderson shares with Sherlock that the truth behind his faked death was disappointing, he could be speaking for all viewers, as there is no way – let’s be honest – that they could have come up with an answer that would satisfy all of the viewers of the show. Instead, we get death theories from Anderson, an Empty Hearse member and Sherlock, and realistically, I don’t think any of them are true.
I think we’ll never find out how Sherlock survived, and I think all of the almost fan generated ideas of “that’s why Watson was behind the ambulance building!” and “the squash ball stopped his pulse!” were thrown in there so Gatiss and Moffat could wink at viewers and say, “we know you know that we know, so we want you to know that we know”, you know?
Could we get the real answer in the second or third episodes of this series? Sure. But I wouldn’t bet on it, and we’re likely all the better for it.
