Sherlock: The Elephant in the Room

Sherlock Holmes enters his Mind Palace to think his way to surviving an assassin’s bullet in Episode Three of Season Three of Sherlock, His Last Vow. If you don’t mind a spoiler or if you already know, click on the photo for the assassin’s identity and the Big Reveal.

Season 3 of Sherlock is out on DVD and available for streaming. Here be spoilers, which if you’ve seen Episode 3, His Last Vow, you know some fussy types might think is a spoiler of a line itself. You don’t have to be as fussy to think the following quote is one. So, again, here be spoilers.

Mycroft Holmes to a roomful of concerned-looking political and bureaucratic types:

As my colleague is fond of remarking, this country sometimes needs a ‘blunt instrument.’ Equally, it sometimes needs a dagger, a scalpel, wielded with precision and without remorse. There will always come a time when we need Sherlock Holmes.

From Mycroft’s remark about his “colleague,” who by “blunt instrument” means secret agents and actually a particular secret agent, we now know that Mycroft isn’t the equivalent of M in Sherlock’s universe, he is M’s equal. M exists in Sherlock’s universe, which means somebody else does too.

How Mycroft comes to be comparing his brother to that blunt instrument and describing him as a much sharper weapon and why he has to make the argument that the country needs Sherlock Holmes is the plot of His Last Vow, the series' most sinister and gut-wrenching adventure yet, not because of its Big Reveal or anything particular that happens in the plot, but because for the first time Holmes faces off against a villain who might beat him.

That was never Moriarty.

Sherlock’s Jim Moriarty resembled Conan Doyle’s Professor James Moriarty only in having a similar criminal resume. As played by Andrew Scott, Moriarty wasn’t a devil but more of trickster demon motivated by malice and mischief and a very twisted jealousy of Holmes. He was a dangerous psychopath, of course, a mass murderer for the sport of it. But he was playing games to amuse himself and that made him lose track of the purpose of his crimes, if they ever had a purpose. He didn’t plan his crimes for their own sake. The point was always to get Holmes’ attention. He wasn’t as smart as he thought he was and he was careless. Deliberately at times. He let Holmes catch up with him for the fun of taunting him. (Flirting with him?) Basically, he was the Joker to Cumberbatch’s Batman and he hatched his schemes knowing that the ultimate end of any of them, his fail-safe, was going to be the killing joke. But Holmes knew that too and he could plan for that. It didn’t matter what tricks Moriarty pulled along the way. Holmes just had to be ready for the moment when Moriarty got tired of his own game. And that’s what happened on the roof of St Bart’s at the end of The Reichenbach Fall.

But in His Last Vow we meet Charles Magnusson, the master blackmailer, brilliantly under-played with reptilian loathsomeness by Lars Mikkelsen.

Magnusson is careful. He is as smart as he thinks he is. There is a certain amount of gamesmanship in what he does but that’s a contingent pleasure and he isn’t in it to play games, with anyone, least of all Sherlock Holmes, in whom he’s not the least bit interested. He does what he does for the power it gives him over other people and so an important part of any one of his schemes is making sure he’ll be able to continue holding that power. There’s no endgame for Holmes to anticipate because there’s no end to Magnusson’s game. The object is always for him to keep moving.

Holmes aptly compares him to a shark.

But backing up for the moment from Episode 3 to Episode 2…

Goofy as it was in spots, I enjoyed The Sign of Three. It was an hour and a half elaboration on the focus of my last Sherlock post, Sherlock Holmes doesn’t need a second brain, and series co-creator Steven Moffat’s observation on why Holmes needs Watson.

Sherlock Holmes doesn’t need another brain. He needs the most reliable, competent, dependable human being in the world, and in the judgment of a genius, that’s what Dr Watson is.

Just about every other scene in The Sign of Three demonstrated Watson’s competence and dependability. And that dependability isn’t based on his infatuation with Holmes or his love for Mary. It’s intrinsic to who he is. It’s also potentially a tragic flaw, as becomes clear in His Last Vow. But although The Sign of Three seemed to meander its way from joke to joke, it was actually building to the moment when Watson stands outside his former commanding officer’s hotel room door, the only one in the place who can save the major’s life, because saving lives is what Watson does.

Watson is not a sidekick. He is the other hero.

The mystery at the hub of the episode around which everything else spun was a McGuffin. Mostly we were given vignettes intended to show that much of what makes Holmes annoying and insufferable also makes him endearing. We’re also given clues that his particular talents and skills are adaptable---of course he’d be the perfect wedding planner. And Cumberbatch gets to demonstrate that we may be missing the point about him. He’s a sexy leading man now, certainly, but there’s a brilliant physical comedian behind those cheekbones and it’s too bad he’ll probably never get his Bringing Up Baby or Arsenic and Old Lace to really prove it.

Then there was the reinforcement of the theme I saw beginning to come to the fore with Mary’s taking an instant liking to Holmes when they meet in The Empty Hearse.

Mary, Watson, and Holmes are a little family. But not that little. Mrs Hudson, Molly, Lestrade, and even Mycroft are part of it too. Anderson, of all people, may be also part of it, that weird, often irritating cousin you think you don’t like except that you can always rely on him to do all sorts of favors and help out in a pinch and so, despite your irritation, you’re still glad to see him at birthdays and Christmas, although maybe that role is going to be taken over by Bill Wiggins, the new chief Baker Street Irregular, whom we meet in His Last Vow.

That family has always been there in the making. We were given our first real glimpse of it in the Christmas Party at Baker Street in A Scandal in Belgravia. What the family lacked then, it has now, a mother figure to pull everybody together and hold them there.

I’ll be getting back to Mary, but speaking of mothers…

Another part of the fun of The Sign of Three was in how it continued to set up the joke begun in The Empty Hearse about the Holmes brothers’ relationship with their parents and which pays off in His Last Vow with a Christmas visit home.

Sherlock: Why are you here?

Mrs Hudson: I’m bringing you your morning tea. You’re not usually awake.

Sherlock: You bring me tea in the morning?

Mrs Hudson: Well, where did you think it came from?

Sherlock: I don’t know. Just thought it sort of happened.

Mrs Hudson: Your mother has a lot to answer for.

Sherlock: I know. I have a list. (Pause.) Mycroft has a file.

The only disappointment in The Sign of Three, for me, was that now we’re probably not going to get a serious take on The Sign of Four.

On the plus side, The Elephant in the Room now takes its place alongside The Giant Rat of Sumatra as a case more fun to imagine than ever see solved.

Now, on to His Last Vow.

What makes Sherlock for me is how fundamentally the show’s Holmes and Watson are still Conan Doyle’s Holmes and Watson. This effect is achieved in several ways, the main one being in the interplay between Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, but another is through Moffat and his creative partner Mark Gatiss’ devotion to the original stories.

Whatever they’re up to, their take on Conan Doyle is always affectionate and respectful. This is as true of the in-jokes and mini-parodies as the meta moments---I got a big kick out of the scene in The Empty Hearse when the old man visits Watson’s surgery and tries to sell him some DVDs. The old man is so too much of a character that Watson can’t help concluding he’s Holmes in disguise and he tries to pull off what he’s sure are a wig and fake beard. But it also seems as if Watson’s been reading The Empty House in which Holmes returns from the dead to surprise Watson disguised as a little old bookseller.

But I like it best when they use Conan Doyle as a grounding and launching pad for an original adventure of their own---The Blind Banker, A Scandal in Belgravia---and even better when the straight-forwardly adapt a story---A Study in Pink, the Bruce-Partington segments of The Great Game, The Baskerville Hounds, and the opening of His Last Vow which was almost the opening of Conan Doyle’s The Man With the Twisted Lip lifted whole but played as comedy.

The Sign of Three was mostly in-jokes and meta-moments but His Last Vow was a two-fer, half faithful adaptation of The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton and half its own weird, twisted, gripping self.

After my post on The Empty Hearse, some friends and readers who’d already seen His Last Vow wondered how much my perceptions would change after I’d seen it. The answer is, not a lot. What I saw happening in The Empty Hearse has to happen that way in order for what happens in His Last Vow to matter. And if you’re obsessive and a glutton for punishment you can go back to that post and find lots of clues that I had an idea of what was coming. Not because I’m so prescient or had skipped ahead. Because I knew who the villain was.

Me:

And there's a new villain at work, one who, assuming he's like his counterpart in the stories, specializes in ruining lives, wrecking friendships and love affairs, and robbing people of their happiness and he's already targeted Watson.

A master blackmailer needs victims with terrible secrets and by process of elimination it was easy to guess who had the most terrible secret.

I’m not saying I guessed what that secret was. I’m just saying the fact there was a secret doesn’t change what I thought about the character. Like I said, the one thing has to be true in order for the blackmail to hurt---hurt us as sympathetic fans, not just the characters.

What Magnusson does hurts.

The Big Reveal would be nothing if Magnusson wasn’t there to force it and exploit it. It’s not shocking or surprising or mind-bending in itself. Not even interesting in itself. It’s simply Magnusson at work.

And like I said, Mikkelsen is brilliant as Magnusson. Cold, calm, entirely without humor (in a way that could only be played by an actor with a terrific sense of humor), a monster of reasonableness and practicality.

“I’m a businessman,” he says explaining himself as much as he thinks he needs explaining, without a hint of apology, special pleading, defensiveness, or doubt or, for that matter, boastfulness, pride, pleasure, or fun, “Acquiring assets. You happen to be one of them.”

Chilling.

Even more chilling is the revelation that a monster so neat, so fastidious, so apparently fussy, so apparently ascetic in manner, tastes, dress, and habit is a glutton. He wants to own and devour everybody whole. He doesn’t respect boundaries. He takes a sensual delight in violating those boundaries. He barely differentiates between yours and his, even between him and you. He gets too close. He makes a point of the inappropriate touch. He uses your fireplace as a urinal, picks off your plate, stains you with his sweat. He shares nothing. You give him everything.

And he’s frighteningly intelligent, obviously smarter than Moriarty was, smarter than Holmes is.

But another reason the Big Reveal matters is in what it reveals about Holmes.

He has a heart.

Well, we knew that.

He didn’t.

Or he’d forgotten he had one.

Or he was in denial.

This is one of the themes of Season 3, Holmes’ developing sense of self-awareness and his recognizing that he cares and that caring means being responsible for others and to others.

It begins with it dawning on him that if Watson is like a brother to him—a normal sort of brother. Never mind Mycroft---that makes Mary like a sister, and if he has a brother and a sister he has a family.

This must come as an incredible relief to him, considering the family he was born into.

It’s warping enough for boys who grow up competing with their fathers.

Imagine what it was like for the Holmes boys to be in constant competition with their mother.

Here be another spoiler.

I love it that Mrs Holmes turns out to be a mathematician.

Especially considering who else was a mathematician.

And, by the way…

Did you miss him?

_______________________

The two previous posts in this series: London is calling and Sherlock Holmes doesn't need a second brain.

All three episodes of Sherlock: Season 3 are there to watch online until March 4 at PBS.  But in case you'd rather own it, it's available on DVD and to watch instantly at Amazon.

Comments

[KathyF]

So what did you think about the ending? Didn't you find it a little too pat? Too easy? Also, how did Holmes get a gun inside Magnusson's compound?

[velvet goldmine]

I never thought your perception would differ, but only deepen -- if it followed the trajectory Moffat and Gatiss wanted it to. For one thing, you'd be too stubborn to let it alter after setting it in writing. But more importantly, everything Sherlock saw in her the first time was essentially true. I think even he would admit, however, that a few of the details he missed would become noteworthy. As for me, I'm less interested in whether there's a Moriarty loyalist or relative running amuck than I am in the hint of a Holmes sibling.

[Lance Mannion]

KathyF, which ending? The one at Appledore or the one at the airstrip? Neither one bothered me. The one at Appledore was fundamentally true to Conan Doyle. The one at the airstrip I think was what it was because they didn't know if there was going to be a Season 4 so they came up with something that was both a goodbye and a cliffhanger that could be left unresolved. Plus it allowed them to work in the "blunt instrument"quote.

As for the gun, I'll have to go back and check, but aren't they there at Magnusson's invitation. He thinks they're there to make a deal. So there's no search. And isn't it Watson's gun? Magnusson doesn't think Watson's worth his notice.

[KathyF]

Gah, it's completely unbelievable to me, plus it smacks of deus ex machina. So convenient, too convenient. I fully expected Sherlock to think of some clever way to get out of that and instead he resorts to a crime any idiot could commit. It seems like lazy writing to me. I think a lot of people were bothered by that, even people who enjoyed the rest of the episode. Just too pat.

[Lance Mannion]

KathyF, Not any idiot. Anybody who falls into Magnusson's clutches. Have you read the story? The point there is the same as the point in Sherlock. Magnusson leaves his victims with no choice but to remain his victims or do something desperate. The only clever thing any of them can do to get out of it is to not have done whatever it is he's blackmailing them over. That's how it is in Sherlock and it's not Holmes' solution that matters---he had a clever plan in the works, but he was missing a key piece of information---it's why he resorts to it.

[Fran in NYC]

Lance, I like your reading of this episode and all of this season very much.

I have NOT missed Moriarty at all! I can accept that, in moments of extreme stress, he can figure in Sherlock's thoughts but that should be the extent of his presence at this point. He blew his own head off and that's the end of it! You don't come back from that! I trust Moffat & Gatiss to have a very good explanation for "Miss me?".