‘Sherlock’ season 3, episode 1 review: Sherlock Lives, how did he fake his death?
It has been two long years since “Sherlock” has been on the air and when we last saw the famous detective he was plummeting to his death after jumping off a building while his best friend John Watson looked on with horror. There are very high expectations for today’s season 3 premiere which include some answers as to how Sherlock faked his death, how Watson will react to him being alive (and keeping it from him all this time) and how they will fit into each others lives now that things have changed. (Warning: there are spoilers ahead in this review for American viewers that have not seen this episode).
Sherlock spent two years breaking down Moriarty’s network so that he can safely come back without the threat of John, Mrs Hudson or Lestrade being killed. Although John didn’t know that Sherlock was alive there were a few people that did including Mycroft, Molly, his parents, his underground homeless network… pretty much everyone but John.
John has moved on with a woman named Mary that he is pretty serious about, but it true Sherlock fashion he finds a way to ruin an important moment in his life. Sherlock decides to “surprise” John to let him know that he’s still alive just when he’s about to propose to Mary. John reacts badly… very badly, and as much as Sherlock tries to explain or apologize John can’t stop punching him. Can anyone really blame him?
John won’t come back to work with Sherlock at first and so he tries to work with Molly as his right hand woman in place of John, but it doesn’t really work. When she tells him that she’s engaged to another man, he wishes her well, kisses her on the cheek and breaks the heart of Sherlock/Molly shippers everywhere (even though her finace is really just another version of Sherlock, but nicer).
After a near death experience for John in which Sherlock and Mary came to the rescue, John decides it’s time to talk to Sherlock and find out who tried to kill him (we still don’t have an answer to that one). Instead John is sucked back into a new case and it is one that ends up bringing John and Sherlock back together as John forgives him.
So how did Sherlock fake his death? That was a lot of fun in the episode to see all the theories out there (we particularly liked the idea of Sherlock and Moriarty giggling on the roof top and making out). Sherlock explained that with the help of Mycroft, Molly and his underground homeless network, that when jumped he landed on crash pads hidden out of sight of John. A cyclist mowed John down and after the crash pad was moved, Molly threw a dead body out the window. Before John got back on his feet, Sherlock switched places with the body and covered himself in gore. The thing about the whole reveal was that he told this to Anderson of all people, who didn’t believe him. Is he telling Anderson the truth?
We loved seeing the deduction meeting of the minds between Mycroft and Sherlock, it was brilliant, and the fact that Sherlock’s parents are fairly normal was a nice surprised too. We also love the addition of Mary, she’s a perfect fit to the group. This was well worth the two year wait and we can’t wait until Sunday for an all new episode. Grade A
Was “Sherlock” worth the two year wait in your opinion?
Photo: BBC One
Personage
January 3, 2014 @ 12:56 pm
I have loved every episode of Sherlock and watched them all many times, especially “The Reichenbach Fall”, my favorite, so I was eagerly waiting to see Season 3 Epsiode 1. I kind of feel sick about it. Sherlock is more of a prick than ever, not only being insenstive to Watson and not really giving a good enough reason why he did not let him know he was alive (“I thought you might blab”???? not good enough, Watson is trustworthy), and then mocking him cruelly as the bomb was about to go off. And then he curiously tries to actually be nice to Molly. So he is getting worse and better at the same time. I kind of do not like who he is becoming. They kept harping on “two years”– well, I think two years is too long between this episode and the last. It kind of was an anticlimax for me, waiting so long to see Sherlock and then a kind of forced resolution between him and Watson. The whole episode was peculiar and unnatural to me. Maybe it won’t feel that way once I watch it a few more times, like food and drink I like the taste of something good more than once. I also am wondering whether how he survived was really explained or not. Was it the intention to leave it ambiguous? Then Sherlock is more of a cartoon superhero who pops back up again after being exploded, than a really clever guy who could devise a “cunning plan” and successfully escape from such a situation. Furthermore, in all of the scenarios it seems one of the assassins would have seen the ruse– was it more about Watson thinking Sherlock was dead, or Sherlock actually being dead? I do not understand why they would not have shot Watson anyway– are you telling me they would have never looked at Sherlock at all on the roof and seen what he was up to, or what was going on below? I do think two years was too long for all these ruminations. Hopefully if they leave a cliffhanger again it will not be so long. Overall I felt dissatisfied with the episode.
Chris C
January 2, 2014 @ 12:53 am
Sherlock didn’t tell Anderson how he did it, that was just Anderson going insane and hallucinating it all. At that point in time, Sherlock and Watson are on the train still trying to disarm the bomb. They didn’t actually explain how Sherlock did it in the episode.
R
January 2, 2014 @ 12:33 am
Great episode. Sherlock’s mention of Molly’s choice in men, and then the way Sherlock responded when meeting her new boyfriend was intriguing. The episode left me believing that the real Moriarty is still alive.
Dale Vivian White
January 2, 2014 @ 2:03 am
Moriarty is dead. The joke at the end of the episode was that although molly said that she had moved on the truth was that she had just fallen for a guy that looked like Sherlock. Also As they have already let out, there is a new villan who is worse than Moriarty.