Sherlock Review: Series 1 Episode 3 "The Great Game"

By: Mark Gatiss

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet watched this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.

            At the end of the last episode, The Blind Banker, there was a lone scene that dealt with the end of General Shan. I didn’t like it. It felt tacked on and pointless and only rounded out the Return of the King ending that the episode had (an ending that was rather less bittersweet and heart wrenching than RotK). It neither fitted the episode nor helped to tie up loose ends. Well, let’s see if Mark Gatiss does the elusive Moriarty better justice in The Great Game.


Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- He begins the episode well enough. The opening scene takes place in Minsk, Belarus where Sherlock is conducting an interview with a grammatically challenged murderer. I’m not surprised he refused to take the case, despite his obvious boredom. Even I could tell that the guy was lying (or delusional) and I don’t doubt that between Berwick’s grammar and truly atrocious vocabulary he might have made Sherlock a murderer before the case was finished. It is rather cold the way the consulting detective brushes off the other man’s fears, though.

Berwick: “You’ve got to help me, Mr. Holmes. Everyone says you’re the best. Without you…I’ll get hung for this.”

Sherlock: “No, no, no, Mr. Berwick, not at all. Hanged, yes.”

- Directly after the credits we find that Sherlock has a rather unique and slightly violent method of dealing with his all-consuming boredom. Rather than shooting up with a 7% solution of drugs (like the original Holmes would have done) Sherlock lounges around 221B in his pyjamas and dressing gown, shooting Watson’s gun at a hideous spray-painted smiley face on the wall. While not perhaps the most orthodox of entertainments, this activity choice is rather amusing – almost as funny as John’s reaction to the severed head in the fridge. Apparently Sherlock has sunk to such depths that he has decided to take his own measurements concerning the coagulation rate of human saliva post mortem, much to John’s chagrin. It is to the good doctor’s credit that he managed not to let loose that curse he cut off whenever he opened the fridge and came face-to-face with somebody’s grisly head. He seems to take it in stride (more or less) and one gets the impression that pieces of cadaver in the cupboards and refrigerator/freezer might not be as rare as Watson would prefer them to be. Living with Sherlock Holmes belongs in a reality show called Nightmare Flatmate or something like that.

- John Watson and Mrs. Hudson deserve the Saints of the Year award, just for putting up with Sherlock's shenanigans!

- Sherlock and John then proceed to have a little domestic argument (it begins as banter, but only escalates) concerning John’s blog. 

- Much of Sherlock’s scorn seems to come from the fact that John romanticizes the cases (his words, not mine) and that the good doctor observed this fact: “Sherlock sees right through everyone and everything in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things.”  

- Throughout the ensuing argument, it is revealed that Sherlock doesn’t know (or care) that the earth revolves around the sun. This revelation has drawn scorn from several reviewers who scoff that a man of science like Sherlock Holmes could not conceivably in this day in age get away with believing that the sun revolves around the earth. I protest.

- That assumption is a completely illogical leap to make since it is never stated in the episode (or on any of the corresponding websites) that Sherlock believes the sun orbits the earth. In fact he himself says in a burst of irritation that it simply doesn’t matter to him whether the earth goes around the sun or around the moon or “…round and round the garden like a teddy bear!” because that is a fixed state that can never be altered by anything he or his clients or the criminals he chase could ever do. So no, he doesn’t necessarily believe the outdated notion that the sun goes around the earth. He just doesn’t think about any of those theories at all, not wanting to waste space in his hard drive. 

- Sherlock is such a sulky child when bored! Thank goodness he has Mrs. Hudson who clearly both cares for and somewhat understands her eccentric tenant. She is a gem among landladies! After John storms out to get some air, she comes bustling into the flat with some groceries and does her best to bolster Sherlock up with the bracing hope that something will turn up like “…a nice murder – that’ll cheer you up.” The wonderful lady then proceeds to take him to task for the way he defaced her wall (I’d hate to tell her, but the horrid wallpaper already did a fine job of that) and threatens to put it on his rent. Sherlock gives a cheeky grin to the offending graffiti, just as a nearby explosion blows out all of the flat’s windows and the camera fades to black, leaving us wondering what on earth is going on.

- The next morning poor John is left with a stiff neck from a night spent on Sarah’s sofa – a problem he does his best to nobly play down in favour of some good-natured flirting. I have to say, I really love the Sarah/John relationship. They were a cute couple and clearly had some chemistry. She also was probably the only woman John has dated so far that actually was able to manage Sherlock Holmes. I really wish she had stuck around for Series 2 because I always want to see more of Sarah.

- Watson clearly had the right idea when he decided to hide out from Sherlock the Grouch at Sarah’s. If I had a flatmate like Holmes I would need to get away too.

- His face, though, when he sees the news report about the explosion in Baker Street is priceless (and not in a funny or ironic kind of way). You can just see him mentally connecting the words ‘massive explosion’ to ‘bored Sherlock’ and envisioning his mad scientist of a flatmate attempting to stave off boredom by making nitroglycerine in the kitchen and it all going horribly wrong. So he grabs his coat, shouts a good-bye to Sarah, and hightails it back to 221B where he finds explosive material in a rather different form than the one he had been envisioning.

- Apparently Mycroft has decided that this is a fine occasion on which to schedule a visit to his little brother so when John returns to the flat he walks in on a brotherly conversation containing enough tension to be sliced with that sword from The Blind Banker. The Holmes brothers are always fun to watch (I’m always waiting for them to break out into a violin bow vs. brolly duel) and their equally sharp intellects and tongues make for some rather acidic dialogue. The casual way they try to one-up each other in the deduction department is quite humorous and is, one could hazard, just the Holmes family version of affection. I love the fact that the brothers can tell where John was sleeping with just one brief glance and his exasperation at being caught between the two Holmes’ is something that we will get to see throughout this episode.

- And we finally get to see Sherlock play the violin (although, I’m not sure ‘playing’ is the correct term; more like ‘torturing’) as he serenades Mycroft’s leave-taking with a stunning piece I have dubbed ‘Ode to a Dying Cat’. 

- That scene gives us a fine example of Martin Freeman’s incredible ability to say more with facial expressions than actual lines. I am in continuous awe of this bloke, I really am. The show would not be half so awesome without the wry humour of Doctor Watson.

- Sherlock clearly is in a better mood than the last night because, after an encouraging call from DI Lestrade, he takes off for Scotland Yard, even engaging in such sentimentality as to tell Watson that: “I’d be lost without my blogger.” 

- I have to say that I find the beginning of the first case quite creepy. Not only did someone break into the basement flat that is 221C right under the nose of Sherlock Holmes, but also they did it without damaging the door. Mrs. Hudson has the only key and so that implies that the burglar either broke into her flat first or was somehow able to get into 221C without the key. I’m not sure which concept is scarier.

- Then there’s the fact that the bomber somehow knows the exact moment when Sherlock finds the shoes. Did he hack into CCTV? Does that pink phone have some sort of tracking device in it? How did he do that? It is extremely alarming and doesn’t get any less unsettling the more one thinks about it. 

- The effect of a crying woman being strapped into a bomb vest and forced to read out her own death sentence is quite dark and chilling. In fact, that is what this entire episode does. It sets its villain up by means of reputation and results-of-crimes alone. And it is brilliant!

- Sherlock takes the trainers to the lab at Saint Bart’s and plants himself in front of the microscope to analyse the mud left on the soles. 

- There is just so much to talk about with this first case; Sherlock crushing Molly’s heart, Sherlock asking John for help with the trainers and then shooting him down, and yet another amazing deduction scene that is not only amazing but delves into the nebulous back story of Sherlock’s childhood. John does an excellent job with deducing the trainers, but he’s no Sherlock Holmes. After commenting on the fact that the original owner of the shoes was a child with big feet and eczema, Sherlock has one of his light bulb moments and realizes that the shoes must have belonged to a boy named Carl Powers. Carl was the first case Sherlock ever got seriously interested in. This both makes the case more personal and tells us a little bit more about Sherlock’s character which has, so far, been shrouded in quite a bit of mystery.

- Sherlock is so engrossed in the case that he sends John to collect information from Mycroft about the case his brother had been bugging him about via texts. He even calls John “his best man” and, coming from Sherlock Holmes, that is a HUGE compliment! 

- So Sherlock solves the case (Carl Powers was poisoned by clostridium botulinum that someone put in his eczema medicine) and immediately receives a call from the poor hostage. Everyone breaths a big sigh of relief as the first case is down. 

- One of the ambitious things about The Great Game lies in its intricacy. While Mycroft’s case of the Bruce-Partington Plans is a thread that runs throughout, as is the identity of the mysterious bomber, Sherlock and John must solve five separate cases throughout the episode: four to stop hostages from being blown up and one to keep Mycroft off their backs. This was a move that could have gone so, so wrong. And while the action does have a tendency to lag in places and at times the deductions are either slightly improbable or extremely obvious, the episode as a whole works so well that all of these minor nitpicks can be forgiven in favor of the whole.

- So the second case involves an abandoned car near the docks. Sherlock goes in investigate and finds that there is a pint of blood from the missing driver (a banker named Ian Monkford) and sets about finding information by talking to Ian’s wife. Of course Sherlock solves this case ridiculously fast, helped along with a clue from the bomber: “Janus Cars: the clue’s in the name.”

- Sherlock and John take a moment to hastily eat some breakfast (Well, John does. Sherlock just kind of sits there and broods.) before another call from the bomber comes in. John actually gets to contribute something that Sherlock can’t scoff at this time. The picture from the bomber is of a popular, recently deceased makeover television persona named Connie Prince. Sherlock has no idea who she is, but John has watched a lot of 'crap telly' with Mrs. Hudson and triumphantly finds the correct channel to show the program to his clueless flatmate. And true to form, as soon as Sherlock sees Connie Prince, his phone rings again. 

- They go to the morgue to check out Connie’s body and Lestrade finally confronts Sherlock about what all of these cases are about. Sherlock’s replies are less than comforting:

- Sherlock hangs out at home with Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson to check out fan sites while he sends John over to Connie’s house to investigate her brother. There John finds a furless cat that is almost as creepy as the houseboy and Kenny Prince. I really hate this part of the episode. Not only is it strange and the slowest part of the entire adventure, but we get to see poor Watson have the rug pulled out from under his feet again. I get that Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be the genius and the (anti?) hero of this series, but why did you have to undercut all of John’s work like that? It only makes it worse that Sherlock has known the answer for hours and just left the old woman hostage to suffer because he had other things to work on. That is beyond disassociated, that’s just cruel.

- To be fair, there is a type of twisted logic to what Sherlock does. The last time he solved a case quickly (the Carl Powers case was solved in nine of the given twelve hours) the bomber cut the time by one further hour for the next case (giving them eight hours for the Monkford case). And Sherlock doesn’t get away with his flippant attitude this time. He solves the case and calls the old woman who cries out for help before starting to describe the bomber. Unfortunately the sniper has not left yet and sets off her vest of semtex with a single shot. Sherlock hears the whole thing over the phone and has a minor panic moment as he desperately calls out to the old woman. Maybe he doesn’t show it the way most people would, but you can see it in his face as he sinks back into the chair in defeat. Later, back at the flat, Sherlock is back to his analytical self, which prompts John to rant on about Sherlock’s apparent lack of care and Sherlock gives this iconic answer: “Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist and if they did I wouldn’t be one of them.”

- Any further argument is cut off by another message from the bomber, which leads them to a body lying on the bank of the Thames. What follows is the most amazing deduction sequence of the entire first series as Sherlock deduces from an almost stripped corpse that the lost Vermeer painting that’s been all over the news is a fake. He tells us who the dead man is (Alex Woodbridge, a security guard at a gallery) and who killed him (an assassin called The Golem) and deduces from all of these facts (gathered from things like foot calluses and sodden ticket stubs) that the painting is a fake. He then leaves to find The Golem, wondering why the bomber hasn’t called him yet with another stolen voice. I love it that the pattern was broken in this way as it only increases how brilliant and unpredictable (insane, really) this criminal is. 

- Watson finishes with Alex Woodbridge’s flatmate decides to humour Mycroft by talking to Westy’s fiancée. Westy was the man who ‘stole’ the Bruce-Partington Plans and then ended up with a smashed in head at Battersea Station. 

- Following that we are reunited with Sherlock (who has changed costume yet again) introduced to the Homeless Network (modern day Irregulars) and chase The Golem to a planetarium where he assassinates a professor who is extremely likable, despite her only having about 1.5 minutes of screen time. And then comes the infamous planetarium fight scene – the single strangest sequence to come out out Sherlock (and they’ve done The Hounds of Baskerville!) About the only thing the seizure-inducing sequence gives us is an amusing silhouette of Sherlock in boxing pose as he confronts The Golem.

- I guess it was necessary for Sherlock to be in the planetarium so that he could hear about supernovae…but I still burst out into hysterical laughter while watching it, rather than being worried for Sherlock who is being choked for the fourth time in half so many episodes.

- Anyways, The Golem gets away. Sherlock and John pick up Lestrade and head to the gallery to confront Ms. Wenceslas. Sherlock phones the bomber with the pink phone and announces that the Vermeer is a fake, but receives no answer. Finally he says that fine, he’ll prove it if only the bomber will give him time. 

- The next reveal just kicked me in the gut. We hear a child’s voice say “Ten…” and continue to count down as Sherlock desperately searches the painting and his memory for the solution. The revelation that the victim this time is a child is made twice as effective by the fact that we never actually see him and the tension is unbelievable as the kid continues to count down towards his own destruction. 

- They interrogate Wenceslas and she tells the entire plan, including the name of her sponsor: Moriarty. 

- While this is going on, Watson heads for Battersea Station where he examines the track where Westy was found. It would seem that Sherlock has succeeded in making the Science of Deduction rub off on John as the good doctor makes an excellent analysis of the crime scene. In fact, this excellence is confirmed by Sherlock Holmes himself who has somehow been following Watson ever since the case started. And that just doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make sense that Sherlock has been tracking Watson like this because he simply didn’t have time (and was completely focused on the schemes of the bomber). Thank goodness this moment doesn’t last long because we are soon distracted by Sherlock’s declaration that they (he and Watson) have some burglary to do. Am I the only one who finds it amusing that Sherlock possesses a pair of lock-picks?

- Then we get to hear that Mycroft ‘threatened’ Sherlock with a knighthood…again.

- John and Sherlock share some friendly banter (their relationship is hands-down the best part about this show) before John leaves for Sarah’s and Sherlock actually agrees to pick up some milk. That should have been John’s first clue that something was up for no sooner is he out the door than Sherlock is whipping out his laptop and arranging a rendezvous with the mysterious bomber.

         

- It is midnight. Sherlock enters the pool and brandishes the memory stick while giving a speech about how the whole set up has just been a clever distraction and calling for the bomber to reveal himself. A door creaks open and the mastermind enters the pool. I wasn’t ready for this, I really wasn’t.

- John’s appearance here is a lovely red herring that, despite my knowledge of Doyle canon, actually threw me for a loop the first time I saw it. I was so sure that Watson wasn’t evil, but one never knows when it comes to television/film adaptations. 

- Then we get the reveal of the true man behind all of the crimes. All this time it was really the guy from IT who is really Jim (James) Moriarty, the Consulting Criminal to Sherlock’s Consulting Detective. Fun little references to Jim’ll Fix It aside, I really have to talk about Moriarty here. Many reviewers and fans have said that they just couldn’t get into Moriarty in this first meaning, finding him a bit silly and not menacing. Well – the first time I watched it, I had the exact same reaction. He was a lot of fun to watch, but I never actually felt threatened by him. That all changed the second time I watched the episode because I really stopped and paid attention to Moriarty. You know what? He’s terrifying now. His nonchalant attitude, rather than making him bland and ruining the tension, simply shows just how in control of the situation he is. The strange voices and cringing gestures reveal a man who is enjoying playing with the minds and safety of Sherlock and John. He is so flippant about the whole affair simply because he enjoys being bad and because he knows that he is the one who calls the shots here, quite literally. He is an utter psychopath, but he is also terrifyingly smart. 

- Moriarty soon saunters off, letting off one more sing-songy goodbye as he breezes out of the door. Sherlock waits a moment to make sure he’s actually gone before he drops the gun and rushes over to John – frantically tearing the semtex vest off of the bewildered Doctor and flinging it as far away as possible. John’s ‘bad’ leg gives out on him then and he sinks to the floor to take some bracing breaths while Sherlock, snatching up the gun and checking the door, proceeds to babble about how what John offered to do (give his life for Sherlock) “…was…um, er…good” all the while scratching his head with a loaded handgun. 

- One must hope that John usually keeps his arms within a locked safe. While Sherlock is pacing and trying to come to terms with this new concept of sentiment (he knows what Moriarty meant about his heart) John seeks to lighten the emotional moment by cracking a joke about darkened swimming pools and people gossiping.

- But this sweet moment doesn’t last because Moriarty isn’t finished with our heroes yet. Before John can get to his feet, there are a myriad of sniper laser pointers dancing all over his and Sherlock’s chests. Moriarty mocks them about how he’s sooo changeable and how he just can’t let them continue. “I would try to convince you but…everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.” Sherlock exchanges a look with John before training the Browning on the vest of semtex, and then the credits roll leaving us in a state of nail-chewing suspense that we have to wait until the next series to have resolved.

           So what do I think about The Great Game as an episode? I personally prefer it to The Blind Banker, but don’t quite enjoy it as much as A Study in Pink – but that’s just personal preference. I’m not here to talk so much about my likes and dislikes but as how a story worked as a whole. And, I have to say that The Great Game is excellent. It is tension-filled and, for the most part, quite fast-paced as we race towards the reveal of Moriarty. The episode does slow down in a couple of places for exposition (and that odd Sherlock-as-a-security-guard scene) but those thankfully don’t last long. . The performances were solid and the cases/deductions were sheer brilliance. I rate The Great Game as an 4/5 and say that it served as a wonderful finale to an amazing series!

 

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?