Catch Up // Sherlock Series 3, Episode 1: The Empty Hearse
SPOILERS AHEAD!
“It’s just a magic
trick,” Sherlock Holmes told John Watson at the end of The Reichenbach Fall
just before he launched himself from the roof of St Bart’s hospital...
We knew Sherlock
had survived the fall, but how? Speculation and fan-theories abounded, and
writer (and frequent Twitter dweller) Mark Gatiss playfully toyed with the
viewer by presenting the hilariously ludicrous Derren Brown solution. Of
course, this – along with the vision of Sherlock and Moriarty chucking a Sherlock-shaped
dummy from the roof before going in for a fan-squealy smooch – was knowing,
mischievous devilry from Gatiss and fellow Sherlock evil-genius Steven
Moffat.
The Empty Hearse
starts series three of Sherlock with a cocky, confident, witty and very cheeky
hour and a half of pure entertainment. After spending the last two years
dismantling Moriarty’s secret network, Sherlock decides to reveal his continued
existence to a heartbroken John just as he is about to propose to girlfriend
Mary. John doesn’t quite give Sherlock the open–armed welcome he was expecting
and the scenes – from swanky restaurant to kebab house – showing John’s
increasing frustration at Sherlock’s insensitivity are both laugh-out-loud and
poignant.
The following
cleverly intercut scenes of Sherlock solving unexciting cases while John treats
a succession of dreary ailments at his medical practice positively bristle with
fun in their “monkey gland”/”piss pot” dialogue.
There are some
great acting treats in The Empty Hearse, from Martin Freeman’s real-life
missus, Amanda Abbingdon as John’s fiancée Mary to Benedict Cumberbatch’s real
life parents Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton as Sherlock’s parents off to a
theatre trip to see Les Mis. Mark Gatiss’s Mycroft Holmes making an
impassioned plea for Sherlock to take over parental baby-sitting duties during
the interval is a joy in the midst of a script chock-full of delights.
The standard of
acting from Cumberbatch and Freeman and Sherlock and John is a thing to behold.
They inhabit their respective roles with such ease, that’s it’s easy to take
for granted the pure class they bring. It’s not hard to see why Hollywood (and
Peter Jackson) came a-calling for these two. It’s also a testament to both men
that they’ve come back to the world of BBC budgets, though granted, complete
with world-class writing and production.
Underpinning all of
this is a jolly exciting romp of a plot where a rogue Lord plans to bomb
Parliament on 5th November. This culminates in a ticking time bomb that
Sherlock has to diffuse without having the first clue how to diffuse a bomb.
Given just how much story is crammed into The Empty Hearse, it’s
inevitable that there’s enough mystery and plot left over for the next couple
of episodes, number two of which features John’s wedding to Mary.
So back to that
magic trick and how it was actually achieved: Sherlock reveals to disgraced
ex-copper Anderson how he faked his own death, but would he really reveal the
truth to the leader of a crazed fan-group?
Like all good magic tricks, we may or may not know how it was done, but
we’re thrilled that it was…
Reviewed by Andrea
McGuire. Images ©BBC
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