Catch Up // Sherlock Series 3, Episode 3 – His Last Vow
Warning:
This review is FILLED with spoilers!
If
you’re not familiar with his work, you should be aware that the sight of the
words “WRITTEN BY STEVEN MOFFAT” on screen generally means, “Sit up and pay
attention, dear, because things are about to get a bit twisty-turny.” And this
Sherlock series three finale is no exception.
Where
episode two The Sign of Three saw a (sort of) break from the usual Sherlock
formula of solve-a case-per-episode, His Last Vow is back on more
familiar ground, although with Moffat’s evil genius writing behind it.
Villain
of the week Charles Augustus Magnussen is a, no – the – master
blackmailer who has the goods on everyone in the Western world, and probably
beyond, who matters. And this includes John’s lovely new wife, Mary. Using Terminator
style point-of-view on screen text, Magnussen knows the “pressure
point”/weakness of everyone he encounters.
His
Last Vow starts
with John discovering Sherlock in a drugs den after Sherlock has vanished for a
month since John and Mary’s wedding. Sherlock is acting for Lady Smallwood (a
woefully under-used Lindsay Duncan), who is being blackmailed by Magnussen,
while John is trying to fill the Sherlock-shaped hole in his life.
More
astonishing to John than the involvement of the world’s greatest blackmailer or
Sherlock’s possible relapse into drug addiction, is the fact that Sherlock now
has a girlfriend (!) – the brilliant Janine from The Sign of Three – and
the possibility of them having dinner as a foursome. Yasmine Akram is once
again on great form as the saucy, clever Janine. But of course, nothing is
quite as it seems with Sherlock. No,
Janine is Sherlock’s way in to Magnussen’s locked-down empire.
The
old saying that “knowledge is power” was never truer than here and Lars
Mikkelsen brings a fascinating, gimlet-eyed malevolence to the role of
Magnussen, a man of extraordinary power thanks to the unknowably vast
information he has stored in “Appledore” – his secret vault. A vault that
includes a damning file on the fragrant new Mrs Watson.
The
on-screen LIAR LIAR LIAR graphics from Sherlock’s first meeting with Mary in
episode one are proved to be entirely correct as we discover that Mary is, in
fact, an assassin who has assumed the identity of a dead woman. Having shot
Sherlock while attempting to kill Magnussen, Mary becomes a rather reluctant
client with a case for Sherlock and John to solve.
There
are some stand-out scenes in His Last Vow; notably Sherlock’s “mind
palace” as he works out how to survive being shot (did anyone else jump up and
cheer as the spectre of Moriarty appeared?), and the scenes of almost-cozy
Christmas domesticity at the home of Sherlock and Mycroft’s parents’ home
(Benedict Cumberbatch’s real-life dad, Timothy Carlton is just lovely here) as
John and Mary confront what has happened while Sherlock and Mycroft plot and
hide their smoking habits from mum like a pair of naughty teenagers.
Typical
of Moffat, the plot of His Last Vow is full of twisty-turny stuff as it
covers Magnussen’s manipulation of the “pressure points”/weaknesses – of a
trail of characters from Mary to John to Sherlock and ultimately, Mycroft Holmes
– the most powerful man in the country, after Magnussen. We also discover what
should have been glaringly obvious about the nature of John Watson and the
people he chooses to have closest to him.
In
a stunningly shot showdown, when faced with the fact that Magnussen’s
“Appledore” was not what we’d thought it would be, Sherlock does the only thing
possible and destroys it. And with dire consequences for him. Unable to send
his brother to prison, Mycroft does the next best thing he can and packs
Sherlock off to exile and an almost-certain death working undercover in the
East. Well, for about four minutes anyway.
In
an excellent and fan-pleasing moment, Sherlock is hastily recalled as the face
of Jim Moriarty appears on ever TV screen in the country accompanied by the
words “Miss me?” Why, yes, Jim! As it happens, we have.
And
so it turns out that the question of “How did he do it? How did he fake his own
death?” will once again fill the dark, plot-unravelling, theory-riddled recesses
of the internet, where these things are debated ad nauseum, for another
year until the return of Sherlock in series four.
Like
the return of the man himself, we may never know how he did it, but we’re glad
he did.
Reviewed
by Andrea McGuire. Image
