#so the fact that i finally bit the bullet and then fedex lost it all is killing me

[onthegreatsea]

them losing the ICO doujins is especially painful to me

[therandomwatcher]

Sherlock Season 4 Review

There will be spoilers. You have been warned. There are some really in-depth reviews out there. This one won’t quite be that, but I will touch on some things that stood out to me. First off I would like to address Johnlock. I know there is a very dedicated section of the fandom that ships it like FedEx. That’s cool. I respect all ships even though I’m not a shipper of anything myself. That being said, it’s really not fair to the writers to accuse them of queerbaiting if John literally yells out “I’m not gay!” in more than one episode, and later turns out not to be gay. One of the redeeming features of this season I think is how many scenes are available as Johnlock fodder now. That’s some serious fan service and didn’t have to be there. If you are a Johnlocker, break out the fanfic and deviant art and go nuts! But don’t blame the writers for not doing what they said they wouldn’t do, that’s not really fair. Now that several readers have probably left in irritation, let’s get on to the episodes. If there was a theme to sum up season 4, I think it would be “No matter how smart you are, you always should study the night before the test.” Steven and Mark are very talented writers who have given us some absolutely outstanding episodes. But they were not at their best in season 4. The Six Thatchers

This episode I would say was the strongest of the 3. It was a straightforward case, with a few attached to the side for interest and wrapped up some interesting points about Mary’s past. But there were a few glaring issues. -John text-cheating with the Woman from the Bus There was zero development for it. You can’t write a character who fails spectacularly with the ladies for all of Season 1 *and* 2, and then try to turn him into 3 Continents Watson. It just doesn’t work. 

-The Aquarium Scene Boy, where to start with this one. Vivian has shown up and clearly has a gun in her purse. She has already had several people killed on her orders so it’s not a leap to believe she brought it here because she thought she would need to use it and is capable of doing so. The episode tries to pin the blame on Sherlock for “winding her up”. Except it comes across more like Sherlock is trying to distract her into shooting him instead of Mary since she’s got the gun on both of them. Perhaps Mary will be able to use her assassin skills to take Vivian out while she is busy shooting Sherlock. It’s not a great plan, true. But it’s about the only way left for him to keep his vow of trying to keep her safe in this situation. The London police are apparently worthless. Their idea of dealing with someone threatening two people with a semi-auto handgun that holds an entire magazine worth of bullets, is to stand and wait until they actually shoot the victims and then move in to arrest them...even though there are still several bullets left in the gun and they aren’t any safer for having waited (to say nothing of the victim). What the actual fark was that? 

The big one of course, is Mary being literally faster than a speeding bullet. I quite honestly laughed here. It was so ridiculously fake. We’re talking 1950′s serial tv show fake. Even if i were to believe that it is reasonable to expect someone to move faster than a bullet traveling at over 1,200mph, the fact that Mary, being closer, was able to jump in front, but Sherlock wouldn’t be able to jump out of the way, is not playing honestly with your own movie physics. There are quite a few completely understandable conspiracy theories out there now thanks to this scene.

The fabulous acting during the actual death scene was the only redeeming point of this entire scene. Shout out to Amanda especially!

Beyond that, we have the death of a character who they spent nearly all of season 3 developing, and then they just shuffle her off with the excuse that it needs to be about “the boys”. Except John has a baby now, and as anyone with a baby will tell you, you have zero free time to be running around with your best friend solving crimes. Mary could have easily filled the “I’m finally enjoying a normal life you need to go out and get some excitement” hole here, with perhaps the occasional professional opinion thrown in for fun. But no, they managed to make John’s situation actually *worse* in terms of being able to spend time with Sherlock.

The Lying Detective

-Sherlock being high the entire episode did it no favors. It got annoying after a while trying to figure out what was “real” and what was not. Nobody is watching Sherlock because they want to question reality. They watch for brilliant deductions of small minutia. This is literally the opposite of that.

-John in explicably blames Sherlock for Mary’s death. Sherlock inexplicably agrees. Regardless of whether you think Sherlock “wound up” Vivian, Mary leaping in front of the bullet pretty much absolves Sherlock of his vow to keep her safe. Neither of them are apparently capable of respecting her individual choice.

-Smith is a creepy farker. Props to the actor for that. It was a relief to see the listening device in the cane, some glimmer of “Sherlock” is actually showing here.

The Final Problem

I’m sorry, but this entire episode was teh suck.

We had an episode that was 2 X-Files episodes and a healthy dose of Firefly. I love both shows, don’t get me wrong! But when I order steak, I’m not happy to get pizza...regardless of how much I like pizza. I’m here for Sherlock...not X-Files or Firefly. The age gap is also a problem. The entire series runs without a “viewer discretion is advised” except for this episode. So anyone who might not be into darker shows has to decide if they will watch and find out what happens after years of waiting...or risk seeing an episode that will have a potentially very negative effect on them. That is profoundly not cool and I was very disappointed in the production staff about this. Evil River Tam is apparently Sherlock’s secret sister. Who is insanely smart, and was shipped off to a government facility after she killed his best friend when they were little. But she’s too useful figuring out terrorist attacks and such so they give her “treats” in exchange for her cooperation. Sherlock, utterly traumatized, has since blocked her out, and concocted a family dog in place of his friend. It got “put down” in the mind palace of His Last Vow, and now has drowned. This makes no sense without playing the ‘nothing is what it seems card’ to the point where you literally are telling the audience that nothing they saw up to this point is really part of the plot. “Things aren’t what they seem” as a plot device is a solid option, but don’t go full “Lost”. It is a serious disservice to the viewers who spend their time watching the show, to tell them that they have wasted a large chunk of it on something utterly meaningless.

While it wasn’t quite as bad as Mary leaping in front of a speeding bullet, we have John and Sherlock leaping out of glass windows and falling 2 stories onto pavement without any injury during an explosion. Such a far far cry from Molly coldly explaining how a bullet doesn’t hit with a spurt of blood and drama. (Oh wait, it did for Mary didn’t it?), it was disappointing to see them dive so far into movie physics after making the effort to *not* do that in other episodes.

We then get a tour de force of the “Pusher” X-Files episode where talking to someone makes you do what they say. And “Beyond the Sea”, with an unrepentant psychopath murderer that our hero wants to talk to for some unknown reason. Pity we didn’t have an equally awesome scene with Sherlock threatening that if John dies, to throw the switch and gas her out of this life.

Instead we get a hug, and that miraculously cures her of wanting to kill John. Who then uses a rope to climb out after gnawing off his own foot to free it of the chains....or something. The chains are gone somehow, we’re not told how even though there isn’t really enough time with the water level for John to unlock them easily. (Sorry, I really had to bite my tongue during much of the episode or MST3K/Rifftrax would’ve come out. My internal monologue had me chuckling a time or two though.) I won’t even touch on Mr and Mrs Holmes being absolutely unrealistically written characters now after learning that so much family trauma happened. It’s a minor detail that most people (except those who have been unfortunate enough to be somewhat familiar with) would not understand and so pales compared to the other errors in the episode. It’s still annoying though. Again, quality acting from two great actors though.

There are good points to the episode, Mycroft’s guilty pleasure watching old film noir detective movies is funny and potentially telling. The sword/gun umbrella is pure fan service and absolutely awesome. There is plenty of Johnlock, Adlock, Mystrade, and Sherlolly sprinkled about for the various ships. Now I know a lot of people are upset by how those turned out, but given the production schedule Sherlock isn’t likely to make any of them cannon. So the best option shippers have is a bit of everything to provide the fandom with countless gifs, drawings, and fanfic stills. There are also some great quotes in here, and solid dialog exchanges. The end of the episode wrap up was nice, but emotional whiplash after the darkness of the show. It did show us what BBC Sherlock *can* be, and we can only hope they will return to form if we get a season 5. Realistically, the absolutely superb acting held up what was a convoluted mess of a plot, that unfortunately crossed the line from complicated interwoven aspects, to throwing stuff together and changing our minds halfway through about what is actually going on. Steven and Mark are capable of taking this plot and doing it well enough not to need a “viewer discretion” or making it into the convoluted mess it ended up being. It would be tough and some of the other seasons still would’ve had some pretty big plot holes, but they are talented enough to do it justice at least. Unfortunately they weren’t at their best this time around and it’s a bit of a tough one for the fandom after all these years of waiting. You guys are still brilliant, but please study before the final next time, okay?