Retrospective Review #11
Episode 4.1: The Six Thatchers
This used to be my retrospective review reminder: I am writing these as RETROSPECTIVE reviews, so I will be discussing reveals, revelations of cliffhangers, ends of plots, etc. If you are reading these reviews without having seen the eps, a) Go watch them now! and b) these reviews are not for you till you’ve seen them.
Now that I’m on to Season 4, though? I do not feel like I want to take responsibility for encouraging you to go watch these episodes. So. Just know that there are spoilers throughout these reviews, not just for the episode in question but for the whole season and series. I mean, I watched these again so you wouldn’t have to. I wouldn’t willingly put you through such pain. 🖤
In case we forgot that Sherlock is an insufferable, arrogant git (and not particularly smart even), we get reminded immediately at the top of this ep that he’s not a hero, but a “high functioning sociopath.” And if *that* wasn’t clear enough, his goofiness in the face of a VERY serious classified coverup is just…childish. Also stupid. Also: “I know exactly what [Moriarty’s] going to do.” No you don’t. What. is going on?!
I’m getting ahead of myself—what’s the main plot of Season 4 Episode 1, “The Six Thatchers?”
Um…
The cliffhangers that dangled at the end of the Christmas special (and also at the end of 3.3) get tied up and concluded. ish. (Do NOT get used to this.) Then, Mary has her baby, baptizes it, and then we take the rest of the ep to unspool her sordid past as a vicious mercenary assassin. Then she dies.
That’s it. Oh, and there’s a mystery in the beginning that’s a nod to canon story “Six Napoleons,” about smashing busts to find the Black Pearl of the Borgias. But like, it’s all about Mary in this version. Or something. Oh, and! Watson cheats on Mary. ish. Before she dies.
Okay so when I first saw this episode back when it was broadcast I was in the ass-end of a marriage that was going so badly, we’d opened it for a couple of years, in an attempt to fix it (I don’t need to tell you how well that went). In 2017, when this episode came out, we were slogging through a broke divorce and I’d finally moved out to a place of my own. Even then. Even then!!! I did not buy Watson flirting with the lady on the bus. And the texting her. At all. Did not work. Do not buy it. Watson may have an “experience of women that spans three continents,” but this is not in character for him.
To be honest, I’m actually more irked by the writers pussy-footing around with this plot point. If they’re going to really have him cheat on his wife, then: a) have him feel bad at the proper level about it, have some consequences or comeuppance, and don’t have Sherlock just be like, Hey don’t worry it was only texting, in a later ep. Maybe have Watson actually need to face his real living wife about what he’s done, not just her made-up ghost, ffs; b) OR have Watson go farther than just texting in his infidelity. Texting can absolutely count as cheating, don’t get me wrong—ask anyone who’s sexted or had a cyber-relationship. But. What the writers have done is make it a sort of naughty thing to do but ehhhh it’s fine. Because it’s Watson, and Watson is an honorable man.* There’s no consequences and nothing really comes of it. He feels kind of bad for a while and that’s it. This is a bold choice: so make the choice. One way or the other, not this cowardly in-between nonsense.
Ugh what a horrible opening mystery. What a terrible situation and terrible death. It’s…awful. YES! Thank you! Can we have more actual crime solving? Even if it has to be haunting like this? Please? These stories are supposed to be murder mysteries (or at least mysteries), for crying out loud. Stuff like this is where the show briefly flares into quality: the whole thing about the car seats and etc.? Good details and good mystery!
Another thing I do not buy: Sherlock is deeply haunted by Moriarty and also has a sudden interest in intuition. And he just…knows things, without any deductions, observations, or analysis. Nope. It’s true that in later canon, Sherlock honors women’s intuition more than he used to, and discusses moving forward on mere hunches. This is different, though—this is more like Smart Person Magic (™).
Related to the Smart Person Magic (™) and so also not buyable: this nonsense about Sherlock’s repressed traumatic memory. And the many layers of this repressed memory makes it even worse (though we don't learn about the next layers in this ep). It’s a repression of the memory under the repressed memory and guuhhh just tell the story of the crime. The whole not-remembering-a-trauma thing is okay, sort of, but the way Hollywood (er, BBC) treats it is not really the way memory works, even traumatic memory. Layering another worse trauma under the initial repressed memory here is just… it’s another way that Mofftiss are gilding and then frosting and then putting sprinkles on the lily.
This is the center of my problems with episode 4.1, and, I think we’ll find, all the episodes in Season 4 in particular. There’s too much about Sherlock’s (and Mycroft’s, and to some degree Mary’s) insane cleverness and not nearly enough about actually solving mysteries. It’s over-written, let alone over-shot. Just, yanno. Solve. A. Mystery. That’s it. One per episode. Solve it, showing us the details, and then afterwards, tell us what those details meant, to add up to the conclusion. Not: gratuitous visual effects, gratuitous wit, gratuitous brutality. Speaking of: nobody talks to each other in these stories anymore, it’s all only quips and banter. Is it because now we have Mary here who’s supposed to be just as clever and now we have three super geniuses and so everyone only snarks now? Sigh. I’m so tired.
Sherlock’s prodding of the secretary about jealousy and status and being smarter than everyone has some potential. Doesn’t live up to it but it was a very cool idea—if we’re going to hang everything on high level smarts and what that does to those who are so, then yeah cool. Doesn’t quite get there but I like the idea. If they were to lean more heavily on this concept and put some thought behind it, it would put some pressure on the Smart Person Magic (™) thing, which would lead us and some of the characters to question that myth. That’s an interesting idea. But like so many interesting ideas that are never developed in Season 4, this fizzles out quickly. This is the main issue I have with Season 4 especially, and my central plea can be summed up thusly:
Can we please quit masturbating over the special super-genius pretty white boy? Can we please dispel the myth of Smart Person Magic (™)? Can we do that? And! Lest ye think I’m complaining about a character that was always like this, nope. Canon!Sherlock cares about Watson, he’s polite to his colleagues and inferiors alike. He’s not this arrogant, insulting twat. I’ve written about this before, when I compared him with Columbo.
I’ve bitched a lot about episode 4.1. You might be wondering: Anything good? Well, sure:
There’s sort of a Sign of Four vibe, with four shady characters sticking together through shady shit. Also sort of a “Crooked Man” scent about it too, with the wounded man escaping enemy torture and coming back years after being betrayed.
I do like that London is one of the pivotal minor characters in this season. See now, that’s good use of visuals.
I also quite enjoy the case-montages whenever they appear. Those are always so fun, both with all the canon Easter eggs but also it focuses the story on actual mystery-solving, which often the A-plots don’t.
Great tease about Sherrinford—this is sort of a private joke for Sherlockians, as Sherrinford is the name Conan Doyle chose before he landed on Sherlock, in his pre-story brainstorming. Some
nerdsSherlockians posit that Sherrinford is another Holmes brother. So the name is obviously making us think that Sherrinford is “the other one” that Mycroft has mentioned a couple times now.“Work is a great antidote to sorrow” is one of my favorite quotes from canon.
Sherlock using logic with New Baby is actually pretty adorable. I’m not made of stone…
Martin Freeman is so so so good. That is all.
FINAL THOUGHT: Know what this reminds me of? All of a sudden everyone’s related, or oh-yeah-there’s-like-wand-lore-now or fucking midichlorians. Harry Potter and Star Wars both did this at the end of their series, now this one’s doing it. Please. Stop. You were telling a good story for like a second there, just. Tell that story. Somebody needs to be a “no-man” for the showrunners. There are too many “yes-men” around them, it seems.
Rating: 1 aquarium shark out of 5
*if you caught this reference, I geekily tip my Shakespearean hat to thee.
EASTER EGGS
I’m just going to list these, and let you figure out where in the canon they come from. This is an incomplete list, and I’m not including the title (and premise) of the whole episode (“Six Thatchers” = “Six Napoleons”), with its smashed busts and the Black Pearl of the Borgias. Here we go:
Did you catch the severed thumb? Remember that story?
An alias: Porlock
The Canary Trainer is a murderer
“You can’t arrest a jellyfish.” They kind of did, though, in one late canon story.
“Fresh paint to disguise another smell”—a note that is the premise to another later canon story
Sherlock notes his client’s right hand is bigger than his left, and therefore he’s done manual labor. Then the client laughs and says, “I thought you’d done something clever,” much to Sherlock’s chagrin.
Toby the dog!
“I’m not a very good man, but I think I’m better than you give me credit for.” That’s an obscure one. Any of my readers recognize that one? Hint: though Watson says it in this episode, it’s not Watson that says it in canon.
If you guess in the comments, I’ll let you know if you’re right. Cheers!