REVIEW: Sherlock, Series 4 Episode Two 'The Lying Detective'

 REVIEW: Sherlock, Series 4 Episode Two 'The Lying Detective'

The previous episode of Sherlock left huge ramifications for the iconic partnership of Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman). Mary (Amanda Abbington) threw herself in front of a bullet for Sherlock and saved his life in the process. This led to John blaming Sherlock for his wife's murder, and a rift between the pair.  A rift which would need to be solved, as Mary's last request to Sherlock was to 'save John Watson'.

From the start it's clear that Mary's right about John needing to be saved, as he's not coping at all with the loss of his soul mate. He's not only having weekly therapy sessions, but he's also experiencing visions of his dead wife. The latter works particularly well as a neat narrative trick to fling us into the mind of John Watson. Through this storytelling method we get to experience John's inner thoughts and feelings, as we hear Mary literally acting as the voice inside his head. Every episode of Sherlock has seen us dive into the mind of Sherlock Holmes, but we rarely get to enter the mind of John Watson. 

Sherlock is also struggling, although this is mostly revealed to be a ruse to get John Watson to save him. For on the DVD which Mary left him (as we saw in the previous episode), she tells Sherlock that 'in order to save John Watson, he must save you'. It's quite an elaborate plan, which involves Sherlock getting high on drugs, tormenting a serial killer in entrepreneur and Philantropist Culverton Smith (Toby Hones) and manipulating Culverton into trying to kill him so that John would feel his life is in danger. The reveal of Sherlock's deep mind games did really impress me however, as it's in keeping with both the character and the rules of the world that Sherlock inhabits. This is a world where these deeply complex and multi-faceted ideas are placed into motion, where people can be tricked in this emotionally heightened manner, and we've seen it in episodes such as 'The Hounds Of Baskerville', where people's fears were used against them. In the world of Sherlock, plans like this happen quite easily.

The scenes where Sherlock gets high are, as you would expect, quite amusing. My favourite has to be when Miss Hudson (Una Stubbs) finds him wielding a gun, and drops the cup of tea she made for him in fright. He must look like even more of a looney than usual to her, and you'd imagine it would take a lot for  somebody to put up with this kind of insanity on a frequent basis. It shows how easily Sherlock as a character can lose himself and become a liability, as he has that tendency to go off the rails and become a problem for those around him. 

It's a clever idea to make the enemy in this episode someone who drugs people himself, as we see near the start of the story how Culverton Smith ensures nobody reveals the truth of his murderous ways. He confesses to those who work for him his wrongdoings, before proceeding to inject them with a medical drug that wipes their memories of what they just heard. This immediately draws a parallel to Sherlock's situation and his own drug taking, as there are some comparisons to be made. In both cases the drug misuse is used to assert control over outside forces, Culverton to make those in his board room  forget his confession, and Sherlock to get John to rescue him, as per Mary's request.  The only difference is that Sherlock is only actually drugging himself rather than others against their will, which reflects his more ethical behaviour in comparison to the serial killer. He's not there to corrupt people's memories, unlike Culverton, who enjoys abusing people, and shows no remorse for his actions in the slightest. 

What's the most sickening about Culverton's behaviour is that he derives pleasure from killing people. This leads to some very uncomfortable comparisons to Jimmy Saville, who got his own sick enjoyment out of acts of peadophilia. Like Saville, Culverton has the keys to a local hospital, and visits sick children as a means to protect his own image from the shadier acts of murder that he is committing within the confines of the hospital building. It's quite a chilling reminder of how easily these sort of people can get away with criminal acts, how they can use their immense wealth and power so that people ignore them and they can get up to whatever they like. Nobody will question them because they're too scared to, and it's a mirror image of just how morally flawed our society can become. It shouldn't be this easy.

This episode will always be remembered for one thing above all else though, and that's the shocking twist regarding John's therapist. I remember being gobsmacked at the time of broadcast as she turned out to be Sherlock's long lost sister Eurus (Sian Brooke). It's such a fantastic and ground-breaking twist. All along we were led to believe that their secret relative was another brother of Sherlock Holmes, so for it to turn out to be a secret sister was not something I saw coming. It adds an extra dimension though with Eurus being his sister, as it promises here a different and fresher dynamic to Sherlock and Mycroft (Mark Gatiss). The next episode delves into that potential more, but needless to say I was and still am a big fan of this move by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.

Overall, The Lying Detective is an utterly captivating episode of Sherlock. The twists are some of the very best seen in the show, and the antagonist Culverton Smith is one of the most chilling seen in the detective series, drawing some very unsavoury comparisons to the real life creep Jimmy Saville. It's possibly one of Steven Moffat's greatest pieces of television, and one that you absolutely should watch if you're a fan of his work.

What are your thoughts on the second episode of Sherlock's fourth series? Let me know in the comments.