Okay I added the aka in the title! Ha
Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) has to come home on the tube cos no taxi would take him as he's covered in blood and with a harpoon too, harpooning a pig as Watson (Martin Freeman) tells us, so wasn't anyone overly suspicious of him on said tube, or street etc in this day and age. He's bored out of his mind and needs another case. More than that he's craving a smoke and can't find his secret stash when Watson tells him he's been doing so well. What weren't his nicotine patches working? His addiction to cigarettes was so obvious then, like he wanted something more than just cigarettes. Think of the other Holmes adaptations and you'll know what I mean. Someone's e-mailed him about a disappearing rabbit called Bluebell which glows and has vanished now. He's mean to Mrs Hudson (Una Stubbs) this time round when he tells her about Mr Chatterjee and his wife in Doncaster, advising her to read his blog on perfumes.
He even suggests a game of Cluedo to Watson but he's not into that especially when Sherlock says the Vic did it. Which is something we used to say when we played back in the '80's. Ooh should have copyrighted that!!!
Finally Sherlock catches a break when in walks Henry Knight (Russell Tovey) claiming strange goings on in Dartmoor. Sherlock proceeds to tell him how he arrived here, on the train, met a girl, what he ate and insists he smoke as he inhales the fumes! Sherlock isn't interested in poetry otherwise he would have read Watson's e-mails to his girlfriends. Watson didn't want him to tell Henry about himself since he's just showing off, "which is what we do," replies Sherlock. He's not interested in the case until he tells him he saw a gigantic hound. SO he takes the case. Outside in the cafe Mrs Hudson argues with Mr Chatterjee and Sherlock adds wait until she finds out about the wife in Islamabad.
Sherlock and Watson check into the local inn and they can't get a double room but Watson's really not bothered with explaining they're not a couple. Oh Sherlock driving! No taxis 'ere mate! Ha. He manages to get them into the local not-so-secret military base using Mycroft's (Mark Gatiss) card which can get them in anywhere cos he "is the Government." And reckons they have 20 minutes before alarm bells sound. Putting up his coat collar cos he's cold.
Watson also gets to pull rank as he's a Captain which he admits he enjoys doing. The facility is into testing and developing all sorts of weapons, biological, chemical, etc and they run into a Dr Frankland (Clive Mantle). Also Sherlock finally gets 'Bluebell; now when he meets Dr Stapleton (Amelia Bullmore) her daughter e-mailed about the rabbit. He thinks it's time to leave as the security check comes up and Mycroft is informed of the breach, texting Sherlock to find out what's happening. They're stopped by Major Barrymore (Simon Day) and Frankland vouches for him being Mycroft. Admitting he's a fan of Sherlock's and mentions his hat, which Sherlock tells him wasn't his. He also enjoys Watson's blog. He gives them his cell number but can't talk now.
Watson asks Henry if he's rich after seeing his house, well he would be. As they drink coffee and we're meant to particularly notice the sugar Sherlock puts into his, cos watching it first time round, we're meant to think it's a clue. Henry's recalled 'Liberty In' with the help of his therapist, Dr Mortimer (Sasha Behar). Sherlock thinks they need to go out on the moor. Which they do. Watson gets separated from them as he sees flashing light and thinks it's Morse code. Then there are sounds and a mist as Sherlock and Henry are visited by the hound. Sherlock insists he didn't see it.
Later at the inn, he is sweating and nervous, he says he's experiencing fear. He's divorced from all emotions but his body is shaking and he drinks. Also telling Watson his mind is fully intact. By showing how a couple are a mother and son, he's a fisherman, needs money, wearing a jumper his mother gave him, she's got a dog, a small terrier called Whisky cos she was on the train with it and just wants Watson to leave him alone. Admitting he saw the hound and that he has no friends.
But this is Sherlock and he thinks there has to be an explanation for it, like being drugged. He thinks of the sugar as we're meant to since Watson wasn't affected and he doesn't take sugar. So he makes him a cup of coffee which Watson says he never does, as Lestrade (Rupert Graves) is here on holiday (coincidence?) and questions the inn owners about the extra meat they've ordered and the hound they keep.
Sherlock tells Watson to question Mortimer but she can't talk about Henry. Frankland turns up to mess things up asking how the investigation's going? Henry thinks he sees the hound at home as the lights come on. Watson finds the lights weren't Morse code but coming from a Lover's Lane, of sorts. Sherlock takes Watson back to the lab cos he's cunning! ha and he wants to get his own back on Watson for doubting his faculties, well not really. He wants to test his sugar theory and locks him up whilst making him believe the hound is about to come in and get him. Adding to his paranoia. He then tells him it was meant to be the sugar, but testing it doesn't reveal anything. He wants to be left alone in "my mind palace" so he can think.
Thus we get a demo of the inner workings of the Sherlock mind, with lots of words coming up and being moved around his mind. Until he finally clicks to Liberty, Indiana. The place where experiments were conducted. Accessing the computer files using Barrymore's password of 'Maggie' as in Thatcher he finds the names of the people experimented on spell 'HOUND.
Henry attacks Mortimer with a gun and she calls for help. Ending up on the moor once again. With the hound approaching. Sherlock realizes Henry saw a man with a gas mask when he was little and with glowing red eyes. (That was all very Doctor Who). Said masked man approaches and so does the hound, which wasn't really dead. Lestrade and Watson shoot at the hound, with Watson being the better shot and Frankland manages to escape. Of course it was him, he was making himself very conspicuous by showing up practically everywhere, using the word 'cell' aside. He's chased into the minefield. He was Henry's father's friend and didn't want to be found out about the experiments.
Sherlock and Watson talk about him thinking the drug was in the sugar but it was actually in the mist. Watson wasn't exposed to it until later and not for very long. Watson saying it wasn't the sugar as Sherlock thought it was. Also at the end Moriarty (Andrew Scott) is released from his padded cell, after scrawling Sherlock all over the walls, in a scene straight from The Return of the Pink Panther when Dreyfus had written 'Kill Clouseau' all over his padded cell. Obviously it's for the final episode in this season and possibly, possibly using Sherlock as bait or something more sinister. Won't give it away here here since maybe some out there won't have watched the next episode yet.
Yet more great moments here, like Sherlock turning his collar up, not cos he's cold but as Watson tells him he does that to look cool with his cheekbones and all! Also Watson mentions Spock here, which was Mr Spock and well before Start Trek: Into Darkness! But then there was Sherlock and the raising of his eyebrow when he was looking under the microscope, again very Mr Spock!
Loved the 'mind palace,' didn't we all. Only a palace would do for Sherlock! And no he didn't get that from last week and being at the Palace! As we know by now, whatever case Sherlock gets or turns down as irrelevant or boring has some forbearing on the bigger investigation he does take up. Last ep it was the bodies for the plane and this time it was the glowing rabbit. Nice touches too with Stapleton in the original story being the naturalist and conducting his experiments just as Stapeleton did here, albeit she's a woman here, as well as the hound being kept hidden in secret by the inn owners. Barrymore also in the original whose wife was hiding her convict brother and thus signalling on the moor, Watson's flashing light here. Frankland is also in the story and Mortimer was the one who went to Sherlock for help.
Dr Frankland:" Oh Mr Holmes I would love to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Sherlock: "That would be tremendously ambitious of you." Indeed considering Moriarty tried and was stopped and try he will again!
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