So... things with spoiler tags! Speaking of spoiler tags, while most of you put the major spoilers into tags earlier in the thread for this episode, quite a few of you left out enough information to... not spoil, but still gave me an idea on the direction things were heading in.

Screw those of you who did that. Not enough to really bitch at anyone, but enough to bitch in general. :awesome

This going to be too long. I'm treating it almost like a fanfic apparently, since I have DLP open and am making comments while I watch it to edit after it's done.

Spoiler

One thing I quite liked early on was how the show managed to stay true to characters like Mycroft by... putting them in situations where panic is expected, and showing viewers that yes they're scared as fuck, but not having them panic. Not letting them lose control, whether it's freaky clowns or a grenade, but still feeling a bit vulnerable and off kilter.

In a lot of ways this was Mycroft's episode. Showed us that while he is superior to Sherlock in some ways without many of Sherlock's drawbacks (drugs, etc), he can still fuck up. He also shined once or twice too, like when he tried to get Sherlock to kill him. All three of the Holmes kids have their own flaws to offset their varying levels of high intelligence, and I like that.

And speaking of the grenade, I half expected it to be a dud. Kudos to the show for not taking that route. Nice 'adventure' type feel to this one between that and when they played pirate.

Cracked up (creepily?) at this conversation. It's so out there and the last line was delivered in a tone of voice that I could almost hear Sherlock using instead of his sister.
Euros: I've had sex.
Sherlock: How?
Euros: One of the nurses got careless.
Sherlock: He didn't consent?
Euros: He?
Sherlock: She?
Euros: I'm afraid I didn't notice in the heat of the moment. Afterwards you couldn't really tell.

The glass. And lack thereof. :awesome

The 'mind control' AKA 'reprogramming' thing did bug me. YES it's true that the general concept been somewhat of a recurring theme in the series. But in past episodes we could at least understand how/why it was working, whether it was Moriarty's maneuvering or Magnussen's pressure points or whatever else. The suspension of disbelief I maintained there broke here. I can try to semi-justify it after the fact by twisting my head around, sort of like justifying how (poorly) the stone was protected in PS/SS, but I have to force it. On the other hand showing that Sherlock's formidable mind was working to keep him from remembering past trauma was a solid turn around. The best person to hide something from Sherlock is... Sherlock.

The bit with the little girl felt too much like a deliberate trick for the audience. Seeing her physically on screen in an airplane, without any indications of serious drug use by Sherlock, is telling the viewers that somewhere there exists a little girl on a plane. Even if she only exists in memory. But at the same time I knew something screwy was going on with it because of... well, how it was set up. The girl never panicked, was always on the line when needed and ready to pick up where the conversation left off, lots of time passing, etc. In hindsight it seems tacked on because the writers realized they had to have some kind of external threat to hurry Sherlock/John/Mycroft along so they didn't dally overmuch.

The 'House of Horrors' concept was fun and mind screwy. I liked it, and I liked that it didn't pull many punches in terms of Eurus going through with her threats. That said... no one we cared about died or had to deal with lasting consequences. I'm sort of glad they didn't, since I don't feel we have extraneous characters, but I still wanted to note it.

Also... Sherlock remembered Lestrade's first name!

I've seen some complaints online that everything in this series is about Sherlock.

Well, yeah. The name of the series is Sherlock. I don't doubt that interesting episodes and subplots could be given to other characters. They seem three dimensional in the show and it's easy to envision the sorts of things they have going on outside of the episodes we see. I don't mind that the show focuses on events surrounding the title character.

This episode was a great example of using psychology to generate compelling mind fuckery. It had it's issues - and one or two problems with suspension of disbelief - but on the whole I found it to be great fun. Lots of twisty bits.

I hope they don't end the series here, but if they do... well, it works as an ending.

 

Is it even possible to place any value into rumours of that nature? I'd always assumed that celebrity gossip was the least accurate form of reporting, which is really saying something.

The more I think about the previous episode the more I feel like Mycroft didn't get to show off his intelligence much despite it being more 'his' episode than any prior.

Spoiler

For example, I'm not surprised that Sherlock jumped straight into the "girl on a plane" problem. It's like Sherlock to go in feet first and then figure out later that there was more to it.

But Mycroft could have expressed more difficulty at believing it was actually happening. A few other similar things.

 

Bump, because I caught the last episode as it premiere'd here.

So ... and I say this as someone who made sense of Matrix Revolutions ... wtf was going on in the last episode? It leaves me scratching my head.

No, I'm not inclined to accept Sherlock has an evil genius sister we (Sherlock) knew nothing about until now.
No, I'm not inclined to believe in mind control either.


So alright, with those two, I've already rejected the entire episode, because I don't accept the premise. But surely, even given that, it shouldn't be too much to ask for the episode to display internal cohesion and logic?

The opening I partly missed has Sherlock and Watson jumping out of the window. The last time I tried that, I broke a lot of bones. In fact, fuck no, I know that will happen, so I didn't try that. Glad to see they have magic powers and survive without a scratch. But then again, so has Eurus, so it's fine?

Then we have a phone call from a plane and a little girl, except the plane doesn't exist and the little girl is the same sister having a breakdown that is currently pushing them through an obstacle course and killing people. That's some serious Jekyll/Hyde wtf-ery, if not to say she's mastered the art of being in two places at once, given that she turns out to be in the manor, but alright, let's assume she can or there is some other explanation (and "some other explanation" is what I thought a lot of times).

So then how can Sherlock not differentiate between a call from a plane, and a call from a plane that does not exist? If nothing else, a plane is noisy. The engines, the alarms in the cockpit ... how? Though really, given his established intelligence, he really, really should have questioned that one on the from the get go, as the circumstances and the content of the call were quite suspicious.

Another random bit: the missing glass wall. As glass isn't nothing, it'll always reflect a degree of light. I believe there exist special coatings to reduce the reflections enough that indeed it is almost invisible, but the keyword is "almost" and even so, why would that kind of glass be used there? And for that matter, if it were invisible, why would you even assume there was glass there at all -- initially?

And like that, it went on. The well Watson was in, shackled, so they helpfully lowered down a rope for him to climb up on, everyone constantly moving between (the super secret) prison, London, and elsewhere, with no problems at all, ....

I ended up staring blankly at my TV because the plot did not make sense far too often, and I can't say I was too thrilled with the setting either. There's probably different approaches to Sherlock (the series), which then also explain the different reactions, but for me, the draw was the juxtaposition of the brilliant Sherlock and the ordinary world. Here, we have a setting that is just as extraordinary as Sherlock, and hence the joy is gone.

For me, Sherlock is about solving cases in the real world, exemplified by A Scandal in Belgravia, which remains my favourite episode. This stuff is ... well, like I said, I have no idea what to make of it. It leaves me confused and at a loss.

 

Yup - and years later I feel the same way. The later seasons and episodes shifted too much towards character driven plots. And as much as I loved the characters and their plots I wish it had been grounded more in the mystery format. Could have still told the same over arching story.