The Game is Never Over

(The following post contains mild Sherlock spoilers.)
Two years is quite a long time to wait for only three episodes, but Sherlock fans rejoiced this past Sunday, January 19, when season three, episode one finally hit the air in the U.S. I don’t know if it was a laugh by the producers at the two-year wait, but two years have passed since Sherlock faked his own death in the series, and we see Mycroft Holmes saving Sherlock from what looks to be a Russian prison. Flash forward to the two of them returning to England, we see Sherlock trying to make a happy surprise for Watson with the fact that he is still alive, which, not surprisingly, leads Watson to hitting Sherlock in the face–several times actually, which is pretty fair, to say the least.
A new major addition to the cast joins us: Watson’s fiance, Mary Morstan (played by Amanda Abbington), who Watson was proposing to when Sherlock made his existence known. As you would expect, a lot of this episode is Sherlock meeting up with his old friends, all four of them, letting them know he is alive, and moving back into the 221b flat. We also see Watson dealing with the fact that Sherlock is alive, and the very fun banter he and Mary have over it. Mary is a part-time nurse at Watson’s practice, and might be how the two of them met, but that is never made fully clear.
This episode is mainly a lot of funny jokes between the characters, which are all well done and a bit needed after that heavy finale of season two, and Watson and Sherlock clearly missing each other, since Watson is playing hard to get because of Sherlock not letting him in on the “being alive” secret. We do see a little glimpse of the man who is basically the new mastermind to challenge Sherlock this season, with Moriarty being out of the picture, that is. Not much is known of this man, but we do know that he was willing to put Watson in a bonfire to get Sherlock’s attention, and to judge Sherlock’s loyalty to Watson.
Sherlock fans, rejoice; with two episodes left in the season, we have a lot more enjoyable moments with Watson and Sherlock ahead. That, and the great news that Sherlock season four should be airing late 2014 or early 2015.
Photo courtesy of Alice X. Zhang