Sherlock Season 2 Overview: Sherlocked

Season 2 shows a new side of Sherlock when he falls for a dangerous woman named Irene Adler. She is really working with Moriarty. At the end of the episode Mycroft and Watson think she is dead (but she was actually rescued by Sherlock instead). Making a character like Sherlock likable enough to keep audiences coming back is a tough order. This season succeeded in making him more human and not just a freak of nature.

In episode 2 Sherlock is going through nicotine withdrawal. BlueBell the Rabbit is missing. Baskerville is the sight of government biological and genetic experiments. Sherlock and Watson go in pursuit of a demon dog. "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound" says a man whose father was supposedly killed by it some twenty years ago. This would make a great Halloween episode.

"The Reichenbach Fall" was my most favorite of the three episodes. It opens with John telling a therapist that Sherlock is dead. The final showdown between Sherlock and his arch nemesis Moriarty occurs. Three spectacular crimes are pulled off by Moriarty and he is put on trial. The jury deliberates for like six minutes and finds him NOT guilty (even though the defense called no witnesses). Moriarty then poses as an actor named Richard Brooks who was hired by Sherlock to play the part of Moriarty. "Sherlock Holmes The World's Greatest Detective" is an elaborate sham designed to give him fame and fortune. Sherlock and Moriarty meet on the rooftop. If Sherlock does not jump to his death Moriarty will have the three assassins he hired kill the people most important to Sherlock-- John, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. Note Mycroft is not listed as being important to him. Moriarty then shoots himself in the head (I really didnt see that coming). Sherlock has no choice but to jump in order to save his friends. John sees him jump. He runs to him laying on the sidewalk but its too late. But of course Sherlock can NOT be dead (cause it's his show). He watches John and Mrs Hudson from afar. If you can only watch one episode from this season, make it "The Recihenbach Fall". You wont be disappointed. I rate this episode 5 Monsters.

From Wikipedia:

Episode 1: A Scandal In Belgravia

Mycroft hires Sherlock and John to retrieve compromising photos of a minor royal, which are held on the camera phone of Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), a ruthless and brilliant dominatrix who also trades in classified information extracted from her rich and powerful clients. Sherlock obtains Adler's phone, but discovers it is booby-trapped and requires a code to disarm it. When Adler discovers that the CIA are on her trail, she disappears and is then apparently killed, only to reappear to ask John to get her camera phone back from Sherlock. Weeks later when the coast is clear, Adler tricks Sherlock into deciphering a coded message on her phone which she obtained from another well-connected client. She sends the message to Moriarty, who in turn uses it to foil a British counter-terror operation. She almost succeeds in blackmailing Mycroft, but Sherlock finally cracks the password for the phone, leaving Adler without the protection she needs to survive. The episode concludes as Mycroft tells John that she has been killed by a terrorist group in Pakistan. This is also untrue: Sherlock helped her escape when she was on the brink of death. Based on the short story "A Scandal in Bohemia".

Episode 2: The Hounds of Baskerville

Sherlock and John are contacted by Henry Knight (Russell Tovey), a man traumatised by the death of his father by a monstrous hound on Dartmoor years before. Investigating Dewer's Hollow, a local spot where the beast was allegedly seen, as well as the nearby Ministry of Defense testing site Baskerville, Sherlock and John uncover a conspiracy wherein one of the Baskerville scientists, Dr. Frankland (Clive Mantle), is continuing the work of H.O.U.N.D., an aborted project to create a hallucinogenic gas for military use. Sherlock and John discover that the legendary hound is an ordinary dog used for publicity that the hallucinogenic gas makes appear as a demonic monster. The "hound" that killed Henry's father was actually Frankland wearing a red-lensed gas mask and a T-shirt bearing the logo of the H.O.U.N.D. group. Confronting both the dog and Frankland at Dewer's Hollow, John and Lestrade shoot the dog. Frankland attempts to flee, but dies when he runs into a minefield. In the final scene, Mycroft releases a confined Jim Moriarty. Based on the novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Episode 3: The Reichenbach Fall

After a series of high-profile cases lead Sherlock to fame, Moriarty launches a simultaneous heist on the Tower of London, Bank of England and Pentonville Prison using just a few lines of code that can break any security; crimes for which he allows himself to be captured and put on trial. He secures a not-guilty verdict through intimidating the jury and visits Sherlock, explaining he still intends to "burn" him, taunting him with a "final problem" for him to solve. Soon afterwards, Moriarty arranges for the kidnapping of the children of an American ambassador, who are terrified of Sherlock once he has them rescued. This, in conjunction with the ease with which Sherlock solves the case, leads to Sherlock becoming a suspect. Sherlock escapes arrest, and soon learns Moriarty is using the alias of an actor who claims to have been hired by Sherlock, and has seeded the press with a story of Sherlock being a fraud. The two meet on the roof of a hospital, where Moriarty explains that assassins will kill John, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade if Sherlock does not commit suicide; he wants Sherlock to do this to cement his story after explaining that his "god code" was a myth. After a tense conversation, in which Moriarty realises the two are enough alike that Sherlock would be willing to do anything to Moriarty to get him to call off the assassins, Moriarty kills himself to force Sherlock to do the same. Sherlock calls John and "confesses" to being a fraud (which John refuses to believe). John pleads for him to come down. Sherlock states his final "Goodbye" and then steps off the roof, leading to his vilification by the press. John and Mrs. Hudson meet alone at Sherlock's grave to say their goodbyes; the final seconds show Sherlock watching from afar, having faked his death. Inspired by the short story "The Final Problem". The title alludes to the Reichenbach Falls, where Sherlock and Moriarty supposedly fall to their deaths in the original story.

Grade: 4 1/2 Monsters (out of 5). As I've said previously "Sherlock" is not everyone's cup of tea but it smart, fun and addictive. And with only three episodes per season you need not spend endless hours to catch up.