Watching Sherlock (Series 1, Episode2)

It seems that some people like The Blind Banker (written by Stephen Thompson) a bit less than the first and third episodes, but not I. It’s an episode that allows us to discover more about our two heroes with a different backdrop. I’ll even go farther because the creation of Dr Sarah Sawyer (Zoe Telford) was a brilliant idea (more about her when she’s on screen).

Let’s have a look at that episode, shall we?

Fair warning: as usual, I’ll be over-analyzing everything.

The opening scene takes us to a museum where a charming Asian lady, Soo Lin Yao (Gemma Chan), is performing a tea ceremony for some visitors. She looks really enthusiastic about the task, but the art of making tea is something very special and her dedication is understandable.

When she’s done and she’s putting everything back into a box, she’s joined by one of her colleagues, Andy Galbraith (Al Weaver). He’s a perfect cliché of a geek, and he’s obviously got a massive crush on his colleague. If there’s one thing to say about Andy it’s that he’s brave, and even though he’s completely clumsy, he tries to invite Soo Lin out on a date (it’s a predictable fiasco, but Andy’s an interesting character: I think he’s supposed to be appear somewhat dull, but he is not).

Since we’re dealing with a Sherlock Holmes mystery, it’s obvious that Soo Lin is avoiding Andy because of some dark, if yet unknown, reason… and we don’t have to wait too long for a clue; after the museum closes, Soo Lin goes to put away her tea ceremony box and, after a few sound effect to induce fright, she reacts to something off-screen, and as the opening credits roll, we’re left to discover what’s so frightening at a later time.

That’s going to be much later apparently, because the next scene takes us to John and Sherlock and their domestic arrangement: John is fighting with a chip and PIN machine at the supermarket, doing the shopping for Sherlock and him whilst Sherlock is fighting a masked man armed with a sword in the living room (incidentally, a mirror is back above the mantelpiece, which adds the illusion of space and is rather welcome).

John’s fight is hilarious, and I want to bet the writer has been observing people at his own supermarket or having a fight of his own (those machines can be really useful, but they have a slight tendency to do odd things, and here we’ve got a collection of almost all the possible malfunctions).

When John gets back home after leaving his shopping bag with the machine, he thinks that Sherlock hasn’t moved a muscle since he left. John sounds utterly frustrated for various reasons: Sherlock's lack of participation in daily chores, the machine that refused to obey him, and most of all, money problems. It seems that what annoys John the most is that Sherlock is refusing perfectly good work for reasons John doesn’t deem good enough, and this is how we discover that the earlier attacker was sent in order to convince Sherlock to find the Jaria diamond, which is just too boring for Sherlock.

It’s obvious that John is very preoccupied because he notices that the kitchen table is scratched, but he doesn’t ask Sherlock what caused that, which would force Sherlock to mention the visitor. As well, he doesn’t react when Sherlock hides the tip of the broken sword that his assailant left behind.

In this domestic scene, there’s something very, very important about the relationship between Sherlock and John because when John asks if Sherlock could lend him some cash, Sherlock offers his debit card (now, I don’t know about you, but I’d have to trust someone deeply to hand him, or her, my card). Sherlock trusts John (then again, John Watson is profoundly honest).

Yet, in spite of this friendly trust, Sherlock cannot be bothered with domestic things (when John finally comes back with their shopping, he doesn’t help), and he borrowed John’s password-protected laptop.

In the original stories (see my post on the topic there), Sherlock Holmes is from a family of country squires. I think we’d all love to see the bible the authors are using to update Sherlock, but he’s certainly still from a rather wealthy and well-educated family (after all, Mycroft didn’t become the “government” only thanks to his brain; the family must have extremely good connections) [Confession time: I started writing this two years ago, and we now know that my last statement is most probably off about the connections. Interesting twist]. As well, if we imagine Sherlock coming from a wealthy family, it might explain why he acts with Mrs Hudson as if she were the housekeeper and why he lets John do everything in their flat (if there was always someone to clean and cook, then Sherlock doesn’t have such things on his brain… and how he survived between university and moving to Baker Street could be explained with some elder brother intervention at regular intervals – or Sherlock just doesn’t care).

The fact that Sherlock borrows John’s properties must be annoying for John, especially if he’s trying to blog in peace, or date online, but it reveals how much John is a part of Sherlock's life. [I’d warned you that I’d be over-analyzing, hadn’t I?]

Apparently, John’s pension isn’t enough to afford life in London, even with a flatmate (his post seems to be mostly bills, which he puts down, and he tries to borrow money from Sherlock, who immediately announces that he must go to the bank).

What John briefly takes for his flatmate and friend helping him was in fact Sherlock being fully focussed on the e-mail from an old mate he’d received and read on John’s laptop. Since the university mate, Sebastian Wilkes (Bertie Carvel), seems to have some interesting mystery on his hands, Sherlock decides to answer to Sebastian’s invitation (since he’s a banker, that allows John to follow Sherlock for completely wrong reasons).

When they arrive at the bank, Martin Freeman’s expression is absolutely brilliant; it seems to say, “Ah, so that was absolutely not about my problem; Sherlock's onto something”.

What’s also interesting about Sherlock's character is his reaction to Sebastian. He probably came to keep showing off and to get a potentially interesting case. From what Sebastian tells John, Sherlock's life must have been semesters of bullying at university (the fact that Sherlock introduces John as his friend is to show his old mate that he’s not alone, that he’s got a friend, someone who cares). But, of course, Sherlock ignores the possible double meaning of friend (it’s good that the writing team decided to keep having fun with the sexual ambiguity – it works and brings fun), John feels the need to clear things up (perhaps one day, he’ll just add “and colleague” to Sherlock's “friend” reference), and Sebastian doesn’t care one bit.

Finally, after teasing Sebastian, Sherlock gets his mystery: someone got into Sir William’s office, and the shrine to the former boss has been tagged with yellow paint (one symbol on the wall and a single line over the eyes of Sir William’s portrait). Since the bank has cards for every door, Sebastian knows that no one walked through the office’s door, and the office is at the top of a huge building (in real life, I’d ask Sebastian to check his computers because good hackers can do a lot of things, and if he were sure that the doors stayed locked, I’d tell him to look at the roof: if it’s not the door, it must be the window, or as Sherlock would say ‘when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It may well be that several explanations remain, in which case one tries test after test until one or other of them has a convincing amount of support.’ [The Blanched Soldier]).

Sebastian writes a cheque for Sherlock that he hands to John; what is not much for Sebastian is quite a lot for John (and it doesn’t help that he knows Sherlock doesn’t care about the thousands of pounds).

Sherlock starts working on the mystery and takes pictures of the symbols on the wall (they’ve got to have a meaning), and then he launches himself in a very funny sort of dance in order to assess from where the tag can be seen (the scene’s quite funny as the background music’s highly amusing, and Sherlock's dance makes him look like a human prairie dog). Luckily for him, there’s only one office from which it’s visible, Edward (Eddie) Van Coon’s (Dan Percival).

As they leave the bank, Sherlock seems pleased that John understood that his friend’s behaviour was meant to annoy Sebastian. Since John saw the trick, Sherlock proceeds to explain how he knew what Sebastian had recently been doing… and if one thing’s for sure, it’s that he’s got really sharp eyes to have spotted that the watch was a very recent model.

The investigating duo goes looking for Mr Van Coon, and we get to see how cunning Sherlock can be since he manages to convince Van Coon’s upstairs neighbour (a new addition in the building) that he’s Van Coon and needs to hop down onto his balcony because he’s locked himself out. Either Sherlock is very convincing, or Mrs Wintle’s really gullible… or a bit of both. It’s extraordinary, but if one stops to take into account the number of scams in real life, that’s not impossible.

Once he’s in, he starts an inspection of the flat (the Champagne-filled fridge is a delightful cliché), and then John starts ringing the bell (waiting for Sherlock to open a door is going to be an important twist in the plot – and that shows that Sherlock's still mostly in his bubble; he likes having an audience, but he’s not really making sure that he’ll keep that audience).

Van Coon’s dead on his bed, and we go straight to police work with the Forensic Services buzzing with activity around the flat: Sherlock's got to be really convincing since he and John have been allowed to stay even though the officer in charge of that case isn’t present yet.

Just before Sherlock demonstrates that John and DI Dimmock (Paul Chequer), just like in most of the canon stories, have been jumping to conclusions and thought that a City man just committed suicide, he makes a mistake when he thinks that the DI he doesn’t know is a mere DS, who answers to DI Lestrade (none of them’s perfect, and that keeps showing us that Sherlock does make mistakes now and then).

Sherlock's always ready to do whatever’s necessary to gather clues, and he happily checked Van Coon’s suitcase full of dirty laundry. That allows him to have a better, clearer view of the entire situation: he knows that Van Coon was killed (and that he knew he was in danger since he’d locked himself in and had a gun), and he knows that the killer had to be quite extraordinary to find a way to actually get in.

Sherlock leaves Dimmock to his investigation, and he goes to report to Sebastian, who treats him like a servant, but then again, he’s been written to look like a typical rich bully who’s used to be obeyed (good job!).

Sebastian doesn’t want to hear anything about Van Coon’s murder, which the Police reported to the head of the bank as a potential suicide, and he reminds Sherlock that he’s paying him to find the person who vandalized Sir William’s office. Sherlock doesn’t look ready to follow that order because he knows that both have to be linked.

The focus shifts to a new character, who seems to be running as if he had the Devil after him. He runs to his flat, but the camera zooming in on his frightened expression informs us that he was too late… but we’ll have to wait a bit to discover what happened to him exactly, as we head back to the museum from the opening scene. There, our lovely geek is informed that he’s to go to Crispians in order to appraise two Ming vases made during the reign of Emperor Chenghua; that cannot be random (so how do we tie everything together, um?) and that's how he learns that Soo Lin quit, which doesn't make any sense since she loves her job (he's very concerned and goes to her - deserted - flat and leaves her a note asking that she contacts him).

Since John’s pension’s not enough, we find him looking for a day job – something that’s going to pay a few bills.

If he may get some locum work, the interesting point is Dr John Watson flirting like hell with Dr Sarah Sawyer. This interlude could be there merely to add some fun, or to follow the long tradition of Watson always being a gallant man looking for a potential Mrs Watson; I think it’s more than that because Sarah is quite a lovely and interesting character.

For the moment, we don’t get to see anything else about the two doctors, and John dives back into his Sherlockian life, a life where his flatmate is so absorbed by the mystery about the signs that were painted in Sir William’s office that he hadn’t really noticed that John was gone, which tells us how focussed and unaware at the very same time Sherlock can be.

Even though John slips and reveals that he’s quite interested in Sarah (and he tries to pretend that he was talking about the job at the surgery), Sherlock can’t be bothered because there’s been another murder that shows similarities to Van Coon’s (the flat was bolted from the inside): and we’ve got the tie with the frightened man who was running for his life, only to fall into the claws of his assassin. The second corpse is a freelance journalist: Brian Lukis (Howard Coggins).

Not being a huge fan of coincidences, Sherlock goes to Scotland Yard with John to see Dimmock (who’s forced to admit that Sherlock was right, and Van Coon didn’t kill himself).

Sherlock coldly growls ‘So this investigation might move a bit quicker if you were to take my word as gospel.’ Arrogant, but that works, and Sherlock gets five minutes in Lukis’s flat.

First, Sherlock understands that their killer’s someone who can climb walls, because that’s the only logical explanation to what happened at the bank, and to the way two men were killed on the fourth floors in bolted flats. The next question is to connect the two victims… which takes Sherlock and John to the West Kensington Library (the fact that Sherlock spotted the one book that Lukis borrowed the day he died can be attributed to the writer handing Sherlock the clue or luck – since we’ve established that Sherlock can sometimes rely on different things). By following the book trail, they find the exact same sign than the one at the bank, and that’s when the graffiti becomes a mystery cipher (that was borrowed from The Adventure of the Dancing Men). Since Sherlock's not a specialist, he needs help and heads to the National Gallery. Well, on the side of the museum to meet a street artist, Raz (Jack Bence).

When Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman cross the square and head towards the museum, just when they walk past the fountain, we can notice something that Cumberbatch mentioned in an interview (somewhere on the BBC, I think; probably The Graham Norton Show): since they had to shoot that scene several times, three girls can be spotted waiting for them and walking behind them in an attempt to be in the scene. That’s a bit odd.

Once they’ve found Raz, he can help about the kind of paint that was used, but the meaning of the tag escapes him (we even have a spot of red herring when he says that he doesn’t think it’s a proper language; he may be gifted in his field, but he isn’t a linguist). When the announced Community Support Officer arrives, honest-John doesn’t run (for good measure, Raz even give a kick to his bag of paint cans to have it closer to John), and John ends up being the one in trouble.

Whilst John’s probably invited to meet more police officers, Andy, at the museum, is trying to convince his boss that there’s something definitely fishy about Soo Lin quitting, she prefers to suggest that he might have been bugging Soo Lin instead of listening to his very valid objections: that serves the plot, and that’s probably how most people would react.

And John finally goes home after a meeting with a Custody sergeant (and after getting a court appointment on Tuesday: he’s being given an ASBO) and Sherlock’s totally unconcerned. He’s decided that they need to retrace the two murdered men’s steps to see where their paths intersect.

Just before John takes a cab to Scotland Yard to get Lukis’s diary, he’s photographed by an Asian lady; she could be any tourist in London, but since Sherlock learns from Van Coon’s PA, Amanda (Olivia Poulet), that he was just back from Dalian, this is not just a tourist – she’s a clue.

There’s a gap in Van Coon’s schedule for the day he died, but Amanda’s got all his receipts, so Sherlock will be able to get clues, and speaking of clues, after having Dimmock mildly insulting Sherlock, we see Lukis’s plane ticket from Dalian: there are no coincidences, indeed.

Sherlock and John finally bump into each other in front of the Lucky Cat Emporium (Sherlock understood that Van Coon had come in the area to deliver something, but it’s John who got the final info from Lukis’s diary, and he shares that with Sherlock once Sherlock lets him say a word). The place is a charming (if a tad expensive) shop where Sherlock realizes that his cipher is numbers, in Hangzhou (incidentally, since they were filming in Chinatown, they could have asked someone how to pronounce it, which would have avoided some bad mandarin pronunciation, à la Kill Bill).

For a very brief moment, John sees again the Asian lady who was in front of their house, but she disappears like a ghost (he should sometimes listen to Sherlock and to his instinct and mention this kind of oddities, then Sherlock could add the data to his brain file on the current mystery).

Sherlock comes to the logical conclusion that both murdered men were smuggling things from China and were delivering the goods to the Lucky Cat Emporium, but it’s John’s wondering why they were killed after delivering whatever they brought back that makes Sherlock understand that one of them must have stolen something from their boss.

Right then and there, Sherlock spots an unpicked directory across the street and he rushes to investigate (John can kiss his lunch goodbye; if that’s not friendship…).

And all the chips start to fall into place: the directory was for Soo Lin, and it’s been there for at least three days – and she’s left the rear window open, which is a bit odd. Sherlock manages to reach the fire escape, but John doesn’t follow (that’s a part of the plot, and he really needs to be quicker and learn to follow Sherlock, too).

The flat only looks empty, but Sherlock notices that the carpet by the window is already wet when he nearly drops the vase next to the open window: someone’s been there. Being used to operating mostly alone, he starts his tour of the flat, and he talks to John, who’s downstairs, on the street, as if he could hear him clearly. Sherlock realizes that he’s made a dire mistake as the killer’s still in the flat, and John’s anger and rant outside is going to come back and bite him somewhere painful very soon.

Sherlock's nearly strangled, but his clumsy attacker doesn’t finish the job and puts an origami black lotus in his pocket: this could be meant as a warning, but what would that mean to a Westerner? That’s just another clue to bring us closer to the bottom of the mystery, and the note to Soo Lin that Andy had left on a convenient envelope with their workplace’s name leads Sherlock to the next connection (not impossible, and rather plausible given the circumstances).

Once at the museum, they retrace Soo Lin’s steps before she disappeared, and we finally get to see what frightened her and made her flee: she was sent the same code Van Coon and Lukis got, and she knew she had to run.

They leave the museum, and Raz miraculously finds them there; a spot of explanation (a quick text or something) would have been nice, but let’s say we believe in sheer luck.

On their way to the thing Raz wants to show them, John focuses on his impending court date (he’s too much of a man of honour if he believes Raz’s going to come and admit the paint was his!), and he never spots the third appearance of the Asian lady.

Raz has found bits of the cipher that have been tagged over; they go looking for more. Sherlock finds empty cans of paint (and one poster seems so interesting for some still obscure reason that he tears off a part of it and keeps it). John finds a whole wall covered with the Chinese cipher; since Sherlock wasn’t answering his phone (if he was focussed, that’s plausible; by now, we know how he is), he had to go looking for him. The wall’s been painted over when they reach it again (in ten minutes! Either they had a horde of painters on stand-by, or I need these guys in my flat for some work that needs to be done); that generates a hilarious scene as Sherlock wants John to maximise his visual memory and doesn’t give him time to mention that he was cunning enough to take a picture of the wall with cipher.

Their night out allowed Sherlock to understand that they need Soo Lin to crack the code, and back at the museum, the fact that there are two shining teapots where there was only one the day before tells Sherlock that Soo Lin’s hiding somewhere in the museum; he’s proven right that night.

Then, we get a lot of background info through her story: she shows them the black lotus on the sole of her foot (great idea to hide the mark of a Tong, a variety of Chinese mafia, but… not all members would be able to withstand the pain, as that’s said to be the most painful place to get a tattoo – and it fades after a few years, as well. Once more, we could imagine that they’d be knocked out or something, but that’s a tad too romantic an idea… or a bit of a cliché… or a telly thing). So, we’re dealing with the Chinese mafia, and one of their assassins, Zhi Zhu, is looking for Soo Lin because she’s tried to escape her former life and she refused to help their boss in their quest for what either Van Coon or Lukis stole.

There’s an odd thing when she mentions Zhi Zhu: first, he’s someone she met back in China, and then she says he’s her brother. If she didn’t plan to confess as much, kind-hearted John could have pointed out that she didn’t have to be ashamed of what she’d had to do to survive. That detail’s strange.

When we see a black lotus being folded, it signals that Soo Lin’s about to die. The general of the Black Lotus controls Zhi Zhu, and he’ll kill even his sister.

Sherlock asks her about the cipher, and she can just mention a book before the power’s cut (needing a book to decipher a code is borrowed from The Valley of Fear), and we know Zhi Zhu’s about to attack. Sherlock runs out and is shot at by Zhi Zhu; somewhat stupidly, John leaves Soo Lin (yes, he tells her to bolt the door after him, but that’s not going to stop her brother). This could be seen as John wanting to protect his best friend, but it’s somehow a good thing that he was a very good army doctor, not a strategist: one stays with the potential victim! And on that head, Sherlock's just as stupid: they could have tried to take Soo Lin to safety all together… but then she wouldn’t get killed, and we need that in the plot. Okay.

That’s still poor strategy. Just sayin’… Oh, and the brother, shooting with almost no clear view of Sherlock? Bit not good, as well, but that allows Sherlock to be witty about the respect the museum items should elicit in his would-be assassin.

As well, it’d have been nice to actually translate what Soo Lin tells her brother (‘Liang. Elder brother; you’re here’) because not everybody’s fluent in Mandarin – and even less in Cantonese. That doesn’t add any pseudo-exoticism; that’s just an annoying, frustrating detail.

Our dear DI Dimmock’s being a bit thick about all this, but… it’s true that there are people like that in real life. Since he’s asking for some proof, Sherlock takes him to Barts, where poor Molly’s being nastily tricked by Sherlock (it’s scary, and incredibly well done, to see that Jekyll/Hyde side of Sherlock). As well, Sherlock's coldness and clumsiness and utter lack of social skills show again when he discourages Molly from choosing the pork, as she’s probably about to slice up cadavers – very efficient to show us how weird he can be, and how besotted she is.

When Dimmock’s been given the proof he was asking for, he agrees to have Sherlock help him, and since Soo Lin said the cipher was based on a book, Sherlock asks for Van Coon’s and Lukis’s.

Whilst waiting to get his greedy hands on those, Sherlock realizes that Soo Lin’s former boss needed her knowledge in Chinese antiquities, and that takes him to Crispians’s Auction website where he makes the connections with what the two dead smugglers brought back from China (the vases that Andy was to appraise instead of Soo Lin) – everything’s beginning to tie together nicely. Incidentally, the imaginary “Quest search” search engine is back (that’s consistent, and no one had to come up with another design for another fake page).

Mrs Hudson is portrayed as particularly disconnected: she asks Sherlock if the young man (a police officer, incidentally with colleagues in uniform carrying the boxes!) at the door is bringing boxes of books for a charity collection. Knowing Sherlock, that’s more probably work – and guess what? It is.

Odd portrayal, but after all… why not?

In order to delay the discovery of the right book to decipher the cipher, it turns out that City-boy Van Coon seem to have been either an avid reader… or merely book-buyer; anyway, he seems to have owned as many books as Lukis (incidentally, I think the dead boys beat me in the amount of book they owned; perhaps I should point that out the next time Mother hints that my flat’s going to collapse onto the one below because of the number of books I own).

Dimmock gives them back their copy of the picture of the wall taken by John. For the sake of the plot, and in order to show us that Sherlock's definitely not perfect, neither John nor Sherlock looks at the document, which is going to prove being a mistake the very next day.

This is supposed to be team work, but Dimmock is sent home, and John’s efforts are practically ignored. The next morning, they haven’t found the right book, and John’s watch beeps in order to inform him that he’s expected at work even though he hasn’t slept at all.

John’s first day is rather a fiasco, as the practice’s receptionist has to try to reschedule the patients John’s not calling in. Here, Dr Sawyer steps in and saves the day (either she’s super nice, or her crush on John’s done something to her brain – or both) after catching John napping at his desk.

What I like about Sarah is that she does save John’s hide, but she does tell him it was unprofessional, but the next moment, she straightforwardly asks if his girlfriend’s to blame in any way for his lack of sleep, and right after John proclaims himself girlfriend-free, he invites Sarah. These two work well together (and I admit that I’m a fan of Sarah).

Sherlock's all frustrated at home, not finding the book he needs, and when John gets home, he announces that, since he needs a change of scenery, they’re going out tonight. When John mentions that he’s got a date, Sherlock keeps focussing on an outing with a friend whilst John has in mind something that could hopefully end up in a bed: slight communication problem on Sherlock's side, but that keeps the theme of “What’s Sherlock and John’s relationship exactly?” quite alive, and that’s still funny, thanks to Sherlock's level of clumsiness. Even funnier, John does follow Sherlock's dating advice though he should know that:

a – Sherlock's completely at sea when it comes to dating – whatever he pretends to know,

and b – Sherlock must have some hidden agenda.

John falls into Sherlock's trap and gets his date hijacked in the process: they’re investigating a Chinese circus that’s in London for one night only (that is a tad farfetched: a week wouldn’t have hurt, and it’d give the Tong a better alibi). Of course, when John spells out to Sherlock that he’s not happy to have Sherlock around as he’s trying to ‘get off with Sarah’, the lady joins them again (John should really know better – even if Sherlock's driving him nuts – but that is funny).

Both boys should pay attention to Sarah because whilst they argue about the exact kind of performance they’re going to see, she is avidly listening to them.

If Sherlock's smile when the scorpio’s revealed is any indication, that simple accessory was enough to tell him what they’d be seeing that evening (and after the first shot, he becomes the audio commentary for John and Sarah: he shows off, they don’t mind, and we get some info about what’s going on; everybody’s happy).

Sarah may be quite surprised by the gong, but she keeps holding John’s arm, and he’s not bothered one bit. These two prove to be quite a good audience, and they’re mesmerized by the alleged show. Sherlock being Sherlock, he sneaks out in order to investigate what’s going on backstage. That was a good plan since the so-called artists are supposed to be occupied elsewhere, but making the hangers rattle as the lady’s come to take something, that’s rather clumsy, but since we’re then surprised by the fact that there’s a hidden guard in the room, that can be overlooked (he was clumsy, but he was toast anyway).

Sherlock and his masked assailant fight (sword against a can of yellow paint, and the sword’s not the most powerful, and Sherlock seems to have a way against swords). When they both end up landing directly on “stage”, the audience starts fleeing, except John, who rushes to help Sherlock, and Sarah, who actually is the one who rescues Sherlock by knocking out the bad guy (that was properly awesome).

Dimmock still doesn’t get it, and he’s not helping Sherlock much, and Sherlock, John, and Sarah head to Baker Street, where she ends up staying for diner (or something). The mention of food’s always something good in John’s book, but the state of the boys’ fridge and cupboards is simply appalling. Mrs Hudson may not recognize police officers delivering Sherlock's homework, but she can spot a date needing help a mile away, and she brings a tray up to her tenants’ flat.

When John was looking for anything still edible, Sherlock was working on the cipher, and Sarah was busy investigating on her own and being completely unfazed with Sherlock (which is something he needs a lot more of in his life!). She’s the one who finally notices that Soo Lin had already translated two words on the photo Dimmock had brought back from the museum. That gives Sherlock a vital clue, since the book he needs in order to be able to read the cipher had to be at the museum, right where Soo Lin started working on it, and he rushes there, leaving the lovebirds alone at last.

The timing’s absolutely perfect when Sherlock exits 221B, since he collides with German tourists (his German’s better than his Mandarin by the way) who are consulting a London A-Z; he doesn’t catch the passing-by cab, but the delay allows him to realize that the A-Z is the key. Of course, Sherlock might look completely barmy so the tourists surrender their A-Z, but he’d be kicked somewhere painful if he tried that with me (Oi! That’s £5.99 for a new one!).

Sarah and John are really getting along beautifully (she doesn’t seem too traumatized that she had to rescue Sherlock from Chinese smugglers, and they’re both hungry).

As John goes to order some takeaway, we go back to Sherlock and his purloined book; he’s so obsessed (focussed? Nah. He is obsessed) that in spite of the cold, he starts deciphering the thing right where he is. We’re being teased as the message begins to be revealed: ‘Nine mill for…’ and we’ll have to wait a bit.

John’s somehow too trustful, as he goes to answer the door to get their dinner even though ‘that was quick’ (deliveries can be on time, but they’re seldom early). Unfazed with the general state of the flat, Sarah doesn’t mind eating off trays.

We get confirmation that Sherlock's obsessed and not paying attention because he’s not that far from his own door when John gets knocked out (as well, abducting John and Sarah must have required more than just one man, and probably involved one vehicle – and the curious Mrs Hudson, who knew that Sarah was staying with them didn’t hear a thing. Whatever was on telly must have been really good, then!).

When Sherlock runs home to John because he now knows that the full message is ‘Nine mill for jade pin. Dragon Den, black tramway’, he and Sarah are gone, and they’ve been sentenced to death with a tagged 15-1 (London A-Z, page 15, first word: deadman) on the windows.

John and Sarah have already been taken to the Dragon Den, and General Shan, who was the lady from the fake circus, isn’t really gifted since she does believe that John is Sherlock (yes, the fact that John has Sherlock's debit card, his £5000 cheque, and the theatre tickets bought in his name, plus the fact that John attempted an impression of Sherlock outside Soo Lin’s flat doesn’t help, but he’s got to have some “Watson” items in his pockets, too, and Shan could have made an inquiry about Sherlock in Chinatown, or even in the Chinese restaurant that Sherlock likes so much down Baker Street!). It was a good idea to fail to kill him on purpose so that he’d look for the treasure for her, but she had the wrong man targeted.

Sherlock's nervous to locate the Tong, and he points towards Holborn on his map; from Baker Street, that’s an about 8-9 minutes taxi ride – rescue in 15 to 20 minutes at best (he needs to find a cab, and then find the den). I know, it’s telly (and not linear, real-time 24), but I do find myself wondering if a different editing of the sequences or a different location for Sherlock to point at might have been better for the plausibility of the plot… I know; I’m demanding.

Shan and her men have retrieved their scorpio (they’re really good, or the police are silly, or the police left the theatre because Dimmock didn’t want to be in trouble with his bosses), and they’re going to use it on Sarah if “Mr Holmes” doesn’t help them find the empress’s jade pin. We can wonder why they’ve gagged Sarah; then again, if she wasn’t knocked out like John, she was probably shouting like a banshee when they took her.

Of course, Sherlock arrives right on time; he manages to knock out of of Shan’s men who was silly enough to walk too close, and he cleverly tells Shan that firing the kind of weapon she’s got (awesome eyes that man!) would be too dangerous in that kind of tunnel – true or not, that makes her think again.

Sherlock may be a clumsy and clueless person, but he rushes to Sarah, who’s still right in front of the scorpio (there’s no telling how anyone would react, but now that Sherlock's here and that things are about to get lethal, she could, at least, try to get out of the way by making her chair fall or something). Sarah’s paralyzed… probably because she had to wait for John to move the bloody thing and save her (and kill Sherlock's attacker). Okay, that sucked. Big time. She and John could have worked together: she falls to the floor, he move the scorpio that kills Sherlock's attacker, and then the two bound people are the heroes; now, that would have been better. Sarah knocks out a guy at the circus, but she sobs and waits to be rescued? Not buying that scene, boys; it could have been better for all three characters – all the more since she’s not running away from John once she’s untied.

The one good thing is that Sherlock's very nice when he frees her.

And at last, Dimmock has seen the light (it’s always nice to see someone locating the brain “on” switch).

There’s still one mystery to solve: where’s the hair pin worth £9 million? That’s Sherlock and John’s morning job as they head back to the bank.

As usual, Sherlock answers, but very cryptically: he knows it was Van Coon who took the hairpin because of… the soap (an expensive brand that he spotted in the smuggler’s flat and that’s also in cream form on his PA’s desk: Sherlock's connects the dots and understands that Van Coon and his Pa were having an affair). Since the smuggler had to obey Shan, he annoyed his lover one too many times, and he tried to make amends by giving her a jade pin (that man was a real idiot, but there are people like that). Knowing how Amanda’s going to react, Sherlock puts his Cheshire-Cat smile on to tell her how much it’s worth (Olivia Poulet’s reaction is simply awesome).

There’s a form of poetic justice when Sebastian has to pay the rest of the promised wage (£20000) whilst all he has to do is lock the window so no one can climb to the balcony and waltz in.

At least a day later, breakfast-time in Baker Street sees our protagonists with at least one fishwrap devoting its front page to the discovery of the jade pin (with lousy pun and all). John’s convinced that the fact that Shan escaped is bugging Sherlock, but as the latter points out, the whole network’s quite vast, and there’s no point in worrying about one general (with or without Shan, the Black Lotus will go on, and they’ll use another book from now on).

Right then, “Innocent” (or “quite silly”) John comes back as he doesn’t tell Sherlock that a young Asian bloke is painting an eye in front of their flat. Now, I’m no tag specialist, but if something that can be read as “observe”, “watch” or “monitor” is made right after their adventure with the Black Lotus and their tagged cipher, I think I’d point that out to my genius flatmate, at least. Let’s imagine that John needs his tea to be fully aware of what’s going on (that’s the charitable deciphering of the scene).

The last scene sees Shan contacting the person who helped her get out of China (she’s a Tong, and she’s got no way to be smuggled out of the country? Perhaps her contact had cheaper rates or something).

Whilst “M_” only types (in capital letters, which is highly annoying, but fits the character!), Shan’s on video with him (let’s face it, even before we got to watch the third episode of that series, I was already shouting ‘Moriarty!’).

It was obvious that Shan would be shot. Moriarty’s a tad less clumsy than she was.

And fade to black.