Sherlock – The Great Game

The final episode of Sherlock has the best mystery of all.

The Great Game is the third episode in the first season of Sherlock, an amazing miniseries from BBC. The first episode is A Study In Pink which is the funniest of all, the second episode is The Blind Banker which is the weakest of all and the third is The Great Game which has the best mystery of all.

In the third and final episode of Sherlock we had a chance to see how great Sherlock is as he races against the time to solve one mystery after another. However, I still voted A Study in Pink as my favorite episode because it brings a lot of smile into my face. Beside the hilarity of A Study in Pink, I also like the way Sherlock observes the victim. When he touches a certain part of the victim, words come out on the screen to tell us what’s on him mind (Look at the picture on the left). I really like that kind of effect because it gives a dramatic feeling. Unfortunately those ‘words’ only appears in the first episode. Fortunately, we still get to see ‘words’ when Sherlock is busy searching information through his mobile-phone.

The Great Game is about some sick game hosted by Sherlock’s arc enemy, Jim Moriarty. Moriarty has been the man behind the crime in the previous episodes, but Sherlock never has real contact with him, he only realizes his existence. In this episode, Moriarty takes a more proactive role to challenge Sherlock’s ability.

I will try to write the story without giving any spoiler which I find very difficult because the fun of this episode is on that spoiler (this include not mentioning the actor who plays Moriarty). It begins with Sherlock’s funny conversation with an inmate in Minsk, Belarus. I found it funny because Sherlock keeps correcting the inmate’s grammar and he looks terribly bored. It is a fun opening that has no relation or whatsoever on the real case.

The real story starts with the bored Sherlock. He has no case to work with and it makes him bored beyond believe. He even shots his wall to fill in the boredom which really annoys John. This part is really funny, they are talking about the blog that is written by John. Sherlock quotes John’s post about the case he calls as A Study in Pink

Sherlock sees right through everyone and everything in seconds. What’s incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things.

Sherlock is annoyed with what John has written in his blog.

Warning: Do Not Visit John Watson’s blog unless you’ve seen the previous 2 episodes…or you can still visit it but don’t read his post titled A Study in Pink and The  Blind  Banker because it contains tons of spoilers as john is trying describe the cases he went through with Sherlock. DO VISIT his hilarious blog after you have watched all the episodes 🙂

It is a really interesting twist, don’t you think? The old John Watson wrote Sherlock’s adventure in books while the modern John Watson wrote the cases in his blog.

However, even in boredom he still has pride, he refuses to do a job from his brother, Mycroft, by saying he is very busy with a lot of cases. I really like seeing this odd relationship between those siblings. Cumberbatch learnt how to play violin for this scene with his brother. Not long after his brother leaves their house, Sherlock receives a call from DI Lestrade (Rupert Graves), there is a mail for him. The content of the mail is a phone exactly the same as the phone in A study in Pink.

There is one message for Sherlock, it is a picture of an old hearth. He recognizes it straight away, it is the hearth in Baker street 221C. They – Sherlock, John and Lestrade – found a pair of shoes in front of the hearth. The moment they found the shoes, the phone – the pink phone- rings and a woman’s voice is on the other line. The woman is only reading text from a pager. She told Sherlock that he needs to solve the puzzle within 12 hours or the woman will be killed. The puzzle starts from that pair of shoes.

I couldn’t say more about the case because it will spoil everything…but I can say that the puzzle is not just one puzzle. Sherlock has to solve several puzzles and we can easily guess where the puzzles come from…they come from Moriarty. Sherlock informs his answer for the puzzles in his blog The Science of Deduction.

My favorite quote from this episode is when John feels disappointed at Sherlock because he shows no feeling toward the victim.

Sherlock: I’ve disappointed you
John: that’s good, good deduction yea
Sherlock: Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist and if they do I won’t be one of them

And as always, it’s not Sherlock if he doesn’t show his arrogance

Lestrade: I better get my people to find this Golem character.
Sherlock:  Pointless, you’ll never find him. But I know a man who can.
Lestrade: Who?
Sherlock: Me.

I also like the way he tries to say thank you to John for trying to save his life. It clearly portrays how rare that occasion happens to him.

That … a … thing you did … ehm … you offered to do, that was a … good.

Hahaha he couldn’t even say thank you!

What’s interesting is, after some searching job, Cumberbatch and the actor that played Moriarty are in the same age but Cumberbatch looks much older than the other actors.

I am a bit disappointed with Moriarty character because he doesn’t look like the one I had imagined in many years of reading Sherlock Holmes. They try to change Moriarty into this bad-ass character. I like the original one much better.

Overall, I give this episode

Details on this miniseries.

Director: Paul McGuigan for A Study in Pink and The Great Game.  Euros Lyn for The Blind Banker.
Scriptwriter: Steven Moffat for A Study in Pink, Stephen Thomson for The Blind Banker, Mark Gatiss for The Great Game

A fanvid trailer (contains spoiler)