Sherlock 4x1 "The Six Thatchers" Review

SPOILERS

“The Six Thatchers” was an interesting episode. It was the first full episode of Sherlock since the Christmas special in 2015 and the long wait was finally over. Fans rejoiced! Well, many of them did. This season is the first I’ve watched as it aired and followed the fan reactions of, and it wasn’t universally liked. Well, what is? And with that, let’s get into it.

I really liked the premise of something hidden in the Thatcher busts, which I later found out was based on a short story with a similar premise, except in the short story the Black Pearl of the Borgias was inside busts of Napoleon, unlike the plot they tried to introduce in the show as the pearl being something for Sherlock to find at the urging of the government. It turned out to be an Easter egg, since the real treasure hidden inside the one bust was another flash drive and the small setup of “saving priceless jewels and solving mysterious break-ins” was quickly changed.

No, this episode was all about the characters. All about Sherlock, John, and Mary, and mostly Mary, whose shady past had us head scratching-during the hiatus. Who is she? What did she do? And then John burned the flash drive and we thought that was the end. Turns out they weren’t willing to let that go so easy. Mary skips town in a dizzying sequence that ended with one of the few times I laughed during the episode; it turns out Sherlock knew where she was all along.

Killing her off was surprising while I watched the episode, but in retrospect it really wasn’t. Looking forward to the rest of the season plot, we needed to get rid of her. And we couldn’t kill Sherlock again. Not in episode 1. The ripples of her death continued throughout the rest of the season. The messages from the grave got a little repetitive, and I guess my biggest question is why did she write “Miss me?” on the CD except to confuse the audience and Sherlock into thinking it was Moriarty. I enjoyed the post credits “Go to hell, Sherlock” (I read it as aggressive, instead of the double meaning revealed in the next episode).

Another minor quip I have with this episode is John. I know we needed John guilty and to introduce a seemingly throwaway character (who I’ll get more into in a later review), but I don’t buy that text-cheating one bit. John would never do that, and the fact that he has to live with that with his wife dead is just a cruel turn to a character who doesn’t need any more tragedy. First he lost Sherlock, then he lost Mary, then he voluntarily lost Sherlock again. I wanted to give him a hug and shake him at the same time.

Come back next Sunday for “The Lying Detective”!