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We get a series of flashbacks showing Holmes meeting Irene Adler for the first time. She was a sexy American painting restorer in London, and her hobby was stealing classic paintings while giving her own work to the museums. They had dates where Holmes took her to the secret catacombs beneath London and compared her birthmarks to constellations. And then they had lots of sex… until Irene was replaced by a pool of blood on the floor.
In modern day, Irene is extremely freaked out, thanks to a year of sustained psychological pressure tactics performed by a mysterious Mr. Stapleton, who also left white peonies around the place for some reason. So Holmes attends to her every need while Watson handles the case solo. Irene had been painting with a very rare yellow pigment, which leads Watson to Isaac Proctor, a man who specialized in psychological pressure tactics for the CIA. Great! Except that the police get distracted talking to his brother and he escapes. And when he leaves a peony on Irene's bed, Holmes gets very concerned. He and Irene get ready to leave the country, but it's only until Watson completely eradicates Moriarty from the world.
But as soon as they are at the safe house, Holmes realizes that Irene has one of her birthmarks removed. And that's not something you do for a brainwashed hostage, so she must have been working with Moriarty! At this accusation, she leaves in a huff. So Holmes goes home, just in time for Isaac Proctor to shoot him. But then Irene appears and shoots Isaac!
Oh, and Irene is really British. And she's Moriarty. Shocking twist!
So that brings us to the second half of the two-hour episode, in which Holmes has to deal with a bullet wound in his shoulder. They stumble on some text messages sent by goons that Isaac killed in the first half, and that leads them to a Greek shipping magnate named "The Narwhal." All they can pin on him is a charge of smuggling lemurs, which isn't that big a deal. And in the time it takes to find out that Moriarty kidnapped his daughter, he gets out of jail. Holmes realizes that he's being forced to go kill some Macedonians in an elaborate scheme that will net Moriarty a billion dollars.
Holmes is unable to stop the murders, which sends him into a tailspin that results in an overdose. But when Moriarty stops by to gloat, it turns out it was all an act. So Moriarty is caught, and she has to deal with the shame that comes from having been correctly analyzed by Joan Watson, of all people. So she gets arrested and Holmes names a new species of bee after Watson. Good triumphs and evil is vanquished!
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!The last episode ended with Watson and Holmes searching a big white house to discover Irene Adler, who's supposed to be dead. Holmes had a very short breakdown, but he's mostly recovered by the time this episode starts, one second later. Holmes runs to Irene and grabs her. She seems thrown by this. She claws at his face, but he embraces her anyway. Then she hugs him back. I guess I'd say that they have a complicated relationship.
And now we get to see how that relationship begins! The caption on the screen takes us to "London, a little over two years ago." We're in the season finale, so it's time to get some backstory on the season arc. You can't quibble with the construction of this story.
In London, Sherlock Holmes enters the home of one Irene Adler, who's played by Natalie Dormer with an American accent and a smirk. As soon as Holmes enters, he finds himself engaged in banter over the difference between a consulting detective and a private investigator. As she introduces herself, she praises the symmetry of Holmes's face. He's here to consult with her on a matter of forgeries of classic paintings. She says that the pictures he sent her aren't original Turner sketches. She knows this because they have a medium orange and an ochre, which, in 1839 required turmeric, which was confiscated by the British army at the time. So they're fakes. Holmes looks around at the paintings in Irene's flat and asks if she does original work. She says she's just a restorer because what could she add to such great work? He doesn't answer right away.
Holmes apologizes for lingering, then asks why there's an original Breughel on the wall when she was supposed to return it. He explains that she was supposed to restore a painting that was damaged by shelling, and she wouldn't have recreated the gouges on an imitation she painted for herself. So clearly she kept the original and sent a forgery to the museum. She says that the museum director wanted to file down the paint (I guess that's some kind of restorer sin), so she preserved the painting by keeping it safe. Holmes guesses that some of the other paintings in the room are also preserved. He offers to guess which ones are real, and if he's right, he gets a date with her out on the town. Plus, he's not going to turn her in because, "I appreciate your efforts to keep the vulgarities of the modern era at bay." He assures her they'd enjoy each other's company. She observes that he's not boring. Then she accepts his challenge -- but she wonders why, given the way he's looking at her, they'd need to leave the room to enjoy each other's company. Holmes likes the sound of that, so she takes his arm and he looks at the first painting.
Modern day. Irene is in a hospital talking to a doctor. She doesn't believe that it's 2013, as "Mr. Stapleton" told her it was her birthday seven different times. The doctor explains that Mr. Stapleton was lying. Out in the hallway, Watson can't imagine what Holmes must be thinking. That's nothing new. The doctor comes out and tells Holmes that Irene is fine physically, but she's clearly suffering from severe post-traumatic stress. She was abducted and moved from place to place and subjected to advanced psychological pressure tactics. Someone apparently set out to destroy her personality. The whole time, she only dealt with one man. He left white peonies by her bed sometimes. All she knows is that he was white and about 5'10". She drew a picture of his face, but it's just the clown mask he always wore. The doctor recommends a few days of sedatives.
Holmes says, "It was because of me. Moriarty wanted me to believe that she was dead." And then get addicted to heroin. And when he makes steps toward recovery, Moriarty sends her back. He's been sober a whole year! This timeline doesn't check out. But if Irene is fine, where'd all the blood in her flat come from? Holmes obsesses, "How did I not know that she was alive? What did I miss?" Watson sits to Holmes on the bench and tells him that Irene has been hurt, but she's alive and can get better. Holmes says he won't be consulting on Irene's case, given that he's too close to it. He needs to look after her. Somebody certainly should, but I'm not sure Holmes is the ideal caregiver. Also, he's decided that Moriarty's smarter than him. He says, "A man should know when he's beaten." He walks away and Watson watches him go.
Holmes and Watson bring Irene to the Brownstone. She'll be staying downstairs, to the kitchen, and Watson brought her some clothes. They leave her alone while Holmes starts to heat up some water for tea. Holmes exposits that Irene doesn't have any family. His entire plan is "I look after her." He also doesn't want Watson to leave, since he considers this her home as well. That's nice of him. He wants Watson to get to work: "If you're going to find the people who took Irene, you'd better get cracking." Watson is on the Moriarty case alone! She's concerned about this, but Holmes says she'll have Gregson and Bell as backup. Great. The police aren't the total incompetents you get in some versions of Sherlock Holmes, but they're still not ideal. Before Watson steps out, she warns Holmes that this could be a relapse trigger. He feels that he needs to be drug-free to properly monitor Irene. He also says, "My water grows hot. Your case grows cold." It's a great line, and I suspect him of starting the tea just so he'd be able to say it.
The big white house. Gregson walks Watson through the scene, although he's a little surprised that Holmes isn't coming. Bell says the owner is a nine-year-old in Austria who's never seen it. That's hilariously unconvincing. Bell says the place has been cleaned out. No one expects Watson to come up with anything. She looks at some paints, and says she's been reading about art forgery. She's found a jar of a special yellow pigment called gamboge. It's made from some trees in Cambodia, so it's really rare -- and this particular brand is even rarer and sold in only a few places. Bell goes off to do some boring police work off-screen.
London. Two years ago. I like that the flashback was "a little over two years ago" and this one is precisely two years ago. Irene leaves her home and Holmes pounces on her. Metaphorically. He really just walks up to her and starts talking quickly. He says it's been several weeks since their sexual marathon, and he's been rebuffed at each attempt to renew it. So what's the deal? She says that their afternoon was unique and can't be repeated, so, "I'd rather just remember it the way it was." She kisses him on the cheek and walks away. Irene has a kind of friendly condescension that I quite enjoy. Holmes offers her another unique experience, and decides to get quite mysterious about it: "If you're not concerned about keeping your clothes clean, I'm quite confident this would fit the bill." She smiles.
Holmes and Irene are in some tunnels. He explains that he's spent a lot of time in the tunnels and catacombs of London. He made his own map and decided there was a stretch that was cut off from the rest. Holmes pulls off some boards that say "DANGER," and leads her into a hole in the wall. They go into a canal that, according to Holmes, "dates back to the Roman occupation of Britain." There are prayer tablets on the wall, and they date back millennia. And Holmes and Irene are the only two people who know about them. Neat!
Modern day. Brownstone. Off-screen, Irene shouts, "NOOOOOOO!" Holmes runs downstairs to check on her. She's on her bed screaming that Mr. Stapleton changed the rules without telling her again. Holmes goes to get some water, but she asks him to sit with her. She wants to know about the last year and a half of his life. For example, why'd he move to New York? Modern-day Irene is devoid of smiles, and she doesn't have the confidence that characterizes London Irene.
Watson gets home, and Holmes wants to know the news. There's not much, but then Gregson calls with the news that the pigment came from a specific specialty pigment store in Tribeca. They sold one jar of it a few weeks ago to a guy named Dwayne Proctor... who recently did five years for assault with a deadly weapon. His PO says he's been crashing with his brother, and the police are on their way to his house. A break!
Dwayne Proctor's brother Isaac thinks Dwayne wouldn't have anything to do with an abduction. Dwayne gets home, and Gregson meets him at the sidewalk leaving Officer Muldoon with Isaac. Dwayne denies knowing anything about any lady. He admits buying some yellow paint and brushes, but they were for his brother Isaac, who needed them for a student. Then there's the sound of gunshots from the house. Bang! Bang! (That's what gunshots sound like. I put that there to make this scene more exciting to read.) The police run back into the house, where Muldoon has been shot. Gregson says to put out a call for Isaac Proctor. "We came looking for the wrong brother!"
Dwayne says he doesn't know why Issac shot a police officer and ran. Bell says that there was a locker in the garage where Isaac had guns and fake passports. Dwayne thinks Isaac is a fine, upstanding individual. He used to work in a think tank, if that helps. Bell asks if Dwayne knew a guy named Moriarty. No, but they went to school with a guy named Maury Goldberg. Ha! Bell writes it down. Dwayne doesn't want to go to prison, which I guess is understandable. Irene says she doesn't recognize Dwayne's voice or face, and she doesn't recognize the picture of Isaac on his passport. Holmes takes her away. Muldoon has a punctured lung and six broken ribs, but he'll live, in case you were worried about how he was. Gregson says Isaac could have killed Muldoon if he'd wanted to. So the step is to dig into Isaac's background.
A man (Isaac Proctor) shaves in a hotel room. His phone rings, and the man on the other end says he had to talk to Moriarty. They can help him, but he needs to run an errand involving Sherlock Holmes.
Irene flips around the channels at the brownstone as Holmes watches her from the shadows. That's creepy, and I can't imagine it's good for her state of mind.
Flashback to London. Holmes and Irene are in bed. Holmes's head is awash in post-coital neurochemicals, so he sketches the tripod device that he believes that M (Sebastian Moran) used. He praises Irene's ability as a piece of exercise equipment. Then he apologizes for his rudeness. She wonders why it doesn't bother her, and he says that she, being rude herself, knows the difference between rudeness and honesty. She lies down, and he kisses her on her back and comments on her birthmarks in the shape of the constellation Auriga. He feels that after all this time, Irene is something of a blind spot to him, and he likes the fact that he doesn't see everything about her. Holmes asks about her new project -- not the Rubens in the room; she's had different paint on her hands, plus her guest bedroom is locked. He asks, "Could it be an Irene Adler original?" It could be. He asks what's changed since she said she didn't do originals, and she looks at him pointedly. Then she takes a shower.
Modern day. Holmes is still lurking behind Irene, so that scene was presumably what he was thinking of. She doesn't want anything. She says she can only imagine what he must be picking up right now with his legendary observational skills. He answers, "You're the only person I ever empathized with." He brings up the subject of what his life's been like since her alleged death. He admits that after her demise, narcotics became more than a way of life. He hit bottom and hid in New York. She says, "You're better now." He corrects her, "I'm sober now. I'll always be an addict." I feel like the creators of this show are determined to get the recovery aspects right. Incidentally, I really enjoy the framing of this shot. Each of them is on one side of the screen, and there's an empty chair right between them. I think it represents Watson. Irene says, "You were broken. You fixed yourself. If the great Sherlock Holmes can do it, then... you give me hope." She leaves the room. Holmes is alone. He leans back in his chair.
Then there's another shriek from out of the room. Holmes runs into Irene's room, where there's a white peony on her bed. She gasps, "He was here. Mr. Stapleton was here."
London. Holmes gets out of a cab. It's one of those neat London cabs. We hear a voicemail message telling him to meet Irene at her place at 5:00 to see her painting, or "into the fireplace it goes." He walks in, apologizes for being late, and claims to have "the most dazzling of excuses." There's a note on the wall: "I understand Ms. Adler was to show you a new piece of art this evening. Tell me, what do you think of mine? -M" He gets inside, and there's a pool of blood on the floor.
Modern-day Holmes and Irene enter an old garage. Holmes says he received this property as payment for some work he did shortly after arriving in New York. So this will be a safe house. He's confident they weren't followed, and says that he's texted Watson to inform the police. Irene thinks it makes no sense for Moriarty to tell Holmes where to go to find her and then threaten her with the peony. Holmes says, "He wants me to understand that as long you're in my life, you can and will be used against me." He's weak because he cares for her, so, he concludes, "That's why I need to let you go." She can't stay here, even at the safe house. He needs to send her far away. Somewhere she can be truly safe. And when he's done with Moriarty, he'll find her. She's afraid. Natalie Dormer is doing a great job, playing the same character with two different attitudes.
Police station. Bell looks at video footage from the brownstone. There's Isaac Proctor sneaking in with a peony, of course. This is solid evidence about him being involved with Irene's kidnapping. Watson says all the brownstone cameras she knows about are on. Bell figures Isaac's following orders from a higher-up. Then a call comes in for Gregson on line one from Holmes. Watson gets a text: "Am here. Obs-Rm. Want 2 c u. Only u." "Obs-Rm" does not, as I first thought, mean "Obstetrics Room." I guess it was unreasonable of me to think there'd be one of those in the police station. Watson sneaks out to the Observation Room, which turns out to be the room I call the Interrogation Chamber. This same thing came up on Arrow this week, but it was called the Interview Room there. Holmes says Irene is safe, but he can't trust anyone to know where he is. Watson catches him up: the think tank that Isaac Proctor worked for was a CIA front, and Isaac Proctor's specialty was psychological pressure tactics. And she's confident he's Mr. Stapleton because of the video footage of him leaving the peony there. The only thing that bothers her is that he went straight to the bed, which means that he knew exactly where Irene was staying in the house. Holmes says he's leaving. Completely. Watson asks if there's any way to change his mind. He answers, "If you could dismantle Moriarty's empire in my absence -- thereby guaranteeing Irene's safety -- that would go a long way toward expediting my return." He feels that he owes Irene because her life was ruined. Watson tells Holmes this is clearly what Moriarty wants. But Holmes leaves anyway.
Isaac Proctor knocks on the trailer of a truck. He's let in and Arnold Vosloo (from The Mummy) is waiting inside with a couple of goons and a car. He tells Isaac the car has $30,000 and a phone. He's to drive to Calgary and wait. And then! A police siren! Isaac shoots the goons. He holds a gun on Vosloo. He saw a metal drum in the car, which he assumes was to dispose of his body. He shoots Vosloo in the shoulder. Vosloo tells him that Moriarty thinks he was sloppy to have been connected to the white house. Isaac thinks the real sloppiness was in letting Holmes be untouched. He says, "You tell Moriarty that Sherlock Holmes is a dead man."
Safe house. Irene is in a robe, since she was not expecting Holmes to be home so quickly. Holmes comes in to tell her his plan for escaping. In the process of getting dressed, she turns away from Holmes and takes off her robe. He sees that her birthmarks have changed. She's telling him that they don't need every move mapped out and he shoves her against the bookcase to check her shoulder. She shoves him off and he asks how long she's been working for Moriarty. She protests, "You're not making any sense." He says one of the birthmarks has been surgically removed. That's not something you do for a hostage, so it must have been something she had done for herself. He demands, "When did it start? Was it before your abduction? Was everything a lie?" She tries to calm him down by telling him he's analyzing things that aren't there. She pleads, nearly incoherently, "If you can't trust anyone, if you can't trust me, please. Don't do this." Holmes knows now how Isaac knew where her bed was. Irene flips to anger. She accuses him of inventing a reason not to go with her. She says she pictures Moriarty and it looks an awful lot like Holmes. She says, "If he weren't so bent on being your enemy, he'd be your friend." She doesn't ever want to see him again. Holmes watches her leave.
See, I feel that this is the sort of thing that can lead to a relapse. He was already under a great deal of stress, and the only thing keeping him sober was that he needed to be there for Irene... and now she's left him.
Holmes walks into the brownstone. He pulls Irene's sketches off the wall and calls Watson. Then he sees Isaac Proctor in the reflection of the lamp. Bang! Holmes has been shot in the shoulder. Isaac says they met once before, and then Holmes has pulled a stick free from the bannister and utilized his single-stick skills to free himself. He runs upstairs to the television room. He barricades the door, but this room doesn't have a window he can safely jump out of. Isaac says the other time they "met" was when he shot John Douglas (the contact for Gottlieb, Moriarty's accidental-death assassin) with a sniper rifle while Douglas talked to Holmes. Isaac gets into the television room and says that "she" tried to have him killed a few hours ago. Holmes is interested by the "she." And then! Isaac Proctor gets shot dead. Irene walks in. She says, in a British accent, "Bet you wish you'd run away with me when you had the chance." Holmes gasps, "Moriarty."
This is the halfway point in the episode, so it's a good place to take a break. I'd like to call your attention to the fact that the two different personalities that Natalie Dormer portrayed earlier were both phony characters put on by Moriarty. So if you didn't like her American accent (which I thought was pretty good, myself), that's on Moriarty. From here on out, she's playing an even more confident character than London Irene, although she'll be a bit less seductive. And I'll be calling her Moriarty from here on out.
Okay, on with the show. Moriarty tells Holmes that this isn't how she wanted to reveal herself to him. (Tee-hee). Holmes asks who the guy on the phone was that he talked to. She explains that it was a lieutenant who sometimes plays Moriarty. I think we all assumed that. Her customers sometimes need to feel that they're talking to a man, "As if men had a monopoly on murder." Holmes manages to sit up. She tells him that he doesn't want to believe her, "and yet your legendary powers of observation are screaming that I'm telling the truth right now." Holmes wonders what all the seduction and fake murders were about. He guesses that he interrupted her plans. Yes, there were several assassinations he messed up in London. Her first instinct was to quietly and discreetly murder him -- but then she became curious about his brain. She decided he was "something too complicated and too beautiful to destroy," so she studied him in his own environment.
She sits back (in a great military jacket, incidentally) and relaxes a little. She thinks they have a lot in common because that's the sort of thing that a Moriarty is supposed to say to a Sherlock Holmes. She says, "I see everything you do. I feel it. Makes the world quite dull, no?" Holmes says, "So you're saying we're the same." She corrects him: "I'm saying I'm better." Ha! So, she says, that's why she let him live. He wasn't the threat he was made out to be. And then he "disappeared into a syringe" when she vanished. So when she heard of his miraculous recovery, she was curious about it. Holmes says that's bollocks. He thinks he must be close to interfering with one of her plots, which would explain why she wanted him to leave the country with her. She says that where he sees puzzles, she sees games -- and he's a game she'll win every time. But she'd never kill him: "Not in a million years. You may not be as unique as you thought, darling, but you're still a work of art. I appreciate art." So instead, she'll hurt him. Worse than she did before. She warns him, "I have reserves of creativity I haven't even begun to tap." So she recommends letting her win. Then she walks away. Holmes falls over.
Watson comes home. Holmes says he has a lot to tell her. They start with her taking the bullet out of his shoulder, since what's the point of having a surgeon in the house if you're not going to have her do stuff like this? She says his muscle is all shredded, and he should take something for the pain. They argue about it, and she says there are non-addictive painkillers. Holmes asks how good they could be if they're non-addictive, plus, he'll need all of his faculties for the coming challenge. He says he found the truth about Irene quite liberating. He's wanted the truth for some time and now he has perfect clarity. Oh, lord.
Watson tapes him up and sums up the situation from the first hour of the episode, complete with the dead third-floor assassin. "Where would you like to start?"
They start at the morgue, given that you want to drop off your corpses promptly, or the police get annoyed. Gregson is having trouble dealing with all this, although he has a handle on the facts. He'll have his people look for Irene Adler, or Moriarty, although they all know she's probably not using any of those names. Holmes warns that the only crime they can definitely pin on her right now is shooting Isaac, who was about to kill Holmes. Watson says all they know about her activities is the Taggart Speakeasy job. Holmes says that Moriarty took Isaac's phone and wallet, so they can't investigate that. Then he spots another phone in a baggie, which was brought in last night. It was one of these random shooting victims. He had Cyrillic tattoos, so the police think it's gang-related.
But Holmes says the phones have been modified to get a new operating system. Like Moran's and Gottlieb's! Gregson thinks it's crazy to think that these guys were working for Moriarty. Yes, that would certainly be an implausible coincidence. But Holmes brings up a coded text message from the phone, which he translates as "BN23MACEDONIANSUN." No one knows what that means, but it's a nice start. It's always nice to start a case with some cryptography.
Holmes has a million Post-its put up in the observation room. Gregson and Watson watch him from the other side of the glass -- unless the room they're in is the observation room and Holmes is in the interview room? Gregson thinks Holmes is behaving erratically, and he'd bench Holmes. Watson thinks Holmes needs to work. She tells Gregson, "If I think he needs to stop, I'll tell you." Holmes stands up. He knows what it means!
At a computer, Holmes says that the Macedonian Sun is a container ship that operates out of Bay 23 North. I hope his revelation was that he should just Google "Macedonian Sun." The owner of the company is Christos Theophilus, also known as "The Narwhal." That's a terrible nickname -- I guess that's what happens when you're the last guy in line. Interpol used to believe that Theophilus was one of Europe's most prolific smugglers, but now he's the head of a legit shipping conglomerate. That's just the sort of thing that would come in handy to someone who runs international criminal conspiracies! He could be used to smuggle all sorts of things, like weapons or personnel. And he's a prominent contributor to Greek Nationalist charities. Oh, and the Macedonian Sun is due in port this evening!
Bell, Holmes and Watson are staking out the port. Watson goes to get some food and Bell asks Holmes how he's doing. Holmes doesn't want to talk about it, which is going to lead to a pretty dull scene until Watson gets back. But then Holmes unbends a bit and looks on the bright side: "I've never had a nemesis before. Not a proper one. Quite looking forward to it. Imagine it to be tremendously energizing."
That night, the ship has been unloaded. Holmes wakes up and Bell suggests going home. Holmes is going to keep vigil himself, but then! A car and a van pull up on the dock. Theophilus gets out, and Holmes says that this is the handover of whatever they were waiting for.
Everyone pounces! NYPD! Don't move! Bell demands to see what's in this crate over here. The padlocks get popped off, and... there are two lemurs. They're probably not weapons or personnel. They're pretty cute, though.
In the observation (or interview) room, Theophilus says he's never heard the name Moriarty. Holmes calls him "Narwhal" and says that it's a good nickname. They're the unicorns of the sea! No, it's pretty terrible. Theophilus admits he was smuggling lemurs, but they were for his daughter. He saved the lemurs from poachers, who were going to dissect them or something! The lemurs will live on his daughter's farm in Westchester. The daughter in question is on vacation in Kenya, but her husband will happily talk to them.
Watson is going to change Holmes's bandage before they go on the drive. She says there's no infection and asks if there's any pain. Holmes says that on a scale of one to ten, the pain is at pi, but she doesn't believe it. Her phone rings. It's brother Oren with the news that their mother slipped and fell. One of the ER doctors called Oren with her cellphone. Their mother is at Chandler Memorial. Holmes thinks Mrs. Watson should have switched to flats. He mostly says that to show off that he can hear the phone, so his senses are still very acute. Watson says she'll meet him in Westchester.
As Watson walks down the street, Moriarty walks up to her. Her mother's fine, of course. Moriarty apologizes for the subterfuge, but explains that it was important. She invites Watson to get into her car -- and to enforce her request, she has a thug!
Moriarty and Watson are having dinner in a fancy restaurant. Watson says she's too angry to be afraid. Moriarty assures her that she's plotted seven murders that took place in crowded restaurants. She wants to know why Holmes took an interest in Watson: "As far as I can determine, you're a sort of... mascot." She asks, "Do you want to sleep with him?" Watson says that Moriarty is supposed to be just like Holmes, so shouldn't she know everything? Moriarty says that it's harder to read women, which is obvious nonsense. Irene knows about the surveillance of the docks and the interrogation of Theophilus. Her phone bleeps, and she hmms. She puts some money on the table, smiles, and leaves, saying, "Talk to Sherlock. Tell him I'll only be here for a few more days." Then she'll leave the country. Watson says Moriarty is afraid of Holmes, explaining, "If you weren't, you wouldn't have gone to so much trouble." Moriarty claims to be afraid of what she might have to do.
The farm in Westchester is a working horse ranch, although it also has a zebra. Theophilus's son-in-law admits that there are 22 different endangered species around the place. Bell calls the animals "smuggled property," and Holmes redirects the conversation to the Theophilus daughter: Alethea. Holmes thinks it's weird for the wife to leave him behind while she jest off to Kenya, but the husband says they often take separate vacations. Holmes looks through the cupboards. The closets had all the heavy coats you'd want to take to Kenya, so why did Alethea she leave without her gear? Then Holmes finds a prescription bottle for hormones, which was filled a month ago -- and there's a week too much medicine in there. He asks, "Where's your wife, Mr. Lerberg?" Mr. Lerberg says that two guys in masks busted in and took her. One goon's sleeve rolled up, and there were Cyrillic tattoos, so Bell figures they were the dead goons from the morgue. Bell calls the captain. Holmes is thinking. He goes to the medicine cupboard, where there's a bottle of Vicodin. He considers it for a while, but he puts it back when he gets a call from Watson.
Back at the police station, Holmes thinks Watson shouldn't have gotten in the car. If she'd taken her martial arts practice seriously, the huge goon with the gun would have been no problem. No one takes him seriously, which is a good policy when he's having these well-mannered tantrums. Gregson says that security details are being assigned to Watson, Holmes and the brownstone itself. Meanwhile, the Narwhal has been released. That's a fun sentence. I feel honored to have been able to type it. Holmes says Theophilus could have told them about the kidnapping if he'd wanted them to know, so he has to be considered an enemy combatant. Gregson wonders what Moriarty's grand plan is, since everybody agrees that just kidnapping some rich guy's daughter is pretty lame. Holmes excuses himself.
Watson follows. Holmes says the pain is quite intense. Bell stops them with news that the plot is progressing: Theophilus had just signed up for a new email account. The email subjects all involve Alethea, and they're all from a question mark. Watson says that was also Moriarty's Caller ID. All the emails are encrypted, but they managed to find a picture that Theophilus downloaded. It's a guy with a beard and a tuxedo.
On a bench somewhere, Moriarty sits to Theophilus. I don't think we normally get scenes that are just the villains hanging out without Holmes or Watson watching. She nudges a bag over to him, and there's a pistol in it. She tells him, "You just point and shoot. Repeatedly." She is serene. He is not. She encourages him to remember his daughter, who will be freed when he's done what she asks. Theophilus promises, "This man and his family will be dead by tomorrow night."
Brownstone, the morning. Holmes is hitting his bullet wound to stay awake. That's not entirely safe, dude. He announces that he has deduced Moriarty's plan. The guy in the beard is Andrej Bacera, whose mother is the speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia. She's a popular reformer, and Andrej works as a surgeon in New York and does some unofficial diplomacy on the side. Now for some geopolitical history: Greece doesn't want Macedonia to be in the European Union because that's also the name of a region inside Greece. This is true, by the way. When Macedonia joined the United Nations, it had to use the name "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" because Greece is very protective of its own Macedonia. Mrs. Bacera has brokered a deal to maybe call themselves "The Republic of New Macedonia" if that'll get them into the European Union. Holmes ties this all to currency. If this happens, the Macedonian Denar will be replaced by the Euro -- and someone has just bought heavily into the Denar, which would be worthless if it gets replaced. Well, probably not worthless. I assume there'd be an exchange of some sort. So, suggests Holmes, what if a Greek Nationalist like Christos Theophilus murdered the family of the Macedonian speaker? That would surely ruin the plans to join the European Union. Holmes says that whoever bought all those Denar would stand to make nearly a billion dollars. Watson says, "What say we go stop this bitch?" It's on!
I like that all the stuff about being an international shipping magnate was irrelevant, and that the thing that was important about Theophilus was that he donated to Greek Nationalist causes. It's not even relevant that he's called the Narwhal!
Andrej Bacera tells Jordan Conroy (his security guy) that the NYPD are on the phone. Conroy talks to Gregson, who asks if he has a team of he's alone. He's alone. Conroy warns Bacera that Theophilus is on the way to kill him, and that the cops are on the way to protect him. The police texted a picture of Theophilus. Conroy says he'll get the Baceras into the safe room right away. And in the shot, he opens the door wide open to let Theophilus in. Either this guy is a traitor or he's a terrible security guy.
The Baceras are in the safe room. It looks nice in there! Unfortunately for them, the door is open and Theophilus walks right in and makes them step outside. Conroy looks on impassively as they beg for help. Theophilus calls 911and confesses, "What I do now, I do for the love of my country." Then he shoots. The bodies hit the ground. Conroy sends a text. Theophilus answers his phone, and his daughter says she's okay. Theophilus asks Conroy to do it now, so Conroy shoots him. This plan has a lot of moving parts.
At the police station, Conroy has a story about being zip-tied to the bannister and breaking free. Holmes walks in and calls him a liar. Conroy works for Lexicon Personal Security, which was Sutter Risk Management until last week. Holmes has concluded that the whole Sutter deal (see last week for more details) was to clear the decks for Conroy, who was only assigned to the Baceras recently. Holmes accuses him of murder, and Conroy punches him in the face.
Holmes is bleeding through the stitches. He insists he's fine and kicks a file cabinet. Watson shouts at him to get hold of himself. He's frustrated that he almost had Moriarty. Watson tells him that she and the police are enabling him. He shouts at her that if she's his partner, she'll stop immediately. He distracts her by saying he didn't steal "a vial of opiates" because he knew she'd be disappointed in him. And now he's disappointed in her. She tells him she knows what he needs to do. Letting Moriarty win is the only way this doesn't eat him alive. Watson's advice: "Let her win."
Bell and a uniform are waiting in the hallway of the brownstone. Bell tells someone on the phone that he'll let them know "if he shows up." Assuming he means Holmes, he's home right now! Bell is mad that Holmes ditched his guards. Holmes goes upstairs, saying he's going to shower... but after turning on the shower, he sits on the toilet and breathes intensely instead.
Bell's phone rings. Gregson says Holmes stormed out of the police station, and a corner drug dealer in Bushwick got beaten and robbed of his stash a half hour ago. Witness said it was a British guy with his arm in a sling. Uh oh! Bell pounds on the bathroom door. Then he kicks it in. Holmes is on the bathroom floor with a rubber hose around his arm and a hypodermic needle to him. Bell says to call the hospital because he just OD'd. Bum bum BUMMMMMM!
Holmes is asleep in the hospital, and Moriarty strolls into his room to visit him! She says she knows he's awake. She only "distracted" the guard at his door. She asks why he didn't listen to her. He says that he has, in fact, let her win, like she said. She says she didn't want him all catatonic and addicted again. In fact, she claims that she wants to help him. Holmes politely declines her help. She asks if he'd prefer it if she just killed him. He would! She says that she knew her death would distract him, but she didn't predict his descent into addiction. She says he's the only person on the planet who can surprise her. He figures that's why she loves him. She says he's an addict because his sensitivities put him in near-constant pain. But that's what makes him a great detective. She wants him to come with her as she leaves the country tonight. She promises to put him back together and show him a new way to live. He says, "We both made the same mistake. We fell in love. It made us stupid." She objects to being called stupid, since she just made almost a billion dollars. Holmes tells her, "You know, she solved you. The mascot. Watson."
Apparently Watson spotted the reason Moriarty could never quite kill Holmes, and predicted the reason she'd come here. Holmes had to make it look like Moriarty had won. He sits up and looks much more alert. He was faking! He explains, "I remain quite drug-free. It's good." He takes the tubes out of his nose. He figured pretending to OD was a good idea, since Moriarty is always going on about how she has eyes and ears everywhere. He says, "You said there was only one person in the world that could surprise you. Turns out, there's two." The door opens. Watson is backed by Gregson and Bell.
Yay! I'm always happy whenever a Watson gets to do something productive. And I direct you to the title of this half of the episode: "Heroine." It's not just a pun on the word "heroin;" it's also a description of Watson's role. Holmes was sidelined because he was too close to the problem and because he couldn't read Irene/Moriarty at all. He needed Watson to come in and do some detecting for him.
Epilogue time! Holmes is up on his roof, looking at his bees. Watson comes up with an update about Moriarty. She was recorded confessing to the Theophilus caper, so her Macedonian Denars have been frozen. Holmes sums up: "My nemesis has been defeated." Watson asks if he needs to find a new one. Holmes changes the subject to that rare bee in the box he got a while back. It's its own species, so it shouldn't be able to reproduce with his regular bees. But it has! So that means he has an entirely new species. A new bee crawls out, and it's the first one of its kind. Holmes names it Euglassia Watsonia. Watson asks, "You named a bee after me?" He did. Watson decides to stay on the roof and watch the bees be born with Holmes.
And that's it! I'm pleased that Natalie Dormer wasn't killed off, since it means there's a chance she'll be back at some point season.
Follow Monty on Twitter at @monty_ashley and read his blog, Mysterious Exhortations.