With all the nods to slash fiction and facial hair, it’s easy to forget that amongst it all there is a case to be solved. This is especially easy considering it’s a throwaway one. This isn’t an episode about Sherlock Holmes catching criminals, this is an episode about a ghost reappearing from the blue and digging up dirt long buried. It almost would have been worth throwing out the subplots altogether, leaving the focus on a group of characters who have moved on without ever quite letting go. As it is though, the case is imperfectly structured, falling back on coincidence and overlong inductive leaps to reach its conclusion. As in Conan Doyle’s books before it, Sherlock is at its best when the clues are hidden in plain sight, rather than resorting to withholding the information until someone conveniently trips over it.
But forget about such needless trifles as international terrorist plots, there’s something far more important to pull you’re attention here: The boys are finally back!
Cumberbatch and Freeman’s interactions are the show’s pride and joy, and despite the hiatus, the back and forth between Holmes and Watson remains as entertaining as ever. It’s really just a privilege to sit and watch a pair of gloriously written characters wading through one of the greatest British programmes of the Millennium. Even when Sherlock is at its worst (which it rarely is), it’s still a fantastic piece of television, packed with snappy editing and punchy dialogue, effortlessly exuding the kind of energy that would leave most shows gasping for breath.
The Empty Hearse may be a flawed addition to the canon, but I cannot stress enough how good it is to see some of Britain’s brightest lights back together and making something truly special. The current explanation as to Holmes’ survival – which for the meantime we must assume to be genuine – proves to be minor a cop out, but the slavish analysis of The Fall made that all but inevitable. It seems a more natural reaction to just shrug it off and chuckle along.
The episode as a whole is endearingly uneven – a patchwork of raw emotions and in-jokes that serve to perfectly reflect the newfound instability of a set of characters we’ve swiftly grown to love.
The Empty Hearse may not be as brilliant a season opener as A Scandal in Belgravia, but it’s a surefire crowd-pleaser that manages to brilliantly strike the balance between familiar ground and new territory. It may be flawed, but it’s a love letter to the fans, who are bound to universally adore it.
Sherlock is back in business folks, and it was well worth the wait.