Sherlock Episode 2.02 Review

The Hounds of Baskerville


The second episode of the second series of BBC's amazing Sherlock was pretty different from the other episodes we've seen. The episode starts where we left off, with Sherlock feeling bored and taking cases off the website. It quickly turns though and we are thrown into what really felt like a Doctor Who episode. There was a mystical aspect to it that I hadn't seen in Sherlock before. In Doctor Who the resolution would probably include aliens or something and not a government conspiracy, but still very Who-like.

I loved that Sherlock puts everything together about the rabbit early on and used that to further his investigation into the "enormous hound". As always we had enough information to figure out a good deal of the answer on our own. Since there is no H.O.U.N.D. project in Liberty, Indiana in real life we couldn't connect all the dots, but that's fine. A memory palace is definitely something I wish I had by the way. The resolution of the story was very interesting I think. Clearly there was not a massive dog running around in this location like a UK version of Big Foot. Once Sherlock said he had seen it it seemed like it might be there, but the fear he felt seemed strange. Sure if I, or most people say a giant dog they would be scared, but I would imagine Sherlock would be more interested that afraid, and surely he wouldn't doubt himself. The scientist at the lab told them that really anything is possible, so he would just list it as a genetically manipulated beast. It was his fear that was the real clue about the truth of the matter.



We learn in the end that the CIA used this specific type of chemical to instill fear and doubt in people as an anti-personnel weapon, but those tests were stopped because of the long term effects. Now, another scientist was using it to stop people from finding out about those experiments.  I loved seeing Sherlock experiencing fear, and doubt for the first time. He seemed even more afraid of those feelings that he would ever be from seeing an enormous hound.

At the very end of the episode we get a cryptic preview of the finale's story, maybe. We see Moriarty in some kind of room and he looked afraid. He then is let go by his captures and written all over the wall is the name "Sherlock".  Was this some kind of flashback? Did they use this fear toxin on Moriarty to force him to go insane, and focus his insanity on Sherlock?  If that's the case I'll be a little disappointed. Moriarty is Sherlock's archnemesis and I wouldn't be happy if we find out that he's just another pawn.

But, we'll have to wait and see. Currently, there has not been confirmation of a 3rd Series of Sherlock so next week could possibly be the final episode. That seems unlikely to me, but you never know.