Sherlock - A Scandal In Belgravia

This review can also be found on Step2TV.

Guns, nudity, a dominatrix and government conspiracies... My New Year's party was fantastic! Incidentally, this was also the basis for A Scandal in Belgravia, the première episode for season two of Sherlock, as the eponymous detective came face to face with his intellectual equal, the one woman with a mind to rival his... Irene Adler.

Picking up immediately where series one left off 17 months ago (I've been counting...), the delightfully unhinged master criminal Jim Moriarty (Andrew Scott) has Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin Freeman) in his snipers' cross-hairs. A bomb jacket rests threateningly by the side of the swimming pool, and Sherlock's gun is pointed squarely at the explosives... It's clear that whatever transpires here, no-one's getting out alive.

However, Moriarty gets a phone call and, with other things to take care of, he defuses the situation with a sense of sinister whimsy, calling off the snipers and walking away, informing his caller that if they don't provide he'll “make them into shoes.” Lovely fellow. I must admit, I like the route they've taken with Moriarty – avoiding the clichéd, posh villain and instead opting to portray him as a far more unsettling and psychotic character; something Andrew Scott performs brilliantly!

It's then back to boring old reality for Sherlock, as he's met with a slew of tedious cases from the public, brought about by the popularity of John's incessant blogging, with quite a few references to some other of Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes stories. However, the main focus of this episode is the re-imagining of A Scandal in Bohemia, Doyle's first Holmes story published in the Strand Magazine in 1891, adapted by Steven Moffat for the 21^st Century as A Scandal in Belgravia. In Arthur Conan Doyle's original story, European royalty are blackmailed with some particularly compromising photographs of Irene Adler with the Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein. In this re-imagined version, Irene Adler (played magnificently by Lara Pulver) is a dominatrix hired by an undisclosed member of the British monarchy, and the damning photos are now kept on a smartphone – along with many other important facts and images obtained from her clients, which Irene uses for “protection.”

It's not long until John and Sherlock are whisked off to Buckingham Palace (with Holmes woefully under-dressed!) and briefed on the situation at hand. However, despite Sherlock's initial confidence that this will be a simple case, he soon finds that Irene is far more than an attractive woman with a horse-whip, and they end up embroiled in a battle of wits. Continuously out-doing each other in intellectual brilliance, their curious relationship based on mental prowess and personal rivalry builds to the extent that they develop a great deal of respect for one another – probably the closest thing to love Sherlock can ever experience. It's quite a touching story, in a way! But with the CIA, the British government and international terrorists taking an interest, there's a conspiracy running far deeper than a spot of S&M with a royal...

Cumberbatch and Freeman continue with their marvellous double act, with the constant disdain and condescension of the somewhat inhuman Sherlock matched by the berating but grounding and humanising force of Watson, all the while keeping an underlying sense of camaraderie – the perfect Holmes and Watson dynamic! Freeman portrays a very natural John Watson, whose now grown accustomed to Sherlock's “quirks” and is getting into the flow of blogging, whilst Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes maintains a certain imperious, ethereal air about him that is a sheer joy to watch. In just four episodes, I think it's safe to say that both Cumberbatch and Freeman have secured their places among the classic interpretations of this deducing duo.

Of course, in this episode, it was Irene Adler that presented Sherlock with a challenge on several fronts – someone as cold and calculating as himself. His mirror image. In the role of Adler, Lara Pulver's superb performance portrayed an intricate and multi-dimensional character from the start, making the manipulative dominatrix seem both fundamentally vulnerable and yet dauntingly untouchable at the same time. As the one woman who could capture the interest of, and ultimately out-match, Sherlock Holmes, Pulver's appearance is certainly one which won't be forgotten. Although, as Adler is in lieu with Moriarty (and still alive and well), is it beyond the realms of possibility to hope that she may make a return, even though it doesn't quite fit the canon of Arthur Conan Doyle's original work?

Packed with action, humour, drama, and an all-round stellar cast, A Scandal in Belgravia is a prime example of why Sherlock won the BAFTA for Best Drama Series last year! Although the plot deviated from the original story towards the latter half (as is to be expected in a re-imagining), and there was a rather surreal conclusion of “Death by Boomerang” for the somewhat negligible case on the side, the episode certainly didn't fail to entertain and enthral.

I am pondering the significance of John's blog counter being stuck at 1895, though... All I know is that in the year 1895, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine was published, and Heinz first introduced HP Sauce. Unless the underlying plot of this series is about time travelling condiments, I'm lost for clues!*

Next week, Sherlock's attention turns to Dartmoor as he takes on possibly his most famous case – The Hound of the Baskervilles. Adapted by Mark Gatiss, The Hound promises to be a tale of horror and intrigue with a dark conspiracy at it's heart...

If you missed A Scandal in Belgravia, what's wrong with you?! You can catch up with it on iPlayer here... You won't be disappointed!

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*["It is always 1895" is the ending of a classic Holmesian poem by Vincent Starrett. Thanks to Joe Revill for sharing that fact! Shame that means no time travelling condiments, though...]