The Great Game (Sherlock)

The Great Game is the third episode of the television series Sherlock and was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 8 August 2010.

Plot

Sherlock Holmes, who is bored in the absence of a challenging case, snaps at John Watson, angry that his account of their first case on his blog has made him ridiculous by revealing that Sherlock lacks even primary school level notions of astronomy. Sherlock is of the opinion that any knowledge not likely to have an importance in his work takes up precious space in his brain. John decamps to his girlfriend Sarah's apartment, where he hears on the news that an explosion has taken place on Baker Street. He rushes back home to find Sherlock and his brother Mycroft sitting in the living room, unaffected by what seemed to be a gas leak. Mycroft tries to persuade his brother to look into the murder of MI5 employee Andrew "Westie" West, who was found on a railroad track with his head smashed and a flash drive in his custody, carrying files of utmost importance, missing. Mycroft elaborates that the flash drive contained vital information about the "Bruce-Partington" missile project. Sherlock however, refuses to take the case, stating that his hands are already full. He eventually asks John to investigate it himself.

Shortly after, DI Lestrade calls Sherlock to Scotland Yard. There, Sherlock is given a package, containing a replica of the pink mobile phone of Jennifer Wilson, the murder victim in "A Study in Pink". A message on the mobile plays five Greenwich pips and displays a photo of a rundown basement which he recognises as 221C Baker Street, the basement flat of his building. Sherlock, John and Lestrade find a pair of trainers lying in the middle of the room. At that point, Sherlock receives a phone call from a terrified woman in her car, who is obviously reading a message sent by a third party. She urges Sherlock to solve the puzzle in 12 hours or the explosive vest she is being forced to wear will be detonated. Sherlock believes the five pips mean that he will be required to solve five riddles to prevent five bombs from exploding.

Carl Powers

Sherlock and John go to St. Bart's laboratory to examine the trainers. They are interrupted by Molly Hooper, the lab tech who has a crush on Holmes. She is hoping to make Sherlock jealous by introducing him to her new boyfriend Jim, an IT employee. Holmes simply informs her that Jim is gay, pointing out his meticulous self-grooming, exposed underwear and most importantly the phone number he surreptitiously left under Sherlock's petri dish. Returning to the case, Sherlock discovers that the shoes belonged to a schoolboy named Carl Powers who drowned in a London pool in 1989. The case had attracted his attention at the time, but being underage he had been unable to make his case to the police. Now he is able to solve it simply from clues left on the sneakers: Carl Powers had been poisoned with botulism via his eczema medication. The booby-trapped woman is freed.

Ian Monkford

Next, Sherlock gets another picture message showing a sports car's front view. With Lestrade's help, he tracks down the vehicle, discovering that it's been stained with blood. He also receives another phone call from a man in a similar position to the woman who phoned him earlier, except he is standing in Piccadilly Circus with a sniper ready to detonate his vest at a moment's notice. He gives Sherlock eight hours to solve the mystery. Posing as a close friend, Holmes interviews the car owner's wife, learning that he was recently very depressed. Following the card he found in the glove box, he reaches a rental agency. Sherlock observes that the agency owner has a distinct suntan and by glancing at his wallet, he deduces that the man has been to Colombia recently. The last link in the chain comes from the blood from the car. Holmes finds out the blood was frozen beforehand. He concludes that the lost man, Ian Monkford, paid the agency owner for making him disappear. With the help of the frozen blood, he'd be presumed dead and his wife would collect the insurance money to split it with the agency owner. Once again, emergency services free the hostage. Sherlock is by now convinced that his battle of wits is with the mysterious Moriarty named by the killer in A Study in Pink.

Connie Prince

The third puzzle is revealed to be upon the demise of TV host Connie Prince who succumbed to tetanus, supposedly after cutting herself on a nail. Sherlock however shows that the wound was made after her death. This time the phone call comes from a blind elderly woman who gives Holmes twelve hours in which to solve the crime. Posing as a journalist, John interviews Prince's brother Kenny and decides he murdered his sister by infecting her cat's paws. Holmes demolishes this theory and instead blames her housekeeper Raoul, who committed the murder by increasing the dose of botulinium toxin in her botox injections. Despite the fact that Sherlock solved the puzzle before the deadline, the bomber triggers the explosives he planted upon the hostage when she starts describing his voice ("it was so soft"). As a result, a total of 12 people, including the elderly woman, who all live in the same block of flats, are killed when her bomb jacket is detonated, which leads Sherlock to declare that he "lost that round". Sherlock explains that Moriarty is some sort of crime consultant who normally does not get himself exposed. John accuses him of relishing the challenge when lives are being endangered. Sherlock replies that being unemotional makes him more efficient which in turns saves those lives.

Alex Woodbridge

The fourth piece appears as a photograph of the River Thames. Sherlock sets out for the scene and comes across the corpse of a man who he deduces to be a security guard. Upon close examination, he perceives a pair of bruises upon the skin which are the trademarks of a certain assassin nicknamed "the Golem". Sherlock theorises that a recently recovered lost painting by Vermeer worth £32 million due to be unveiled at the art gallery which employed the deceased must be a fake and he was murdered because he might have exposed this. Sherlock mentions to John and Lestrade that he would have expected the bomber to have phoned him by now, and heads to the museum to confront the curator, who claims to know nothing about a forgery or murder. Investigating the victim, John finds that he was an amateur astronomer, with a message left on his phone by an astronomy professor saying that he 'may be right' about the Vermeer painting being fake. The Golem has already gone after her, but while Sherlock and John fail to save her life, the garbled astronomy presentation playing on their arrival gives Sherlock the clue he needs as to what makes the painting a fake - the Van Buuren supernova in the skyscape, which appeared in 1858 and thus could not have been painted in the 1640s. This enables him to save the life of the fourth victim, a young boy. The curator confesses her part in the conspiracy, and tells Sherlock that the person ultimately in charge was known as Moriarty.

Andrew West

At Sherlock's behest, John is investigating the Andrew West case on his own and examines the crime scene where he is puzzled to hear that little blood was found on the tracks. Sherlock appears behind him, confirming his suspicion that West was killed somewhere else and dumped on the roof of a train and then fell off as the train passed over a set of points (railroad line switches). Subsequently, they break into the apartment of West's prospective brother-in-law, Joe, confronting him about the murder and the theft. Joe breaks down, confessing that he stole the Bruce-Partington data because he owed large sums of money to some drug dealers, and that West died accidentally during their struggle. Sherlock tells John that he has returned the memory stick and waits by the pink phone in front of the television until John goes out to meet Sarah. He then contacts Moriarty, offering the missile plans and arranges a meeting at the swimming pool where Carl Powers died. When he arrives, he is greeted by John, who at first appears to taunt him but reveals that he is wearing an explosive vest and is having his words dictated to him like the previous hostages.

Moriarty finally appears and turns out to be Jim, Molly's pseudo-boyfriend. The volatile and clearly unhinged Moriarty throws the USB stick in the pool and explains that the whole point of the exercise was to show Sherlock what he is capable of and to warn him to stay out of his way, threatening to "burn the heart out of [him]." John grabs Moriarty, but the sniper points immediately turn to Sherlock, so he lets him go and Moriarty leaves, allowing Sherlock to rip the jacket off John. Seconds later, lasers appear on the pair of them and Moriarty returns, having changed his mind and decided to kill them both now. Sherlock aims his handgun first at Moriarty, but then changes his aim towards the explosive vest that was strapped to John and is now lying on the floor at Moriarty's feet. The episode ends on this cliffhanger.

Source material

Holmes and Watson's discussion about astronomy and knowledge comes from A Study in Scarlet. The Andrew West case comes from The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, in which the victim is called Arthur Cadogan West. The pink cellphone receives messages with Greenwich Pips, with their numbers decreasing with each message, pointing towards The Five Orange Pips. The conversation between Holmes and Moriarty in the final scene mirrors and quotes the confrontation in Holmes' study in The Final Problem

Cast

Production

According to the DVD commentary, The Great Game was the first episode of Sherlock to be produced after the BBC accepted the series.

Reception

External links