“Sherlock” recap: “The Hounds of Baskerville” (SPOILERS)

John and Sherlock on the Devonshire moors. Credit: BBC

This post has now been given the shout-out treatment from GeekOverture! Cheers, GeekOverture!

Once again, there are spoilers here, so if you’re one of the Americans who DON’T want to see the episodes until they come here in May, then you might not want to read this review. Fair warning.

Okay, if you’ve stayed, you’re either from Britain or you’re someone who has watched the leaks online. Either way, welcome aboard!

Again, like with “A Scandal in Belgravia,” I’m going to give this episode three separate analyses:

1) The show itself

2)Canon

3) Fanon

So let’s jump into it, shall we?

The basic premise of the episode is that Sherlock and John have to solve the case of a  mysterious, large hound haunting Henry Knight, a young, monetarily-endowed man who his going mad with fear and paranoia. However, what Sherlock think will simply be a case that will absolve his boredom brings him face to face with the devil hound and those pesky emotions he can’t seem to shake–this time, the main emotion in play is extreme fear. This episode was written by horror/thriller master Mark Gatiss.

The episode itself was AMAZING! I can’t say it enough. Some people think this episode was lesser than “Belgravia,” but I think they are both amazing in their own right. “Belgravia” was much more grandiose in its drama because the drama was mostly internal. It was poetic and beautiful and even a touch sorrowful and longing, like a Chopin piece. But this episode was awesome in how we get to explore the dynamics between John and Sherlock. We see more of John on his own, which references back to the canon story, in which John is in the moors a lot by himself while Sherlock is supposedly still in London. We also see John deal with fear, something we’ve actually never seen him deal with on such a large and intense scale. For a character who is used to showing emotion, the realization that we’ve actually never seen him get to the point of moaning out of fear is almost unsettling. And if it was unsettling to see John scared silly, it was doubly strange to see Sherlock, of all people, get so scared that he was profusely blinking back tears. (As an aside, I interpret Sherlock’s lack of security blanket-esque scarf as a means of showing how he is being stripped to his rawest emotions. His scarf is like one of  his shields against being “human,” and without it, he’s vulnerable.)

Sherlock fighting back tears of fear. Credit: Capsanyone

To keep going on about the two, we see more of the extent of their friendship and we are, once again, presented with the fact that John is really the only person who can truly handle Sherlock, even if he thinks he has trouble sometimes. Even when John loses his temper, he is dealing with Sherlock in the way that Sherlock needs to be handled. And to see Sherlock actually sorry for his actions toward John and actually give John compliments (albeit a little back-handed) is very sweet to see. It makes us really like Sherlock, someone who, if not played with a bit of humanity, would be totally unlikable.

This bit of real emotion does make it easier (at least, for me) to accept the hell he puts John through with the experiment in the Baskerville army base. How mean was that? I know why he did it–he had to test his theory about the sugar, meaning that him giving John coffee wasn’t really about the apology (maybe it partially was? probably not), but wow. That’s still a little cold-hearted. However, even with this hard-to-swallow fact of him treating John like a guinea pig, we still see that Sherlock has a heart, because he genuinely asks John if he’s all right after the experiment is over. We can see an unspoken “I’m sorry I had to put you through this” on his face and in his tone of voice. And he genuinely does respect John a lot, which is why he later hedges around telling John that it was an experiment in the first place. Even though John was shocked when he worked it out for himself, I think he ultimately understood why Sherlock took the actions he did. What he did didn’t affect the friendship–he was merely getting a job done, as callous as that may seem.

Seeing Lestrade out of the “office,” as it were, was pretty awesome. To see John, Sherlock and Lestrade (whose name is now canonically Greg) working as a team was really cool. Generally, we see Lestrade asking for Sherlock’s help, and in this case, John and Sherlock need Lestrade’s help. Very awesome.

And can I just say a little (or a lot) about Russell Tovey’s acting? AMAZING. He really drove the persona of a man haunted by fear, images and doubt home. Great stuff.

Tovey as Henry Knight. Credit: Capsanyone

Another reason I think this episode is awesome: I think it was put in the middle of the three episodes to serve as a break from the extreme emotional drama of “Belgravia” and as a palate cleanser so we’ll be ready to go on the emotional roller coaster ride of “The Reichenbach Fall.” For that reason alone, I’m grateful for this episode.

Overall, a tremendous episode. The bar that has been set for Sherlock is so high right now that I can’t even imagine how “The Reichenbach Fall” is going to play out, even though I know the story. It’s going to be way too amazing for me to handle. I’m officially not ready for the amount of emotions that’s going to occur during that episode. But, I can’t wait to see it.

I’ll be devasted/excited to see where this still comes in (I think it’s from this current season–the sad thing is that the tumblr I got it from, fabulousscreencaps, is no longer in existence):

UGH! Enough of this “hurts so good” party! I’ve got to take some seriously deep breaths between now and next Sunday.

Stay tuned for part two!