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To get it over with, the long, rambling bad:

> Wtf was that ending? No, really. WHAT THE FUCK. Three episodes of tension to have it NOT end on an explosion or a resolution? Come on.

Plus, Moriarty was a prancing twat (well done internets and people on TV Tropes by the way, for correctly predicting that he'd be Molly's boyfriend Jim) and while TV shows seem to have a love for the prancing, giggling, Joker-esque villain because obviously it proves that they're OH SO UNSTABLE WHAT CRAZY CRIME WILL THEY DO NEXT, Sherlock (with much help from Benedict Cumberbatch) has proved over these three eps that the only thing that can make a super-clever high-functioning sociopath into a good guy and not the bad guy is a slight swing in morals and, perhaps over time, a John Watson. Moriarty would've been genuinely terrifying if he'd been played a little less LOOK AT ME DOING IT FOR THE LULZ IN MAH SHIAHNY SUIT and a little more seriously into the beautiful intricacy of how to make Sherlock Holmes dance for his amusement, if he'd been a little more sinister and a little less Queer As Folk spoof (tangent: Gale Harold would've been amazing as a sinister Moriarty! This is why We Should Rule Television). The giggling crazy villain has no depth, will sooner or later always trip themselves up with their own crazy and quite frankly, Heath Ledger set such a high standard that everyone else needs to come up with something new.

Moriarty was a crushing disappointment. I hope when Molly finds out, she kicks him in the nuts.

> Second, Molly. Molly oh Molly. Sherlock was such an asshole to you in the last ep and was a MONUMENTAL cunt to you in this one, that I had every faith the writers (Moffet, I'm looking at you and it is not a glare of admiration) would give you some sort of apology. An opportunity to punch Sherlock in the nose (I would've given her a round of applause if she'd done it in the lab scene). If she'd been used as a hostage and Sherlock actually showed some flicker of concern, even a slight frown because frankly from Sherlock, that'd amount to full on hysterics. Any sort of resolution. The ending of this ep was so wide open you could drive a herd of elephants through it so obviously they're making more episodes and Molly could continue to grow as a background character and find resolution but this was a finale, to a Brit series of three eps that won't be continued probably for a year. Leaving Molly hanging without so much as letting her slap Sherlock's smart mouth, for a year, is a bit much. She's been used as a moving piece of scenery, as a talking prop, and it's not good. Not good at all.

> The Golem. Just- that. The assassin who no one sees, who can kill with his bare hands and go unnoticed, the invisible man, is seven foot tall with super-pale white skin and a really weird face? Um. No. I call bollocks on that. The best assassin is the one who doesn't look like any kind of assassin. Maybe in Victorian England he could've kept below the radar but dude, in modern London he'd get teenagers taking video of him on their cellphones and posting it on fucking Youtube. What a brilliant 'invisible' assassin. Yeah.

Also, whoever had the 'clever' idea to shoot that scene with the flickering light and squealing fast-forward sounds should be immediately taken out back and shot. It was appalling. Yes, I understand a wrestling match with a seven foot tall mad assassin could be hard to shoot but done that way it was just plain annoying. On future rewatches, I will fastforward past the entire fight, unless I'm in the mood for a good facepalm.

Generally: the plot was a bit frenetically confused. The idea of the pips and the limited time to save people was great! I loved it! And then it just- vanished? They got bored of it? Why wasn't Sherlock racing to a time limit to save John? The moment the writers stopped paying attention to the plot structure they'd been following for an entire hour, all the tension went out of the episode like a deflating balloon. It was ridiculous. I know why the plot worked technically without it at the end, I think, but I don't see why they'd spend so much time establishing such a lovely driving plot device only to not carry it through right down to the wire. The ending definitely suffered for it. The whole pool scene felt random and thrown together (and the boy, Sherlock's first case, was so important, WHY DIDN'T THEY INTRODUCE IT IN PREVIOUS EPISODES. Why wasn't it referenced in throwaway explanations, why didn't John ask Sherlock in ep one how he became a consulting detective and Sherlock dismiss it with "It was because of a boy" and leave it at that, because that supports the gay agenda the BBC takes such epic delight in these days AND it gives an 'Ah!' moment when it was explained in future. ARGH. PLAN THESE THINGS.)

...I think that's most of my complaints. There's more than I expected, which may give the impression that I didn't enjoy this episode? Which. Would be COMPLETELY WRONG:

the good:

Everything else. Oh, everything else.

> Sherlock shooting the wall. Sherlock having a boredom tantrum. Sherlock and Mycroft. Sherlock almost getting blown up. EVERYTHING SHERLOCK SAID/DID IN THIS EPISODE. Oh my god, it was like fic. GOOD fic. Every fic I've read in the last week has reflected all Sherlock's bad qualities with the good; his lack of empathy and John struggling with it (although I love that for every moment in this episode where Benedict Cumberbatch acted the cold, detached Sherlock, he balanced it with tears in his eyes when he failed, with the way he acted the scene with the kid on the phone, with the way he panicked, as much as Sherlock ever panics, over John at the end.) They didn't sugarcoat Sherlock tonight; they showed him as the manipulative detached sociopath he can be and had him say himself, he's not perfect but he doesn't claim to be. Although from his reaction to John in that scene, from his behaviour in the episode from then on... I think maybe he'd like to measure up to how John sees him. I'll have to rewatch but Sherlock-wanting-to-be-a-better-person-because-of-John is so totally one of my kinks for this show.

> Every scene where the slash was practically on the screen. 'Had a domestic?' 'ripping my clothes off' 'that was fantastic'. They were so close to married in this episode that I had to remind myself more than once that it wasn't a fic and they WEREN'T about to start ripping each other's clothes off (except for when Sherlock did. Sadly, there were extenuating circumstances. Oh well). But every scene between them was wonderful. I'm glad the writers do let John get something each episode (the Prof Cairns thing I think this week, and the railway switch, though Sherlock was ahead of him, as usual. As expected; he's Sherlock fucking Holmes) because he's not stupid but it'd be easy to forget that around Sherlock. I love them together. Especially the end scene, where I knew immediately that John had a bomb beneath the coat but watching Sherlock's brief, silent panic was oh, *hearts*. And the obvious, "you do have a heart" and John standing right there and... everything between the two of them. Brilliant.

> Sarah! I'm glad she was there, even briefly! I liked her a lot last week and I loved their brief banter and that she hasn't been forgotten. It doesn't compensate for Molly but it's nice (I do not totally agree with everyone bitching about sidelined ladies. Sherlock and Watson are men by history and fact, they have to be men because changing that for no other reason than we need more women is insulting to everyone. Lestrade's character is male. Irene Adler was a huge part of the Downey Jr film, so putting her in in any capacity would be awkward. I heard that there are other women in the original books but when your three main characters are male by necessity and you only have three episodes in which to expound, solve and explain several intricate crime plots, focusing on more than those three characters for any decent time is pretty impossible. Not only that, it would make the episodes slower and less successful to take time out for the sake of appearing 'politically correct'. Sarah was amazing; she spotted something Sherlock missed, she whacked a guy over the head with a pole to save John & Sherlock, she didn't break down until after her life had been saved by millimetres when shock would've kicked in for anyone and even after being kidnapped, traumatised and attacked, she has the strength of character to come back. Sally Donovan isn't particularly nice in her attitude to Sherlock but she's a police officer, in a position of some authority, has the confidence to speak for herself and not take any of Sherlock's manipulative shit. Mrs Hudson is awesome. The main villain in episode two was female. The dead people (of which there are many; this is Sherlock Holmes) have been pretty equally male and female.

This show tried in every spare corner to cram female characters in around the canon males and dismissing a show centered by canon on two men for its efforts to include women, despite a limited timespan, telling them point-blank that they failed utterly and not acknowledging that they tried, they really tried at every opportunity, really isn't conducive to making shows even want to try. If they get blasted either way, will they continue to try? Really, will they?

Every show cannot be equally representative of everything in the world and trying to be will lead to shows with scenes shoehorned in to meet political correctness, with characters who serve no purpose other than to tick off a category on a list, with plots that serve political guidelines instead of story. Do I think shows should be as representative as they can possibly be and strive to be even better? Yes, I do. Do I think Sherlock strove to be representative and succeeded fairly well? Yes I do. Maybe my opinion doesn't count towards racial issues because I am white and it's not my place to comment on how well they might've succeeded in those areas but I am a woman and I can comment on female characters from that perspective. And do I feel represented in Sherlock? Yes, I do. I'm sorry that you didn't. But your negative opinion does not count more than my positive one, just becase yours is negative. That's not how it works.

I love how everyone who complained about racial issues, about feminism, about all their personal soapbox issues, completely ignored the fact that this show, a primetime BBC show watched by millions, had a serious conversation in episode one that addressed the sexuality of both main characters with the genuine voiced conclusion that "it's fine, it's all fine" if Sherlock is gay, straight or just doesn't sleep with anyone. And then it continued to highlight the issue of sexuality throughout, with the bantering little exchanges between John and Sherlock, and the characters around them, about how okay it is for them to be a couple, even if they're not. I was somewhat poleaxed by Moriarty being played somewhat stereotypically gay, to be honest, but I can't tell how much of that was from my whole issue with Moriarty just not being scary. But to have Watson telling Sherlock Holmes, on primetime BBC, that it's 'fine' for him to be gay and meaning it completely? That's a good thing. That's a brilliant thing. I wish more people would acknowledge that.

This was such a long tangent. Sorry!)

> This post is long enough already and a complete list of things I love would just cover most of the episode, so I shall leave it with just a final word for how much I enjoyed the references to the online extra material (John's blog etc.) in this ep. I haven't been reading them but I've read enough fic and comm posts to know what's in them and to let me catch some references which made me glee. I think working hard to give a little more to fans that make the extra effort - without spoiling the party for everyone else, which it didn't; my parents still enjoyed the ep without knowing the online stuff existed - is a wonderful thing. Next series, I'll read all the online extras.

Because with that ending, obviously there'll be another series. I just hope they do it fucking properly next time and none of this 'three episodes' (even if they are 90min instead of 45) malarky. At least six next time please! And not six 45mins either; proper 90min per ep series. Molly has a lot of punching Sherlock in the nose to fit in.

edit: Another note: I was wondering if this may play a part in them escaping the sniper (snipers?) at the end, if they could get into the pool fast enough...3ft underwater isn't much. It'd be nice to have a plot-based reason for the pool, other than sentimental value for a case that wasn't even mentioned until this week. But I suspect it may end in an explosion instead. Ah well.

*

I have to go to bed now, because I have work in the morning. >_< WHERE DID MY WEEKEND GO.

edit Aaaaaaahhhhh sorry! Hopefully I fixed that spoiler cut fail fast enough.