It seems that Newcastle and transfer windows don't mix, with the window a seeming invitation to plunder the Magpies starting eleven of its best talents.
So far, its not always worked this way. While the infamous decision to sell Andy Carroll for a British record transfer fee on deadline day is obviously remembered, the bulk of the Magpies' stars have remained. The only cash outgoings recently have seen James Perch sold for £750K and Demba Ba's idiotic release clause cashed in on.
But January 2014 has certainly woken up with a problem for Magpies fans hopeful they would retain the star names. This has even come despite it appearing they'd ridden out the potential departure storm.
There's no denying the team has importance on the form and availability of Yohan Cabaye. The playmaker's two goals in his man-of-the-match display at West Ham were of humungous quality, while his influence in attack is keenly felt. Moreso than that of Hatem Ben Arfa, who can delight and frustrate in equal measure.
It was obvious such a cutting edge of attacking football would attract buyer's attention. A derisory offer from Arsenal in August was rejected and the Gunners refused to pay the £25M asking price, while interest from David Moyes' flailing Manchester United has still been reported, despite the recent £37M of Juan Mata and more money being forked upon the weekly cash palette Wayne Rooney hoovers up and spends on magic beans. Probably.
What's most annoying about the likelihood of him moving to Paris is how much talk there has been of him not moving there. At the start of January, Paris Saint-Germain denied interest in Cabaye. There has also been talk that star PSG players like Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva want Roma midfielder Miralem Pjanic instead of Cabaye, and that PSG are also more interested in acquiring Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba.
Yet despite this, it looks as though Cabaye is off to PSG anyway. A derisory £14M bid had been initially rejected, which then has sent the club into panic stations, with Pardew admitting he is helpless to prevent an exit if Kinnear sanctions one.
Pardew has also said nobody wants him to leave, which is the exact tone a team with players that have played in the Champions League and ideally should be chasing these places should be going for.
Evidently, £19M-25M is his reported fee to allow him to go. This maybe in line with his valuation, but it is especially irritating at this time of year to allow a talented player that has become the cornerstone of the club's attack to depart with seemingly no replacement lined up.
People have been justifying this by saying a new replacement can be sourced, but time is hardly on the side. Even then, there is lots of skepticism and doubt at the board's willingness to spend big bucks on any possible replacement. The fact it took eight months and a relegation for QPR to even sign Loic Remy on loan is fairly indicative of the mess that is the club's recruitment policy, while there is little to no suggestion Kinnear has even approached any potential targets' parent clubs.
There is little to no trust in the regime at St. James' Park, which took 2 years to fully spend the Carroll cash on new players and in an atmosphere where fans don't know who will be in the forwards roster for the pitch next season, for one example.
Few fans expect Loic Remy to stay beyond the end of the campaign, while Shola Ameobi is out of contract and the almost-permanently out-of-form Papiss Cisse is being linked with moves to Qatar.
Throw in a Cabaye replacement and it gets worrying, not least given the regime's track record. Its arguable that had Cisse joined in the summer of 2011, we would have made the Champions League and still have a fair penny to bolster a squad so we could convincingly challenge for a top four finish.
Alas, even though we only sit seven points off 4th place Liverpool, we seem to have given up on the ambition of even making the Europa League, content to take a top 8 spot. Some fans may view the Europa League as a booby prize, not least given the awful 2012-13 season and a similarly poor campaign currently being experienced by Swansea City.
Eighth spot is certainly better than the relegation battle some pessimistic fans had dreaded way back in August after a Cabaye-less 4-0 hammering by Man City on the opening day. But it reeks of a lack of ambition, as the club should be building for greater things than to simply hoover up the Premier League TV cash.
We've already beaten Chelsea, Spurs and Manchester United this season, as well as nicking a point off Liverpool and running Arsenal and Manchester City close. So the framework is there for a team that should be aiming to challenge for a top 6 spot at least. Instead, we seem content to fall back and coast until May, where another star will doubtless be cashed in upon and leave us in trouble for 2014-15.
If no replacement is signed it robs the attack of fluidity, which is a horrible idea in the wake of the upcoming Tyne-Wear Derby - a match which Pardew cannot afford to lose after being beaten in his last two encounters against the Black Cats. Defeat there will probably instigate yet another miserable sequence for the manager, who saw the team fall into an almost fatal tailspin after Paolo di Canio's moment in the sun last April.
Given the chances of this suddenly increasing, he is an utter madman for letting this happen again. But now we'll see what he's made of, and chances are its not going to be a pretty sight. If Chris Hughton leads a limited Norwich City side to victory tomorrow night, then an already sombre mood will probably reach its usual bombastic levels of negativity.
That's not to say Cabaye can be blamed - if he wanted to move to Paris to join a team rated as among the favourites for the Champions League title, its hardly fair to stop him. But it is depressing it comes to this, and once again leaves us a mere window at what might have been and at the fact the team is going to be an underwhelming relation to the one that tore up West Ham barely a week and a half ago.
Monday, 27 January 2014
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
The Wolf of Wall Street - Film Review
In an interview, film star Michael Douglas mentioned a number of the bankers responsible for the economic crisis took his character Gordon Gekko as an inspiration for their day-to-day work.
This is a curious effect of this film. While most of the audience of the film will have seen it as it was intended by the initial auteurs - as a satirical condemnation of 1980s money-worship culture - it ended up being celebrated by those in the industry being condemned, meaning that its possible that Douglas and Charlie Sheen, by accident, created the mindset behind the 2007 financial industry collapse that has ruined the world economy for generations.
Many decades on and another film starring one of the leading lights of Hollywood is being accused of glamorising the reckless excess of Wall Street bankers again, albeit among other things.
The Wolf of Wall Street is based upon the literary works of Jordan Belfort, who was one of the biggest financial conmen in 1990s America. His firm Stratton Oakmont dabbled in cheap, over-the-counter stock that was essentially worthless, along with dabbling in securities fraud and financial corruption.
In some ways, Leonardo diCaprio hasn't really had to change too much from his last film role - the title role of The Great Gatsby. He's still throwing decadent parties, flashing cash like its going out of fashion and attracting attention of clientele beyond his social circle.
But its highly unlikely Gatsby made his money through these sort of mannerisms, or spent it in such an outlandish way.
If the financial jargon behind his accumulated wealth means nothing to those not from a Wall Street or City of London background, there's plenty of bizarre but spectacular monuments to excess here for your entertainment. This is the possibly one of the wildest film rides possible, given its a veritable smorgasbord of crashed yachts, sports cars and helicopters, sex, alcohol, a wide variety of drugs, sellotaping money to prostitutes, $26,000 lunches, bins full of discarded $100 notes, naked marching bands, skating chimpanzees and even dwarf-throwing competitions in just an ordinary week for Belfort.
It almost feels like watching this movie is getting you high, and it worryingly makes being an amoral financial shark look a lot of fun, which is probably why Goldman Sachs bankers cheered Belfort's descent into debauchery.
Its also probably why there's been a debate about the movie's lack of moral compass. In America, this film has largely attracted a conservative viewership, who are not exactly the ones that are going to be impressed by the perception of Wall Street traders snorting coke off prostitute's arses, for one example. This excess - not to mention a record use of the word "fuck" for a non-documentary film - also probably explains the 45 minute cut and dialogue bleeping in Dubai showings, or the outright ban it received in others Muslim countries.
The first part of the film is basically a dip in this world where a moral compass is irrelevant to proceedings. Hell, the first 10 minutes sees us meet him at the height of his bastard powers. His team embark in dwarf throwing as end-of-day entertainment, he has a glamourous wife that performs sex acts on him while he drives a lurid white Ferrari, makes $49M a year and owns a huge estate on Long Island.
The film then backs up a bit to the beginning of proceedings, where he arrives in New York a wide-eyed optimistic 22-year-old with dreams of wealth. Having impressed his boss, his new head Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) takes him out to lunch where he says the secret to Wall Street success is constant drugs and sex. Not that it does his boss any good - Belfort's is barely weeks into the job when the firm is hit by Black Monday, where the Dow Jones suffers its biggest fall since the 1929 stock market crash and stockbrokers are laid off by the bucketload.
Broke and lost, Belfort is encouraged towards a job at a small financial firm by his first wife Teresa (Cristin Milloti). This firm turns out to be selling penny stocks, and Belfort's Wall Street aggression leads him to earning a fortune.
He befriends furniture salesman Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), and together they decide to break away and form their own company using Azoff's pot-dealing mates. Before long, the firm becomes massively successful using Belfort's brand of mass selling to pressure investors into parting with their cash.
Before long, Stratton Oakmont has an enormous office. Belfort and his associates become addicted to a wide variety of drugs, including cocaine and Quaaludes, and holding increasingly-debauched parties in both their offices and their personal lives. A staff getaway by the beach turns into an orgy of excess, and eventually leads to Belfort meeting his future second bridge Naomi (Margot Robbie).
They quickly move into a life of marriage together - after a predictably over-the-top bachelor weekend - and before long have a kid together. Even despite his continual cavorting with a barrel-load of hookers.
This film is not for the faint-hearted. There are so many naked women that before long seeing one with clothes is a novelty, while the film contains so many graphic and absurdly frequent depictions of drug abuse. The best moments come later on, such as a riotous show of drug-fuelled insanity on a flight to Switzerland and a sequence where Belfort and Azoff take expired but pungent Quaaludes, which leads to sensational high acting that is borderline offensive.
Despite this fun, the quick rise and nature of Stratton has led to government attention, not least from a Forbes magazine article that dubbed Belfort "a twisted Robin Hood-like figure". The Securities and Exchange Commission, and the FBI are both conducting investigations. Belfort doesn't help by trying to wine-and-dine lead FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) on his private yacht, which leads to him content to throw hundreds of dollars at him and his associate as they walk off.
Even with investigations, the Stratton fun continues, and they lead the IPO of shoe maker Steve Madden. This leads to Belfort pocketing $22million personally, which he opts to hide in a Swiss bank account under the name of his wife's English aunt Emma (Joanna Lumley).
Lumley is but one of the absurd wealth of actors that pop in-and-out of the main storyline. Rob Reiner is delightful as Belfort's dad, while Jean Dujardin is impressive as Belfort's corrupt Swiss banking associate, and the legion of men following Belfort's lead are all exceptionally committed to bulking up the cast and ploy of a firm that had, at its real-life height, over 1,000 stockbrokers.
Yet knowledge of such a stellar cast-list, not to mention his own outstanding performance, can save Belfort from the scope of the authorities. He is arrested for crashing his car while high, although is able to evade charges on a technicality and - somehow - escapes death, so decides to go on a yacthing holiday with Azoff and their wives to Italy.
This, however, is where things begin to turn to shit for Belfort, with the death of Emma leaving him on a mad dash to try and get the money out of his Swiss bank account, only for the boat to capsize and the plane to explode.
From here is a tonal change, as Belfort becomes more detestable and more desperate, as the FBI slowly hunts the wolf down. Eventually, he cracks, ripping open his sofa to grab at a stash of coke after 2 years sober and engaging in awful and pointless domestic violence. This sequence is certainly very uncompromising, and reveals the point where the humour stops.
But the most surprising thing about the end sequence is not the betrayal of his employees, the piss-easy jail term or the fact he still managed to abscond with the bulk of the cash. Its that he is now, in the final scene, using the selling techniques he used to build Stratton Oakmont to teach the wannabee financial sellers of tomorrow.
This is the biggest satirical point of the movie. It highlights the fact men who made fortunes from such a diabolically evil philosophy are now using these techniques to create the financial personalities of tomorrow, and with it, breed new destructive and amoral bastards for a business that is hardly short of them to begin with.
Its impressive to see a film cover such bases throughout its time span, which in a way justifies such a mammoth running time. It revels in the excess of the financial riches Belfort swindles his way towards, depicts the hunt where the bad guy becomes unstuck, and has a point to make about the ruthless worship of cash. But most of all, its funny.
Its impressive just how consistently amusing the film is throughout its process, and it has a fair number of impressively absurd set-pieces that deliver some massively hilarious pay-offs.
If you want a film that subtly explains how it came to be that the financial world became a culture for amoral bastards that were able to destroy the world economy and (largely) get away with it, this is not for you. But if you want a fun ride through this financial culture filled with moments of hilarity and almost constant excess, step right up.
4/5
This is a curious effect of this film. While most of the audience of the film will have seen it as it was intended by the initial auteurs - as a satirical condemnation of 1980s money-worship culture - it ended up being celebrated by those in the industry being condemned, meaning that its possible that Douglas and Charlie Sheen, by accident, created the mindset behind the 2007 financial industry collapse that has ruined the world economy for generations.
Many decades on and another film starring one of the leading lights of Hollywood is being accused of glamorising the reckless excess of Wall Street bankers again, albeit among other things.
The Wolf of Wall Street is based upon the literary works of Jordan Belfort, who was one of the biggest financial conmen in 1990s America. His firm Stratton Oakmont dabbled in cheap, over-the-counter stock that was essentially worthless, along with dabbling in securities fraud and financial corruption.
In some ways, Leonardo diCaprio hasn't really had to change too much from his last film role - the title role of The Great Gatsby. He's still throwing decadent parties, flashing cash like its going out of fashion and attracting attention of clientele beyond his social circle.
But its highly unlikely Gatsby made his money through these sort of mannerisms, or spent it in such an outlandish way.
If the financial jargon behind his accumulated wealth means nothing to those not from a Wall Street or City of London background, there's plenty of bizarre but spectacular monuments to excess here for your entertainment. This is the possibly one of the wildest film rides possible, given its a veritable smorgasbord of crashed yachts, sports cars and helicopters, sex, alcohol, a wide variety of drugs, sellotaping money to prostitutes, $26,000 lunches, bins full of discarded $100 notes, naked marching bands, skating chimpanzees and even dwarf-throwing competitions in just an ordinary week for Belfort.
It almost feels like watching this movie is getting you high, and it worryingly makes being an amoral financial shark look a lot of fun, which is probably why Goldman Sachs bankers cheered Belfort's descent into debauchery.
Its also probably why there's been a debate about the movie's lack of moral compass. In America, this film has largely attracted a conservative viewership, who are not exactly the ones that are going to be impressed by the perception of Wall Street traders snorting coke off prostitute's arses, for one example. This excess - not to mention a record use of the word "fuck" for a non-documentary film - also probably explains the 45 minute cut and dialogue bleeping in Dubai showings, or the outright ban it received in others Muslim countries.
The first part of the film is basically a dip in this world where a moral compass is irrelevant to proceedings. Hell, the first 10 minutes sees us meet him at the height of his bastard powers. His team embark in dwarf throwing as end-of-day entertainment, he has a glamourous wife that performs sex acts on him while he drives a lurid white Ferrari, makes $49M a year and owns a huge estate on Long Island.
The film then backs up a bit to the beginning of proceedings, where he arrives in New York a wide-eyed optimistic 22-year-old with dreams of wealth. Having impressed his boss, his new head Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey) takes him out to lunch where he says the secret to Wall Street success is constant drugs and sex. Not that it does his boss any good - Belfort's is barely weeks into the job when the firm is hit by Black Monday, where the Dow Jones suffers its biggest fall since the 1929 stock market crash and stockbrokers are laid off by the bucketload.
Broke and lost, Belfort is encouraged towards a job at a small financial firm by his first wife Teresa (Cristin Milloti). This firm turns out to be selling penny stocks, and Belfort's Wall Street aggression leads him to earning a fortune.
He befriends furniture salesman Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), and together they decide to break away and form their own company using Azoff's pot-dealing mates. Before long, the firm becomes massively successful using Belfort's brand of mass selling to pressure investors into parting with their cash.
Before long, Stratton Oakmont has an enormous office. Belfort and his associates become addicted to a wide variety of drugs, including cocaine and Quaaludes, and holding increasingly-debauched parties in both their offices and their personal lives. A staff getaway by the beach turns into an orgy of excess, and eventually leads to Belfort meeting his future second bridge Naomi (Margot Robbie).
They quickly move into a life of marriage together - after a predictably over-the-top bachelor weekend - and before long have a kid together. Even despite his continual cavorting with a barrel-load of hookers.
This film is not for the faint-hearted. There are so many naked women that before long seeing one with clothes is a novelty, while the film contains so many graphic and absurdly frequent depictions of drug abuse. The best moments come later on, such as a riotous show of drug-fuelled insanity on a flight to Switzerland and a sequence where Belfort and Azoff take expired but pungent Quaaludes, which leads to sensational high acting that is borderline offensive.
Despite this fun, the quick rise and nature of Stratton has led to government attention, not least from a Forbes magazine article that dubbed Belfort "a twisted Robin Hood-like figure". The Securities and Exchange Commission, and the FBI are both conducting investigations. Belfort doesn't help by trying to wine-and-dine lead FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) on his private yacht, which leads to him content to throw hundreds of dollars at him and his associate as they walk off.
Even with investigations, the Stratton fun continues, and they lead the IPO of shoe maker Steve Madden. This leads to Belfort pocketing $22million personally, which he opts to hide in a Swiss bank account under the name of his wife's English aunt Emma (Joanna Lumley).
Lumley is but one of the absurd wealth of actors that pop in-and-out of the main storyline. Rob Reiner is delightful as Belfort's dad, while Jean Dujardin is impressive as Belfort's corrupt Swiss banking associate, and the legion of men following Belfort's lead are all exceptionally committed to bulking up the cast and ploy of a firm that had, at its real-life height, over 1,000 stockbrokers.
Yet knowledge of such a stellar cast-list, not to mention his own outstanding performance, can save Belfort from the scope of the authorities. He is arrested for crashing his car while high, although is able to evade charges on a technicality and - somehow - escapes death, so decides to go on a yacthing holiday with Azoff and their wives to Italy.
This, however, is where things begin to turn to shit for Belfort, with the death of Emma leaving him on a mad dash to try and get the money out of his Swiss bank account, only for the boat to capsize and the plane to explode.
From here is a tonal change, as Belfort becomes more detestable and more desperate, as the FBI slowly hunts the wolf down. Eventually, he cracks, ripping open his sofa to grab at a stash of coke after 2 years sober and engaging in awful and pointless domestic violence. This sequence is certainly very uncompromising, and reveals the point where the humour stops.
But the most surprising thing about the end sequence is not the betrayal of his employees, the piss-easy jail term or the fact he still managed to abscond with the bulk of the cash. Its that he is now, in the final scene, using the selling techniques he used to build Stratton Oakmont to teach the wannabee financial sellers of tomorrow.
This is the biggest satirical point of the movie. It highlights the fact men who made fortunes from such a diabolically evil philosophy are now using these techniques to create the financial personalities of tomorrow, and with it, breed new destructive and amoral bastards for a business that is hardly short of them to begin with.
Its impressive to see a film cover such bases throughout its time span, which in a way justifies such a mammoth running time. It revels in the excess of the financial riches Belfort swindles his way towards, depicts the hunt where the bad guy becomes unstuck, and has a point to make about the ruthless worship of cash. But most of all, its funny.
Its impressive just how consistently amusing the film is throughout its process, and it has a fair number of impressively absurd set-pieces that deliver some massively hilarious pay-offs.
If you want a film that subtly explains how it came to be that the financial world became a culture for amoral bastards that were able to destroy the world economy and (largely) get away with it, this is not for you. But if you want a fun ride through this financial culture filled with moments of hilarity and almost constant excess, step right up.
4/5
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Sherlock - Season 3 Episode 3 Review
With Sherlock coming to an end after three episodes, the questions have been asked: where are the convincing villains?
The first episode was largely about the rekindling of the Sherlock-Watson relationship, and ultimately hitched to a stop-the-bomb plot with an enemy of impressively poor ability to construct a bomb. The second episode, by contrast, was almost a stand-up comedy show with a Cluedo-style pay-off where the photographer did it.
This one is more convincing, with the steely Charles Augustus Magnussen (Lars Mikkelsen) wandering into the field of play. With basis in real-life media personalities, serial blackmailers and Bond villains, there's a lot more conviction in they enemy, and somebody to counterpoint its excellent titular sleuth (Benedict Cumberbatch) and associate (Martin Freeman).
But this is not the only enemy at play, and a surprise one thrown into the mix to disrupt the equilibrium set up here. It also works out the intricate long game that has been played by the scriptwriters.
We begin with the appearance that, for inspiration, the BBC scriptwriters have been watching the news in preparation for this one. The opening sequence is an eerie satirical rendition of the 2011 meeting between Rupert Murdoch and the MP's Home Affairs Select Committee, with the magnate Magnussen conducting an impressive run-through on how to take out the people opposite the table.
But it then follows itself on with the further continuation of the main target of the hearing with his attempts to stalk the MPs involved.
This is some of the sinister satirical bite the writers are more capable of, and had been missing at times from the other episodes earlier in this season when they were busy having Sherlock on the piss... although that was amusing in fairness.
The amusing quips and occasional side-lines appear here and there, but aren't as full-on. This time, however, there is a more coherent and solid plot to back them up.
Our introduction to Sherlock sees him hiding out in a drug den after Watson and his wife Mary (Amanda Abbington) had somehow stumbled across him. This is initially attempted to be a ruse, so as to attract the media magnate with a phony drug habit
This eventually sees a return to 221B Baker's Street, where Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) is helping an intervention only to be warned away from his bathroom, and ends with him sternly warning his brother from his pursuing the case.
Like a moth to a flame, this attracts Magnussen, who struggles to find a focus point to badger Sherlock with, but chooses to make a mark on him by pissing in his fireplace anyway.
This leads to an attempt to raid his London office, via manipulation of his PA Janine (Louise Brealey), who Sherlock has developed his own relationship with after meeting her last week.
But here, the plot diverges and takes on surprising twists.
Rather than finding a dominant man behind a desk surrounded by henchman, bodyguards and protecting assassins, Sherlock finds one person - namely Mary, who has a gun to his head. She duly shoots Sherlock when Holmes tries to blow everything.
This divergence and detour also takes us on a tour through the exquisitely-realised mind palace of Sherlock Holmes, as he attempts to escape death by this shot, taking in a whirlwind of names throughout the series, including the ghost of the long-deceased Moriaty (Andrew Scott).
Having blown open the Mary character arc, it sets about trying to set up a meeting that blows the mirage, via a resuscitation for Mr. Holmes - the second time he's cheated death already this year, which is an achievement in itself.
The domestic arguments are restrained, which is a shame as it would have been interesting to fully explore the depths her character has really made with the duo really in the room. There's a reveal an abandoned house, and an argument around the fire at Christmas time.
But the revelations aren't far away from appearing. It takes a full dive into the vaults of Magnussen to even glimpse at the truth that lurks beneath this character's surface, and create his mental make-up.
It also reveals, by and large, a villain that has many of the roots that make up Sherlock. Just like Mr. Holmes, he is in charge of an enormous range mental of capabilities and has most of the sociopathic tendencies that are the essence of Sherlock.
It ends seemingly with a huge problem for the detective, as Mr. Holmes is held captive and trapped after falling into Magnussen's intricately weighted one.
Suddenly, there comes the get-out clause super-villains fall into regularly, and an even more well-worked way to get him out of his charge. The pro's of relations in high places, probably.
There's a better sense of conviction here, as if it now knows kind of programme it wanted to be when it returned for its third season, as it seems the titular character is heading for a sunset far away from his investigative partner.
It seems like that was going to be that. But even after impressively utilising the first two episodes' seeds to create a marvellous plot that surpasses all the other episodes of this year, there's still time for another ace to be pulled from their sleeve.
An impressive manipulation of the end-credits has certainly provided the next season with a potentially inviting set-up, as well as giving an important plot point from which to build this series from.
As well as providing another "back from the dead" scenario, the show's favourite villain gets another chance to perfect his evil mannerisms, not to mention the covert homoeroticism which has so far yielded a lot of fans.
The next year will see plenty of online speculation as to just how Moriarty survived, or indeed, if he's simply pulling a trick from beyond the grave. But it'll be interesting to see what this is...
With confirmation series four is already planned out, all we can do is wait and see how he can gets out of this rather impressively worked tight spot.
Your move, Moffat...
4.5/5
The first episode was largely about the rekindling of the Sherlock-Watson relationship, and ultimately hitched to a stop-the-bomb plot with an enemy of impressively poor ability to construct a bomb. The second episode, by contrast, was almost a stand-up comedy show with a Cluedo-style pay-off where the photographer did it.
This one is more convincing, with the steely Charles Augustus Magnussen (Lars Mikkelsen) wandering into the field of play. With basis in real-life media personalities, serial blackmailers and Bond villains, there's a lot more conviction in they enemy, and somebody to counterpoint its excellent titular sleuth (Benedict Cumberbatch) and associate (Martin Freeman).
But this is not the only enemy at play, and a surprise one thrown into the mix to disrupt the equilibrium set up here. It also works out the intricate long game that has been played by the scriptwriters.
We begin with the appearance that, for inspiration, the BBC scriptwriters have been watching the news in preparation for this one. The opening sequence is an eerie satirical rendition of the 2011 meeting between Rupert Murdoch and the MP's Home Affairs Select Committee, with the magnate Magnussen conducting an impressive run-through on how to take out the people opposite the table.
But it then follows itself on with the further continuation of the main target of the hearing with his attempts to stalk the MPs involved.
This is some of the sinister satirical bite the writers are more capable of, and had been missing at times from the other episodes earlier in this season when they were busy having Sherlock on the piss... although that was amusing in fairness.
The amusing quips and occasional side-lines appear here and there, but aren't as full-on. This time, however, there is a more coherent and solid plot to back them up.
Our introduction to Sherlock sees him hiding out in a drug den after Watson and his wife Mary (Amanda Abbington) had somehow stumbled across him. This is initially attempted to be a ruse, so as to attract the media magnate with a phony drug habit
This eventually sees a return to 221B Baker's Street, where Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) is helping an intervention only to be warned away from his bathroom, and ends with him sternly warning his brother from his pursuing the case.
Like a moth to a flame, this attracts Magnussen, who struggles to find a focus point to badger Sherlock with, but chooses to make a mark on him by pissing in his fireplace anyway.
This leads to an attempt to raid his London office, via manipulation of his PA Janine (Louise Brealey), who Sherlock has developed his own relationship with after meeting her last week.
But here, the plot diverges and takes on surprising twists.
Rather than finding a dominant man behind a desk surrounded by henchman, bodyguards and protecting assassins, Sherlock finds one person - namely Mary, who has a gun to his head. She duly shoots Sherlock when Holmes tries to blow everything.
This divergence and detour also takes us on a tour through the exquisitely-realised mind palace of Sherlock Holmes, as he attempts to escape death by this shot, taking in a whirlwind of names throughout the series, including the ghost of the long-deceased Moriaty (Andrew Scott).
Having blown open the Mary character arc, it sets about trying to set up a meeting that blows the mirage, via a resuscitation for Mr. Holmes - the second time he's cheated death already this year, which is an achievement in itself.
The domestic arguments are restrained, which is a shame as it would have been interesting to fully explore the depths her character has really made with the duo really in the room. There's a reveal an abandoned house, and an argument around the fire at Christmas time.
But the revelations aren't far away from appearing. It takes a full dive into the vaults of Magnussen to even glimpse at the truth that lurks beneath this character's surface, and create his mental make-up.
It also reveals, by and large, a villain that has many of the roots that make up Sherlock. Just like Mr. Holmes, he is in charge of an enormous range mental of capabilities and has most of the sociopathic tendencies that are the essence of Sherlock.
It ends seemingly with a huge problem for the detective, as Mr. Holmes is held captive and trapped after falling into Magnussen's intricately weighted one.
Suddenly, there comes the get-out clause super-villains fall into regularly, and an even more well-worked way to get him out of his charge. The pro's of relations in high places, probably.
There's a better sense of conviction here, as if it now knows kind of programme it wanted to be when it returned for its third season, as it seems the titular character is heading for a sunset far away from his investigative partner.
It seems like that was going to be that. But even after impressively utilising the first two episodes' seeds to create a marvellous plot that surpasses all the other episodes of this year, there's still time for another ace to be pulled from their sleeve.
An impressive manipulation of the end-credits has certainly provided the next season with a potentially inviting set-up, as well as giving an important plot point from which to build this series from.
As well as providing another "back from the dead" scenario, the show's favourite villain gets another chance to perfect his evil mannerisms, not to mention the covert homoeroticism which has so far yielded a lot of fans.
The next year will see plenty of online speculation as to just how Moriarty survived, or indeed, if he's simply pulling a trick from beyond the grave. But it'll be interesting to see what this is...
With confirmation series four is already planned out, all we can do is wait and see how he can gets out of this rather impressively worked tight spot.
Your move, Moffat...
4.5/5
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Sherlock - Season 3 Episode 2 Review
With the return of Sherlock rendering its fandom speechless as it bought back its titular detective, the question is: "Now what?"
The return of Benedict Cumberbatch was to widespread critical acclaim with an impressive episode documenting the way the detective evaded death, while rekindling a broken friendship with Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman) and stopping a fairly pathetic bad guy's attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
But the question is simply "What's next?"
Well, summoning a police detective from the arrest of his life and further bringing in a horde of police cars and helicopters to help write a best man speech is a hilarious ice-breaker for this episode.
Watson is getting married to Mary Malone (Amanda Abbington), which is a concept that - predictably - eludes Sherlock's logic and sees no sense. Or, to paraphrase,"Two people living together have an expensive party, go on holiday, then carry on living together"
To make things more... odd... Sherlock has been given the gig of being Watson's best man. The story behind the generation of the speech and the awkward delivery of the according speech are played alongside one another. Eventually it ends in the traditional matter with Sherlock talking his awful side up and saying it as a compliment towards Dr. Watson that he asked him to be his best men.
But it has an odd effect of elongating the programme just to kill part of the 90 minutes of time of film. It also leads to an absurdly-long flashback in Sherlock's search for "a funny story", which kinda stretches what most people would call "funny", and would be very pointless at a wedding.
A lot of the episode primarily consists of these flashbacks, more or less as an insight into the worlds the group act within. But it also seems to try and give the hardcore fans a looksie into stuff not covered, such as drunk Sherlock and his attempts to investigate while pissed up.
Predictably, it ends badly, although it does at least provide an amusing sequence of events and answers the question. But it also provides intriguing evidence towards the suggestion argued by some people that Sherlock is resembling a more comic programme than the first two series. Its an odd way to go about it, even if it does at least provide some amusing one-lines.
Somehow, the long-winded narrative arc through flashbacks actually provides an impetus that leads to a solution for the two seemingly-unrelated crimes that Sherlock was trying to solve at the time. But blimey, its takes one hell of a time to reach this moment. A best-man speech lasting around 30-40 minutes would be exhausting.
The first episode played on the relationship between the two main characters and also had sections that felt like they were written by the show's large and manic fanbase on Twitter, Tumblr and the likes.
The erratic nature of this edition of the programme made it, at times, very hard to follow the central concept of the plot, if there was any.
The strongest part, no doubt, is the end, which sees the twin mysteries elegantly deduced and solved, the quite impressive wedding waltz performed by Sherlock on violin, a new mystery that may appear in the next episode (or series?) and the questioning of one thing - can Sherlock find love?
Its an odd construct that has the potential for character development, given that one would possibly question what attracts women to psychopaths like Sherlock... or a "high functioning sociopath with your number" as he put it.
But in terms of the episode, it tailed off alarmingly. The middle half-hour or so killed a lot of the momentum and made for a confusing, hard-to-follow section. It would've been better arranged if these bits were placed before the wedding, with minimal flashbacks allowing for the solution.
This is what nags at the episode. There's plenty to admire - not least the acting, as per usual - but as a whole, this episode was just not what it could have been.
Next week is the series finale and it should at least be better than this. Which shouldn't be too hard if you just follow a plotline and not opt for an overdose on confusion.
3.5/5
The return of Benedict Cumberbatch was to widespread critical acclaim with an impressive episode documenting the way the detective evaded death, while rekindling a broken friendship with Dr. John Watson (Martin Freeman) and stopping a fairly pathetic bad guy's attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
But the question is simply "What's next?"
Well, summoning a police detective from the arrest of his life and further bringing in a horde of police cars and helicopters to help write a best man speech is a hilarious ice-breaker for this episode.
Watson is getting married to Mary Malone (Amanda Abbington), which is a concept that - predictably - eludes Sherlock's logic and sees no sense. Or, to paraphrase,"Two people living together have an expensive party, go on holiday, then carry on living together"
To make things more... odd... Sherlock has been given the gig of being Watson's best man. The story behind the generation of the speech and the awkward delivery of the according speech are played alongside one another. Eventually it ends in the traditional matter with Sherlock talking his awful side up and saying it as a compliment towards Dr. Watson that he asked him to be his best men.
But it has an odd effect of elongating the programme just to kill part of the 90 minutes of time of film. It also leads to an absurdly-long flashback in Sherlock's search for "a funny story", which kinda stretches what most people would call "funny", and would be very pointless at a wedding.
A lot of the episode primarily consists of these flashbacks, more or less as an insight into the worlds the group act within. But it also seems to try and give the hardcore fans a looksie into stuff not covered, such as drunk Sherlock and his attempts to investigate while pissed up.
Predictably, it ends badly, although it does at least provide an amusing sequence of events and answers the question. But it also provides intriguing evidence towards the suggestion argued by some people that Sherlock is resembling a more comic programme than the first two series. Its an odd way to go about it, even if it does at least provide some amusing one-lines.
Somehow, the long-winded narrative arc through flashbacks actually provides an impetus that leads to a solution for the two seemingly-unrelated crimes that Sherlock was trying to solve at the time. But blimey, its takes one hell of a time to reach this moment. A best-man speech lasting around 30-40 minutes would be exhausting.
The first episode played on the relationship between the two main characters and also had sections that felt like they were written by the show's large and manic fanbase on Twitter, Tumblr and the likes.
The erratic nature of this edition of the programme made it, at times, very hard to follow the central concept of the plot, if there was any.
The strongest part, no doubt, is the end, which sees the twin mysteries elegantly deduced and solved, the quite impressive wedding waltz performed by Sherlock on violin, a new mystery that may appear in the next episode (or series?) and the questioning of one thing - can Sherlock find love?
Its an odd construct that has the potential for character development, given that one would possibly question what attracts women to psychopaths like Sherlock... or a "high functioning sociopath with your number" as he put it.
But in terms of the episode, it tailed off alarmingly. The middle half-hour or so killed a lot of the momentum and made for a confusing, hard-to-follow section. It would've been better arranged if these bits were placed before the wedding, with minimal flashbacks allowing for the solution.
This is what nags at the episode. There's plenty to admire - not least the acting, as per usual - but as a whole, this episode was just not what it could have been.
Next week is the series finale and it should at least be better than this. Which shouldn't be too hard if you just follow a plotline and not opt for an overdose on confusion.
3.5/5
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
American Hustle - Film Review
With award's season looming large on the horizon, it usually means the big hitters anticipated for potential gongs are about to arrive.
Usually, Oscar-nominated films come out in the last few weeks before the awards themselves. This year is little different, with likely front-runner 12 Years A Slave due to be released next week, and potential nominees The Wolf of Wall Street and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom also due release in January.
Another potential winner is also arriving, with American Hustle now getting a full nationwide release after a partial release in the London West End cinemas just before Christmas.
The hype around this one is at epic proportions. Director David O'Russell's previous projects The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook were Oscar nominees and also included American Hustle cast-members Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence - the latter of whom won an Oscar for her role in SLP.
Certainly, this is enough to create a whirlpool of hype for a film based upon an FBI operation similar to the News of the World's attempts to use a Fake Sheikh.
The real Fake Sheikh-based ABSCAM operation in the late 70s/early 80s saw the FBI use convicted con artists to help them try and ensnare corrupt political figures.
But while the film is loosely based on reality, there is a reason for the line "Some of this actually happened" - although the events depicted had some happenings, they were not quite in the ways this film depicted. Certainly, the figures the characters are based on are not quite as smooth as here.
The story begins with a flash-forward mid-way through the con, to scenes where its going badly, and the first half of the film is more or less a narration of how we reached this moment.
We meet Irving Rosenfeld (Bale), a small business owner and con-man living in New York City in 1978 content to run a variety of scams alongside his dry-cleaning business. This business includes fake art and phony loan agencies, and gives him a reasonable earner.
While at a mob party, he meets Sydney Prosser (Adams), who is a stripper that has conned her way into a job with Cosmopolitan Magazine. They bond, form a relationship and go into a con-business together, where they convince struggling businessmen to give them $5,000 under the pretence they'll give them a loan, before fraudulently running off with said deposit.
They name their business London Associates, for which Sydney puts on a surprisingly convincing faux-British accent and gives herself the name "Lady Edith Greensley", with claims of London banking connections that don't exist.
During this period, Irving and Sydney grow even closer behind the back of Irving's wife Rosalyn (Lawrence). Irving is fearful of Rosalyn for her unpredictable and unstable nature, but is also unwilling to leave her for fear that she will deny him visitation rights for her son, who he adopted.
Irving puts these concerns aside for his business routine, where the partners are attempting to con another businessmen. Unfortunately, Richie diMaso (Bradley Cooper) turns out to be an FBI agent, who arrests Sydney and throws her in jail.
Despite arresting her, Richie is attracted to Sydney - or more rather, her Edith persona given that's all he knows of her - and offers to make her and Irving a deal. They will be granted immunity if they help aid this system with other cons to help bring down corrupt politicians using a Fake Sheikh.
The team decide to turn their attentions to Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who is the beloved mayor of Camden, New Jersey, and a state representative of New Jersey. He is also aiming to push for the renovation of Atlantic City through a series of new casinos and hotels.
This is where one of the film's major problems arises. While the real character Carmine is based on was known for a variety of corrupt activities, the film's depiction makes him appear a lot more morally-upstanding - very much a community cornerstone, and one aiming to improve lives for the people of his city. Exactly why he's on suspicion and in trouble with the Feds is not made clear, and it feels bizarrely overlooked.
The man who gets an even shorter stick is Richie's FBI boss Stoddard Thorsen (Louis CK), who opposes the plan and attempts to block the moves. But when Sydney befriends and convinces an FBI secretary (Colleen Camp) to wire the required $2M funding anyway, it leads to FBI Head Anthony Amado (Alessandro Nivola) giving Stoddard credit for a proposal he thought was stupid.
Stoddard's miserable run doesn't end there, with all attempts to block the excess of the scheme overriden seemingly at will, and he even receives a punch in the face later on in the movie from Richie for good measure along the way for trying to keep a lid on it.
Nevertheless, as a result of the initial approval from the top brass, play continues to the point where we entered the room - Carmine has sensed trouble from Richie's eagerness to hand him a briefcase full of monies and has left the room.
Irving runs out to try and convince him that its worth sticking around for and somehow he succeeds, to the point where its arranged for the two and their wives to head out for dinner. But its also where he begins to doubt his motivation for going along with this scam.
Unfortunately for the hopes of a smooth-running operation, this means bringing along Rosalyn, who is only invited to the grand reception after insistence from Carmine. She duly confronts and kisses Sydney, then runs into the arms of a local mobster called Pete (Jack Huston).
Meanwhile, the three amigos put aside their increasingly-difficult love triangle to a meeting with the violent Mafia overlord Victor Tellegio (Robert de Niro). Although bringing a Fake Sheikh (Michael Pena) that knew very little Arabic to a meeting with a one-time Arabian casino director wasn't a great idea, Tellegio nevertheless approves the deals on behalf of even more financial figures.
Not that this helps the operation, which is now reaching sky-high madness and is certainly a questionable use of taxpayer cash.
This has pulled the players in deep. Irving and Sydney attempt to run away but find out legging it will be certain death, while Rosalyn blabs to Pete of Richie's involvement with a federal agency - albeit not the IRS, as she claimed - a scenario that leads to another threat on all their lives.
Stuck in this, a new plan is created that eventually leads to the success snaring of corrupt Congressmen and Senators, albeit at the cost of Irving and Carmine's friendship.
At this point comes the big reveal, and who had the bigger con on who. Its an impressively elaborate manipulation that certainly ties things up and allows the end of the road for all involved.
It also provides another interpretation for a film that, by and large, has one too many tones in its mix. There's comic elements - mostly from CK and Lawrence's characters - alongside more dramatic ones, romantic ones, thriller ones, satirical ones and the con artist touch.
Some reviews have called American Hustle a sort of Goodfellas-lite but its a questionable comparison considering there is not that much violence going on here, and even less mafia satire.
In a way, its a satire of convoluted political operations and the idea of being in too deep with such dumb ideas. But the combination of touches feels like it detracts from the overall plot.
In promotional interviews, Christian Bale has said that most of his lines with his co-stars were improvised because O'Russell wanted it to be more on characters than plot. While its a testament to Bale's activity that he does come across very well, it also acts as a weakness because it complicates the moods and tones of the film's lines at the expense of moving things along.
As for the Oscars next month, the thing most worthy of recognition at next month's Academy Awards is the hair. There's scenes featuring Adams and Cooper with reams and reams of hair curlers - Cooper's certainly provoked a few laughs. But the big hair star is certainly Renner's impressive quiff and the blonde hair-mountain that Lawrence supports.
It fits in as much with this aesthetic that the first shot of this movie sees Bale applying a quiff and burying it in a hugely unconvincing combover. Certainly, its a bizarre touch to have seen Bale go from the suave and trim Bruce Wayne to fat conman in dodgy suits, and all in a year and a half.
The costumes are an odd choice as well, not least for Adams, who has an entire wardrobe of figure hugging dresses that leave very little to the imagination. Nevertheless, her performance is among the ensemble's best of the lot, and she certainly does her bit in aiding the film's progression.
The performances are impressive and this part of the movie convinces, but if they had something cohesive to hang of, then this could be a lot closer to justifying the hype and recognition falling its way. It almost feels like these are good performances in spite of the movie as much as anything.
This isn't film of the year material and its certainly not 100% all that it could be. Nevertheless, the performances are enough to justify going through the doors and if you go, its worth enjoying the ride.
3.5/5
Sherlock - Season 3 Episode 1 Review
Its hard to think of a TV series with such big hype and success on so few episodes.
Sherlock has become a programme of humungous
One way is even to re-think of Sherlock as individual movies, each following this particular depiction of Arthur Conan Doyle's literary detective figure as he runs through modern day London town solving murders and mysteries with a psychopathic glee on his face.
Its certainly been an impressive showreel for Benedict Cumberbatch, with the actor earning himself plaudits, fanbases and even major Hollywood blockbuster roles (Star Trek and The Hobbit) following this success.
Quite right too. The first two seasons of Sherlock were very impressive, and so you can imagine the revival of his character was much anticipated, not least given he ended the last series faking his own death on the rooftop of St. Bart's Hospital.
So... the big question is how did he do it?
The big revelation of how he faked his own death is a much-delayed one. It seems as though we get an immediate revelation through the use of bungee jumps, a team of prosthetic surgeons to make the corpse of Moriaty look like the corpse of Sherlock and the use of Derren Brown to manipulate Watson into believing Sherlock had just flung himself from the hospital rooftop.
This would be the ultimate cop-out, but this turns out to be a conspiracy from two media individuals getting coffee at the trial that acquitted Sherlock of the events during The Reichenbach Fall. Although Sherlock is still alive, he still finds himself on the road in a much different and more dangerous place - being tortured in a pit in Serbia. His exit instead sees his brother Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) has infiltrated a criminal ring to sneak him out and bring him back to London to help the prevention of a potentially large terrorist attack.
Two years have passed since everyone thought the detective had killed himself, and in that time, Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) has grieved, grown a bizarre moustache, found a woman (Mary Morstan, played by Freeman's real-life spouse Amanda Abbington) and moved on.
There are plenty of fandom-tempting moments here, which it seems has seen the creators notice the reaction and have fun incorporating it here and there. The wry "I Don't Shave for Sherlock Holmes" routine is probably going to be developed into a t-shirt somewhere, as Mary suggests, while the faint homo-erotic air is embraced by one of the "Sherlock Lives" conspiracy theorists who says that Sherlock and Moriarty laughed and had a kiss after Sherlock flung a fake corpse off the side of the hospital.
While this is also not how Sherlock faked the death, he is still in the mood to try and reunite with John. But Sherlock's return does not impress John, who decides that a number of attempted discussions into the manner of his death-faking were enough to convince him that he should move on anyway.
Stung but not unbowed, Sherlock carries on in his attempts to investigate the possibility of terrorism striking the nation's capital. He arranges for an admirer to accompany him on doing the rounds through a possible lead buried underneath the city and a London Underground employee wondering why a passenger vanished from the last train of the night between Westminster and St. James' Park stations the previous Friday night.
Not helping his attempts to do this is the abduction of John, where is unfairly and unceremoniously shoved under a bonfire outside a church in St. James' Park.
While it turns out to be more relevant towards what could be an overreaching arc, it does at least provide a clue for the inspiration behind the bomb, the location and the rest.
This is more or less the cue to stop the V for Vendetta moment, although rather than Hugo Weaving blowing up Parliament to kill an oppressive government, the Detectives' aim is to stop a terrorist Lord - weirdly - from blowing up the Houses of Parliament during a highly-anticipated vote that will contain all the members of both houses.
This leads to classic "stop the bomb" territory, the surprising moment that Sherlock is stumped on how to prevent the explosion and a touching moment that they realise that this is truly the end. But it then reveals how Sherlock managed to fake his death and leg it.
No revelations about the way here, but it was a surprisingly convincing method. Saying that, the nicer touch is that the full revelation was made in a video recorded with the conspiracy theorist, and the theorist being disappointed in the way he faked his death, who it turns out planted the fake body with the "How I Did It" by Jack the Ripper novel buried beneath the city that transpired not to be a lead.
The fact this is dated after the stop-the-bomb already reveals they're going to stop the bomb, which is down with almost hilarious ease - something Sherlock seems to agree with, given the fact he found an off switch so easily very funny. Not that John agrees, who thinks he has been conned into an emotional situation with Sherlock.
There is a quibble that says that they could be doing a more convincing, more elaborate and much more seemingly-unstoppable event that would take faster pacing to solve. Its certainly, at its heart, not the most convincing terrorist activity ever depicted in fiction.
But the bomb thing is not the most important part of the story, in a way. If anything, just as important is the fact that this episode is about the return and revival of Holmes, and being able to return to his job at hand of being London's premiere detective.
On that basis, it does quite well for itself, and there's plenty of lines to broadcast the fine spectral range that has been coiled together for Cumberbatch's adaptation of one of the literary world's biggest names. The fact he continues to bounce off Watson well is also a plus, and provides scope for our latest trio of episodes.
So... by all means, as you were gentlemen...
4/5
Sherlock has become a programme of humungous
One way is even to re-think of Sherlock as individual movies, each following this particular depiction of Arthur Conan Doyle's literary detective figure as he runs through modern day London town solving murders and mysteries with a psychopathic glee on his face.
Its certainly been an impressive showreel for Benedict Cumberbatch, with the actor earning himself plaudits, fanbases and even major Hollywood blockbuster roles (Star Trek and The Hobbit) following this success.
Quite right too. The first two seasons of Sherlock were very impressive, and so you can imagine the revival of his character was much anticipated, not least given he ended the last series faking his own death on the rooftop of St. Bart's Hospital.
So... the big question is how did he do it?
The big revelation of how he faked his own death is a much-delayed one. It seems as though we get an immediate revelation through the use of bungee jumps, a team of prosthetic surgeons to make the corpse of Moriaty look like the corpse of Sherlock and the use of Derren Brown to manipulate Watson into believing Sherlock had just flung himself from the hospital rooftop.
This would be the ultimate cop-out, but this turns out to be a conspiracy from two media individuals getting coffee at the trial that acquitted Sherlock of the events during The Reichenbach Fall. Although Sherlock is still alive, he still finds himself on the road in a much different and more dangerous place - being tortured in a pit in Serbia. His exit instead sees his brother Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) has infiltrated a criminal ring to sneak him out and bring him back to London to help the prevention of a potentially large terrorist attack.
Two years have passed since everyone thought the detective had killed himself, and in that time, Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) has grieved, grown a bizarre moustache, found a woman (Mary Morstan, played by Freeman's real-life spouse Amanda Abbington) and moved on.
There are plenty of fandom-tempting moments here, which it seems has seen the creators notice the reaction and have fun incorporating it here and there. The wry "I Don't Shave for Sherlock Holmes" routine is probably going to be developed into a t-shirt somewhere, as Mary suggests, while the faint homo-erotic air is embraced by one of the "Sherlock Lives" conspiracy theorists who says that Sherlock and Moriarty laughed and had a kiss after Sherlock flung a fake corpse off the side of the hospital.
While this is also not how Sherlock faked the death, he is still in the mood to try and reunite with John. But Sherlock's return does not impress John, who decides that a number of attempted discussions into the manner of his death-faking were enough to convince him that he should move on anyway.
Stung but not unbowed, Sherlock carries on in his attempts to investigate the possibility of terrorism striking the nation's capital. He arranges for an admirer to accompany him on doing the rounds through a possible lead buried underneath the city and a London Underground employee wondering why a passenger vanished from the last train of the night between Westminster and St. James' Park stations the previous Friday night.
Not helping his attempts to do this is the abduction of John, where is unfairly and unceremoniously shoved under a bonfire outside a church in St. James' Park.
While it turns out to be more relevant towards what could be an overreaching arc, it does at least provide a clue for the inspiration behind the bomb, the location and the rest.
This is more or less the cue to stop the V for Vendetta moment, although rather than Hugo Weaving blowing up Parliament to kill an oppressive government, the Detectives' aim is to stop a terrorist Lord - weirdly - from blowing up the Houses of Parliament during a highly-anticipated vote that will contain all the members of both houses.
This leads to classic "stop the bomb" territory, the surprising moment that Sherlock is stumped on how to prevent the explosion and a touching moment that they realise that this is truly the end. But it then reveals how Sherlock managed to fake his death and leg it.
No revelations about the way here, but it was a surprisingly convincing method. Saying that, the nicer touch is that the full revelation was made in a video recorded with the conspiracy theorist, and the theorist being disappointed in the way he faked his death, who it turns out planted the fake body with the "How I Did It" by Jack the Ripper novel buried beneath the city that transpired not to be a lead.
The fact this is dated after the stop-the-bomb already reveals they're going to stop the bomb, which is down with almost hilarious ease - something Sherlock seems to agree with, given the fact he found an off switch so easily very funny. Not that John agrees, who thinks he has been conned into an emotional situation with Sherlock.
There is a quibble that says that they could be doing a more convincing, more elaborate and much more seemingly-unstoppable event that would take faster pacing to solve. Its certainly, at its heart, not the most convincing terrorist activity ever depicted in fiction.
But the bomb thing is not the most important part of the story, in a way. If anything, just as important is the fact that this episode is about the return and revival of Holmes, and being able to return to his job at hand of being London's premiere detective.
On that basis, it does quite well for itself, and there's plenty of lines to broadcast the fine spectral range that has been coiled together for Cumberbatch's adaptation of one of the literary world's biggest names. The fact he continues to bounce off Watson well is also a plus, and provides scope for our latest trio of episodes.
So... by all means, as you were gentlemen...
4/5
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