His Last Vow Review

I really didn't see the bit about the vaults coming. I suspected from the beginning of the episode that Magnussen was using a memory technique similar to Sherlock. However, I was under the impression that he had most of his information kept in the vault. It really threw me off when they showed him sitting in the vaults watching the video of John being dragged out of the fire. I thought he was watching a YouTube video on a computer monitor. It turns out he was simply remembering information from before.

Since The Empty Hearse, it was really obvious that something was off with Mary. The first clue was that she recognized skip code. The second was that Sherlock deduced far more about her than he does with average person. That seemed to suggest she was a very complicated person with intelligence training. Perhaps that she had multiple identities running simultaneously. Her short haircut seemed to suggest some sort of military lifestyle. I was actually under the impression she was hired by somebody to get close to John and Sherlock and spy on them. It turns out she was simply running from her past.

It was interesting to see inside Sherlock's mind palace again. It turns out there's more people in there than just him and Mycroft. Different people voice different types of information. Molly voices medical knowledge, while Anderson voices forensics. Mycroft is still the voice of reason and logic. I'm still not seeing a physical layout to the palace. The mind palace technique involves associating information with physical objects stored in an imaginary location. Once you find the object, you can find the information associated with it. I supposed the location doesn't have to be a real one, so it's possible Sherlock has hodgepodged together several different rooms and structures into one.

I didn't see the ending coming at all. I knew Sherlock would do something to fulfill his vow to protect John and Mary, but I thought that he would simply fail at it. In the books, Mary dies, so I was under the impression that she would get killed off in this episode (Moffat did say somebody would die). I certainly wasn't expecting Sherlock to shoot and kill Magnussen. Moriarty's return certainly did surprise me, although I'm not certain it's genuine. There's the possibility someone is going to masquerade as Moriarty in series 4 before being finally revealed as someone else. Then again, Sherlock and Moriarty may have simply fake suicided at each other.

I'm anxious to see how Moriarty hacked into every screen in the UK. My personal theory (as an engineering student) is that he lied when he told Sherlock the key code didn't exist. He actually did have a program that could hack any computer in existence, but he simply convinced Sherlock that it was a lie. It's either that, or he has a Doctor Who-style omcom and next season will see WhoLock.

The Sign of Three Review

This episode was the funniest out of three seasons, though I'm not sure if that was intentional. First there was the bit with Lestrade leaving an urgent bank robbery to rescue Sherlock and it turn out he needs help writing a best man's speech. Then there was the whole scene with John and Sherlock drunk in the flat. I liked "clueing for looks", the literal "elephant in the room", and the midget "poison giant".

We've learned a couple of things about Sherlock's mind palace. First, it's not 221B or the entire city of London as some fans have speculated. It appears to be the Parliament building. Second, Mycroft is there as the voice that makes deductions. I suppose that makes sense, because Mycroft is the older brother and probably taught Sherlock to make deductions.

One interesting thing about this episode was the majority of it consisted of Sherlock's best man speech, despite the fact that we was numerous bits in 221B, Buckingham Palace, and around London. All of that was described by Sherlock to a room full of people, including the drunk bits, Molly saying she has "lots of sex" with her boyfriend, and John talking without Sherlock actually being present. One can only imagine how Sherlock described that in his usual straight-to-the-point manner and how everyone reacted.

There didn't seem to be any references to Magnussen. When they introduced Moriarty in series 1, he was mentioned in every episode. Magnussen has only been mentioned in 1 of 2 so far. I suspect they'll go for the same cliffhanger ending that they did in series 1, though I may be wrong. Magnussen may only be a one-season villain, but it seems unlikely that he won't get at least a mention in series 4.