Sherlock: The Six Thatchers

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After waiting for three years, Sherlock finally returned with its fourth season on January 1, 2017. The Six Thatchers was still worth the wait even with the tragedy. Watching Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock has to be one of the best things about Television. As expected, the season began with a bang! In the last episode of the third season, "His Last Vow", Sherlock shot Charles Augustus Magnussen which was quite a shock because we all know Sherlock isn't a murderer. After this incident, Mycroft sends Sherlock away to Eastern Europe and just before he leaves, he gets a call that his greatest enemy Moriarty who was presumed dead appeared on every screen in England saying "Did you miss me?". The fourth season begins with Sherlock in Mycroft's office eating biscuits and tweeting away while Mycroft and some government officials explain how the murder committed by Sherlock would be covered up. I expected to see how murdering someone would affect him but Sherlock was totally unbothered about the situation, even engaging in a conversation with the secretary Mrs Norbury. Sherlock is excited to get back to work and he ends up solving multiple cases. Mary goes into labour and even on the ride to the hospital Sherlock can't seem to stop tweeting. He is named the Godfather of Mary and John's daughter Rosie and with his hand behind him he keeps typing on his phone. After a boy's skeleton is found in his car, Sherlock realizes that the boy intended to play a prank on his parents by wearing a car seat. He solves this death and becomes fixated on a smashed Margaret Thatcher statue at the house of the couple who lost their son. After this, several statues of Margaret Thatcher are smashed and a few people are murdered along the way. With the help of a hacker, Sherlock finds out that a total of six Thatchers were made in Tbilisi, Georgia. The last one is at Reading so Sherlock goes there to wait for the thief. He still thinks Moriarty is behind everything.

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 He engages in a hand to hand combat with the thief Ajay and they both end up trying to drown each other in the pool. He smashes the statue and finds a memory stick which looks exactly like the one Mary gave John in His Last Vow. The memory stick contained everything about her past life. Ajay says he's going to kill Mary for betraying him. When Mary finds out, Sherlock promises her that he's going to protect her but she drugs him and goes on the run. Sherlock being Sherlock finds Mary through the tracking device he put in the memory stick she ran away with. Mary isn't surprising that Sherlock found her, he's also there with John who isn't so happy about the situation and Mary's constant lies. Ajay bursts in guns blazing ready to kill Mary blaming her for his six years of torture. He tells her that someone with the codename Ammo (A British Woman) tipped off the Georgian terrorists about their mission. Mary tries to explain to him that she isn't the traitor but he is shot before she is able to. 

In a subplot, a lady on the bus gives John her number and John follows up by saving her number and exchanging flirty texts with her which is something totally out of character for him. I'm quite sure there's something more to this story.

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Sherlock finally deduces that Mrs Norbury, the Secretary was the traitor so they meet at the London Aquarium and she confesses to selling state secrets for money and that the British ambassador in Georgia found out. When the ambassador was taken hostage and A.G.R.A was sent to save her, Norbury found out and tipped off the terrorists so everyone would be killed and her secret would never come out. The police walks in to arrest her but Sherlock had to push things further by analyzing and accusing her of acting out of jealousy for her powerful colleagues. This provokes her and she shoots at Sherlock but Mary jumps in front of him and gets hit by the bullet. In her final moments she tells John how she loved him and their life together. John cries with so much agony and tells Sherlock that he broke his vow. In the final scenes Sherlock sees a therapist and tells her he's been having the same dream while his brother finds a note on his fridge with "13th" written on it. He makes a call and says "Put me through to Sherrinford please". We'll probably find out who this is in the next episode. Seeing Mary die and John cry was very shocking and emotional for me, she was a very loving character even with her many secrets and she'll definitely be missed. The crazy thing about this is Martin Freeman who plays John and Amanda Abbington who plays Mary were a real life couple who just recently separated in 2016. This season already seems like an emotional one with Mary's death and John refusing to speak to Sherlock. The two male leads play their characters with so much class and you really can't help but fall in love with them. The action scenes were carried out very well, I didn't know Sherlock had it in him. I honestly think it was an underwhelming fourth season premiere. After waiting three years for a fourth season, I expected much more. Overall it was a good episode. 

Rating: 7/10
View the trailer below;