History Recap / SherlockS04E02TheLyingDetective

* InternalReveal:
** John finds out that Irene is alive.
** John tells Mary and Sherlock about his cheating.
** John learns there is another Holmes sibling, something Mycroft had let slip to the audience last series.

** And also predicting that John would require Molly Hooper to assess Sherlock's condition - she turns up with an ambulance about 5 seconds after John makes the demand
** And Mrs Hudson on Sherlock himself, when she pretends to be jittery while making tea and drops it - Sherlock does exactly as she planned and puts the gun he was holding down to catch the teacup. At which point she picks up the gun and points it at him ('not her first smackhead' as she points out)

** The recording device in Watson's old walking stick, which Sherlock planted there knowing Watson would make a present of it to Sherlock while he was in Culverton's hospital, allowing Culverton's confession to be recorded
** And that Culverton would try to kill Sherlock in '[Culverton's] favourite room', getting the nurse to switch the potentially overdosing medication with a saline drop. Oddly Culverton may have picked up on this at some level as he also tried to smother Sherlock - or just got tired of waiting for the overdose
** Also Mary, correctly guessing that John would reunite with and reconcile with Sherlock if Sherlock put himself so badly into harms way that John's instinct to save people forced him to act

** And Eurus Holmes, out-Batmanning them all by arranging to put Sherlock onto the scent of Culverton in the first place and arranging his seeming mental instability by [[spoiler: pretending to be Culverton's daughter.]]
* BigBadEnsemble: Culverton Smith and Eurus Holmes are both working against Sherlock and John but do not appear to be on the same side as each other, with Eurus even being the one to manipulate Sherlock into taking Culverton down. They do, however, share "a mutual friend", which was how Eurus was able to [[spoiler: get a cryptically incriminating note from Culverton's possession.]]

* ArcWords: "Miss me?" turns up again, this time scrawled (invisibly) on the note from Culverton's daughter.

** And Eurus Holmes, out-Batmanning them all by arranging to put Sherlock onto the scent of Culverton in the first place and arranging his seeming mental instability by pretending to be Culverton's daughter
* BigBadEnsemble: Culverton Smith and Eurus Holmes are both working against Sherlock and John but do not appear to be on the same side as each other, with Eurus even being the one to manipulate Sherlock into taking Culverton down. They do, however, share "a mutual friend", which was how Eurus was able to get a cryptically incriminating note from Culverton's possession.

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: There were always hints given what has been revealed about Mrs. Hudson's past, as well as her quick recovery from being tied up in her own house by the CIA in a previous episode, but here she really gets her game on. As well as showing herself to be a very skilled driver, she evades Sherlock's Sherlock Scan to be able to Batman Gambit him into getting a gun out of his hands, stands up to both John Watson and ''Mycroft Holmes'' (it is implied that even quite senior government figures daren't do that), and finally does a very passable sherlock scan of her own by pointing out what Sherlock does with important material (stabs it).

* BigBadDuumvirate: Culverton Smith and Eurus\Sherrinford Holmes.

** There is another Holmes sibling.
* MeaningfulName: Eurus says her name is referring to the east wind. Just to ram it home about her character, there's an English weather folklore rhyme which goes "The wind in the east is good for neither man nor beast."
* MetaTwist: The episode repeatedly plays with the idea that Sherlock is just fixating on an innocent Smith and demonising him because of his drug addiction and guilt. This is inspired by the famous novel and film ''Literature/TheSevenPercentSolution'', in which Professor Moriarty is an innocent man who a drug-crazed Holmes deludedly believes to be a supervillain because he once had an affair with Holmes's mother. In the end Smith really is as evil as Holmes believes.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Lots to Eurus' reveal:
** John's therapist keeps asking about Sherlock.
** Faith notices a helicopter following Sherlock and quips "Big Brother is watching".
** Smith talks a lot about H.H. Holmes the notorious American serial killer and if Sherlock is related to him.
*** During Culverton's 'board meetings', where he injects people with amnesiac drugs so they later forget and tells them about his killings, leads into his love of confessing at the end. There is also the fact he doesn't destroy his daughter's note when she attempts to piece together what she has heard after one such board meeting - he gets off on confessing or any equivalent.

** Aside from Eurus, Culverton's 'board meetings', where he injects people with amnesiac drugs so they later forget and tells them about his killings, leads into his love of confessing at the end. There is also the fact he doesn't destroy his daughter's note when she attempts to piece together what she has heard after one such board meeting - he gets off on confessing or any equivalent.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: There are extremely blatant parallels between Culverton Smith and Jimmy Savile, a British disc jockey, radio and TV presenter, and charity fundraiser who after his death was unmasked as a serial rapist of people of all ages and genders (although not, so far as is known, a murderer). Culverton and his daughter (both the real and the fake one) speak in a vaguely northern accent (Savile was from Leeds), Culverton is showing running for charity, he is a well-known and loved celebrity who apparently can do no wrong, and he hides in plain sight despite acting at times in a blatantly creepy way that is put down by most as just being a BunnyEarsLawyer. The repeated use of that phrase in the episode may well be a reference to its use as the title of an in-depth post-exposure biography of Savile by Dan Davies. Then, just to ram the point home quite firmly, he is shown as having complete dominance over a hospital and for bonus points is shown with the keys to said hospital as Savile apparently did with Stoke Mandeville, Leeds General Infirmary, and Broadmoor and used to rape people. His description of the morgue as "his favourite room" and playful mockery of a corpse there are references to Savile's notorious interest in the morgue at Leeds General (which in the real world has been rumored to have extended to necrophilia).

* FailedASpotCheck: Sherlock fails to notice that "Faith" is actually his sister in disguise, of course he was high as a kite but there's also the chance he had no idea she exists!

** Although John's confession was directed at her, including the tense he was using, so to Sherlock it would have been obvious that he considers Mary to be in the room itself.

** Aside from Eurus, Culverton's 'board meetings', where he injects people with amnesiac drugs so they later forget and tells them about his killings, leads into his love of confessing at the end.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: There are extremely blatant parallels between Culverton Smith and Jimmy Savile, a British disc jockey, radio and TV presenter, and charity fundraiser who after his death was unmasked as a serial rapist of people of all ages and genders (although not, so far as is known, a murderer). Culverton and his daughter (both the real and the fake one) speak in a vaguely northern accent (Savile was from Leeds), Culverton is showing running for charity, he is a well-known and loved celebrity who apparently can do no wrong, and he hides in plain sight despite acting at times in a blatantly creepy way that is put down by most as just being a BunnyEarsLawyer. The repeated use of that phrase in the episode may well be a reference to its use as the title of an in-depth post-exposure biography of Savile by Dan Davies. Then, just to ram the point home quite firmly, he is shown as having complete dominance over a hospital and for bonus points is shown with the keys to said hospital as Savile apparently did with Stoke Mandeville, Leeds General Infirmary, and Broadmoor. His description of the morgue as "his favourite room" and playful mockery of a corpse there are references to Savile's notorious interest in the morgue at Leeds General (which in the real world has been rumored to have extended to necrophilia).

* {{Expy}}: For UK viewers, the parallels between Culverton Smith and Jimmy Savile must be blatant. Culverton and his daughter (both the real and the fake one) speak in a vaguely northern accent (Savile was from Leeds), Culverton is showing running for charity, he is a well-known and loved celebrity who apparently can do no wrong and he hides in plain sight. Then, just to ram the point home quite firmly, he is shown as having complete dominance over a hospital and for bonus points is shown with the keys to said hospital (as Savile apparently did with Stoke Mandeville).

* BatmanGamit: Oh yes:

** Aside from Eurus, Culverton's 'board meetings', where he injects people with amnesiac drugs so they later forget and tells them about his killings, leads into his love of confessing at the end
* Expy: For UK viewers, the parallels between Culverton Smith and Jimmy Savile must be blatant. Culverton and his daughter (both the real and the fake one) speak in a vaguely northern accent (Savile was from Leeds), Culverton is showing running for charity, he is a well-known and loved celebrity who apparently can do no wrong and he hides in plain sight. Then, just to ram the point home quite firmly, he is shown as having complete dominance over a hospital and for bonus points is shown with the keys to said hospital (as Savile apparently did with Stoke Mandeville).

** We meet Sherrinford Holmes, who here is Sherlock and Mycroft's sister - Eurus Holmes.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Culverton Smith was no saint in "The Dying Detective" he did kill his nephew for inheritance, but this version is a complete sadist killing scores of people and is quite happy to be caught since it means he'll live in infamy.
* BigBadDuumvirate: Culverton Smith and Sherrinford Holmes.

* SecretlyWealthy: Mrs. Hudson. When John is in awe of her cool car, she reminds that she was married to a drug dealer and she does own a flat in the middle of Central London (very expensive) and she is not his housekeeper.

** We meet Sherrinford Holmes, who is Sherlock and Mycroft's sister - Eurus Holmes.

* BeneathNotice: Continuing the theme from last episode the true villain of the piece is a woman who everyone thought was harmless. Of course unlike Vivian she is a master of disguise.
* ((CliffHanger}}: Twofold, Sherlock puts "Faith"'s note under a blacklight and sees the words "MISS ME", meanwhile Eurus reveals herself to John and decides to shoot him in the head because she's bored.

* FailedASpotCheck: Sherlock fails to notice that "Faith" is actually his sister in disguise, of course he was high as a kite but there's no the chance he had no idea she existed.

** John finds out that Irene is alive

* ((Cliffhanger}}: Twofold, Sherlock puts "Faith"'s note under a blacklight and sees the words "MISS ME", meanwhile Eurus reveals herself to John and decides to shoot him in the head because she's bored.

* ShipperOnDeck: John encourages Sherlock to hook up with Irene to make the most of their time together.

** The woman John was flirting with last episode was Sherrinford Holmes.

** We meet Sherrinford Holmes, who is Sherlock and Mycroft's sister.

* InternatReveal:

* WhamEpisdode: