History Recap / SherlockS04E02TheLyingDetective

* HeyCatch: Mrs Hudson pretends to be jittery while making tea and drops her cup [[SlowMotionDrop in slow motion]], so Sherlock would drop down the gun he was holding in order to [[DesperateObjectCatch catch the tea cup before it could hit the floor]], at which point Mrs Hudson picks up the gun and points it at Sherlock and forces him into the trunk of her car.

* JustBetweenYouAndMe: Culverton Smith confesses to his murders before attempting to kill Sherlock, thinking no one will ever know because he checked for recording devices in the room first. However he forgot about John's cane.

* 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". Additionally, the original book canon had Holmes using "an east wind" as an ominous euphemism for the First World War. What rams it home even more is that, in "His Last Vow" in Series 3, Mycroft commented more than once about "an east wind coming". Sherlock told John that Mycroft used to tell him stories about "The East Wind; this terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path. It seeks out the unworthy, and plucks them from the Earth. That was generally me." This sounded at the time like an example of Mycroft being a BigBrotherBully (and maybe partially was), but Eurus's reveal gives this a whole new meaning. The look on John's face heavily implies that he recognises this, too.

* PunkInTheTrunk: Apparently Mrs Hudson forces Sherlock at gun point into the trunk of her Aston Martin.

* WhatTheHellHero: Mrs. Hudson chews John for his selfish attitude by cutting Sherlock out of his life, telling him if he doesn't intervene to save Sherlock from himself, he'll lose his only friend and by extension Mrs. Hudson.

** "The Six Thatchers" ends with Sherlock watching a video message left by Mary, who had saved his life at the cost of her own at the episode's climax, telling him to "save John Watson", followed by a short stinger in which she tells him to "go to hell", seemingly out of spite. However, at the climax of "The Lying Detective", John watches the same video and it's revealed we didn't see the whole thing the first time: "go to hell" was actually Mary's instruction on how to save John, as she reasoned that the only way to save him was for him to have to save Sherlock, thus giving him renewed purpose.

** It's interesting that Sherlock's hands trembling while on withdrawal look eerily similar to how [[Film/DoctorStrange2016 Stephen Strange's damaged hands were shaking]].
** John's extended DeadPersonConversation with a loved one who ends up dramatically vanishing echoes a similar plot from the British series ''Cold Feet''.

** Culverton's amnesia-drug, "Bliss," brings to mind the ''Doctor Who'' episode "Gridlock"--there, "Bliss" was a mood-enhancer that had somehow gotten an infection in its chemical makeup, which ultimately killed almost everyone in New New York.

* 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.

-->-- '''Faith Smith''' [--... or so it appears.--]

!!Tropes in this episode include:

* AsideGlance: Done by Sian Brooke, through her disguise glasses, just after switching her accent from German to Yorkshire to deliver the Faith Smith line quoted above, and just before revealing her character's real identity.

** There's a rich, blond-ish businessman who isn't conventionally attractive, with a working-class accent. He's a charismatic, bombastic man with fingers in a lot of pies and a successful reality-TV star, in shows about businesses. He's accused of horrible things, and somehow manages to spin the controversy lead into publicity gold, much to the frustration of his detractors. This makes Smith a combination of Savile and ''UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump''. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment And let's end it there]].

* AloneWithThePsycho: John with Eurus at the end. As Sherlock finds the clue on the note left in his flat by Faith, John realizes with a shock that his therapist is actually an impostor, too late for him to do anything but sit and watch as she locks the doors on him.

** There's a rich, blond-ish businessman who isn't conventionally attractive, with a working-class accent. He's a charismatic, bombastic man with fingers in a lot of pies and a successful reality-TV star, in shows about businesses. He's accused of horrible things, and somehow manages to spin the controversy lead into publicity gold, much to the frustration of his detractors. This makes Smith a combination of Savile and ''Creator/DonaldTrump''. [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment And let's end it there]].

** 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 whom 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.

--->'''Eurus:''' My parents loved silly names, like Eurus... or Mycroft... or Sherlock.

--> '''John:''' Sherlock's not your only brother. There's another one, isn't there?\\

--> '''Mycroft:''' Sherlock gone rogue is a legitimate security concern. The fact that I'm his brother changes absolutely nothing. It didn't the last time, and I assure you, [realizes what he just said] it won't with... with Sherlock.

-->'''Smith''': Oh, Mr Holmes, I don't know if this is relevant, but we found three potential recording devices in the pockets of your coat. All your possessions were searched. Sorry!\\
'''Sherlock''': Must be something comforting about the [[RuleOfThree number three]], people always give up after three.

-->'''Mary''': Go and pick a fight with a bad guy, put yourself in harm's way. If [John] thinks you need him, I swear... he will be there.

--> '''Sherlock:''' I'm Sherlock Holmes, I wear the damn hat. Isn't that so, Mary?

--> '''Eurus:''' My parents loved silly names, like Eurus... or Mycroft... or Sherlock.

* RoomFullOfCrazy: Sherlock's room looks like this during one of his drug trips.

* RealityEnsues: John is seeing a therapist to deal with Mary's death and having his daughter taken care of by family friends, since the trauma of the incident has him feeling he failed Rosie and is starting to hallucinate Mary's ghost in front of him. He is also avoiding Sherlock like the plague, blaming him for what happened to Mary, and it takes him to learn that Mary left a video in the event that she dies that would help Sherlock and John reconcile for him to come to Sherlock's aide just in time before he is strangled by the episode's killer. Sherlock mentions later that the recorder he hid to prove who the killer was will most likely be thrown out of court on grounds of entrapment, but the killer keeps on confessing to his crimes, so it doesn't really matter.

* TheReveal: The woman with whom John flirted on the bus last episode, the woman who came to Sherlock's flat as "Faith Smith" and John's new therapist are all the same woman in disguise: Eurus, the third Holmes sibling.

As Sherlock attempts to comfort John Watson after his wife's death, entrepreneur and apparent philanthropist Culverton Smith tests a new drug on daughter Faith and his employees to make them forget his confession that he is planning to commit murder. Faith has a partial memory and approaches Sherlock to identify a likely victim but her disappearance, and his descent into drug-taking, lands him in Smith's hospital and at his mercy. However, Sherlock is not as helpless as he appears and has his own way of trapping Smith though the final shock is reserved to Watson as his therapist springs a terrible surprise on him.

* INeverSaidItWasPoison: John's therapist casually brings up Sherlock's secret brother in their session, only for John to realise he never told her about that. [[TheChessmaster Certainly deliberate]].

* OhCrap: John has one at the end when his therapist pulls a gun on him.

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: John's therapist exploits this trope as part of the above revelation, switching through the accents of her disguises (the original therapist's German accent, Faith Smith's Northern Irish accent, and the bus girl's Scottish accent).

* 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.