YMMV / Sherlock S2 E1 "A Scandal in Belgravia"

• Best Known for the Fanservice: This will always be known as the episode where Benedict Cumberbatch and Lara Pulver appear naked.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Mrs. Hudson's comment, considering how Moriarty finds out Sherlock's life story:
    Mrs. Hudson: Family is all we have in the end, Mycroft Holmes.
  • All of these lines sound like wicked foreshadowing after watching "The Reichenbach Fall":
    Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.
    I've often thought that love was a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.
    This is your heart, and you should never let it rule your head.
    • They're just as painful in relation to "His Last Vow", knowing that Sherlock kills Magnussen to protect John, and is almost sent on a suicide mission to Eastern Europe as punishment.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In "The Geek Interpreter", Melas mentions that he's talking to some of his mates in the comic book industry to set up a graphic novel series of their cases. Guess what happened later?
  • The scandal regarding Prince Harry's strip-poker shenanigans with female entertainers just practically screams the premise of this episode. Seeing a similar situation befall the Duchess of Cambridge after a few months makes it either worse... or this.
  • Sherlock talks of the 'myth' about the Allies knowing about the Coventry bombing and still letting it happen so that they don't disclose that they have cracked the Enigma code. In the movie The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing who cracked the Enigma code and has to make the decision to let a British cruiser be bombed for the reason stated above.
  • John's "Holy Mary!" reaction to Molly's dress, when his wife as of series 3 is named "Mary".
  • Sherlock expresses distaste for burglars.
  • Oona Chaplin, who plays John's girlfriend, will go on to play Talisa Stark in Game of Thrones. In "His Last Vow", Tom Brooke joins Sherlock as Bill Wiggins. Brooke played a Frey in Game of Thrones, specifically the Frey who stabs Talisa repeatedly in the Red Wedding. This puts John attacking Wiggins in "His Last Vow" in a different light.
• Ho Yay: Watson's girlfriend breaks up with him because she is tired of competing with Sherlock for his affections. She remarks that he's a great boyfriend... to Sherlock, not her.
  • Also Irene's response to Watson denying he and Sherlock are a couple: "Yes you are."
• Narm: The case concerning the mysteriously killed man who turns out to have been killed by a boomerang has some calling it the most ridiculous side-mystery of the show as it presents absolutely no clues to the viewers, Sherlock sees the scene of death through his computer and then off-screen comes up with the solution that's bizarrely a boomerang. Some of the show's detractors will use this scene as the "best example" of a main critique Sherlock has that is its tendency to be way more about "Tell" rather than "Show".
• Shocking Moments: The ending. Irene's dead. No, she's alive. Irene's escaped. She's in love with Sherlock. She's dead without that information. Mycroft confirms she's dead… and Sherlock's saved her. Holy shit indeed.
• Too Sexy for This Timeslot: The BBC received one hundred complaints for showing a nude Irene Adler, censored only by the scenery and her own limbs/position. Much of the uproar was because the show was aired before the watershed, but it turned out the nude scenes were in fact shown after nine o'clock. It didn't very much to alleviate the ire of the Moral Guardians.

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