'Sherlock' Recap: 'The Sign of Three'

Following last week’s somewhat overzealous return of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS’s Sherlock things settled down a bit in this week’s “The Sign of Three.” While there was a lot of nonlinear storytelling to keep the show jumping around, the creators did pare down on the use of the stylized sequences in the show. What resulted was, perhaps, the most fun and enjoyable episode of the series to date. However, it also highlighted the clear differences between this season and previous seasons of Sherlock.

In “The Empty Hearse,” Sherlock and Watson’s relationship had taken center stage and relegated the mystery aspect of the show behind the curtain. And while “The Sign of Three” did give the mystery a little more importance it has become clear that season three will maintain its focus on the two friends and their evolving relationship. This is not to say that previous seasons neglected to show how the two were growing on each other and becoming friends but the mysteries were always the driving force for the narrative. This season the ratio has flipped as their relationship is now the narrative’s focus and the mystery is the extra entertainment.

And “The Sign of Three” served as the chief piece of evidence for this fundamental focal shift. In it Watson is getting married to Mary, who was only just introduced in the previous episode, and has asked Sherlock to be his best man. Sherlock has accepted and what follows is an episode split multiple ways both in structure and in plot.

Basically, “The Sign of Three” constantly shifts back and forth between the present day wedding and multiple flashbacks brought on by Sherlock’s best man speech. Sherlock giving the speech in the first place is pretty hilarious as he is known more for his aloofness than his ability to gush. Replete with jokes, heartfelt sentiment, and two unsolved mysteries Sherlock’s speech was very well done and showed a side of him no one would have expected throughout the first two seasons.

The show was also split narratively. The first half or so was focused more on the preparations for the wedding. Sherlock interviewed a child usher, which Sherlock traded crime scene photos for the kid’s cooperation, and an ex-bf of Mary’s who Sherlock made sure to put in his place. He practiced dancing, began composing a violin piece for the wedding, and helped Mary with napkin folding and seating arrangements. Seeing Sherlock doing all these things kept the episode very light hearted, specifically because it felt so out of character for him. When coupled with his somewhat flirtatious banter with the maid of honor as he used his skills of detection to help her pick out a person to hook up with after the wedding it was all fun and oriented around Sherlock’s relationship to the soon to be married couple.

Sherlock then began his best man speech, which included the scene in which Watson asked Sherlock to be his best man and Sherlock reacted with stunned silence. In it he tells of two unsolved mysteries the two worked on, The Bloody Guardsman and The Mayfly Man. Of the two, The Mayfly Man, was the more interesting as it had a very drunk Sherlock and Watson investigate a woman claiming she had gone on a date with a ghost. Sherlock’s drunk detecting skills were subpar at best and were accompanied with the trademark text on the screen including “sllleeeeppp” when looking at a chair, or “egg shaped sitting thing.” It was a nice touch to use that particular tactic for laughs.

Soon the audience was whisked away to a large auditorium where Sherlock had singled out five women to discuss the ghost date. This was revealed to be only in Sherlock’s head as he was actually just chatting online with the five women but clearly offered a very clever and entertaining way to depict the conversations. Complete with an overbearing Mycroft, it also gave the audience an inside look at one of the methods Sherlock solves crimes.

Sherlock then has a eureka moment in the midst of giving the speech – remember both of these cases were stories Sherlock was telling in his speech. Not only does Sherlock realize that The Bloody Guardsman and The Mayfly Man are connected but that they both lead to the wedding where someone is going to be killed. Sherlock flops through the crowd trying to juggle figuring out who the potential victim is while not trying to alert the crowd of the imminent danger while Mycroft in the auditorium is yelling at Sherlock. Finally, Sherlock works through the evidence and discovers that Watson’s former Army major, now a recluse, is the target and he disappears off to his room, refusing to come out until Sherlock tells him how he will be killed. Sherlock quickly figures out how both the guard and now the major would be killed and appeals to the major to not give up on living as he had already been stabbed. This certainly added some tension to the proceedings and felt like an ingenious way to tie things together

Sherlock gets Lestrade to bring the photographer, the murderer of the guard and the ghost date, back to the wedding to arrest him and the fun resumes. Sherlock reveals to Mary and, vaguely, to the crowd that she is possibly pregnant, a surprise to both Mary and Watson. But at the end of the night Sherlock is alone, abandoned by the maid of honor and Watson and Mary. It is a very bittersweet moment amongst all the joy that, despite Watson saying things wouldn’t change between he and Sherlock, they clearly had and Sherlock was now left to his own devices.

“The Sign of Three” was a busy but exciting episode of Sherlock. Unlike last week’s “The Empty Hearse” it didn’t feel rushed and bloated but it also shows just how much more frenetic the pace of season three is compared to the previous two seasons. Who is to say what will happen with Sherlock or its titular character but “The Sign of Three” was certainly a highly entertaining romp that could be the series’s most enjoyable episode ever.