Just got done watching 5x23 Scrambled, and it certainly is living up to its title. I’m just upset with how awful the writing is for this season! WHY.

Now, it isn’t that I don’t like what is happening, but just how badly it is being written to happen. My beef about this episode is introducing this random “mysterious” woman. What the heck? You can’t just introduce such a pivotal element in the episode just before the finale with no build up or anything! Just blindsided by a plot development! From what it looks like, this is signs of Sherlock Holmes spiraling down a very bad rabbit hole, but we’ve had no indication of this whatsoever this whole season! People are speculating that this hallucination (which it undoubtedly is, since she is named “May” in the credits, and she talks to Sherlock in very motherly tone), is something that was triggered by Shinwell’s beating him up. Yet I see no causality there! We’ve literally had no emotional indication from Sherlock Holmes regarding that beating since it happened, and now BOOM he’s hallucinating? That’s not how it works! 

Now, Sherlock has hallucinated before, such as when his friend Alistair passed away from an overdose. That was a little odd, considering the tone of this show, but it made sense in the end. It was heartfelt and moving since we had known Alistair was his close friend from previous episodes, and it was during the tumultuous time of Sherlock’s recovery. It made sense. 

Hallucinating his mother would’ve made sense coming off of Season 4. Sherlock vs Morland Holmes was intense and volatile, and it unearthed so much from their past. We learned about May Holmes, how close Sherlock was to her, and how abusive Morland was to her and his sons, or at the very least neglectful and cold-hearted. Yet we also learned that May Holmes was also an addict, thus revealing another very important connection between Sherlock and his mother, someone he truly loved. The emotional high of S4 would’ve been a good segue into this hallucination and Sherlock’s not being able to have a handle on himself anymore. He is clearly shaken, and seeing Shinwell’s betrayal and tragic failure definitely is unearthing a lot with him. 

Yet none of this makes sense because all of S5 Sherlock and Watson have been merrily solving cases without a care in the world! Save for a few poignant moments of a few episodes, things have been pretty peachy for them. Or at least, the writers have not even given us a glimpse into any of the emotional turmoil going on within our characters. Now that they have suddenly decided to do this, it is really disorienting. It is like we have to disregard most of this season, and just connect the emotional dots ourselves from the storyline of S4! Ugh.

The one good thing about this episode, and something that they have sort of been good at building, is Watson’s pragmatism and vigilantism. She’s been increasingly becoming more and more hardcore as the seasons have progressed, and her wanting to take SBK down is the pinnacle of this new Watson we are seeing. I’m hoping that at least in this we’ll get to see some juicy Watson stuff! She’s been so focused on taking SBK down, she’s let it come between her and Sherlock! She’s not even aware of the struggles he is going through, whereas previously old Watson would have been much more in-tune with Sherlock’s moods. I really liked the scene of this episode where Sherlock comes out (looking all snuggly!) from having overslept (!!!), and Watson has been up all night! She’s on fire, and getting down to business! She can’t sleep until the job is done, something that is usually Sherlock’s thing. Yet Sherlock is disoriented with sleep in his eyes, trying to keep up with Watson’s train of logic and sequence of events as she relates it to him. It was a really good scene that said so much without having to say much, but where have these types of scenes been all season?! Ugh.