English Dub Review: Case File nº221: Kabukicho “Everybody Be There At Eight”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Sherlock flees the crime scene in a seemingly crazed state, leading Irene to assume the worst, but Watson isn’t giving up on his friend yet. The rest of the detectives certainly have though, and want nothing to do with Sherlock anymore, even believing he killed Moriarty (which Watson should know for a fact was not the case). Mycroft and Lestrade also ramp up their suspicions and investigations, made worse when another man ends up dead near him (though very likely killed because of Moriarty’s hypnosis). Watson investigates Moriarty’s abandoned home and comes across Carlyle, who is somehow still alive and looking after the old property, but she confirms that he is truly dead. Eventually, Sherlock is led into a sting by Mycroft at the place Moriarty died and ends up taking Mycroft at gunpoint, but Watson arrives to remind him not to become what Moriarty wanted him to be. They’re then saved by the other detectives and Irene, who have a change of heart about helping and get the two to escape. In a stolen ambulance, Sherlock tells Mary and Lucy to take them to Kabukicho.

OUR TAKE

The penultimate episode of the series is definitely a step up from last week, mostly because it focuses on a clear moral dilemma and not just Watson with his thumb up his ass complaining about overplayed hopelessness, though there is a bit of that here. I don’t think you needed the other detectives to think Sherlock actually KILLED Moriarty, especially since that is so easily disprovable, so using it feels like they just needed a lot of drama to make sure Watson was the only one who believed in Sherlock until the end of the episode. It’s just kinda artificial and seeing that hurts the credibility of the story, at least in my opinion.

But even with that, we get a proper addressing of whether or not Sherlock is actually turning into what Moriarty said he was: someone with a broken teapot in his heart that would never be able to fill. As said, the scenario to make this question even seem possible is pretty contrived, but it does lead to at least a few genuine and heartfelt moments for Sherlock, Watson, and the rest of the cast, the latter of whom likely not getting their own shining moments without this sort of storyline happening anyway. So while I think there were more than likely better ways of getting to these results, what we got from this wasn’t exactly terrible. So I guess in the end, I’ll take what I can get.

Next episode, whenever that comes out, is the season, possibly series finale. And having watched it a few months ago when it came out with subtitles, and I’ll be frank with you readers, I remember it not being super great. That said, I also haven’t seen it in quite some time since then, so maybe there are things about it that will be surprisingly redeemable about it, like this episode actually ended up being in some ways. This show has had its ups and downs, but being a Sherlock Holmes based story, the ending to the mystery is ultimately the lynch pin of whether something in said mystery works or not. My expectations aren’t super high, but after sitting through the rest of this weird hodgepodge of Sherlock mythos and characters, I practically owe it to myself to see how things finally wrap up. See you all next time Kabukicho, where we will hopefully get a satisfying conclusion to this whole thing. The game has been afoot, but now comes the time to stamp it out.