The Irregulars season 1, episode 2 recap – The Ghosts of 221B

This recap of Netflix’s The Irregulars season 1, episode 2, “Chapter Two: The Ghosts of 221B”, contains spoilers.

Well, episode 2 of The Irregulars season 1 certainly gives a twist on the Tooth Fairy — kids will certainly be not as arrogant going to bed putting a tooth under their pillow after watching this.

Episode 2 opens up with a young child excited that one of his teeth falling out. His father tells him that the Tooth Fairy will come, and will leave money. In the middle of the night, the child wakes up, and all his teeth are gone, and his mother screams in horror at her toothless son. The Tooth Fairy did more than what was bargained. A toothless child at a young age, imagine that.

Work for Dr Watson or return to the workhouse

Episode 2 doesn’t start well for Bea, who ends up in prison for stealing. Dr Watson visits her cell, and he has another mission for her, but before he gives the details, he questions her morality — this becomes a casing point later in the episode. Bea doesn’t want to work for him, but Dr Watson states that the judge will send her to the workhouse; that’s the last place she wants to go.

Dr Watson gives Bea the Tooth Fairy, stating that there have been many incidents, but Bea has questions about her sister, but no answers come. When Bea returns home, she asks Spike to break into house 221B to look into what Dr Watson is up to. Billy is frustrated because they promised not to work for Dr Watson again. Leopold joins the cause, and he has to help Billy with the interviews. Billy does not like Leopold joining them again, of course, because he’s wealthy and privileged.

A young smiling boy

The Irregulars season 1, episode 2 then surfaces the alternative Tooth Fairy that’s creepy as hell.

Jessie joins Bea in investigating recent sightings. Jessie sees a young boy who smiles at her, so she follows him. There’s something eerie about the boy who keeps running off. He’s leading her to a dentistry. She bumps into a woman who asks Jessie if she’s on about the “ghost lady”. As she follows the woman, she turns around and screams at her; a gas is released, and Jessie collapses. The woman is the Tooth Fairy.

Bea becomes acutely aware that she’s lost Jessie but then finds the dentistry. She sees the Tooth Fairy, who is about to pluck Jessie’s teeth and threatens her. Jessie tells Bea that the Tooth Fairy breathed on her and it was like anaesthetic gas.

Spike investigates 221B

Spike heads inside 221B but soon hears a man walk in and has to hide under a bed. He hears the man playing the violin and then vomits. When the man falls asleep, Spike gets out from under the bed and looks around even more. He believes he has found a sex dungeon, but it’s clearly an area for items related to magic and witchcraft.

Meanwhile, Billy and Leopold investigate one of the parents of the teeth victims — John Cooper, but the father refuses to speak. Leopold and Billy walk away.

Jessie uses her powers again

Continuing Jessie’s character development, episode 2 sees the character wanting to explore the powers within her after her vivid dreams. Jessie wants to go into the Tooth Fairy’s mind to find out where she gets her powers from. Bea warns her, but Jessie goes inside anyway. Like The Bird Master, the woman used a seance board to talk to her father and suddenly, she had powers. Further memories show that her father killed herself, but Jessie is still unsure why the woman is stealing teeth. The woman attacks her in the memories, and suddenly, it becomes Jessie’s memories of her father abusing her and Bea. Jessie manages to leave, and she tells Bea that she thinks the woman is trying to get revenge on someone that she blames for her father’s death.

Growing clones

And then the Tooth Fairy storyline turns even more strange…

Bea is left alone with the Tooth Fairy, who tells her that if she had an opportunity to get revenge for her mother’s death, she would. The Tooth Fairy explains that her father built a business to protect their family, and it was taken away from him. Suddenly, Bea is asked to come outside. Leopold, Jessie and Billy have seen a skull in the soil that looks to be growing. In the distance, a hand comes out of the soil. A young child comes from the ground and runs away with another child. Billy recognises the children as William Cooper and Carla Machin. Bea believes the woman is growing clones of people, using their teeth.

Bea remembers what the woman said: “this precious land will be used to destroy him” and asks who owns the land in Balham. Leopold states that the Duke of Winchester owns it and wonders if that’s the target; to kill him, the clones would need to get past the bodyguards. Billy remembers talking to the father earlier, a retired captain of the British Army and a professional bodyguard — John Cooper. Leopold talks about how the Duke sponsors a variety show every year, and that’s where the attempted assassination will happen. Episode 2 escalates rather quickly.

Duke’s daughter will turn into a monster

Episode 2 moves to the variety show. The Duke of Winchester attends, and suddenly, bodyguard John Cooper sees his son struggling and comes to his aid — it’s evidently a clone trying to distract the man so the Duke can be attacked. Meanwhile, Bea and Jessie continue to talk to Tooth Fairy, responsible for all this. The woman asks Bea how her mother died; Bea explains how she went crazy and wandered off at night and went into the river, fell and drowned. Bea tells the woman that the Duke has a daughter and will become a monster if this carries on. Suddenly, the Tooth Fairy starts breathing frantically and tells Bea there is a way to stop it, but it would challenge her morals before zoning out to control her clones at the variety show.

The Irregulars season 1, episode 2 keeps on hamming home the morality of Bea; it’s evidently a massive play on her character development.

The Duke raised the rent

The Duke of Winchester gives a speech at the variety show, but then he’s interrupted by a young girl clone who points a gun at him; the Tooth Fairy is controlling the clone. The young girl explains that the Duke raised rent 10 years ago on hundreds of properties and many hard working people, including a man called David Gates could not afford to pay that fee. Billy arrives at the Variety and tells John Cooper that the boy he’s comforting is not his son and that it’s a clone. The young girl clone keeps speaking on behalf of the Tooth Fairy and explains that if her father went to prison, she was told she had to pay his bill — she was 16 years old. That’s why her father killed herself.

It suddenly dawns on Bea that the only way to stop the Tooth Fairy is to kill her. But at first, Bea can’t kill the woman, so the young girl clone shoots at the Duke, but Billy runs on to the stage. Luckily the Duke was wearing a vest as the bullet was shot. The Tooth Fairy is frustrated and tells Bea that her soul is not intact since the workhouse.

It’s not over

Bea and the others realise that it isn’t over from the Tooth Fairy. She has made a clone of the Duke’s wife; she stabs the Duke and then attacks Billy. Jessie tells Bea to kill the Tooth Fairy. She has no choice because she knows if she doesn’t kill the Tooth Fairy, Billy will be murdered. Bea smashes a dagger right into the Tooth Fairy and kills her. She’s shaken from the shock. Jessie holds her and assures her that she didn’t have a choice. But regardless of whether she had a choice, it will still impact her, and it will be interesting to see where her story goes from here.

The ending

Jessie has another nightmare that turns into a lighter dream. The man who appears in her dreams puts a butterfly tattoo on her wrist and tells her that she holds her wrist the next time she has a nightmare. The man explains how there’s a barrier between the normal world and the spirit world and that someone has breached the gateway. Eventually, the barrier between both worlds will collapse, and the living world will cease to exist. The second episode brings an overarching plot point that will layer over the other mysteries.

The man tells Jessie to find “the rip”. When she wakes up, she tells the others. If they find it, they might be able to close the barrier. She tells Bea that “the rip” brings out the person’s darkest side and warps them. Spike then gives the group a letter he found in 221B; he explains what he saw, including the spirit board. They now know the doctor as John Watson and believe he knows about “the rip”. The letter talks about “The Golden Dawn”.

As The Irregulars season 1, episode 2 ends, Bea storms across the town to see John Watson, but she bumps into a man that calls himself Mycroft Holmes.

The mystery per chapter format works, especially with an overarching plot veiling over it — The Irregulars brings two solid opening chapters to reel the audiences into this alternative Sherlock Holmes story.

Mr Watson’s scribes

• Billy tells Leopold that no-one likes him because people like him look down on less priveleged people and come and go when they please.
• Leopold tells Bea that he likes her and that he isn’t a “dabbler”. He believes they are the same. Bea tells him that they have very different lives, including quality of life.
• Leopold shows Billy that his leg is injured and explains that he continues to get ailments; he explains that the doctor told him he’s not suited for life when he was younger. Billy tells him he cannot walk around telling people he’s broken and helps him up from the floor.
• Leopold tells Billy that Bea deserves better than this, but Billy is suspicious of how Leopold knows so much about the Duke. Despite needing to return to the palace, Leopold refuses to leave the city and sits next to Bea.