Summary
Despite being another Watson-focused outing with a couple of questionable gimmicks, Episode 7 nonetheless has a bit more pizzazz and overarching drama than usual.
I’ve been pretty up-front about the fact that Watson doesn’t work as well when it’s focusing on Watson himself, so Episode 7 is a bit annoying in the respect that it proves me wrong. “Teeth Marks” is one of the more compelling episodes of the entire season, and largely in the ways the show is typically weakest. The subplot about Shinwell switching Watson’s medication makes a comeback complete with not only headaches and hallucinations but this time also the disembodied voice of Sherlock Holmes, making it as corny as possible, but Watson finally switches on and deduces something’s up, leading to a couple of standout scenes and finally some meaningful progress in the overarching Moriarty plot – which now includes Ingrid.
The medication switch occupies the bulk of “Teeth Marks”. After Shinwell decided against swapping out the pills again, he immediately becomes the target of some creepy blackmail, with the lives of his adoptive parents on the line if he doesn’t play ball. Seemingly out of options, he goes to switch the pills as instructed but is caught in the act by the patient of the week, Ginny (Caitlin Stasey), who conveniently has episodic amnesia and promptly forgets what she saw. She does write it down in her planner, though, which kick-starts a chain of events that almost rumbles Shinwell, forcing Moriarty to flex his influence in even more heinous ways.
At the very least Watson notices something is amiss when he takes his pills and reasonably suspects Shinwell, which is what you want a character known for being smart to do. This whole subplot only had limited mileage for precisely this reason, so I’m very relieved that Watson figured it out so quickly. He enlists Stephens to test his medication – which turns out to be hallucinogenic – and since he’s already taking it illegally with Shinwell’s complicity, the list of suspects who could have meddled with it isn’t exactly long.
Shinwell knows this, too. So, he does the only logical thing and starts panicking about his time being up, planning to try and take sole responsibility to divert suspicion away from Moriarty, but he’s told to hold his nerve, trust his partners, and do nothing. We’ll come back to this in a bit.
In the meantime, there is indeed a case of the week, but it’s of value mostly in how it interacts with other characters and subplots, both kick-starting the medication fiasco and also cracking a new window into Watson’s relationship with Mary. Ginny’s condition is interesting – especially the gimmick of her periodically forgetting everything that has happened to her – but not exactly riveting on its own terms, and the ultimate conclusion is simple enough. She has an ovarian teratoma – in other words, a tumor full of teeth, bringing the episode’s title, Sherlock’s leading advice, and Ginny’s own claims that she’s being eaten alive full circle.
But the name Ginny stirs something in Mary, and later, so does Ginny’s story about her partner leaving her after she suffered a miscarriage. Eventually, Watson, clearly on something of a roll, figures out why Mary is so alarmed by these things. Ginny wasn’t just her grandmother’s name – it was the name she planning to give their baby, who she was pregnant with when Watson was pursuing Holmes and Moriarty. Alone, she lost the baby and never said anything about it. Watson wasn’t there for Mary when she most needed him, and she has kept this to herself to protect him. Their marriage was the price.
Randall Park in Watson | Image via CBS
This would have made for a real one-two blow to Watson if he was also forced to cut ties with Shinwell, but Moriarty comes to the latter’s rescue. Just as Shinwell’s about to confess a pharmacist named Lloyd staggers into the clinic and confesses to switching out Watson’s medication at the behest of “him”. He was bribed into doing so; Moriarty had cleared his gambling debts in exchange for some favors – this bit, I suspect, is probably true – and Lloyd had no choice but to do as he was told. Now he has taken a lethal number of pills himself and uses his final moments to confess and get Shinwell off the hook.
Lloyd’s testimony is convincing enough that I think he probably was switching the pills, which means Shinwell was also switching the pills, which suggests that Moriarty was several steps ahead and had a built-in contingency plan. I really like all this, since it makes Moriarty much more impressive and frightening and also lends a genuinely dark contour to the breezy procedural format. To maintain his cover, Shinwell has to watch a man he believes to be innocent – and who still might be — foam at the mouth and die.
And it isn’t just Shinwell who Moriarty is targeting, as becomes clear at the end of Watson Episode 7. All throughout “Teeth Marks”, Ingrid receives mysterious text messages from an unknown number making reference to the secret spot she spent her birthday at, and when she later goes down there to confront him, she’s met by Moriarty. Ingrid’s dark past has been teased several times, and this scene suggests that the spot may have significance to her because it’s where she disposed of a body. As proof, Moriarty hands her the severed index finger of her supposed victim, with a promise that he will reach out to her one more time, and when he does, they’ll find out who she really is.
Whatever Moriarty is blackmailing Ingrid with it’s serious, whether or not it’s quite what appearances suggest. But it remains to be seen whether she, like Shinwell, will go along with his schemes at Watson’s expense, or whether she will be the one who ultimately upsets Moriarty’s best-laid plans. We’ll have to wait and see, but if nothing else, these are the most compelling dramatic questions that Watson has forced us to ask thus far.
