Summary
Watson goes way off the rails in Episode 8, indulging in self-congratulatory Holmesian lore instead of focusing on the fellows, their relationships, and the overarching Moriarty plot.
Here’s a potentially controversial statement, but I much prefer Watson when it’s playing down the Sherlock Holmes association. Given I also prefer it when it isn’t about John Watson, I can admit that I’m setting the show some perhaps unreasonably strict parameters. But Episode 8 feels like it was designed with the express purpose of annoying me. It’s entirely about Sherlock Holmes, or at least his potential legacy, and once again leaves the more interesting fellows by the wayside to focus almost exclusively on Watson.
Coming on the back of a very good episode that was much more balanced, built to a surprising cliffhanger, and left us with many lingering questions about Ingrid and Moriarty, “A Variant of Unknown Significance” instead has everyone focus on the same predictable mystery of whether Sherlock’s on-again-off-again girlfriend and intellectual rival is really the mother of his indescribably aggravating son, Angus.
Given that Irene Adler is famous for sophisticated swindles, it’s obvious from the second she’s introduced – after being heavily foreshadowed in Episode 6 as a swindler – that she’s playing games. The fact that Angus is a caricature of Sherlock Holmes in a young boy’s body only makes the con more obvious – and more infuriating.
Sherlock Holmes is, by nature, abrasive. That’s the point of his relationship with Watson, in a way. It isn’t just that nobody else will put up with him – although they won’t – but that Watson counterbalances his intellect with a bit of social aptitude and empathy. Angus has all of Sherlock’s intellect and eccentricity, but is also playing up the woe-is-me, cute kid angle, so he just becomes annoying. And the grift is so flagrant that it’s impossible to buy into any of the red herrings and supposed twists.
On some level, this is supposed to be the point of Watson Episode 8. Everyone else can see how ridiculous this is, but Watson can’t because he’s blinded by grief over Sherlock’s death and is yearning for a connection to his late best friend. It’s Shinwell who’s the voice of reason, reminding him that Irene is a con artist, but Watson clings to the idea that Sherlock never knew about the child and could well have passed on some kind of genetic issue that it’s now his brotherly duty to diagnose in Angus.
Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez and Morris Chestnut in Watson | Image via CBS
I didn’t buy a single second of it, even when Shinwell travelled to England in record time to find Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, to procure a genetic sample. And I wasn’t surprised when this turned out to be Irene’s intention all along, since she’s trying to sell Sherlock’s DNA to a black-market geneticist for enough of a fortune to secure Angus’s future when she passes away in the next couple of years from incurable cancer.
Annoyingly, Watson expects us to care about this and to be enamoured of Watson’s decision to volunteer himself as Angus’s guardian if the experimental treatment he offers Irene doesn’t prolong her life. There’s even – and I kid you not – a nod to The Usual Suspects when Irene and Angus leave UHOP and he reveals he was putting his myriad ailments on. So dumb.
This is usually the part of the recap where I’d spend some time detailing what the fellows were up to, but they get virtually nothing of note to do in Watson Episode 8 aside from looking into this case. There are a couple of very minor details to pick up on – like the fact Sasha is sleeping with her artist ex, the one who still paints portraits of her, which probably isn’t the best idea – but nothing about Ingrid’s past or Moriarty’s plan, no meaningful scenes between Watson and Mary, nothing about Stephens’s love life or Sasha’s relationship with Ingrid. It’s all so self-congratulatory and entirely misses the point of what was actually working about this show.
Hopefully, with five episodes remaining in the season, another one already greenlit, and plenty of interesting characters and storylines to be focusing on instead of this nonsense, we’ll see a major course correction in the very near future.
