S05.E16: Fidelity

[ElectricBoogaloo]

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Joan and Kitty try to prove that a string of murders, stemming from an old case Sherlock and Kitty solved in London, is connected to an international government conspiracy with the Defense Intelligence Agency at its center. Also, Sherlock and Kitty's relationship is strained after she shares life-changing news.

Promo:

[kieyra]

"Sydney Garber". Alias shout-out?

[MisterGlass]

In the end the thing that surprised me most about this two-parter was that Blair Brown was not somehow involved in the intrigue.

I liked the character moments the best, as usual.  I'm glad Kitty got a nice coda.  And Sherlock's anti-surveillance music volume three of six was fun.

Good to see Tim Guinee back at the end.

[UncleChuck]

I was pulled out of the flow of the episode when the big-shot lawyer appeared.  Although I have not seen Alan Rosenberg since Civil Wars and the final season of L.A. Law in 1994, his voice was instantly recognizable to me and I was compelled to rewind back to the opening credits to remind myself of his name.  Funny how he is almost unrecognizable due to aging, yet the voice is unmistakable. 

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, kieyra said:

"Sydney Garber". Alias shout-out?

Perhaps. Anyway, after sleuthing around,* I was able to determine that Sidney Garber was played by Alan Rosenberg, not Robert Forster, who will be seen in the upcoming Twin Peaks revival.

ETA:
*Basically what @UncleChuck did, but online.

Anyway, do any of you Sherlock Holmes experts know if this episode was based on a particular SH story?

Edited March 13, 2017 by shapeshifter

[Zahdii]

Well, Kitty has just guaranteed that her son has a target on his back, but also a huge number of people who will do whatever it takes to protect him.  He's got Sherlock and Joan as Godparents.  He's got the German Nanny and Kitty as daily protection.  If it comes to pass, Morland could bring his cabal into the mix, Mycroft could bring MI6 to bear; even Moriarty would go ballistic if little Archie were in danger.

[GaT]

I didn't find this episode that interesting, probably because it sounded like spy stuff which I don't really like.

2 hours ago, UncleChuck said:

Although I have not seen Alan Rosenberg since Civil Wars and the final season of L.A. Law in 1994, his voice was instantly recognizable to me and I was compelled to rewind back to the opening credits to remind myself of his name.  Funny how he is almost unrecognizable due to aging, yet the voice is unmistakable. 

He was completely unrecognizable to me, but I knew I knew him from somewhere. Thanks for letting me know where.

[paigow]

Super-Spy makes video with live mic when Mom & Dog are home? 

[thuganomics85]

So, Blair Brown really was just hired to play a widow?  A waste of her talents, although part of me wonders if the show is slowly figuring out the whole "Obvious guest star is the killer" thing, and is trying to shake things up a bit more.  Still wish she had more to do.

Case ended up being wacky as expected.  Basically, the killer was who Sherlock suspected, and he was basically some kind of spy, who wanted to start a war with USA and Iran, so he gots his hands on the Fidel Files after blowing up a Venezuela conference, and inserted fake footage into the document.  Man, there are a lot of moving parts in that plan!  And, really, he might have got away with it if he didn't start killing all those people.  I really don't think any one of them would have remembered something a guy off his meds said three years ago, and put two and two together.  Guy took covering his ass way too far.

I did kind of like how instead of an elaborate way to make him confess to everyone, it ends with Sherlock just giving the files to Agent McNally/Tim Guinee and being all "Here.  Do what you do best!"

Glad Sherlock wasn't upset about Kitty having a child and wanting to quit, but simply hurt that she never tried to contact him during her absent.  At least they seem to be moving forward.  Wouldn't mind it if she pops back up sometime in the future.

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Well, Kitty has just guaranteed that her son has a target on his back, but also a huge number of people who will do whatever it takes to protect him.  He's got Sherlock and Joan as Godparents.  He's got the German Nanny and Kitty as daily protection.  If it comes to pass, Morland could bring his cabal into the mix, Mycroft could bring MI6 to bear; even Moriarty would go ballistic if little Archie were in danger.

 Not to mention he would also get help from Captain "Oh, Kitty might have tortured and disfigured a guy?  Eh... No Proof!" Gregson and Bell, if anything dastardly happened!

[paigow]

9 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I really don't think any one of them would have remembered something a guy off his meds said three years ago, and put two and two together.  Guy took covering his ass way too far.

Do courts in London have trial transcripts? Then a lot more people should have been on the kill list....courtroom guards, clerks....SPECTATORS

Edited March 13, 2017 by paigow

[basiltherat]

I think I remember that a "court reporter" was one of the victims.  The transcript might be expunged so as to not embarrass the ranting lawyer, but the person would have the memory.  This could have been a really interesting story if they would have added another hour at the end to detangle all that the big bad did.

As soon as I heard the dog bark, I had an "Aha!" moment. 

I expected "Everyone" to be involved in proving the Iran drop-in was fake.  We haven't had any humiliation since Sherlock's head was shaved.

And, please, where the heck is Clyde?  I was hoping he wouldn't be hurt in the search of the brownstone.

[Xantar]

Well Kitty made it through the episode alive (not that I ever doubted she would). And she's a pretty fast thinker since she figured out how to save that lawyer's life and give him a kick in the bollocks at the same time. 

I liked Kitty a lot before because it was hilarious watching her underreact to all of Sherlock's antics. However, now that she's a more mentally healthy person, she's just not as interesting. Good to see her doing well, but I don't need to see her again.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Yes, the court reporter was also killed. Joan said that the woman who was usually the transcriptionist was gone on the day of the lawyer's outburst and her replacement was recently killed.

Edited March 13, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[quirkygal]

8 hours ago, paigow said:

Do courts in London have trial transcripts? Then a lot more people should have been on the kill list....courtroom guards, clerks....SPECTATORS

Joan said it was a pretrial hearing. In the U.S. pretrial hearings, even in the most high profile cases, are poorly attended with only the people who have to be there in attendance because they are boring nuts and bolts kind of stuff.

[dargosmydaddy]

6 hours ago, Xantar said:

I liked Kitty a lot before because it was hilarious watching her underreact to all of Sherlock's antics. However, now that she's a more mentally healthy person, she's just not as interesting. Good to see her doing well, but I don't need to see her again.

Kitty at her most boring is still infinitely more interesting than Shinwell. She's welcome back on my screen anytime.

And I liked that even though she was in a better mental place (and I think that showed), her hilariously understated reactions and dry sense of humor were still evident.

Edited March 13, 2017 by dargosmydaddy

[CaptainCranky]

Even five years into this show, it still is head and shoulders above any of the other tripe on TV today.

Story lines, character development and lead actors are the best.

The facial expressions on Jonny Lee Miller alone make it worth watching. His expressions when seeing Archie is something I've looked at multiple times over the past week.

[Moxie Cat]

It seems more likely that more attention would be drawn to five related deaths than to a hard-to-find bit of crazy rambling (paired with two other odd conspiracy theories) that was said in a pre-trial, poorly-attended hearing that happened three years prior in a country far from Venezuela. Seems like overkill to me (pun intended!) Seriously, who would have ever made that connection? Kill the schizophrenic lawyer who knew about it, fine, but would the magistrate, stenographer, et. al. have remembered the details of the rambling even a day later? Bad spy!

Ah well, it was still a good 2-parter that I could follow and really kept my interest. Love how Kitty has far less patience with bad guys than Joan or even Sherlock! I hope we see her again.

[Arnella]

I am a life long Sherlockian and I don't mind what they do with the character and what attitudes they ascribe to him as we always have the canon to fall back on.

However, I've noticed the thread running through this series that any US government official seems benign but always turns out to be the bad guy (unless they are Sherlock's friend and does whatever he wants including letting his torturer friend off with an "apology").  

Here they have just thrown out the pretense and made the random official utterly evil from start to finish.  Worse: poor innocent Iran (actually the #1 state sponsor of terrorism) obviously has zero nuclear ambitions and the big bad US "DIA" agent who wants to discredit it has to MAKE UP evidence it is doing something wrong because he is a patriot.  {eye roll}

Edited March 14, 2017 by Arnella

[CaptainCranky]

12 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

Kitty at her most boring is still infinitely more interesting than Shinwell. 

 

And who is Shinwell. I thought I knew most of the major characters with this show and I for the life of me have no idea who Shinwell is.

8 hours ago, Moxie Cat said:

 

 Love how Kitty has far less patience with bad guys than Joan or even Sherlock! I hope we see her again.

From a lot of the dialog on here most people don't care for Kitty. Personally I like the character and having her on the show for me provides additional interest to go with the main characters on the show.

[dargosmydaddy]

3 hours ago, CaptainCranky said:

And who is Shinwell. I thought I knew most of the major characters with this show and I for the life of me have no idea who Shinwell is.

He's the ex-con that Sherlock and Joan have been mentoring this season. The fact that he's been in about half the episodes this season and you have no idea who he is speaks to his boring-ness!

[tennisgurl]

I just love how often Joan and Sherlock just kind of blunder into these huge matters of national security and international diplomacy. I just picture a bunch of intelligence people from around the world meeting up in a bar a few times a year to complain about these two yahoos in New York who keep making their jobs harder.

I really do question Mr. Bad Guys evil plan. I mean, he makes his fake nuclear video in his moms basement in Jersey? Ad you can hear her talking to her dog in the background? Wow, for a murderous intelligence officer, he's kind of a loser. But this is the same guy who blew his whole plan by killing a bunch of people for hearing an unstable guy off his meds, who probably never thought about his ramblings ever again, which led to his plan being exposed. He clearly suffers from the Overly Complicated Plan Virus that plagues so many villains on this show. If they just stopped using murder as Plan A for everything, they would probably get away with a lot more of their crimes.

I did like this episode pretty well because we got to see Kitty though, who I really like, and it lead to some good moments with her and Sherlock, which has been lacking for most of the season. While I'm still mostly here for Joan and Sherlock, with support from Gregson and Bell, I enjoy Kitty, and I will take her over Shinwell any day of the week. At least Kitty reveals some new facets of Joan and Sherlock, especially Sherlock, and she seemed to actually exist on the same show as everyone else. I was alright with Shinwell when he was connected with Joan, but now he seems to exist on a totally different show. A VERY boring show. I never felt like Kitty's plots were pointless, like I have with Shinwell lately.

[Trey]

4 hours ago, CaptainCranky said:

From a lot of the dialog on here most people don't care for Kitty. Personally I like the character and having her on the show for me provides additional interest to go with the main characters on the show.

When she originally appeared people, including me, generally disliked her; but her story and the actor's charisma won many of us over so that we were sad when she left.  I like Kitty very much and I'm glad she is going to be happy with Archie and doing work she loves, helping people but not detecting. And things are good between her and Sherlock.

[juliet73]

I know I'm in the minority, but this episode and the previous were a total let down for me.  This show used to be so engaging and now I feel like this season, it has checked out.  I heart JLM, but this season is probably the last for me.  

[LisaM]

I was really happy to see Kitty make it through unscathed -- and to see Joan and Sherlock as godparents. Nice touch.

[CaptainCranky]

2 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

He's the ex-con that Sherlock and Joan have been mentoring this season. The fact that he's been in about half the episodes this season and you have no idea who he is speaks to his boring-ness!

Quite the contrary. I'm an old man and names are my not my forte. I neither like or dislike his story and it's addition to the show.

[CaptainCranky]

1 hour ago, juliet73 said:

I know I'm in the minority, but this episode and the previous were a total let down for me.  This show used to be so engaging and now I feel like this season, it has checked out.  I heart JLM, but this season is probably the last for me.  

Seriously. I just bought the 4 year DVD set from Amazon and are in the process of watching it. The writing and acting is as good now as it was in the beginning two years I've now watched.

[dargosmydaddy]

Hmmm... I'm not the one who originally posted about the letdown in quality, and I imagine I'll be here for the remainder of the show, no matter how long that ends up being, but I think the show lives and dies (to a certain extent) with the quality of its overall season arc. The episode-of-the-week mysteries have been pretty consistent for the past five years (and whether you consider that consistency good or mediocre or ridiculous can vary by viewer). For me, I absolutely loved the bigger pictures of season one (Sherlock and Joan forming their relationship/ partnership, with the awesome reveal of Moriarty at the end of the season) and season three (Sherlock and Joan rebuilding their relationship with the addition of Kitty, whom I came to love, and the jaw-dropping finale of Sherlock beating Oscar and shooting up). Seasons two and four never really did it for me because I disliked Mycroft and I thought the Morland plot kind of fizzled out. This season I neither like nor dislike Shinwell, but I do find his storyline to be rather boring, and barring some kind of big shift in the last handful of episodes, I think it's going to be another mediocre season for me.

That said, I think the main actors are great, and it's a fun show to watch. 

[fauntleroy]

Yea Kitty over Shinwell any day.

It's a good thing mum's dog's name wasn't Farsi for "ham sandwich" or "go f*k yourself", or the jig would have been up that much sooner.

Cute coincidence that this came out the same week as the viral BBC dad interview.

[iMonrey]

I . . . kind of liked this one? It seemed to have the right blend of personal moments and a story I could follow, something that's been missing from a lot of this season. I seriously think if they put a little more effort into it they could do a theatrical feature with these characters, and I'd totally watch it.

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From a lot of the dialog on here most people don't care for Kitty. Personally I like the character and having her on the show for me provides additional interest to go with the main characters on the show.

I never really saw the point of her; she was introduced around a time when Joan was starting to distance herself from Sherlock and got her own place, etc. So in a way it seemed like she was meant as a replacement for Joan and I didn't care for the idea. I like having Joan and Sherlock under the same roof so he can wake her up in his many rude and surprising ways. I do like the actress who plays her though.

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He clearly suffers from the Overly Complicated Plan Virus that plagues so many villains on this show.

LOL! Ain't that the truth. 

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 I heart JLM, but this season is probably the last for me. 

It may be the last for him as well, if ratings are any indication. Still, if the network has kept it on this long, I imagine they might do the show and its audience the courtesy of notifying them they're getting a final season, maybe a shortened one, to finish things up nice and tidy.

[jhlipton]

23 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

Kitty at her most boring is still infinitely more interesting than Shinwell. She's welcome back on my screen anytime.

And I liked that even though she was in a better mental place (and I think that showed), her hilariously understated reactions and dry sense of humor were still evident.

Kitty's "you're... you" was so well done.  It makes it clear how much she gets Sherlock.

5 hours ago, LisaM said:

I was really happy to see Kitty make it through unscathed -- and to see Joan and Sherlock as godparents. Nice touch.

I may have misted up a bit at that part.

3 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

I think the show lives and dies (to a certain extent) with the quality of its overall season arc.

I hadn't really noticed that there wasn't an arc to speak of.  That shows that you really don't need big season-long conspiracies and some Ultra Evil Dude to make these shows fun, Grimm!

[juliet73]

11 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

Hmmm... I'm not the one who originally posted about the letdown in quality, and I imagine I'll be here for the remainder of the show, no matter how long that ends up being, but I think the show lives and dies (to a certain extent) with the quality of its overall season arc. The episode-of-the-week mysteries have been pretty consistent for the past five years (and whether you consider that consistency good or mediocre or ridiculous can vary by viewer). For me, I absolutely loved the bigger pictures of season one (Sherlock and Joan forming their relationship/ partnership, with the awesome reveal of Moriarty at the end of the season) and season three (Sherlock and Joan rebuilding their relationship with the addition of Kitty, whom I came to love, and the jaw-dropping finale of Sherlock beating Oscar and shooting up). Seasons two and four never really did it for me because I disliked Mycroft and I thought the Morland plot kind of fizzled out. This season I neither like nor dislike Shinwell, but I do find his storyline to be rather boring, and barring some kind of big shift in the last handful of episodes, I think it's going to be another mediocre season for me.

That said, I think the main actors are great, and it's a fun show to watch. 

I think there are a few things disappointing me season.  1. Sherlock has toned down his quirkiness..a lot! 2. The addition of Shinwell.  3. I like Sherlock and Joan working together. It seems like they do less and less scenes together.  4. There are too many "twists" and red herring characters in each episode. I understand not wanting to reveal the killer in the first 5 minutes, but it's like the show is trying so hard not to make it obvious that the story becomes way more confusing and distracting.  5. The lack of the season arc. I think it adds a bit of extra mystery to each episode. 

Edited March 15, 2017 by juliet73

[possibilities]

I don't usually mind the twists. I like not being able to see who's guilty in the first 5 minutes. That used to annoy me ebcause if I can see it, Sherlock the genius really has no excuse.

I don't mind Shinwell. I get that he's not super exciting, but I feel for him.  He's not getting as much screen time to develop as Kitty got, and he's not as charismatic as Clyde or Alfredo. But I think he's doing well enough with what they give him.

I still hate Marcus's haircut. I've been trying to get over it, but it's not happening. I think he looks ridiculous. He's too old to sport that 'do. It just looks like he's trying too hard. I never even noticed how short he is until he got the haircut. It is impossible to take him seriously looking like that.

I also wish they'd get the sound fixed. I have to turn the volume way up and use captions to understand any of the dialogue. It used to only be Sherlock, but now everyone else is mumbling, too. I don't have this with other shows, so I haven't suddenly gone deaf. Are they using some weird muffled mic system?

I thought the Kitty story felt like a "wrapping up loose ends because we think we're going to be cancelled" move.

[iMonrey]

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1. Sherlock has toned down his quirkiness..a lot! 2. The addition of Shinwell.  3. I like Sherlock and Joan working together. It seems like they do less and less scenes together. 

I agree with #3 for sure. For me, the strength of the show is Sherlock and Joan's relationship. When they can take a pause in their investigation to discuss personal matters, that's where the heart of the show really is. It's when they open up to each other and interact as people rather than detectives. I also agree with #1 for a similar reason - Joan's reactions to all of Sherlock's mad experiments are always such a delight in understated exasperation. We got just a little whiff of it in this one when she was commenting on Sherlock's six volumes of audio to drown out surveillance. But that's just a passing mention - I love when she comes home to find something bizarre in the living room and Sherlock is just blase about it. 

[dargosmydaddy]

16 hours ago, possibilities said:

he's not as charismatic as Clyde

This cracked me up... kind of sad when the new-character-of-the-season has less charisma than a rarely-seen turtle, but then, Clyde is pretty awesome...

[jhlipton]

22 hours ago, possibilities said:

He's not as charismatic as Clyde.

6 hours ago, dargosmydaddy said:

This cracked me up... kind of sad when the new-character-of-the-season has less charisma than a rarely-seen turtle, but then, Clyde is pretty awesome...

I know, huh.  Maybe Shinwell just needs a cozy!

[Driad]

That's what we need -- Ms. Hudson (I miss her) returning to knit a cozy for everyone who needs one. Wonder what design she would use for Sherlock's cozy?

[MoreCoffeePlease]

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simply hurt that she never tried to contact him during her absent.

As my husband's grandmother always said, "the phone works both ways."  And Sherlock is smart enough to track anyone down.

Regarding mumbling, someone wrote in to "Ask Matt" at TV insider about this in general, and he said that yes, dialogue quality is down, partly due to sound engineering and partly due to how the actors speak.  The writer said he has no problems understanding dialogue in old movies.  I swear some actors hardly even move their lips anymore.  I sometimes use a headset, which gives me better sound quality than the  TV speakers.

[theatremouse]

The odd thing about their conversation to me was not only does the telephone work both ways but so does surveillance? So when she was all "I didn't want you to have to lie", I thought that was quite stupid. It would've made more sense had she said she was on the run and didn't want them to track her down through him. Although, having left the country, I don't know that they'd bother. Still, there were logical reasons for both of them to leave the contact cut off if either thought anyone were trying to track her down. At the same time, he at least, supposedly should have enough contacts to be able to both track her down and get her a message in theory without it coming back to either one of them. So, the whole thing just struck me as odd.

[possibilities]

I think he knew he could have tracked her down, but he wanted her to contact him because she wanted to, not because he found her. He thought of her as a friend and when she didn't stay in touch he thought she thought of him only as a mentor, one she no longer needed or cared to stay in contact with.

I am on the fence about how I feel about him being insecure like that. In general, I like the way the show humanizes Sherlock, but I am less enamored with him acting like a jilted teenager.

I do get the point that he could think she had been in hiding, and he understood that, though he still wanted to hear from her to know she was okay-- and that she wanted to continue their friendship. But when it turned out she was not in hiding, and was in fact happy, and hadn't bothered to tell him, he felt hurt and had to re-evaluate the nature of their relationship.

Clearly if she was working legally and above-ground overseas, she was not trying to avoid being tracked. If she had been wanted by the law, she was throwing herself right into view.

I think on her side, it was also insecurity-- she thought she was just a mentee, and that Sherlock would feel he'd wasted his time training her if she left the profession. She did not realize he valued her as a friend, and cared about her well-being not just because of her value as a sleuth, but because he valued her as a person.

They're both damaged.

I think since his experience with Moriarty, he's also lost trust in his feelings.

[John Potts]

On ‎13‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 8:54 AM, thuganomics85 said:

Basically, the killer was who Sherlock suspected, and he was basically some kind of spy, who wanted to start a war with USA and Iran, so he gots his hands on the Fidel Files after blowing up a Venezuela conference, and inserted fake footage into the document.  Man, there are a lot of moving parts in that plan!  And, really, he might have got away with it if he didn't start killing all those people.

That was the bit that I really didn't buy - if you want to keep something secret, then leaving a trail of corpses (even if they were mostly made to look like accidents/suicides) is a really bad way to do it! Though the idea that the CIA/NSA/WTF might fake evidence to send America to war is eminently plausible (though why Cuba would know anything about Iran's nuclear programme, I have no idea - is there a League of Evil - different from Moriarty/Morland's Evil Corp - in Elementary?).

On ‎13‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 4:34 AM, UncleChuck said:

Although I have not seen Alan Rosenberg since Civil Wars and the final season of L.A. Law in 1994, his voice was instantly recognizable to me

He'll always be Ira, Cybill's ex husband to me.

[johntfs]

8 hours ago, John Potts said:

He'll always be Ira, Cybill's ex husband to me.

I'm currently binging on Num3ers and Rosenberg played a judge in one episode of the first season.