Sherlock Season 4: Synopsis for The Lying Detective

What can we expect in the second episode of Sherlock Season 4? The official episode synopsis doesn’t exactly give away much.

The Sherlock Season 4 premiere left us with a lot of questions. Such as: How will Sherlock and John repair their friendship in the wake of Mary’s death? Who the heck was that woman on the bus? Where did that Moriarty video come from? And who exactly is parenting the littlest Watson these days?

We have no idea how – or even if – any of these questions will be answered. But we’ll find out this Sunday in “The Lying Detective”. Maybe? Or maybe not. As per usual with Sherlock the synopsis for Season 4’s second episode is pretty bare bones.

From PBS:

"In this episode, written by Steven Moffat, Sherlock faces perhaps the most chilling enemy of his long career: the powerful and seemingly unassailable Culverton Smith—a man with a very dark secret.."

So…Sherlock meets a new bad guy. That’s it; that’s the episode. (Seriously, would it kill Team Sherlock to throw us some crumbs here?)

We’ve known for a while that Culverton Smith would appear this season. We knew that Toby Jones would play him. And we know that Jones is a fantastic character actor that we’ve already had plenty of experience hating in other roles, including as Dr. Zola in several Captain America movies. He can definitely play a great bad guy. This is a good thing, as Sherlock creator Steven Moffat promised that Smith will be “the darkest villain” the show has ever featured. But we still don’t actually know anything about him, how he connects to Sherlock, or what he wants.

“The Lying Detective” will ostensibly be loosely based on the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story The Dying Detective. It involves Holmes faking a terminal illness in order to solve a crime. This could explain some of the hospital imagery used in the episode trailer. Or it might not. Sometimes these episodes are “adaptations” only in the loosest sense of the word. Those nurses could just as easily be part of one of Sherlock’s drug trips.

Additionally, we’re not sure whether Jones (or Smith) will be sticking around past Season 4’s second episode. Here’s hoping he does, though. Sherlock does better when Holmes and Watson have a clearly defined antagonist to work against. Plus, let’s be real, it’s kind of hard to be the biggest evil ever in just a single episode.

Next: Sherlock: Three Questions for Season 4’s Second Episode

Sherlock continues January 8 on PBS. And we’ll have a recap here at Culturess after the new episode airs.