10 Stupidly Risky Plans From TV's Most Notorious Villains
9. Charles Augustus Magnussen Doesn't Use Back-Ups - Sherlock
Being a blackmailer extraordinaire is certainly a low form of criminality but Charles Augustus Magnussen brings it to its very depths. The worst part of it is that no one dare challenge him for fear that their most intimate secrets will see the light of day. Played with a creepy intensity and shades of his brothers excellent performance as Hannibal Lector, Lars Mikkelsons Magnussen can command any room without so much as raising his voice. Of course such a notorious scoundrel deserves only the best adversary and so enters Sherlock Holmes, one of the few men who should provide a real intellectual challenge to Magnussen. Not that this matters really because the whole story sees the villain playing Holmes like his signature Stradivarius. Right until the very end, Cumberbatchs scowling pea-coated sleuth doesn't make one move that crafty old Charles hasn't seen coming. There is one thing he didn't count on though, the fact that his own plan, or at least revealing it, was completely stupid. The MacGuffin of His Last Vow is Magnussens blackmail information vault known as Appledore, however he reveals it to be an empty room and that all of the juicy secrets are in his mind palace. How do you stop such a devilish mind? You shoot it out the back of its owners head of course. No matter how clever Magnussen may have been, as soon as he revealed that he was the only one with access to his extortion collateral he signed his own death sentence.
A pop culture mad writer from the North East who loves films, television and debating them with whoever will listen.
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