Sherlock: 5 Reasons Why The Next Villain Won't Be As Awesome As Moriarty

6. His Deceptions

"Jim Moriarty. Hi."

With that one line we realize that this adorable little Irishman, Molly Hooper's boyfriend, "Jim from IT," is Sherlock Holmes' arch-nemesis and the greatest criminal mastermind the world has ever known.

"Jim? Jim from the hospital? Huh. Did I really make such a fleeting impression? But then I suppose that was rather the point."

In that moment Sherlock finds himself as bemused as the audience. In a rare moment of deductive blindness, he has looked the world's greatest criminal up and down and only come up with one deduction - "gay." How does Sherlock miss realizing that he is in the presence of the man responsible for the bombings, the murders, even the murder that set Sherlock on his path to becoming the world's only consulting detective? Because Moriarty is the king of disguises, and honey, you should see him in a crown. Moriarty takes on many roles throughout the series; it showcases his ultimate prowess at deception and manipulation. The first character he plays is Jim from IT, a ploy to show just how close he can get to Sherlock. His more obvious roles include the actor Richard Brook and the cab driver in 'The Reichenbach Fall,' but perhaps even more impressive are his roles as an ordinary civilian in 'A Scandal in Belgravia' when he sends Mycroft Holmes the text about the 007 flight and in 'Reichenbach' when he poses as a tourist visiting the Tower of London. The fact that he can masquerade so easily as an ordinary person is incredible and quite chilling, considering his disdain for "ordinary people." It is also this ability to blend in and become an ordinary person that leads to Sherlock's ultimate undoing, as the press swallows Richard Brook's story that Sherlock is a fake. Moriarty not only takes on new identities; he takes on new "voices" as well, as can be seen in 'The Great Game' when he forces other people to be his "voice" to speak to Sherlock over the phone. In the end he even steals John Watson's voice, forcing Sherlock into feeling betrayed, if only for a second, before the real Moriarty makes his grand entrance. Even the southern drawl Moriarty puts on during the rooftop scene in 'Reichenbach' - "Just trying to have some fun" - shows how readily he can switch between different characters and identities. In other words, he is "sooo changeable!" While Sherlock uses his fair share of disguises and false identities, no one can beat Moriarty for sheer flexibility in taking on whatever identity he needs to get what he wants.