3. The Great Game (Season 1, Episode 3)
Written by Mark Gatiss
"I will burn the heart out of you." - Jim Moriarty Jim Moriarty's presence hangs over Season 1 like a shadow. He is referred to as a "fan" of Sherlock's by the cab driver in "A Study in Pink," is only shown as "M" when communicating with Shan in "The Blind Banker," and uses different people as his "voice" to communicate with Sherlock via phone in "The Great Game." His absence from the scenes of his crimes makes him even more of a mystery, and so his reveal during the brilliantly-written pool scene at the end of "The Great Game" finally gives us a face to put with the name and what a bizarre, hilarious, creepy, and fascinating face it is! One can never quite forget meeting Jim Moriarty. Essentially, the entire episode is about Sherlock and Moriarty, and how Moriarty is the perfect adversary for Sherlock simply because they are near-perfect mirrors of each other. Their lives have been intertwined from the beginning when Moriarty allegedly committed his first murder, killing Carl Powers, and Sherlock, even young as he was, was right on his trail, stopped only by the disbelief and apathy of adults who had no faith in a child detective. Moriarty realized this, and kept Carl's shoes all those years in resentment? admiration? waiting to give Sherlock another challenge if he proved a worthy adversary. They each invented their jobs: one became a consulting detective, the other a consulting criminal. They are both bored by the ordinary minds around them and want a distraction. So, when Moriarty sends Sherlock a puzzle, using ordinary people and their lives as both the stakes and the puzzle pieces to put together, Sherlock plays along, because he and Moriarty view people the same way: as puzzles to be solved and/or tools to be manipulated and used to their advantage. Even within the visual cues they are mirrored. Sherlock proclaims "The art of disguise is knowing how to hide in plain sight" as he is disguised as a security guard at the art gallery. Little does he know, only a short time earlier he encountered Moriarty disguised as Molly's boyfriend, Jim from IT. Within their banter you can tell that each holds a grudging respect for the other, and even a strange sort of gratitude that someone else understands how they see the world and is able to provide a much-needed distraction. Yet they still must hold the other in contempt, for the game is only distracting if there is ample competition, and in the end one of them must win. They both seem heartless, and yet this exchange shows the one thing that separates Sherlock from Moriarty: Moriarty: "I will burn the heart out of you." Sherlock: "I've been reliably informed I don't have one." Moriarty: "But we both know that's not quite true." John chooses this moment to launch himself at Moriarty, yelling, "Sherlock, run!" At that moment we see the one thing that stops Sherlock from becoming like Moriarty: John. John has been there through everything, seen Sherlock at his most caustic and most inhuman, and, when anyone else would have left, John stayed. In seeing Sherlock's worst and staying with him through that, he is able to bring out the best in Sherlock. Little by little his loyalty makes Sherlock care about someone other than himself, something Moriarty could never understand and may no longer even be capable of. To Moriarty, people are disposable; to Sherlock, John is the one person he needs with him. Earlier on Sherlock mockingly states, "I'd be lost without my blogger" to John as a sarcastic remark. Yet John is the one person he truly cares about. In Season 2 we see that circle of affection expand to Mrs. Hudson, Molly, and Irene, and apparently even Lestrade, but John is the one who shows Sherlock how to care. "The Great Game" has Sherlock at his sharpest and most cerebral, but in the end what is really revealed is his heart and how much his friendship with John has grown. Their love for each other is the real heart of the show.