Sherlock: The Abominable Bride and expectations for Season 4

​​Naima Muminiy
Staff Writer

WARNING: SPOILERS! 
      “The Abominable Bride,” the new BBC Sherlock special episode, was released on the first of January this year. Mystery, horror, and alternative timelines were all put together in this successful ninety minute film starring Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his best friend and assistant John Watson (Martin Freeman). Set in nineteenth century England, Holmes and Watson must find out how Emilia Ricoletti, a vengeful bride, was able to commit murders, despite being dead from apparent suicide. Will this case assist Holmes in figuring out how his arch nemesis, James Moriarty, survived after taking his own life?

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      On December 18, 1984, on the day of her anniversary, Ricoletti is standing on her balcony with her wedding dress on and blood red lipstick smeared across her face. She is firing two revolvers into the street all while saying, “You.” She then takes one of the revolvers and fires it in her mouth, publically committing suicide. That evening, hours after the incident, her husband, Thomas Ricoletti, is stopped by a carriage. A woman appears out of the carriage wearing a white dress and veil, with a shotgun in hand. She begins singing, and she asks Mr. Ricoletti if he recognizes their wedding song. Mr. Ricoletti, bewildered upon recognizing her alive, is then immediately shot twice in the chest. The question is, how could she have killed her husband when she was supposedly dead?
      Declared unsolvable by Scotland Yard, Holmes and Watson get on the case. Though, this is where the plot twists, this Victorian era crime case all takes place in Holmes’ mind palace. The mind palace, also known as the Method of Loci, is where Holmes stores and uses important information to solve cases. He uses the case of The Abominable Bride to figure out how his arch nemesis, Moriarty, killed himself the same way Ricoletti did. Holmes is trying to figure out how Moriarty was still able to appear on television screens all throughout Britain saying, “Did you miss me?”         
       Holmes and Watson figure out that Moriarty is indeed dead, but he has planned criminal events for the future. Una Holland, a junior at Apex High School, says what her expectations are for season four of BBC Sherlock and what may be in store. “I think Sherlock and John are going to become closer friends than before, and Moriarty will definitely be dead, but his henchmen will come in and try to kill Sherlock making it seem like Moriarty is still alive,” says Holland. “Though, there could be a plot twist that Moriarty is still alive and an alibi of Sherlock knew all along and he (Holmes) gets betrayed somehow.”
      Steven Moffat, writer and producer of the British television series, says, “Season four is going to be...I suppose you’d say...consequences. Its consequences. Chickens come to roost. It’s dark in some ways, obviously its great fun and a Sherlock Holmes romp and all that, but there’s a sense of things coming back to bite you.”
       The airdate has not been confirmed, but speculations and fan theories are already amidst. For now, viewers will have to wait patiently for what Moffat and his co-writer, Mark Gatiss, have in store.