English Dub Review: Case File nº221: Kabukicho “The Curtain Rises on the Grand Guignol”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Moriarty announces a benefit concert for the East Side of Shinjuku, but journalists badger him about his father’s connection to Jack the Ripper, which he oddly denies. But unfortunately, the event is soon put in the sights of Albert Trevor, the leader of the prison escapees who was a notorious bomber before being caught. An odd riddle is sent to the mayor, which is investigated by the detectives at the rowhouse, though sadly Moriarty cannot help. Based on the riddle, Sherlock deciphers that Trevor plans to make one single explosion hidden somewhere in the stadium, so the team starts looking at all the box lunches given to attendees, but only find pranks.

Once that well runs dry, Sherlock finally relents and turns to the true culprit: Moriarty, who has both been behind this and the previous two incidents, controlling the killers and making them commit suicide by speaking their full names through some sort of brainwashing, including Albert. He claims that he put this together because what Sherlock truly craves is the hunt for a new mystery, not wanting to save lives, but he’s been “boring” for awhile now so this bomb threat was to make sure he had his edge. Moriarty asks Sherlock to go with him, but then the explosions begin, ushered in by a recorded video message from “Albert”, so he makes his escape. And soon the real target becomes clear, though minutes too late, Richard D. Godain, CEO of Godain Construction and Moran’s special guest, whose car explodes as soon as he leaves the building. But for good measure, Moriarty has the brainwashed Albert kidnap Lucy in the commotion.

OUR TAKE

Oh, guess we’re kicking things off a bit early here. Like I said, I expected at least a couple of episodes going through more prison escapees to piece things together before we revealed the stuff with Moriarty, but here we are having the dramatic twist that the guy who was named for Sherlock Holmes’ greatest archenemy is actually the bad guy here. Go figure. Well, we’re here now and the cat is very much out of the bag, though in true Sherlock fashion, it seems Holmes has been ahead of the audience the whole time!…or rather, right in step with the audience, which I suppose is better than being behind at the very least. But yeah, he’s known for quite some time, only tapping out on the many cases given to him apparently by Moriarty because he just couldn’t stump this one. I’m not sure how much I buy that, but it does lead into my next point.

See, it also turns out that the reason Moriarty is on this monster of the week villain generating scheme is not to discredit his father as I first might have thought, but mainly to be the keep Sherlock’s brilliant mind on its toes because he believes Sherlock is really only in this for the challenge of a new mystery. To the two of them, at least from Moriarty’s perspective, this is all just a game the two are playing, regardless of whichever lives are lost in the scuffle. The murderers are really just pieces that can be discarded once that particular stage of the game is over. Though Sherlock’s pained expression might just prove otherwise, as it seems that putting lives in danger is not nothing in his eyes, even if he might be detached from normal human emotion from time to time.

Lastly, there’s the mention of Watson being Sherlock’s “Alice”, as Moriarty put it. This refers to his dead sister Alice, who was killed by Jack the Ripper, so it could mean that Watson is Sherlock’s conscious and so without him, Sherlock might be inclined to join the game as the player that Moriarty wishes him to be instead of as a person fighting for the lives of another person. Plus, what does that distinction say about Moriarty? How has his time in prison made him restructure his thinking patterns and morality? We’ve still got five more episodes to go and it seems that this whole case is just getting warmed up, but we’re definitely in the home stretch in terms of where this show is headed for its story.