Holmes’ story was heartwarming, if a little shaky. We don’t want to cast aspersions, but Holmes’ vagueness and the fact that no one else in the episode (Laila, Shinwell, etc.) saw the famed detective — not to mention that the Season 2 synopsis said that Holmes’ appearance would help Holmes unearth a secret “that lies hidden within his own body” — makes me fairly certain that Watson is seeing/hearing things, and his old partner is not actually there.
So that’s where I started when I chatted with Robert Carlyle (“Once Upon a Time”), who plays the iconic sleuth in the flesh in CBS’ drama. (“What We Do in the Shadows” star Matt Berry voiced the character when Watson had auditory hallucinations in a Season 1 episode.) Carlyle will around for roughly eight episodes this season; read on for his take.
TVLINE | Given the close, intimate nature of the scenes you and Morris Chestnut have in this episode, my cynical, TV-reporter brain thinks, “Oh, he’s clearly a figment of his imagination.”
ROBERT CARLYLE | [Laughs loudly] Oh, well, that’s that then!
TVLINE | So while I do not expect you to confirm or deny that, what can you say about the fact that the two of them are so separate from everything that goes on in the rest of the episode?
No, they are. They are. That’s very, very true. There’s a slight geographical, or physical, reason for that, also, because there’s someone else in the apartment. So that leads to that, I suppose, that they have to be a little bit quieter when they’re talking. But I do agree with you. It just works extremely well, you know? Candlelight, darkness, Sherlock being back from the dead. It just all fits, doesn’t it? [Laughs] I think it was the right atmosphere to play these scenes.
TVLINE | What, in your opinion, does Holmes provide for Watson that other people in Watson’s life cannot?
First of all, they’re long, long term friends. They’ve been friends for many, many, many years — long before Watson met any of these other people. So there’s a kind of slight shorthand that they have with each other, which he doesn’t have with the rest of the gang… Also, as the season progresses — it’s only something that’s come into my mind in the past few days, thinking about it, because of the scenes that we’re playing at the moment in Episode 10: Sherlock is almost like a mirror to Watson. It’s strange. It’s almost like a kind of reflection that’s coming back. Sherlock’s thoughts, Watson’s thoughts… You realize they’re thinking as one. So I think that’s what he certainly brings to Watson: He gives him a little window into himself.