'Sherlock' News, Updates, Spoilers: Episode Titles for Season 4 Revealed; 'Thatcher,' 'Smith,' and 'Sherrinford' Deciphered

By Krixia Zhienelle Subingsubing,

The game is on, Watson. BBC One's award-winning detective series "Sherlock" has finally released its episode titles for Season 4. In true Sherlock fashion, they're all cryptic as hell, but not impossible to crack. It's time to put on the thinking hats and deduce what the next season will be all about!

In a tweet, BBC One revealed the title of the first two episodes for "Sherlock" Season 4: "The Six Thatchers," and "The Lying Detective," all callbacks to the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Sherlock" series. This is in keeping with the tradition of referencing the source material, as it did in "A Scandal in Belgravia" (the original was "A Scandal in Bohemia") in Season 2.

The Six Thatchers

The first title is a reference to the story "The Six Napoleons," where Sherlock solved a burglary streak where the man only ever seems to target plaster busts of Napoleons. It turned out that the man had stolen a black pearl which he hid inside a bust so he can find it again.

Interestingly, John Watson's official blog had already posted a version of "The Six Thatchers" in December 19, 2011. The blog has been canonically true for the past three seasons, but it's possible that the show will overhaul this iteration completely. After all, who would want spoilers, right?

But just in case: the case was about a man named Beppo who stole and destroyed Margaret Thatcher pottery figures. He had stabbed his boyfriend Pietro, and then pushed the knife into the clay before it went to the kiln to avoid getting incriminated.

The Lying Detective

Meanwhile, "The Lying Detective" refers to "The Adventures of the Dying Detective," wherein Sherlock pretended to be dying of a fatal and contagious illness. Although John Watson wanted to examine him, the wry detective had instead called for a man named Culverton Smith, and then ordered Watson to hide when he came back.

It turned out that Smith had infected the detective with a sharp spring in a box he sent him in the mail. It was the same ruse he used to kill his nephew. But Sherlock, always one step ahead, was just pretending to be sick, and had Smith arrested.

The clues to "Sherlock" Season 4

At the San Diego Comic Con, "Sherlock" executive producers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat had dropped three keywords as clues to the next season: "Thatcher, Smith, and Sherrinford." While the first two have been addressed with the release of these new titles, fans are most eager about the third one: Sherrinford, possibly the third Holmes brother and posited to be played by "Thor" star Tom Hiddleston.

And the idea is not as farfetched as they think it is. In the "Sherlock" Season 3 finale, a colleague asked Mycroft (Gatiss) if he was protecting Sherlock (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) as some "expression of familial sentiment." Mycroft coldly replied, "I'm not given to outbursts of brotherly compassion. You know what happened to the other one."

No official date for "Sherlock" Season 4, but fans can expect it to arrive during New Year 2017.

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