We Want to Have Fun with Surprises

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss reveal all about Mary’s death and Sherlock’s sister

Fans have been left open-mouthed by Sherlock’s explosive return this year, with Mary Watson’s death followed last week by the surprise introduction of Sherlock’s sister, Eurus.

‘We introduced Sherlock’s mum and dad a while ago, almost on a whim,’ says writer Steven Moffat. ‘Now we’ve just taken another step along that line. People had posited a brother, but we thought maybe we could have a sister. We want to have fun with surprises.’

Viewers certainly were surprised when it was revealed that three characters (Watson’s therapist, Watson’s new love interest and Sherlock’s late-night visitor) were all in fact the same person, Sherlock’s sister, played by Sian Brooke.

‘Experiments show that people don’t really record faces very quickly and the characters do not look alike,’ Moffat tells us. ‘I stuck in a couple of distractions that kept drawing your eye away, like the walking cane.

PULLING THE TRIGGER