![]() We don’t even know the place exists in this form until John’s wife Mary Morstan (Amanda Abbington) shoots him and he retreats inward to stay alive. It possesses nothing of the restraint nor subtle symbolism we observe in the final evolution of Sherlock’s mind palace in the series 3 finale “His Last Vow”: a winding staircase with floors and rooms expanding outward. This sequence is messy and cringeworthy and painful to watch. She tries to take control of the evolving mind palace by erecting a mountain of vodka bottles, mocking the pity and disgust she imagines he feels for her as a stereotypical alcoholic, but this overwrought display only reveals the depths of her own self-loathing. Because this Alex has all of the ammunition needed to discredit Cassie-after all, he’s pulling it all from her own head. Suddenly the mind palace’s windows looking out onto Bangkok are instead dioramas of Cassie’s apartment, from the mess of a frequent traveler to the damning empty bottles of an alcoholic. Nothing she finds matches the charming man from Bangkok, and so begin the judgments and even suspicions that maybe he deserved to get murdered.Ĭassie’s Alex takes exception to her exhuming a life he’s not alive to provide context for, but she doesn’t listen to him until, in one of the series’ best moments, he turns the spotlight on her. “Other People’s Houses,” the midseason turning point of season 1, expands the scale of Cassie’s mind palace by transplanting a floorplan of Alex’s even more sumptuous digs inside of the opulent suite, while in real life Cassie is going through what might as well be a stranger’s home. Until, that is, she breaks into his apartment. Cassie’s Alex isn’t the entirety of Alex Sokolov, only her jumbled memories of and assumptions about a man she spent a drunken layover with. That’s all well and good when working within a limited library of one’s own research, but much thornier when it comes to half-formed impressions of real people. That’s what’s tricky about a mind palace: The information all originates with the person who built it. As he interrogates them, while dealing with his brother Mycroft (Mark Gatiss) condescending to him about coincidences from the judge’s seat, Sherlock must work with just the stories and anecdotes passed around with the hors d’oeuvres during cocktail hour. By this point, the mind palace has evolved from a mental database of word associations to an actual space: a courthouse populated with his impressions of the wedding guests, a.k.a. Sherlock utilizes his mind palace at a party-specifically, John Watson’s (Martin Freeman) wedding in the series 2 episode “The Sign of Three”-but very much keeps his cool. And Holmes’ precisely honed mental device for solving mysteries is the kind of tool that someone like Cassie-selfish, flighty, a liar and manipulator-should have no business using. Let’s be real, when you think mind palace, the immediate mental association is the Great Detective himself, Sherlock Holmes, as embodied by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC’s Sherlock. So after closing the door on her mind palace and throwing away the key, Cassie needs to find her way back to the place that no version of her believes she belongs in in the first place. Unfortunately, despite moving to Los Angeles and marking a year of sobriety with AA, her old temptations to chase the adrenaline high of international conspiracies means she has to clear her name again. ![]() ![]() Whereas season 1 Cassie-a hot-mess, barely-functioning alcoholic-incriminated herself left right and center, season 2 Cassie is trying her damnedest not to look guilty of yet another murder. And this time, the murder is incidental the true mystery is, who is trying to frame Cassie? Season 2’s mind palace is even more surreal than its predecessor, populating the gold-plated hotel lobby with props from her waking life: Her brother Davey’s endearing yet obnoxious “Easy Does It!” teddy bear to mark one year of sobriety a massive model of an old house that her younger self painstakingly builds despite knowing it’s as flimsy as a house of cards synchronized swimmers performing trippy choreography a giant martini glass overflowing with the drink that could make all of her stresses melt away.īecause the urge to drink is always with her. And-Young Cassie, the child who was her dad’s drinking buddy, the girl who ran toward a plane crash because she loved being in the middle of drama no matter who got hurt. And Perfect Cassie, the persona she could be if she leaned into her (boring) new life a bit more: promoted at Imperial Atlantic, rocking a huge engagement ring, barely holding it together. There’s also Bender Cassie, raccoon-eyed and sullen and cruel. But instead of that man’s ghost, it’s herself behind the bar: Bangkok Cassie, decked out in her glittery gold party dress.
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