Hope that and all the hints this season means Moriarty is guaranteed as The Big Bad, since they were apparently killed off on Game of Thrones years ago now and that's why they couldn't come back before except for a single awesome episode.
Still was one of the most unexpected and epic reveals* for a weekly broadcast procedural.
And that showdown with Joan.
Never been able to come close to topping or even matching that plotline. Even the little segment this season where Sherlock visits one of the fronts was one of the best scenes of the season.
Plus if it definitely is the final season (everything is suggesting it is) they won't easily be able to grind Moriarty down into a non-epic version. Like they did with Morland and Mycroft and Shinwell and Kitty and... Thankfully they have managed to avoid this with Michael so far by sending him away from the show for more than half the season.
*Actual spoils cuz dat shit still makes me hot all these years later:
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Not that Moriarty was gender swapped like Watson was. That alone would have been lame. But that they went ahead and made it so she was also Irene. (Which actually reverses the traditional trope usage of her to the original version of Irene Adler as someone who successfully tricks and deceives Sherlock then "isn't seen again" and not as a regular love interest.) And how after the reveal, Moriarty was played with instantaneous persona changes towards her targets/followers/etc. (The Joan showdown being a prominent example when she realizes Joan already knows who she is and so immediately switches from girlfriend to homicidal monster criminal mode.) And how when Sherlock ultimately asks her "how? why?" she basically tells him a serial killer version of: "Remember, Jerry Sherlock, it's not a lie if you believe it." *shivers*
This version of Moriarty, especially along with these versions of Sherlock and Watson, plus the Bell character, are why I eventually decided I prefer this, despite it being a broadcast procedural to
Sherlock and was really pretty bored with the last two series of that. Probably helps that if the case of the episode sucks it's not 90 minutes long and they will still have funs in scenes. Whereas the latter started to get more interested in moping about mental illnesses and way too into chasing that "high functioning sociopath" nonsense that everyone seemed to love.
Elementary kinda realized it should lean into the nonsense that Sherlock gets up to in the course of solving cases, and wink about it. A lot of the cold opens they do some goofy thing where Sherlock is doing something nonsense to solve some other case he was hired for and then he gets the call for the case of the week. Replacing the moping with that kind of stuff, and having him be a real addict who does actual rehab and improves, was way more beneficial character wise imo.
One of the best instances of that lean into the characters
Elementary did was when they finally had the Detective Bell character mention something obscure about some animals the case-of-the-week takes them to and Sherlock is all stunned and goes "I didn't know you had an interest in [whatever]" and Bell goes "nah, you're not the only one who can use Wikipedia on your phone before showing up."
Since then they've made him (and the Captain) much more of an equal to Sherlock and Joan, albeit restricted by being the lawman. I prefer that direction to the whole "they resent/distrust Sherlock still" that most of these shows and their alikes (
Psych is another example) usually try to keep up.
