History Recap / SherlockS02E01AScandalInBelgravia

* CovertDistressCode: "Vatican cameos." John explains to Mary that it means "battle stations, someone's going to die."
* CutHimselfShaving: Played with. After subduing the American {{Mook}} who'd roughed up Mrs Hudson, Sherlock phones Lestrade for an ambulance and starts casually describing the victim's injuries: "A few broken ribs, fractured skull, suspected punctured lung. He fell out of a window." Cue the man actually hitting the bins outside 221B:

* DeathGlare: Sherlock pulls off a truly epic one. Upon arriving back at Baker Street to discover evidence of [[spoiler: Mrs Hudson being held by CIA agents]], he fingers the scratches in the wallpaper, [[AwesomeByAnalysis plays out what happened in his mind]]... and then quietly looks up the staircase with eyes that say "People are going to DIE". Cue ExtremeMeleeRevenge.
* DestinationDefenestration: The fate of the American {{Mook}} who threatened to shoot John and beat up Mrs Hudson. Multiple times over, if Sherlock is to be believed.
* DidTheyOrDidntThey: Not in the episode itself, but following the ending: Creator/BenedictCumberbatch and Creator/StevenMoffat funnily enough have different ideas about what happened between Sherlock and Irene [[spoiler:after he saved her. Moffat says his idea is that after the terrorists were dealt with, Irene held Sherlock at gunpoint to make him strip out of his clothes so she could escape wearing them, while Cumberbatch outright believes they had sex instead.]]

** Irene Adler replaces Sherlock's ringtone with the sound of her orgasmic groaning. Sherlock actually isn't bothered by it but Mrs Hudson is.

* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: Sherlock gives this to Neilson after he and his agents interrogate Mrs Hudson to see if she has Irene's phone. He throws Neilson out of a window so many times he lost count, though we only see it once.

-->'''Sherlock:''' Oh come on. Surely you've all seen the present at the top of the bag. Perfectly wrapped with a bow. All the others are slapdash at best. Must be someone special then. Shade of red echoes the lipstick. Either a subconscious association or one that she's deliberately trying to encourage. Either way, Miss Hooper has ''love'' on her mind. The fact that she's serious about him is clear from the fact that she's giving him a gift at all. That all suggests long-term hopes, however forlorn. And that she's seeing him tonight is evident from the make-up and what she's wearing. [[KickTheDog Obviously trying to compensate for the size of her mouth and breasts.]]\\

* GirlOnGirlIsHot: Possibly a reason that Irene Adler was revealed to be a lesbian. Throughout the episode, the only person she is shown to be sexually interested in (outside of her [[{{Dominatrix}} work]], of course) is Sherlock. Played for laughs when Mycroft explains, while John drinks tea, that Adler has compromising photos of herself with a young, royal, female person:

-->'''Mycroft:''' Oh, shut up, Mrs Hudson.\\

* InstantSedation: {{Averted}}. Irene Adler surprise injects Sherlock with some sort of sedative she normally uses on her clients. Although Sherlock is almost immediately physically compromised, he remains conscious and lucid for quite a few seconds, arguing with her even as he sinks to the floor and adamantly refusing to hand over the [[MacGuffin phone she wants]] until he finally drops it because, due to his sedation, ''[[{{Determinator}} his fingers can no longer grip it]].'' He ends up on the floor on his back, but is still semi-conscious and keeps trying to get up, albeit unsuccessfully. ''Eventually'' he slides into a [[DreamSequence weird dream coma]] and wakes up in bed some time later, so he did finally lose consciousness, but John mentions that he "wasn't making much sense" and that Lestrade had time to film some of his inane babbling on his phone, despite the fact that Lestrade was presumably ''on his way'' at the time that Sherlock was drugged, implying that Sherlock was ''still'' partially conscious and animated (if completely confused and spouting gibberish) for several minutes after the injection.

* KubrickStare: Sherlock deduces that [[ParentalSubstitute Mrs Hudson]] has been attacked. In a few seconds his expression moves from "Bad stuff happened" to "Oh God, he's actually going to kill someone."

** Mrs Hudson comes to interrupt Sherlock and Irene [[CampfireCharacterExploration getting close in front of the fireplace]].

* MysteriousMiddleInitial: John H Watson finally reveals his [[MythologyGag much-speculated upon middle name]]: Hamish.

** The title itself is a reference to the original story "A Scandal in Bohemia" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Irene Adler has compromising photographs of herself with a royal person, Sherlock disguises himself as an injured clergyman to be allowed access to Irene's residence, and Watson sets off a false fire alarm to trick Irene into revealing the hiding place of the photographs. The taunting "Goodnight, Mr Sherlock Holmes" also appears in both. In the end of the original story, all Sherlock asks for payment is the photo Irene left of herself; in the end of the episode, he asks to keep her phone. (Unlike the picture, though, he could sell the phone for quite a lot of money, even without its contents: that model costs £17,300. Also, in "A Scandal in Bohemia," Sherlock asked for the picture in place of a monetary reward, which he didn't do here.)

** Sherlock treats Mrs Hudson incredibly gently after her ordeal.

* [[PrecisionFStrike Precision S Strike]]: Mycroft calls John on Christmas Eve after Sherlock has just left him to return home to Baker Street. There's a cryptic conversation about John and Mrs Hudson not being able to "find anything" in any of the usual places, and "it looks like he's clean". John then asks if Sherlock "took the cigarette". When Mycroft says he did, John's response is "... ''Shit."'' It's the only instance of the word in the series so far, and a stand-out line from a character who managed to ''not'' swear even when he found a human head in his fridge.

* TheSnackIsMoreInteresting: A rather tense scene has just played out at Baker Street (Mrs Hudson was attacked by CIA agents -- Sherlock took care of them). Mrs Hudson is rather upset, John is confused, concerned and trying to comfort her, and Sherlock... is eating a mince pie he got out of Mrs Hudson's refrigerator.

* TranquilFury: Though Sherlock's expression barely changes when he sees the CIA operative has beaten Mrs Hudson, his eyes reveal that he is seething. Tellingly, his SherlockScan suddenly shifts to all the places on the operative's body he can break or make bleed.

* {{Understatement}}: Mrs Hudson's reaction when she finds out that Irene changed Sherlock's ring-tone to an orgasmic moan:

* UnstoppableRage: Sherlock attacked a man and threw him out of a window so many times he lost count for breaking into 221B and interrogating Mrs Hudson. We never see this onscreen, just a body crashing to the ground once.

** Sherlock of all people tries this on Irene to gain entry into her house. Of course she already knows who he is, what he looks like and was expecting his arrival anyway.
** Mrs Hudson is adept at this tactic, keeping the CIA heavies from discovering the location of the camera phone by faking a lot of tears and distress after they manhandle her for information.