'Sherlock' Victorian Special Recap: Benedict Cumberbatch 'Abominable Bride' Related to Canon?

The Sherlock Victorian special, "The Abominable Bride," is finally out, and it features Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Amanda Abbington and the rest of the cast in dashing 19th century attire. However, recaps show that BBC showrunners Mark Gatiss and Steve Moffat may have just teased audiences in a big way when it comes to the series canon.

Be warned: spoilers ahead.

Even though the two Sherlock showrunners said time and again that "The Abominable Bride" was a one-off with no relation to the series canon whatsoever, it turned out that the two writers concocted a trick right off their other show, Doctor Who: the Victorian setting turned out to be, in a way, a time-traveling device: the entire special was set inside Sherlock's mind palace when he was on the plane at the end of season 3.

The episode begins with a small throwback of everything that happened in the first three seasons of the show, providing background to all the cases, then adding a screen with the word "alternatively..." by adding this new episode would be set in the 1880s.

In the case of the "Abominable Bride," Emilia Ricoletti (Natasha O'Keeffe), shortly after marrying, goes on a killing rampage in a balcony that ends in suicide after she shoots herself in the head. However, the same night, she appears to her husband in (Gerald Kyd) and kills him too.

Sherlock and Watson are called in by Lestrade (Rupert Graves, with a serious case of Victorian-era sideburns) to solve the case, though it remains dormant as more and more people end up dead at the hand of this Abominable Bride from the dead and no more clues appear.

In the meantime, we see Anderson (Jonathan Aris) being equally daft in the 19^th century as he is on the 21^st, tying up Ricoletti's corpse so she won't kill again, while Molly (Louise Brealey) appears in drag with a fake mustache, making it as a professional in a "man's world" -- and completely fooling Sherlock in the process (though not Watson).

Months later, Mycroft (Mark Gatiss, who's morbidly obese in the 19^th century, just as sir Arthur Conan Doyle described him) calls Sherlock in to take another crack at the case, as Lady Carmichael (Catherine McCormack) reveals that her husband (Tim McInnerny) has been threatened to death by the Abominable Bride.

John sees the ghost and lets her escape, after she kills lord Carmichael on whose corpse a note appears long after he first died, with only two words that terrify Sherlock: "Miss me?"

This is where the episode starts getting confusing, as it becomes increasingly obvious that the references to 21^st century Sherlock are getting a little too specific.

Meditating in 221B Baker Street after the events at the Carmichael's, Sherlock enters his mind palace, where we find he is haunted by the memory of Moriarty (Andrew Scott), and as the two geniuses face each other in his mind, we find the Inception-like twist of the episode: the whole Victorian setting has happened inside Sherlock's mind palace, while he's dosing on the plane as he goes back to England now that Moriarty's back.

Speaking to the modern-day versions of John, Mary (Abbington) and Mycroft, Sherlock reveals his new obsession with the Ricoletti case from the 19^th century, obviously thinking that solving how she died and then came back to life would help him work out how Moriarty was sending messages from the land of the dead in the season 3 finale.

In the following minutes, the story gets convulsed as Sherlock mixes reality with drug hallucinations, trying to work out both cases: ultimately, the killer on the 19^th century Ricoletti case ends up being a secret society of suffragettes, who have gone on a vigilante spree to kill the men who have tossed their abilities aside.

Coming back to modern times, Sherlock gets off the plane, promising Mycroft that he's done with drugs because he now has "the real thing," saying without a shred of doubt that Moriarty is indeed dead because he can't possible still be alive -- but that, still, he knows just what he's doing next.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the episode achieved Britain's biggest overnight audience in the holiday season, with 8.4 million people tuning in to watch Cumberbatch and Freeman's return to BBC One; similarly, the premiere of the third season drew 9.2 million viewers in overnight ratings.

In the meantime, the reactions to the episode have been mixed, with Vox calling it "terrible" and The Independent showing a list of confused tweets on the trippy nature of the episode's twist.

The Sherlock season 4 will begin shooting in early 2016, with three new 90-minute episodes scheduled for early 2017.