Jim Moriarty

Jim Moriarty, as performed by Andrew Scott in BBC show, is a fresh, energetic and so attractive villain, a brand-new Moriarty!

After three seasons of Sherlock's show, we know very little about Moriarty's life. Where was he born, in which family did he grow up ?

To be honest, Conan Doyle seldom gives any clue about the past of his characters, althgough he tells that he had "good birth and excellent education". At the end of the 19th century, Freud's theories were not yet common. Doyle had a vision of forensics's key role (he played a good part at creating it), but he didn't see the role of childhood for criminal minds. "Imagine how Moriarty became such a dreadful man" could make a good topic for a novel contest...

What we know, is that Jim Moriarty is a consulting criminal: he helps people to organize the crime they plan to do. In the first episode, he advices and motivates a taxi-driver who provokes serial suicides. And we learn that he is a big fan of Sherlock -actually, he is totally obsessed by him. In the second, he uses a Chinese triad for a first attempt of murder on him. In the following episodes, we have a good display of his creative solutions for a fraud, an abduction, a murder, a bomb attack... All perfectly efficient, but for Sherlock's intervention; efficient despite it, sometimes.

Moriarty reveals himself in his encounters with Sherlock. He should kill him, but hesitates... He pretends to be fickle. What would he become without his famous alter-ego, his model, in a way? It's true the other way round, though, or so he wants Sherlock to believe.

"Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain. You need me, or you're nothing. Because we're just alike, You and I. Except you're boring."

Andrew Scott's performance was really a surprise to me !

First time I saw him, I thought : No! He's much too young, he is too much... not enough... What the fuck of a Moriarty is that?!

A new Moriarty it was, for sure, far from the old respectable Professor and the physical description of Doyle's Moriarty. It took some time to pass my reticence, but finally, I couldn't resist.

Andrew Scott plays an extraordinary subtle pervert. Frightening, but not that much. We know that Moriarty is cruel, that he has no moral limit at all. But it's hard, nonetheless, to imagine his cruelty.

Just like Sherlock, Moriarty likes to disguise himself. At their first meeting, he is Molly's boyfriend, an inoffensive lab assistant. Sherlock sees the liar, but he fails to see the danger.

And that the point with Scott's performance. OK, his character is a pervert and a sadist, a master of dark side of the power, etc... But, well, he gives such a brilliant opposition to Sherlock, he is such an efficient medicine against ennui...

So, after a third season with a much too smooth villain, when I saw "did you miss me?", that was a relief. Oh God yes, I missed him! Give us back our true brilliant villain.