The Blind Banker

"The Blind Banker" is the second episode of the television series Sherlock, first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 1 August 2010. It was written by Stephen Thompson and directed by Euros Lyn. Sherlock is a loose adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, set in the modern day. "The Blind Banker" follows Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and John Watson (Martin Freeman) as they investigate a series of ciphers representing numbers in an ancient Chinese numeral system which have been left by a Chinese smuggling ring who seem intent on killing to retrieve an item one of them stole. It attracted 8.07 million viewers on BBC One and BBC HD. Critical reception was generally positive, though some reviewers felt it was inferior to the first episode. The episode was also criticised for its orientalist clichés. Plot At the National Antiquities Museum, Chinese pottery expert Soo Lin Yao (Gemma Chan) sees something frightening and disappears. Meanwhile, Sherlock takes John to a high-powered international finance house. There, Sebastian Wilkes (Bertie Carvel), an old university acquaintance of Sherlock's, asks for help. A break-in occurred in which a seemingly meaningless pair of symbols were spray-painted onto a portrait of a banker. Sherlock realises it was a message meant for one man – Edward van Coon of the Hong Kong desk – who has not come to work. Sherlock breaks into van Coon's locked flat and finds him dead. The police, under Detective Inspector Dimmock (Paul Chequer), regard it as a suicide, though Sherlock sees it as murder. Soon, journalist Brian Lukis (Howard Coggins) is killed inside his locked flat. Sherlock and John investigate, and in a library where Lukis had been, they find the same mysterious symbols painted on a shelf.