Watson Boss Promises Resolution To Sherlock Mystery In Back Half Of Season 2 — Plus: Grade The Fall Finale

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the fall finale of "Watson" Season 2. Proceed accordingly. 

"Watson" is really making us work for it, eh? 

The CBS drama's fall finale, which aired Monday, didn't get us any closer to the truth about its iconic sleuth; at least now, though, John is no longer alone in his search for what's really going on with Sherlock Holmes. But Season 2's central mystery remains in play: Is Holmes (played by Robert Carlyle) really around, or is he merely in Watson's mind? And if so, what do the hallucinations mean for John's health?

Don't worry, show boss Craig Sweeny tells us: Everything will become clear in the second half of Season 2. More on that in a minute, but first, a quick recap.

During the episode, Watson feared that Holmes' erratic body movements and tendency to repeat himself was evidence of a health crisis for his old friend. He eventually got the detective to agree to be seen at the hospital, but Sherlock slipped away before anyone could attend to him. In frustration, Watson let Shinwell in on the news that Holmes had returned.

Elsewhere, Sasha decided to communicate with a woman claiming to be her birth mother, Ingrid ended things with Beck and a return visit from Hobie (the glowing chest dude played by Nat Faxon) spurred Watson to make a romantic overture... but to whom?

"Watson" won't return for the back half of Season 2 until March, when it will begin airing on a new night: Sunday. The midseason premiere is slated for March 1 at 10/9c, following "Tracker." To tide you over until then, I asked series creator Craig Sweeny for a little scoop on what to expect when the series comes back. Read on to see what he said.

TVLINE | Watson is worried about Sherlock. I'm worried that Sherlock isn't actually there, and that Watson's concern for Sherlock is actually concern for his own health. My thoughts are all crossed over, my mental murder board is insane. Please give me anything to go on here.
CRAIG SWEENY | You're right that there are things that indicate that Sherlock is not there, and there are things that indicate that Sherlock is there. And that will all be squared in a coherent way that speaks to their friendship, speaks to the state of Watson, speaks to everything that's happened to him since he went over the waterfall. It's a story about a real friendship that happens in a in a in a very unusual way.

TVLINE | There was even that bit of dialogue in last week's episode, where Watson said something like, "Maybe I'm talking to myself when I'm talking to Sherlock." I love it when a show acknowledges in real time how it's messing with us.
Well, yeah. I mean, Watson hallucinated Sherlock in Season 1. And you know, you're both talking about what audiences' expectations are, and telling them this is a mystery show, and also trying to be surprising. So, I don't know. We spent a lot of time on it. We're super happy to have Robert playing the role of Sherlock. It's one of many things he was born to do, and we feel we obviously we owe a debt to canon, and to fans, and, I'm psyched about what we have. I hope people are happy with it.

TVLINE | Let's skip to the very end of the episode, where Watson is moved to speak what is on his heart to Mary, and he walks in on her with another guy. Talk to me about Laila in all of this. Is she as important to him as we've been led to believe?
What you see in that moment is that Watson has told himself a story about moving on. And Leila is clearly an extraordinary woman and worthy of anybody's love. And yet, when his friend Hobie told him to go tell the woman that he loved that he loved her, he went where he went. And you can't walk that back. So yeah, we're gonna have to unwind that complicated situation.

TVLINE | Let's talk about Beck, whom we learn at the end of the episode is pretending to be Sasha's birth mother. What can you tease about that, as well as Ingrid's involvement with Beck as the season continues?
It's interesting because he is what Ingrid is, to a more extreme degree, and she has a lot to learn about, like, "Oh, there's somebody who can take what I do that much further," you know? She does mean it when she says we're done romantically. But Beck entwines himself in her life and in the life of the clinic in new and surprising ways.

I mean, he was present for a very traumatic event that, if you got involved with a lawyer, could lead to all kinds of things. But Ingrid's discovery of who Beck really is, and what he is up to in regards to Ingrid's one real friend in the world, really drives her story in the second half of the season.

TVLINE | Watson has now told Shinwell that Sherlock is alive. Will we see more people get brought into this?
Yes, definitely. It gets more and more complicated as it goes. Another character who doesn't have the same history but who has expressed curiosity about the world's greatest detective is Lestrade, and that becomes very complicated, as well, going forward. What's going on with Watson, and the truth about Sherlock, really drives the back half of our season.

TVLINE | I think you and I are roughly the same age, so I'm going to make this reference and hope you get it: Sherlock feels very Mr. Snuffleupagus-y to me.
[Laughs] I'm very flattered by that reference. I think that's great. If we can live up to that, I'm happy.

TVLINE | The season's synopsis hints that there's something going on in Watson's body that we — and he — don't fully know about. Is there an episode coming up that you would say really pushes that along?
When you get to the middle portion of our back half, that will all become apparent. Watson's worries about Sherlock that you've seen are prescient, but perhaps not exactly in the way that Watson expects.

What did you think of the fall finale of "Watson"? Grade it via the poll below, then us know in the comments!