The 'Miss Scarlet & the Duke' Season 3 Premiere Returns to the Status Quo

It's worth saying: The cold open for Miss Scarlet & the Duke's Season 3 premiere is one of the best sequences the show's ever done. Not only is the image of Eliza, Ivy, Clementine, some dude named Sampson, and Mr. Potts, of all people lining up to get mug shots taken after getting arrested genuinely hilarious, it immediately makes you, as a viewer, want to know more. How did Eliza convince all these people (Mr! Potts!) to help her with some mad scheme? Where was Moses? How did they get caught? What were they doing when they got caught?

As someone who watches entirely too much TV, I immediately assumed the rest of this episode would be a flashback to flesh out this wild, madcap caper and explain how our crew of faves all ended up in jail together. (I know, we're all incredibly tired of those "24 hours ago..." title cards, but are we really to be robbed of Mr. Potts meeting Clementine??) So perhaps it's my disappointment that this wasn't the story we ultimately got in this episode that made my reaction to "The Vanishing," and if that's the case, then it's not entirely fair. But I must admit that the mystery unfolding over this hour isn't all that interesting.

The story is basically what it says on the tin: A famous local magician disappears during the last trick of his final performance (ever, he's apparently retiring on what would be his 50th anniversary), and Eliza's brought in to track him down. The specifics of her employment are probably the most interesting aspect of the plot in that they underline how much her young agency is still financially struggling. (We see Eliza get turned down for multiple bank loans before finally agreeing to work for creepy tabloid journalist Basil Sinclaire in the hopes of getting paid and getting some free publicity out of the multipart series he plans to write about the famous lady detective solving crimes.)