Amanda Abbington Talks Huge Sherlock Shock

Sherlock Season 3 left fans with quite a twist when John Watson's new wife, Mary, revealed herself to be an assassin and shot Sherlock. Not a lot of fans saw that coming, and neither did the actress who plays Mary.

That actress is Amanda Abbington, who is married to Martin Freeman, the actor who plays Watson. ComicBook.com's Jim Viscardi caught up with Abbington and producer Sue Vertue at Comic-Con International: San Diego 2016 and asked about the big twist.

"I didn't see that coming," says Abbington. "Martin and I were sitting in our front room, in our living room, because we always read the scripts together when we get them, and when we got to the part where she shoots Sherlock, we just looked at each other and said, 'Oh my god, this is just – this is amazing.'

"It's such a huge twist and you totally don't see it coming," Abbington continues. "And I knew that there would be quite a few fans that would hate me, which was great, because that's what we do, we make characters that you love and hate. It was lovely to read that and know, 'Oh, I've got to play that, that'll be great. I have to play this assassin, this kind of hard-nosed, a really scary assassin who seems quite mild-mannered."

Some fans had suspected something was up with Mary to begin with. A common fan theory is that she's an altered version of the Sherlock Holmes villain Sebastian Moran, a fan theory that gained some traction through a clue left in the Sherlock coloring book.

Sherlock Season 4 will premiere in 2017.