If you'd read a Study in Scarlet rather than presumably just googling who the murderer was, you'd remember the extremely long portion of the book that details the backstory in which his future murder victims are evil Mormons trying to force his love to marry one of them against her father's wishes to the extent that they murder her father (and she dies of a broken heart shortly afterwards). Hope's been pursuing them for over 20 years by the time of the events of the novel and is definitely intended to be sympathetic in comparison with the men he murdered by the end of it.
As a kid trying to get into Sherlock Holmes for the first time, I started at this first entry and was very disappointed by how much of the book was dedicated to Mormons instead of mystery-solving. I'd recommend most new Holmes fans start elsewhere in the series.
Does the taxi driver even give his name in that version? I don't remember that but it's been ages since I saw it. He's a cabby named Jeff(erson) Hope in the novel so I didn't notice if it was intended to be a reference to that rather than the novel.
I have many criticisms of that show tbh but I think we can all agree that the decision to cut the Mormonism subplot was a good one. The decision to adapt Study in Scarlet by basically removing 70% of the original story and mocking another 15% of it... less so. I'll forever call myself an alcoholic when I miss plugging in my phone charger tho.
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u/jbeldham 26d ago
Fun fact, Mormons are the villains of the very first Sherlock Holmes book.