Funny / Sherlock

It's clear that moments like these are there when you have Steven Moffat on the show.

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In general

• Sherlock himself throughout the entire series is hilarious. Just the contrast in his own personality. He's too lazy to reach three inches for John's phone in "A Study in Pink", but not half an hour later will chase down a taxi to prove John's limp isn't necessary. He turns the sitting room into a disaster area before John can even see the flat, but he has a sock index and his bedroom is very clean when we see it. He lounges around the flat dressing lazier than most of the addicts we meet in the series (in "The Great Game" he couldn't even be bothered to put his robe back on his shoulder after it had fallen off) but when he bothers to get dressed it's always into a perfectly pressed suit complete with jacket (though minus the tie) and even puts effort into keeping it looking nice. When he's bored he lounges around the flat, half sliding off his chair (or just plain laying sideways in it) and stepping on furniture, but when he's out of the flat or moving around (while dressed) his posture is near perfect, if not completely perfect. When off a case for too long (read: any length of time at all) he's constantly moving, bouncing around the flat like an excitable puppy but when he's on a case and thinking hard on it he'll sit in the exact same spot for hours without moving. He's a walking contradiction and a very, very large part of what makes the show so much fun to watch without saying a word.
• This is the joke that just gets bigger the longer you think about it: Sherlock sees through everything and everyone in seconds. What's incredible, though, is how spectacularly ignorant he is about some things....like himself. At the beginning of "A Study In Pink", Sherlock's idea of his own worst habits are playing the violin when he's thinking, and sometimes not talking for days on end. He seems to have left out such cute little habits as:
  • Storing body parts in the fridge and eyeballs in the microwave,
  • Keeping a human skull on the mantlepiece,
  • Potentially having a stash of presumably illegal narcotics on the premises,
  • Shooting up a smiley face on the wall when bored,
  • Apparently not needing to sleep for days on end (and not letting anybody else sleep either),
  • Attention-seeking and expecting to be entertained every time he's bored (which happens quite often)
  • Rudeness of both the blatant and snarky varieties,
  • Spreading his personal belongings absolutely everywhere, including commandeering the kitchen table (and fridge),
  • Treating his flatmate's few personal belongings as if he has a God-given right to use them without asking.
  • Pissing off the Metropolitan Police so much that they'll conduct (fake) drug busts as retaliation.
  • Occasionally walking around the house in just a bedsheet.
  • Refusal to answer the door and phone, even though they are usually for him.
  • According to Sherlock's forum and John's blog, Sherlock also communicates with John online if he's feeling too lazy to walk upstairs to speak with him in person, insults him on a public website, threatens his personal belongings because he's bored and seems not to have done any housework, at all, in two months.

Series One

A Study In Pink

• It's a bit of Black Humor, but funny in an ironic way that after pushing the 'present day' of the story forward 120 years, one of the few things they didn't have to change was that Watson was still injured in Afghanistan.
• While Sherlock is showing off his deductive abilities to John, Mike is just standing off to one side, smiling quietly. Clearly, he's been through this before—multiple times, almost certainly—and is just relishing the chance to watch someone else get scanned.
• John's very quick to agree to join Sherlock for an investigation:
  Sherlock: You're a doctor. In fact, you're an army doctor.
  John: ... Yes.
  Sherlock: Any good?
  John: Very good.
  Sherlock: Seen a lot of injuries then. Violent deaths.
  John: Well... yes.
  Sherlock: Bit of trouble too, I bet.
  John: Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much.
  Sherlock: ...Wanna see some more?
  John: Oh God yes.
• John tried several times to ask Anthea out. And it's a hilarious No-Sell.
• Sherlock's parting remark and excuse for dashing off from his first meeting with John: "I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary." Especially when you remember that we saw what Sherlock was doing with a riding crop in a mortuary (and it was still weird and wrong and slightly disturbing) but John has absolutely no context for this remark whatsoever.
• The text scene in the beginning of "A Study In Pink". Wrong!
  • Doubly so because Sherlock is not even present at the press conference and he still knows exactly when to simultaneously send this message to every single journalist's cell phone.
  • The press conference has several cameras, so Sherlock might have been seeing the conference live.
• "Yes, but if they are murders, how do people keep themselves safe?" "Well, don't commit suicide." ^note Even better, this turns out to be good advice; if you don't take the pill, you can't get killed.
  • And then we have Sally Donovan murmuring "Daily Mail" into her hand. Looks like Sherlock isn't the only person on this show with total contempt for journalists and their stupid questions.
• After correctly deducing that John was a returning soldier whose sibling is a soon to be divorced drinker we get this:
  John: Harry and Clara split up three months ago. They're getting a divorce. And Harry is a drinker.
  Sherlock: Spot on, then. I wasn't expecting to get everything right.
  John: Harry's short for Harriet.
  • What really sells it is the wide eyed look Sherlock gets as he actually stops walking for a second and then ruefully confirms that the "brother" is actually a sister. You can practically see Sherlock going over the hints that would've told him that.
• A classic hilarious snark from Sherlock when Lestrade has just clued him in on the fact that it was murder:
  Sherlock: Where is her case? Did she eat it?!
  
• Sherlock's creative cookery:
  Donovan: Are these human eyes?
  Sherlock: Put those back!
  Donovan: They were in the microwave!
  Sherlock: It's an experiment!
• In "A Study in Pink", John learns the hard way that when you do what Sherlock says without question, there will inevitably be some weird consequences:
  John: Sorry- what are we doing? Did I just text a murderer?
• Sherlock abruptly revealing that two of the police officers are having an affair:
  Sherlock: And is your wife away for long?
  Anderson: Oh, don't pretend you worked that out. Somebody told you that.
  Sherlock: Your deodorant told me that.
  Anderson: My deodorant?
  Sherlock: It's for men.
  Anderson: Well of course it's for men, I'm wearing it!
  Sherlock: So is Sergeant Donovan.
  [blood drains from Anderson's face]
  Sherlock: Oh, and I think it just vaporised. May I go in?
  Anderson: Now look, whatever you're trying to imply-
  Sherlock: (Walks past him and Donovan) I'm not implying anything. I'm sure Sally came round for a nice little chat, and just happened to stay over. (Turns to look at Anderson) And I assume she scrubbed your floors, going by the state of her knees.
  • The line and then the subsequent look on Donovan's face is funny enough, but when John walks past her, he absolutely can't help himself and glances down at her knees.
  • Even better, if you know UK slang, with the "scrubbed your floors" line, Sherlock's indulging in a Stealth Insult: "scrubber" in UK slang means "whore".
• This over his shoulder to Anderson:
  Sherlock: Anderson, don't talk out loud, you lower the IQ of the entire street.
• Sherlock just can't and won't miss any chance to bully Anderson just for fun:
  Sherlock: Shut up everybody, shut up! Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe, I'm trying to think. Anderson, face the other way, you're putting me off.
  Anderson: What, my face is?
  Lestrade: Everybody, quiet and still. Anderson, turn your back.
  Anderson: Oh, for God's sake...
  Lestrade: Your back! Now, please!
• Another gem involving Anderson:
  Anderson: Rache! German word for revenge. She could be trying to tell us—
  Sherlock: Yes, thank you for your input. [slams door in Anderson's face]
  • YMMV, but even better if you've read the first story, because it actually did mean revenge in "Study in Scarlet."
• After Mycroft gets John's attention by calling every phone he walks past on the street.
  John: You know, I've got a phone. I mean, very clever and all that... but, uh, you could just phone me. On my phone.
• Responding to John, who's just noticed that he's wearing three nicotine patches on one forearm:
  Sherlock: It's a three-patch problem.
  • Of course, if you think about it, it's a nod back to the original, in which Holmes sometimes measured the time it took him to solve a case in tobacco pipes he had to smoke through.
  • Even funnier later: as different as they are, Sherlock is shocked when he pulls up his sleeve to show the nicotine patches and prove he's going clean during the "drug bust" and Lestrade does the same thing.
• John's response to Sherlock's first use of his mighty Sherlock Scan, which tells him John had served in Afghanistan:
  John: That... was amazing!
  Sherlock: You think so?
  John: Of course it was, it was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary.
  Sherlock: That's not what people normally say.
  John: What do people normally say?
  Sherlock: "Piss off."
• Sherlock and the cabbie are discussing Sherlock's "fan."
  Cabbie: You're too modest, Mr Holmes.
  Sherlock: I'm really not.
• A case of Insistent Terminology:
  Sherlock: I'm not a psychopath, Anderson, I'm a high-functioning sociopath; do your research.
  • And what sells it was Anderson's stunned face as if he didn't expect it.
  • And in case you were wondering where he'd gotten the idea:
    Sherlock: BRILLIANT! YES! Four serial suicides, and now a note! Oh, it's Christmas!
• This is in the weird no-man's-land that is both Funny and quite sad-
  Mrs. Hudson: Just have a sit down and rest your leg.
  John Watson: DAMN MY LEG! Sorry!
• Sherlock and John are sitting in a restaurant on a stakeout, and it turns out Sherlock is a favourite of the owner, who he had proved was committing a burglary at the time of a triple murder.
  Angelo: He cleared my name.
  Sherlock: I cleared it a bit.
  Angelo: But for this man, I'd have gone to prison.
  Sherlock: You did go to prison.
  Angelo: [brings a candle, gives Watson a thumbs-up]
  • At the thumbs-up gesture, John stops protesting about not being Sherlock's date and instead gives a defeated, politely mumbled "thanks..."
  • The scene from the unaired pilot is also pretty funny, as well as being sweeter than the above scene, with Angelo actually hugging a nonplussed Sherlock and promising to personally cook whatever they ordered himself.
• The unaired pilot has an hysterical scene where Sherlock throws a glass of white wine in his own face (John's reaction is gold), then asks Angelo using the code "headless nun" to throw him out onto the street for being drunk. Angelo obliges in the most enthusiastic "And STAY OUT!" way possible. It's a pity this never made it into the series, as Sherlock's subsequent fake-drunk stumbling about in front of traffic is hilarious.
• After the chase after the cab, Sherlock and John arrive back at Baker Street, breathless and giggling:
  John: That was ridiculous. That was... the most ridiculous thing I've ever done...
  Sherlock: And you invaded Afghanistan...
  John: [Giggling hysterically] That wasn't JUST me.
• Lestrade getting into Sherlock's flat by doing a drugs bust:
  Sherlock: I'm not your sniffer dog!
  Lestrade: No. Anderson's my sniffer dog.
  Sherlock: Wh— Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?!
  Anderson: [smug] Oh, I volunteered.
  Lestrade: They all did. They're not strictly speaking ON the drug squad, but they're very keen.
• Sherlock and Lestrade at a crime scene:
  Sherlock: Shut up.
  Lestrade: I didn't say anything.
  Sherlock: You were thinking. It's annoying.
• Sherlock responds quite reasonably to Watson and Lestrade's confusion regarding one of his deductions:
  Sherlock: Dear god, what is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring.
  • Sherlock seems to think repeating the word "Rachel" is going to enlighten the whole room:
    Sherlock: Ha, look at you lot, you're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing.
  • This bit:
    Sherlock: What's wrong?
    John: I just met a friend of yours.
    Sherlock: [taken aback] A friend?
    John: Well, an enemy.
    Sherlock: [calmly] Oh. Which one?
    John: Well, your arch-enemy, according to him. Do people have arch-enemies?
    Sherlock: Did he offer you money to spy on me?
    John: ... Yes.
    Sherlock: Did you take it?
    John: No.
    Sherlock: Pity. We could've split the fee. Think it through next time.
  • And later:
    John: Have you talked to the police?
    Sherlock: Four people are dead. There isn't time to talk to the police.
    John: So why are you talking to me?!
    Sherlock: Mrs. Hudson took my skull...
    John: ... So I'm just basically filling in for your skull?
    Sherlock: Relax, you're doing fine.
    • Made funnier by the fact that Sherlock sounds rather forlorn when talking about the skull, and taking a longing look at where it used to sit.
• The reveal that the man who calls himself Sherlock's "archenemy" is actually his brother:
  John: So when you say you're concerned about him... you really are concerned about him?
  Mycroft: Yes, of course.
  John: And when he says that it's a childish feud...it really is a childish feud?
  Mycroft: [sighs heavily] He's always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners...
  John: Yeah... no. God, no.
  • Particularly funny given the hints that this was going to be Moriarity...and then not only does it turn out to be someone completely different, the actual Moriarity is very different as well.
  • The last two lines become darkly funny in "His Last Vow" when Sherlock drugged his family.
  • Just the fact that Sherlock, of all people, calls his mother mummy.
• The entire ending to A Study in Pink is pure genius. Here are a few gems that stand out:
  Sherlock: Why have I got this blanket? They keep putting this blanket on me.
  Lestrade: Yeah, it's for shock.
  Sherlock: I'm not in shock!
  Lestrade: Yeah, but some of the guys might want to take photographs...
  Sherlock: [sighs] So the shooter? No sign?
  Lestrade: Nope. He got away before we got here. But a man like that could've had enemies, I suppose one of them might have been following him, but...we've got nothing to go on.
  Sherlock: Oh, I wouldn't say that...
  Lestrade: Okay, give me.
  Sherlock: The bullet they just dug out of the wall is from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance from that kind of a weapon, that's a crack shot you're looking for, but not just a marksman, a fighter. His hands couldn't have shaken at all, so clearly he's acclimatised to violence. He didn't fire until I was in immediate danger though, so strong moral principle. You're looking for a man probably with a history of military service and... [catches sight of John and realises who the shooter was] ...nerves of steel... ...Actually, you know what? Ignore me.
  Lestrade: Sorry?
  Sherlock: Ignore all of that. It's just the... the shock talking. [starts walking away]
  Lestrade: Where are you going?
  Sherlock: I just need to... talk about... the rent.
  Lestrade: But I've still got questions!
  Sherlock: Oh, what now? I'm in shock! Look, I've got a blanket!
  Lestrade: Sherlock...
  Sherlock: And... I've just caught you a serial killer... more or less.
  • Also this bit:
    Sherlock: Are you all right?
    John: Yes, yes, of course I'm all right.
    Sherlock: You have just killed a man.
    John: Yes, I... [pause] That's true, isn't it? [Another pause] But, he wasn't a very nice man.
    Sherlock: No. No, he wasn't really, was he?
    John: No. And frankly, a bloody awful cabbie.
    Sherlock: [smiles] That's true, he was a bad cabbie. You should have seen the route he took to get us here!
    John: [laughing] Shh, we can't giggle, it's a crime scene, stop it!
    Sherlock: Yeah, well, you're the one that shot him, don't blame me.
    John: Keep your voice down!
  • And this:
    Mycroft: Did it ever occur to you that we belong on the same side?
    Sherlock: Oddly enough, no.
  • And later:
    Sherlock: Good evening, Mycroft. Try not to start a war before I get home, you know what it does to the traffic.
  • Also:
    John: So, dim sum?
    Sherlock: Mmm. I can always predict the fortune cookies.
    John: No, you can't.
    Sherlock: Almost can. You did get shot, though?
    John: ... Sorry?
    Sherlock: In Afghanistan. There was an actual wound.
    John: Oh, yeah. Shoulder.^note Doubles as a Mythology Gag, as Doyle originally wrote in disconnected installments over time (and actually resented having to write the books) and thus forgets at various points in the original source whether John's war wound is in his shoulder or his leg.
    Sherlock: Shoulder! I thought so.
    John: No, you didn't.
    Sherlock: Left one?
    John: Lucky guess.
    Sherlock: I never guess.
    John: Yes, you do.
    Sherlock: [smiles]
    John: What are you so happy about?
    Sherlock: Moriarty.
    John: What's "Moriarty"?
    Sherlock: I have absolutely no idea.
• Also this bit at the end of the unaired pilot:
  Mrs. Hudson: Sherlock! What have you done to my house?
  Sherlock: [matter-of-factly] Nothing wrong with your house, Mrs. Hudson, which is more than can be said for the dead serial killer on your first floor.
  Mrs. Hudson: What?!
  Sherlock: Good news for London, bad news for your carpet. Good night, Mrs. Hudson.
  Mrs. Hudson: I'm not your housekeeper!
  John: [laughs] Good night, Mrs. Hudson.
• This brilliant snarky comeback of John's, after a mysterious menacing man has intimidated and kidnapped him into a dark, abandoned parking garage:
  Mycroft: If you asked, [Sherlock], he'd probably say his "arch-enemy", but he does love to be dramatic...
  John: Well, thank God you're above all that.
  • This pairs so perfectly with Sherlock and John's later conversation on the way to Angelo's: "That's the frailty of genius, John, it needs an audience," Sherlock rants, and John only responds with a glance and a soft, eloquent " ... Yeah."
• John—who's already beginning to register that Sherlock's thought processes are shall we say other than ordinary—pointing at the mantel with his stick and saying with interest, "That's a skull." And Sherlock's response, "Friend of mine. —When I say 'friend' ... " Trailing off, as if even Sherlock "Not good?" Holmes realised in mid-speech that there was no possible good ending for this sentence.
• Mrs Hudson fussing about her 'herbal soothers' during the drugs bust is particularly hilarious in hindsight after series three, when we learn she used to work in her husband's drug cartel and the 'pressure point' Magnassun identified was marijuana.
  • Also makes another moment funny and heartwarming: 221B is being offered as a discount because Sherlock did Mrs. Hudson a favour regarding her husband being almost executed in prison. When John asks if Sherlock exonerated him, Sherlock replies that no, he ensured it.
• The occasional shoutout to the original novels, where Mycroft is described as being "stouter" than his younger brother.
  Sherlock: Putting on weight again?
  • The gag about Mycroft's supposed weight problem crops up occasionally on other seasons, more notably in "The Sign of Three".
• The whole dramatic lead up to the cabbie shooting Sherlock, with the dramatic music and shots and all. Then the cabbie pulls the trigger...to reveal the gun's a lighter.

The Blind Banker

• In summary: this episode was infamous for the fact that the villainous group has been frequently grabbing the Idiot Ball. And that doesn't even begin to capture how unbelievably incompetent they and their leader were, leading Moriarty to double-cross and shoot their leader.
• Poor John trying to get some grocery shopping done doesn't go quite as planned, leading to this funny exchange:
  John: Yeah, I didn't get the shopping.
  Sherlock: What? Why not?
  John: Because I had a row in the shop with a chip and PIN machine!
  Sherlock: You — you had a row with a machine?
  John: Sort of. It sat there and I shouted abuse.
• John returns after getting caught with Raz's bag of spray paint cans:
  Sherlock: You've been a while.
  John: Yeah, well, you know how it is — custody sergeants don't really like to be hurried, do they? Just... formalities: fingerprints, charge sheet... and I've got to be in Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.
  Sherlock: What?
  John: Me, Sherlock, in court! On Tuesday! They're giving me an ASBO! ^note Anti-social behavior order, something sort of like a non-criminal and lighter cousin to the US's disturbing the peace misdemeanor.
  Sherlock: Good. Fine.
  • And before that, the speed with which Sherlock and the urban artist dash out of the frame when the police arrive. John looks so annoyed.
  • And the conclusion of the scene back at Baker Street, where a completely unsympathetic Sherlock prevents John from sitting down, physically puts his jacket back on him and pushes him out the door to go back to Dimmock, despite John's weak protests.
• The total disgust in John's tone at the "circus" makes it hilarious:
  John: You said 'circus.' This is not a circus. Look at the size of this crowd. Sherlock, this is... art.
• After John finds a wall full of a graffiti that is crucial to the case, he brings Sherlock to see it but they discover it's been painted over while John was fetching Sherlock:
  Sherlock: [grabs John's head] Shh! John, concentrate! I need you to concentrate. Close your eyes.
  John: What? Why? Why? What are you doing?
  Sherlock: [grips his shoulders and starts spinning them in a circle] I need you to maximise your visual memory. Try to picture what you saw. Can you picture it?
  John: Yeah...
  Sherlock: Can you remember it?
  John: Yes, definitely.
  Sherlock: Can you remember the pattern?
  John: Yes—
  Sherlock: How much can you remember it?
  John: Look, don't worry!
  Sherlock: Because the average human memory on visual matters is only 62% accurate!
  John: Yeah, well, don't worry. I remember all of it.
  Sherlock: [skeptical] Really?
  John: [shakes himself free of Sherlock's grasp, annoyed] Yeah! Well, at least I would if I could get to my pockets! I took a photograph! [shows Sherlock the picture of the graffiti he took on his phone]
• When Sherlock crashes John's date, they have a completely hilarious discussion on the staircase at the circus:
  John: I do have other things on my mind, you know.
  Sherlock: Like what?
  John: [gives a look of extreme stark staring disbelief] You are joking!
  • Several seconds later, John has to spell it out that he's "trying to get off with Sarah" ^note  Which doesn't automatically assume anything sexual, it depends on the person speaking. Though, knowing John... Only thing is, Sarah happens to be right behind him. His reaction when he sees her is hilarious. Bonus points when it's clear that she's heard him, and as he leads her up the staircase she looks at him as if to say "hell yeah, that sounds fine by me."
• During Sherlock's Big Damn Heroes moment, when he arrives Just in Time to save John and Sarah.
  Sherlock: How would you describe me, John? Resourceful? Dynamic? Enigmatic?
  John: Late.
• Sherlock buzzes a victim's upstairs neighbor to trick her into letting him in:
  Ms. Wintle: Hello?
  Sherlock: Hi, um I live in the flat just below you. Yeah, I don't think we've met!
  Ms. Wintle: No, well, er, I just moved in.
  Sherlock: [grimaces] Actually, I just locked my keys in my flat!
  Ms. Wintle: You want me to buzz you in?
  Sherlock: Yeah. And can I use your balcony?
  Ms. Wintle: What? [Cuts to Sherlock jumping from her balcony onto the one below it]
• This is a cute moment that becomes funnier in hindsight of two seasons: when Sherlock and John are poking around the Lucky Cat shop, the woman behind the counter makes a pretty shameless attempt to sell a Lucky Cat to John, saying she thinks his wife would like it. She is, so far, the first, the last and the only complete stranger Sherlock and John have come across who has voiced the assumption that John is straight.

The Great Game

• In the scene where Molly introduces Sherlock to Jim, she walks into the lab, letting the door go behind her. Jim follows her in- and runs smack into the door.
• More Hilarious in Hindsight, but Moriarty is the perfect criminal counterpart to Sherlock's detective. There's been a whole lot of foreshadowing and buildup, but when they actually meet for the first time?
  Sherlock: (in one quick glance, while not even paying full attention) Gay.
• Sherlock opens the envelope addressed to him at the police station and finds a familiar looking pink phone. Cue:
  John: That's the phone... the pink phone...
  Lestrade: What, from "A Study in Pink"?
  Sherlock: Obviously it's not the same phone but it's supposed to look l- [double-take] "A Study in Pink"? You read his blog?
  Lestrade: 'Course I read his blog. We all do. Do you really not know that the earth goes 'round the sun?
  [Donovan sniggers, Sherlock glares at her, John looks mortified and tries to make himself as small as possible]
• Sherlock, John and Lestrade get the key to 221C from Mrs Hudson, who is wittering on about how she can't rent 221C out because of the damp. Sherlock, ignoring her, unlocks the door and the three of them charge in- John gives her a brief apologetic look, but Sherlock and Lestrade ignore her completely. She turns to go back to her own apartment, and very quietly, we get this:
  Mrs Hudson: Oh, men.
• When Sherlock is offended by John stating that he doesn't know the most elementary things, he's reading a magazine upside down.
  • After the ensuing argument:
    Mrs Hudson: You two had a little domestic?
• On seeing Molly's new boyfriend Sherlock blurts out "gay." When asked to repeat himself, he corrects it to "nothing, um. Hey."
  • Particularly funny given that it took him literally one second to figure that out.
• John admitting that he and Mrs. Hudson watch trashy TV. Then he introduces Sherlock to it, and....well, it goes as well as you might expect:
  Sherlock: No, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Of COURSE he's not the boy's father!!! Look at the turn-ups on his jeans!!!
  • Then muttering to John that the show he's watching isn't "a patch on Connie Prince." That's right, Sherlock Holmes has now developed an addiction to a crappy daytime-TV fashion makeover show.
  • When they go to view Connie Prince's body at the morgue, Lestrade asks Sherlock if he watches Prince's makeover show in tones that imply that he also watches it.
    • And it all becomes even funnier when you remember that in "A Study in Pink", Sherlock had used completely disgusted tones when he pointed out that, instead of coming out to Northumberland Street with him, John could just "watch telly."
  • And then someone made a fan video with Sherlock watching The Empire Strikes Back, with that exact same dialogue.
• John discovering that Sherlock's been keeping a cadaver's severed head in the fridge:
  John: A severed head.
  Sherlock: Just tea for me, thanks.
  John: There's a severed head in the fridge.
  Sherlock: ...Yes...
  John: A bloody head!
  Sherlock: Well, where else was I supposed to put it? You don't mind, do you?
  • John's response to this last question is a helpless "well..." and defeated kind of flail. He drops the subject, and we never do find out what happened to the head after that.
• Sherlock not knowing the Earth goes round the Sun. (A very close rephrasing of the original dialogue.)
• This, during the Connie Prince investigation:
  Lestrade: Why is he doing this, the bomber? If this woman's death was suspicious, why point it out?
  Sherlock: Good Samaritan?
  Lestrade: Who press-gangs suicide bombers?
  Sherlock: Bad Samaritan.
• This exchange. Moriarty's tone sells it:
  Moriarty: No one ever gets to me. And no one ever will.
  Sherlock: [clicks off the safety] I did.
  Moriarty: [cheerfully] You've come the closest. Now you're in my way.
  Sherlock: Thank you.
  Moriarty: Didn't mean it as a compliment.
  Sherlock: Yes you did.
  Moriarty: [shrugs] Yeah, okay, I did.
• Later in the conversation:
  Sherlock: Catch you later.
  Moriarty: [high-pitched sing-song voice] No you won't!
• Along with John's utter and persistent disbelief that Sherlock doesn't know the earth goes around the sun, this line:
  John: But it's the solar system!
  Sherlock: Oh, how, what does that matter? So we go around the sun! If we went round the moon or round and round the garden like a teddy bear, it wouldn't make any difference!
  • The "round and round the garden like a teddy bear" line comes from a children's rhyme. Which, apparently, is important enough for Sherlock to keep it!
• Sherlock's priceless "fisticuffs◊" stance during the fight with the Golem.
  • A tribute to Jeremy Brett's version, which in turn reflected Holmes's boxing skills in the original books. It's no less hilarious when Brett does it.
  • The entire fight with the Golem. It technically shouldn't be so funny, but there's something amusing about seeing John and Sherlock struggling with a seven, eight-foot tall giant. Especially considering that Sherlock, one of the tallest, if not the tallest characters in the show, looks like a dwarf next to the assassin. All the while a monologue about the solar system is playing in the background.
• A nod to the thriving Slash Fic community:
  John: Well, I'm glad no one saw that...
  Sherlock: What?
  John: You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk.
  Sherlock: People do little else.
  • Which becomes a hilarious Brick Joke in "The Reichenbach Fall" as they're running down the street while handcuffed together and the handcuffs keep getting in the way:
    Sherlock: Take my hand!
    Beat
    John: ...Now people are definitely going to talk.
• John rushes back into the flat after a bomb went off across the street; Mycroft and Sherlock are sitting inside having a chat. He didn't tell either of them where he'd been.
  Sherlock: How's Sarah, John? How was the lilo?
  Mycroft: [not even looking at John] Sofa, Sherlock. It was the sofa.
  Sherlock: [gives John a one-second double take] Oh yes, of course.
  • John's bewildered reaction, and subsequent dropping of the matter that follows is the icing on the cake.
• When John wakes up on the aforementioned sofa, he's clearly had an awful night's sleep, prompting Sarah to tell him she'd told him he "should have gone with the lilo." She then fishes around behind John's back for the TV remote. He'd been sleeping on it.
• Sherlock pretending to be a photographer in this episode is hilarious, just because of how awful he is. The man they are investigating and supposedly interviewing is utterly bewildered. The fact that we get to see the awful photos in question as Sherlock takes them is just the icing on the cake.
  • John's not much better at the undercover thing. While posing as a journalist, he can't help himself and gets all doctory on the subject of tetanus.
• In the abovementioned scene, Prince's brother abruptly invading John's personal space, and John's borderline-terrified reaction, is hilarious. As if that wasn't enough, Prince's cat takes a distinct liking to John, swarming all over his lap the second he sits down. He at one point appears to be trying to pries her claws out of his thigh. John evidently isn't much of a fan of hairless cats.
  • This is extra funny when you hear the DVD commentary between Gatiss, Freeman and Cumberbatch. Apparently this was one of the very first scenes filmed and involved two cats, both apparently "trained." Gatiss reluctantly acknowledged that they then discovered that "there is no such thing as a trained cat." Freeman jumps in with "Hell no. It was trained in hurting John Sessions!" (Sessions playing Connie's brother.)
• The way Sherlock turns and grins at the bullet-marked smiley face on the wall after Mrs. Hudson scolds him about it—right before the bomb goes off out in the street.
• How purely immature Sherlock acts a few times in this episode is both hilarious and adorable:
  • After ranting to John about being insulted by his blog and the unimportance of heliocentricism, he irritatedly shoves a magazine across the coffee table and immediately proceeds to curl up on the couch and sulk. He sulks.
  • When Mrs. Hudson notices the bullet-hole smiley face on the wall and he turns to look at it, the way he turns practically says 'The wall? What's wrong with the wall I've got no idea what you're talking about.'
    Mrs Hudson: What have you done to my wall?!
    Sherlock: Ah, the wall had it coming.
  • His random asking of Mycroft about how his diet is going (not to mention Mycroft's slightly exasperated reply of "Fine.").
  • In an apparent effort to make Mycroft go away, he makes an awful racket scraping away on his violin. Some commenters on YouTube have decided to name this wonderful piece "Get the Hell Out of My Flat, Mycroft".
• Moriarty's delightful Mirror Character reaction to Sherlock offering him the missile plans in exchange for his and John's lives:
  Moriarty: Ohhh, the missile plans. [Beat, sing-song voice] Boring! I could've gotten those anywhere! [throws the plans into the pool]
• After Sherlock explains how he figured out how recently rediscovered, lost painting is a fake, based entirely on a corpse found in the Thames:
  John: Fantastic!
  Sherlock: Meretricious. ^note  (Superficially significant)
  Lestrade: And a Happy New Year...

Series Two

A Scandal in Belgravia

• This exchange, when John is investigating the crime scene and talking to Sherlock over video chat:
  Sherlock: This case is a six, at best. There's no point in me leaving home for anything less than a seven. We agreed.
  John: When did we agree on that?
  Sherlock: We agreed on it yesterday.
  John: I wasn't even at home yesterday, I was in Dublin.
  Sherlock: It's hardly my fault you weren't listening.
  John: Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?
  Sherlock: I don't know. How often are you away?
• Molly and Mrs. Hudson at the Christmas party:
  Molly: How's the hip?
  Mrs. Hudson: Oh, it's atrocious. But thanks for asking.
  Molly: I've seen much worse. But then, I do post-mortems...
  [Beat]
  Molly: Oh God, sorry!
• The entire "Sherlock is naked but for a sheet in Buckingham Palace" scene. Shirtless Sherlock.◊ Here come the squees! Even Holmes and Watson are cracking up at his audacity.
  • Though it appears more like the scene was so ridiculous that they decided to give up and Throw In the Corpsing:
    [Watson is escorted in, where Sherlock is sitting grouchily, still wrapped in his sheet. Watson sits, looks around, looks at Sherlock and seems to consider something]
    Watson: Are you wearing any pants?
    Sherlock: No.
    Watson: Okay.
    Sherlock/Watson: [glance at each other. Look forward. Beat. Start giggling like schoolgirls.]
    Watson: At Buckingham Palace, fine. Oh, I’m seriously fighting an impulse to steal an ashtray.
    Sherlock: [giggles some more]
    Watson: What are we doing here, Sherlock? Seriously, what?
    Sherlock: [still smiling] I don’t know.
    Watson: Here to see the Queen?
    Mycroft: [walks in]
    Sherlock: Oh! Apparently, yes.
    Sherlock/Watson: [burst out laughing]
    Mycroft: [Tranquil Fury Beat] Just once, can you two please act like grown-ups?
    Watson: We solve crimes, I blog about it, and he forgets his pants. So, I wouldn't hold out too much hope. ^note Mark Gatiss who plays Mycroft is openly gay, making this an even larger joke.
  • The nonverbal exchange when Watson first walks in is hilarious. He catches sight of Sherlock in his sheet, spreads his hands, and gives Sherlock a look like, "WTF?" Sherlock heaves this tremendous, irritated sigh, clearly sulking. Cut to Watson, who gives a short nod, like, "Okay then." This is both extra hilarious and extra heartwarming because Sherlock has been sulking like the champion sulker that he is so far, and when Watson arrives, he tries to stay grumpy but just can't help himself and cracks up.
  • Sherlock gets a bit cranky when he's caught without his pants:
    Palace Employee: People do come to you for help, don't they, Mr Holmes?
    Sherlock: Not, to date, anyone with a navy.
  • The entire exchange when Mycroft steps on Sherlock's only garment is both unspeakably hilarious and a Crowning Moment of Acting:
    Sherlock: Get off my sheet!
    Mycroft: Or what?
    Sherlock: Or I'll just walk away!
    Mycroft: I'll let you.
  • Particularly on the last two lines: suddenly twenty years have evaporated, Sherlock is a twelve-year-old boy, and Mycroft is the smug older brother getting the better of him. The cherry on this sundae is John's soft-voiced intervention: "Boys, please. Not here" — with its unspoken, "This one's Britain's only consulting detective, that one is the British Government — and it's my job to be the grown-up in the room."
    • Immediately after this conversation, Mycroft yells at Sherlock to put his clothes on. Sherlock just closes his eyes and gives an annoyed sigh, as if putting on his clothes is somehow offensive.
  • Also from this scene:
    Sherlock: WHO. IS. MY. CLIENT?
  • Followed by something which ought to stand as one of the funniest one-liners ever written for television.
    Mycroft: We are in Buckingham Palace, the very heart of the British nation. Sherlock Holmes, put your trousers on.
  • And then when Mycroft pours the tea, saying "I'll be Mother." Sherlock deadpans, "And there is a whole childhood in a nutshell." ^note Traditionally, the woman with the highest standing in a group would pour the tea.
  • Finally, on the way back to Baker Street, Watson asks Sherlock how he knew that “their client” is a smoker when so much effort had been taken suppressing that fact: Sherlock reveals that he stole an ashtray — just as Watson admitted he was tempted to do.
• This conversation between Sherlock and Mycroft, and the effect that it has on John, is hilarious. Especially since it's unclear as to whether the Holmes brothers are oblivious to the sexy implications of what they're saying, or whether they're actually doing it to John on purpose:
  Mycroft: I can tell you it's a young person. A young female person.
  Sherlock: [smirking knowingly] How many photographs?
  Mycroft: A considerable number, apparently.
  Sherlock: Do Miss Adler and this young, female person appear in these photographs together?
  Mycroft: Yes, they do.
  Sherlock: And I assume in a number of compromising scenarios.
  Mycroft: An imaginative range, we are assured.
  Sherlock: [without even looking at John, who is clearly mentally very busy] John, you might want to put that cup back in your saucer now.
• Mycroft shows that delivering an epic burn is a Holmes trait:
  Sherlock: A dominatrix...
  Mycroft: Don't be alarmed...it's to do with sex.
  Sherlock: [offended] Sex doesn't alarm me.
  Mycroft: [with a smug smile] How would you know?
  • Could also be construed as Hypocritical Humor, if you assume that this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black — which seems likely, given Mycroft's disposition and his complaint that he's "living in a world of goldfish".
• There's a funny moment of Fridge Brilliance just before this. After Mycroft asks how Sherlock would know whether sex alarms him or not, he talks about Irene providing 'recreational scolding' for people who like that kind of thing and are prepared to pay for it. He's been talking to Sherlock so far, but here he's directly addressing John, as if to imply "oh hell, it's no point in trying to explain BDSM to Sherlock, as if he'd understand what it was about."
• The safest place Sherlock knows of? Mrs Hudson's bra, apparently. Yeah.^note Yes, he probably just meant "Mrs Hudson has it", but still.
• It's a whole conversation, really, but it's beautifully played and just keeps getting funnier and funnier. In the first meeting between Irene, Sherlock and John, Sherlock twice makes a fairly childish attempt to project his own discomfort onto John ("I don't think John knows where to look" "If I wanted to look at naked women, I'd borrow John's laptop.") He's called out both times, first by Irene, then by John. When Irene puts Sherlock's coat on, John is no longer completely distracted, and joins Irene on the sofa and she starts a conversation with him about how she "likes detective stories, and detectives." Sherlock returns the conversation to how the hiker was killed, but "the position of the car" comes out as something like "thepezishcar." Benedict Cumberbatch confirms that at that point, Sherlock had become jealous of the attention Irene was now paying to John (who was starting to put on the charm). Sherlock's comments about John had been his best shot at making John the third wheel, but it looks like Sherlock is about to become the third wheel for a second. And if this little moment wasn't enough, he then proceeds to actually send John out of the room. ^note There was clearly a pre-arrangement for John to trip the smoke alarm, so he would have to have been sent out of the room at some point. Still, the look on John's face sort of implies that he was reluctant to leave and may not have been expecting to get kicked out of things that early.
• While John is upset at what "Bachelor John Watson" might imply in "The Reichenbach Fall", he appears to have totally missed a newspaper article at the beginning of "A Scandal in Belgravia" claiming that his blog "reveals the salacious truth about their home life!" Salacious, of course, meaning indecent, obscene, scandalous or perverted.
  • There is a comment he makes toward Sherlock in his blog, something like "go and get dressed"- but we've seen that Sherlock has a habit of slobbing around in his dressing gown well into the day, and that, plus the time stamp, seems to indicate that John meant "go and get dressed, because you're still in your dressing gown at this hour", not "go and get dressed, because you're wandering around naked"!
• Most of it's very visual, but the beginning of the episode. Jim apologetically asks if Sherlock minds him answering his cell phone. Sherlock assures him he doesn't mind. Jim does the wordless apology thing people do when they're talking on the telephone in front of someone, and Sherlock makes the "totally fine, completely understand" motion in response. As if they've been friends for ages.
• This is an interesting one, because it may be an unexpected blooper/mistake on the part of the actor, and may not. When John is putting out the junk mail he's set alight in the foyer of Irene's house, keep an eye on him as the CIA agents charge down the stairs. He thwacks the embers on the side table a few times, and has this sudden reaction of "Oh, shit, I didn't expect that to happen" that is hilarious, and may mean either John or Martin Freeman had just set something on fire or burned himself by accident.
• This exchange about Irene between the Holmes brothers:
  Mycroft: I can put maximum surveillance on her.
  Sherlock: Why bother? You can follow her on Twitter. I believe her username is "The Whip Hand".
• Sherlock tells two small and very sweet little girls concerned over their dead Granddad:
  Sherlock: People don't really go to heaven when they die. They're taken into a special room and burned.
  • Bonus points for it being the first time in a sequence of Sherlock being appallingly rude to prospective clients that John, without even turning around, gives a deadpan "Sherlock..."
• Another client seems to be convinced that his aunt's ashes have been replaced by someone else's... "I know human ash." John nods supportively as he raves about it, probably trying not to antagonise the guy as he seems to be quite... er... unstable. Sherlock? "Leave." And then when it's shown that he was right to suspect the switch.
• Sherlock's obviously shocked look when John tells him that no one is reading his website about 240 types of tobacco ash.^note 243!
  • And then the total role-reversal when Sherlock walks out offended, prompting Lestrade to go after him and John to look bewildered, as if to say "was it something I said?"
• Sherlock hovering over John continually as he's trying to blog. He's like a little kid wanting attention, especially in some of the things he says and the question he asks: "The Geek Interpreter, what's that? What's it need a title for?" "No, no don't mention the unsolved ones!" "No they're not, why are they?" John's deadpan, patient "because I said so" type responses are the icing on the cake.
• This conversation via webcam, when John realises Sherlock has just woken up and is only wearing a sheet:
  John: You realise this is a tiny bit humiliating...
  Sherlock: It's okay, I'm fine. Now, show me to the stream.
  John: I didn't really mean for you.
  • Extra funny when, later in the scene, we find out that not only is Sherlock wandering around like this in front of a webcam, he also has a client at 221B at the time.
  • Later, with John still at the stream, an officer comes up to him with a mobile phone and says "It's for you." John makes a move to take the call before the officer corrects him—not the phone, the helicopter.
• Poor John begs Irene, who is only wearing a pair of heels at this point, to please put something on. Anything at all. He offers her a napkin. She asks him if he's feeling exposed and approaches him, making it impossible for him to see anything else. Nonetheless, he makes an absolutely heroic attempt at maintaining eye contact with her.
  • Sherlock, up until this point, has been casually making eye contact with Irene and totally ignoring the fact that she's naked (after his initial shock). On seeing that John is extremely uncomfortable with Irene's nudity, and that Irene points out that it's because he's "feeling exposed" and "knows where to look", Sherlock offers Irene his coat... presumably for John's sake. He holds it out to her while looking away modestly. He's already seen what she has to offer. Irene's comments about John seem to indicate that his reaction is more "normal" than Sherlock's (especially when she throws "not sure about you" his way). It seems Sherlock really does not know what's socially acceptable in this instance. Generally he's learned that John is more socially adept than he is, so he's taking his "embarrassed, don't look" cue from him.
    • What might make this funnier is that, according to Lara Pulver, she actually WAS naked during that entire scene. According to her, the director gave her two options: Either we can give you the typical modesty garments, and then spend several hours trying to shoot around them, or you can forgo them, and we can get this finished in a fraction of the time. She said "Screw it" and decided to go skin-to-the-wind. It might make the entire previous scene even funnier to guess when the Sherlock/John/Irene awkwardness ends and the Benedict/Martin/Lara awkwardness begins.
• Sherlock's impersonation of a bewildered, crying, wimpish clergyman is absolutely hysterical. Irene's companion Kate, on the intercom, is fighting back her laughter, and how John's managed to play his role with a straight face is a mystery.
• Despite being drugged and then slapped around, and sprawled on the floor about to pass out, Sherlock refuses to let go of the phone, prompting Irene to roll her eyes and exclaim "oh for heaven's sake!" and then whip him like a badly behaved dog. Seems Sherlock did not take Irene's masthead "know when you are beaten" seriously after all...
• When Sherlock, after having been drugged, wakes up in his room (with totally hilarious and adorable bed hair) in "A Scandal in Belgravia", he's a bit confused:
  Sherlock: How did I get here?
  John: Well, I don't suppose you remember much, you weren't making a lot of sense. Oh. I should warn you—I think Lestrade filmed you on his phone.
  • An excellent Call-Back to "A Study in Pink", where Lestrade comments that some of the police officers might want to photograph the great Sherlock Holmes draped with a shock blanket. Surely Lestrade having actual footage of the great Sherlock Holmes drugged out of his mind and slurring incoherently would be gold down at the Yard.
• During the Christmas interlude. Molly, who is very dressed up for her, takes her coat off to reveal a very cute and unexpectedly pretty/girly dress◊; Lestrade spends some time picking his jaw back up off the floor.
  • Possibly just as funny, was John's mostly surprised but still deadpan "Holy Mary" as she does so.
  • Lestrade's reaction is extra funny when you see where he's standing... slightly behind Molly. John's got a view from the front, but Lestrade is checking out Molly's derriere.
  • Possibly unscripted as Louise Brealey (Molly Hooper) said after the broadcast of this episode on Twitter that she was going to have words with Rupert Graves (Lestrade) about it!
• Also during the Christmas scene. When Sherlock begins his rant about Molly, John murmurs "take a day off". Lestrade's just been told his wife is sleeping with a PE teacher, and he's off-duty and has started drinking. So he says what John won't by slapping a drink down in front of Sherlock and telling him straight.
  Lestrade: Oh, shut up and have a drink!
  • It's very, very darkly funny, considering, but Lestrade taking about fifteen seconds to process that Sherlock's just told him that his wife is cheating on him is hilarious. His face when it finally fully dawns on him is priceless.
• Sherlock is obviously a bit overwhelmed by the socialising going on (which he's awful at). Through the Christmas party he's obsessing over John's blog, and calls him over to point out that the page count is stuck at 1895. John's deadpan response? A frustrated slap on the table and:
  John: Oh, no. Christmas is cancelled.
• John being dumped by Jeanette was pretty funny. He at first seems quite desperate to stay in her good books- offering to walk a dog she doesn't have, apparently confusing her with his last girlfriend- but once she's made up her mind to dump him and storms out, he doesn't seem particularly bothered:
  John: I'll call you—?
  Jeanette: NO.
  John: Okay.
  • Also, his confused reaction earlier, when Jeanette snipes at him that he's a great boyfriend. He's patently not, and he knows it. Even he has to admit that he's a pretty crappy boyfriend. The punchline:
    Jeanette: And Sherlock Holmes is a very lucky man!
  • And the fact that a week later, John isn't exactly mourning his lost relationship. No, he's eying over the pretty redhead standing outside his flat, who seems to know his name and who asks him pretty suggestively what he's up to for New Year.
• Sherlock, via Wi-fi, going into an uncomplimentary rant about a crime witness (including calling him an idiot, and describing him having a "tiny IQ", "limited life expectancy", the "right sleeve of an internet porn addict" and "the breathing pattern of an untreated heart condition") — then without missing a beat, he then moves in his chair, to reveal the poor guy sitting right there behind him, and says to him:
  Sherlock: Don't worry, this is just stupid.
  • Not to mention the guy's panicked response:
  Client: What did he say? Heart WHAT?
  • Before this, John threatening to shut Sherlock up via mute-button.

• The running gag concerning a phone in Sherlock's possession with a rather... orgasmic message alert tone. In one scene, Mycroft and John both hear it, but neither is prepared to state the obvious about the sound, until Mrs Hudson wanders in:
  Mrs Hudson: Oh dear. It's a bit rude, that noise, isn't it??
  • The messages keep coming and Mycroft and John are trying not to react. Mrs Hudson again:
  Mrs Hudson: Would you turn that phone down a bit? At my time of life, it's—
  • John later enquires as to exactly why Sherlock's text alerts are making a drastically different noise than they did the day before, but all he's prepared to describe it as is "... that noise. That noise it just made..."
  • Sherlock gets an alert on Christmas Eve. Hilarity ensues when Molly (who he's speaking with, who has a huge crush on him, and who he had just given a kiss on the cheek) panics:
    Molly: [mortified] Ah, no! That wasn't... I didn't...
    Sherlock: No, that was me.
    Lestrade: My God, really?!
    Sherlock: [rolling his eyes] My phone.
  • When the text message alert goes off in this scene, the look Lestrade gives John is hilarious.
  • On a related note, Jim Moriarty's ringtone is Staying Alive. Considering whose phone it is, "Staying Alive" is a pretty ironic ringtone to have.
• Sherlock hiding behind his newspaper in embarrassment, as John points out that he's not, in fact, stupid, and that he knows the phone was in Sherlock's coat pocket, the coat was on Irene, and the texts are from her.
  Sherlock: I'll leave you to your deductions.
• Sherlock enlists John to help him apply his war-paint before going into battle with Irene:
  Sherlock: Punch me in the face.
  John: Punch you?
  Sherlock: Yes, punch me in the face! Didn't you hear me?
  John: I always hear “punch me in the face” when you’re speaking, but it’s usually subtext.
  • Then, to top it off, John refuses, so Sherlock punches him first. John hits back, then Sherlock staggers upright and says that should be enough, and then John tackles him. It cuts briefly away to Irene, and then back, where John has Sherlock in a headlock.
    John: Remember, Sherlock, I was a soldier! I killed people!
    Sherlock: You were a doctor!
    John: I had bad days!
• During the brief montage of Sherlock meeting potential clients, one of them is a large, dowdy woman who suspects her husband is having an affair. Sherlock responds with one word: "Yes."
• Sherlock getting up after he's been drugged and constantly falling down again. When John opens the bedroom door, it's just in time to see Sherlock tumble over the foot of the bed and thud onto the floor. John's expression doesn't even change.
• Sherlock is unimpressed with Irene being stark naked:
  Sherlock: If I wanted to look at naked women, I'd borrow John's laptop.
  John: You do borrow my laptop.
  Sherlock: I confiscate it.
  • Extra funny when Irene herself breaks up this bickering (which is essentially about whether or not Sherlock looks at porn) with "Oh never mind, we've got better things to talk about!"
• Sherlock decides to call the police by shooting a gun into the air outside Irene's house.
  John: Oh for God's sake...
  Sherlock: Oh, shut up. It's quick.
• As he's trying to figure out the code (prior to the CIA intrusion) Sherlock gets in this line:
  Sherlock: Can't be a birth date. No disrespect, but clearly you were born in the eighties. Eight's barely used, so...
• If you pause at the newspaper article early in the episode, you'll notice that the article affectionately dubs Sherlock and John as "Hat-Man and Robin".
• After the break-in at Irene's house, John beckons Sherlock into the break-in point, the bedroom, where he has found Irene's companion Kate unconscious on the floor. Sherlock walks right past her prone figure and he doesn't even glance at her. Yep. Sociopath. High-functioning sociopath!
  • Don't forget Irene's response to being told Kate has been choked until she passed out, which implies that Kate is used to that sort of thing.
• This line may not have been meant the way it came out, but... really? John's reaction kind of sells it:
  Irene: There's a back door. Better check it, Dr. Watson.
• In the scene at Baker Street the morning after the adventure at Irene Adler's, Sherlock and John scoring points off Mycroft:
  Sherlock: Treat [Irene] like royalty, Mycroft.
  John:... Though not the way she treats royalty.
  • Mycroft's response to John's remark is a pissed off, "Oh screw you, John Watson" look, through a forced smile. It's hilarious. There's also the moment where John's eyes shoot up just before he says that line.
• Among the awesome items that Sherlock and John have littered around the living room at Baker Street, this one stands out as funny. During the Christmas/New Year interlude, the skull Sherlock keeps on the mantelpiece has been adorned with a very cute Santa hat.
  • And remember those reindeer antlers that Mrs. Hudson wanted Sherlock to put on? Look very carefully at the animal skull with the headphones in the scene when Sherlock is playing sad music, and you'll see where they went.
• Sherlock enjoys getting some subtle digs in with his music:
  Mycroft: Now if you'll excuse me, I have a long and arduous apology to make to a very old friend.
  Sherlock: Do give her my love. [begins playing "God Save The Queen"]
• During Mycroft and John's otherwise very serious conversation, Mycroft reveals that Sherlock wanted to be a pirate when he was little.
• This little gem.
  Sherlock: Please don't feel obliged to tell me that was amazing, John's expressed that in every possible variant available in English.
  Irene: I would have you right here, on this desk, until you begged for mercy twice.
  [Long, long silence]
  Sherlock John, can you check those flight schedules, see if I'm right?
  John: I'm on it, yeah.
  Sherlock: I've never begged for mercy in my life.
  Irene: Twice.
• Molly's jealousy of Adler.
  Molly: How did he [Sherlock] recognise her [Adler] from... not her face?
  • The best part is you can practically see her thinking "Don't say vagina. Don't say vagina. Don't say vagina."
• Apparently Sherlock has a "sock index." And John has messed it up searching for drugs before.
• The delivery of the last line makes the whole exchange.
  Lestrade: Have you heard of Sherlock Holmes?
  Officer Carter: Who?
  Lestrade: Well, you're about to meet him, now. This is your case, it's entirely up to you. This is just friendly advice, but: Give Sherlock five minutes on your crime scene, and listen to everything that he has to say. And as far as possible, try not to punch him.
• Irene apparently ended the marriage of a prominent novelist by having an affair with both parties. Separately.
• The sequence where Sherlock and Irene prepare to meet each other is hilarious in the contrast between them. Irene's sexy professional shots, vs pictures of Sherlock in nothing but a sheet looking grumpy and much less glamorous. The shot of Irene, with a Navel-Deep Neckline, practically in a state of bliss in her wardrobe of beautiful clothes, versus Sherlock apparently trying on every single outfit he owns, then throwing discarded disguise ideas into the hall, prompting John to demand to know what on earth he's doing. John comments that Sherlock didn't even change clothes in the end; Irene took hers off completely, except for a pair of heels. And finally, for the crowning hilarity- Irene's companion sensuously applying her "blood" coloured lipstick, versus John beating up Sherlock.
• Sherlock's insistence that he doesn't need a public image — with his collar turned up and wearing the trademark deerstalker cap, as the page image.
  • It's even funnier during the moment where he wore this while trying to evade press.
• This moment when Sherlock has captured one of the agents who was threatening Mrs. Hudson. He gets on the phone with Lestrade:
  Sherlock: [on the phone] Lestrade? We've had a break-in at Baker Street. Send your least irritating officers, and an ambulance. Oh, no-no-no-no, we're fine. No, it's the, uh, it's the burglar. He's got himself rather badly injured. Oh, a few broken ribs, fractured skull. Suspected punctured lung. He fell out of a window. [Cuts to Mrs Hudson's downstairs flat, where John is cleaning her face]
  Mrs. Hudson: Oh, it stings. [The shadow of something large and body-shaped falls past the window and crashes on top of a dumpster] Oh, that was right on my bins! [Cuts to police officers and paramedics congregating outside as an ambulance leaves and Sherlock stands by Lestrade on the sidewalk]
  Lestrade: [dryly] And exactly how many times did he fall out the window?
  Sherlock: Oh, it's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count.
  • Also, in Britain, one common element in cleaning fluid is ammonia. Just imagine getting thrown out of a window, and getting ammonia in your wounds once you land!
  • For John, he left a notice saying "CRIME IN PROGRESS. PLEASE DISTURB."
• Season one ends on a nail-biting cliffhanger. Season two continues right where season one left off and that cliffhanger is resolved by... Moriarty's phone ringing with "Staying Alive" as the ring tune. Moriarty's look of "Why does the phone always ring at a bad time?" is pure gold, not to mention the look on Sherlock's face.
  Moriarty: Mind if I get that?
  Sherlock: No, go ahead.
  Moriarty: [mouthing while on the phone] I'm sorry.
  Sherlock: [mouthing back] Oh, it's fine.
• Sherlock meets Irene Adler for the first time, and unleashes the might of the Sherlock Scan on her, coming away with nothing but "??????". Then he turns and gives Watson the Sherlock Scan, just to make sure it's working.
• John comes up with a brilliant, long-winded plan about how to get Irene's phone from the safety-deposit box to Baker Street using Molly Hooper, Barts and one of Sherlock's homeless network. The plan is so air-tight in its logic and precautions that even Sherlock sincerely compliments John for coming up with it — before casually revealing that he already has the phone on him. John's dejected groan is what makes it hilarious.
• Irene's parting words to John at the end of her first scene.
  "And please, make sure that he doesn't choke on his own vomit. It makes for a very unattractive corpse."
• Moriarty spitting away his message to Mycroft.
• At one point, Mycroft states that he needs Sherlock and John because he needs people he can trust. John asks if he can't trust his own secret service.
  Mycroft: Certainly not. They all spy on people for money.
  • Which is even funnier when you remember that when John and Mycroft first met, Mycroft was attempting to get John to do just that, spy on Sherlock for a tidy sum. John refused without knowing who Mycroft was, why he wanted John to spy on Sherlock, or what might happen to him if he doesn't take the money.

The Hounds of Baskerville

• Typical Sherlock with his crime-solving techniques:
  John: Sherlock's got a plan.
  Sherlock: Yes.
  Henry: Right...
  Sherlock: We take you out on the moor...
  Henry: Okay...
  Sherlock: ... And see if anything attacks you.
  John: WHAT?
• This charming bit of dialogue when old friends meet up in odd places:
  Sherlock: What the hell are you doing here?!
  Lestrade: Oh. Nice to see you, too. I'm on holiday, would you believe?
  Sherlock: No. I wouldn't!
  • When Sherlock figures Mycroft sent Lestrade to keep an eye on him:
    Sherlock: Is that why you're calling yourself "Greg?"
    John:.... That's his name.
    Sherlock: [surprised] It is?
    Lestrade: [very offended] YES, if you'd bothered to find out!
  • Remember the throwaway line from A Study In Pink where Sherlock mentions having pickpocketed Lestrade's ID several times over the years? Well, apparently he never bothered to actually read it.
  • UK police warrant cards only use rank, number, initials, and surname.
• John going after a light thinking someone is sending a message in Morse code...it's actually two people having "fun" in a car.
• Sherlock makes his dramatic entrance into 221b Baker Street, soaked in blood and wielding a harpoon. John's concern, what there is of it, doesn't extend to Sherlock's health and safety, it's this:
  Sherlock: Well, that was tedious.
  John: You went on the Tube like that?
  Sherlock: [sounding a bit miffed] None of the cabs would take me.
  • The best part — that often has to be pointed out and is then impossible to ignore — is all of this gives John a Fascinating Eyebrow so potent his forehead goes HD.
• Sherlock tries to trade lottery numbers for cigarettes.
• This exchange, while Sherlock is so antsy he can barely sit down:
  Sherlock: I NEED A CASE!
  John: You've just SOLVED ONE! By... harpooning a dead pig, apparently!
  Sherlock: Oh, that was this morning. When's the next one?
  John: Nothing on the website? [Sherlock stands and hands John a laptop showing a message on "the Science of Deduction" website]
  Sherlock: "Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I can't find Bluebell anywhere. Please, please, please can you help?"
  John: Bluebell?
  Sherlock: A rabbit, John!
  John: Oh.
  Sherlock: Ah but there's more: before Bluebell disappeared it turned luminous "like a fairy" according to little Kirsty, then the next morning Bluebell was gone! Hutch still locked, no sign of a forced entry. [gasps] What am I saying? This is brilliant. Phone Lestrade, tell him there's an escaped rabbit.
  John: ...Are you serious...?
  Sherlock: It's this, or Cluedo.
  John: Uh, no. We are never playing that again!
  Sherlock: Why not?
  John: Because it's not actually possible for the victim to have done it, Sherlock, that's why!
  Sherlock: But it was the only possible solution...
  John: It's not in the rules!
  Sherlock: Then the rules are wrong!
• Another dig at poor John:
  Sherlock: If I wanted poetry I'd just read John's emails to his girlfriends. Much funnier.
  • Extra funny because of the plural "girlfriends", hinting that either John is going through girlfriends so fast that they can be referred to collectively, or he has more than one at any given time.
• Sherlock's rather invasive passive smoking. Ha.
  • And John's valiant efforts to pretend it wasn't happening as he talked to Henry.
• The absolutely manipulative, pleading, pathetic look Sherlock gives John before he finally reveals where he's been hiding Sherlock's emergency stash of cigarettes.
  • And how did John hide those cigarettes so well that the massive deductive skills of Sherlock Holmes weren't able to even get close to finding them? He put them in the skull.
• A third visual joke from the same scene: when Sherlock first demands "John, I need some, GET me some," John seems to be thinking about it in a sarcastic "oh gee, let me think about this" way, for about half a second, before giving a very decisive "No."
• Sherlock's bitching about Bluebell ("like a fairy!") is hysterically funny, especially when we remember he's rather mean-spiritedly mocking an upset eight year old girl. One who had written him an extremely adorable, polite little letter.
  • Also funny is that while Sherlock dismisses such a trivial, seemingly stupid case initially, he was interested enough to memorise Kirsty's letter and quote significant chunks of it later.
  • Sherlock has never shied away from expressing his contempt in his replies to comments on his forum or John's blog. Given that he forgoes doing so in this case, and calls her "little Kirsty" as opposed to something like "insipid brat", he's not mocking her, specifically. It's more a "What is the criminal world coming to?" type of exasperation.
• When they arrive in the village, they walk past a tour group. Sherlock deliberately flips his collar up in an obvious way, then tries to tell John, "I'm cold."
  • Later, when Sherlock pulls his collar up again, John calls him on it:
  John: Oh, please, can we not do this, this time?
  Sherlock: Do what?
  John: You being all mysterious with your... cheekbones... and turning your coat collar up so you look cool.
  Sherlock: I don't do that...?
  John: Yeah you do.
• John's bitching in the car when they use Mycroft's security pass to get access to the Baskerville base:
  John: Brilliant.
  Sherlock: What's the matter?
  John: We'll get caught.
  Sherlock: No we won't. Well, not just yet.
  John: Caught in five minutes. 'Oh hi, we just thought we'd come and have a wander 'round your top-secret weapons base.' 'Really? Great! Come in, kettle's just boiled.' That's if we don't get shot.
• Poor Bluebell turning out to be a Brick Joke when Sherlock and John infiltrate Baskerville.
  Sherlock: Why did Bluebell have to die?
• Mycroft knowing exactly who was using his security pass at the Baskerville base, and being apparently that unfazed by it that he simply texts twice: "What are you doing?" "What's going on, Sherlock?" The exasperated look on his face when he first gets the news is priceless.
  • When they begin the infiltration, Sherlock tells John they have twenty minutes before the jig is up. When he gets the text from Mycroft, Sherlock checks his watch. "Twenty-three minutes, Mycroft's getting slow."
  • The fact that everyone around Mycroft is treating this as a horrible national security breach, but Mycroft just sighs, slightly annoyed, like "Oh great, my little brother's breaking into my top secret buildings again."
• When Sherlock makes the mistake of asking Dr Stapleton what her role at Baskerville is, the general reaction from Stapleton and Lyons is incredulous laughter. When Sherlock tells Dr Stapleton "you most certainly are at liberty, and I suggest that you remain that way," John gives him this "... Um, Sherlock, did you just threaten to have her arrested?" sideways glance that's absolutely hilarious.
  • Sherlock's expression on this line was perfectly summed up by one YouTube commenter as 'The moment Sherlock begins to wonder if Mrs Hudson's first name isn't actually "Mrs"'.
• Sherlock has been seen before to be a skilled liar, but his truly obvious and pathetic attempts to wheedle out of admitting that he deliberately drugged John, then locked him up in a dark lab to see whether he'd freak out or not are hilarious.
  • And then after there's Sherlock's point-of-view of the experiment, where he's just chilling out in the comfy security booth while John is freaking out.
• Lestrade's chirpy attitude after he's just finished interviewing two suspects.
  Lestrade: It's nice getting London out of your lungs!
• Also functions as a heartwarming moment, but this exchange, where Henry Knight has apparently observed a lot. One can only imagine what he was going to say about Sherlock's character before catching himself:
  Henry: Mates are mates, aren't they? I mean, look at you and John.
  Sherlock: What about us?
  Henry: Well... I mean... he's a pretty straightforward bloke, and you...
• Henry is showing Sherlock and John around his enormous house. John puts his foot in it, with this exchange alluding to Henry's character originally being a baronet who lived in Baskerville Hall —
  John: This is, uh... are you, um... rich?
  Henry: ... Yeah.
  John: Oh, right.
• Sherlock's announcement of his mind palace — he turns slowly to face John and Dr. Stapleton with this ridiculously intense expression on his face and snaps "Get out. I need to go to my mind palace." Talk about random....
  • And John's long suffering eye roll.
• When Sherlock's going through his "mind palace" when he gets to the "hound" part, he thinks of "Hound Dog," and if you look carefully, Cumberbatch actually sings a few words of it, complete with an Elvis pose.
  • It's also hilarious that he's got Elvis and Sousa in his mind palace—apparently, they're more important than whether or not the Earth goes around the Sun!
• Sherlock's ludicrously upbeat and chipper attitude when he goes to visit a clearly exhausted, not-in-the-mood-for-this Henry is funny enough on its own, but the bit where Sherlock points to Henry's ceiling and exclaims "Oh look, you've got damp!" with a manic grin and a practically ecstatic tone of voice.
• This:
  Sherlock: Hello brother dear, how are you?
  • It's such a human thing for Sherlock to do — most of us have family members that we blatantly, obviously suck up to when we want to call in a favour.
• In the last scene with John and Sherlock, after John realises Sherlock tried to drug him, we get this priceless exchange:
  John: Any long-term effects?
  Sherlock: None at all. You'll be fine once you've excreted it. We all will.
  John: I think I might have taken care of that already.
  • A few lines later:
    Sherlock: I've got to see a man about a dog.^note A euphemism for taking a dump, and his smile shows he knows as much. Also a euphemism for going to spend an evening in the local pub.
• The morning after Sherlock tells John that he doesn't have friends, Sherlock finds John sitting in a cemetery. John walks away and Sherlock, walking after him, asks about John's interview with Henry's psychologist from the night before:
  Sherlock: Did you get anywhere with her?
  John: No.
  Sherlock: Too bad. Get any information?
  • Despite John still being pissed with Sherlock, he can't help but crack a smile.
• The look on Sherlock's face after John rejects his apology in the graveyard. You can tell he was expecting John to melt immediately (everyone watching certainly did).
  Sherlock: It was true, what I said. I don't have friends. I've just got one.
  John: Right. [walks away]
  Sherlock: [thrown] ...John? ...John! You are amazing! You are fantastic!
  John: All right, don't overdo it.
• Sherlock's aggressively humourless response to a lighthearted quip (which becomes Hilarious in Hindsight following the next episode):
  Dr. Frankland: I'd love to tell you, but then of course I'd have to kill you.
  Sherlock: That would be tremendously ambitious of you.

The Reichenbach Fall

• Sherlock is now socially aware enough to be able to say "thank you" when prompted, even though he usually has no idea what he's saying thank you for.
  Sherlock: Diamond cufflinks. All my cuffs have buttons.
  John: [to the gift-giver] He means "thank you."
  Sherlock: ...Do I?
  John: Just say it.
  Sherlock: ...Thank you.
  —
  Molly: You could probably say "thank you", actually.
  Sherlock: ...Thank you...
• This little domestic spat in the flat:
  John: ...Don't do that.
  Sherlock: Do what?
  John: The look. You're doing the look again.
  Sherlock: Well I can't see it, can I?
  [John gestures to the mirror across from Sherlock]
  Sherlock: It's my face.
  John: Yes, and it's doing a thing. You're doing a "we both really know what's going on here" face.
  Sherlock: But we do!
  John: No. I don't, which is why I find "The Face" so annoying.
• When Sherlock pulls a gun on a whole bunch of police officers and takes John "hostage", Lestrade's reaction is to simply roll his eyes, and then go for the Face Palm of the series (and possibly the Face Palm of Rupert Graves' career.)
  John: Just so you're aware, the gun was his idea. I'm just...just...you know
  Sherlock: [points the weapon at John's head and announces dramatically] My hostage!
  John: Hostage! Yes, that works.
  • And also this Call-Back when Sherlock asks John to take his hand: "Now people are definitely going to talk."
  • And the general visual hilarity when Sherlock and John find out that it's really quite difficult to co-ordinate an escape on foot while handcuffed together, allowing for different heights, one person being right-handed and the other left-handed, one person having no idea where they're going, etc. Sherlock spends the majority of their escape literally dragging John behind him.
• When Sally questions how Sherlock could have solved the kidnapping with a single footprint to go on, Lestrade describes what Sherlock does as "CSI: Baker Street."
  • Not to mention that he then gives this goofy smile, as if to say "yes, I know. I'm the master of awful Dad-jokes." When you consider what Donovan is trying to point out to him, this almost becomes a Tear Jerker.
• When Sally rushes to inform Lestrade that there's been a break-in, we find him in his office, feet on the desk, with a coffee in one hand and a donut in the other, classily stuffing his face and responding to her by talking with his mouth full.
  • His cry of "Not our division!" has become a Memetic Mutation.
• John is trying to give Sherlock tips on how to present himself at court.
  John: Intelligent, fine. Let's give 'smartarse' a wide berth.
  Sherlock: ...I'll just be myself.
  John: Are you listening to me?
• Moriarty sends London into uproar having compromised the security at The Tower of London vault, The Bank of England and Pentonville Prison simultaneously. An armed response team enter the tower vault to reveal him wearing the crown jewels:
  Moriarty No rush.
  • And he put the Sovereign's Orb, which signifies the holder as the defender of faith, on his crotch.
• John making an offhand reference to "Su Bo." Because you know he and Mrs Hudson are addicted to shows like Britain's Got Talent and probably discuss these things at length. Possibly, with Sherlock.
• The court scene.
  Judge: [to Sherlock having been warned that he risk being found in contempt] Do you think you could survive for just a few minutes WITHOUT SHOWING OFF!
  • Sherlock opens his mouth to respond, and then...Gilligan Cut to Sherlock being led into a cell.
• Mycroft's face is hilarious during this exchange. Even John cracks up:
  Mycroft: Too much history between us John. Old scores, resentments...
  John: Nicked all his Smurfs, broke his Action Man.
• In an otherwise tense and painful scene, this exchange:
  Sherlock: You're insane!
  Moriarty: You're just getting that now?
• Also, in the aforementioned scene, Jim describes his employment of four known assassins as this:
  Moriarty: Last one to Sherlock is a sissy.
• And if you have a very dark sense of humour, this is hilarious:
  Sherlock: I can still prove that you created an entirely false identity!
  Moriarty: [rolling his eyes] Oh just kill yourself, it's a lot less effort.
  • Moriarty is absolutely hilarious, which only makes him creepier, such as when he yelled "no charge!" at Sherlock after he stumbled, in horror, out of the cab he was driving.
• Mycroft asking John to see him at the Diogenes Club...without telling him the cardinal rule that nobody is allowed to talk in there, resulting in John being hauled off and muffled by two attendants. One gets the feeling Mycroft had deliberately trolled John Watson.
• Sherlock's baffled muttering about the deerstalker is hilarious. All the more so because it's intercut with John discovering the none-too-subtle tabloid speculation about the nature of their relationship:
  Sherlock: Why is it always the hat photograph? What kind of a hat is it, anyway?
  John: "Bachelor John Watson." Bachelor — what the hell are they implying?
  Sherlock: Is it a cap? Why has it got two fronts?
  John: It's a deerstalker. "Frequently seen in the company of bachelor John Watson—"
  Sherlock: How do you stalk a deer with a hat? What do you do, throw it?
  John: "Confirmed bachelor" John Watson!
  Sherlock: ...Some kind of death frisbee?
  John: OK, this is too much, we need to be more careful.
  Sherlock: It's got flaps. Ear flaps — it's an ear hat, John!
• Upon seeing a dummy dangling from their ceiling by a noose, John asks "So. Did you just talk to him for a really long time?"
• Mrs. Hudson's reaction when Sherlock tells her about the hidden cameras in the flat: "Cameras? Here?! I'm in my nightie!!!"
• Moriarty calling Sherlock a doofus. It's also a little bit Fridge Brilliance. "Doofus" was at its most popular in around 1990, when both Sherlock and Jim would have been beginning that annoying puberty stage. Sherlock, as we've seen, is spectacularly ignorant of pop culture, but Jim is quite savvy and has probably seen every John Hughes film ever made, and knows that strange things are often afoot at the Circle K, and associates Bohemian Rhapsody with headbanging. Sherlock first caught Jim's attention in 1989.
• It's subtle, but in a hilarious callback to Hounds when John accuses Sherlock of flipping his coat collar up to look cool and mysterious:
  Lestrade: Now remember, she's in shock and she's seven years old, so, anything you can do to...
  Sherlock: Not be myself?
  Lestrade: Yeah. That'd be helpful.
  Sherlock: [flips his coat collar down]
• The look on Mycroft's face when he tells John that the rules of the Diogenes Club are very important, because "We don't want a repeat of... 1972..."
• There's one bit during the fairly intense rooftop confrontation between Moriarty and Sherlock. Jim's just told Sherlock that he has to kill himself, and Sherlock's hesitating. It's all very serious, with Moriarty  saying "Do it. For me," in a completely deadpan tone. Then he let's out this ridiculously high-pitched "PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAASE?"
• It's less funny when we learn about Kitty Riley's exclusive interview with Richard Brook, but we get a wonderful suggestion that Mycroft reads The Sun◊.

Series Three

Many Happy Returns

• Anderson trying to convince Lestrade that Sherlock is alive.
  Anderson: Ok sighting #3. The Mysterious Juror.
  Lestrade: Head Desk
• Apparently Sherlock once gave John an essay for his birthday. About how people hide their hatred of others in close proximity. Based on John's friends.
• On the video:
  Sherlock: ...What was my excuse again?
  Lestrade: [deadpan] You said you had a thing.
  Sherlock: Oh, yes, a thing. That's right.
  Lestrade: You might wanna elaborate.

The Empty Hearse

• One of the theories as to how Sherlock did it involves Sherlock and Moriarty dangling a Sherlock-sized dummy off the roof, quietly giggling at John's cries of anguish, and then leaning in to kiss each other to the swell of romantic music, and..... Cut to Anderson and the fangirl who suggested it:
  Anderson: What?! Are you out of your mind?!
  • The dummy in question is so unconvincing it's hilarious. For starters, the face is a photo of Sherlock◊ that has been glued on by kindergarteners.
  • The fact that the scene is such an obvious Shout-Out to the fanbase.
  • On the other hand, Anderson's theory on Sherlock's survival involves Sherlock bungee jumping off the roof, crashing through a window without a scratch, and planting a big kiss on Molly Hooper, before walking away in slow motion, while Moriarty's corpse is given a makeover to look like Sherlock, and is planted while John is still lying on the ground after being hit by the bicyclist, after which Derren Brown hypnotizes John to sleep for a few seconds while bystanders finish preparing the body, all while epic rock music plays... Cut to Lestrade telling Anderson "Bollocks!" Which raises the question: is Anderson upset by the absurdity of the dummy scenario, or because he's a Sherlock/Molly shipper?
• A series of Twisted Echo Cuts — John dealing with regular humdrum patients intercut with scenes of Sherlock dealing with regular humdrum clients. Sherlock learns from a client that her email pen-pal has broken it off with her and that she's now too heartbroken to date anyone else; he realises (in a Shout-Out to the original Holmes story "A Case of Identity") that the woman's stepfather has been posing as her online boyfriend in order to break her heart and ensure that she won't leave the household and take her income with her:
  Sherlock: Mr. Windibank, you are a complete and utter—
  [cut]
  John: [holding up an empty urine sample jar to a patient] Pisspot.
  • Before that, Mrs. Hudson asked Sherlock to talk to John:
    Sherlock: I tried talking to him. He made his position quite clear.
    [cut to John inserting his hand into a pair of surgical gloves, middle finger first]
    [cut back to Sherlock]
    Mrs. Hudson: What did he say?
    Sherlock: "Fu--"
    John: "— cough".
• Lestrade's reaction upon hearing the voice of his friend, who he's thought to be dead for the last two years? To freeze for a few seconds, then lift his head and say, "Oh, you bastard."
• Many viewers were wondering how hard John was going to punch Sherlock after he realised that Sherlock was still alive. Since Sherlock staged his meeting with John at a spectacularly inappropriate time and place namely, in a restaurant when John was on a date with his girlfriend and was in fact about to propose to her, the answer turns out to be not "how hard" but "how many times", and the answer is approximately three: firstly in the restaurant itself, then again some time later in a humdrum cafe, and finally in an even more downmarket kebab shop, except that the third one wasn't a punch but a full-on Glasgow Kiss (AKA a headbutt).
  • After all this, another crowning moment was John's exasperated glare when — after being thrown out of several establishments due to his venting his rage at Sherlock — Mary simply says with an impish smile, "I like him."
  • They don't even show any of the punches, they just show a dynamic slow motion of John reaching over to hit Sherlock before cutting to a different restaurant and Sherlock with a new injury.
• Sherlock's desperate attempts to get John to stop yelling about how he, SHERLOCK HOLMES, has FAKED HIS OWN DEATH devolve into this:
  Sherlock: SHUT UP, JOHN, I DON'T WANT EVERYONE KNOWING I'M STILL ALIVE!
  John: OH, SO IT'S STILL A SECRET, IS IT?!
  Sherlock: YES, IT'S STILL A SECRET!
• John's face when Sherlock tells him he needs his help for a case again: his priceless expression as he looks over at Mary just screams "Are you hearing this shit?! A case??" Followed shortly by the aforementioned headbutt as Sherlock keeps talking.
• Sherlock and Mycroft discussing something while playing a game, apparently chess. And then the camera pans out and you see that it's Operation.
  • The fact that Mycroft agreed to play it.
  • And this is what happens when posh, dignified Mycroft Holmes makes a mistake in private:
    Mycroft: Oh, bugger!
    Sherlock: Whoopsie. Can't handle a Broken Heart^note one of the gamepieces. How very telling.
    Mycroft: Don't be smart.
    Sherlock: That takes me back. "Don't be smart, Sherlock! I'm the smart one!"
    Mycroft: I am the smart one.
  • Apparently when they were kids, Sherlock thought he was stupid compared to Mycroft, because he'd only been around his brother. Then their parents had tried introducing them to other children.
    Sherlock: Oh, yes. That was a mistake.
    Mycroft: Ghastly, what were they thinking of?
    Sherlock: Probably something about trying to make friends.
    Mycroft: Oh, yes. Friends. Of course, you go in for that sort of thing now.
    Sherlock: And you don’t? Ever?
    Mycroft: If you seem slow to me, Sherlock, can you imagine what real people are like? I’m living in a world of goldfish.
    Sherlock: Yes, but I’ve been away for two years.
• Sherlock dressing up as a French waiter as an attempt to surprise John. More specifically, dressing up as a French waiter by stealing a bow tie and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from passerby, scribbling a little moustache on with a black eyeliner pencil, and adopting a nasal French accent. That's it.
  • His first two attempts to dramatically reveal himself. John's too busy looking at the menu to notice.
  • Also Sherlock's increasing frustration that John is simply not noticing both him and his increasingly unsubtle hints, particularly when by his own admission, he admits how bad the disguise really was.
  • One attempt involves Sherlock showing John the wine list which prompts this exchange:
    John: [refering to the wine] Oh, surprise me.
    Sherlock: [under his breath] Certainly endeavouring to, sir.
• Lestrade's first initial reaction to Sherlock. "[Beat] You bastard."
  • And Sherlock's attempt at a dramatic Big Entrance from the shadows foiled when he gets Lestrade's first name wrong.
  • And then the scene wraps up with Lestrade giving Sherlock a big hug. The look on Sherlock's face is seals it. You can tell he's thinking, "so how long is this going to go on?"
• The scene with the perfectly normal couple banally describing their day out in London; they're Sherlock and Mycroft's parents. Made even funnier when you realise that they are played by Benedict Cumberbatch's actual parents, Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham.
  • The two of them are dressed very similarly to Sherlock and John. So, either they're showing their support for Sherlock by cosplaying... or the great Sherlock Holmes unconsciously dresses like his mother.
  • Sherlock very quickly booting them out of the flat the moment John shows up. All that's missing is a whiny MUM, you're EMBARRASSING me in front of my friend!.
• Mycroft desperately begging Sherlock to "Take over at the interval" so he can escape the pain and horror that is Les Misérables. The fact that Mycroft, who finds torture mundane and once stuffed a plane full of corpses, finds Les Mis unbearable. So unbearable that he hasn't even realised the show's already well past the interval at the time he's calling Sherlock.
  Mycroft: You don't understand the pain of it. The horror... [Sherlock hangs up]
  • However, he might not be talking about the musical itself, but how annoying his parents are.
  • Funnier for Les Mis fans: they're actually playing "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the recording of the cast of the movie over the phone. ^note The fandom is divided over whether the quality of that version is good.
• Sherlock playing the Annoying Younger Sibling during every attempt Mycroft makes to have a serious conversation about the terror threat in London, first by interrupting him on their way back from Serbia by asking how his shirt looks and then by making him play Operation while they discuss the situation at 221B.
• As tense as the moment is, Sherlock and Watson's panicked, hilariously childish argument when the bomb starts going off and they (seemingly in Sherlock's case) have absolutely no idea what to do. Especially Sherlock's tone, because he has such an amusingly useless "why do I have to be the one to deal with everything" tone of voice even though every other time something like this comes up he demands to be in control — meanwhile, John is clearly trying to force himself to not lose it and deal with the situation:
  Watson: Think of something.
  Sherlock: Why do you think I know what to do?
  Watson: [testily] Because you're Sherlock Holmes. You're as clever as it gets!
  Sherlock: Doesn't mean I know how to defuse a giant bomb! What about you?
  Watson: [getting increasingly annoyed] I wasn't in bomb disposal. I'm a bloody doctor!
  Sherlock: [childishly] And a soldier! As you keep reminding us all.
  Watson: Can't we rip the timer off or something?
  Sherlock: That would set it off!
  Watson: [panicking] You see? You know things!
  • Later, John's lampshading of a detective trope that, honestly, Sherlock Holmes was probably the Trope Maker for:
    "Why didn't you call the police? Why do you never call the police?"
  • And of course, this time Sherlock did call the police. He just didn't tell Watson about it. John is, let us say, rightfully irritated.
• Some of John's classic deadpan responses to Sherlock's ramblings.
  Sherlock: It's not an underground network, John. It's an Underground Network!
  John: Right... What?
• John attempts to tell Mrs Hudson about his moving on and having found someone, cue her immediately assuming that it's a man.
  John: I am not gay!
  • As John (yet again) insists he's not gay, he's looking towards the camera as if he's addressing the fans.
• Tom, Molly's fiancee, who looks and dresses similar to Sherlock. Everyone's reactions to him are hilarious, but especially Sherlock.
  Sherlock: I'm not saying a word.
• Molly's absolutely adorable "Did I say something wrong?" face when the train nerd (impatiently) explains why carriages of the London Underground are called cars.
• Sherlock being an utter bastard to John in tricking him to express himself when it looks like they were going to die in the train. Afterwards, Sherlock laughs so hard, he actually has tears coming out of his eyes.
  Sherlock: [cracking up] Oh, your face!
• When Sherlock assesses Mary outside the kebab shop he notices she is a disillusioned Lib Dem.
• Anderson going Laughing Mad and tearing off his theories from his wall (as shown in the folder image) when he hears Sherlock's explanation for how he faked his death but suspects that it isn't true. Not to mention Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss being Trolling Creators.
• A small one, but the face Sherlock makes while putting on the glasses he nicked is absolutely hilarious. The music doesn't help.

The Sign Of Three

• In the beginning, Lestrade is trying to catch a gang of extremely competent bank robbers with Donovan. It shows four unsuccessful attempts (with Lestrade even kicking a car out of frustration) until finally, it looks like they have them. But when Lestrade and Donovan are going to make the arrest, Lestrade's phone beeps four times. It's from Sherlock, all caps, saying to come quickly because it's an emergency. At first Lestrade's tempted to ignore it...but then Sherlock adds "please," which he never, ever does. Lestrade reluctantly leaves Donovan to make the arrest and requests maximum back-up. But when he arrives at Baker Street he finds Sherlock sat at his desk in frustration...with a book titled 'How to make a Best Man Speech', and wants to know if Lestrade knows any funny stories about John. The expression on Lestrade's face is priceless as he refrains from out-right clobbering Sherlock, while outside you can hear multiple sirens, see the flashing lights, and on top of it all a police helicopter turns up as well.
  • The best part about the scene is that the audience knows this is gonna happen upon seeing the texts. The inevitability just makes the scene.
  • And to top it all off, Sherlock himself looks out the window, assesses the sirens and helicopters, and looks to Lestrade as if to say "Uh...."
• Sherlock's method for persuading the reluctant Archie to be a pageboy:
  Sherlock: So basically, cute smile to the bride's side, cute smile to the groom's side, then the rings.
  Archie: No.
  Sherlock: And you have to wear the outfit.
  Archie: No.
  Sherlock: You really do have to wear the outfit.
  Archie: What for?
  Sherlock: Grown-ups like that sort of thing.
  Archie: Why?
  Sherlock: I don't know, I'll ask one.
  [pause]
  Archie: You're a detective?
  Sherlock: Yep.
  Archie: Solved any murders?
  Sherlock: Sure, loads.
  Archie: Can I see?
  Sherlock: (pause) Yeah, all right.
  [cut to the two of them looking at Sherlock's laptop]
  Archie: What's all that stuff in his eye?
  Sherlock: Maggots.
  Archie: Cool!
  • It is then revealed that Sherlock has bribed Archie to behave by offering him photos of beheadings.
    • "Lovely little village."
  • And later when Archie offers a suggestion regarding the Mayfly Man case:
    Sherlock: Yes, Archie, get this one right and there's a headless nun in it for you!
• Mary tasting the wine she chose for the reception, only to repeatedly gag and mention how it's disgusting. You'd think she'd learn after the first time.
• Sherlock's speech. All of it.
  • Also a Heartwarming Moment, when Sherlock is alarmed to see he's moved everyone to tears:
    Sherlock: [rapid-fire] What's wrong? What happened? Why are you all doing that? John? Did I do it wrong?
    John: [standing, in tears] No, you didn't. C'mere. [hugs him]
  • When Sherlock is demonstrating how much of a total arsehole he is, there's a quick shot of Lestrade — laughing as Sherlock casts his ego on everyone else.
• Sherlock stating that John has suffered a great personal loss, only to quietly add he was again sorry about not telling him that he faked his death.
• The bridesmaid latching onto Sherlock and, after finding out that he's not interested, forming an Odd Friendship and using him to weed out potential one night stands that she'd end up regretting. And occasionally still flirting.
  Janine: Do you always carry handcuffs?
  Sherlock: Down, girl.
  • Just the fact that she's nothing short of amused by him the entire time and completely capable of keeping up.
    Janine: Can I keep you?
    Sherlock: Do you like solving crimes?
    Janine: Do you have a vacancy?
• Considering how picky Sherlock usually is with his grammar:
  Sherlock: Major James Sholto; who he?
• How does Sherlock get into the soldier's headquarters? By shoving one of those tall, black hats on his head and marching behind a squad. Without the rest of the uniform.
• John and Mary leave the room for a minute, and come back to find that Sherlock has folded a bunch of origami napkins.
  Sherlock: ...That just sort of...happened.
  • The way Mary pushes John back into the room.
  • And how did Sherlock know how to do origami?
    Sherlock: Many unexpected skills required in the field of investigations.
    Mary: Fibbing, Sherlock.
    Sherlock: I once broke an alibi by demonstrating the exact severity of-
    Mary: I'm not John! I can tell when you're fibbing.
    Sherlock: Okay, I learned it on YouTube.
  • John addresses Sherlock as "mate" and then gives a look as if wondering if he really just said that.
• It's a quick shot, but in the medical file Sherlock hands over to Molly, he's pasted John's face onto Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. There's no practical reason for this other than he thought it would be funny.
• The "pub crawl". Originally going to be murder themed. Ended up in a police cell, via Baker Street and a dead man's apartment. The camera and blurriness throughout the entire sequence does not help.
  • The dubstep version of the theme that plays during the drunken montage.
  • Sherlock telling the annoyed bartender to serve exactly 443.7 ml of beer in two graduated cylinders so Sherlock can run this pub crawl like clockwork...and then John unknowingly screws the system up by spiking their drinks with shots.
  • Sherlock unashamedly inquiring as to the volume of John's urine output so he can calculate his approximate blood alcohol level. John tells him to stop talking.
  • Also on the Awesome page: Sherlock berates a stranger that he "knows Ash" and poking him, then executing what can only be described as a drunken superdodge when the stranger swings at him.
  • According to a cast interview, there's a deleted scene of the stag night where John and Sherlock accidentally visit a gay bar and stare awkwardly at all the topless men while wondering how they ended up there. Apparently it was cut to shorten the bar-hopping sequence, something Benedict and Martin themselves were upset with, finding it one of the funniest scenes.
  • Sherlock and John lying on the stairs up to 221B after what was supposed to be a long night of partying, but they'd come back early because they were already plastered after two hours.
    Sherlock: I have an international reputation! Do you have an international reputation?
    John: No, I don't have an international reputation.
    Sherlock: No. And I can't even remember what for...'s...crime...somethingorother.
  • At which time, Sherlock addresses Mrs Hudson as "Hudders."
  • John and Sherlock continuing to drink at home while they play a "guess who I am?" game. Sherlock a) doesn't know there's a Queen instead of a King (he knew in Series 1 so it's probably the booze or he deleted the information) and b) doesn't know who Madonna is, he just picked her name out of a newspaper.
    • Also the name on Sherlock's card that he has to guess? His own. After getting several clues from John, his answer is "I get it... I'm you aren't I?" There's something really adorable about the way he says it too.
  • When Mrs. Hudson shows Tessa in:
    Tessa: Which one of you is Sherlock Holmes?
    John: [points at Sherlock while making a slide-whistle sound]
  • Sherlock and John repeatedly falling asleep whilst listening to their client, Sherlock briefly tearing up along with her when she's upset her date didn't call (and being confused why he's crying) and the mangling of their catchphrase.
    Sherlock: The game is... something?
    John: [thinks for a moment] ...On!
    Sherlock: Yeah! That, that!
  • Sherlock: [standing up and swaying drunkenly] "Don't worry. I'll find him in 10 minutes! What's your dog's name?"
  • And scolding John for falling asleep. His tone and finger pointing is what makes it so incredibly funny:
    Sherlock: Rude! RUDE!
  • The sheer fact that Tessa seemed to not think there was anything wrong with expecting two very obviously drunk men to solve a case for her.
    • Nor does she get remotely cross with them for any of their drunken behaviour — including falling asleep while she's telling the story — and she even defends them when the landlord threatens to call the police: "No, this is a famous detective..." It's not clear if she's honestly oblivious to their intoxication, thinks that with their reputation it couldn't possibly affect their ability to solve a case, or perhaps believes they're just very eccentric; but either way her cheerful unconcern makes the scene that much funnier. "Find anything?"
  • The drunk deductions that Sherlock makes in his head after they take the case. Highlights include "Sleeeep" whilst looking at a sofa, "Deaded" whilst looking at a skull, being unable to figure out a decoration at all: "Wood? Pipe/Tube/wotsit thingamebob", and "Egg? Chair? Sitty thing?"
  • John: "He's cluing...he's cluing for looks."
  • To say nothing of the fact that Sherlock passes out, face-down ass-up, on the carpet of the crime scene.
  • What lands both Sherlock and John in a police cell:
    Sherlock: Don't compromise the integrity of the — [Beat, then he throws up]
    John: ...CRIME SCENE! [tries to get a high-five from Tessa]
    • Followed shortly by Lestrade's wake-up call, where he heckles them both about not even making it up to closing time, and otherwise gets a bit of revenge for the beginning of the episode:
      John: Could you whisper?
      Lestrade: [leans closer] NOT REALLY!
      Sherlock: [catapults awake]

• John finally finding out what happened to Mr. Hudson. He was running a drug cartel in Florida, had a ton of mistresses, and finally got arrested for blowing a man's head off. Mrs. Hudson relates this story so casually while John stares at her, until, like listening to your mum talk about her sex life, she says "it was purely physical between me and Frank, we couldn't keep our hands off each other, I know, there was one night-" He has to leave.
  • Altogether: Mrs. Hudson, the kindly, well-mannered, English landlady that makes tea and biscuits was the trophy wife of a womanizing, drug-running murderer.
• Sherlock rounding up the Mayfly Man case in the best man's speech which turns out to be hilariously inappropriate for a wedding.
  Sherlock: Our Mayfly Man was trying to escape the suffocating chains of domesticity and instead of endless nights in watching the telly or going to barbecues with awful, dreadful, boring people he couldn't stand, he used his wits, cleverness and powers of disguise to play the field! He was –
  [Crowd is silent, someone coughs. Sherlock looks at Mary who just makes a "not good" face]
  Sherlock: On second thought I probably should've told you about The Elephant in the Room.
• Molly's blithe assertion that she and Tom are having "quite a lot of sex", followed by a really uncomfortable expression on Sherlock's face.
  • After getting indignant at Sherlock, who came to her for advice about John's stag night: he wanted to know how much liquor John could theoretically hold, but made the mistake of implying (or rather, she made the mistake of assuming) he asked her advice because he thinks she must drink a lot.
• A brief appearance by Irene Adler in Sherlock's head when he's deducing and his irritated response.
  Sherlock: Out of my head, I am busy...
  • The best part? She's in her "battle dress".
• Sherlock comments that he likes dancing. He then follows said comment up by doing a pirouette.
  • And he is expecting that it will be needed for crime-solving one day.
• The eventual title drop, combined with Heartwarming Moment. Mary's pregnant and John's annoyed that he didn't notice it first.
  • Sherlock realizing what he's implied in his speech, and trying to cover it up:
    Sherlock: Anyway, it's time for dancing. Play the music again, please, thank you! Okay, everybody, just dance, don't be shy! Dancing, please. Very good.
  • And him confidently assuring John and Mary that they'll be fantastic parents because they've already had practice... with him.
• Lestrade's reaction to seeing the human brain Molly was holding in a bowl while talking to him.
• Upon realising Mary's old boyfriend David is still madly in love with her, Sherlock decides to take matters into his own hands, informing him that he'll be dropped to a casual acquaintance and allowed only three planned social encounters per year (with John's supervision) and that he'll be monitoring him closely.
  David: They were right about you. You're a...bloody psychopath!
  Sherlock: High-functioning sociopath...with your number! [grins]
  • The fact that Sherlock still, rather proudly, diagnoses himself as a high-functioning sociopath when he obviously isn't.
  • Sherlock's grin, pictured in this folder. That may be the most terrifying facial expression ever shown on television. Or, indeed, seen. It resembles a rat.
• After being informed that he is John's best friend (and freezing up in shock for a good while), Sherlock takes a sip of tea...that he'd just dropped an eyeball into. It was "surprisingly okay".
  • When he drops it into the cup he just stares at it for a moment before turning back to John with barely any change in expression. And offers it to John.
    • It bobbed back to the surface after he'd taken a sip and just stared at it. Not to mention John calmly watched him take a sip and did nothing to stop him.
      John: How was that?
      Sherlock: [considers] Surprisingly okay.
  • Sherlock recalling the scene during his best man speech:
    "I confess at first I didn't realise he was asking me. When I finally understood, I expressed to him that I was both flattered and...surprised. I explained to him that I'd never expected this request and I was a little daunted in the face of it. I nonetheless promised I would do my very best to accomplish a task which was, for me, as demanding and difficult as any I had ever contemplated. Additionally, I thanked him for the trust he placed in me and indicated that I was, in some ways, very close to being...moved...by it. It later transpired that I'd said none of this out loud."
    • Made even funnier by periodic cuts to John looking confused, since as Sherlock clarifies, he didn't actually say any of that.
    • When everyone laughs at that last line, Sherlock looks up with a confused expression. Apparently it wasn't meant as humour — he was just telling it as it happened, and doesn't understand what's so funny.
• Sherlock picking on Lestrade to solve the case of the Bloody Guardsman.
  Sherlock: Scotland Yard, do you have a theory? You're a detective, broadly speaking. Got a theory?
  Lestrade: Er...if the, if, if, if the blade was pr-propelled through the uhm...grating in the air vent...mmm, maybe a ballista or a, a...a catapult, someone tiny could've crawled in there. So yeah, we're looking for a...a...a dwarf.
  Sherlock: ...Brilliant.
  Lestrade: Really?!
  Sherlock: No. Next!
  • And then there's Tom's theory: a meat dagger. Not as in "a dagger with which to cut meat": a meat dagger. Literally made of meat (and bone). Even the normally-chipper Molly was embarrassed.
• It really shouldn't have been as funny as it was, but Mycroft on a treadmill in some rather unforgiving exercise gear. Also, Sherlock's call when he got off the treadmill.
  Mycroft: [out of breath] Yes? What, Sherlock?
  Sherlock: Why are you out of breath?
  Mycroft: Filing.
  Sherlock: Either I've caught you in a compromising position or you've been working out again. ...I favour the latter.
• Mrs. Hudson remarks that Sherlock's mother has a lot to answer for in regard to Sherlock's manners. Sherlock agrees.
  "I have a list. [Beat] Mycroft has a file."
• Sherlock guessing what John's middle initial stood for. He says that it took John ages to confide in him about it. Which he didn't, Sherlock just found John's birth certificate.
  • When recalling how his middle name became public.
    John: Does it have to be on the invitations?
    Mary: It's your name. It's traditional.
    Sherlock: [simultaneously] It's funny.
    [Mary smirks while John looks despondent.]
  • Also, to anyone who's familiar with Team Fortress 2 (or indeed, even to those that aren't), the image of Sherlock with his face stuffed with cigarettes is pretty darn funny.
• Sherlock dismissing Mary's mention of a guest with the information that they hate her. She pauses, and then asks, "Who else hates me?" He hands her a pre-made list.
  • Mary plays right along with it, instructing Sherlock to seat that guest near the entrance to the loo.
• Just this between Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock while he is trying to solve a crime during his best man's speech.
  Sherlock: Let's play a game, let's play murder... Imagine someone is going to get murdered at a wedding. Who exactly would you pick?
  Mrs. Hudson: I think you're a popular choice at the moment, dear.
  Sherlock: If someone could move Mrs. Hudson's glass just slightly out of reach, that would be lovely.
  • Becomes quite darkly funny when you see in "His Last Vow" that Mrs. Hudson is a "semi-recovered alcoholic", and given that Sherlock realised Harry was an alcoholic without even meeting her, he'd have to know about Mrs. Hudson's weakness.
• Sherlock starts talking about murder and how he would hypothetically kill his friends and family, and we get this:
  Sherlock: Now John I'd poison. Sloppy eater. Dead easy. I've given him chemicals and compounds that way and he's never even noticed. He missed an entire Wednesday once, didn't have a clue. Lestrade's so easy to kill, it's a miracle nobody's succumbed to the temptation. I have a set of keys to my brother's house, and I could sneak in and asphyxiate him should the... whim arise...
  • And immediately after that, when Tom says Sherlock's pissed ^note  drunk , what does Molly do? Jam a (plastic) fork into his arm so hard it snaps.
• Sherlock's idea of an heartwarming case: A woman trying to figure out if her husband is having an affair.
  • Though as it turns out on the blog, the woman herself was having the affair... with another woman. The husband had photographic evidence with which he was using to blackmail her by threatening to tell her family about her true sexuality. After Sherlock and John obtain the evidence for her, she dumps his ass and comes out to her family, who stick by her.
• And Sherlock goes on to mention "the elephant in the room". Which isn't a metaphor; there was an actual case involving an actual elephant in a room. The reaction on the twos' faces as they hear the elephant trumpet is priceless as well. Sherlock looks like he is about to say something, only to close his mouth as if to say "yeah, I have absolutely nothing to say." Meanwhile, John is simply standing there, dumbfounded and silent.
• The brief look of shocked offence on Sherlock's face when John tells him he's a drama queen. Then, ten seconds later, he kisses Mary's forehead and points to John:
  Sherlock: Though in fairness, he's a drama queen, too.
  Mary: Yeah, I know.
• Vicky. Oh, dear god, Vicky. Sherlock's reaction to nearly everything she says is priceless.
  • Let's be honest, everything she does or says is hilarious. And it isn't always what she says as it is her cheeky tone, her cheeky grin, or just how different her answers are from the others. It's like she knows she's the odd one out and enjoying every second of it:
    Sherlock: How did you meet?
    Gale: Came up to me in a pub.
    Charlotte: Same gym as me.
    Robin: We just got chatting on the bus.
    Vicky: [cheeky grin] Online.
    —
    Sherlock: Name?
    Gale: Oscar.
    Charlotte: Mike.
    Robin: Terry.
    Vicky: [naughty smile] Um, "LoveMonkey".
    —
    Sherlock: Describe him.
    [the first three women give varying hair colours]
    Vicky: Couldn't tell.
    Sherlock: [narrows eyes]
    Vicky: He had a mask on!
  • When Sherlock explains the Mayfly Man's modus operandi (impersonates dead men and uses their homes), all the other women are sickened. Vicky is just impressed. "Clever!"
  • When Sherlock asks what was so special about the Mayfly Man, Vicky begins, in a rather suggestive voice, "He had a lovely –" before being interrupted when John intrudes on the mind palace. When Sherlock resumes the conversation, it turns out all she said was, "He had a lovely manner."
  • Desperate to find a connection between the women, when he asks about their perfume, his excitement mounts as one after another they all say "Chanel", only to deflate when Vicky says "Estée Lauder".
  • When Sherlock comments that "No one wants to use a dead man's home", Vicky shrugs, as if to say, "Eh."
  • He asks their ideal night out:
    Gale: Clay pigeon shooting.
    Charlotte: Line-dancing.
    Tessa: Pictures?
    Robin: Wine in front of the telly.
    Vicky: [cheeky grin] Dungeon.
    • She works as a maid. One can't help but wonder if she ever uses that uniform recreationally.
  • And then there's Sherlock's question of their "ideal man":
    Tessa: George Clooney...
    [Sherlock rolls his eyes]
    Gale: Home-loving.
    Charlotte: Gotta like cuddling.
    Robin: Caring.
    Vicky: Ten things: One, someone who isn't competitive with other men. Two, someone who isn't constantly trying to define himself by his masculinity — [Sherlock cuts her off]
    • His face at that response is like, "Dear Lord, what is with this woman?!"
• "...Poppet."

His Last Vow

• John and Bill Wiggins's little chat, specifically where he states that he's looking for a specific friend. John just quoted the Doctor, from another show Moffat's had a lot to do with!
• Though it's scary when you think about it, there's the beginning where John went to look for the son of his neighbor in a drug den:
  Isaac: [slurry] Have you come for me?
  John: Do you think I know a lot of people here?
  Sherlock: [gets up from behind, looking no better than Isaac] Oh, hello, John. Have you come to get me too?
  • After a brief shot of John's expression at this, the next thing we see is Isaac the druggie staggering out of the house, politely asking Mary if he can get in the car and when she asks where John is, just telling her "They're fighting."
  • And later, when John is giving Sherlock what for.
    Sherlock: I'm undercover!
    John: No, you're not!
    Sherlock: [so much like a bratty teenager it's uncanny] WELL I'M NOT NOW!!!
  • And then this exchange when Wiggins addresses Sherlock as "Shezza":
    John: Shezza?
    Sherlock: [whining] I was undercover!
    Mary: [grinning mischievously] Seriously, Shezza, though?
  • Earlier, we see evidence that Sherlock's concept of "tact" may have to some extent rubbed off on John:
    John: [to his neighbour, of her son] He's the drugs one, yeah?
    Mary: Yeah, nicely put, John.
• John's reaction to Janine and Sherlock kissing at 221B. The prolonged look of baffled squeamishness is hilarious.
  • Heck, John's reaction to Janine and Sherlock's relationship.
  • Doubly so as we've all got used to the idea that Sherlock is squeamish about such things and John up until now has been the one doing them.
• Janine is wearing nothing but Sherlock's dress shirt, she's sitting on his lap and talking about making breakfast. It's obvious Sherlock learned how a "the next morning" is supposed to go according to what he's seen on telly or with John's past relationships, so the lack of "naturalness" in this "relationship" is so funny:
  Sherlock: Well [me and Janine] are in a good place, it's... very affirming.
  John: You got that from a book.
  Sherlock: Everyone got that from a book.
• It's been two years and Sherlock still has a tempestuous relationship with the doorbell of 221B, it seems:
  Mrs. Hudson: That was the bell, couldn't you hear it?
  Sherlock: It's in the fridge, it kept ringing.
  Mrs. Hudson: That's not a fault, Sherlock!
• Magnussen's scans are frightening but also provide some vital information: Mrs Hudson is a former exotic dancer. Her pressure point is marijuana.
• During John and Sherlock's break-in at Magnussen's office, when they found Janine lying out cold. Sherlock surmises that Magnussen is still around, as well as the person who took the security out. John proposes to call the police for help:
  Sherlock: During our own burglary? You're really not a natural at this, are you?
• When Sherlock got shot by Mary and needed to be hospitalised Watson and Lestrade gives him a visit, the latter intends to take a video of Sherlock babbling under the influence of hospital-given morphine. Unfortunately he wasn't there anymore much to our dismay.
  • There must be a collection of these videos passed around at NSY if "A Scandal in Belgravia" is anything to go by.
• Mycroft and Sherlock's reactions to being caught smoking by Mummy Holmes.
  Mummy: Are you two smoking?
  Mycroft and Sherlock, simultaneously: "No!" "It was Mycroft!"
• Right after that, Mycroft "suggests" that Sherlock turn down an assignment from the British government that would have him dead in six months. When asked why he wouldn't relish Sherlock disappearing from his life, we get this:
  Mycroft: Your loss would break my heart.
  Sherlock: [chokes loudly on cigarette smoke] What the hell am I supposed to say to that?
  Mycroft: Merry Christmas?
  Sherlock: You hate Christmas.
  Mycroft: Yes. Perhaps there was something in the punch.
  Sherlock: Clearly. Go and have some more.
  • Made more hilarious by the fact that Sherlock did have the punch spiked, though with a drug to knock everybody out, not alcohol.
• Bill Wiggins. Just... Bill Wiggins in general.
  • This exchange when Mary finds him in Leinster Gardens and discovers he's now working for Sherlock as part of his Homeless Network:
  Wiggings: Keeps me off the streets, don't it?
  Mary: Well... no.
  • After he successfully deduces that Watson bikes to work every morning because of the creases in his shirt.
  Wiggings: And I further deduce, that you've only started recently because you've got a bit of chafing.
  Sherlock: No, he's always walked like that.
  • Also, Sherlock's half-mocking-half-impressed look of surprise as Billy says "further deduce".
• Sherlock once said if he wanted to look at naked women he could steal John's laptop. If Magnussen's right, Sherlock now has porn preferences, and they're "normal", whatever that means. It's possible he only developed them in order to facilitate a relationship with Janine.
  • Speaking of which, Magnussen also has Mary's porn preferences as "none". Is that supposed to mean that she has no interest in porn? Or is she just not picky?
• Mary's reaction to seeing John take a tire iron with him to a smack den: "It's a tiny bit sexy". "Yeah, I know." Becomes much darker when you find out how accustomed to violence she is later.
  • Later when Magnussen's man pulls the tire iron out of John's pants, John's comment is "Doesn't mean I'm not pleased to see you."
• Mrs. Hudson is a former exotic dancer, a current (medicinal!) pot smoker, and maybe was a little more involved in her husband's cartel than she'd have you believe.
• Janine's revenge on Sherlock? Selling sex stories about him to the tabloids. Headlines like "SEVEN TIMES A NIGHT!" and "HE MADE ME WEAR THE HAT!" ensue. (All, it seems, imaginary. And it sounds like part of her grudge is that she'd have liked them to be true.) She's going to use the profits to buy a cottage in the Sussex Downs with bee hives (though she's getting rid of those).^note As in, Doyle's Holmes eventually retired and became a beekeeper. He's not even bothered by this. In fact, despite her throwing in a few more jabs, they part amicably.
  Janine: Sherlock Holmes, you are a back-stabbing, heartless, Manipulative Bastard.
  Sherlock: And you, as it turns out, are a grasping, opportunistic, publicity-hungry tabloid whore.
  Janine: So, we're good, then?
  Sherlock: Yeah, of course.
• Sherlock's mum going Mama Bear, not knowing the offender is sitting right in front of her.
  Sherlock's Mother: Somebody's put a bullet in my boy and if I ever find out who, I shall turn absolutely monstrous-oh, this was for Mary!
• Sherlock knows John so well:
  Sherlock: Do you want your wife to be safe?
  John: Yeah of course I do!
  Sherlock: Good because this is going to be incredibly dangerous, one false move and we'll have betrayed the security of the United Kingdom and be imprisoned for high treason. Magnussen is quite simply the most dangerous man we've ever encountered and the odds are comprehensively stacked against us.
  John: [Remember how happy he was during Christmas in "A Scandal in Belgravia"?] ...But it's Christmas!
  Sherlock: [blissful smile] I feel the same- [smile drops] oh you mean it's actually Christmas. Did you bring your gun as I suggested?
  John: Why would I bring my gun to your parents' house for Christmas dinner?
  Sherlock: Is it in your coat?
  John: [exasperated] Yes.
  Sherlock: Off we go then.
• It's awful, but funny:
  John: I don't understand.
  Magnussen: You should have that on a T-shirt.
  [later]
  John: I still don't understand.
  Magnussen: And there's the back of the T-shirt.
• Also in a Black Comedy way:
  Mycroft: How are you enjoying exile?
  Sherlock: I've only been gone four minutes!
  Mycroft: Well, I certainly hope you've learned your lesson.
• In a similar moment of Black Comedy just before the quote above, Mrs. Hudson's freakout upon seeing Moriarty's face on her TV.
• Mary and John going from hugging each other out to bickering about who's going to choose the baby's name. Mary's reaction says it all.
  Mary: You what?
• Sherlock's mum gives a serious order to Mary:
  Sherlock's Mother: [pointing to her husband] If he starts humming, just poke him in the bum!
• When Mary is getting information on Sherlock's location, she briefly meets up with Anderson and his assistant in a parking lot. She promptly asks how they got the info, and this is their response:
  Anderson's Assistant: He stalked him.
  Anderson: [hastily] I followed him.
• After drugging everyone at the Holmes cottage to go chase down Magnussen, Sherlock takes a moment to hold a hand over the mouths of Mary, his father, and his mother to ensure that they are all right and still breathing. But we don't see him check on Mycroft.

New Year's Special

2016 New Year's Special: The Abominable Bride

• The look on Watson's face when it slowly dawns on him that the man who was furiously beating a corpse is his future flatmate.
• One of the readers of 1895 Watson's stories asks the writer himself if "There will be any murders next week?" Ah yes, we've all been there...
  Watson: I'll have a word with the criminal classes.
• From the first preview clip: Mrs. Hudson complains to John about how she is portrayed in his documentation of Sherlock's cases:
  Mrs. Hudson: I never say anything, do I? According to you, I just show people up the stairs and serve you breakfast.
  Dr. John Watson: Well, within the narrative, that is, broadly speaking, your function.
  Mrs. Hudson: My what?!
  Sherlock Holmes: Don't feel singled out, Mrs. Hudson. I'm hardly in the dog one.
  Dr. John Watson: The "dog one"?
  Mrs. Hudson: I'm your landlady, not a plot device!
  • There is a client standing silently in the sitting room. Sherlock is mildly furious why Mrs.Hudson didn't ask her about what she needs while they're away;
  Mrs. Hudson: You ask her!
  Sherlock: Why didn't you ask her?!
  Mrs. Hudson: How could I? What with me not talking and everything!
  Sherlock: [to Watson] For God's sake, give her some lines! She's perfectly capable of starving us.
• This bit between Sherlock and Archie regarding the case Sherlock just solved:
  Archie: Did you catch your murderer, Mr. Holmes?
  Sherlock Holmes: Caught the murderer, still looking for the legs. Let's call it a draw.
• Sherlock Sherlock Scanning a client, flattering her (Mary), showing honest Self-Deprecation, and taking the piss out of Watson for not treating Mary better.
  Sherlock: ...allow me to make some trifling observations. You have an impish sense of humour which currently you’re deploying to ease a degree of personal anguish. You have recently married a man of a seemingly-kindly disposition who has now abandoned you for an unsavoury companion of dubious morals. You have come to this agency as a last resort in the hope that reconciliation may still be possible. ...All of this is, of course, perfectly evident from your perfume... yes, her perfume, which brings insight to me and disaster to you... because I recognised it and you did not.
  • The best part of this is Watson's Oh, Crap! expression when Sherlock flips up the client's veil; Sherlock recognised his wife's perfume!
• The reason for Dr. Watson's mustache:
  John: Blame the illustrator, he's out of control! I've had to grow this mustache just so people will recognise me!
• Lestrade finishes describing the Abominable Bride, a murderer who seemingly came back from the dead.
  Watson: Extraordinary.
  Mary: Impossible.
  Sherlock: [stands up] Superb!
• This exchange:
  John: Here's one [passes Sherlock his infamous deerstalker]
  Sherlock: Why?
  John: You're Sherlock Holmes. Wear the damn hat.
• Proving that some things don't change, at one point Holmes is talking to (or at) Watson, with Lestrade in the room. Only Watson isn't there, because he moved out. Three months ago. And Sherlock never noticed.
  Sherlock: I thought he'd been improving...
• John failing to grasp sign language.
  I'm glad you liked my potato.
  You're very ugly.
  • There was no sound (since it's Diogenes Club), yet two gentlemen who were reading their own papers in the background looked after Watson in astonishment...
  • And when Sherlock finally pulls John away from the counter before he can make even more of an ass of himself, John gives the concierge a defeated, apologetic thumbs-up.
• Mycroft being dangerously overweight? Not funny. Mycroft deliberately and gleefully reducing his own lifespan by continuing to pork out on plum puddings? Funny.
  • Mycroft and Sherlock making wagers on when Mycroft will actually die? Even funnier.
  • Funnier still? This is all in Sherlock's head. There's no reason for Mycroft to be like that.
• When Mycroft hints at forces threatening England, Watson guesses first Socialists, then Anarchists, then Suffragists, and finally the French.
  Mycroft: Is there any large body of people you're not concerned about?
  and then
  Mycroft: Are you aware of recent theories on what is known as paranoia?
  Watson: Oh, sounds Serbian.
  • Made funnier when it is being caused by the Suffragists.
• When Watson tries to exit a scene with his wife:
  Watson: I'm taking Mary home!
  Mary: You're what?
  Watson: Mary's taking me home.
  Mary: Better.
• While Mary is using her phone to access information stored by MI-5 about a cold case:
  Mycroft: So, what do you think of MI-5 security?
  Mary: I think it would be a great idea.
• Sherlock calling Moriarty a short ass after admitting he considers him an intellectual equal.
• Molly Hooper shows up in the 1895 morgue, with short hair and a false mustache. Sherlock and Anderson don't seem to notice she's really a woman, though Watson clearly does.
• After Mary tells Lestrade that she is in a movement for women's right to vote:
  Lestrade: Are you for or against?
  Mary: Get out.
• 1895 John attempts to talk to Sherlock about women, mentioning Irene Adler. Sherlock could not look more uncomfortable. It's not unlike a parent trying to talk to a teenager when they first start dating.
  John: You're a living, breathing man. You've lived a life. You have a past.
  Sherlock: A what?
  John: Well, you must have had...
  Sherlock: Had what?
  John: You know.
  Sherlock: No.
  John: ....Experiences
  Sherlock: Pass me your revolver, I have a sudden need to use it.
  John: Damn it, Holmes, you are flesh and blood. You have feelings, you have...You must have...impulses.
  Sherlock: Dear God, I have never been so impatient to be attacked by a murderous ghost.
• Moriarty blowing his brain off with a gun.
  Moriarty: "Is this noticeable?", "Or maybe I could back-comb?"
• When Moriarty takes the first swing at Sherlock on the precipice, if you listen closely you can hear him (Moriarty) hiss, sort of like a kitty cat.
• "That's not fair! There's two of you!"
• Various gentlemen spent a lot of time getting ridiculed. From Lestrade who was told by Sherlock that he could solve the Bride case only to be debunked by Mrs. Hudson, Mary's barb to Holmes the junior to John who noticed Hooper's disguise on the first time but not seeing his maid joining in on conspiracy.
  • At that, the maid gave John a little mocking wave.

Series Four

The Six Thatchers

• Mycroft and Sherlock get things rolling right away with sibling bickering about Sherlock tweeting while at a top secret meeting regarding his pardon.
  • From the same scene, Sherlock's line "I'm just glad to be ALIVE!" Not just the way he says it, but the look on his face when he says it.
• John apparently can substitute himself with a red balloon with a crudely drawn face on it for hours without Sherlock even noticing (pictured).
• Sherlock is constantly on his phone during Rosie's baptism. When the godparents are supposed to take their vow:
  Siri: Sorry, I didn't catch that. Please repeat the question.
  • Molly muttering that she has no idea why people think he has no human emotion, then elbowing him when it's time for him to say his bit.
• Sherlock seems surprised about Rosie's name. When Molly asks him if he didn't get John's message:
  Sherlock: No, I delete any text that begins with "Hi".
• Sherlock hitting a sore point with Lestrade when Sherlock says that he can take credit for some of his cases. Lestrade shouts that Sherlock gets the credit anyway when John posts the cases to his blog, so Lestrade just looks like a credit-stealing jackass.
  • Later Sherlock "jokes" that he'll let Lestrade take credit for the current case. Lestrade responds "Until John writes in his blog, right?" Sherlock responds "Basically."
• When Lestrade asks John about his life as a father:
  Lestrade: You at the beck and call of a screaming, demanding baby woken up all hours to obey his every whines. Must feel very different! [looks at Sherlock]
  Sherlock: I'm sorry, what?
• People keep trying to give Sherlock a case about the Black Pearl of the Borgias, and he keeps refusing them.
  DI Hopkins: Uh, Sherlock...
  Sherlock: Borgia pearl. Boring, go!
  • "It's a pearl — get another one!"
• Sherlock attempting to take care of John and Mary's baby Rosie, which involves him giving her a lecture about connecting actions to their consequences, and then we get this gem:
  Sherlock: If you want to keep the rattle, do not throw the rattle. [gives back the rattle, at which point baby Rosie throws it at him again]
  • Also worth noting is the fakeout that leads into this moment. Sherlock uses the classic Holmes line, "as ever Watson, you see but you do not observe," making us think he's talking to John. Then the camera angle changes to reveal the baby. Makes sense, after all both John and the baby have the same name of Watson. But let it sink in for a moment... Sherlock refers to a newborn baby as Watson.
• Toby, the dog.
  John: It's not moving.
  Sherlock: It's thinking.
  John: It's really not moving.
  Sherlock: Slow but sure, John.
  • Plus the fact that him tracking the scents uses the same graphics as Sherlock's Sherlock Scan.
  • Meta: according to a behind-the-scenes interview, he's supposed to be energetic, but it turns out his actor didn't want to move either.
• "Well, she's a retired super agent of terrifying skill set. Of course she's better."
• When Sherlock confronts Mycroft with A.G.R.A, Mycroft starts to recite random facts about the city in India.
  Sherlock: What are you, Wikipedia?
  Mycroft: Yes.
  Sherlock: It's an acronym.
  • Especially funny is the fact that Mycroft is quoting the Wikipedia article word-for-word.
    • Or perhaps the Wikipedia article is quoting him.
    • It's not. He's not a reliable source.
• When Sherlock shows Mycroft a picture of Rosie:
  Mycroft: What am I supposed to do with that?
  Sherlock: It's John and Mary's baby.
  Mycroft: Well, it looks very... fully-functioning.
  Sherlock: Is that really the best you can do?
• Mary motormouthing about the airplane breaking apart in mid-air to another passenger next to her while they are in flight.
  • In addition her reaction to finding Sherlock with her contact after going through the huge effort of random character switches and moving as erratically as possible to avoid being followed, Sherlock goes onto an elaborate rant about how no action was truly random, only to then admit he was messing with her and he and John had put a tracker on her.
• The whole dialog between John and Mary lying sleepless in their bed:
  Mary: You should have seen the front lawn. It was like The Exorcist.
  John: Was Rosie's head spinning around?
  Mary: Mmm, no... just projectile vomiting. Now you'd think we would have noticed, when she was born.
  John: Noticed?
  Mary: The little 666 on her forehead.
  John: No, that's The Omen.
  Mary: So?
  John: You said it was like The Exorcist. They're two different things. She can't be the devil and the Anti-Christ.
  Rosie: [starts crying from the next room]
  Mary: [gets out of bed] Oh, can't she?
  • Leaving behind a disk labelled "MISS ME" in the ending.
    Mary: Thought it'd get your attention.
• Sherlock finally got Lestrade's first name right this time! Because John was mouthing it to him.
• Mycroft says he met Margaret Thatcher. She seemed a bit arrogant. Sherlock points out who's talking. Mycroft laughs and admits he has a point.

The Lying Detective

• Faith visits high-as-a-kite Sherlock with a case in the evening, upon which he takes her outside the flat for a long walk. Mycroft suspects he's up to something and sends a freaking helicopter after both of them. Realizing this, Sherlock began to walk around, seemingly erratically. Then the intelligence staffs traced the routes on the map...
  F**CK OFF
  • After Sherlock deduces that Faith has been living an isolated life:
    Faith: Amazing.
    Sherlock: I know.
    Faith: I meant the chips.
    Sherlock: [chuckles]
  • GPS abuse, part 2:
    Faith: Are we going to walk all night?
    Sherlock: Possibly. It's a long word.
    Faith: What is?
    Sherlock: "Bollocks."
  • Sherlock points out that names aren't one word, there's always at least two; Sherlock Holmes, Faith Smith, Santa Clause, Winston Churchill...
    Sherlock: ...Napoleon Bonaparte. Actually, just Napoleon would do.
    Faith: Or Elvis?
    Sherlock: Look, I think we can rule both of them out as his target.
  • Possibly a Shout-Out to Doctor Strange?
  • John's commentary about the whole thing.
    John: It's very touching how you can hijack the machinery of the state to look after your own family.
• "I don't know. Yeah, I don't know anything anymore."
  • Mrs.Hudson pedal to the metal in Aston Martin, pulling sick drift with police in hot pursuit?
    John: Er, sometimes, can I borrow your car?
    Hudson: No.
  • She was blaring Ode to Joy the entire ride...
    Policeman: Do you have any idea what speed you were going?
    Hudson: Of course not! I was on the phone.
  • Adding on to that, she held Sherlock at gunpoint, handcuffed him, forced him into the boot or the car while speeding and getting chased by cops.
  • "And for the last bloody time, John, I'm not your housekeeper!" Yet she immediately starts cleaning the therapist's place after that line.
• "I'm a killer. A cereal killer."
  • A studio light bulb exploded during Culverton's advert shoot.
    Culverton: Was that me? Was I too good?
  • Later, when he comments to Sherlock on the joke, Sherlock says, "It's funny because it's true." Benedict Cumberbatch's tone is what makes it hilarious, and the fact that he's actually quoting Homer Simpson, of all pop culture references.
• A tearful, obviously distressed Mrs. Hudson guilts John into promising that he'll give Sherlock a medical evaluation the next time they see one another. Promise thus obtained, she then opens the boot of her cherry-red Aston Martin to reveal one Sherlock Holmes, wearing a dressing gown, handcuffed, trembling, and obviously very unhappy about the predicament he has found himself in.
• Culverton Smith greets Sherlock with a hug. When John asks Sherlock, later, why they were there, Sherlock just says, "I needed a hug."
• When Mycroft rings to John using a telephone inside Culverton's hospital, John doesn't even bother asking who's on the line.
• Sherlock attempting to interact with a room full of young fans after having just taken a hit.
  Sherlock: I will explain the details of a case and you will all attempt to solve the mystery of Blessington The Poisoner!
  John: I think you just gave away the ending.
  Sherlock: There were three suspects!
  John: One of them called Blessington?
  Sherlock: Well, it's more about how he did it!
  John: Poison?
  Sherlock: Yes.
• John asks Sherlock if he and Irene Adler go to discreet Harvesters^note A chain of restaurants in the UK and "nights of passion," while Sherlock squirms in visible discomfort and attempts multiple times to change the conversation.
  • Mary's description of the relationship? "Oh, the posh boy loves the dominatrix!"
    • Extra funny when you remember that's actually John's description of the relationship.
  • Sherlock insists that Irene texts him and he never replies. 5 minutes later, when trying to comfort John about his own texting related woes, he says, "Even I text. Her. Woman. Bad idea. Try not to but, you know, sometimes."
  • John flipping the hell out over Sherlock not texting The Woman back, even though Irene is a dangerous psychop-.
    Mary: Oh, married an assassin!
• Culverton not so subtly admitting to his crimes constantly can come across as funny, if you can overlook what he did.
  • Sherlock points out the confession he recorded via his bug would be discarded in court because of entrapment. However this turned out to not be an issue because, according to Lestrade, Culverton wouldn't STOP confessing after being arrested.
• "So you dreamed up a magic woman who told you things you didn't know?"
  Mary: Well, sounds about right to me. Possibly, I'm biased. (grins)
• Mycroft doesn't seem to take a hint why Lady Smallwood gives him her private phone number.
• The ending. Sherlock and John go out to eat cake. But before they go:
  Sherlock: I'm Sherlock Holmes. I wear the damn hat!
• 'Harry is a sister' turns out to be a long-distance Brick Joke. Who said anything about secret brother?
• When they find Mary's will and John wants to watch it, Mrs. Hudson orders everyone with a shred of human decency out. Mycroft's men leave. Mycroft doesn't move an inch, until Mrs. Hudson gets in his face.

The Final Problem

• Sherlock still wears that hat when he's at Mycroft's house.
• Apparently, Mrs. Hudson listens to heavy metal.
  • Not just any heavy metal! She listens to Iron Maiden!
• The episode opens with Mycroft at home, watching a Film Noir movie rife with innuendo on a projector, and he's giddily mouthing the words along with the detective.
• Sherlock being a complete troll at the beginning of the episode and terrifying his brother by hijacking his projector and having a deranged clown chase him around his house. You get the feeling he was a little annoyed to find out that he had a secret sister.
  • And the reveal that it was mainly John's idea to scare the shit out of him: "Someone convinced him that you wouldn't tell the truth unless you were actually wetting yourself."
  • "Hey, Bro!"
  • "Right, you two, Wiggins has got your money by the gate. Don't spend it all in one crack den!"
    • The clown honks his nose as his way of saying good-bye.
  • Just the mere image of Mycroft and a demonic clown about to duel.
• Apparently Mycroft acted in "The Importance of Being Earnest." He was Lady Bracknell.
• Moriarty's entrance into the episode: riding on a helicopter to a prison, listening to Queen's "I Want To Break Free" on his iPod.
• John provides some light-hearted commentary while the Holmes brothers are discussing "the other one."
  John: Middle child. That explains a lot.
  John: So did she have it too? The deduction thing?
• Mycroft has a sword-umbrella. Gun — sword-umbrella.
• A final nod is given the Sherlock/Irene pairing as Eurus demands Sherlock plays a piece on the violin that's his own. Sherlock proceeds to play Irene's theme. Eurus' immediate response is "Oh. Have you had sex?"
• A small one, but when Eurus mentions that Sherlock plays the violin, he only stares at her for a moment before asking her how she knew. Even though it was because she taught him how, it's still pretty amusing to see Sherlock be amazed like everyone else is when he scans them.
• Mycroft tells the governor of Sherrinford that he needs to thank John for convincing him (Mycroft) to not bluff his way into the facility dressed as Lady Bracknell.
• A possibly unintentional example, but when Moriarty is delivering his messages to John, Sherlock, and Mycroft, he's acting like a train conductor, which could be seen as a very subtle pun: they're being railroaded.
• Just the idea that Sherlock, Mycroft and John, three grown men, obviously got so much glee out of dressing up, hitting the high seas and playing out boyish fantasies of being actual pirates:
  Mycroft: This man stole my boat. He's a pirate!
  John: Yeah, I really am.

Other

Blogs/Commentaries/Other

Any time a character logs onto the fourth wall, it's bound to be hilarious.

• Sherlock's forum deserves a special mention.
  • Sherlock flounces out of his own forum. NOT that he's jealous of John's blog or anything. Also, you awful people who didn't appreciate his findings on 243 varieties of tobacco ash have caused him to take the paper down. Forever. You'll be sorry you didn't appreciate his brilliance when you had the chance.
  • Sherlock being a Grammar Nazi:
  Molly Hooper: Hi Sherlock. I was wondering if you were coming into the hospital again at some point as I've found a tie and I think it might be yours. Its like the sort of tie you might wear so I don't know if you left it here last time you visited.
  SH: "It's" not "Its". No, it's not mine.
  • The Big Bad comes in:
  Anonymous: One day we will meet.
  SH: Oh, that's lame.
  Anonymous: You don't know who I am.
  SH: No, but you're using phrases like 'one day we will meet'. If you're going to stalk me or threaten me or whatever it is, at least use your imagination.
  • And this bit:
  SH: Do not send post to my Montague Street address. Disagreement with landlord. No longer there. New address to follow.
  Mike Stamford: Thought you said you didn't have anywhere yet?
  SH: No. That's why I said new address to follow.
  Mike Stamford: Oh yeah, sorry!
  • Sherlock gets bored:
  SH: Another case closed. Anyone? Anything? Is the whole world just going to let me die of lethargy???!!!!
  Anonymous: I've emailed you a little message. A little game to play. I do like games.
  SH: A secret code? I can't be bothered with that.
  Anonymous: You'll like this one.
  SH: Nope. Bored already. Anyone want to decipher this for me? Details here on the Hidden Messages page.
  theimprobableone: i will i will
  John Watson: I'm stumped.
  SH: Well, that's hardly a surprise.
  • And the second one:
  Anonymous: Did you get my email?
  SH: Yes. And we've deciphered your first message. Terrifying.
  Anonymous: I do hope that's not sarcasm.
  SH: Oh, of course it isn't. If anyone wants to decipher this idiot's second messages, go to the Hidden Messages page.
  Anonymous: Not going to do it yourself?
  Anonymous: Looks like I'll have to get your attention a different way.
  • And this:
  theimprobableone: your new flatmate sounds stupid you need someone who can match your intellect.
  John Watson: Why don't you come pay us a visit? I'd love to meet you.
  • Don't forget this:
  SH: I would kill every one of you for a cigarette.
  John Watson: Maybe do some housework. That might take your mind off it. It certainly wouldn' t do the flat any harm.
  SH: Get Mrs Hudson to do it. She likes looking after us.
  John Watson: You ask her then.
  SH: You could always do it.
  John Watson Chicken.
  SH: We're out of milk.
• John's blog deserves a section, too:
  • Like this bit:
  Great to see you again, mate. And you should come down and meet the Mrs. Just remember she's mine, Casanova!

  Bill Murray 28 January 11:46
  Casanova??! My brother?!?!.

  Harry Watson 28 January 13:36
  Oh yeah. The things he got up to before we went out to A. Dirty boy!

  Bill Murray 28 January 17:56
  HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

  Harry Watson 28 January 18:12
  • You're never too old for laughing:
  LOL!!

  Harry Watson 29 January 22:00
  LOL? You're 36, Harry. Thirty-six..

  John Watson 29 January 22:03
  • Brick Joke!
    John, I've only just found this post. I've glanced over it and honestly, words fail me. What I do is an exact science and should be treated as such. You've made the whole experience seem like some kind of romantic adventure. You should have focused on my analytical reasoning and nothing more.
    Sherlock Holmes 28 March 17:46
    It's your turn to buy the milk, Sherlock.
    John Watson 28 March 18:12
  • Sherlock's response to one of Moriarty's comments after their pool confrontation: "Still alive, then?"
  • And this part:
  Anyway, why are you writing on my blog when you're sitting downstairs?!

  John Watson 23 March 18:20
  I. AM. BORED. And I'm wondering what temperature I'd need to create to blow up your cans of beer...

  Sherlock Holmes 23 March 18:23
  OK OK I'm coming down.

  John Watson 23 March 18:24
  • This part:
  John, this is appalling. It's all 'and then we ran here! And then we ran there! And it was a code!' What about the analysis, John? The analysis! How did I work it out? How did I know where to go? And as for 'All these people he involves in his adventures... '. My what? I'm sorry, obviously I didn't realise I was a character in a children's story.
  Sherlock Holmes 28 March 13:04
  Well, you're pretty childish. So if the cap fits...
  John Watson 28 March 13:07'

  And now for a brick joke.

  Also, please note that sentences can also end in full stops. The exclamation mark can be overused.
  Sherlock Holmes 28 March 13:08

  Fifteen comments later...

  John! I need you to book me some aeroplane tickets! I'm going to Minsk!
  Sherlock Holmes 28 March 15:55
  • This entire conversation.
  • THIS:
  The word is aeroplane, John. Not airplane. Just saying.
  Sherlock Holmes 29 March 10:33
  Sorry, Sherlock, thanks for correcting me. Oh, and just so you know, I've had a good tidy of the flat. Thrown out lots of junk. The place is spotless now.

  John Watson 29 March 10:35
  You wouldn't dare...

  Sherlock Holmes 29 March 10:36
• New hilarity in John's blog:
  "I thought that what he'd done was pretty clever but Sherlock described as disappointingly simple. The next day he spent so much time going on about how he'd have got away with it that I went to the pub and left him talking to a frozen turkey."
• This excerpt from "The Speckled Blonde":
  Sherlock, then, had an idea. He decided to relive Julia's last night. He wanted to spend a night in her bedroom and he wanted me to join him. Yes. You can all stop sniggering. I was going to sleep on the floor.
• This from "The Six Thatchers" (a Mythology Gag for the story "The Six Napoleons")-
  I'd taken Sherlock out Christmas shopping which, looking back, wasn't the best of ideas. He'd shouted at a Father Christmas that he was bored and wanted a nice juicy murder for Christmas — in front of a bunch of kids and their parents. Escorted back to the flat by the police, we found a student, Sally Barnicot, waiting for us.
• A good one about "Sherlock Holmes Baffled":
  The number of comments on this post caused my blog to crash so I've had to delete them. If you want to know what people had to say, then visit Scotland Yard where apparently a print-out is framed in the canteen.
• John showing more and more on his blog that he's barely computer literate (though both his typing and his HTML skills are improving, it seems) and doesn't give a damn about a lot of things. Including, but not limited to: "technobabble", fandom, comic books (sorry, graphic novels) and textspeak:
  PMSL!!!
  Harry Watson 01 April 12:24
  I don't even want to know what that means.
  John Watson 01 April 12:30
  • And on the comic books—er, graphic novels, he has this to say:
  It was about a series of comic books based on the adventures of some superhero terrorist-fighting organisation called KRATIDES. They were your average karate-kicking, moral-spouting group of spandex-wearers.
• John might have accidentally discovered what shakes Mike Stamford's... boat.
  Irene Adler?!?!
  Mike Stamford 15 September 23:21
  You know her!?
  John Watson 15 September 23:23
  Heard of her, that's all!!!
  Mike Stamford 15 September 23:25
• John's writeup of being a hostage at the end of "The Great Game" is more heartwarming than anything else. However, he does express how surreal the whole thing was:
  I had no idea what either of them would do. Moriarty clearly had no discernible human feelings and Sherlock had claimed not to care. Could this be it? Was I really going to die? In a sports centre?
• "The Hounds of Baskerville" had this in the comments section:
  It sounds as if the dog's bark was worse than its bite!
  Bill Murray 16 March 12:38
  LOL!
  Jacob Sowersby 16 March 12:40
  It's certainly given me paws for thought.
  Mike Stamford 16 March 13:32
  LOL!
  Jacob Sowersby 16 March 13:34
  Stop now.
  Sherlock Holmes 16 March 13:36
  Surely this is just a shaggy dog story.
  Bill Murray 16 March 13:47
  John, fetch me my revolver.
  Sherlock Holmes 16 March 13:50
• This entire comment section. John and Sherlock are commenting to each other from the same room while Mrs. Hudson adds her two cents from the flat below.
  This is incredibly tedious. Is this how you people talk to each other? What next, the weather?
  Sherlock Holmes 12 March 12:25
  Thanks for lunch, Mrs H. Hope you got back downstairs okay!
  John Watson 12 March 13:28
  I can still manage stairs even with my hip! Look outside I think it's going to rain.
  Mrs Hudson 12 March 13:30
  John, fetch me my revolver.
  Sherlock Holmes 12 March 13:32
• In the Hounds entry itself, we have this gem: He'd used me as an experiment. One day, I will kill him.
  • In hindsight, this is a bit of a Tearjerker. The episode and entry after Hounds is Reichenbach, in which John really does kill Sherlock, in a roundabout sort of way. Well, at least, he's the reason for Sherlock's (fake) suicide.
• Moriarty infiltrates Sherlock and John's flat while Mrs Hudson is apparently home. Nightmare Fuel? Definitely! Moriarty pausing while poking around to notice the antelope skull that's on the wall? Completely hilarious!
  Moriarty: He's put a pair of headphones on it... God!
  • Something darkly humorous about him noticing a few letters stuck together with a knife and muttering, "Temper, temper, temper..."
• Molly Hooper's blog is funny because it's such an egregious violation of every rule of web design. A pastel background, pictures of kittens, images that block off vital links if the page isn't formatted right, Comic Sans...
  • This page is particularly hilarious. Who'd've thought Jim Moriarty liked Glee? And given some of his mannerisms, he's probably being sincere when he says he loves it.
  • The beginning of the conversation might make you crack up if you take it the wrong way....
    Molly: Thanks for lunch!
    Jim: Thank YOU for last night!! Xxx
    Molly: Did you like it then? Was it all right?
    [and just as we're starting to cringe....]
    Jim: Yeah! I can't believe I've never seen Glee before! LOVED IT!
  • Her final tweet is this:
    But, got to stay positive. Nobody wants an unhappy person working in a morgue.
    Not that they want a particularly happy one either.
    Stay happy everyone xx
• From the DVD Commentary for "The Great Game":
  Mark Gatiss: Tell us about Rupert Graves, Benedict.
  Benedict Cumberbatch: Rupert Graves is good at football and has five children.
  Mark Gatiss: Oooh, why don't you marry him?!
  Benedict Cumberbatch: Olivia won't let me!
  • Benedict's Alan Rickman impression (and Mark's Martin impression, met with a "no, no, no, no" from Martin).
    "Hellooooo. I'm Alan Rickman, filling in for... Martin Freemannnn."
• From the DVD Commentary for "A Scandal in Belgravia", regarding Irene's Naked First Impression scene:
  Lara Pulver: [laughing] But at one point I was straddling your knee, naked, with my boobs in your face...
  Benedict Cumberbatch: ... I remember.
• From Sherlock: The Casebook...
  • The book appears like a scrapbook of the items related to each case, as compiled by John. This is interrupted by various post-it commentary by Sherlock and Mycroft throughout the book. Just the image of John opening the scrapbook and discovering Sherlock's snarky post-its. Rather than complain to his flatmate in person, he chooses to reply with even more post-it notes. Not to mention Mycroft's own post-its appearing when the information John is collecting gets a bit more classified.
    Sherlock: You're keeping A SCRAPBOOK. Only old ladies and pre-pubescent girls keep scrapbooks, John,
    John: It's not a scrapbook, Sherlock. I'm collecting papers relevant to the cases. It helps me remember the details, And it was locked away in my desk drawer.
  • Sherlock's post-it note after John writes up about how his and Sarah's first date was ruined by Sherlock tagging along and getting into a fight with one of the Tong assassins.
    Best. Date. Ever.
  • The Case of the Cheap Flat is probably the most hilarious part. Just buy the Casebook, read it yourself and you'll see why.
  • John writes a piece for the book about how he's honored to be Sherlock's best friend, to help solve his crimes, and that Sherlock himself has consented to write a piece. Sherlock's "piece" for the book:
    Don't buy this book. The author has transformed what should have been a series of lectures into a gross and tasteless entertainment. The science of deduction is a branch of human achievement requiring serious analysis and yet her I find it lavishly illustrated, disfigured with humour and infested with gossip. Apparently, this kind of sensationalism is required to engage the interest of the reading public, but it is rather like working an office romance into a paper on quantum physics. Only an idiot would be impressed. Help yourself.
  • The comments they make on the sides of the dust jacket. The first one's on the left, and the second example is on the right.
    Sherlock: I'm a consulting detective. The only one in the world. I invented the job.
    John: We solve crimes. I blog about it and he forgets his pants.
  • Sherlock's response to a sentence John has written in "The Blind Banker" entry:
    According to 'Raz', (Sherlock's expert on graffiti), the paint 'is like Michigan, hardcore propellant, I'd say zinc.' Whatever that's supposed to mean.
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: If you ever use that many quotation marks in a sentence again, I'll have the locks changed while you're out.
  • And from "The Blind Banker" entry as well:
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: A jade pin valued at nine million pounds, no wonder Van Coot gave into temptation! Found the Tong, found the pin, case closed!
    John's Green Post-It: There was the small matter of me and Sarah's kidnapping and my near death!
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: Small matter. Yes, just that. I saved you didn't I? Crossbows and excitement. Second. Best. Date. Ever.
  • Three zingers from "The Blind Banker" entry; Sherlock calling D.I Dimmock "D.I Dim", doodling a mustache and glasses on his picture, and this (after concluding that the villain of ''the Blind Banker committed suicide):
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: (On Dimmock's police report on the case) Yes! Idiot! She shot herself in the forehead with a sniper rifle! How is this man able to get dressed in the morning, let alone function as a police officer?
  • Mycroft shows up to chat about Sherlock:
    Mycroft's Orange Post-It: You should have seen him when we were boys. All I had to do was walk into the room and he'd be flinging his dinner at me. Mother despaired.
  • From "The Great Game" entry:
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: Are you sure it wasn't the cat?
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: Perhaps it read your blog and got ideas.
    John's Green Post-It: Shut up about the cat, it was a perfectly good theory.
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: You should set up a sister practice, perhaps? John Watson, Pet Policeman.
  • From "The Hounds of Baskerville" entry, it's Sherlock on the countryside:
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It: It was too green. And there were cows. Loose. The country is hell.
  • In "The Blind Banker" entry, two successive Post-Its from Sherlock are pretty funny if read with no context:
    John's Green Post-It (to Sherlock): Never work in H.R.
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It #1: Is that something to do with the Queen? How could you work inside the Queen and retain your head?
    Sherlock's Yellow Post-It #2: Only one way to find out...
• Running Gag: The fact that the hit counter on John's blog is stuck on 1895.
• In John's 26th April post, there's a hate message left there yelling "I HOPE HE (Sherlock) ROTS IN HELL!!!!" It's posted by Sauron, apparently.
  • John lampshades it here. "...please ignore the trolls. I honestly don't care what some character from Lord of the Rings thinks."
  • Sauron can't help himself. "YOU CAN'T IGNORE THE TRUTH!"
    • That's Sauron 1976 — he was born the same year as Benedict Cumberbatch.
• Parody videos — this one by CollegeHumor where Sherlock appears in Blue's Clues, insults Steve, and exposes Blue as a botched genetic experiment. Another video explores what would happen if Elementary, another modernised Sherlock Holmes adaptation, aired in the Sherlock universe. In the video, Sherlock is incapable of understanding the US TV ratings, describing the characters of that show in such a way that he's describing himself. Mrs. Hudson shows up briefly with a letter that Sherlock calls the "reddest of herrings" — a copyright infringement notice from CBS Studios. After John leaves, he says, "Oh, wait! I've got it: it's Monk! [DING!] No, wait! It's House, but without the doctor stuff!" Or this one by Studio C where Sherlock and Moriarty predict each others actions to ridiculous extents.
• Benedict Cumberbatch explains how Sherlock survived in the Comic-Con video.
• "I'm far too busy to be instagramming, John!"
• Sherlock's writing a blog for John while he is on his "sex holiday." The comments section for that one is to be treasured, including as it does Sherlock being rude, John pointing out that Sherlock's being rude, Sherlock and Mary both pointing out that John's reading his blog again when he's supposed to be on Sex Holiday, more "big squishy hugs" from Stella and Ted, Sherlock with a rather pathetic desperation wanting anyone to ask him how he solved the case ("John would ask me if he was here"), and a strong suggestion that even theimprobableone has a better social life than Sherlock does.
• The recently-launched iPhone/iPad app Sherlock: The Network lets you play as a tramp belonging to Sherlock's Homeless Network of spies. The advertisement, shot from your POV, makes you a homeless person asking to be recruited by Sherlock, where he talks with you in the rudest way possible.
• Benedict Cumberbatch appearing on Sesame Street. And the inhabitants can't tell him apart from his TV persona.
• This. "Three Continents", indeed.
• Benedict Cumberbatch's introduction to the tie-in edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles. From slipping into Sherlock-style dialogue to yelling "Concentrate, Cumberbatch!" to constantly to asking why Gatiss didn't do the introduction to asking if he can do something like this again (and being told he can't), it's hilarious.
  • Likewise, Martin Freeman's introduction to the tie-in of The Sign of the Four is full of snark.
  "Martin, you've been asked to go in for a modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes."
  Uh-Oh.
  Alarm bells went off in my head. What would 'modern' mean, in TV terms? Deductions being rapped? Holmes and Watson bombing around London in a Lexus on a way to meet Lestrade, a wheelchair-bound lesbian with a penchant for Class-As at lunchtime?
  Actually, to read some Daily Mail pieces on the show, that is what we ended up making. But I digress...What I was wary of was the idea that Holmes would become 'cool.' And not good cool. Telly cool. Which y'know...ain't cool. And I had this slight fear of it moving too far away from the original stories, without, you guessed, having read any of the original stories.
  Conan Doyle? Check. The Hound of the Baskervilles? Check. (I'll watch any version that you care to throw at me.) Rathbone and Bruce? Hell, yeah. (My first point of contact with Holmes and, for me, still brilliant.)
  The good news, (yes, yes, apart from Moffat and Gatiss, I'll get to them) was that they wanted Benedict Cumberbatch to play Holmes. OK, I like the sound of that. I'd always admired his work and could see him as Sherlock, no problem. But I was wanted for Watson. Was that a good thing? Was it an interesting part? I didn't fancy 'bumbling' just out of shot while someone else was being brilliant.
  Also, with deep respect to Nigel Bruce (my personal Watson), he was about 731 years older than me during his tenure (or he seemed it-in the old days, he was probably 26).
  So the script arrived and everything, and I mean everything, fell into place. The tone, the pace, the relationship between Sherlock and John, the balance between action and what I like to call 'dialogue'-all of it just flew off the page and blew me away. Not surprising, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss are really good, really respected writers. But Watson was far more active than what I was expecting. They had done that, surely? Removed the bumble and added the 'kerpow!'?
  Well no, not really. I mean what Steven and Mark have done on Sherlock is nothing short of miraculous, I think. Their inventions and innovations are pretty close to genius, if that exists. But Conan Doyle's material, as I was to find out, was much more 'modern', much less cosy, than I'd realised.
  John was an army doctor invalided back from Afghanistan, as was the original Watson. He was a physically capable man, as in the original stories. As I said earlier, I hadn't read Conan Doyle at this point. But when I signed up as John, I started to familiarise myself with the originals. I'm still doing it. These things don't want to be rushed and there's happily a lot of material to get through.
  As stories, they are begging to be dramatised-it's no coincidence that they have been, more than any other fiction than I can think of. Not because the plots are so clever, which they are, or that the characters are so well drawn, which they are. The dialogue is great! The more I read, the more I recognise, in various TV and film adaptations, whole swathes of Doyle's dialogue completely unchanged. It has drama. And real wit. This book you hold in your hands is a good example.
  All I'll say is that Mary Morstan appears, which is good news for John. The rest of it you can discover, and delight in, yourself.
• The fan parody "Do You Wanna Play Deductions?" set to the tune of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" from Frozen.
• Benedict Cumberbatch was told by an interviewer that Sherlock, considering his lack of romantic or sexual interest in the show, would probably be a "lousy lay", which Cumberbatch was quick to defend. According to him, if Sherlock put his mind to it, then his thorough researching of subjects and knowledge of the human body would probably make him a Sex God.

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