Series/Sherlock

I got the implication from the trailer that while Mycroft knows about Euros, something happened to separate Sherlock from her in childhood and what memories he does have of her are repressed

So, telenovela then. In seriousness though, people are mentioning there migh be hints of the story The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire in which a little boy tried to kill his baby brother by poisoning him, but first practiced with the family dog.

Yeah, it seems tied up with what happened to Sherlock's beloved dog.

Sherlock did recognize her. About 24 minutes in, when at the park when he was drugged and started freaking out and quick burst of memories. He just wasn't in the best condition to deduce everything.

I got the impression Euros was locked away somewhere a long time ago. Probably a closed psychiatric ward, with her therapist role being a sick joke after her escape.

Yeah, what with the joke John made about the third Holmes sibling locked away in a tower. And now I'm kinda worried about how this is going to turn out, since the treatment of female characters on this show has always been a bit not good.

Random thought (had started watching from some of the first episodes shown on PBS and am pretty up to date with current stuff). So, on the topic of siblings, Moriarty in the original stories is supposed to have a law abiding brother, oddly also named James (Doyle wandered at times). What's the chances that Andrew Scott will come back and play Moriarty's Good Twin?

I swear to God if the whole series turns about to be a hallucination of Sherlock or John or Mycroft or Moriarty or Mrs. Hudson I will burn the BBC to the ground. And MISS ME better not be an anagram or some bullshit.

It is Redbeard's dying dream.

Oh yeah, another thing I was wondering: does John have a number to contact Mycroft at, or is the only way to get in touch with him to go yell at a CCTV camera or throw Sherlock in the back of a sportscar?

edited 10th Jan '17 7:43:42 PM by TParadox

If any of you are near Twitter, tread carefully, the BFI advance screening of The Final Problem was tonight and it just wrapped. I've seen some cryptic hints, Moffat was asked a question at the end of the screening of where it all goes from here, his answer was

"It's all sorted for you. Read the books"

Keep note that I'm deliberately omitting half of that sentence.

I also ask this

tea or coffee?

Wait, Read the books? So Sherlock is gonna retire from detective work and take up beekeeping, and John is gonna marry again, and then they'll reunite years later to stop a plot to ignite a new world war?

Oh yeah, another element I recognized: The Seven Per Cent Solution must have been on their minds while framing Sherlock's conviction of pure evil as a coked-up fantasy.

Everyone and their mother's going on about Saville and... urgh... Trump... but why are there comparatively less people who notice the Harold Shipman parallels?

Also didn't notice it until I read the Tropes recap but nice (almost) Book Ends: Sherlock mistakes John's sister as his brother and John does the same here too

Small Reference Pools

With Sherlock not recognising Euros, remember that she's a genius like him. She was able to use her knowledge of his abilities against him, essentially - similar to how Irene did in her episode.

2104

Thank you for posting that, and I'm glad I was lurking at the moment you did. I hear that trope thrown around so often.

edited 14th Jan '17 4:06:41 AM by Soble

I did not see this as a fridging either, at least from a Watsonian perspective. The main issue is the Willing Suspension of Disbelief required to believe that anyone would sacrifice its life for the World's Biggest Asshole©. Especially when the World's Biggest Asshole© was the sole person responsible for being in danger.

edited 14th Jan '17 4:32:07 AM by Julep

Well, you (and a lot of other people) think he's an asshole, but John and Mary love him (and also think he's an asshole). He'd definitely be a difficult man to know, and even more difficult to like, but even in the real world people manage. Sherlock's not likable (entertaining, yes; likable, no) but even unlikable people are frequently deeply cared for by others.

Or, if you don't like that explanation, maybe it's just Mary's nature to throw herself in front of danger. Highly trained fighter types can be like that.

John's not entirely unlike Sherlock, really. They're both somewhat self-destructive thrill-seekers (note Sherlock's words to John regarding his therapist in the first episode). They both have a liking for attention (hence John's irritation when people think Sherlock writes his own blog). John's significant differences are not being a deductive genius or a "high-functioning sociopath," and being significantly better with people.

By experience, in real life, it is very well perceived to at least try to be nice, even if you are fundamentally socially awkward. I don't think John is a very well-balanced individual overall, but he tries to be decent with other people, and that's why his flaws can more easily be forgiven.

Sherlock doesn't give a fuck about being a douchebag, and in real life I really can't picture anyone bothering with such a man. The only times we see him trying to be charming it is immediately shown to be a front so that he gains something (mostly with his horrible interactions with Molly - mind you, he immediately admits to her that it is a front when he gets what he wants, if at least he left her in blissful ignorance you could at least give him points for superficially caring about other people's feelings).

So while I can absolutely imagine the professionnal relationship between Sherlock and John or Sherlock and Lestrade - because Sherlock really is that good at what he does - I just can't buy anymore the personal relationships. Or, more accurately, while I can somehow buy the fascination Sherlock creates in "ordinary people" such as John or Lestrade, it doesn't work with an extraordinary individual such as Mary - and even with John it really should have faded after him repeatedly behaving like an uncaring jerk.

It's funny, too, because Sherlock's being such an asocial ass is quite a departure from the books. There, his personality never really gets above intellectually superior and eccentric. On the show, I do feel they play Sherlock's personality too much for laughs, and as such do tend to push it a bit too far.

In John's case, while I think he genuinely does care about Sherlock, I think he also enjoys the adventure and danger that proximity to Sherlock brings him. As Sherlock pointed out in "A Study in Pink," John's problem was less that warfare messed him up than that he missed the excitement of it. Depending on his current level of personal development, he'd languish if he were cut off from Sherlock's world. I don't think it's just fascination.

edited 14th Jan '17 10:29:08 AM by Robbery

I was thinking of this same issue. One thing that stood out to me is that the scene with Watson's watch in the novel The Sign of the Four (used in the first episode of the show with Watson's mobile phone) has Holmes do a Sherlock Scan which angers Watson because he basically unthinkingly deduces correctly that Watson's brother is a drunken reprobate and Watson assumes that Sherlock knew this ahead of time and was screwing with him. Holmes then basically apologiezes for deducing without thinking of the feelings of other people.

I was struck by this scene because it's kind of similar to the Sherlock Christmas Party scene where Sherlock makes deductions about Molly and her gift that leave her in tears and apologies- but the difference is that in that scene Sherlock is much more deliberately mean. It's the difference between not thinking about people's feelings (novel) and not caring about people's feelings (show).

I was also thinking that I'm surprised that there isn't a modern Raffles adaptation/that Raffles hasn't shown up on Sherlock because the Homoerotic Subtext in those stories is definitely more deliberate and unlike Sherlock Holmes, I think "high functioning sociopath" is a pretty fair description of A.J. Raffles.

It'd definitely be interesting to see Raffles (fun fact: Raffles was created by Arthur Conan-Doyle's brother-in-law), but hardly anyone remembers who Raffles is. It's be cool to see Arsene Lupin, too, but, again, few in the English speaking world remember who he is. This is not to say that I don't like either idea, because I do, just that it's probably unlikely to ever happen.

Hell, I think it's be neat for Sherlock to encounter Holmlock Shears (the Sherlock expy from the Arsene Lupin stories) or Solar Pons (August Derleth's Holmes clone, created because Derleth dearly wanted to contiue the Holmes stories when Conan-Doyle stopped writing them, but was denied permission).

edited 14th Jan '17 10:54:33 AM by Robbery

Watched The Final Problem, it was... eh? It wasn't bad, but it felt kinda meh. I'm not entirely convinced with the resolution with the main bad guy, and there was twist after twist that would make Hideo Kojima proud (at least nobody turned out to be an AI, I think). Though it was nice that John was useful for a change, and poor, poor Molly, she deserves better.

Ugh, I got thrown off by my PBS station's scheduling. The first two episodes were premiered at 8, so here I am checking the schedule at quarter till 7 to make sure the finale is going to be at 8 too, and no. 8 is the next episode of Victoria. They started the premiere airing at 6 and won't show it again until 10.