Sherlock S1 E1 "A Study in Pink" / YMMV

Alternative Character Interpretation: When Jeff lies dying from the gunshot wound, he noticeably shakes his head from side to side as Sherlock demands to know if he picked the right pill. Does this shake mean "No, you chose wrong" or "No, I'm not going to tell you"? Or was he not reacting to Sherlock's question at all, just writhing around in pain?
Creepy Awesome: Sherlock, particularly this interaction immediately after another foot-in-mouth moment:
Sherlock: If you were dying, if you'd been murdered, in your very last seconds, what would you say?
John: Please, God, let me live.
Sherlock: Oh, use your imagination!
John: I don't have to.
Harsher in Hindsight:
John: Do people usually assume you're the murderer?
Sherlock: Now and then, yes.
- Sgt. Sally Donovan says: "One day we'll be standing around a body and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there." Fast forward to "The Reichenbach Fall" and ouch.^note
- And then there's the climax of "His Last Vow", where Sherlock shoots Magnussen in front of three police helicopters and Mycroft.
- The cab driver's words to Sherlock: "I'm not gonna kill you, Mr. Holmes. I'm gonna talk to you, and then you're gonna kill yourself."
- The words "love is a far more vicious motivator" hurt much more since Sherlock commited suicide to save the people he loves, his only friends.
- Sherlock initially chooses the gun over the pills, a still-tense moment but an obvious decision for him because he's already deduced it's not a gun but a novelty lighter. "The Final Problem" has Sherlock almost use the same solution - this time with an actual gun - and so nearly kill himself to save Mycroft, Mrs. Hudson, and Watson.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: A lot of Sherlock's behaviour towards John seems like just common courtesy (thanking him for the phone, trying to turn him down gently when he thinks John is into him, waiting for him at the top of the stairs) until we reach later episodes, and we realize that Sherlock normally couldn't care less about common courtesy. The whole of Series 3 also doubles as Tear Jerker in Hindsight.
It Was His Sled: The mysterious gentlemen that claims to be Sherlock's enemy is his older brother, Mycroft Holmes.
Magnificent Bastard: Jeff Hope is an unassuming cabbie who uses his genius mind for manipulation to trick people into playing a lethal "game" with him. Jeff's game involves making his victim choose one of two identical pills, one which is lethal poison, the other safe to consume, and whichever his victim picks, Jeff takes the other pill. Having claimed four victims with this method—using his talent for reading people to ensure he manipulates them into choosing the lethal pill—Jeff further coerces Sherlock himself into playing Jeff's game by appealing to the consulting detective's ego. "Sponsored" by James Moriarty with money for every person he murders that Jeff hopes to leave to his kids once a brain aneurysm kills him, Jeff nearly finishes his game with Sherlock until Watson interferes, leaving it ambiguous as to whether the cabbie was gracefully accepting his death by taking the poison, or had actually outwitted Sherlock into taking it himself.
Narm: During the climactic confrontation with the cabbie, he uses the phrase "didn't see that comin, didja?" twice within the same monologue.
Paranoia Fuel: Cab driving is the perfect job for a serial killer; people will jump into your arms without a thought of caution, you can drive them to a quiet and isolated place without them noticing, and no one will ever connect your face to the crime because no one ever bothers to look at a cabbie's face. Jeff even wonders why "more of us don't branch out." Feel like taking a cab now?
Special Effect Failure: The nail marks spelling out 'Rache' next to the body of the woman in pink are only visible in the couple of shots where they're relevant to Sherlock's deductions.

YMMV / Sherlock S1 E1 "A Study in Pink"

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