Sherlock Returns (BBC) (spoilers probable)

[SCRawl]

I also wouldn't put it past Holmes to have arranged for the man on the bicycle to knock Watson down at that moment, though having that precise effect would be a bit of a leap (pun intended).

Or Sherlock could be the cylcist.

He would have had to have been on the roof dumping the body at the same time as standing in wait on the bicycle. Not even Sherlock Holmes could accomplish that. His network of homeless people, though, could surely have supplied someone.

[UnderAGreySky]

I think the reason he needed Molly's help was to get a drug that would bring him to near death and arrange for the garbage truck. Jump into it, fake a head wound and appear dead to a knocked-over Watson... either that or Watson was drugged by the man on the bike.

I liked Martin Freeman's role, and the series in general. Many things irritated me but not enough to make me stop watching.

[Rogue 9]

PBS put Sherlock on the schedule for Masterpiece. They didn't say they were rerunning the first season. Which they are.

CURSE YOU, BBC!

[Faqa]

What I love about how Sherlock's death played is that it is fair - they gave us all the information we need to figure out that it's a fake:

- We know Moriarty was able to fake a Sherlock - witness imprinting his face on the little girl earlier.

- We know Sherlock has enlisted at least Molly's aid, even though it just looked random at the time. She can certify him as dead.

- Aaaaaand, if we watch Sherlock's 'jump' scene, it at least looks like we have a hint of two Sherlocks in two places.



That's the background we usually see throughout his tearful goodbye with Watson. Note the dome in the background - my professor for London geography, Google, tells me that that's the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.




Now here - very similar angle, no dome. This is the half-second during which he yells at Watson not to move. Could be a bridge - looks a bit like one. But it doesn't resemble the cathedral, I think.

I freely await correction from people who live in/actually know London, but it sure as hell looks like a hint from over here.


And if so, we have a double - which, again, is not an ass-pull, since Moriarty showed he could do that earlier in the episode.

Begging the question - why would a double be ready to go, and why would he jump? Since we know the assassins are not a bluff - we see the scope of one - I can't come up with a theory that makes sense.

(Sidenote- "There IS no 'computer code' - DOOFUS!" is my standout favorite Moriarty line of the series)

[Dartzap]

Third series has already been commissioned

[Faqa]

Hopefully not with a year-and-a-half wait between.

Man, FUCK that Doctor guy. THIS is Moffat's number 1 priority.

[SCRawl]

Faqa: Both of those angles are shots of St. Paul's Cathedral -- those two spires are to the right of the dome.

I've analyzed things using Google Earth and the video from the episode, and it's pretty clear that Sherlock's in just one place. In fact I think I know how things happened, and I'll continue it in spoiler space just in case someone doesn't want to be spoiled.
Spoiler

Have a look at this image. It's where Watson/Holmes had to be for this scene to work. You can see that Watson is behind a one-storey building that acts as a blind for what's happening at ground level. That's where Holmes commanded him to stop, one would think purposefully. You can use the Google Earth coordinates at the bottom if you want to find the image yourself.



If you look at the scene just after Sherlock's jump, you can see a helpfully-placed truck with a bed full of squishy-looking stuff. The kind of stuff that might break a plummeting detective's fall, if you catch my drift. Because the thing that's falling is pretty clearly a conscious person -- it's flailing its arms and legs during the fall, after all, and corpses generally don't do that.



(Of course, this is TV; no one would want to rely on some laundry bags to break a fall of that distance, but we can rely on a TV Holmes to walk away from it.)

As to what the body is, it sure looks like Holmes, but again we might be tempted to believe that that's what Watson expected to see. I could imagine that someone dumped a Holmes-like body off of that truck bed at roughly the same time that Holmes was landing on it, at which point the truck drove off out of the scene. Or the body could actually be Holmes, who just hopped off the back of the truck, though I think this unlikely; Watson was actually touching the body, and I think that he can tell the difference between a corpse and a living man, even concussed.

I do like the idea that the body on the ground was a duplicate supplied by Molly, wearing whatever facial disguise was used to fool the kidnapped girl into being afraid of Holmes. I don't know how he could have gotten his hands on that, but it's a nice idea. On the other hand, a tall corpse with longish hair might have been sufficient, along with a medium-sized supply of blood to make a nice splatter effect. I suspect that some of the gathered throng were in on the deception.

Makes sense?

[Faqa]

Spoiler

It makes enough sense. I think it's a bit fishy that a military doctor who had seen battlefield action would confuse a long-dead corpse for a fresh one, but Watson was woozy, and with Molly's interference, he may be the only medical personnel not in on the plot to touch the body.

As to how they got the disguise? I think the other Holmes brother comes in here. Sherlock may be ignorant enough of computers to have believed Moriarty on the 'computer code', but MYCROFT buying that such a thing was possible? Bullshit. He knows too much, can command too many experts who know the systems intimately to believe that. I don't know why he dragged Moriarty in at the beginning of the episode, but it wasn't for a computer code.

And Mycroft certainly has the resources to procure a Sherlock-disguise, especially if he's been tracking Moriarty for the episode's time period.

A disguise it must be, I think, both because they set up the hint early on and because otherwise they need EVERYBODY who so much as sees the body to be in on it. Celebrity jumps from a building in the middle of London? Too big an event to trust that happening.

[Captain Seafort]

Spoiler

I think it's a bit fishy that a military doctor who had seen battlefield action would confuse a long-dead corpse for a fresh one, but Watson was woozy, and with Molly's interference, he may be the only medical personnel not in on the plot to touch the body.

You mean the same military doctor who didn't spot anything fishy about the sign outside Baskerville not mentioning the 1989 Official Secrets Act, described himself as being "5th Northumbrian Fusiliers" when he would actually have been RAMC, and returned a salute while out of uniform?

In any event, I don't recall Watson getting close enough to examine the body.

Spoiler

they need EVERYBODY who so much as sees the body to be in on it. Celebrity jumps from a building in the middle of London? Too big an event to trust that happening.

Spoiler

Not necessarily - all you really need is to have Irregulars in position to swamp the body and prevent anyone else getting too close.

[SCRawl]

In any event, I don't recall Watson getting close enough to examine the body.

He checked the body for a radial pulse. That's pretty close. Mind you, he collapsed right after that from (presumably) having his head bounced off of the road, so he wasn't exactly in great shape to do any sort of examination.

[Captain Seafort]

He checked the body for a radial pulse.

Fair enough. My recollection was of him trying to push through the crowd, failing, and them collapsing.

[SCRawl]

You know, it's also occurred to me that Moriarty might not be dead. Sure, he stuck a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, but it didn't look as though Holmes took a good look at the body. Of course, even a blank round would have produced a pretty hideous wound, assuming other precautions weren't taken; you can't produce a loud "bang" like that without lots of gas going somewhere in a big hurry. Perhaps the firearms experts in this thread would know if there's a pistol equivalent of a BFA that would allow for this sort of tactic.

[Zed]

If they're going to continue with the vague analogy to the original stories, Moriarty'll be dead.

[Iroscato]

If they're going to continue with the vague analogy to the original stories, Moriarty'll be dead.

Let's hope he is. Fantastic character, but I think he would be in serious danger of becoming boring if they tried using him again for another series.
Also, I'm diverting almost no thinking as to how Sherlock faked his own death, I'm perfectly happy to watch the show when it comes back and laugh at the uber-cheeky explanation they'll no doubt give

[SCRawl]

If they're going to continue with the vague analogy to the original stories, Moriarty'll be dead.

Well, yes, everyone knows that. Come to think of it, though, there was no body to be found in the original story...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Amusingly enough, about 18 months ago I saw a Peter Egan version of Sherlock Holmes at Windsor theatre, which is based ont he idea that Moriarty was in fact invented by Holmes, as either a subconscious thing to keep him occupied or as another personality. It was well done and entertaining, and I kept having flashbacks to it while watching this episode.

[UnderAGreySky]

Amusingly enough, about 18 months ago I saw a Peter Egan version of Sherlock Holmes at Windsor theatre, which is based ont he idea that Moriarty was in fact invented by Holmes, as either a subconscious thing to keep him occupied or as another personality. It was well done and entertaining, and I kept having flashbacks to it while watching this episode.

But then I go back to Watson's quote (paraphrased): "I know you're for real, Sherlock, because you're a dick"

[Eternal_Freedom]

Amusingly enough, about 18 months ago I saw a Peter Egan version of Sherlock Holmes at Windsor theatre, which is based ont he idea that Moriarty was in fact invented by Holmes, as either a subconscious thing to keep him occupied or as another personality. It was well done and entertaining, and I kept having flashbacks to it while watching this episode.

But then I go back to Watson's quote (paraphrased): "I know you're for real, Sherlock, because you're a dick"

I never said I thought that, I just recall the idea from the Windsor version. I never doubted that Sherlock was real; there would be little point in having a twist like that and still having another series.