BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » How he did it - Theory/ theories after seing The Empty Hearse

s.he · January 4, 2014 7:16 pm

In this thread I like to think about another theories than the Anderson-told-one. It's not the thread for discussing if this was the truth or not.

I think all the 3 "fan explanations" in this episode are wrong und we will get another explanation for Sherlocks surviving until the end of third episode of this season. And I think the authors left some hints in The Empty Hearse, too. What do I think? First assumption of me is that he would tell John the truth. But John didn't ask how until the end of the show. Too late for an explanation in that episode :D. So Sherlock just answered "You know my methods." Second assumption: not only the 3 fan theories are wrong, but also all the belonging elements told us. I try to remember (if I've missed things, please complete me):

1st theory (Anderson to Lestrade): Moriartys Body in exchange, a mask, bungeejumping, hypnosis, a Molly-lovestory, lots of helpers who know the fake
2nd theory (The fangirl): Moriarty's still alive (and happy in love with Sherlock) <3
3rd theory (Sherlock to Anderson as the fandom): Mycroft and Sherlock are heads of a huge conspiracy, a look-alike-body, a big pillow, art blood, the rubberball, hospitalstuff and lots of homeless helped and know the fake, Molly was completely in on it (add: "the well-timed cyclist")

What's the bit Sherlock tells John about his plan? (Because of my english I didn't understand everything):
Somewhere below was a van with washing bags. Outside the building was a way from the roof to the ground. He had have a couple of helpers, especially Mycroft and Molly, but no more hospital stuff.

Based on the methods of Sherlock Holmes: If you eliminate the impossible and wrong, the unbelievable improbable will be the truth.

So, whats left after this assumptions? For me it's the washing bag van. You can see it in the big pillow explanation standing around. It already was observed earlier without thinking it till the end. But if Sherlock jumped into the van actually, than we have a lot of new und old questions.

But first I will write about another point. I don't believe in a conspiracy from the beginning with Mycroft in the centre (btw, I don't like the idea of Big Brother and it makes me remembering the rooftop scene "There is no keycode, Doofus!" ) And it's part of the wrong 3rd fan explanation. So what does Sherlock mean to John when he said "It was Mycrofts idea."? I assume he tried to give an answer, why he never told John a word that he was alive. I think, Mycroft kept him away from this temptation. So Sherlock not necessarily have told John, that Mycroft had helped him through the jumping plan. So may be, Mycroft was invited to the secret not before Sherlock jumped and "only" helped him later. I think Mycroft was after the keycode, too. He observed Sherlock in his flat with the camera Sherlock found behind the books. Characteristic Big Brother. And is it possible that Molly helped Sherlock without being completely in? And if there were no pillows, bodys and masks, what was the job of the homeless? Hitting John to the ground (one person), maybe taking Sherlocks smartphone from the roof to give it Mycroft (second person) .... .... Sherlock told John, it's a bit complicated... I'm going to agree with that.

But my point is this: If there is only the laundry van left, then the survival was not only an enormous physical and mental performance, but also lots of chance and accident and luck and fortune. May be the train scene with the switch is a reference to this survival by fortune. "It's so two years ago!" And I'm afraid that some Sherlock fans will not like this. But I do.

And the thing everyone has missed? I think that's the job of the keycode hunter.

But another interesting question, some of you have noticed it too in other threads: what was Sherlocks plan on the rooftop, what was he going to do with Moriarty? He wanted Moriarty to make a confession, and he got it. He recorded the conversation with the smartphone. And then? Wanted he killing Moriarty or somehow letting him alive? Would he know that Moriarty will commit suicide? (I'm very interested in the full quote of the things Sherlock told Anderson about this, haven't understand all the english text.)

What do you think?

Last edited by s.he (January 8, 2014 5:52 pm)

kuma · January 4, 2014 7:36 pm

When Sherlock met John in the restaurant, he told John there 13 ideas and was telling one by one, which was like he'd never prepared before and just find some ways to survive by observing the roof tops. And his face then, fear, confusion, satisfaction,.. all of them have not been explained clearly in 3rd theory.

I was so confused about this meeting on the rooftop after re-watching it many times. Sherlock must have had a big plan, but his reaction was like totally passive and being lost the game.

Sherlock Holmes · January 4, 2014 8:24 pm

I don't think any of the three theories are correct either, but I also believe there was never any keycode and that Mycroft & Sherlock were both aware of that fact so there wouldn't be anyone looking for it. They're too smart to fall for that one. They just pretended to Moriarty that they believed in it.

I've always believed Mycroft was in on it from the beginning. It actually started at the end of Scandal when Mycroft said Moriarty was begging for his attention and that could be arranged. They knew all this would come to a stand off between Moriarty and Sherlock eventually, but they put the wheels in motion to be able to control it themselves from the beginning. I've always believed this and it was no great surprise to me.

The thing I don't like about the theory is the giant inflatable blue mattress thingy. Wouldn't it have been much simpler and quicker to use a fireman's landing net held out by the Homeless Network which was then rolled up and tossed into the rubbish truck? A lot less hassle and less concern about John seeing it.

Having had the third theory shown to me though, I can understand now why there was a need for a dummy body (in non "playing the game" terms - it was required to cover that shot we all saw of Sherlock or someone, hitting the ground in TRF). If John was coming round the corner having seen Sherlock jump, there would be a split second where he saw a body or saw something on the ground - right before he was knocked over by the bike.

My point is though, if there's already someone who out there who looks like Sherlock, then why would Sherlock ever need to swap places with the dead body in the first place? They could just leave the lookalike there covered with blood then they'd have no need to use the rubber ball.

Also, if John was only seeing the body from far away (which he was), why did it need to specifically be this Sherlock lookalike? Why couldn't it just be any old bloke with dark curly hair in one of Sherlock's coats. It could, you see. That's one of the flaws in the theory. They went to all that trouble to track down the dead lookalike and it wasn't required in the slightest.

ALTERNATIVELY...

I find it quite strange that Moriarty has somehow managed to track down someone who looks like Sherlock and got him to do this job for him scaring the little girl. It's all a bit far fetched. I think it's far more likely they used one of those extremely realistic masks that we saw being put to use in the first false theory. That way, any member of Moriarty's already established team could have done the job of scaring the little girl, and they wouldn't have had to be killed afterwards.

So, in this much more likely scenario where there is no dead lookalike...any old random dead body can be thrown out of the window and then swapped with the alive Sherlock, who would then have to use the rubber ball.

I STILL DON'T LIKE THE RUBBER BALL THEORY THOUGH....SO....

I am completely sticking to my original TRF theory from two years ago. Sherlock is caught in the landing net which obviously has to be held quite a few feet off the ground anyway to allow for the weight of someone when they fall into it. The team then whip it out quickly from underneath him in order to toss it into the truck as fast as they can. The shot we see of Sherlock falling onto the ground and the thudding sound it makes, is indeed him...falling off the net.

A member of the team splashes the fake blood onto him whilst Sherlock has a little extra time from John being knocked over to send himself into a meditative state. He has a Mind Palace. He can do this and switch off. He slows down his heightened pulse to the pace of someone who is deep in sleep. When John comes over, he is only allowed to hold onto Sherlock's wrist for a couple of seconds before being pushed away and led back. Not long enough to pick up the pulse. He already believed the evidence of his own eyes, was disorientated and feared the worst. That was all that was needed. No rubber balls.

It's an incredibly simple theory. Even more simple than the one Sherlock told Anderson. But you know what, it's still my favourite.

tonnaree · January 4, 2014 8:47 pm

May I just state with all good humour that the fact that we have a thread devoted to theories on the theories is pretty much the Sherlock fandom in a nutshell.

kuma · January 5, 2014 9:39 am

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
My point is though, if there's already someone who out there who looks like Sherlock, then why would Sherlock ever need to swap places with the dead body in the first place? They could just leave the lookalike there covered with blood then they'd have no need to use the rubber ball.

Also, if John was only seeing the body from far away (which he was), why did it need to specifically be this Sherlock lookalike? Why couldn't it just be any old bloke with dark curly hair in one of Sherlock's coats. It could, you see. That's one of the flaws in the theory. They went to all that trouble to track down the dead lookalike and it wasn't required in the slightest.

If this was real, I could explain by saying they had to make sure that the body John saw before being knocked by the bicyclist IS Sherlock's. In case of the bicylists (there was a back-up) did miss John, he got on closer and checked, then they had to get a Sherlock-look-alike body. And after he was knocked down, Sherlock replaced the body just to make sure John could recognise him. The fake body would be a little bit risky.

However, I wonder the sound of falling ..things. Sherlock fell down on a hugh pillow, even when after he and the huge pillow were moved away and the fake body was thrown down, it should've made really loud sound. In addition, the fake body hit the ground and made sound right before John saw it, why couldn't he hear and regconise a wrong-timing sound like that?

Sherlock Holmes wrote:
ALTERNATIVELY...

I find it quite strange that Moriarty has somehow managed to track down someone who looks like Sherlock and got him to do this job for him scaring the little girl. It's all a bit far fetched. I think it's far more likely they used one of those extremely realistic masks that we saw being put to use in the first false theory. That way, any member of Moriarty's already established team could have done the job of scaring the little girl, and they wouldn't have had to be killed afterwards.

So, in this much more likely scenario where there is no dead lookalike...any old random dead body can be thrown out of the window and then swapped with the alive Sherlock, who would then have to use the rubber ball.

I agreed. Many happy returns showed a yellow face in Sherlock's stuff box which I remember never appeared before. Thought it might be a kind of things to make masks (like MI4:Ghost Protocol huh?).
Then how did Moriarty use the mask when Sherlock had that 'yellow face'? Did both sides have that technology?

Last edited by kuma (January 5, 2014 9:44 am)

s.he · January 5, 2014 4:42 pm

s.he wrote:
I don't believe in a Sherlock look-alike. In another forum I've read a nice theory about the crying girl: It wasn't Sherlock who makes her scream. It was a person the girl saw through the open door. It was the killer Moriarty placed at the police station for later killing lestrade. the guy in the pink shirt, remember?

Last edited by s.he (January 5, 2014 5:58 pm)

s.he · January 5, 2014 4:45 pm

Maybe the yellow face in the box is just a reference to one of the short stories of A. C. Doyle. (The Adventure of the Yellow Face. In: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.)

sherlocked · January 5, 2014 5:11 pm

I like Sherlock Holmes' argument, that the big blue pillow is really silly. It wasn't even inflated, when they brought it. And inflating such a thing quickly, makes noise! And it's super visible, when carried away. There was a big chance, John or other unauthorized persons might catch a glimps after all. IMO, this was simply the prop, they used to film the whole thing with.Other than that, I believe right now (i'm so changeable), what I started to believe after seing TEH first: That AlL theories, we got presented with, are wrong in some ways, and correct in others. If they really give us a different theory, I think, it will include a mask and a dummy : if John needed to see a corpse on the pavement, there's no need at all to throw down this improbable lookalike dead body when you can use a dummy with a mask. Remember, Sherlock had a dummy hanging in his appartment. It even had a name: Henry Fishbone. No need to defile a corps. But I believe, that Mycroft and Sherlock might have planned a lot of that in advance. And there's definitely something up with the sniper or rather snipers. The sequence shown in TRF never made sense to me from points of visual perspectives. Maybe, a net was in play. It would've the advantage, that there is no noise, when Sherlock falls into it, and it's gone as quick as it appeared. And, in case theory 3 wasn't a dream of Anderson, we need to know, WHY it was put out there AND taped, which implies, it will be presented to other people.

sherlocked · January 5, 2014 5:28 pm

Apropos 'dummy'. At my dvd of TRF, the corps crashing onto the pavement makes a positvely rattling sound, a sound a crash dummy might make. On one of the life streams, this sound is even more pronounced. You could say, that is so, because they REALLY used a crash dummy for filming it. They would, of course never use a dead body. But they could've easily edit this sound out instead of just making it less pronounced with a blanket of music.

Sanaz · January 5, 2014 5:43 pm

Something not entirely related, Do you remember in TRF at the rooftop scene Sherlock asked for a moment of privacy? Why did he do that? Is there an explanation for it?

s.he · January 5, 2014 5:47 pm

How much time would it take to jump from a van (or net or pillow) and put some blood in the face? I guess not so much. If Sherlock have planned his fake-suicide, it was easy to have a bag or bottle with blood under the coat or somewhere hidden and use it himself. He don't need other people for doing that. Beyond, maybe he was injured when falling into the van and some of the blood was real?
I wonder about the pulse-thing. If there was no rubberball, maybe he had a drug or medicine for seemingly dead.

That means, Sherlock had to fall into a van (imo), jumped out of this very quickly, put (a lot) of blood in the face and around and took a drug. No need for a body, a dummy or a look-alike at all.

Last edited by s.he (January 5, 2014 6:00 pm)

s.he · January 5, 2014 5:54 pm

Sanaz wrote:
Something not entirely related, Do you remember in TRF at the rooftop scene Sherlock asked for a moment of privacy? Why did he do that? Is there an explanation for it?

For me a very great and important scene. But the question for me is not, why he asked for the privacy moment. My question is what he had seen below on the street that makes him so laughing and that Moriarty had missed.

sherlocked · January 5, 2014 6:05 pm

Sanaz, re: the moment of privacy. I alway assumed, that something was going on down there, which Moriarty wasn't supposed to see, or Sherlock signaled something somehow to someone. Another thing, which isn't supported by theory 3, since, according to that theory, all the action started AFTER Moriarty's suicide. So, it's a good question, since we can assume, that Sherlock certainly didn't need this moment of privacy for coming to grips with his imminent suicide, as Moriarty was supposed to believe.

Sanaz · January 5, 2014 6:06 pm

s.he wrote:
Sanaz wrote:
Something not entirely related, Do you remember in TRF at the rooftop scene Sherlock asked for a moment of privacy? Why did he do that? Is there an explanation for it?
For me a very great and important scene. But the question for me is not, why he asked for the privacy moment. My question is what he had seen below on the street that makes him so laughing and that Moriarty had missed.

Yes. It seemed to me he wanted to check something below, but i'm not sure. so was any theory put forward to explain this?

Sanaz · January 5, 2014 6:10 pm

sherlocked wrote:
Sanaz, re: the moment of privacy. I alway assumed, that something was going on down there, which Moriarty wasn't supposed to see, or Sherlock signaled something somehow to someone. Another thing, which isn't supported by theory 3, since, according to that theory, all the action started AFTER Moriarty's suicide. So, it's a good question, since we can assume, that Sherlock certainly didn't need this moment of privacy for coming to grips with his imminent suicide, as Moriarty was supposed to believe.

That's why i asked this. It is unlikley that Sherlock did this for no reason and if he did it for some purpose, what was it? It's left unexplained unfortunatley.

s.he · January 5, 2014 6:13 pm

Sanaz wrote:
s.he wrote:
Sanaz wrote:
Something not entirely related, Do you remember in TRF at the rooftop scene Sherlock asked for a moment of privacy? Why did he do that? Is there an explanation for it?
For me a very great and important scene. But the question for me is not, why he asked for the privacy moment. My question is what he had seen below on the street that makes him so laughing and that Moriarty had missed.
Yes. It seemed to me he wanted to check something below, but i'm not sure. so was any theory put forward to explain this?

For me it seems, that he noticed something below he hadn't expected. He looks a little surprised.

sherlocked · January 5, 2014 6:13 pm

Sanaz, no, so far, that was never explained. As to Sherlock laughing: That was self explanatory: He realized, that there must be a recall code for the snipers, since Moriarty said, even, if he was tortured, he wasn't going to stop the killers, which implies, they could be stopped. I even have an idea by now, what the recall code might have been.

Sanaz · January 5, 2014 6:20 pm

sherlocked wrote:
Sanaz, no, so far, that was never explained. As to Sherlock laughing: That was self explanatory: He realized, that there must be a recall code for the snipers, since Moriarty said, even, if he was tortured, he wasn't going to stop the killers, which implies, they could be stopped. I even have an idea by now, what the recall code might have been.

but isn't obvious? i mean does it take Sherlock to know that Moriarty can call off the snipers?

sherlocked · January 5, 2014 6:34 pm

Well, Sherlock didn't seem to think, it's obvious, because he made a big deal about Moriarty slipping up. He said: 'So there is a recall code or a word or a number".I don't think, either, it's obvious. Moriarty might have given out the parole: 'Whatever happens to me or what I might say under torture, shoot Sherlock's friends, if you dont't see him jump'.

Last edited by sherlocked (January 5, 2014 6:39 pm)

Commonwealth · January 5, 2014 6:46 pm

Sanaz wrote:
sherlocked wrote:
Sanaz, no, so far, that was never explained. As to Sherlock laughing: That was self explanatory: He realized, that there must be a recall code for the snipers, since Moriarty said, even, if he was tortured, he wasn't going to stop the killers, which implies, they could be stopped. I even have an idea by now, what the recall code might have been.
but isn't obvious? i mean does it take Sherlock to know that Moriarty can call off the snipers?

Not necessarily, Sherlock probably thought that Moriarty had simply told his snipers to kill their targets by a certain time if Moriarty hadn't texted them that Sherlock had jumped which would explain why Sherlock couldn't just kill Moriarty which he threatened to do before Moriarty mentioned his friends would die if he didn't.

Getting back to the thread topic, if the 3rd theory isn't shown to be the final answer (and I doubt it's the final answer), I'm inclined to revert back to my original Reichenbach theory which is basically

a) there was no grand conspiracy with Sherlock and Mycroft beyond an agreement to get the keycode out of Moriarty that they erroneously believed existed
b) Sherlock jumped to save his friends
c) with the lack of preparation, Sherlock surveyed his surroundings and chose the safest route possible that involved a series of jumps which still allowed people to see him free-falling at critical points
d) once on the ground, Sherlock used any tools he had in his coat (blood bag, squash ball?) to fake being dead.

With the additional data from TEH, I'd add

e) Molly found the kidnapper's corpse and used it for morgue and funeral viewings if the police or Sherlock's friends wanted to see a body
f) Sherlock advised Mycroft that the keycode did not exist before disappearing for 2 years to dismantle Moriarty's network
g) Mycroft advised his parents that Sherlock was still alive so they would not show up at the funeral
h) At the most 25 people in the Homeless Network knew Sherlock was still alive and helped him leave London and perhaps move about over those 2 years (maybe they were people Sherlock asked Mycroft to pay so that the network would be intact whenever he returned)