I don't think Mycroft worked with sticky notes :-) I thought of something more subtl like: its a bit odd that there are so many books on the stairs, that had to mean something or like the the many bottles of champaign with nothing else in the fridge.
I don't think the bottles alone could be a clue that he had a affair with his secretary, but in combination with the handcreme.
Sure, this would mean that Mycroft would prepare the crime scenes in co-working with the police for Sherlock only and this is a bit unrealistic. But to be honest, the whole episode seems absurd to me so that I could imagine something like this too :-)

By the way, there is something else I didn't understand: Why wrote the newspaper about the second murder, that the perpetrator went through the wall? When the journalist came back from the library you saw that someone broke into his flat i.e. the door was already open as he arrived. So it looked to me like a normal burglary.

Furthermore it seemed odd to me, that the journalst saw the signs in the library, get panicky but still loaned the book out.
Thats one of the thing I mean with "absurd". As well as a full-grown man could pass through such a tiny roof window.
I am not sure how seriously I could take "Sherlock", therefore are my theories a bit odd too :-)

"I'm sorry, I simply don't know what this signifies. But are you also suggesting that Mycroft set up the Lucky Cat Emporium just to entertain Sherlock?"

No, I thought of something simple like paying the woman to show Sherlock the cat. But you are right, it would be a big coincidence too.

What else I wonder, maybe someone has an answer for me, Soo Ling saw the signs at the beginning of the episode, hide herself in the museum (where she found the signs) because she was scared about her brother. But as far as I understood he was the one who sprayed the signs. So I think he already found her, or did I missunderstand something? Isn't the museum a really bad place for hiding in this case?

I thi

Especially in this episode I noticed that Sherlock always took the right clues from the scenes of crime and that his actions were very targeted. E.g. The books on the stairs: Sherlock took the right book with the stamp of the library by the first trial as if he exactly knew for what he had to watch out.

So perhaps Mycroft gave some extra hints to his brother of the things he already found out and Sherlock knew that. Something like the many bottles of sparkling wine in the fridge in the flat of van coon, which could be a hint for a affair too (beside the hand cream)

Maybe the Lucky Cat was not really a drop off point for the smugglers (anyway, its seemes to be a bit odd that Soo Ling lived next to them) but a point where Mycroft left hints for his brother so that he found Soo Ling and the signs for the cypher. E.g I noticed that the arm of the cat had the same mechanics as the ladder Sherlock used to get into Soo Lings flat.

I also couldn't believe that Soo Ling in her fear of of death quickly solved a part of the cipher. The photo of the cypher were received from the police man to Sherlock, so Mycroft could fake this evidence in consultation to put Sherlock on the right way.
A reason for this could be that Mycroft want to make the life more interesting to keep him away from drugs.

Settercrazy wrote:

It took me several viewing until noticing, but does anybody put any significance into the fact that Lady Carmichael appears in Sherlock's airplane as part of the crew (pilot or whatever the uniform would be) when he comes out of his drug craze the first time? (I trust you had a pleasant flight?" she says.)  Don't know if the writers were just doing a 'he met the pilot when boarding and then gave Lady Carmichael her face in his drug fantasy'...or if there's more to it?  I tried to see if I would spot Lord Carmichael among that same crew, but didn't see him...

Isn't Lord Carmichael Dr. Frankland from THoB? He looks like him.
 

I thought something like this develops with time. The other clues like the underwear, the hair gel or the colored eye browns are easily done. So thats right, you could fake the nightclub eyes but in my opinion it didn't fit to the other clues. But I am not an expert in faking nightclub eyes or disguise too

I don't know in what way it could be important but I think there is something Sherlock deduced at Moriarty he could not fake but which fitted in that case: His nightclub eyes. Either Moriarty really hang around in nightclubs after organisating crimes or it is a clue concerning an illness or something else.

Yes, this theory isn't really watertight :-) But the scene at the roof top, in Sherlocks flat and in the taxi seemes unreal to me so that I have been thinking of a mind palace-thing or a imagination for a longer time.

E.g. Moriarty did not hide himself at the roof top, everybody could see him sitting at the edge or just walking around. Wouldn't this make a suicide a bit implausible?

And then there are this IOU Messages nobody noticed but Sherlock. I think this could be some kind of mnemonic to visualize information (remember as Sherlock said "I owe you" at the lab and explained to Molly that he just memorized something). Therefore I just cant get rid of the feeling that the whole episode is a mix of reality and imagination but without really knowing the sense behind it yet :-)

Perhaps Sherlock did something to keep John away from home. It looked like that Sherlock expected the visit of Moriarty and so he didn't want John around as long he was in their flat.

I boxed a few years too and I used to lead the fight with the jab and archieve the effective hits still with strongest right hand. Even my jab is very well trained I would still use the right hand in reflex. The Inspector did not cover himself, was completly "open" and not prepared for a fight so in my opinion there was no reason for John to use his right hand. But you are right, we don't know how and in which martial arts John was trained and we had not even seen the hit itself, only how he striked out with his right shoulder. Maybe he feint with the right and hit with the left :-) Or it had something to do with his injured shoulder, wasn't it on the left side? This would explain it.

But it looks like John hit the boss of Lestard with his right fist shortly before he fled with Sherlock.

AndyO. wrote:

I don't see anything weird about Sherlock catching the pen xD He knew John was going to throw it and he also saw it (even if not looking directly at the pen). It's not that hard to catch things.

 
It's a bit odd that Sherlock catch the pen with his left hand, I think for a right handed person it is not that easy to  catch something this way. This remind to the scene as Sherlock plays with the rubber ball in the Labor  (TRF), it seemed to me that he trained the reflex of his left hand.