I'm not up on my royals but I'm pretty sure we also have Williams and Henrys and James and Peters. Whats unusual is to give a boy an outlandish name. Sherlock and Mycroft are more in the Beckham style I think. I can totally see Sherlock and Mycroft as celebrity baby names. They are not old money names. 

 Perhaps they are the children of someone along the lines of Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee and spent a highly resentful childhood touring the seaside resorts of Britain?

Actually I like this theory. It would explain a lot, for example why they are both so freaking good at cold reading and don't really talk about their parents. Mycroft angling at some level of normality. And also-its a small thing, but the phrase "I'll be mother" is not really an uber-rich Harrow-and-Eton phrase.

"Who says, that the truck was standing on the street during the fall? We don´t see the groung during the fall, we have the last cut, the last metres more or less, then another cut, and only after that we see the whole situation, with Sherlock on the pavement and the truck driving away. Theoretically it could have been on the pavement during the fall."

ok here is the main reason I disagree. Take a look at the fall again. He falls from the Barts side, not the truck/rectangle side.

The other reason is actually more a practical one. If Sherlock fell into a strategic laundry truck with open sides, the snipers would see. That's why I think the role of the laundry truck is to conceal another object he is falling onto, such as maybe a stack of laundry about to be added to the truck.

Ok just one small and final point

One thing I am seeing again and again in discussion of the relationship between John and Sherlock is what seems to me a false dichotomy. John can't be gay because he is attracted to women, especially Mary but others also. Sherlock can't be gay because he is attracted (I thnk) to Irene. Etc. And then, from that, these guys cannot be attracted to each other because they are not gay. 

I think this falls down within the show itself. There is a fascinating scene between Irene and John. The "I'm not actually gay." "Well I am" scene. Which to me is Irene saying something much wider to John, more like, "I've had to think again. Turns out I'm a bit more complex than I thought. How about you?". Irene identifies as  gay and there is a strong implication that she's in a relationship on some level with (remind me?) Kate(?). And yet she falls for Sherlock. And I think that that is pretty near John's last serious protest against the idea that they are a couple-in Hounds he just kind of gives up when its implied. Irene ironically provides a model for him as someone who has shifted in their understanding of themself.


Or to put it more simply, bisexuality exists as a real phenonemon, a normal option even for a lot of people, and that is what I think we are actuallly seeing portrayed, a character struggling to reconcile those elements of himself which exist on some level and which do not always have to be about sex. It just seems to me that John really can love Sherlock and Mary, and in some ways I find it surprising that in this century this is even called into question. 


(and I cannot begin to say how conflicted I am about the SiB episode with its lipstick-lesbian- falling-for-a-man trope. Wow its like we are back in 1990. I think they really owe us Harry Watson as played by Catherine Tate to make up for it)

Just noticed that one of the fake doctors is wearing a Mycroft ring-like Mycroft and Anthea wear, right hand. So I think Mycroft is clearly in on it.

How has the show made clear that Sherlock and Moriaty are the same? I think thats a really interesting idea and one that crops up a lot in Holmesian fanfic, like The Last Sherlock Holmes story or the Jeremy Brett/Edward Hardwicke play. But, I dunno, unless its all Baskerville drugs they do look like two separate people to me. Its interesting! Elaborate!

The woman who holds John back from Sherlock’s body has a Mycroft ring

By which I mean a plain gold, wedding-like ring worn on the right hand. Both Mycroft and Anthea wear them, so my assumption is that it suggests some connection between them.

I can’t work out how to upload images from a dvd to here and most youtube compilations seem to cut this scene but if you have the dvd its at and around 1.22.19, the hand, which has a silver watch on it, moves into and out of shot, kind of giving John a moment to touch Sherlock’s hand then gently prising it away. It is very clear. I am guessing it belongs to the grey haired doctor who seems to be comforting John-it looks to be a woman’s hand and watch-but it might be from the man behind.

Well I think that suggests Mycroft’s involvment, personally, and tentatively gets him off the hook as far as I am concerned.
 

"There is a running Sherlock joke about Sherlock being a couple. The joke being on the stupid characters, the clever viewers know they are not.".

What, stupid people like Mrs Hudson and the two gay men who run the pub in HotB? Like Mycroft Holmes and, tbh, Jim Moriaty? Irene Adler?  Actually there seems to be a direct correlation between how well people can read them and/ or what experience they have of same-sex attraction and
percieving something there.

"Sherlock is described as a virgin and hasn't been seen in any relationships, indeed has rejected at least one advance.
John has  had a series of girlfriends and could possibly get married."

Well aside from the fact that I'd say that it is strongly hinted that Sherlock is no longer a virgin, you know, this is exactly the point I am making. People don't fit into boxes. Someone like John who sees himself as straight can still find himself attracted to a man and think "what the-?". And even if thats a non-sexual attraction-whcih it probably is-there's no code, no place for that to fit in. Its not friendship really, and its not necessarily sexual. But what it is is one important part of any marriage. Like I say I think this is really about John having feelings that make no sense given his understanding of the world. 

oh and "emphasise doggging?" how did I do that? I put it in brackets at the end! Its pretty clear to me that they put that in, entirely gratuitiously, because John had gone looking for a hound. And what did he get? Dogging. I dunno, I think that's pretty clever. There's certainly no other reason for that scene to be in there.

A dominatrix isn;t just about power. Its about people getting off on power. Its about, I'd say, a form of sex that isn't necessarily one i want to introduce to my pre-teen kids. Which is fine, by the way, Sherlock isn't a family show, it does have a lot of sexual references

I'm going to make my point a final time though. I

This one does really seem to touch a nerve. Like I say, I'm not a shipper, I have zero interest in fanfic or Johnlock or the rest. But its fairly clear to me what is being, at the least, hinted at, and I appreciate that this is considered as a possibility. That even John's extremely defensive (at times) response is never rooted in homophobia and that he, at least, has a gay sibling who he accepts. The simple fact that the only words ever used are "gay" or "lesbian", nothing even borderline critical. I know there is a generation of kids that this will make a huge difference to and you know what? The show's writers will too, I am sure of that. They've handled this whole situation in an amazing sensitive and positive way. 

I think there can be a desire for things in neat boxes.. But that's not how the world is. And Sherlock, like other reboots - Dr Who, for example-is emotionally literate enough to recognise this. I'm personally glad, for the sake of my kids, that we have such complex shows to show that human sexuality is a continuum not a binary thing. And that struggling with your sexuality, questioning it, is actually normal. 

Well I think the whole thing with John is that we don't know. Pretty much everything said in relation to his sexuality is almost zen, nothing is ever said clearly, things can always be taken two ways and my sense is that that is because he is working through it, probably a lot more than he realises, certainly more than he is willing to admit. The writers convey this unsettled sense very well, of "what the hell are these feelings, I'm a normal guy" that are pretty familiar, I'd say, to a lot of people who have grown up not-straight at least pre mass-internet and under our Section 28 (so anyone over about 25)

So when she says "he" (John) "knows exactly where to look,", it is meant to be ambiguous. She says at one point that Moriaty has told her how to play the Holmes brothers-presumably he also told her how to play John. But she plays people by knowing them well and knowing their weaknesses. I don't get the impression that she ever lies-therein is her genius

My own sense is that John's actual problem more than anything is that the feelings he has for Sherlock, as a fundementally straight man, are actually not ones he has any experience of, that fit into anything he understands, that is reflected in his reality. So John's feelings may very well not be sexual but without an context for him to pin them to they are hard for him to understand. I know not everyone agrees, but I'd consider strong same-sex friendship-I mean to the point where your world ends because your best friend dies, where the last thing you want to look at is each other...well that might not be sexual, but, that is a freaking strong feeling there. Yk, not all gay relationships are about sex, just like not all straight relationships are all about the sex, and I think this is part of the ambiguity, that you often get in media representations of gay relationships, that, unlike straight relationships to be gay you have to have

Can there ever be a good reason for a mustache? The only one I can personally think of is that you are the Lorax and I don't think this applies here. (I mean I know the Lorax is short and blond but...I don't think that's what is going on)

Is it really canon that Watson has a mustache? I think it is in one story, maybe, Charles Augustus Milverton? But we all make mistakes.

Perhaps this is the real reason for Sherlock's absence. I'm not sure what I woudl do if a good friend grew a moustache either. 

ah I am avoiding spoliers as far as I can! Speculating is more fun and I tell you what, the producers of Sherlock know how to play their game, they are going to avoid giving away stuff as far as possible through filming and suchlike I am sure. I will not be sure of anything til I see it on the show :-)

moran does need to crop up though really, though my smartest money is on him being the sniper with a gun trained at john (the one who looks incredibly like Sherlock...kind of interesting since Jim and John look a tiny bit alike. Well they are short.)#

I do think John needs to be married really, personally. I'm not a shipper but I'm also not anti-shipping-I just want to see the characters develop well, whatever that means.