sj4iy wrote:

Just finished watching TEH on PBS and it was shown uncut.  The only slight alternation was them cutting the "Fff-cough" a bit, but that was it.

Actually they didn't cut it at all.  I watched The Empty Hearse on BBC iPlayer several times after it aired in the UK on January 1st , and the "Fff-cough" scene was presented just as it was shown last night.  Sherlock makes a brief "F" sound, then it cuts to John telling his patient to cough.  I had to play it twice the first time I saw it to get the joke, because it was so subtle and quick.

The "F" sound had to be quick, of course, because it just take long to say f*ck, does it?  

Sorry, Golddragon71, but you're mistaken about the sniper being able to see the sidewalk where Sherlock landed.  HIs view of the sidewalk was blocked by the low brick building positioned between the snipers's 2nd floor window and the sidwalk beneath the hospital.  John stood at the far end of the brick building (by desgin, as Sherlock planned it), and it prevented him too from the seeing the sidewalk.  (In the picture below, John has not yet moved back the far corner of the building as Sherlock insisted he do before he jumped.)



If you look carefully at the view through window where the sniper was located, there is a shot when the camera was positioned higher than the man, and you can see the brick side of the building, because the view is angled downward. (The bricks are much easier to see on TV.  Check and see if I'm right.)



In the other shot of the sniper, when the camera is looking straight out the window, we see the upper part of the trees along the sidewalk across the street.  The roof of the brick building is below the view through the window, so we don't see it. (Again, the tree leaves are easy to see on TV.  Take a look at the episode and see for yourself.)



The sniper could see John's upper body over the roof of the brick building as John stood on the sidewalk after Sherlock jumped, but not John's legs or the sidewalk itself.



However, the sniper was actually in a good position to see the opposite end of the building from where John stood, looking out the window to his right -- which meant he could see the alledged airbag being inflated and moved by the crew of men. 

[img]http://i208.photobucket.

"John, there's something I should say, I've meant to say, and never have. Since it's unlikely we'll ever meet again, I might as well say it now."
 
(Dramatic pause . . . )
 
"Sherlock is actually a girl's name."

Just want to thank the folks who bought my books from Amazon!  I noticed a spike in sales after I shamelessly promoted them in the post above.  Please send me a PM if you liked the novels.   

If you didn't like them, send a PM to somebody who thinks my posts sound stupid. 

Swanpride wrote:

It doesn't bother me from a feminist pov, because Janine got her revenge. And I am not even sure if she wasn't well aware of Sherlock dublicity when he showed her the ring. After all Magnusson was still in the building. Perhaps she did it on his behest. Or she did it, because she wanted Magnusson taken down, too. After all, he flicked into her face, too - it must have been torture to work for a guy like that.

Hey, good point!  Why did Janine let Sherlock come up in the elevator if Magnussen was there in the apartment?  Wouldn't she be afraid of Mr. Faceflicker getting really pissed when he walked in and found Sherlock there? His reaction to that would mean serious consequences for her.

As for the questions presented in several earlier posts, I wonder if perhaps Janine was actually faking the relationship just as much as Sherlock.  She may have done it all just to sell a juicy sex-filled story to the tabloids about her "relationship" with the famous Mr. Studlock Holmes.  That would certainly explain why she put up with a boyfriend who practiced both absence and abstinence (both of which make the heart grow fonder, if you think about it . . . yuck,yuck, yuck . . .  )
 
Her comment in the hospital indicates she actually wanted to have sex with him. (I refuse to say "sleep with him".  When people want to sleep together they take Lunesta.  When they want to do something else, the man takes Viagra.  It's hardly the same thing, right?)
 
Anyway, Janine seems a lot smarter if we don't assume she bought everything Sherlock told her.  And our hero doesn't seem like quite the cad for doing all that lying . . . and absolutely no laying, if you catch my drift.
 

Hey, I like that Latin quote!  Cool.  Now I know two Latin phrases: that one and E Pluribus Unum (which I think means "What good is a damn penny?")

Weirdness, I must confess I've come to agree with your assertion that giving us several wack-a-doodle theories and not telling us the real explanation is the only way Moffat and Gatiss could avoid an avalanche of complaints that the actual solution was too simple (the one with the fireman's net and a team of government agents to pull it off).

Insisting that the explanation be elaborate is actually insisting it be less intelligent -- and a Sherlock Holmes plan must be intelligent.  None of the three theories presented a clever, workable suicide hoax. Taken all together, they had quite a lot in common with the Ringling Brothers Circus, complete with elements like:

* a trapeze act (the bungee cord)

* a clown in make-up (Moriarty's body with the mask)

* a magic act (the disappearing body, played by Sherlock's twin brother-from-another-mother)

* a group of energetic circus roustabouts (the air bag team)

* and a thrilling high-dive climax by the death-defying Great Sherlockian, Acrobat Extraordinaire'!
 
Yes, folks, this confirms what we've all been saying for years – that Sherlock is indeed The Greatest Show on Earth!

Holy crap.  I managed to stimulate several wonderful replies without getting a single one that actually disagreed with me. We all seem to agree that Sherlock slept with Janine -- but he didn't have sex with her.
 
I hate the term "slept together".  Hookers don't sleep with their clients – they have sex with them.  Married people rarely have sex with each other – but they "sleep together" every night.
 
I think we should call a spade a spade, folks. It would clear up a lot of confusion.
 
For example, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky didn't "sleep together" or "have sex" – according to the President of the United States of America.  They just shared a cigar in a manner that probably did more to discourage smoking in America than all those anti-smoking commercials combined.
 
Okay, back to the topic.  (Wait . . . what was the topic?)
 
Oh, right.  Did Sherlock "get lucky"?
 
I'm pretty sure the dialog between Sherlock and Janine specified that sex was not had by them that night.  Or any other night. 
 
Having been young once (and married twice), I feel qualified to say that Sherlock's remark – "I was saving it for our marriage" – means he and Janine didn't make the "personal connection" they referred to so delicately during the discussion.  Janine nailed this down when she said, "Just once would have been nice."
 
Her comment is a great example of innuendo, a Latin term which means "an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one."
 
In other words, it was a college educated way of saying politely that Sherlock and Janine just "slept together".  Period.  Nothing more.
 
So, Sherlock doesn't seem to have the kind of overwhelming impulses which has led romantically inclined gentlemen like myself astray many times in their lives.  Damn, I envy him.  I used to believe in the old adage which states, "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
 
Hindsight seems to in

Well, hell -- you got me with that "emotions" thing.  There's no denyin' that Sherlock was definitely not carrying out a well-designed plan when he blew Magnussen's head off right in front of Mycroft and all those guys dressed in cool black outfits, armed with rifles that put those little red dots on your chest and make you pee right on the spot while you wait to eat a bullet.
 
Your suggestion that Sherlock is getting less-and-less like Spock and more-and-more like Kirk (or would it be McCoy – ever mind, I'm getting confused) sounds pretty darn valid.  I guess Magnussen just got too big for his britches and figured he could do anything he wanted.  He expected Sherlock to be cold and logical, an assumption which got him killed.  He thought he was a superior individual and nobody would outsmart him.
 
Hey, he sounds a little like Kahn -- the guy Benedict Cumberbatch played!  Gosh, this is gettin' spooky!

Having only watched His Last Vow once (I'm writing this on Jan. 13, the day after it first aired), I haven't done the necessary pondering to form really good opinions yet.  But I can offer first impressions. Buckle up, ladies and gents,  'cause I get a little silly in some places – but hey, that's what I'm best at.
 
First Impression #1: Moffat and Gatiss worked a little too hard to make Charles Disgusting Magnussen thoroughly unlikable.  He claims he sweats constantly (even though we never see a drop).  He licks Lady Smallwood's face in a yucky close up. He eats food off of Sherlock's plate and rinses his fingers in Sherlock's water glass.  He pisses on the wall in Sherlock's flat.
 
Okay.  We get it. He's evil to the core.  But I think maybe one scene in which we see him acting unconcerned while some poor victim begs him not to ruin his/her life with blackmail info would have been a more convincing way to show dear old Chuck's black rotten soul. Instead we're encouraged to hate him based largely on the way he spreads his bodily fluids around: sweat, saliva, and urine.
 
Gosh, it's too bad he didn't sneeze on somebody.  Then I could have referred to him as Charles Augustus Mucus.  Oh well. Guess it was snot meant to be . . .
 
First Impression #2: I hate to say it, but the way Chucky visualized all that data like it was on a computer monitor was a real cheat.  First, I can't really buy the idea that anybody could hold that much information in their head.  Even Sherlock says he has to "delete" unnecessary info to remember what's important. Second, they presented the data exactly like a computer would do, rather than the elegant manner in which we see Sherlock's reasoning processes through floating words that fade in and out.
 
What are we supposed to gather from this?  That Sherlock needs an upgrade?  That Charles Augustus Microsoft is smarter than Sherlock and Steve Jobs put together?  Hell, that's heresy!
 
[b]First Impre

I'm pretty sure the clue was right in front of us during TRF.  John went to Mycroft's office at dawn on the day of the suicide hoax and criticised him for giving info about Sherlock to Moriarty.  But I've been certain for months that Mycroft was the organizer of the suicide hoax, and the thing which Sherlock did that was "out of character" was asking Mycroft for help in executing the planned hoax.

I think Sherlock first realized he needed to fake his suicide just 12 hours before he actually jumped -- when he was in the street outside Kitty's house late at night, walking back and forth and talking rapidly.  He said, " . . . there's only one thing he needs to complete his plan, and that's to -- "

He stops and then says to John, "There's something I have to do."

I think Sherlock came up with the initial plan right there -- not days or weeks in advance.  And immediately after that, he spoke with Molly and then called Mycroft to start the process of organizing the suicide hoax. 

So, the clue which everybody missed was the fact that Holmes was willing to ask for help in executing  his planned suicide. His extreme change in attitude made the plan possible, with the help of Mycroft, Molly, and all the people they employed to conduct the operation.

I know I'm not the only one to present this idea, but there are many people who seem to be looking for tiny details they can turn into dramatic revelations, and I don't think these theories are the answer to the quesiton.