Red Beard could be red herring. 

Ozma wrote:

SolarSystem wrote:

b2s wrote:

 
This... Are there any screenshots from the first ep. when he deduces her? Maybe some hidden clues in there...

I would say that there is nothing that indicates Sherlock has deduced more about Mary and keeps this from John. Why would he do that? Why would he allow his best friend to marry a woman who has secrets? Or... might that be part of a plan?

I agree that if he knew, he wouldn't just not tell him. John would perhaps get upset, perhaps even not want to listen to him, but he would try.

No. Sherlock has made a mistake...

see I am not convinced he would try. I think he is more mature than that and I think that he might now realise that there are some secrets that are better kept.

I found the wedding speech interesting, when he vowed to protect them or whatever it was. Strong words. I accept he is an unusual best man...but I've never been at a wedding where something like that was said!I think he knows something is coming. And I think whatever he knows about Mary, he has decided that it doesn't matter.

There was also another scene at the wedding, I can't remember the wording but on seeing Major Sholto Mary says something along the lines of "neither of us were the first" ie the first person John has "saved". Which is me is interesting because I wonder if John actually ALREADY knows whatever it is about Mary that she isn't saying, We know nothing about their courtship, how they met, etc. In the books, they were brought together by the case involving Jonathan Small and Sholto, but that is obviously not the case here.

Last edited by beekeeper (January 7, 2014 10:51 pm)

silverblaze wrote:

On the poppet theory, it was another telegram, i think, so probably unrelated.

I also 'read' it as Poppet being the end of one telegram, and the CAM telegram is the next one. You can tell by Mary's reaction. She chuckles over being called poppet (and presumably only one person ever did so she knows who it's from) but then her face drops when she realises the telegram is from CAM. So I think they're two separate things.

As for Mark tweeting Redbeard; please recall that he is a stellar troll. He and Moffatt are brilliant at manipulating the perspectives of their audiences. It's possible it means nothing at all.

I personally think it probably does, but I acknowledge that Mark might just be jerking our chains.
 

Mouse wrote:

 
I found the wedding speech interesting, when he vowed to protect them or whatever it was. Strong words. I accept he is an unusual best man...but I've never been at a wedding where something like that was said!I think he knows something is coming. And I think whatever he knows about Mary, he has decided that it doesn't matter.

There was also another scene at the wedding, I can't remember the wording but on seeing Major Sholto Mary says something along the lines of "neither of us were the first" ie the first person John has "saved". Which is me is interesting because I wonder if John actually ALREADY knows whatever it is about Mary that she isn't saying, We know nothing about their courtship, how they met, etc. In the books, they were brought together by the case involving Jonathan Small and Sholto, but that is obviously not the case here.

Sherlock said he'd "be there" for them...not sure what that means, though a lot of people are taking it to mean "protect." But he did say "be there."

I think what Mary meant by "neither of us were the first" is that she and Sherlock weren't the first people John really, really loved and really, really admired. Sholto was John's commanding officer and John loved and respected him; John sort of reacts to Sherlock like Sherlock is now his commanding officer (the way he did the about-face at Sherlock's grave at the end of TRF is the way a soldier takes leave of a CO). That's what made the scene on the bench so funny, when Sherlock commented that Sholto was John's "previous" CO and John said, "you mean my ex CO, I don't have a CO now" and Sherlock said something like "Of course, that's what I meant." He realizes that John's long stint in the military has trained John to submit to a chain of command, and John subconsciously assigns the role of CO to Sherlock, probably without even realizing it. So Sherlock dropped it quickly, realizing that if John did realize it he'd probably be annoyed and less willing to "take orders!"

Agree with this completely.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I've never been able to trust Mycroft. I think that the meantion of Red Beard and telling him not to get involved with people was a warning so much as it was a threat. The novel version of CAM was a master manipulator, and I think that maybe Mary and Mycroft are under his manipulation, and because he really does care about his brother he's telling him not to get involved with the crime, because it could be more than he could handle. 
Red Beard could be some type of warning he's using to stop him from getting invovled. 

The thought occurred to me, but he was absent for 2 years. She is within the first trimester (cant remember what he said), therefore we're talking about 1-2 months back when the "incident" happened. Hard to tell if he could read that far into the past. He has his limits you know. He knew John had a sibling but he assumed it was a brother based on the name. Likewise he knows Mary is pregnant, but he may be assuming its for John...

I'm so suspicious of everything right now...

They've set Mary up really well in the first two episodes and made sure that us, as an audience, like her. We all genuinely like her. So....would they then make her into a baddie in the last episode? We all know that she has secrets, for sure, but I think that she'll still come across as more of the victim and that CAM is completely manipulating her...unless they want to turn the thing around and have us dislike her too...but then that would leave Sherlock looking really bad for not having intervened earlier if he knew something. And he saw all those words around her, he knows she's a liar and is hiding something. Does he know what? Does Mycroft?

I'm so intrigued to find out what Redbeard means. We know they use codewords all the time. Lazarus, Vatican Cameos etc. Redbeard is most probably a codeword or a reference to an incident/previous case that they gave the name Redbeard at the time. Like, Operation Redbeard.
 

So she's basically a good person who does or has done something really bad. Maybe just a mistake that CAM can use against her or whatever. 

The bad thingy: that you predict an audience response suggests to me that it has something to do with either Sherlock or John. 

I think most of us agree, more or less, on the general meaning.
...
So it's probably gonna be something else. 

VaticanCameoBrooch wrote:

Swanpride wrote:

Arrrrrrgh...I just realized something...I think they successfully mislead us....Think about it:

"Do you remember Red Beard?"
"I am not a child anymore, Mycroft!"

NOTHING in this says that Red Beard is in ANY way connected to Sherlock's childhood. Red Beard can simply be the name of one of Mycroft secret operation (involving CAM?), and Sherlock feels annoyed that Mycroft feels the need to remind him of the fact that said operation is going on. "Don't patronize me, I am not a child anymore!"

Thank you, verry much.
I think people may be reading TOO MUCH into it.

True.  Actually, I would go with the simplest answer in this case.  Very, very simple.

Last edited by sj4iy (January 10, 2014 8:01 pm)