BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Possible "dark twists" in S4

nakahara · July 3, 2014 11:04 am

This speculation definitely needs a new thread, so here it is:

I think that Moftiss won´t pull the dark twist they promised us in the S4 just from their fantasy, but that they will use some scene from the original short stories and adjust them to their new storyline (like they did in HLV, for example).

So what possible twists could be put to use by them:

„The Dancing Men“ has a plot of an American woman being married to an Englishman and hiding her dark past – her involvement with American gang - from him. Throughout the story, the wife´s past is revived and she is bothered by the former gang-member, till her English husband is finally shot to death by him. Could it be possible that Mary = American, John = her English husband?

That plot can be combined with the scene from „The Three Garridebs“, in which John Watson is shot by the criminal and a raging Sherlock whips criminal´s head with a pistol with a dark promise that he never leaves the place alive if John is killed.

Both „Wisteria Lodge“ and „The Red Circle“ are based on the plot concerning people going into hiding because their enemies from the past are on their trail. Once again, Mary comes to mind.

The story of „The Sussex Vampire“ has a person being framed of a heinous crime – that she sucked child´s blood in order to harm it, maybe even kill it. In reality, the woman tried to protect the child against the real criminal who wanted to poison it. Both Mary and Sherlock can be potentially cast into the role of this unfortunate woman. And the target could be Mary´s and John´s child, of course.

„The Crooked Man“ introduces to us the military man who betrayed his comrade and caused him to be captured by Afgans during an Afgani-English war. The men later meet, with catastrophic results. The plot can somehow involve John, both as an injured party or as a man unjustly accussed of betrayal.

Some devilish devices can be applied against our heroes:

The highly toxic poison that causes insanity first and then death from „The Devil´s Foot“ in which our dear SH and JW are almost done by it.

The nightmarish „human hydraulic press“ from „The Engineer´s Thumb“.

Some parts of nature being misused by villainous individuals – from the stories of „The Lion´s Mane“, „The Speckled Band“ and „The Dying Detective“.

Being buried alive by criminals or by your jealous lover like in the stories of „The Lady Frances Carfax“ or „The Musgrave Ritual“ is not that pleasant either.

What do you think? Or do you have other ideas of what this „dark twist“ can be?

Whisky · July 3, 2014 11:42 am

nakahara wrote:
The nightmarish „human hydraulic press“ from „The Engineer´s Thumb“.

It sounds morbid but I'd love to see that.

SusiGo · July 3, 2014 11:43 am

Wow, so many great ideas, nakahara. Will have to think about them.

SolarSystem · July 3, 2014 12:21 pm

nakahara, all of this sounds quite fascinating to me. I love it when it gets dark and when it hurts (of course a little bit of comfort wouldn't go amiss).
I'm not familiar with canon at all, so everything that I would come up with would have nothing to do with canon. Like I already said in the other thread today, I think after Sherlock faking his death and then Sherlock becoming a murderer, someone who is very dear to us (and Sherlock) might have to die for real now...

nakahara · July 3, 2014 12:47 pm

I, on the other hand, hope that noone of our sympathetic cast dies. Sherlock balances nicely between a drama and a comedy and this would be definitely a pull towards a very dark drama. Since HLV was almost too dark for me, such random death of a character would be a bit of a turn-off for me.

But of course, one can never know with Moftiss.

SolarSystem · July 3, 2014 12:53 pm

nakahara wrote:
Since HLV was almost too dark for me, such random death of a character would be a bit of a turn-off for me.

But who said anything about 'random'...?

MartaSt · July 3, 2014 12:56 pm

I really want to know how they are going to deal with Sherlock being murderer. Because according to law he is criminal now. What producers will do about that fact? And I'm also wondering about both Sherlock's and John's feelings about this. We know that Magnussen was evil but that was all in all murder. I really want to know if Sherlock will have some remorse. I know that he is not like normal human being but we saw his change in season 3 so I wonder how this affect his life. Maybe this dark twist is Sherlock being haunted by guilt.

gently69 · July 3, 2014 1:00 pm

That makes my very sad, Solar, though nothing happened so far.

What if Mary really has a connection to Moriarty?

Last edited by gently69 (July 3, 2014 1:00 pm)

SolarSystem · July 3, 2014 1:10 pm

gently69 wrote:
That makes my very sad, Solar, though nothing happened so far.

Oh, me too, gently, me too.
Don't get me wrong, it's not that I want Mycroft (or anyone else for that matter) to die. You certainly can make a show dark or show something totally unexpected without killing anyone off (maybe that's even more elegant, come to think of it). Everything always has to make sense, that's the most important thing. And if it would make sense, for example, to let Mycroft die... then that would be extremely painful, for us and for Sherlock. And I totally understand that for a lot of fans this would be too much drama and too dark. It's certainly a matter of taste, and maybe I'm just a somewhat morbid person (), but like I already said: I like it dark and painful and... I want to feel something when I watch a tv show or a film.

gently69 · July 3, 2014 1:17 pm

SolarSystem wrote:
It's certainly a matter of taste, and maybe I'm just a somewhat morbid person (), but like I already said: I like it dark and painful and... I want to feel something when I watch a tv show or a film.

Me too, me too ... if it isn't comedy of course.
But losing Mycroft ... that will be a lot of pain.

SolarSystem · July 3, 2014 1:45 pm

Yes, I know.
Mark probably has far too much fun playing Mycroft anyway, so I guess he won't write himself out of the show.

maryagrawatson · July 3, 2014 3:51 pm

I read an interesting comment a little while ago about Mrs. Holmes writing about the theories of combustion and wondering if that tied into John's bonfire and if Mrs. Holmes might be tied into the whole CAM thing and become an antagonist in season 4. Wouldn't that be something?!

Mary

Mattlocked · July 3, 2014 5:01 pm

OMG, please, no.

tonnaree · July 3, 2014 5:09 pm

Just a tiny side note. Do we need to put speculation in spoiler tags?

MartaSt · July 3, 2014 6:46 pm

I don't think that Mycroft will die either. I agree with you Solar that Mark has a lot of fun being his character. Also dialogues between Sherlock and his brother are one of the best thing in whole series so I don't think that producers will end them by killing Mycroft. I don't know why but I'm afraid that something bad may happen to Molly or Ms Hudson. Now that would be really dark...

SusiGo · July 3, 2014 7:00 pm

What about something happening to Lestrade?

Russell · July 3, 2014 7:06 pm

I don't have a whole lot to add at the moment in a hurry, but just wanted to say love your post, nakahara! So happy I finally caught up with the short stories to enjoy/appreciate the influence of it, and 'got' all the stuff you remembered/tied in. Wow… thorough!

The way you put 'Dancing' and 'Garridebs' together was one of my favorites, and nothing against Mary, but I agree it's poetically perfect from a storytelling point of view to have it be her past that haunts her, like in those mentioned, if something's going to happen to her, like canon. Love to see that.

"The Devil's Foot" would be highly entertaining, but already sort of done in Baskerville? (hmm… was that even their intentional reference, now that I think about it?) And unrelated, but just very curiously amused now that you've reminded me of that part of the story again - am I the only one who found it unintentionally funny (instead of completely Victorian 'oh my goodness, the horror!') when Sherlock is all 'ho, friend John, I found the culprit substance, let us experiment on ourselves and see what it does!' I'd like to think Doyle was letting himself get a little goofy for a moment, with knowing his detective's typically infamous crazy methods.
(erm… that's not a spoiler of sorts, is it? never sure, with just mentioning something from canon)

Erf…. and certainly don't want to happen, but agree that after the 'dark' stuff we've already had, a death might be inevitable. But not to get morbid or ahead of selves… all our favorites will be fine, and it will just be 'twisty' dark like they love to throw at us, with pasts coming back to haunt and a sociopathic enemy wreaking havoc on all of them until they have to go in hiding for another two years….. Right?

MartaSt · July 3, 2014 7:14 pm

Russell wrote:
Erf…. and certainly don't want to happen, but agree that after the 'dark' stuff we've already had, a death might be inevitable. But not to get morbid or ahead of selves… all our favorites will be fine, and it will just be 'twisty' dark like they love to throw at us, with pasts coming back to haunt and a sociopathic enemy wreaking havoc on all of them until they have to go in hiding for another two years….. Right?

I really hope so Russell. Three series is way enough to get used to characters, to like and love them. And their sudden lost would be terrifying. So I just hope that both Gatiss and Mofatt like main characters so much that they won't be able to kill anyone

Edit: Damn, did I just write that Gatiss and Moffat won't be able to do something? How could I forget that they are able to do absolutely everything

Last edited by MartaSt (July 3, 2014 7:16 pm)

stoertebeker · July 3, 2014 9:20 pm

I want to see everything you posted nakahara, it sounds so promising .

I am still stuck with Moffat's announcement that something will happen that we don't expect. First I thought this means that Mary won't die because this is what many of us do expect to happen in series 4. But what if Mary does die (perhaps together with the child) and it is somehow Sherlock's fault or John blames him for their death and both friends are ripped appart due to this incident? I do like some hurt, drama and feelings too, but I hope it's nothing to drastic that will happen.

besleybean · July 3, 2014 9:27 pm

We want them back together, not apart more!