BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Go on then...what are your theories?

kazza474 · July 10, 2012 1:50 am

ancientsgate wrote:
Wholocked wrote:
Guys don't get carried away too much with the "there's a clue everybody's missed". That was a comment made 3 days after TRF aired. We're now 6 months down the track. No doubt someone has picked up on whatever that clue was by now so you're not necessarily looking for something that no-one has thought of. Just something that no-one had thought of within 3 days of the episode airing in the UK.
Some of us are very new to this fandom, and we're having fun with discussing it to death. Don't rain on our parade, please and thx.

Wholocked has a very good point; whether you are new or old to the fandom these clues & points of interest clear away a lot of confusion.

sherlockskitty · July 10, 2012 1:52 am

I never saw Mycroft close HIS hands like that, did you? Sorry I'm like a dog with a bone. I'm just thinking this might be an imporant clue, somehow.

OOOHHH I didn't know that about the clue everybody's missed thing. was it made 3 days after it aired in the UK?

Last edited by sherlockskitty (July 10, 2012 1:55 am)

kazza474 · July 10, 2012 2:01 am

a) Do you recall the scene in Scandal when he got the text from Moriarty?

b) The tweet about 'clue everyone's missed ' is in this thread ; I will find it & quote it for you. This is why I keep urging people to read the old posts.

sherlockskitty · July 10, 2012 5:39 am

kazza474 wrote:
a) Do you recall the scene in Scandal when he got the text from Moriarty?

b) The tweet about 'clue everyone's missed ' is in this thread ; I will find it & quote it for you. This is why I keep urging people to read the old posts.

A) I think I'm confused. In TRF , after Sherlock's Fall, Mycroft was sitting in his comfy chair at the club, and, after he put the tabloid onto the table, he drew his hands up in the exact same fashion that Sherlock does when he's thinking. That's what I was referring to. I have never seen Mycroft do that before.

B) ok, I'll look for it, now that I know where to look. thanks!!

Davina · July 10, 2012 6:39 am

If Mycroft was involved then sending a 'cleaning team' onto the roof would pose no problem to him. As for reading The Sun, he would read all the papers to see what was written in them. The Sun has a massive circulation and a good method of getting a message out there.

Last edited by Davina (July 10, 2012 6:39 am)

tobeornot221b · July 10, 2012 6:52 am

Davina wrote:
If As for reading The Sun, he would read all the papers to see what was written in them. The Sun has a massive circulation and a good method of getting a message out there.

When John earlier paid him a visit at the Diogenes club he was wondering about Mycroft apparently reading that issue of the Sun where Kitty Riley's disclosures about Sherlock were announced:
"You read this stuff?"
"Caught my eye."
It's only consequent then when we see Mycroft reading that paper after the fall.

Davina · July 10, 2012 7:26 am

Of course, if Sherlock read that stuff he would have known about Irene's involvement in the affair with the tv presenter etc. But neither he, nor John, are interested in who is sleeping with who.

Wholocked · July 10, 2012 8:52 am

kazza474 wrote:
b) The tweet about 'clue everyone's missed ' is in this thread ; I will find it & quote it for you. This is why I keep urging people to read the old posts.

No that's a different one.

It was actually Moffat who said that there's a clue everybody had missed and that it was something Sherlock did which was out of character.

I went and found a link to the article, from January 18:
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2012-01-18/steven-moffat-nobodys-spotted-crucial-sherlock-clue

Last edited by Wholocked (July 10, 2012 8:52 am)

kazza474 · July 10, 2012 9:38 am

Yes, that was the quote I was referring to. I didn't post it in this thread; it's in another one, lol.

sherlockskitty · July 12, 2012 4:09 am

ok thanks!! I just read it. I guess we'll all just have to sit and twiddle our thumbs, while we wait for them to explain in series 3....but I don't wanna wait!!

I just watched TGG for the 10th or so time. WHY do I get the feeling that Sally Donovan is actually in cahoots with Moriarty? I mean, look at it this way--She gave Sherlock HER cell phone, which had Moriarty's new 'borrowed' voice on it. And then, in TRF, she was the one who 'suggested' that maybe Sherlock was the one who kidnapped those kids----the writers have a bit of 'splainin' to do.

kazza474 · July 12, 2012 4:14 am

She's had that opinion of Sherlock all along; as for the phone it was simply a work phone; Moriarty would have gotten the number easily enough.
For heaven's sakes, she's having a fling with Anderson, she ain't THAT bright!

Sherlock Holmes · July 12, 2012 9:14 am

I've heard a theory that Sherlock recorded his whole conversation with Moriarty on his phone as evidence for when he returns and that he had Molly go up to the roof to collect it for him afterwards...not sure what everyone thinks of this, in fact, I'm still not sure what I think of it.

About Moriarty's body, I've always presumed it was removed and the roof cleaned for blood by someone from Mycroft's team. Once Sherlock made the jump and was whisked away I kind of always imagine him being taken straight to the car park of St Barts and bundled into the back of a blacked out government vehicle and taken to a safe house somewhere at which point he would have been able to tell Mycroft the full story about what happened and that Moriarty was dead on the roof, then he would have been able to make arrangements to sort it out.

kazza474 · July 12, 2012 10:26 am

Why or how do people think a recording on a phone (that was in his pocket at best, so not really the greatest recording is going to happen anyway) will help Sherlock? It would be very bad quality for a start & not really conclusive evidence of anything.
Sherlock can prove his innocence far easier & more conclusively himself without that.

sherlockskitty · July 12, 2012 3:47 pm

hey it's tv, anything can happen. I've thought about SH recording the convo too, but I don't see how a cell phone can pick up a clear tone of voice, while it's in a pocket. Maybe the pocket had a hole in it?

And, in TRF, why did Sherlock look at John just before John's phone rang? It's almost as if he was expecting that call to be made. (the one where paramedics tell John that Mrs. Hudson had been shot)

Last edited by sherlockskitty (July 12, 2012 3:48 pm)

Arya · July 12, 2012 7:03 pm

Well, Sherlock probably knew it was fake, didn't he?

Sumac60 · July 12, 2012 7:09 pm

Well, I'm happy to see there are still occasional posts to this; I'm very late to this party...I'm too cheap to pay for cable, so found out about this series via a co-worker and bought it from Amazon.com.

My belief on this is that Sherlock was ready to die and did not fake it. The "help" he needed from Molly was only to arrange a paramedic call to get Watson away from Sherlock for a while.

I believe this because I want Sherlock to be in character to "the end" and I don't think he would be the type to set up a James Bond-esque stunt jump. He shook hands with Moriarty (maybe the one "out of character" clue?) and said he was willing to shake hands with him in hell, and I want to believe he meant it. That conversation about how he "was on the side of the angels but would never be one of them" is chilling and probably accurate. This is no hero in the "ordinary" people's sense of it, and he (and Moriarty) know it.

The "miracle" he pulled off was that he survived the fall. Actually, this sort of thing happens all the time; do some internet searching for freak survival of window-washers and the like. It happens. Maybe in the last scene at the cemetary he was leaning on a crutch...who knows? As I was watching the film I kept trying to count the stories...would a young, healthy male necessarily die instantly from that height, if he were careful enough to not land on his head or spine? I'm no expert, but that building wouldn't necessarily kill everybody.

He calculates the fall scientifically as one would expect him to and attempts to survive it, but was ready to die. I think the call to Watson was real. He needs for Watson to see the whole thing because he knows that only if credible witnesses can attest to his death will the killers be called off of his friends. Setting up things to break the fall or fake it would be visible to anyone that might be watching, and the story would get out eventually via witnesses.

One has to remember, of course, that when he arranged the rooftop meeting he didn't know about the snipers yet; he still thinks the killers are after him, not his friends. This revelation just raised the stakes.

If "IOU" meant "I Or You" (as some very clever person pointed out on this site) then maybe his plan was "Then both of us".

He's sad because even if he manages to survive, he will have to go into deep hiding and never see his friends again.

I know someone else on this forum suggested that he expected to die...my thoughts too. (Besides, as Moriarty himself reminds us...Don't always try to be so clever.)

Great fun...great series...

Last edited by Sumac60 (July 12, 2012 7:38 pm)

sherlockskitty · July 13, 2012 12:53 am

great points there, everyone!!

Arya · July 13, 2012 2:37 am

Sumac60 wrote:
Well, I'm happy to see there are still occasional posts to this; I'm very late to this party...I'm too cheap to pay for cable, so found out about this series via a co-worker and bought it from Amazon.com.

My belief on this is that Sherlock was ready to die and did not fake it. The "help" he needed from Molly was only to arrange a paramedic call to get Watson away from Sherlock for a while.

I believe this because I want Sherlock to be in character to "the end" and I don't think he would be the type to set up a James Bond-esque stunt jump. He shook hands with Moriarty (maybe the one "out of character" clue?) and said he was willing to shake hands with him in hell, and I want to believe he meant it. That conversation about how he "was on the side of the angels but would never be one of them" is chilling and probably accurate. This is no hero in the "ordinary" people's sense of it, and he (and Moriarty) know it.

The "miracle" he pulled off was that he survived the fall. Actually, this sort of thing happens all the time; do some internet searching for freak survival of window-washers and the like. It happens. Maybe in the last scene at the cemetary he was leaning on a crutch...who knows? As I was watching the film I kept trying to count the stories...would a young, healthy male necessarily die instantly from that height, if he were careful enough to not land on his head or spine? I'm no expert, but that building wouldn't necessarily kill everybody.

He calculates the fall scientifically as one would expect him to and attempts to survive it, but was ready to die. I think the call to Watson was real. He needs for Watson to see the whole thing because he knows that only if credible witnesses can attest to his death will the killers be called off of his friends. Setting up things to break the fall or fake it would be visible to anyone that might be watching, and the story would get out eventually via witnesses.

One has to remember, of course, that when he arranged the rooftop meeting he didn't know about the snipers yet; he still thinks the killers are after him, not his friends. This revelation just raised the stakes.

If "IOU" meant "I Or You" (as some very clever person pointed out on this site) then maybe his plan was "Then both of us".

He's sad because even if he manages to survive, he will have to go into deep hiding and never see his friends again.

I know someone else on this forum suggested that he expected to die...my thoughts too. (Besides, as Moriarty himself reminds us...Don't always try to be so clever.)

Great fun...great series...

Thanks for your ideas, Sumac. They make a lot of sense.

I would agree on you about Sherlock actually thinking he was about to die; however, I believe Moftiss or some other production person has said that Sherlock faked his death, and he had a plan for it. Also, it just seems too unlikely that he would have survived.

I don't agree with the "I or You" thing. Moriarty killed himself so Sherlock couldn't get out of falling off St. Bart's.

Last edited by Arya (July 13, 2012 3:11 am)

Sumac60 · July 13, 2012 3:23 am

@Arya...

Yes, I think that even notwithstanding the fact that Moriarty wants him dead and fallen from grace, Sherlock might have begun to suspect he was going to have to drop out of sight because of the fame, and the only permanent way was to die, or seem to--either way, he loses his friends. I'm of course suggesting that he was playing very high stakes and didn't know that the suicide he needed to stage wouldn't actually turn out to be real. He would love to find another solution and worries about it. He finally realizes there's no way out, and he has to go through with the jump, which might kill him. My imagination sees him "coming to" in the morgue with Molly there checking his vital signs after the others left him to her; I see him relieved and grateful but sad to be "alone" again. She is the only one he could absolutely trust to keep the secret--she and Mycroft, of course, who knows and sees everything.

I tend to think that Mycroft knew also that the fame was a problem and that Sherlock would have to go underground due to his extreme value to the nation; maybe the life story scoop to Moriarty was deliberate but he didn't know just how cruelly he would use it. I think Mycroft feels badly for Watson but can't reveal the truth.

I don't really get the IOU either; it's obviously very important...we've all got a year to play with that one...

Conan Doyle "killed" Sherlock because the series was so popular he wasn't able to pursue other literary plans...he had a kind of love/hate relationship with the character. His fans pressured him to bring Sherlock back from the dead. Maybe that's why I'm intrigued with the "too famous" angle.

I loved the Holmes stories as a youth and am so pleased to see them so beautifully brought back to life again. Very, very, clever and classy.

Last edited by Sumac60 (July 13, 2012 3:36 am)

KeepersPrice · July 13, 2012 3:43 am

I'm sorry, but I really can't buy that he could have survived that fall. His head was pretty much split open in a pool of blood on the sidewalk. That he would have had a plan in place for a stunt fall does not seem James Bond-esque to me - rather it seems like a true Sherlock Holmes move. He plans ten moves ahead like a chess master and I'm almost certain he's an excellent magician too if need be. I also think he pretty much tried to telegraph John that what he was about to do wasn't real - although it will take John a long time to realize it. He says tearfully that he researched John's background to impress him. Then he says, "It's a trick - a magic trick." I believe him!