Shenanigans wrote:

*grins* Well said Sherlock Holmes!:D

Irene you re-watch RF with your friends, would you mind taking a peek at what Sherlock is doing in the background? I'm just curious to see if you think he's doing something like coding with his hands.

Is it the first time your friends see the episode?

I watched THe Great Game with my sister last night. And it was so much fun watching the episode with someone who hadn't seen it previously.

In the Rich Brook scene, with Kitty, is that what you mean? Of course, I won't mind. I'll tell you tomorrow 
Yes it's the first time my friends are watching it. They've been watching the previous ones on their own and whatsapping me shock faces during their screenings and stuff like that... skype's chat has been really useful too. I had to explain a lot of things to them mostly about Scandal, The Great Game and Hounds. So I prefer to watch RF with them, I think it will be funny 

It’s their "wicked father" who abandons Hansel and Gretel in the woods.

Max’ and Claudette’s father’s name is Rufus Bruhl.

Another tongue-in-cheek reference to someone with the initials RB…

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

I watched the Great Game last night too!

Irene - I like the idea of Moriarty having his own Mycroft type brother - very cool. It's quite canon as well because the way Watson talks about Moriarty's brother at the beginning of Final Problem he was basically saying that he was standing up for the Professor and refuting any allegations against him, so kind of being protective of his brother like Mycroft is with Sherlock.

Yes, I like that idea, we'll see what Moftiss have in mind, but I think that would be nice 

Just watched Reichenbach, Shenanigans, and I see what you meant. The first time I saw Sherlock moving his hand was taking it to his mouth and nose but it was a weird movement. Not to scratch them or anything, he does something with his fingers just in front of his mouth. Then, moments later, he's grabbing his coat and then letting go. And last (but I think it's just because of the situation and his nearly uncontrolled anger) his hand is a tight fist. I don't know what you meant about "secret handshake", if you could elaborate a bit about that maybe I can tell you what I think (it's probably a vocabulary problem, you know, my English is a bit limited...)

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

@Irene - basically just passing messages through hand signals (I think).

Thanks, Sherlock!

Then I think Sherlock may have been trying to say something to Moriarty, but I don't think Moriarty responds to him. I don't know if it was Shenanigans who said it, but someone proposed that maybe Jim could be killed if he touched Sherlock. That seems quite posiible to me.
I'll take another look to the scene later and tell you more 

Rufus means 'red-headed' so this could be a reference to the ACD story The Red-headed League.

Nice to see all different theories abound here. As for the personal attacks thing...I think having different people from different cultures and backgrounds makes it difficult to understand sentiments. Some people may seem direct or indeed overconfident (Something I apparently invoke often in real life) whilst they are simply taking part in the way which they are accustomed to, others may think that their ideas will get mashed because there is little substance to them for substantiation.

We have to remember that we are people from all over the world sharing English to discuss a brilliant piece of fictional sleuthing and that any and all ideas stand up to scrutiny until proven otherwise by future episodes. Moffat is not afraid to throw in 'Gangers', 'A Tesselector', 'Lying Doctors', 'Future Doctors' and 'Memory wipes' when it suits him in Sci-Fi. He's not against complex story-arching, linguistic comedy, unexpected loyalty shifts and ridiculously unlikely skits to further his ends during 'Coupling' and this irks back to 'Press Gang' which is full of shifting relationships which underpin and overall story (And that was just a kids show!). Add to this Mark Gatiss and we truly can't second guess how BBC Sherlock will skirt the corners of canon whilst still being surprising and fresh.

A little thicker skin and a softer approach when countering all round is a decent way to enjoy ourselves I'd reckon.

-m0r

Ah! The wise words of m0r1arty...whee has he gooooooonnnne?

Shenanigans wrote:

I found this Richard Brook thread very interesting and it made me watch the scene more closely. I noticed that when Sherlock moves towards Richard near the end, Richard yells "don't you touch me, don't you lay a finger on me!"

Here's my wild/crazy theory that resulted from this thread; I re-watched the entire scene and kept my eyes on Sherlock and Richard. I noticed Sherlock's hands while John is talking to Kitty and I think he's signalling to Jim to enter into a code exchange protocol with him. (Secret handshake used in cryptography). I think Jim as Richard could possibly get shot if he came into contact with Sherlock and that's why he doesn't want to be touched.

My thought was also that anyone who touched Sherlock were shot. But then I remember the scene with the handcuffs where John and Sherlock hold their hands so that they could escape from the police. Would it therefore not be logical that the sniper (e.g. that one who pursuit them) shot John?
 

The Left handed, right handed thing is interesting...

Yes, this theory isn't really watertight :-) But the scene at the roof top, in Sherlocks flat and in the taxi seemes unreal to me so that I have been thinking of a mind palace-thing or a imagination for a longer time.

E.g. Moriarty did not hide himself at the roof top, everybody could see him sitting at the edge or just walking around. Wouldn't this make a suicide a bit implausible?

And then there are this IOU Messages nobody noticed but Sherlock. I think this could be some kind of mnemonic to visualize information (remember as Sherlock said "I owe you" at the lab and explained to Molly that he just memorized something). Therefore I just cant get rid of the feeling that the whole episode is a mix of reality and imagination but without really knowing the sense behind it yet :-)