Yes it's about John and Sherlock.
But they had to honour the canon presence of Mary.
I believe they've done that the best way they can.

All will be revealed!

I hope I'm not breaking up the discussion too much, and I'm sorry I haven't had the chance to read every single post here, just some of the pages at the beginning and end, so I may repeat something I didn't read.

I felt that this episode was hard to get into at first.  It felt a bit manic at the beginning before getting into a good rhythm when we really got into the main story and case after about 40 minutes into the episode.  I still really liked it, and my mum and I were talking about it before we went to bed, just that I thought until that point it was a bit messy and too fast.  Like they had too much information to load at the beginning of the episode so they just made it all happen so fast to try and fit it all in so that the rest of the episode still had a lot of time to be shown.

I know that not everyone here liked Mary, and I may not have always been great at articulating why I like her.  But I have to say that I am sad she died and will miss her (though I have a feeling she might appear in the next episode, at least in her video - I'm not sure we've seen all of it).  I liked what she added, another person for Sherlock to play off, and for John to play off of.  But I think that if she was going to go, that this was a good way for her to go, as far as the story goes.  A good sendoff for her, at any rate.

I've seen some other discussions on here about the girl on the bust that John seemed interested in.  I noticed someone (forget who it was, sorry) say something about her seeming a bit like Mary.  My dad actually thought she was Mary at one point, with a different look, but her face is different so I figured out it wasn't her.  Still, I thought that was interesting that it wasn't just my dad who had that thought cross his mind.
Also, did anyone else notice that in one scene, there's a shot of "E" in the bus shelter and in the bus shelter there's an advertisement with Toby Jones' face on it? At one point my mum thought maybe E is a setup, a trap for John.  The advertisement in the bus shelter could just be foreshadowing the new character that Jones plays, but it also could be foreshadowing that she is sent by his character to lure John.  Just a thought, I don't know if I'm right.

I might think of something else I have to say later, but this is all I can remember for now.

I didn't notice the blinking thing!
I did notice the fast pace and packed info...I assume because of the pressure of a 90 minute episode...could have been a full length feature film.

Yitzock wrote:

I don't know what the blinking thing is either? I don't remember anything like that. Were you watching it on TV or a stream that could have had a glitch?

90 minutes is a short movie.  Maybe they could have made the first episode longer than the others.  But by the time it was later in the episode, the overly fast beginning didn't matter too much, but it did take a while to get there.

Sorry, English is not my native language and so I used "blinking" metaphorically, not realising it would confuse you.... I meant that too many filmmaking gimmicks were used here in too short a time. It would be more effective to add a bit less of them into the episode, IMHO.
 

nakahara wrote:

Yitzock wrote:

I don't know what the blinking thing is either? I don't remember anything like that. Were you watching it on TV or a stream that could have had a glitch?

90 minutes is a short movie.  Maybe they could have made the first episode longer than the others.  But by the time it was later in the episode, the overly fast beginning didn't matter too much, but it did take a while to get there.

Sorry, English is not my native language and so I used "blinking" metaphorically, not realising it would confuse you.... I meant that too many filmmaking gimmicks were used here in too short a time. It would be more effective to add a bit less of them into the episode, IMHO.
 

Oh, OK.  I think I know what you mean now.  Sorry for not understanding before.  Yes, there were a lot of those, especially at the beginning of the episode.  That contributed to how I felt about that part.

Swanpride wrote:

I think I have pinned down the issues with the episode:
1. It didn't actually continue the story which was set up and for which we waited for three years. It just throw in distractions. I mean, that is the big revelation, that Moriarty set up something in case he died, and now Sherlock has to wait? Really?
2. It set up a new story on top of the one which is already dangling in the air, and honestly, I have a hard time to get invested in this because at this point it feels more like the writers are stringing the audience around than an actual mystery for us to solve.
3. You could have spread out what happened in the episode over two. It showed a glimpse of a story and then it run just forward. "Here are moments with Sherlock and Rosalind"....ops, let's shuffle the baby aside. "Here is Lestrade meeting a new character and talking about how he meet Sherlock"...but nah, that is way to interesting to actually linger on it, let's move forward. "Here is a new case"....oh, you thought that we would spend some time on it? Nah, here is the solution. Even the whole thing with Mary being suspected to be a traitor played pretty much on speed dial. I mean, wouldn't it be way more interesting if we actually got to see John talking to Sherlock about Mary?

 
Thank you for structuring this. I agree, especially on point 2 and 3.
(Because Moriarty, to me, feels by now like an old villain that has been once, don't feel much need to wait for any more revelation from him or his helpers. And Magnusson was such a good distraction in between that I stopped missing Moriarty. And now there is another great villain on the horizon...)

I would have loved it if some of the small scenes could have been longer. I kind of understand there wasn't time... but it felt there was so much potential!

Magnusson... actually, I find it still disgusting what he did to people, but listening to Mycroft and his freelance party, I think it isn't such a wrong sentiment to want to tell the truth about those assassins. Magnusson had a point there - that someone in the government/probably Mycroft was playing a dubious game. I think we still tend to defend Mycroft, but I find it harder to do so now. What about him and Mary?
What responsibility does Mycroft have here? Or had?

Sherlock and Mycroft should do some talking. And Sherlock and  John. It would simplify things. They all tangle each other up in big stuff and get strangled. Why not play with open cards? Would love to see more of that. Maybe that's what is coming next episode.

Yes, I agree with you ! It seems as if Mycroft is hiding something ! During all the episode, he had on his "mysterious face", just like Sherlock and his "game face". I think he knows more than he lets on, as usual...

Whisky wrote:

Swanpride wrote:

I think I have pinned down the issues with the episode:
1. It didn't actually continue the story which was set up and for which we waited for three years. It just throw in distractions. I mean, that is the big revelation, that Moriarty set up something in case he died, and now Sherlock has to wait? Really?
2. It set up a new story on top of the one which is already dangling in the air, and honestly, I have a hard time to get invested in this because at this point it feels more like the writers are stringing the audience around than an actual mystery for us to solve.
3. You could have spread out what happened in the episode over two. It showed a glimpse of a story and then it run just forward. "Here are moments with Sherlock and Rosalind"....ops, let's shuffle the baby aside. "Here is Lestrade meeting a new character and talking about how he meet Sherlock"...but nah, that is way to interesting to actually linger on it, let's move forward. "Here is a new case"....oh, you thought that we would spend some time on it? Nah, here is the solution. Even the whole thing with Mary being suspected to be a traitor played pretty much on speed dial. I mean, wouldn't it be way more interesting if we actually got to see John talking to Sherlock about Mary?

 
Thank you for structuring this. I agree, especially on point 2 and 3.
(Because Moriarty, to me, feels by now like an old villain that has been once, don't feel much need to wait for any more revelation from him or his helpers. And Magnusson was such a good distraction in between that I stopped missing Moriarty. And now there is another great villain on the horizon...)

I would have loved it if some of the small scenes could have been longer. I kind of understand there wasn't time... but it felt there was so much potential!

Magnusson... actually, I find it still disgusting what he did to people, but listening to Mycroft and his freelance party, I think it isn't such a wrong sentiment to want to tell the truth about those assassins. Magnusson had a point there - that someone in the government/probably Mycroft was playing a dubious game. I think we still tend to defend Mycroft, but I find it harder to do so now. What about him and Mary?
What responsibility does Mycroft have here? Or had?

Sherlock and Mycroft should do some talking. And Sherlock and John. It would simplify things. They all tangle each other up in big stuff and get strangled. Why not play with open cards? Would love to see more of that. Maybe that's what is coming next episode.

Very good points, both of you.

Refers to HLV: when Sherlock wanted the baby named after him.