BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » what happened was simple

NW16XE · September 8, 2012 10:50 pm

I've spent the past couple of days obsessed with figuring this out again. Kazza is right that it has to be simple, and I believe it really was. Here's a simple scenario:
The mad bugger actually jumped, straight down, nothing to break the fall.

There is generally a 50/50 chance of surviving a 5 story accidental fall, with deaths usually due to head trauma (according to the internet ). Sherlock's fall was not accidental; he would have researched it, decided he could survive, and that jumping to his death would be the easiest convincing suicide to fake. I can see him being fairly unconcerned about bodily injury as long as he thinks he can avoid fatal injuries and any damage to that lovely brain of his. He does leap off the roof with his arms spread, feet-first vertical, which is the best way to do it if you want to live (yes, I know he lands ventrical/lateral on the pavement, that is still bugging me. Maybe just a matter of camera angle).

There does not need to be anyone else immediately involved on the ground. The blood around his head is the slight-of-hand bit, it is either not his or drawn in advance. It could be in a bladder of some sort under that ever-turned-up coat collar, ready to burst on impact and simulate massive head trauma, with no real serious head injury.
John can't see him land, because he is a doctor and likely to notice whatever Sherlock does to protect his head (arms under it or something) or just realise from his combat experience that the head wound makes no sense, if he sees how he lands on the pavement.

The medics can be real, he would be dazed and hurt to some extent, wind knocked out of him, because he still would have hit fairly hard even if not fatally. Besides, I've just been assuming he has to appear dead on impact. He only has to appear fatally injured on impact; medics take him off, Mycroft's people move in while he's in A&E, and he 'dies' of his injuries shortly after.

So where does Molly come in? I think this is what he needed from her: a promise that if he did die, and his 'body' ended up at Bart's, that she would not do his autopsy.

Last edited by NW16XE (September 8, 2012 10:58 pm)

The Doctor · September 9, 2012 12:44 am

NW16XE wrote:
There is generally a 50/50 chance of surviving a 5 story accidental fall

Sorry to butt in but the question is not if you survive. BUT HOW! In other words, the chances of making it out of this without on-going medical issues/disabilities/brain injuries resulting in loss of analytical/emotional/rational processing abilities etc are minimal. In other words, yes, you can survive - but you really do not want to know the price you will have to pay.

Gattis and Moffat most likely didn't go for those solution as they gave further hints ('stay where you are', cyclist etc).

NW16XE · September 9, 2012 2:11 am

Don't apoligise, thanks for butting in, I am fishing for feedback. . I'm not really pleased with my theory, either, it does leave a lot unaccounted for. Mostly I was trying to strip it down and see what the simplest possibility is. I do think he'd risk being physically crippled if he could definitely protect his head, but I also think my idea is overly simple; it doesn't account for the cyclist or 'stay-where-you-are-keep-your-eyes-on-me', as you pointed out, nor for what he needed from Molly, nor that damn rubber ball which is driving me mad. I do think it's likely no one but he and Mycroft know he's not dead, though. Molly is too kind not to tell John, or accidentally let on to him.

Lupin · September 9, 2012 6:03 pm

Some people raise the point that the body lands at a 90 degree angle to the way he jumped. He jumped forward, arms flailing, and yet lands horizontally with his face facing the direction John comes from when he runs around the garage to get to the front of St. Barts (thanks for Davina for pointing out my second mistake).

Also, no doctor worth his salt would move a patient who suffered a fall like that before examining that the back/neck hasn't been broken and it's safe to move the body. Even if he did jump, the abnormal behavior of the hospital staff would suggest a great case for a malpractice suit and seems a bit out of the ordinary, no?

Last edited by Lupin (September 9, 2012 9:06 pm)

Harriet · September 9, 2012 6:48 pm

Lupin wrote:
Some people raise the point that the body lands at a 90 degree angle to the way he jumped. He jumped forward, arms flailing, and yet lands horizontally with his face facing the direction John comes from when he runs around the garage to get to the front of St. Johns.

St. Johns? Wow!

I read something somewhere about no chance to control the limbs during such fall.
To me it made enough sense not to pay the 90° angle too much attention...

Lupin wrote:
Also, no doctor worth his salt would move a patient who suffered a fall like that before examining that the back/neck hasn't been broken and it's safe to move the body. Even if he did jump, the abnormal behavior of the hospital staff would suggest a great case for a malpractice suit and seems a bit out of the ordinary, no?

Good point!

Davina · September 9, 2012 8:16 pm

St. Barts. Third time lucky.

NW16XE · September 9, 2012 10:23 pm

The vertical jump versus the lateral landing has bothered me, too, but it is impossible to tell if it is significant. One wouldn't have much control in free fall, but is 2 seconds or less enough time for that sort of change? Maybe he bounced and came to rest on his side. There are three different camera angles involved, so it is hard to say what one did see (yes, I know that is probably the point).
Agreed, no one would move the body immediately, but how much time elapses in John's collision with the cyclist? They could have determined he wasn't horribly injured and moved him. Someone said somewhere that St Bart's has no A&E, though, which would argue for fake medics.
Oh, god, I'm overthinking this again now.

Lupin · September 9, 2012 10:38 pm

The time John collapsed was a few seconds. If you watch the scene, when John falls the area where Sherlock fell gets populated by a crowd and orderlies keeping people away from the body.

When John lifts his head, we see a body on an empty street and a crowd surrounds it and orderlies keep people away while a woman with frizzy hair approaches the head.

We're seeing the same scene from two different angles. Pretty much no time elapses, I think.

NW16XE · September 9, 2012 10:54 pm

So the orderlies probably are planted. What I spend most of my time trying to figure out is whether he did fall straight to the pavement, or if his fall was broken. Mofftiss said they didn't cheat, so I assume that it is possible (if not probable, for me ) to determine what happened from the footage shown so far.
The other thing that bothers me is the rubber ball. If it is pointless, it certainly got a lot of air time. No idea what it could be about, though.

Lupin · September 9, 2012 11:07 pm

There's the hidden ball trick theory that Sherlock put the rubber ball under his armpit when he was on the ground. This would stop the pulse in his arm to fool John when John checks for a pulse.

NW16XE · September 9, 2012 11:16 pm

Lupin wrote:
There's the hidden ball trick theory that Sherlock put the rubber ball under his armpit when he was on the ground. This would stop the pulse in his arm to fool John when John checks for a pulse.

Makes more sense than stuffed his pockets with them to cushion the fall.

Wholocked · September 10, 2012 1:17 am

I believe the solution will be fairly simple, but it won't be that he just jumped and hoped he might survive. That's not a chance he would take. He arranged/did something to ensure his survival, not just survival, but lack of injury too.

kazza474 · September 10, 2012 3:25 am

Lupin wrote:
The time John collapsed was a few seconds. If you watch the scene, when John falls the area where Sherlock fell gets populated by a crowd and orderlies keeping people away from the body.

When John lifts his head, we see a body on an empty street and a crowd surrounds it and orderlies keep people away while a woman with frizzy hair approaches the head.

We're seeing the same scene from two different angles. Pretty much no time elapses, I think.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps, as we ARE seeing this sequence basically from the perspective of John, we see what he THINKS he saw. I don't mean any drug from Baskerville etc; I mean he's had a very bad knock on the head & the trauma of seeing Sherlock jump (not land, just jump) .....
This could be a 'dream sequence'.

Just a thought.

kazza474 · September 10, 2012 3:35 am

Lupin wrote:
There's the hidden ball trick theory that Sherlock put the rubber ball under his armpit when he was on the ground. This would stop the pulse in his arm to fool John when John checks for a pulse.

He had time to reach into his pocket, pull out a ball & place it under his buttoned shirt in the right place?

kazza474 · September 10, 2012 3:37 am

NW16XE wrote:
Lupin wrote:
There's the hidden ball trick theory that Sherlock put the rubber ball under his armpit when he was on the ground. This would stop the pulse in his arm to fool John when John checks for a pulse.
Makes more sense than stuffed his pockets with them to cushion the fall.

His pockets were already full of packets of those crisps. That's why he needed Molly, to raid the vending machine for him.

Lupin · September 10, 2012 3:57 am

kazza474 wrote:
Lupin wrote:
There's the hidden ball trick theory that Sherlock put the rubber ball under his armpit when he was on the ground. This would stop the pulse in his arm to fool John when John checks for a pulse.
He had time to reach into his pocket, pull out a ball & place it under his buttoned shirt in the right place?

Ha, well the argument is that he switched with the body at the bottom and put it under his shirt. I don't espouse it personally.

Lupin · September 10, 2012 3:59 am

kazza474 wrote:
Lupin wrote:
The time John collapsed was a few seconds. If you watch the scene, when John falls the area where Sherlock fell gets populated by a crowd and orderlies keeping people away from the body.

When John lifts his head, we see a body on an empty street and a crowd surrounds it and orderlies keep people away while a woman with frizzy hair approaches the head.

We're seeing the same scene from two different angles. Pretty much no time elapses, I think.
Perhaps.

Or perhaps, as we ARE seeing this sequence basically from the perspective of John, we see what he THINKS he saw. I don't mean any drug from Baskerville etc; I mean he's had a very bad knock on the head & the trauma of seeing Sherlock jump (not land, just jump) .....
This could be a 'dream sequence'.

Just a thought.

Well, we see the scene unfold from a bird's eye view before seeing it from John's perspective. I thought of rewatching it for any differences though for the most part a lot of the two views match up.

I don't think it would be a dream sequence because we see the sniper aiming at John and packing up his gear. We would have seen the sniper looking at John passed out on the ground and then packing up if it were a dream sequence.

kazza474 · September 10, 2012 4:10 am

Lupin wrote:
I don't think it would be a dream sequence because we see the sniper aiming at John and packing up his gear. We would have seen the sniper looking at John passed out on the ground and then packing up if it were a dream sequence.

Ah yes, the sniper. It is assumed that he is there working for Moriarty isn't it?

If he was, Moriarty really needed to choose better people working for him. If that was (as is suggested) Moran who is supposedly Moriarty's right hand man (or even if it wasn't really) ; his 'boss" is on the rooftop, a shot is heard, the boss is now nowhere in sight & he still sits waiting for Sherlock to jump?
All a bit of a stretch of the imagination in some ways really.

Lupin · September 10, 2012 4:28 am

kazza474 wrote:
Lupin wrote:
I don't think it would be a dream sequence because we see the sniper aiming at John and packing up his gear. We would have seen the sniper looking at John passed out on the ground and then packing up if it were a dream sequence.
Ah yes, the sniper. It is assumed that he is there working for Moriarty isn't it?

If he was, Moriarty really needed to choose better people working for him. If that was (as is suggested) Moran who is supposedly Moriarty's right hand man (or even if it wasn't really) ; his 'boss" is on the rooftop, a shot is heard, the boss is now nowhere in sight & he still sits waiting for Sherlock to jump?
All a bit of a stretch of the imagination in some ways really.

Now explain to me how a dream sequence is less of a cop out than the HOUND drug.

kazza474 · September 10, 2012 4:31 am

Well first of all I am not saying that is what I believe 100% happen, however he did get a good whack on the head. Quite easy to believe people have a skewed view of what takes place after a good thump on the old noggin.

Just shooting up some possibilities.You have to admit it would be a 'simple' idea. However due to the fact that Sherlock was relying on his actions/reactions it's not very feasible in the end.