BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Unanswered questions/ plot holes post S4

**Posted by nakahara** January 25, 2017 9:36 pm

Also, I would very much like to see something like this in the story:

http://northray.tumblr.com/post/156354351180/johnlockedness-addignisherlock

**Posted by besleybean** January 25, 2017 9:41 pm

Personally I think we're well past TRF now and I hope John does, too.

**Posted by TheOtherOne** January 26, 2017 12:40 am

nakahara wrote:
Also, I would very much like to see something like this in the story:

http://northray.tumblr.com/post/156354351180/johnlockedness-addignisherlock

+1
I'd like to see Sherlock stick up for himself too. And I'd like to see the show address Sherlock's underlying low self-esteem. This particular aspect of how his character is written had never sat too well with me (even though Benedict's portrayal of it is very impressive.)

**Posted by besleybean** January 26, 2017 6:42 am

Oh I think by the end of TFP Sherlock had come on leaps and bounds.
For me we see this in his ability to reach out to and help Eurus.
In fact he is as equally supportive to John and Mycroft, too.
He is a grown up.

**Posted by Liberty** January 26, 2017 7:28 am

His passive, appeasing attitude to John's outburst make me uncomfortable, so I kind of agree. But he wasn't dealing with reason there, but with John's raw emotion, and he understands that. Arguing about whether or not he'd killed Mary wouldn't have got him anywhere - they both know what John means.

I think with Eurus, he is entirely appropriate, even if we just look at from the point of view of "what's the best way to stop her killing people".

**Posted by besleybean** January 26, 2017 7:44 am

Oh, you're hard, Liberty! Ha.

**Posted by Rache** January 28, 2017 3:20 pm

Liberty wrote:
I think Culverton is playing with him - he's suggesting he has a doctorate rather than being medically qualified. But he's also drawing attention to the fact that Dr Watson is not "attending" to his friend.

Exactly!
I am only a medical student, but I can already relate very well to how John must have felt in this situation. And I haven't nearly been through as much as John must have been in his life as a doctor. Culverton is very effectively questioning his years and years of studies and hard work, his sincerity, his experience, in short he is questioning the (maybe) biggest part that you define yourself from.
As a doctor you must train and always remind yourself to be objective and unbiased. What Culverton does is something like "Look, only because he is your friend, you really are considering to believe him? Mr Holmes has totally lost it! Be objective! And you don't even notice or care for the state he is in." "If you believe him, you are not a doctor." He is getting John by his honour.

Last edited by Rache (January 28, 2017 3:21 pm)

**Posted by besleybean** January 28, 2017 3:22 pm

Or possibly his reason?

**Posted by Vhanja** January 28, 2017 3:30 pm

One thing I would've liked to know more about, is Sherlock visiting Ella. What happened, what did he tell her - and what did she tell him? What did Sherlock get out of it?

**Posted by besleybean** January 28, 2017 3:32 pm

Possibly nothing...maybe he was left to work it out for himself in the end.

**Posted by Rache** January 28, 2017 3:37 pm

Yes, the Ella thing was a bit disappointing. It was a very thrilling scene in T6T, but it went nowhere. We never returned to it.

**Posted by besleybean** January 28, 2017 3:40 pm

I didn't find it thrilling, I found it heartbreaking.
For me it's even more heartbreaking, that he found no answers there.

Last edited by besleybean (January 28, 2017 5:10 pm)

**Posted by Liberty** January 28, 2017 3:53 pm

I think it was just as we thought - he was trying to find out how to help John.

**Posted by besleybean** January 28, 2017 5:10 pm

I think so, too.

**Posted by Rache** January 28, 2017 11:24 pm

besleybean wrote:
I didn't find it thrilling, I found it heartbreaking.
For me it's even more heartbreaking, that he found no answers there.

Yeah the word thrilling includes heartbreaking for me when I wrote that. ;)

**Posted by Schmiezi** January 29, 2017 7:22 am

Liberty wrote:
I think it was just as we thought - he was trying to find out how to help John.

Thinking of the wall that does not reach the ground I am sure that Sherlock never went to Ella in reality. He visited her inside his MP. But that does not change the fact that he did it to find a way to help John.

**Posted by besleybean** January 29, 2017 8:20 am

For me the scene would lose its impact if he hadn't actually visited Ella.
So I kind of hope he did and I really think he did.
It was a very powerful scene and why wouldn't he go?

**Posted by Schmiezi** January 29, 2017 8:23 am

besleybean wrote:
For me the scene would lose its impact if he hadn't actually visited Ella.
So I kind of hope he did and I really think he did.
It was a very powerful scene and why wouldn't he go?

For me the impact would be the same.

**Posted by besleybean** January 29, 2017 8:32 am

Fair enough.
I kind of enjoyed that fact that I naturally assumed it was John and possibly we were led to believe it was.
So the whack of it being Sherlock was a real stomach punch.
For me it showed how desperate he was and he sensibly went to the professional first.
But of course in the end, he realises his problems are only ever going to be solved by his family and friends.

**Posted by Kae Em** February 7, 2017 6:17 pm

Sorry for joining in late and going back to the initial post, but I'd like to share my opinion on some of the plotholes/unanswered questions mentioned at the beginning of this thread.

TheOtherOne wrote:
* How was Eurus actually "written out" from Sherlock's memories? (That's what she claimed in TFP).

I'm not a psychologist, but the human brain tends to suppress negative experiences or to rewrite memories. Especially children are quite open to suggestion. If someone keeps telling a child long enough that something happened in a certain way, he/she will start believing it and even mistake it for his/her own memory. I guess something like that happened to Sherlock after Victor and Eurus had disappeared. The memories were so painful that he fully suppressed any memory of Eurus (who had caused him that pain) and rewrote the memory of redbeard being a dog instead of a person and that he was put down for some reason. And I guess Mycroft and his parents - understandably - did nothing to remind Sherlock of what really happened but encouraged the false memories that were much less painful than the real ones.

TheOtherOne wrote:
* What were Sherlock's trigger words that Mycroft referred to? (Aside from the obvious one... Redbeard).

Redbeard and the whole East Wind (= Eurus) story from HLV.

TheOtherOne wrote:
* If Moriarty's little "miss me" video was really Eurus all along, what did Sherlock "think" it meant when he told everyone at end of TAB that he knows "what he's going to do next"?

Probably he just meant it in a general way: He knew exactly that Moriarty would next do something to him, Sherlock, and he would just have to wait and see what exactly that would be. Or he was just bluffing there, making himself seem indispensable so they would give him a pardon.

TheOtherOne wrote:
* If Moriarty knew Sherlock would end up in the locked room with Mycroft (Holmes killing Holmes) as part of Eurus' game, that meant he knew Sherlock would survive the fall! Why hire those assassins to target John, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson??? He set all that up just to kill himself?

I don't think Moriarty knew/thought Sherlock would survive the fall, but there was always a possibility that Sherlock could decide not to jump and let his friends be killed instead. In case that should happen, Eurus had most likely promised him that she would finish off Sherlock in Moriarty's place, using those videos he had to send her to torture him. By "Holmes killing Holmes" Moriarty could have had Eurus killing Sherlock in mind, not Sherlock killing Mycroft. I don't think Eurus told Moriarty any details about the game she intended to play with her little brother. There's only so much you can talk about in five minutes . . .

TheOtherOne wrote:
* Who is posting those "Miss Me" and "Miss You" DVDs for Mary post her death?

She could have told anyone of her friends or work collegues to post those letters in case of her death/a few weeks or months after her death. They would just have had to check the obituaries every day in the paper.