BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Which pill was the poisonous one??

**Posted by besleybean** December 5, 2013 4:44 pm

(Hand Up).
I love Derren Brown, too.

**Posted by besleybean** December 10, 2013 5:00 pm

There's all kind of psychology around this, but Sherlock will see through it all!

**Posted by MysteriesUnsolved** December 26, 2013 2:10 pm

What if, both the pills were poisonous? I mean, the cabbie does shout out Moriarty's name when he died and we do know that Moriarty intended to kill sherlock anyway (season one ending)
The cabbie out lived the other 4 people. What if the 5th one (Sherlock) was intended to die along with him, cause I don't think Moriarty would've let the cabbie live anyway.

Last edited by MysteriesUnsolved (December 26, 2013 2:13 pm)

**Posted by Youlia** December 31, 2013 1:51 am

Hi, I just got addicted to Sherlock and watched the first episode. I also was pretty interested in which of the pills was the right one.
The two possebilities that come to my mind are:

1. The cab driver was sick, had an aneurisma. Perhaps this was his medicine. There are some kinds of medicines that are poisonous to a healthy human body. So both pills had the same incredients, but only the victim would die.

2. The cab driver never explained how he really talked to the other victims. Perhaps he just forced them to swollow the pill and only with Sherlock he played the game. This time with both pills being poisonous. He knew that they were after him, he had nothing to loose, and he would die anyway so he perhaps just thought: Let's die both.

I think it was never a game after all.

**Posted by VaticanCameoBrooch** January 10, 2014 6:20 am

Was I the only person who had a flashback to this....

**Posted by Davina** January 10, 2014 4:14 pm

Definitely not the only person!

**Posted by Zatoichi** January 31, 2014 9:44 am

My theory is the same that Youlia suggested above, that both pills were poison. And there was no "chess" at all, and would not have been even if there was just one bad pill, just chance as Sherlock said first.

There is just no way you can deduct if a total stranger will choose no bluff, bluff, double bluff or triple bluff, no way to reliably read subtle body language (in spite of everything authors trying to sell books on the subject might say). Suggesting this just gives the victim the illusion of a little remaining control in this situation so they might actually pick up a bottle instead of acting completely unpredictable (like trying to get to the gun, attacking out of sheer desperation and so on).

In my opinion the cabbie either had an antidote, was tolerant against the poison (or medicine) or was willing to die because Moriarty promised to pay an enormous sum of money to his children in case of Sherlock´s death.

And just maaaybe Sherlock knew, and was playing for time because he wanted the name of the sponsor/fan behind it and the cabbie said he would not tell, 'not in this life'.. so he counted on John to track him down, not to rescue him as he never was in real danger but to shoot at him so he could get the name.. but yeah I admit this is a bit far-fetched. Did he know John had a gun at all? Plus he looked genuinely surprised when his deductions led to John..

Anyway, I do not think he really would have taken the pill just taking the cabbies word for it there really was a good one..

Last edited by Zatoichi (January 31, 2014 10:10 am)

**Posted by ConsultingSociopath** February 2, 2014 8:04 pm

Very interesting theories here had a flashback to the clip above while watching the confrontation (glad to see I wasn't the only one)

**Posted by Biggles86** February 3, 2014 8:17 pm

I don't know if this is the right place to raise it but I don't understand why the early victims are shown with a jar with 3 pills in it, yet Sherlock is given the choice of 2 separate pots with one pill in each of them. I don't get why the others had to choose from 3 but the taxi driver always says they had one each. Have I missed something along the way???

**Posted by Zatoichi** February 4, 2014 7:14 am

I was wondering about that, too.. I did not really come to a logical in-universe conclusion, but think it´s possible there were only three in the beginning for dramatic purposes, so the audience is not directed towards "someone gave them a professional suicide pill" too soon..

Last edited by Zatoichi (February 4, 2014 7:16 am)

**Posted by Ormond Sacker** February 4, 2014 11:44 am

This was brought up somewhere but I can't remember where at the moment, so I'll answer with my own opinion which was if I recall correctly also the majority vote there.
The cabbie isn't playing the same "game" with Sherlock as he does with the other four victims.

**Posted by besleybean** February 4, 2014 5:17 pm

Or in fact the opposite!

**Posted by Ormond Sacker** February 4, 2014 7:15 pm

besleybean wrote:
Or in fact the opposite!

I don't quite follow.

**Posted by besleybean** February 4, 2014 7:17 pm

The Cabbie was playing the game(as in Moriarty's game) with Sherlock, but not the others.

**Posted by Biggles86** February 4, 2014 8:07 pm

Is that part of the reason why the gun wasn't real - Sherlock needs to be made aware of Moriarty's existence and the taxi driver is the means to do this. Would that mean neither pill was poisonous as the plan wasn't to kill Sherlock.

Sorry if this has all been done before, I'm fairly new and only just reliving all episodes with a much more critical eye!!

**Posted by This Is The Phantom Lady** February 6, 2014 2:34 pm

My logic would be that Jeff Hope offered him he 'good pill' so Sherlock would think it was the bad one... then again he might have thought that and offered Sherlock the Bad pill so that Sherlock would think he had thought about that...

*Head spins*

**Posted by Biggles86** February 8, 2014 2:10 pm

Is it deliberate that this is one mystery Sherlock doesn't explain? He is convinced he chose the non-poisonous one but doesn't give his reasons why. I'd give almost anything to know which was which, driving me to distraction!!!

**Posted by josey** February 10, 2014 4:54 pm

What we know is that the trick worked 4 times before Sherlock. It is presumed that the other times each person was presented with 100% chance of being shot or 50% of picking the correct pill. Unless the cabbie lied only Sherlock knew the gun was fake. The cabbie said he would take 1 of the 2 pills but we never see him take the pill. Sherlock says he wasn't going to take it but we could see how the cabbie was talking him into taking it. If both pills are poison that means each person took a poison pill and he would simply leave to let them die, no reason to take the pill. If the other 4 knew they were dead no matter what why not accept the gun shot making their murderer more likely to be caught, they had to have the illusion that they might not die. If only 1 of the 2 pills was poison it wouldn't matter which person took it first. Sherlock should have hidden the jars and represented them to the cabbie to read his reaction.

**Posted by besleybean** February 10, 2014 5:39 pm

Well he survived anyway.

**Posted by Ormond Sacker** February 10, 2014 6:20 pm

josey wrote:
What we know is that the trick worked 4 times before Sherlock. It is presumed that the other times each person was presented with 100% chance of being shot or 50% of picking the correct pill. Unless the cabbie lied only Sherlock knew the gun was fake. The cabbie said he would take 1 of the 2 pills but we never see him take the pill. Sherlock says he wasn't going to take it but we could see how the cabbie was talking him into taking it. If both pills are poison that means each person took a poison pill and he would simply leave to let them die, no reason to take the pill. If the other 4 knew they were dead no matter what why not accept the gun shot making their murderer more likely to be caught, they had to have the illusion that they might not die. If only 1 of the 2 pills was poison it wouldn't matter which person took it first. Sherlock should have hidden the jars and represented them to the cabbie to read his reaction.

But this wasn't the game the cabbie played with the four persons. I can understand us not seeing glass two since that would give the game away, but in each "suicide" scene the glass the person is holding has three pills in it, not one. This to me indicates that the cabbie is playing a wholy different game.