sfmpco

I have to say that perhaps in time this episode will grow on me more, but from the start I felt it was off-putting. From Sherlock's weird behavior in the private cabinet meeting to Mary's jump in front of the bullet, I was wincing a bit. Mind you, I was thinking they were going to off Mary, but once the gun is fired, the bullet would have been in Sherlock a split second later. No way could she have moved that fast. I didn't buy that particular way of offing her character. I think there are some interesting bits in the episode, and certainly if he could have found that pearl on top of everything else, that would have been nice. Something about the episode, however, didn't quite fit with the episodes that had come before. And I still don't get that thing about him furiously texting. That little bit never went anywhere.

BTW, has anyone given much thought as to when the Eurus/Moriarty meeting took place in light of Sherlock's timeline with meeting John? Did she find out that Sherlock had a new friend after all those years and so decided to begin a systematic sabotage via Moriarty? And yet Sherlock wouldn't have been involved at all in ASIP if Lestrade hadn't recruited him, so it was sort of an accidental introduction to Moriarty. By the time of TGG, Moriarty seems genuinely perturbed that Sherlock is meddling in his affairs, but they have the exchange of: From Ariane Devere's transcript: JIM: I’ll burn the heart out of you. (His face is a snarl as he says the word ‘heart’ but at the end of the sentence he looks almost regretful.) SHERLOCK (softly): I have been reliably informed that I don’t have one. JIM: But we both know that’s not quite true. I have always wondered about Moriarty's line of knowing it's not quite true. Is it because he already has had the meeting the Eurus and she has told him about Redbeard/Victor Trevor? Yet it seems the first Christmas to boys share together is in ASIB, and we know that Moriarty was a Christmas present for Eurus. So... the time line is a bit muddled.

I don't believe that Sherlock was high on the tarmac either, and I struggle to find the logic of where he would have gotten drugs while in solitary confiinement - probably going straight from solitary to the tarmac. Plus in TAB he apparently was over-dosing on a few different things.

Here's a tiny bit from Loo about it:: http://www.whatsontv.co.uk/news/louise-brealey-end-sherlock-surprise-453698/#fwLaDwSkt41LYuPf.99

It is what it is. http://www.blastr.com/2017-2-21/mark-gattis-hints-sherlock-might-officially-be-done

What actress from TBB was BC's girlfriend? Olivia Poulet. She was the one wearing the very expensive jade hairpin relic.

Here are some great behind the scenes photos from Arwel's website: http://www.arwelwjones.com/sherlock-iv.html#PhotoSwipe1486674231097

Well, Eurus has become non-verbal, and her only expression seems to be with music. She will not be allowed out. I do also believe she will kill again- and have no remorse for it, just as she has shown no remorse for the murders she has already committed. If they deal with her at all other than an occasional mention, I suspect it will be that they will find her dead in her cell. Either she has committed suicide or simply died. That being said, I got to thinking about the opening scene in TFP of the girl on the airplane. Is there any reason to say that the scene is consecutive with the other scenes in the story? Could that scene have happened around the time she met Moriarty or even led to the meeting with Moriarty? Did she feel he was the only one who could help her land that "plane"?

I don't think Eurus is "forgiven" because she is a woman. If she is forgiven at all, it is because she is a Holmes and because Sherlock cares about her - and we care about the things Sherlock cares about.

It might be a challenge to get her some kind of arc, though, to move her character towards redemption or relapse. And neither will be easy to pull off, methinks. Well, the show isn't called EURUS, thankfully, so even if they do have a S5, I doubt that any kind of character arc will be given to her. She will simply be in the backgound. Waaaaaaay in the background. She seems to only communicate through music now anyhow, because she seems to have had a total mental break.

Just wondering why her name is Lady Alicia Smallwood in TLD but Lady Elizabeth Smallwood in HLV...

In truth you couldn't smash a coffin with bare hands, but do we know that Eurus had a real coffin and not just a mock-up? After all, when he first smashes it, those decorative finials on the top popped off like they were barely glued on. I have heard that BC sustained a splinter from that scene. Having recently buried a friend, and she went in the lowest price one, I can still attest that the thing was solid as a rock.

I'm waiting for someone with a blue ray player to be able to capture the image. I saw it on a slowed down DVR recording. Plain as day.

I think also when Molly turned the tables on him and told him to say ILY first and he says it - not one but twice, the second te with feeling and meaning - yes, he did mean it - and him finally hearing the words from her lips in response. Broke him open. He'd never said ILY to anyone in the show. Not anyone. It's not just that I ship it but that the ship had been sailing strongly since S3. Even Loo said, "Something happened in the last season (3), and now we no longer laughed at the idea that yes, something could happen between them (Sherlock and Molly)." I'm not going to battle that ship here, but for him to say the words ILY were not just manipulation. Not at all. Oh, and she is wearing a thin gold ring on her ring finger when she enters 221B at the end. Yes she is. And she's heading happily in Sherlock's direction.

At what point did you think she broke him? I think it was gradual, but certainly the coffin scene was a huge break, but then later realizing that it was his friend Victor who died because they never had a dog was the final break. He was cracked wide open then, and there was no going back. His memories had been unlocked.

I don't know that he had to specifically feel emotions to remember the past - but here's where TAB comes more into play than one would think. Remember his little conversation with Watson:Eu From Ariane Devere's transcript: WATSON: As your friend – as someone who ... worries about you – what made you like this? HOLMES: Oh, Watson. Nothing made me. (From somewhere to his left, scrabbling claws can be heard together with a sound of a dog whimpering anxiously, or as if it is in pain. Holmes turns his head in the direction of the sound.) HOLMES: I made me. (The scrabbling and whimpering continues. Holmes frowns in confusion.) HOLMES: Redbeard? Two things of importance - 1) his admission that he made himself. This is a subconscious admission that perfectly dovetails Mycroft's words in TFP of "Every choice you ever made; every path you've ever taken - the man you are today is your memory of Eurus." Sherlock rewrote his own memories, something that is echoed in TST when Mycroft mentions that Sherlock rewrote the story of the Merchant of Samarra to have a better ending. Sherlock has written a different memory regarding a dog instead of a best friend. And he lost the dog.. although in TFP it makes it seem like the dog was drowned but in HLV is the mind palace line, "Hello, Redbeard. They're putting me down too, now. It's no fun, is it?" This line makes it seem as if the dog was put to sleep, which is either a story inconsistency or that Sherlock had even rewritten that part of his memory to deal with the loss of the imaginary dog. So really, all the locked up, pent up emotions he feels are because of the lies he told himself to cover the truth - even the truth about his sister. He blotted her out of his mind, likely because he knew the truth but it was too much to bear. Interesting in MHR when he says, "Only lies have detail." How true that is of how he rewrote his memories. Notice also that in the TAB quote above it seems to imply that Redbeard is trapped somewhere and clawing to get out. Of course this is his drug-addled mind palace but it seems to imply a different ending for Redbeard than just that he was put down. 2. When he first meets Eurus at her cell, she can see that he is still mentally blocked...so blocked that he can't see the obvious - that there is no glass in her cell to keep her in. She wants to play with him, but she can't fully do that if he can't remember the truth. Eurus lacks empathy although she is not totally without emotional context herself. She experiences the fear of being alone in her supreme intelligence. But she also has pity on Sherlock that he has blocked out the truth. I suspect she knows that she is about to have a complete mental breakdown, but she also needs Sherlock to solve that puzzle she left for him as a child. If he had solved it as a child and had then gone to her room, she likely wouldn't have set the place of fire and would have told him where to find his friend. The truth is locked up in Sherlock, and part of his maintaining control is to keep that truth locked up. He won't let sentiment or love, or anything breach that lock, because then the buried truth will come out. In a way, that's the true final problem - the unlocking of Sherlock. It is a parting gift to him from her, but to unlock him, she has to push all his buttons, his pressure points. Even Sherlock admits that what she is putting him through is vivisection. She is not just cracking his shell but breaking it wide open and allowing the Sherlock that once was to live again. I am always reminded of Moriary's line from TGG where he says, "I will burn the heart out of you" because I never felt he did that. But Eurus is certainly doing it. This time, solve the riddle of the headstones, save Eurus from killing Sherlock's best friend again. She just wants to be loved and have a friend, and the gentle tenderness he shows her when he finds her in her old Musgrave room are the most kindness and tenderness he has perhaps show anyone in any of the episodes, Eurus did that to him. All the other people around him may have softened his edges some over the years, but Eurus broke him - and thereby fixed him. Bad analogy, but he was in a cocoon and he emerged a butterfly. 8 Eu

I said she didn't reprogram him by mental ability only but by putting him to task. She broke his shell and thereby his control, which allowed the memories to come back and the floodgates of emotion. He was not able to play her game until she broke him.

Little bit of nothing article that came out today.\ http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/proposal-they-should-make-sherlock-into-movies-1791916920

I don't believe Eurus programmed Moriarty at all. In fact, I think they were more like kindred spirits and that she simply consulted with him, much as Irene Adler did. How to play the Holmes boys. We don't know that she's running the place when she meets with Moriarty. Clearly the glass is up. She is running the place later, however. I am not sure that Eurus is able to program anyone with a high intelligence, and that includes Moriarty. As Sherlock admitted in TAB, "You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I concede it may even be the equal of my own." (yes, I know it was all in his mind palace, but this is what he THINKS) So I don't think her mental reprogramming skills had any effect on Mycroft, Sherlock or Moriarty. She did, however, reprogram Sherlock by putting him through the trials. She literally ripped open his heart in so many ways, eventually playing the same game she had played with him as a child but which he was too "slow" to understand at the time. If he had figured out her game then, he could have saved his childhood friend. That has to cause him some guilt. Not being fast enough or smart enough. I think part of her acting like Faith was to see in person just how far he had developed. Could he figure out that case? Some of the things he deduced about her were true and some who knows. But she got enough information to know that he was ready to play her game.

Nice one.

And in the meantime, has anyone noticed that in Molly's 2-second end scene that she is wearing a gold band on her ring finger? Yes, she is.

A nice article about TFP and the 4th series in general. http://www.arre.co.in/culture/sherlock-bbc-benedict-cumberbatch-john-watson-steven-moffat-mark-gatiss-sir-arthur-conan-doyle/

regarding S5.... http://www.ibtimes.sg/sherlock-season-5-mark-gatiss-steven-moffat-reveal-fresh-start-original-story-6892

I don't hate S4. I'm still processing it. There are some awfully good things in it, but it's still new and unfamiliar territory. These episodes aren't made in a vacuum, as some may think. The stories are pitched and have to be approved for funding. And the actors and those involved have approve. I'm sure if BC and MF thought the ideas and trajectories of the characters were rubbish, they would have said so and not agreed to do it until a suitable idea had been created. They certainly don't need the work or the paycheck. At the heart, as Mofftiss has said many times, this is NOT a detective show but a show ABOUT a detective. So we got a LOT of the ABOUT in S4, especially in TFP. About is always more interesting anyhow. If you want episodic crime cases being solved each week, watch CSI. The fandom has been clamoring for more back story, and when it is given, some like it and some don't. It doesn't matter. It is what it is, and it is what the creators and the actors agreed to make together. We the audience don't get a vote on their creative process and collaboration. Do I think everything falls perfectly into place with Eurus? Nope. I'd like to see Mofftiss answer some questions about how she fits into all the previous series. How long has she been getting out? Why is she making contact now? Where is she getting money for cab fare, clothes, etc. How much does she know about Sherlock's public and private life? Did she influence Moriarty or did he her? Or were they just kindred spirits who immediately understood each other's psyches? Some of these questions may not get answered because another series is coming. Maybe someone who goes to a SHERLOCKED convention will ask it. I actually got a bit bored and annoyed with her monotone when she was putting the boys through those tests, but I was less bored on the 2nd and 3rd viewings, the 3rd being in the cinema. I loved seeing a bit of Molly's flat. It gave her character more context. I loved seeing more of Mycroft's flat also, and I loved seeing him watch a movie and get into it in his delicious, quiet moment. I loved the childhood flashbacks. I loved the parents giving Mycroft what for at the end and bringing him down a few pegs while building Sherlock up. I love the ILY scene - it was the most intense of the trials. I love the happy ending. I love Sherlock going to see Eurus and literally "playing" with her.

This might help. It might not. http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/88541796/Sherlock-creator-Mark-Gattis-on-the-series-Its-like-bottled-lightning