Julia Mae

You're like my daughter. She watched it when it was on, the Americanized cut to the bone version, just the once. She'll watch it when it comes back, but she's not that interested in the answer. Which always stumps me, because she is the one who notices all the details - the number of pills in the bottles, the phone ringing when John falls, other stuff. She just doesn't care about who did what. I wouldn't either but I am the person who reads mysteries to figure them out. And I wouldn't try here except Moffat keeps saying we can from what we see. If he'd shut up about it, I'd be content to just wait. In fact, I never read Sherlock Holmes because you can't figure out what he does from what's in the stories, Doyle never gives you enough information. They don't in our Sherlock, either. But if they showed Benedict and Martin playing checkers on the porch for three ninety-minute episodes, I'm pretty sure, I'm there. Especially if everyone else is going to drop by. For the record, if Moffat said what they reported and we are to use what we've seen in other episodes of S2, I think Sherlock was talking to John on the phone but seeing him on a laptop from a position near the body. I keep imagining Molly sitting cross-legged on the roof holding it for him at just the right angle. Of course, I'm the one who was sure Dumbledore was alive, although I did know who "that awful boy" was and that Snape was a double-agent. You know what? It has been too long. Maybe not just too long for us, maybe too long for Mofftiss. All that story momentum can just dry up and they don't even want to go back and explain it much, just move on. Here's my "spoiler" I'm really happy about: Benedict decided to stop becoming anorectic for Sherlock and is maintaining a healthy weight (screw the cheekbones) and they had to alter his wardrobe. Sherlock grows up. This I can get behind.

I'm not explaining this very well, am I? Sorry. It's irrelevant what domes they are, where they are located or if they are computer-generated. The only real point is: of what does the Holmesian Universe consist? If we take that universe at face value, it's impossible for Sherlock to be where John sees him and speak to him with that dome in the background. Or that geometric building from the other angle, in fact. That leaves us with the SSFD. (Standard Sherlock Fan Dilemma) - We can't trust what we see and there's no possible way to solve the puzzle or We can use what we see to make deductions based on the reality presented to us If it's the first, then there's really no point to having any discussion about how Sherlock survives the fall. If it's the second, Sherlock is speaking to John from far back on the roof where John can't possibly see him, and, he can't directly see John. That's all I meant to say.

Wow, that's so cool! You got a pic of the moment of the pic! (I can't say I've ever been too interested in his scarf, except for how ratty it looked sometimes in S1. Oh, and that he wears it a really stupid way if you are going to possibly be fighting bad giuys. Like a ready-made noose.))

Well, what you said was "he thinks about it, which causes him briefly to turn in that direction." My problem is that he doesn't turn in the direction of the body, he turns away from the direction of the body if he is standing where John is looking. To turn in the direction of the body, he'd have to be looking to his left. And he doesn't just glance to the right, he turns and looks down and to his right. The shot we see, is from above and to the right, so it's exactly what Sherlock would see from his POV if he were standing near the body. Here's another thing. You were answering the question about how many roofs (seriously, I always want to type "rooves") you said: "But when it's a tight shot that doesn't show any of the building..." and those shots don't show the building. But they do always show buildings in the B.G., and the one we mostly see is that dome. To get that dome where it is in the background while he is talking to John, he'd have to be standing pretty much exactly where Moriarty is in this picture, being filmed from the right. You can just see the dome peeking out by Sherlock's nape. I'll say one other thing I won't bother to put up pics of. When Sherlock first steps onto the ledge, when he sees John's cab, he steps up onto something that is what I'd call "roofing shingle." It's that rough-textured tar-paper stuff. When he tosses the phone, he is standing very clearly, on dark polished stone of some kind.

They walk down a hallway in Cardiff and exit a door ... wherever 221B is located. They come back over a year later and film the continuation of the pool scene and hardly anyone can tell where the seam is. One of the things all film and TV production people have learned to do from the beginning of the history of moving pictures is to establish continuity. They actually do it exceptionally well in all the other places, so here, when they are leaving us with the big cliffhanger and know that the next episode will be far away in time and know fans worldwide will be trying to solve the puzzle, it seems very unlikely to me they would get so sloppy with continuity. I always thought Moffat let us know about the two roofs because it was so obvious they were on two different roofs, he didn't want people wasting time on that. But, notice how careful they are with where we see Sherlock mount the roof from behind on the one roof, and where he appears to step up from below at St. Bart's. So just how many roofs are involved, here, do you think? The one John sees only from below that we are never on top of. The main roof set Sherlock enters with Moriarty sitting on the wall that we get that sweeping pan of. Is there another? Is there a different roof used for the Sherlock-talking-to-John close-ups of Sherlock?

The entire episode is a continuity error according to them. What's the point of saying we can work it out from what we see on screen if we don't know wtf we are actually seeing on screen? That rant given, what he said was: I didn't blow up anything, it's not Byzantine, I didn't measure the angles. THEY gave us the fisheye for some reason. I noticed it the first time I watched it: he couldn't see James from that angle. Impossible. No fancy investigation necessary, you know it just from watching, he glances back a bit and we are supposed to be seeing from his impossible POV. If everything is a "continuity error" these guys are even worse at their jobs than I've always thought. And that would make them pretty bad. So. What if it isn't?

Angles of Impossibility: (Part 2) And here he is, falling back, about to hit the ground, at the right edge of that structure that sticks up from the roof. You just make out his head. Here it is: the panoramic fisheye lens rooftop shot just as Sherlock enters. That structure Jim falls at the front right corner of, is at least twenty feet back from the front edge of the roof. But while talking to John, Sherlock looks around at Moriarty's body. That's it. That's as far as his head turns. And then we get a POV shot of Moriarty dead: If Moriarty fell over backward at the edge of that structure, in the spot we first see him, from which he does not move, to Sherlock's left, twenty feet back from the edge, how could Sherlock possibly have this view of his dead body when he gets back on the ledge? We know he is standing in the same spot because we see him mount from behind in the same place. The only thing Sherlock can possibly see if he turns his head and looks down from the ledge we supposedly see him on, is a bit of the corner of the roof. The angle is impossible if he sees this view of dead Moriarty. So, we have two possible explanations. Once more Moffat will say, "Oh, well, we had to shoot from that angle just ignore it" again proving it is impossible to deduce what happened from what is seen on the screen or ... that's not Sherlock John is looking at and when Sherlock is talking to John he is standing far back on the roof near Moriarty's body, where John cannot possibly see him.

Apparently this had too many pictures in it, so I'm going to try it again in two posts. Angles of Impossibility: The Reichenbach Farce (Part 1) Sherlock is laughing. Jim is about to open his mouth to ask, "What'd I miss?" NOTE: Sherlock is almost at the center of the roof. Jim is to Sherlock's left as he stands on the wall.. If you watch this part of the episode, Jim turns on the spot, Sherlock walks back to him... NOTE: in the top photo and this one, that vertical flaw in the wall stone. It's in the same relative position as Sherlock walks back. Sherlock reaches Jim and starts to walk around him. He does it three times and then stops in front of him but: Jim never moves. This that we see here is the place where he dies. This spot, seen from another angle, but the same spot he stops in in picture 1, relative to where Sherlock has mounted the wall, is the place he falls straight back from after the gunshot.

Well, you have become demented in good company. You might be interested in a series of posts on The Reichenbach Fall on my blog.

Couple things. The breadcrumbs in the envelope weren't left until long after the kids were kidnapped and the linseed oil spilled. They were the only ones left, there was no disturbance, they were taken in the night and not discovered until morning. So Moriarty knew he did it, because he'd already done it. I don't think the breadcrumbs had much to do with linseed oil footprints, anyway. Once you put the seal on the crumb envelope together with the seal on the book envelope, the story is that the witch held them captive in a house made of candy. I don't think you have to be SH to start checking abandoned candy factories or closed sweet shops. And, there are other ways to collect samples left by the kidnapper's shoes even without the oil.

That would be another theory, and there's a thread about that here. You might wnat to check it out with the idea that just because neither we nor Sherlock know what kind of fall he caused, he certainly could have caused one.

It's amazing how that happens, isn't it? (Was that on Netflix?) I did the same, started watching S1E1 just out of curiosity, and it was dawn and I was almost blind before I got to The Fall. Obsessed. Instantly. Welcome to the most frustrating fandom on the 'net. Here's something to welcome you:

I'm going to edit in one more nice thing here, then I swear I'm going to post on topic tomorrow. But I think I have to make a diagram. It was my original idea, and now that Mofftiss indicates (possibly) that the solution can be seen in the series, not just the episode, I am feeling more confident. I just finished the first draft of a huge project I have and took the whole day off just messing about, so I shall become a serious Sherlock investigator tomorrow just before I become a serious writer, again. (BTW, my first PC was also 8 and 8: 8 k RAM and 800 in the hard drive. ACER. I loved it so much.) Anyway - back to work tomorrow: "Writing is rewriting." So let's just feel very good looking at this from Japan:

I posted twice and can't delete. Oh, well:

If they have DSL, you can see how well they stream. Streaming for me had everything to do with how much RAM I have and not much to do with my DSL. I have the cheapest, lowest speed you can get and I get everything just fine. But I also have 8 GIGS OF RAM, BABY!! (My new computer is only a year old and I lovelovelove it.)

It is the curse of our fandom. It also occurs to me that all letters can be rendered in Morse Code. Dots and dashes. That's a binary code. If the dashes are 0s and the dots are 1s, you have a bit of binary computer code that you really cannot get from either Bach Partita. Moriarty supposedly left the code at Sherlock's apartment. John asked if Moriarty wrote anything down. Sherlock said "no." But he did. He "wrote down" "IOU" on an apple.

BTW, the release date has changed:

WELL.... I put this video in another thread, but at minute 39:00, it looks like Mofftiss completely negate a very basic premise of many of my theories: A woman asks the very question I would ask: How many Moriartys can there be? "James" is never called "Professor." It sounds to me like they are saying there was only one Moriarty and he is dead. This would, of course, fly a bit in the face of the Canon, where he has a brother. It's only a minute of interview if anyone wants to take a look. Interestingly, Gatiss speaks about things in early drafts of The Great Game where Moriarty's schoolyard nickname is "Prof." And what Carl Powers makes fun of that gets him killed.

I agree that your theory can certainly be as plausible as anyone else's. My question is: why would you think IOU meant anything besides what it stands for: "I Owe You." I never have. There's a thread here that explores the idea of why Moriarty thinks he "owes" Sherlock. I'd be interested in your take. But mostly, I keep thinking I've missed whatever makes people assume IOU means anything else. BTW, as to your theory. Letters on a keyboard are offset. So three letters are underneath four numbers. If you look above the letters "uio" the numbers, starting at left, are "7890." The number of digits you need to unlock a phone.

They might be a bit behind, tumblr people often get the goods within minutes. Your question is the first one I asked. So, there were actually two panels at Comic Con. One, I don't have a link for a video to, probably because they showed an exclusive clip that was not to be distributed. The second, done right afterward, is a panel for a non-profit cause. There is video of that I have on my YouTube channel: It starts about 8:06 and goes for an hour, I have not watched the whole thing. What I know is: Mark Gatiss is just the dearest man ever. But I think someone has some kind of film of the first because there are gifs from it. Moffat's comment here about Moriarty being dead is much pithier than his reported comment from the main panel. Maybe I'll have time to watch it all tomorrow, or you will get to the library. ( Did you get headphones and.. how can the library have decent local internet, but you can't get it at home? I want you to have great internet!)

Yes, we were posting in tandem. Sorta.

I am surprised it even sounds comprehensible, as I scavenged it from a much longer post. I have been accused on more than one occasion of thinking too much.

I think you and the title are perfect, such a good idea so that our other OP can explore her ideas without everything getting tangled up. Thank you for going to so much work. Hey, maybe you should think about just deleting my big long post from that thread to keep it nice for the OP. Wait. Maybe I still can..... oh you did already. Excellent. I couldn't delete my last response, they let me hide it, though. IF we were to agree that something must have happened in the past, I'd be really interested in some other ideas that take into account the time frame and the Carl Powers murder. Problem is, Gatiss really loves backstory and Moffat really doesn't and we might never get back there.

There's a complete theory here: Holmes/Moriarty Connnection. Briefly - Mummy was upset and the boys blame each other and there is a huge rift between them. Mycroft had to "play mother" during Sherlock's childhood. (ASIB) Moriarty has been after Sherlock since S1E1 and Sherlock "had no idea" what Moriarty meant. Without going into all the detail, my idea is: See also Tale of the Killer Cabbie for more. From that post: "In any case, Sherlock must not be shot. He must be one of the suicides. Moriarty wanted more than his death, only Sherlock's defeat would earn the final payment. The words from the cabbie's mouth are Moriarty's, the method to entice him, appeal to both his ego and his inherent reckless disregard for his own safety. He'll risk not breathing for the sake of "brain-work" because "breathing is boring." Starting at the beginning, why did that cabbie seek out Sherlock at all, much less at his flat? He had no reason to think Sherlock would find him, he drove away after Sherlock dismissed him. Yet, he put himself at risk, trying to conquer and kill Sherlock Holmes in a way which would humiliate him in memory and invalidate his reputation. The great Sherlock Holmes would fall victim to a funny little man driving a cab. It foreshadows "The Reichenbach Fall", where Sherlock "will die in disgrace." Of course, that's the point of this, James tells him. And if the words in the cabbie's mouth are Moriarty's, it's a very small leap to that cabbie actually being Moriarty. Recall what Sherlock said to him, "Either way, you're wasted as a cabbie." True. Because he wasn't a cabbie at all. Moriarty. So much more than just a man. What's more than a man? A family. A clan. The Killer Cabbie may have been a man with an aneurism, he also is easily cast as the senior Moriarty, a proper genius, father to James, the original "Professor Moriarty," intent on destroying the son of Holmes senior, his enemy. Moriarty plays the role of the "funny little man driving a cab" well, right down to the shaving foam on his neck. Why? Always the question for Moriarty in any form: why are you doing this? What's it all for? (Note how James plays gay right down to the brand of underwear he makes sure is visible. And fools Sherlock.) Recall Gatiss in the commentary hints at Sherlock's father possibly having an affair. Even without that, something really upset the hell out of Mummy. Who did Holmes Senior possibly run off with? The only woman we've seen who makes a good candidate is the one torn from the picture of the Killer Cabbie's children. Was it an affair? Or did Holmes Senior disappear with her to rescue her and her children from a psychopathic husband and father who helped one of his children murder another child? Who would have put Holmes Senior onto the crime? Sherlock, the boy genius who knew Carl Powers' shoes would have been with his clothes. Sherlock said, "I made a fuss, I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seemed to think it was important." Perhaps his father listened to him more carefully than he knew. Mycroft somehow blames Sherlock for whatever happened, for what made him have to assume an adult's role at home and "play mother" to Sherlock. Even assuming the senior Holmes didn't share his investigation of the Carl Powers case with his son, it's easy to imagine the hyper-astute Sherlock noting behavior patterns and physical evidence that would lead him to perhaps blurt out that his father was keeping company with another woman. If Holmes senior left, it could have led to the breakdown of his wife, or even her suicide. If Mycroft blames Sherlock for being the catalyst that started the reactions leading to the breakdown of the family, Moriarty senior and the child psychopath James, the boy taken from his father's side, surely also blame him. It was personal from the very beginning. Where would James, as a child, obtain C. botulinum bacteria? Depends on what kind of "professor" his father was.

I've always thought IOU meant just what it means: "I owe you." Here is what I think of as Moriarty's clear visual statement: IOU on black raptor's wings. The Moriarty coat of arms is a black raptor on a silver field. He says it so many ways, "This is between you and me, Sherlock." It's personal. I think we need to look back here: