Episode 3.1, "The Empty Hearse"

[sittything]

That is one powerful message! Thanks for the warning!

What I have been meaning to ask, has anyone noticed the interplay of looks between Sherlock and Molly, as Shilcott explains the conundrum of the last car of the last train? There is a whole lot of non-verbal language communication going on behind the man's back before he reveals the disappearance of the last passenger. Much more subtle and eloquent than when Sherlock has to explain every detail to Dr. Watson. Is her perspicacity the main reason for gaining his complete trust, I wonder?

 

Why yes, yes I have.  

 

[sittything]

But seriously, I think Molly is very perceptive of people's emotions, or at least of Sherlock's.  Even though she can't "deduce" people like Sherlock can, pick them apart into a list of facts and details, she does do a very good job of reading him like a book in TRF.   She seems to succeed where Sherlock fails at understanding human emotion.

[sfmpco]

I'm still waiting for James Bond to turn and acknowledge Sherlock on the rooftop.  Must be an MI6 bolt hole.

 

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-03-03/can-you-identify-the-british-film-location

[joanneta1]

Dear sfmpco, if you mean the pale imitation who is currently playing at being James Bond, then better not, he would ruin the view.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

but he was on the same roof as Sherlock during Skyfall even if it was at a different time than our beloved Sherlock.

[sfmpco]

I heard Gatiss say they copied that scene from Skyfall and put it for Sherlock.  Same rooftop.  Maybe.  

[T.o.b.y]

Bond or no Bond, the brief scene with Sherlock on the roof looking out over London with that lovely epic music playing is one of my favorites in series 3. It's so perfect - he's alone, above the rest of the world, detached and observing the city like one of us would an anthill.

[joanneta1]

You are perfectly right, Toby! And there is such a lot to be learned about ants! They are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies to war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse the enemies, capture slaves, engage in child labour, exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television, according to biologist Lewis Thomas.

Perhaps we have been watching too much Sherlock?

Or would you go with Irene Adler, :"There is no such thing as too much!"?

[T.o.b.y]

With Sherlock? No, there is no too much. At least I haven't grown tired of it yet. But then, I rarely do grow tired of things I really like - I've been reading the same books since I was a kid...

 

Anyway. I don't think they're really trying to turn Sherlock into another Bond. Sure, there is that roof scene, and there's another reference in His Last Vow (plus probably a lot I have missed), but the most Bond-ish part is Anderson's theory of how Sherlock survived The Fall, and that is clearly portrayed as ridiculous and saying a lot more about Anderson than Sherlock.

 

The thing with Sherlock is, he constantly eludes people's ideas about him. He's not a hero, he's not a James-Bond-type action hunk with a license to kill, he's not a romantic partner, he's not a good man, not a bad man, not a psychopath or afflicted with any psychiatric condition. He can be the greatest socially awkward dork one minute and the smoothest manipulator the next. He's terribly cold sometimes and makes horrific choices about how he treats people close to him, yet he has a great capacity for love. And still, it does not feel (at least not to me) like an inconsistent character. I think he's believable, he's very well written and while he grows and changes and develops, he remains the same person from episode one to nine, which is probably due to the fact that there aren't very many writers on the show, and those there are seem to work well enough together.

 

Sherlock is one of the most realistic fictional people I know, even though he couldn't really exist in our world. He comes very close to a real person's complexity.

 

There, that was my love confession for the day. But I honestly can't stand it when a character is either written as a total stereotype or his personality changes completely from one episode to the next, just because a horde of script writers had different ideas. There's a lot to criticize about the people who make Sherlock, but you've got to hand it to them that they managed to make a third series where almost every other scene is Sherlock acting completely out of character and we (well I) don't go "oh shit, they've messed up" but "oh wow, I got him all wrong! This actually works! Now I know another side of this marvelous person I wasn't aware of before, gee, I wonder what he'll get up to next!"

 

Perhaps it's not so much the genius of the writers as that of the actor, who knows. Anyway, I think it works, I continue to be fascinated with Sherlock, and I don't think he's a sleuth version of James Bond, or meant to be.

[Arcadia]

The thing with Sherlock is, he constantly eludes people's ideas about him.

 

This.        

[Slithytove]

I agree that the complex nature of the character is one reason why Sherlock is endlessly fascinating. Although he isn't a realistic character, in the sense that he is someone you might meet in the real world, he displays inconsistencies and contradictions and yet remains fundamentally the same person - and that is how real people behave.

 

I don't know which characters annoy me most, the stereotypes (step forward, Downton Abbey) or those whose fundamental nature changes without explanation. You see it a lot in the soaps, where someone is introduced as a villain and then, having become popular, morphs into a warm- hearted goody. Even allowing for the fact that, for instance, the scheming, faithless wife-beater might possibly change completely and become a caring family man, other people don'tt forget the past. In these shows, everyone has total amnesia regarding the character's previous behaviour. So you either have characters who never surprise you or ones who never convince you. Sherlock avoids both those traps, and it is one reason why I love him!

[sfmpco]

This little bit popped up about Sebastian Moran:

 

https://twitter.com/sherlockhxlmes/status/597932570685247488

[Arcadia]

Hmmm. I didn't exactly understand every word of that, but the general impression I get is that is supposedly we've seen all we're going to see of Moran. There goes my theory that he's behind the Moriarty gif.....

[Pamela]

I don't believe there is any "Cath" (regardless of the BBC's subtitles, which have demonstrable errors).  What I heard when that scene in John's office was first released (with no subtitles) as a trailer was "All right, be careful -- see you later."

When Mary was saying goodbye to John in the office (in addition to what you said above), didn't she also say ... "I'm late for Cath" ?  (Okay, the subtitle said "Cath", it might have been something else, but I remember hearing "I'm late for something.")

Edited May 18, 2015 by Arcadia
Moved here from another thread

[Arcadia]

Huh. I definitely heard "I'm late for Cath" even before I watched with the subtitles. But then I hear cats meowing where there are no cats .....

 

[Shadow Dweller]

When Mary was saying goodbye to John in the office (in addition to what you said above), didn't she also say ... "I'm late for Cath" ? (Okay, the subtitle said "Cath", it might have been something else, but I remember hearing "I'm late for something.")

CAT Scan?

[Arcadia]

Didn't sound like it, but .....

[Shadow Dweller]

Mary is a nurse, there's possibility that she meant it as she has appointment with a patient (to help with the procedure).

[Arcadia]

Hmmmmm. Maybe. But it doesn't sound natural to say it that way in English. It would be more natural to say "I'm late for a cath" or "I'm late for the cath." Still.... that's better than one of my theories, which was it had something to do with Catholicism....

[sfmpco]

I always thought "I'm late for Cath" was referring to her having a friend named Cathy but this discussion should be on the  TEH section...

[Arcadia]

Your wish is my command!

[BlackButterfly]

I noticed in the scene with the train guy that the back wall is wierd - covered in train wheels- which put me in mind of -the wheel turns and there is nothing new under the sun- quote.

So in canon Moriartys brother is a train station manager...hmmm..and for such a small part David Fynn is an interesting actor.Could we maybe be seeing a Jim from IT repeat.

A random guy watching cctv from trains all day just happens to notice Moran doesn't get off and then contacts Sherlock about it and then forgets the hat he apparently really loves..why would Sherlock even bother going to see something dull about trains in the first place. IDK.

@Girlfriend. Was Mycroft right?

[Carol the Dabbler]

I don't believe there is any "Cath" (regardless of the BBC's subtitles, which have demonstrable errors).  What I heard when that scene in John's office was first released (with no subtitles) as a trailer was "All right, be careful -- see you later."

When Mary was saying goodbye to John in the office (in addition to what you said above), didn't she also say ... "I'm late for Cath" ?  (Okay, the subtitle said "Cath", it might have been something else, but I remember hearing "I'm late for something.")

 

(Sorry for the delay -- just saw this.)  That's the same line of dialog.  The first time I heard it (in a subtitle-free trailer), it sounded like "Light the castle, see you later," but that didn't seem likely, so I played it a few more times, and got "All right, be careful, see you later."  Many other people (including the subtitles) hear it as "I'm late for Cath, I'll see you later."

 

It's entirely possible that Mary has a friend named Catherine who goes by "Cath," though that's an unusual nickname and she's never mentioned again.  But seeing as how Mary has just asked John if he's "sure" (apparently about going to see Sherlock), it still makes more sense to me that she'd tell him to be careful.

 

Memo to Moftiss:  We're going to need scripts – lots of scripts, older scripts, all the scripts.

 

[Godolphin]

Perhaps Mary was a fan of the Catherine Tate Show?

 

What I found interesting about this episode and Sherlock's return were his pointed questions to Mycroft about having found a goldfish. Sherlock seems to be curious about who Mycroft might have been associating with during his two year absence. True, it was their brotherly banter (on steroids), and there was a bit of Sherlock testing his mental mettle against the one person whose mind was a match for his own, but there was also more than a little probing going on.

[sfmpco]

 

Memo to Moftiss:  We're going to need scripts – lots of scripts, older scripts, all the scripts.

 

 

Yes please!!!