Episode 3.2, "The Sign of Three"

[jesskayding]

There's a word Moffat and Gatiss have both used to describe Andrew Scott's portrayal of Moriarty - "unhinged" - isn't that perfect?

 

 

Still glad he's dead, hoping he stays dead. I'm glad Magnussen is dead & the Cabbie is dead.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe because Jim is obviously nutz, so one can feel for him a bit? I mean, it's not his fault his mind is broken. I assume. Whereas CAM is sane (?) so he's a sociopath by choice? And I mean sociopath in the English language sense, not the Moftiss language sense.

I'm not so sure in either case.  Moriarty claimed that he was "crazy" (Sherlock: "You're insane."  Jim: "You're just getting that now?") -- implying to me that the behavior was at least partially his conscious choice.  On the other hand, Magnussen seemed to think that his behavior was simply the logical thing to do -- implying to me that his perceptions were seriously warped.

 

But I don't think that excuses either of them.  Neither of them appeared to be delusional, and they each seemed to understand the consequences of their actions (i.e., they knew they were hurting people).  And I don't consider "I felt like it" to be a valid reason for hurting someone else.

 

[Arcadia]

Good point; sociopathy is not exactly something you recover from. But still, I can't find anywhere in me to feel any pity for CAM; I would say he knew exactly how evil he was, and revelled in it. Jim, I'm not so sure how much he understood. He seemed a little broken, to me.

[Schlauer Fuchs]

I think what makes my hair stand on end about Magnussen is that he threatens people's psyche rather than their lives. He doesn't threaten to kill you (except maybe the bonfire experiment, but he says he'd have saved John if Sherlock hadn't turned up), but he threatens to ruin your life and the lives of everyone you love. While you could hire some bodyguards to protect your life if Moriarty threatened you, you are absolutely helpless against CAM's cold and calculating demeanor. To me, this psychological terror of CAM is much more real than death threats of someone like Moriarty. That's why I find* CAM much creepier than Jim.

 

*[sorry, short off-topic question: can you really say "I find him creepy," or should I use "consider"? Somehow "find" sounds like a literal translation of the German "ich finde", but then it might be alright]

[Arcadia]

I think what makes my hair stand on end about Magnussen is that threatens a people's psyche rather than their lives. He doesn't threaten to kill you (except maybe the bonfire experiment, but he says he'd have saved John if Sherlock hadn't turned up), but he threatens to ruin your life and the lives of everyone you love. While you could hire some bodyguards to protect your life if Moriarty threatened you, you are absolutely helpless against CAM's cold and calculating demeanor. To me, this psychological terror of CAM is much more real than death threats of someone like Moriarty. That's why I find* CAM much creepier than Jim.

 

*[sorry, short off-topic question: can you really say "I find him creepy," or should I use "consider"? Somehow "find" sounds like a literal translation of the German "ich finde", but then it might be alright]

Yes, same here.

 

And yes, "find" is perfectly fine used this way!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Good point; sociopathy is not exactly something you recover from. But still, I can't find anywhere in me to feel any pity for CAM; I would say he knew exactly how evil he was, and revelled in it. Jim, I'm not so sure how much he understood. He seemed a little broken, to me.

 

I somehow find Jim more -- what? relatable? than CAM, though I'm not sure why.  I feel sorry for Jim, whereas I am simply revolted by CAM.

 

Gee, d'you think maybe we're supposed to feel that way about them?    So that we're sad when Jim shoots himself, yet OK with Sherlock shooting CAM?

[Arcadia]

I somehow find Jim more -- what? relatable? than CAM, though I'm not sure why.  I feel sorry for Jim, whereas I am simply revolted by CAM.

 

Gee, d'you think maybe we're supposed to feel that way about them?    So that we're sad when Jim shoots himself, yet OK with Sherlock shooting CAM?

Well, then either they've failed, or I'm missing the genes to properly interpret Moftiss, cuz I was neither. Shock pretty much describes my reaction both times.

 

Maybe Jim seems more relatable because Sherlock seemed to feel some connection to him? I gather that we're supposed to think that there but for the grace of John, Sherlock would BE another Jim. Or at least that Sherlock thought (thinks?) that about himself. NOW I'm feeling sad; but for Sherlock.

 

CAM is, in some sense, dead before we meet him. Jim at least has emotions, however warped they may be. CAM ... there's nothing there. I don't even get the feeling he takes pleasure from his actions, he's just ... alive. But not living.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

 

Good point; sociopathy is not exactly something you recover from. But still, I can't find anywhere in me to feel any pity for CAM; I would say he knew exactly how evil he was, and revelled in it. Jim, I'm not so sure how much he understood. He seemed a little broken, to me.

 

I somehow find Jim more -- what? relatable? than CAM, though I'm not sure why.  I feel sorry for Jim, whereas I am simply revolted by CAM.

 

Gee, d'you think maybe we're supposed to feel that way about them?    So that we're sad when Jim shoots himself, yet OK with Sherlock shooting CAM?

 

 

Possibly & the way Mofftiss does things, probably.

[Boton]

One thing that was so nice about this episode on rewatch is how well it sets up HLV.  Everyone's already mentioned things like the telegram from CAM, but what I noticed this time around is scene where Sherlock is pre-screening the guests, specifically Mary's ex-boyfriend, and demoting him to "casual acquaintance."  He makes the "high functioning sociopath...with your number" comment, which had tremendous comic effect, mostly because about all we can picture Sherlock doing if the ex gets out of hand is going to have a strongly worded talk with him.  

 

Contrast this with the last 10 minutes of HLV, where CAM notes that he has names and phone numbers of the people who are connected to whoever Mary killed, and he'll use them unless he gets to flick John.  Such an elegant and viscerally creepy reversal:  CAM would indeed make a few calls and keep his own hands clean, but in this case, dialing a few numbers from Mary's past could well get her and John killed.  

 

 

[jesskayding]

I think what makes my hair stand on end about Magnussen is that he threatens people's psyche rather than their lives. He doesn't threaten to kill you (except maybe the bonfire experiment, but he says he'd have saved John if Sherlock hadn't turned up), but he threatens to ruin your life and the lives of everyone you love. While you could hire some bodyguards to protect your life if Moriarty threatened you, you are absolutely helpless against CAM's cold and calculating demeanor. To me, this psychological terror of CAM is much more real than death threats of someone like Moriarty. That's why I find* CAM much creepier than Jim.

 

*[sorry, short off-topic question: can you really say "I find him creepy," or should I use "consider"? Somehow "find" sounds like a literal translation of the German "ich finde", but then it might be alright]

 

 

That's the awesome, yet dreadful thing about the English language. Either find or considered would be good. Pull up an English thesaurus & go to town!

 

 

 

Main Entry: consider

Part of Speech: verb

Definition: turn over in one's mind

Synonyms: acknowledge, allow for, assent to, chew over, cogitate, concede, consult, contemplate, deal with, deliberate, dream of, envisage, examine, excogitate, favor, flirt with, grant, inspect, keep in mind, look at, meditate, mull over, muse, perpend, ponder, provide for, reason, reckon with, recognize, reflect, regard, revolve, ruminate, scan, scrutinize, see, see about, speculate, study, subscribe to, take into account, take under advisement, take up, think out, think over, toss around

Antonyms: discard, dismiss, forget, ignore, neglect, reject

[jesskayding]

One thing that was so nice about this episode on rewatch is how well it sets up HLV.  Everyone's already mentioned things like the telegram from CAM, but what I noticed this time around is scene where Sherlock is pre-screening the guests, specifically Mary's ex-boyfriend, and demoting him to "casual acquaintance."  He makes the "high functioning sociopath...with your number" comment, which had tremendous comic effect, mostly because about all we can picture Sherlock doing if the ex gets out of hand is going to have a strongly worded talk with him.  

 

Contrast this with the last 10 minutes of HLV, where CAM notes that he has names and phone numbers of the people who are connected to whoever Mary killed, and he'll use them unless he gets to flick John.  Such an elegant and viscerally creepy reversal:  CAM would indeed make a few calls and keep his own hands clean, but in this case, dialing a few numbers from Mary's past could well get her and John killed.  

 

 

Oh Boton, my Boton, where have thou been oh my sweet Boton.

[jesskayding]

You know Boton, maybe we're so eye to eye on this whole HLV thing because we're both Ohioans! 

[T.o.b.y]

I just watched this again yesterday and was almost as moved as the first time while still all of a sudden noticing all sorts of details that had never caught my eyes before. Like the contents of John's file, or rather the file on John, that Sherlock shows to Molly. One page shown is John's organ donor form. Another is this:

 

 

The Vitruvian Man, I know that much. But what's that on his face? Did Sherlock cut out someone's face from a photo and paste it on? Whose? John's? Whatever possessed him to do that and how will it help him work out their ideal alcohol intake?

 

I do wonder what else is in that file...

[Boton]

I just watched this again yesterday and was almost as moved as the first time while still all of a sudden noticing all sorts of details that had never caught my eyes before. Like the contents of John's file, or rather the file on John, that Sherlock shows to Molly. One page shown is John's organ donor form. Another is this:

 

 

The Vitruvian Man, I know that much. But what's that on his face? Did Sherlock cut out someone's face from a photo and paste it on? Whose? John's? Whatever possessed him to do that and how will it help him work out their ideal alcohol intake?

 

I do wonder what else is in that file...

 

Maybe, since Sherlock has a bit of a flair for drama, it's just a very stylish diagram on which Sherlock can jot measurements of length of limbs and girth of stomach to estimate John's proportion of lean muscle to fat, particularly omental fat, so that he can more accurately estimate basal metabolic rate and therefore how quickly John will metabolize alcohol.  

 

Which raised the question:  Why does Sherlock ask for each of them to have 447.whatever ml. of beer in each graduated cylinder?  It would seem that they each would need a different amount, unless Molly was trying to get one of them (ahem, Sherlock) drunk and fudged the calculations.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

Why does Sherlock ask for each of them to have 447.whatever ml. of beer in each graduated cylinder?  It would seem that they each would need a different amount, unless Molly was trying to get one of them (ahem, Sherlock) drunk and fudged the calculations.

I was wondering the same thing. I can think of two additional possibilities -- they just happened to work out the same despite the two men having different builds (everything sort of balanced out), or Sherlock didn't want to have to remember two different numbers (and then remember which cylinder was which) so he just averaged them (which would make sense if they were pretty close).

 

[T.o.b.y]

Which raised the question:  Why does Sherlock ask for each of them to have 447.whatever ml. of beer in each graduated cylinder?  It would seem that they each would need a different amount, unless Molly was trying to get one of them (ahem, Sherlock) drunk and fudged the calculations.  

 

Well, they may just have about the same body mass, what with Sherlock being taller and John stockier. Also, who knows whether Sherlock meant them both to get equally drunk...

 

God bless Molly for keeping a straight face when she saw that file. She really is an invaluable friend.

 

Oh, by the way, Molly. Another detail:

 

 

No, not trying to promote my own favorite wishful thinking when it comes to hooking people up, no, no. Colors. Molly's dress matches the yellow on the walls exactly. She must have been to the place in advance to check it out, or at least she did research online. Molly color-coordinated her dress with the walls. Sherlock really wasn't the only person who took this event pretty seriously...

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Colors. Molly's dress matches the yellow on the walls exactly. She must have been to the place in advance to check it out, or at least she did research online. Molly color-coordinated her dress with the walls. Sherlock really wasn't the only person who took this event pretty seriously...

Don't recall that she did that for the Christmas party , though?

 

Another question -- if she intentionally matched her dress to the wall color, was that so she'd look nice in that setting, or so she'd blend in and be somewhat invisible?

 

[SherlockedCAMPer]

Either is possible with Molly. Wouldn't surprise me if she wanted to blend in.

[Arcadia]

What I think is more likely is that she had no idea the walls would be yellow, and picked something she thought would make her stand out. And instead she just blended in. (Or so she may have thought -- I loved the dress on her, actually.) Because that's the kind of luck us girls like Molly have.

[T.o.b.y]

What I think is more likely is that she had no idea the walls would be yellow, and picked something she thought would make her stand out. And instead she just blended in. (Or so she may have thought -- I loved the dress on her, actually.) Because that's the kind of luck us girls like Molly have.

 

How would she then have ended up with the exact same shade as the walls then, and not some other yellow tone that would have clashed? Coincidence? Universe is rarely so lazy...

 

'Course I know she had in reality nothing to do with it, it was the costume department, I know, I know, but within my favorite game of "let's pretend it's all real and account for these things within the fictional universe", Molly went to some trouble here. Which is kind of endearing. I bet while Sherlock was programming his stag night App and folding serviettes, Molly was driving down to the venue and trudging the streets of London on the quest for a dress in that exact same yellow that she could afford.

 

I love how Molly sort of helplessly worries about Sherlock in this episode, how she even calls Mrs Hudson on the phone just because she's concerned about how he'll do with the speech and the telegrams. She's learning to stand up to him when he talks to her directly, but behind his back, she's just as gentle as ever. Her face during his speech is fun to watch, too.

[Schlauer Fuchs]

There are several shades of yellow in Molly's dress, but I agree that seen as a whole it fits nicely to the colour of the walls. When I saw her in that dress, I thought of Xenophilius Lovegood immediately. For those who don't know him: He's a somewhat eccentric character in the Harry Potter books. When he attends a wedding in one of the novels, he wears a yellow robe because he thinks that on a wedding you should wear sun colours for good luck. Now for Molly, I chose to believe that she shares this thought and thus chose this particular dress. It makes her even more lovable to me, just as I love Xenophilius for his strong beliefs. Of course there is no clue that would suggest I might be right, it's just my personal view on the matter.

[Arcadia]

How would she then have ended up with the exact same shade as the walls then, and not some other yellow tone that would have clashed? Coincidence? Universe is rarely so lazy...

Because I am assuming the universe is conspiring against her!

[Carol the Dabbler]

What I think is more likely is that she had no idea the walls would be yellow, and picked something she thought would make her stand out. And instead she just blended in. (Or so she may have thought -- I loved the dress on her, actually.) Because that's the kind of luck us girls like Molly have.

 

I, too, thought she looked very pretty in that dress.  And is it too late to say that I love that screencap of her and Greg?  (Hey, Molly, he's available now!)

 

When I saw her in that dress, I thought of Xenophilius Lovegood immediately. For those who don't know him: He's a somewhat eccentric character in the Harry Potter books. When he attends a wedding in one of the novels, he wears a yellow robe because he thinks that on a wedding you should wear sun colours for good luck. Now for Molly, I chose to believe that she shares this thought and thus chose this particular dress. It makes her even more lovable to me, just as I love Xenophilius for his strong beliefs. Of course there is no clue that would suggest I might be right, it's just my personal view on the matter.

Hey, I like that thought!

 

I just discovered last night that Xenophilius is played by Rhys Ifans, the same actor who plays Mycroft Holmes on Elementary.  Would never have realized that if I hadn't read his filmography.

[Arcadia]

....  And is it too late to say that I love that screencap of her and Greg?  (Hey, Molly, he's available now!)

Is he? Do we know that for sure?

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm fairly certain his wife is out of the picture -- but can't say exactly why I think so.  Maybe he used to wear a ring, but now he doesn't?  Of course, he could be dating someone else, I suppose.  But he's always seemed to have an eye for Molly.