Episode 3.2, "The Sign of Three"

[shoot999]

I assumed poppet  was used as an endearment.  (Isnt the north of England version 'Pet'?) Particularly as Mary didnt react to the word itself. Unless  poppet has a different connotation when used by CAM.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

To me it was the reference to her parents being not being able to be there that affected her. She's an orphan. To say something like that was just cold and heartless. I can see why "CAM" has been interpreted as being "Charles Augustus Magnussen".

[Escribblings]

Poppets are related to witchcraft and are similar to voodoo dolls, possibly used to control someone.
 

The word poppet is an older spelling of puppet, from the Middle English popet, meaning a small child or doll. In British English it continues to hold this meaning. Poppet is also a chiefly British term of endearment, especially for a young woman or girl.


In folk-magic and witchcraft, a poppet, also known as Poppits, Moppets, Mommets and Pippies is a doll made to represent a person, for casting spells on that person or to aid that person through magic. They are occasionally found lodged in chimneys. These dolls may be fashioned from such materials as a carved root, grain or corn shafts, a fruit, paper, wax, a potato, clay, branches, or cloth stuffed with herbs with the intent that any actions performed upon the effigy will be transferred to the subject based on sympathetic magic. It was from these European dolls that the myth of Voodoo dolls arose. Poppets are also used as kitchen witch figures.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I suppose Charles Augustus could be into witchcraft, but if he sees himself as having so much power over people through gathering certain damaging information and his own intelligence and brilliance, he may feel witchcraft to be mere superstition and of no importance what so ever. It'll be interesting to what tack "His Last Vow" takes on this.

[Zain]

Related to witchcraft?

Really, that's interesting.

Do you remember the short camera walk through Magnussen's flat/room/whatever?

There were lots of strange things, for example a rabbit and a magician's hat. Back then, before I watched the episode for the second time and noticed that Magnussen apparently is a politician, I was convinced he saw himself as a "magician".

[Escribblings]

Related to witchcraft?

Really, that's interesting.

Do you remember the short camera walk through Magnussen's flat/room/whatever?

There were lots of strange things, for example a rabbit and a magician's hat. Back then, before I watched the episode for the second time and noticed that Magnussen apparently is a politician, I was convinced he saw himself as a "magician".

No, I am afraid I don't.

[Zain]

Before we see him watch the camera footage; we get a short view of the room.

[sherlockandjohn]

Related to witchcraft?

Really, that's interesting.

Do you remember the short camera walk through Magnussen's flat/room/whatever?

There were lots of strange things, for example a rabbit and a magician's hat. Back then, before I watched the episode for the second time and noticed that Magnussen apparently is a politician, I was convinced he saw himself as a "magician".

 

I was just thinking the same thing. That walk through his place was, as most everything else on this show, very deliberate. I'm sure we'll know more in the next episode.

[Zain]

Well, I am itching to read through the spoilers for the next episode, but I can't get myself to do it. It could be the greatest episode to date, or it could be mediocre. And I don't think I could stand it to be mediocre. Not with this set-up. I actually like series three so far... but only because I am fully anticipating that they lead up to something good. If all we saw in the previous episodes were red herrings at best, I don't know how I'd deal with the disappointment.

[mangopony]

I'm reading all of these on my phone hoping to get to the end before I wrote my comment on SOT but its 20 to 1 and there are a lot of comments!

 

First off, I'm newish to Sherlock butnhave fallen for of head over heels (and Benny C of course!!! That coat, that hair, those cheek bones... Swoon!!!)

 

Anyway, I missed the episode on Sunday so have only just watched its repeat on BBC3.

 

I feel like I've been through some emotional trauma. I'm torn though between rationality and emotional response.

 

Rationally seeing Sherlock drunk, having him "flirt" with the bridesmaid (did he actually say "down girl" to her?!?") and the declaration of love for John felt ... I dunno... Misplaced??? (Was part of the appeal of their relationship the unspoken nature of their feelings?)

 

Emotionally - I went all gooey and fell even more in love BECAUSE I saw him drunk and because he flirted and because he said he loved John.

 

With regards to Mary (love her too!) I remembered something from TEH that makes me worry for next week. Is CAM trying to get to her? When we see him replaying the footage of Sherlock getting John out the bonfire he replays her screaming John's name over and over... Hmm...

 

Can't believe in 48 hours it'll all be over for this series :'(

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I don't think you have to worry about John's "declaration of love for Sherlock". It's not sexual. We have used the term Anam Cara to describe these two people who are closer then brother's. They are soul mates. Heterosexual friends can still love each other deeply without it going any further then a soul deep affection for each other....if that makes any sense.

[Carol the Dabbler]

According to all the etymologies I can find on line the word poppet means a little girl or a girl doll...not so much a puppet.

 

Even if the words "poppet" and "puppet" aren't synonyms, they are related historically.  So who knows exactly what is meant here?

 

I'm afraid the word 'poppet' isn't on John's blog. Check this: if you want to search a particular word in a specific website, you need to type in Google Search the word you are looking for, than the word 'site:' and then the website, for example: poppet site: johnwatsonblog.co.uk.

 

Yup, I know.  Tried that.  I could still swear I saw it there ....  (Note:  There shouldn't be any space between "site:" and the URL, though.)

 

The use of poppet for puppet may be a fairly modern application. In the earlier usage it seems to have used as an endearment.

 

I believe it's used that way in at least some parts of the UK nowadays.

 

One of the comments on the transcript suggests that those may actually be two notes -- one from someone with the nickname "Poppet," and the other from "CAM" -- see what y'all think:

 

I'm wondering whether the congratulatory note from "CAM" (presumably C. A. Magnussen) might be another skip code, or some other kind of coded message.  Just so you don't have to look back where someone posted it earlier, here it is from Ariane DeVere's transcript:

 

SHERLOCK (reading the next card): “Mary – lots of love, ...”

(He breathes out an almost silent, ‘Oh’. John and Mary look up at him.)

JOHN: Yeah?

SHERLOCK (disparagingly): “... poppet ...”

(He loudly sounds the ‘t’ at the end of the word. John and Mary giggle.)

SHERLOCK: “... Oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM.”

(Mary’s smile fades. Sherlock continues reading the message.)

SHERLOCK: “Wish your family could have seen this.”

(John looks round and sees Mary’s face. He reaches out and takes her hand.)

JOHN: Hey. Hmm?

(She smiles reassuringly at him.)

 

 

D'you think we may have invented ourselves a red herring with that word "poppet"?

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Hhhmmm it could be a red herring if the sender was going by the name Poppet....then it would seem an endearment for sure.  If used by CAM....it would depend if it is Mary being blackmailed and used against her will to hurt John and/or Sherlock.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Right.  We'll be watching this episode again this weekend, so I'll check very carefully to see if I can tell whether it's one note or two.

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Yeah, it's kind of hard to tell by Ariane's transcript which it is.

[mangopony]

Rationally seeing Sherlock drunk, having him "flirt" with the bridesmaid (did he actually say "down girl" to her?!?") and the declaration of love for John felt ... I dunno... Misplaced??? (Was part of the appeal of their relationship the unspoken nature of their feelings?)

 

 

Ah ha! I've just re-watched the episode this morning (woke up at 6.30 - my body obviously decided it'd had enough sleep and not enough Sherlock!) and I've justified the change in Sherlock that so many people have commented on for myself.

 

The reason for the change is Mary. She and Sherlock connect and I think she's changed him. She's changed John too. He always found speaking about his emotions so difficult. Even in the face of death in TEH he could barely get out his words of admiration, and yet when he asks Sherlock to be best man he openly says he loves him. He'd never have done that before. John says that Mary is the best thing that ever happened to him, but I think she's the best thing that could have happened to the pair of them.

 

 

PLEASE DON'T KILL HER TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[T.o.b.y]

Yes, Mary changes a lot. I think she makes John feel more comfortable about himself and more secure - which is why he can now "afford" to tell Sherlock he's a drama queen or "make due" with him as nurse. He never would have dared to assert himself against him quite so openly before because he didn't really have anybody else. Now, if Sherlock were to take offense, John could just shrug it off, go home with Mary and wait for his friend to come out of his lonely shell again. This makes Sherlock more insecure, more vulnerable and suddenly eager to please (within in limits), altogether leveling the field between them in a way that never happens in the original, but makes a lot of sense here and accounts for many changes in their behavior, I think.

 

Another plausible reason for why Sherlock is not quite the same man when he returns to London as when he left it is that the two years he spent away were probably far from a "holiday" as Mycroft put it so very kindly. He was away from his familiar surroundings, his Baker St "lair", his few friends. And he probably was in danger often and, as we saw (and frankly, I wish we hadn't) not always on top of things. No wonder he is a bit shaken, unsure of himself and "out of synch" with his world, especially in The Empty Hearse. I think he seems more familiar in The Sign of Three, as if he's been settling in again.

 

(By the way, I just love the part where Sherlock throws Mycroft out of his mind and says "not you". Exactly, Sherlock. Stop listening to him! )

[T.o.b.y]

I felt really badly for Tom! Outside of that one clip where Molly was kissing him while the photog was trying to take their pic, I thought she seemed really cold to him throughout the ep. She was rude when he stood up and gave his "meat dagger" theory (which had me cringing in second-hand embarrassment, and I understand her being embarrassed that her boyfriend said something so dumb in front of a room full of people and, more specifically, Sherlock, but did she have to be mean about it?), she stabbed him with the fork when he (understandably, for someone who didn't know Sherlock well) whispered about Sherlock being drunk. WTF was that? I know it was supposed to be funny, but all I could think was,"Did she really just stab her boyfriend with a fork because he whispered that a man dancing around talking about a murder at a wedding might be drunk??" She was standing with him and glaring at Sherlock and Janine taking a photo together, and then later she's standing far away from Tom during the wedding dance, staring at Sherlock the whole time and hardly looking at Mary and John.

 

I'm getting the feeling that this is one of the classic examples in television where they goofy "stand in" boyfriend is introduced to highlight how much a person doesn't actually want to be with them and is into someone else.  Molly is a character I have always liked very, very much and I found myself grimacing at a lot of her actions in this entire episode. I really, really hope they don't continue this, because there are so few lovable female characters in this show (God bless Mary and Mrs. Hudson!), and I don't want to start hating one of the ones I really enjoy! 

 

I was also really annoyed by that bit where she burst out,"We're having quite a lot of sex!" to Sherlock.

 

Well, who knows what the writers were really thinking when they wrote all this. It makes perfect sense to me, but then I tend to project my own self onto Molly and see everything from that point of view. So here's my no-quite-so-objective interpretation of the stuff that bothered you:

 

- I think Molly really felt for Sherlock when he had to give his speech in front of "actual people actually listening". It seems like exactly the kind of task that would be extremely daunting to her as well, so she would empathize with anybody in that situation, but when it's Sherlock, there is the added layer of her always having loved him. And I think she always will, no matter how well things go with Tom or how much she loves him as well. So no wonder she got quite mad when Tom said something disparaging about Sherlock and that she stabbed him with a fork. No, it was neither a nice nor a rational thing to do, but I am afraid I would have done exactly the same thing in her shoes. It's another instance of her not behaving like a person "should" but actually "would". In my humble opinion, of course.

 

- Because Molly will always have a special liking / a (not-so-)secret crush / call it what you will for Sherlock, it seems natural (to me) that she would be especially mortified by her boyfriend doing or saying something embarrassing in front of him (plus, of course a room full of strangers - I bet that didn't help either).

 

- The "we're having quite a lot of sex" bit was really cringe-worthy. Perfect example of how Molly can be just as "sociopathic" as the man she feels drawn to. She seems prone to inappropriate remarks at inappropriate moments. Which makes her the more lovable to me, but I do understand how that would not be everybody's response...

[sherlockandjohn]

 

Rationally seeing Sherlock drunk, having him "flirt" with the bridesmaid (did he actually say "down girl" to her?!?") and the declaration of love for John felt ... I dunno... Misplaced??? (Was part of the appeal of their relationship the unspoken nature of their feelings?)

 

Ah ha! I've just re-watched the episode this morning (woke up at 6.30 - my body obviously decided it'd had enough sleep and not enough Sherlock!) and I've justified the change in Sherlock that so many people have commented on for myself.

 

The reason for the change is Mary. She and Sherlock connect and I think she's changed him. She's changed John too. He always found speaking about his emotions so difficult. Even in the face of death in TEH he could barely get out his words of admiration, and yet when he asks Sherlock to be best man he openly says he loves him. He'd never have done that before. John says that Mary is the best thing that ever happened to him, but I think she's the best thing that could have happened to the pair of them.

 

 

PLEASE DON'T KILL HER TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

I believe Sherlock did say "down, girl", and responded with "I know" when she told him, "I wish you weren't... whatever it is that you are". Not my favorite moments, but not important enough for me to be bothered by. I do prefer, though, when Sherlock is unaware of how attractive he is

 

I've lost quite a bit of sleep lately due to Sherlock Especially on Monday mornings. I'm guessing it will be just as bad after tomorrow's episode.

 

For me, the beauty of the friendship between Sherlock and John is mainly how they 'show' rather than 'tell'. Which is exactly why I loved this episode. If the two men always spoke like that to each other, the words would loose their meaning and power. In this case, it felt all the more powerful to me, because they have never, mutually, been so open with their feelings for one another. I do believe that Mary can take some of the credit for that, having secured the affections of both John and Sherlock in each their way. In this episode, she certainly seemed more like a bridge than a gap between them. Let's hope that continues, though in reality it might not always be thus

 

One more thing: I so love Sherlock's Victorian-meets-modern language. I know I've said it before, but I just have to point this out: "Ladies and gentlemen, pray charge your glasses and be upstanding". Love it!

[mangopony]

 

For me, the beauty of the friendship between Sherlock and John is mainly how they 'show' rather than 'tell'. Which is exactly why I loved this episode. If the two men always spoke like that to each other, the words would loose their meaning and power. In this case, it felt all the more powerful to me, because they have never, mutually, been so open with their feelings for one another. I do believe that Mary can take some of the credit for that, having secured the affections of both John and Sherlock in each their way. In this episode, she certainly seemed more like a bridge than a gap between them. Let's hope that continues, though in reality it might not always be thus

 

 

I think you're right. I just wonder how the "showing" will work now that it has been "told" - did they do it too soon??  (I say that in the hope that there will be about another 10000000000000000 episodes to come!!!) Now that it's out in the open, will there be that same poignancy? Or will we just get another level of their relationship....

 

I have to say it's been 12 hours since I rewatched it and I still keep playing that bit in my head and welling up so perhaps I was affected by it in exactly the way I was meant to be - the recognition that it was such a profound moment for both of them (Sherlock especially because of the public nature of the declaration).

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I love the page boy, Archie. Seems there might be a Sherlockian protege in the making, if his mother doesn't get all freaked out over pictures of the "lovely village, beheadings". Would love to be a fly on that wall.

[T.o.b.y]

I love the page boy, Archie. Seems there might be a Sherlockian protege in the making, if his mother doesn't get all freaked out over pictures of the "lovely village, beheadings". Would love to be a fly on that wall.

 

Oh yeah, me too! Oh, did you notice that the headless nun story made a reappearance here? It seems like they're determined to waist absolutely nothing from that 60 min pilot!

 

As for the special "Sherlock" vocabulary and phrasing, I absolutely agree - it's beautiful and certainly a big part of his appeal to me. (And concerning Sherlock not being aware of how attractive he is - I think he's always known that. Look at how he used it on Molly as early as series 1! In some interview recently either the actor or Moffat, I don't remember which, said Sherlock wasn't vain, but aware of his appearance as part of his "armor".)

 

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

As for the special "Sherlock" vocabulary and phrasing, I absolutely agree - it's beautiful and certainly a big part of his appeal to me.

 

   Mofftiss said that after it was decided to reject the Unaired Pilot for a 90 minute episode, the writers went in and made a conscious decision to "Victorianize" Sherlock especially in his speech pattern. So glad they did. It's truly is lovely.

[Karie]

Was his speech less Victorian in the unaired pilot? I didn't notice! I think I was too distracted by those sexy blue jeans and the ever-exposed chest area. I will have to watch it again when my dvds arrive. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, did you notice that the headless nun story made a reappearance here? It seems like they're determined to waist absolutely nothing from that 60 min pilot

 

I agree, Moftiss's motto seems to be "Waste not, want not."

 

This isn't from the pilot, but I'm wondering whether Lestrade's alternative first names (Graham and Gavin -- so far) might be recycled from the list that Moftiss presumably drew up when they were trying to decide what to call their "G. Lestrade."