How would you fix "His Last Vow"?

[Boton]

Intensive care unit! Interesting, although it very much looks like a private room. He has been sedated for much of the time, has suffered massive internal damage that probably got his liver from the place of the wound, he has lost so much blood that he is a mess by the end of their confrontation at Baker Str. , he had to take a massive dose of morphine to be able to stand up, get dressed and clear out of there, walk and talk until he collapses, but how on earth could he have removed the two catheters, one to drain the fluid from his lungs and the urinary one, bedridden as he was for a week? And his clothes are not exactly loose, especially those tailored trousers.

 

 

There are several metas online from medical folks that argue, quite persuasively, that Sherlock's initial wound had to be much more severe than we were led to believe.  I think they are right.  However....

 

This one has to be chalked up, IMHO, to artistic license.  We never see a chest drain or a urinary catheter/Foley bag, so he didn't have either.  His initial incision was so small that they could use that weenie little bandage to cover it initially.  It is pretty implausible from a medical standpoint, but it at least allows us to argue firmly that the initial gunshot wound, while plenty painful, was not life-threatening and that Sherlock was starting to bounce back by the time of his escape for Leinster Gardens.  He brought most of his need for a six month recovery on himself by running around and doing stupid stuff in order to try to keep Mary and John together. 

 

This is supported a bit by a line from the new Sherlock Chronicles that basically says (don't have the book in front of me at the moment) that Sherlock knew he was dying of internal bleeding exacerbated by inappropriate exertion and two packs of cigarettes.  So a lot of the later damage was his own doing.

 

 I think a lot of the lack of medical realism has to be put down to the fact that showing a realistic recovery would 1) not be as pretty, and 2) destroy any sympathy the audience has for Mary, and we have to be able to stay with Sherlock on Mary's side.

 

Either that or Sherlock just bit on a bullet and pulled out his own urinary catheter.  Because he's Sherlock F****** Holmes, and he can do stuff like that.  

[Arcadia]

Just to add my two cents: one thing I always think is: just because we didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't happen. I can believe the police visited Sherlock, maybe more than once, before Lestrade showed up. Maybe Lestrade was on a bigger case, or vacation, when the call first came in. Maybe he wasn't even on the case at all, just visiting as a friend.

 

Sherlock being Sherlock, I figured he lied to anyone who questioned him anyway. Or pretended to be more out of it than he was. But good catch on Janine cutting back the morphine drip! I hadn't thought of that but it makes perfect sense.

 

Death threats: John knows Sherlock gets death threats (and is that a hint to future plots?) -- but Sherlock doesn't strike me as the type that would necessarily share that information with the authorities.

 

I don't know about the lungs one, but the urinary catheters are all too easy for the patient to remove. Personal experience. :( Besides, this is Sherlock f*****g Holmes, he can do anything he sets his mind to! I agree there's an awful lot we are just asked to take on faith, but that's part of the humor. He's a bit ... uh ... hyper-realistic?

[Arcadia]

....He brought most of his need for a six month recovery on himself by running around and doing stupid stuff in order to try to keep Mary and John together. 

 

This is supported a bit by a line from the new Sherlock Chronicles that basically says (don't have the book in front of me at the moment) that Sherlock knew he was dying of internal bleeding exacerbated by inappropriate exertion and two packs of cigarettes......

Two packs?!?!?!?!?! I may have to shoot the insufferable git myself just to teach him a lesson.....

[Inge l-w]

Sorry, it's a boy/girl thing, again. If any male human even tried to remove an 11-13 cm tube which has an inflated balloon in his bladder the result would be catastrophic and very vocal. But I shall simply opt for suspension of belief!

[Arcadia]

Sorry, it's a boy/girl thing, again. If any male human even tried to remove an 11-13 cm tube which has an inflated balloon in his bladder the result would be catastrophic and very vocal. But I shall simply opt for suspension of belief!

Yes it is. Fastest I ever saw the hospital staff move! But for a man who's drugged up on morphine, not, apparently, impossible.

[SherlockedCAMPer]

 

Sorry, it's a boy/girl thing, again. If any male human even tried to remove an 11-13 cm tube which has an inflated balloon in his bladder the result would be catastrophic and very vocal. But I shall simply opt for suspension of belief!

Yes it is. Fastest I ever saw the hospital staff move! But for a man who's drugged up on morphine, not, apparently, impossible.

 

 

My theory: Sherlock ups the morphine, takes the thing out, waits a few minutes then lowers the morphine, waits a little bit longer, then makes his escape.  And depending on what medical training he's had to go with his graduate chemist degree, he may know how to take the thing out so it's not so painful.

[Arcadia]

Also, like most heroes, he apparently has a remarkably high pain threshhold.

[Inge l-w]

First you need to deflate the flipping thing, and you need a special syringe to do that! Drugged up state or not it would involve nearly doubling-up contortion-wise, it is one of the nearly impossible things on Carol's list. Suspension of belief works just fine.

[Inge l-w]

It will all be neatly covered up. The general public will never know he killed Magnussen.

In the Christmas scene, at home, just before the whole debacle, there is a piece of pure mischief on the part of BC sitting in that comfortable chair you pointed out, dear smpfco.

When Mycroft says "I am in agony", he quips : " That's the only redeeming feature"

They seem to have as much fun on set as we do in the forum, don't you find?

[Arcadia]

First you need to deflate the flipping thing, and you need a special syringe to do that! Drugged up state or not it would involve nearly doubling-up contortion-wise, it is one of the nearly impossible things on Carol's list. Suspension of belief works just fine.

Hmmm. Is there, perhaps, more than one kind of this thing? Because that's not what I witnessed.....

[joanneta1]

If we are talking straightforward Foley catheters here, the usual size for males is 16-18 with the side vent attached to inflate the little balloon once it is inside the bladder so that it won't slide out again through any movement, female ones are usually 18-24 in size because of the basic anatomical difference in urethra length, boys usually run to 20 cms, while girls run to just 5 cms maximum. And once in place, both are inflated with about 10mL of air. So, no, it cannot be removed except by nursing staff.

The Cudet ones are even more complicated, because they have to address prostate problems, but I surmise this was a pretty standard Foley one for a bedridden patient suffering from severe trauma.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Intensive care unit! Interesting, although it very much looks like a private room.

In American hospitals, at least, it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between an intensive care stall and a regular private room.  Nowadays, I think the main difference is what section of the hospital they're in.

 

[joanneta1]

 

Intensive care unit! Interesting, although it very much looks like a private room. He has been sedated for much of the time, has suffered massive internal damage that probably got his liver from the place of the wound, he has lost so much blood that he is a mess by the end of their confrontation at Baker Str. , he had to take a massive dose of morphine to be able to stand up, get dressed and clear out of there, walk and talk until he collapses, but how on earth could he have removed the two catheters, one to drain the fluid from his lungs and the urinary one, bedridden as he was for a week? And his clothes are not exactly loose, especially those tailored trousers.

 

 

There are several metas online from medical folks that argue, quite persuasively, that Sherlock's initial wound had to be much more severe than we were led to believe.  I think they are right.  However....

 

This one has to be chalked up, IMHO, to artistic license.  We never see a chest drain or a urinary catheter/Foley bag, so he didn't have either.  His initial incision was so small that they could use that weenie little bandage to cover it initially.  It is pretty implausible from a medical standpoint, but it at least allows us to argue firmly that the initial gunshot wound, while plenty painful, was not life-threatening and that Sherlock was starting to bounce back by the time of his escape for Leinster Gardens.  He brought most of his need for a six month recovery on himself by running around and doing stupid stuff in order to try to keep Mary and John together. 

 

This is supported a bit by a line from the new Sherlock Chronicles that basically says (don't have the book in front of me at the moment) that Sherlock knew he was dying of internal bleeding exacerbated by inappropriate exertion and two packs of cigarettes.  So a lot of the later damage was his own doing.

 

 I think a lot of the lack of medical realism has to be put down to the fact that showing a realistic recovery would 1) not be as pretty, and 2) destroy any sympathy the audience has for Mary, and we have to be able to stay with Sherlock on Mary's side.

 

Either that or Sherlock just bit on a bullet and pulled out his own urinary catheter.  Because he's Sherlock F****** Holmes, and he can do stuff like that.  

 

 

Dear Boton

        If you mean the deleted scene on p. 285, one can see that he is being ironic again, but perhaps they deleted it for the reason that it wasn't appropriate to the whole setup of a very intense, emotionally charged moment again. This particular episode is worse than any rollercoaster ride, plus it leaves huge gaping holes that were either intentional or unintentional, but it is also a deeply flawed one, which is why we are still dissecting it, but it is certainly not fun to speculate on something which was either a sloppy script or an episode that could not be fitted inside 90 minutes and provide satisfactory explanations. Having watched and heard Mr Moffat on many occasions, I think that he simply caused havoc to wreak his vengeance on his boyhood hero.

[T.o.b.y]

 I think a lot of the lack of medical realism has to be put down to the fact that showing a realistic recovery would 1) not be as pretty, and 2) destroy any sympathy the audience has for Mary, and we have to be able to stay with Sherlock on Mary's side.

Either that or Sherlock just bit on a bullet and pulled out his own urinary catheter.  Because he's Sherlock F****** Holmes, and he can do stuff like that.  

 

Oh, come on. Anybody can do stuff like that, especially if they are high on morphine. Ask any nurse - patients pull their various tubes from their various anatomical cavities all the F***ing time, including but not limited to, blocked urinary catheters (and Sherlock might be just clever enough to unblock his first - it's not exactly hard to do). They even pull out their central venous lines, and those are fastened with surgical stitches.

 

Aside from all that, yeah, Sherlock won't ever get an award for medical (or forensic) realism, and that is perfectly fine with me. The old stories weren't realistic either. That's not the point.

[joanneta1]

Hard no, but he would need to keep lucid enough to nick a syringe from one of the nurses' trays, and they do count them, you know, and then bend almost double in order to do it, not exactly an easy thing to do with that wound of his, all the internal sutures and even the few external ones. In the old stories he gets beaten up by Baron Gruner's ruffians and that's about it, for personal injuries.

[T.o.b.y]

Hard no, but he would need to keep lucid enough to nick a syringe from one of the nurses' trays, and they do count them, you know, and then bend almost double in order to do it, not exactly an easy thing to do with that wound of his, all the internal sutures and even the few external ones. In the old stories he gets beaten up by Baron Gruner's ruffians and that's about it, for personal injuries.

 

True, the original detective seems to be nigh indestructible. Even in "The Illustrious Client", he was not hurt as badly as he had the papers proclaim. Other times he's laid up, we never really get to know the details, although in "The Devil's Foot" it is implied that he was actually his own worst enemy.

 

As for stealing a syringe, I have absolutely no doubt Sherlock, even in his pretty damaged condition, could do that in the blink of an eyelash... The hospital will be lucky if that is all that's missing after his stay!

 

The rest - climbing out of the window, rushing around London, dragging John's chair back to the fireplace, laying a trail for Mary - well, yeah, that must be filed under "he's F***ing Sherlock Holmes", I guess. He has perfected the "mind over body" thing, so I guess if anybody could do it, he'd be the guy. Until the job is done, at least, at which point it appears his body went fine, now it's my turn: Shut down. Us ordinary humans do that kind of thing on a smaller scale all the time, actually. At least I do...

 

[J.P.]

He had his Homeless Network to help him out.

[Arcadia]

Okay, I said I would do this, but I can't remember where I said it. So I'll put it here, because this is where it belongs anyway.

Soooo ... I just finished reading this novel where the hero was being blackmailed, via threats to his family. How did he fix the problem?

He researched. He recruited help. He found other victims of the same blackmailer. He found proof that the blackmailer was blackmailing. He bided his time and thoroughly prepared. Before he confronted the villain, he sent his family members to safe places where the blackmailer couldn't find them. Then he took the S.O.B. to court, and beat him.

All of this was a great deal more exciting than it sounds, by the way. :-) It was a game of courage and wits, I quite enjoyed it.

However, for those of you who are totally bummed out that he didn't kill the blackmailer :D (Kidding! Just kidding!) -- the blackmailer had an enforcer who beat up people who didn't cooperate. This guy was a genuine psychopath who hurt and killed people for the pleasure of it. And yes, our hero ended up murdering him, because he was afraid the guy would never stop coming after him otherwise. :( (Which didn't make sense to me as the slob was demonstrably guilty of at least one murder and several brutal assaults ... do they not have life sentences in Britain?)

Anyway, there you go. A little something to please everybody... ?   :P

[Inge l-w]

Dear Arcadia, that sounds a bit like that story told backwards which Caya recommended, and which is one of the best things in fan fiction except for the problems discussed on that thread.

What freaked me out this time is that after having watched HoB yesterday, I decided to go for one of the more bizarre Jeremy Brett ones, the Eligible Bachelor. You have been saying that everything is canon to them, you are absolutely right. They used the scene where he puts his hand on the glass of the partition door to confront a seething Mrs Hudson with a "Thank you Mrs Hudson, is that look a reproach?" and she answers "No, I'm often up at this hour", because he has locked himself out, both in Scandal, where he puts his hand up to the glass partition before going up to confront the American agents and in TEH where she sees his hand on the frosted glass and then his silhouette and screams her head off!

[Fantasy Lover]

Make the cliffhanger worse *evil cackling*

[sfmpco]

Make the cliffhanger worse *evil cackling*

 

Well don't just leave us with THAT cliffhanger... how would you make it worse?  

[Fantasy Lover]

I'm good right? Well, in my cliffhanger Mary wouldn't be an ex assassin. CAM would have kidnapped Mary's family, John and Sherlock would have found out (somehow). John, Mary and Sherlock then go rescue them. But CAM is like 'nope, joke's on you. They aren't here!' And then CAM shoots both Sherlock and May. The episode ends with John looking at Sherlock and Mary with horror and disbelief in his eyes and leaves you wonder who will survive. Sherlock? Mary? Both? Neither?

[sfmpco]

I'm good right? Well, in my cliffhanger Mary wouldn't be an ex assassin. CAM would have kidnapped Mary's family, John and Sherlock would have found out (somehow). John, Mary and Sherlock then go rescue them. But CAM is like 'nope, joke's on you. They aren't here!' And then CAM shoots both Sherlock and May. The episode ends with John looking at Sherlock and Mary with horror and disbelief in his eyes and leaves you wonder who will survive. Sherlock? Mary? Both? Neither?

 

Oh, I think you should definitely commit that one to fan fiction!  And then post it for all of us to read! 

[Fantasy Lover]

Sounds like a plan! I'm starting right now.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Just don't have it end with them all waking up in the shower!  ;)