John Watson

[Pseudonym]

And even then I wonder if Sherlock would be better off. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Sherlock is *never* better off.  'Cause if he is, he gets bored and causes trouble just to amuse himself.

[Van Buren Supernova]

@Thanks for pointing those out. I have strongest suspicion that I am very rusty now in Sherlock, got my mind very occupied with another series that also influences me to see many ways to improve Sherlock.

 

Still, I wonder why John doesn't allow anybody else in with Rosie, normal people with normal way of life instead of these people who are constantly get in contact with danger and death, especially when he seems to resent them.

 

@Sherlock needing John

I actually agree Sherlock doesn't really need John, and he could probably survive better. He wouldn't have greater purpose, involved or be good man with all the normalcy, but he would be fine. Cold, cool and charming in his own way. :p

Although it'd be more like thicken, layered exoskeleton instead of what he really is. But if that works, nothing is wrong with that.

 

Although I am wondering how he would survive the cabby, since he is also an idiot and would take the pill.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... I am wondering how he would survive the cabby, since he is also an idiot and would take the pill.

 

Do you think he chose the wrong pill, then?  Or do you think there was no right pill?

 

I personally think he chose the logical pill (considering that he was basically playing against those four dead people).  But was Jeff telling the truth?  Had Moriarty told Jeff the truth?  Was either of those pills actually harmless?

[gerry]

In hindsight and given who Moriarty was I believe neither pill was harmless and it would have been idiotic to take the pill. Kind of reminds me of the roof scene in TRF when Moriarty tells Sherlock his weakness is that he wants everything to be clever, i.e. Wanting a clever game (finding the harmless pill) when in reality there wasn't one.

[Van Buren Supernova]

I think there was no right pill.

 

We don't know what poison it was, do we? Otherwise we could see if there is antidote.

I find it hard to believe that he would get 4-0 because some of his victims were potrayed as not dumb and as ready as he was to die, his main goal was to get something for his children, he wouldn't get much if the odd is worse than russian roulette. Anyway, eventhough Moriarty was so called fascinated with Sherlock, I'd consider it as some kind of audition, that Sherlock wouldn't be worthy opponent anyway if he died there.

 

But if, if there was a logical pill,

Personally I would choose the other bottle (different with what Sherlock chose).

Sherlock's choice is either basic or thinking very deep. (That Sherlock expects Jeff to think that he thinks Sherlock is too smart and foresee Jeff's logic and move few steps ahead. It's hard to explain, I'd try: Basic guess is for your opponent to get your bottle because they expect that you want to win (your bottle is safe), further guess is to get your own bottle because the opponent thinks you could predict the basic guess (therefore the safe one is victim's bottle), even further guess is predicting your opponent would see the previous two considerations so the safe bottle is actually yours which I think where Sherlock is (or another two steps further).

 

For me, the more complicated a situation like this, if I were Jeff, I'd bank on basic assumption that we tend to get suspicious about why we need to think that far therefore assuming our bottle is the poison, or assuming that it's too obvious that our bottle is the poison, while it's the other way around.

 

So personally I'd suspect Jeff to think that way and pick my own bottle.

[Carol the Dabbler]

But if Jeff is telling the truth about how it went with the other victims, and if he's playing Sherlock in the same way (I know, too many ifs), then Sherlock isn't playing against Jeff. He needs to figure out what choice the others did, and then do the opposite. That's what I meant by "the logical pill."

 

If, on the other hand, he is playing against Jeff, then he needs to figure out which pill Jeff thinks he'll choose. In which case I have no idea.

[Arcadia]

Eh, I'm a sap, I believe in Jeff. :p I think he was telling the truth about the process (one good pill, one bad pill), and I think he really was a proper genius ...  after all, he was smart enough to figure out how to goad Sherlock into playing his "game". So what the other four people did, wouldn't matter -- Jeff wouldn't have necessarily put the same bottle out for each one.

 

But was he smart enough to trick Sherlock into taking the wrong pill? I have no idea. Either way, he was wasted as a cabbie.....

[Van Buren Supernova]

Interesting, so we have different interpretations, but I agree with Gerry that both pills are bad.

 

My logic is, as mentioned, Jeff wouldn't get what he needed if he played fairly with that kind of horrible odds, especially I see that it's also extremely difficult to apply logic in that kind of scenario, unless you have studied your victim closely and knew them very very well. Even so, stressful situation would push normal people into behaving unpredictable, it would really depend on luck and I don't think Jeff wanted to end up dead, had nothing for his children in financial and reputation of having a murderer as a father. So him, the properly genius way, is to have both bottle poisonous and antidote for himself.

 

Having said that, I also think he is very convincing in his delivery, but I see that as having strong indication of a psychopath and actually enjoys deliberating the way people make their choice, and lying wouldn't be a problem to him. (I also believe he made different choice for different victim)

 

Of all that, if there had been more victims, I would believe that he already got what he needed for his children and played Sherlock for real as battle of wits (although again, logic is hardly a reason one wins this kind of game) for their enjoyment, but four victims, no. Not enough. Imo.

[Pseudonym]

I would have believed both were bad, except like VBS said, it would be a bit boring more Moriarty if Sherlock were offed then and there because both pills were bad - and he had to know Sherlock wouldn't have been able to resist the puzzle. I've seen it said elsewhere that the actual poison was in the water, but since Sherlock didn't have the water whilst the other victims did he would have been fine. 

[Arcadia]

Hmm. I never thought Moriarty was targeting Sherlock at this point. I don't think he knew specifically what the cabbie was up to, and I doubt he would have cared if Sherlock was killed; if he had been, Moriarty would just take that to mean he wasn't such a worthy opponent after all.
 
I've always thought Moriarty intended to kill them at the pool, and it was only the phone call from Irene that stopped him .... he needed Sherlock alive at that point to play out her game. I think. I've never been quite sure how he knew Irene had information that he needed. Premonition, maybe. Or Eurus told him Mycroft was up to something.

[Pseudonym]

I'm not really sure where Irene and Moriarty tie together either. I'm sure it's something obvious I'm missing. 

 

Oh wait, it was the whole code/flight of the dead thing wasn't it. 

[J.P.]

Sherlock should have taken both pills, mix them, put them on the table and observe the reaction. :D

I think that the other victims' pills were all bad. There had to be no survivors.

[Arcadia]

I'm not really sure where Irene and Moriarty tie together either. I'm sure it's something obvious I'm missing. 

 

Oh wait, it was the whole code/flight of the dead thing wasn't it. 

It was, but what I don't understand is how Moriarty knew the code she had was relevant to his shenanigans.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Eh, I'm a sap, I believe in Jeff. :P I think he was telling the truth about the process (one good pill, one bad pill)....

 

I believe that on alternate days.  But where does he get the pills?  I've been assuming that he gets them from Moriarty, in which case, how does Jeff really know which pills are good or bad?

 

I think we discussed this a while back, and I'm partial to the idea that the whole reason Moriarty set Jeff up in the serial-killer business was to 1) get Sherlock's attention, and then 2) see if Sherlock would take the bait himself.  If that's the case, then the contents of those last two pills depended on Moriarty's goal.  Was he merely testing Sherlock?  In that case, both pills might have been harmless.  But if his goal was to kill Sherlock, then it seems quite possible that both pills were deadly (because the cabbie would otherwise be a loose end).

 

I'm not really sure where Irene and Moriarty tie together either. I'm sure it's something obvious I'm missing. 

 

Oh wait, it was the whole code/flight of the dead thing wasn't it.

It was, but what I don't understand is how Moriarty knew the code she had was relevant to his shenanigans.

 

Maybe the details didn't matter to him.  It was some big hush-hush government thing, maybe that was good enough for him.  As Irene mentioned, sometimes Moriarty just liked to cause trouble.

[Arcadia]

Any thoughts why he decided against killing Sherlock at the pool when Irene called, then? The implication to me is she told him something that made him realize he still needed Sherlock around. But the only connection I remember is the Bond Air code.

 

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

My impression was that he took Sherlock's threat seriously, meaning that if he ordered Sherlock killed, Sherlock would blow up the whole place and they'd all die.  Dunno whether that thought bothered him or not, but once he got Irene's phone call, he was sufficiently intrigued by something that he chose to live awhile longer.  When he said "wrong day to die," he was talking about himself.

[Van Buren Supernova]

All I can think of is Moriarty had been trying to crack his head to solve what Mycroft was up to for a long time, and to my understanding, there had been successful Conventry Connundrum or similar that Moriarty was probably aware of but couldn't solve it. Maybe he had tried to get through Sherlock, as what he had been doing throughout TGG but he didn't get good result, until Irene told him something that he suspected could lead him to the answer and at the same time, a new way to get to Sherlock, and in longer run, Mycroft.

 

 

 

HAMISH!!

 

Oh, that is John shouting because once again we forget about him in his own thread.

[Pseudonym]

Poor Johnny-boy. Forgotten as always. 

 

What's everyone's head-cannons on John's parents? I've seen stories where they are both drunks, where his dad is an abusive drunk, where they are homophobic and disowned Harry... also ones where they are both lovely people and accepting of all. 

 

I can see his dad at least being an alcoholic and knocking John, Harry and their mother about. I don't know why, it just seems like it would fit with his character. Deep down he seems like a very angry person, and certainly seems to hate Harry's drinking so much that I can imagine it might be because it invokes bad memories from their past. It also brings in both the angry and protector parts of his personality, I can see him trying to get between his dad and his mother trying to protect her. 

 

Are they still alive? Did they go to the wedding? 

 

I think, inkeeping with the other head-cannon, I can see John hating his father so not inviting him, and he's also lost touch with his mother for staying with his father and not protecting John and Harry more when they were younger. 

[Arcadia]

Thumbs up to Carol's theory,maybe to VBS's, Pseud's ....  Oh, okay, I'll play. He doesn't hate Harry, he loves her ... he just hates her alcoholism. Parents .... ehm, dead, I'd say. I think John's been on his own for awhile, the military was the closest thing he had to family, and he had to give it up, he's a bit bitter about it until he meets Sherlock. Doesn't hate Sherlock either, just hates what he does to himself and to the people who care about him, but at least it isn't alcoholism.

 

How's that?  

[Carol the Dabbler]

Sounds good to me. In fact, there were a couple of deleted lines from the "will you be my best man" scene, where Sherlock suggests that John ask his mother, but John points out that she is a woman -- and dead.

 

But then again, that part WAS deleted. Maybe they wanted to keep their options open.

[Pseudonym]

Aw, that's really sad that Sherlock thought John's mother would be a better best man than him.  :(

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe Sherlock was thinking along the lines of she's his mother, so he must love her best of all -- which presumably says something about how Sherlock feels about his own mother (regardless of how he treats her).

[J.P.]

As for the pills: one should ask Lestrade. They may not know which pill was which, but at least if there was a poison in one of them. Or both. :D

 

I think that Irene might have called Jim saying she had the ominous "Coventry" code and that it's important (exactly the same what she told Sherlock). Jim could not crack it and send her to Sherlock, using the apparent blackmail attempt as a bait.

 

I don't think that Jim wanted to kill Sherlock at the swimming pool. He came to warn him about getting in way, showing what he's capable of. The situation escalated a bit with John playing a hero and so on.

[Van Buren Supernova]

@best man.

 

I think Sherlock suggesting John's mother is just a funny pick about how clueless he is. He knows it should be a man, but I doubt he knows a lot more than that.

He has nobody to ask, except Lestrade, who wouldn't be coming to his rescue after all the helicopter shenanigans.

 

So, I suppose, he googled it. :p

Then of course, I tried to google it as well, as I don't have any idea. And Sherlock seems to get a lot of things wrong :D!! But don't hang me, I'm not really sure.

 

I always wonder why he didn't invite anyone else to the stag night. I WANT to see Sherlock organizing a party and how he reacts to possibility of stripper (forgive me guys, I can't stand reading my google search and based on blind assumptions instead, from years watching television of cultures that are not mine. :p).

 

He didn't keep his speech short and sweet as well (thank god) and he obviously didn't read that he shouldn't play murder. XD