Episode 4.0: The Abominable Bride (alias The Special)

[Carol the Dabbler]

Personally I'm troubled by the implication that, once again, Sherlock appears to think murder is an acceptable means to achieve justice. If that's actually what is being implied; I'm still not sure it is

 

You mean sending Moriarty over the falls?  [....]

 

I think Arcadia's talking about his positive attitude toward the Bride Brigade.  That's been bothering me as well, though not enough to keep me from enjoying the episode, which I watched again on PBS tonight.  I wonder if the writers may be attempting to justify the murders (and they are indeed murders in every legal sense) by claiming the murder victims to have been utterly horrendous men without showing or even saying anything that might offend Auntie Beeb.  (Perhaps they really, really wanted to show two characters with in-story-fake fatal head wounds, and the censors said, "Well, OK, but absolutely nothing else!"  Who knows?)  We do hear Sir Eustace say that the Bride is after him because of his (unspecified) sins, which may be a reference to his long-ago treatment of Emilia (which would have been much harder on her back then than it would be today) and possibly other women as well.

 

Other things from tonight's viewing:

 

When Holmes and Watson are waiting in the greenhouse, and then see the supposed ghost, which turns out to have been a reflection -- that trick had been done solely for their benefit, because the reflection would not have been visible to Sir Eustace in the house.  Even though Holmes claims to be baffled as to why Lady Carmichael hired him to prevent and/or solve a murder that she herself intended to commit, it seems to me that she wanted him and Watson to be there as witnesses to the ghost's presence.

 

Maybe at least some of the drugs that Sherlock is taking are neither uppers nor downers, but rather hallucinogens, which would explain how another dose could have summoned Moriarty.

 

The jet's rough landing was not the writers' comment on the female pilot's lack of expertise.  The landing had to be rough in order for Sherlock to feel the jolts all the way back in 1895.  (Others have already commented on how Moriarty's talk of "the landing" coincides with the plane's landing.)

 

I am now in agreement with those who say the middle airplane scene isn't real -- or at least not totally real.  I'm willing to believe that at least some of the dialog is real, because it's consistent with the dialog in the other airplane scenes, but apparently Sherlock has his eyes closed and/or is hallucinating (see above), because what we see (the bed thing) does not jibe.  And of course the cemetery scene goes right out the same window when Sherlock realizes that he's still not awake.  (Nevertheless, I hereby retract my prior objection to the cemetery scene.  Mycroft could have gotten an exhumation permit.  He's good at that sort of thing.)

 

Sherlock's knowledge of history is just as faulty as his knowledge of astronomy.  In the final scene, he says that airplanes and telephones were "simply my conjecture of what a future world might look like."  Surely a real Victorian Holmes would have been fully aware by 1895 of the invention of the telephone some twenty years earlier, and the existence of actual telephone service in both the US and the UK by the 1880's.

 

Holmes's suggested title for Watson's write-up, "The Monstrous Regiment," is surely a nod to Laurie R. King's second Mary Russell / Sherlock Holmes novel, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, which shares several subplot themes with this episode, though they're fleshed out in a totally different way.

 

[sfmpco]

Baker Street Babes points out the Monstrous Regiment nod as well in their podcast.

[Tunguska]

 

And yes, why was Molly so hostile? Was it anger over the drugs, or something else? Aghgh... I feel like Sherlock ... too many! Too many! Too many delicious scenes to pore over!

I assumed Molly was hostile in the MP because that is how Sherlock perceives Molly's attitude to him at this time. Last we saw she was slapping the snot out of him for his drug use in the lab. I'm guessing he thinks she doesn't have a high opinion of him at the moment and is angry and disappointed in him.

 

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk

 

 

To me, Molly's hostility was not completely out of character. Molly is not in love with Sherlock. She is madly in love with the handsome, charming detective that visits her lab regularly. That man is not Sherlock. Sherlock's only charming when he needs to be, when he wants to manipulate Molly into doing something for him. Whenever Sherlock is truly himself around Molly, she gets upset, angry, or feels hurt. (Which is, to some degree, understandable because he is often acts somewhere between bluntly honest and completely rude.) We see this when he does not want to have coffee with her. When he identifies Jim from IT as gay. At the Christmas party. When he gets high "for a case".

 

Within his mind palace, Sherlock is completely himself - or his perception of himself -, and that's not someone Molly particularly likes.

I know this is quite a dark take on their relationship and I'm sure many will see it differently, but it is one of the reasons Molly's not my favourite. However, I have to say she redeemed herself somewhat for me in The Empty Hearse. (Only to have it blown away again by her behaviour towards her own fiancee in Sign of Three.)

[Tunguska]

This is my first post on this forum and it appears I may be swimming against the tide a little.  I've loved the Sherlock series to date, but didn't like the Abominable Bride, or indeed Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Holmes in the Victorian era.  Maybe this was a device to separate Sherlock in mind palace and Sherlock in the real world, but it wasn't for me and I struggled to empathise with him as a character.  I also though the whole story was far more complicated than it needed to be and contained far too many unsubtle nods to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's canon.  To me this distracted from the story, and I think there was a better way to plant Cumberbatch and Freeman into Jeremy Brett's Victorian London.

 

I've elaborated on this in my blog, please feel free to right my wrong.

 

http://www.melsmall.com/fiction/blog/abominable-bride-10Jan16

 

Mel

 

I completely understand your feeling and would probably have felt the same if the big "modern day mind palace"  reveal had not occured. I did enjoy it so much more after that, but I can also imagine that it wasn't enough for you to fix the Victorian scenes, which indeed felt off for me.

 

Going to read your blog now!

 

[sfmpco]

When it comes to Molly in this episode or any character from Sherlock's modern world, it is unfair to the modern character to assign any meaning from the Victorian character as having any basis in reality with the modern character.  After all, this is only in Sherlock's head and how he is creating them in the Victorian world to serve his purpose of finding the parallels between Moriarty's death and that of Emilia Ricoletti.  

 

Sherlock reads John's blog on the plane to help set his mind frame, and there is, of course, a perfect parallel between the current war in Afghanistan and the Afghan wars of the 1800's.  I do think, however, that he's mucking around a bit in the Victorian era and trying to get his bearings as well as getting all his players set up until his silences John and Mary's bickering with "Enough!  The stage is set.  The curtain rises.  We are ready to begin."

 

He had been playing the song he composed for their wedding, and that should have been the first clue that something was amiss in this storyline and that reality was creeping in.  

 

WATSON: Begin what?

 

There has been no mention of a new case to prompt the statement from Sherlock.  But he responds:

 

HOLMES:  Sometimes to solve a case one must first solve another.

 

This is the 2nd clue that something is amiss with the Victorian world.

 

WATSON:  Oh, you have a case then.  A new one?

HOLMES:  An old one. Very old.  I shall have to go deep.

 

Reconfirmation of the 2nd clue.

 

WATSON:  Deep into what?

HOLMES:  Myself.

 

And there it is, right up front, that this will all be in his mind.  Even in his lucid dream state he knows he has to go even deeper than he currently is.   It is probably at this point his has taken another hit of drugs to allow him to explore deeper.

 

And THEN he allows Lestrade's character to come into the dream and give the details of the Ricoletti case.  Sherlock is controlling and unfurling the elements in a way that is logical to him with the supporting characters as he needs them in their respective roles.

 

It was obvious from the trailers that we would be dealing with his mind palace as well as a suicide similar to Moriarty's.  The suicide parallel was also evident from the #Setlock pics.   The camera bit where the action was frozen in the streets when Sherlock was questioning Lestrade's account of the events was obviously mind palace stuff.

 

Baker Street Babes speculated that Sherlock's vision of Molly in the morgue was that he saw her as asexual, but I will disagree with that.  Not having a sexual interest in someone does not mean you view them as asexual.  That comment made no sense to me.  He needed Molly in his dream to perform that same medical function.  You can't even say accurately that Watson noticed her disguise and Sherlock didn't because it's Sherlock's dream, and he put her in that disguise to begin with.  He also put a little spit and fire into her.  Remember that she and Anderson had worked together in his mind palace in HLV to help save him.  They are paired together again in TAB where she is once again in control (she clearly took the lead in HLV).  It isn't that Sherlock doesn't notice her.  In fact, because he is in control of this dream, one could argue that in fact he is aware of the pain he has caused her, but in keeping with time period, I don't believe he wanted to give her away.  Also... I believe he would do anything to protect her in the modern world from any tendril of Moriarty's reach.  Remember how startled and frightened she seemed when she saw Moriary's "Miss me?" on the telly?  She holds the secrets to Sherlock's deceit in the fall from Barts, and she has kept his secret for around 4 years.  Likewise he will keep her secret in his dream.

 

I do have some concerns for Molly's safety in S4.  I hope I'm wrong.

[J.P.]

 

That is of course not our familiar modern John Watson, it's the Victorian Watson -- as "written" by Sherlock for his mind palace.  We already know that Sherlock thinks of John as his blogger, so naturally he sees his Victorian Watson playing a similar role with regard to his Victorian Holmes.  (In fact, just a few scenes later, there are references to Watson having written up their adventures for The Strand magazine.)  Since our Sherlock has a flair for the dramatic, it seems perfectly appropriate for his daydreams (or whatever you'd call 'em) to have a narrator -- who would of course be his biographer.

 

So Sherlock reads John's blog to go into his MP, where he invents his own victorian versions of himself and John, who is writing his fictive victorian versions of himself and Holmes in the Strand Magazine.

Got it!

[bedelia1984]

 

I do have some concerns for Molly's safety in S4.  I hope I'm wrong.

 

Me too! I have a fear that either Molly or Mary is in danger of season 4. My unease is mostly derived from what the writers have said about consequences and (I think) tragedy. I'm hoping the writers' latent fears of angry suffragettes may yet save them both. The female contingent to the cast is fairly modest, so it would be nice to keep what they have.

[Slithytove]

I'd be more than happy for them to kill off Mary (I'll admit that forgiveness isn't my strongest point!), but I don't want anything bad to befall the other female characters.  There are, indeed, so few of them and they are all strong characters - Molly, Mrs Hudson, Irene, Sally...and I'd like Mummy Holmes to reappear, preferably in avenging angel mode after discovering who shot her son.  Unfortunately, I think this is unlikely to happen, as I don't think the writers are going to give older women much more than walk-on roles.  Mrs Hudson's disgruntled reaction to Watson's stories in The Strand would also be justified in the modern version.  Clearly, John and Sherlock love her and she wanders in and out of the stories, mostly as comic relief, but I can't see a story being built around her, or any older female character.  That's not a criticism unique to this show, of course.

[Boton]

 

Just a thought: As much as I personally like "Sherlock the addict" and as little opposed I am to him taking as many substances as he can get his hands on, what if he actually didn't take everything on the list? 

 

 

 

 

 

I think his difficulty staying on his feet was meant to convey that he had, indeed, overdone the drugs. 

 

 

I think, just to preserve our own sanity, we have to assume that Sherlock overdid the drugs, regardless of what did or did not appear on the list.  Personally, I have trouble believing that he *could* have kept an accurate list of how much he took when he was that high, but I think this is a point on which we have to take the plot as written.  If we go down the rabbit hole of trying to question how much he really took and whether he noted it  and what effect it had on his perception of the "real life" events, we'll make ourselves nuts.

 

In other words, save those kinds of discussions for November, when we've analyzed everything else about the episode and are running out of discussion fodder!   :D

 

 

Although Victorian Sherlock used a syringe, I have to think that modern Sherlock may have been snorting, at least on the plane.  That would have been the fastest, and least conspicuous way to get it into his system.

 

Though that is undoubtedly true, isn't snorting generally done with cocaine, and isn't cocaine an upper -- whereas Sherlock seemed to be kind of acutely relaxed?  (Please excuse all the questions -- not really my area....)

 

 

Yes, cocaine is an upper (says Wikipedia; I have no personal knowledge).  I'm being a little self-serving here because I wrote a fan fic to this effect, but I would bet that Sherlock took some sort of opiate (heroin, maybe) before the tarmac good-byes to literally dull the pain, then realized when Moriarty was back and the plane was turning around that he had to be thinking quickly, so he went for his upper of choice.  But, that also fits with my own head canon that that's what ACD Holmes did: used morphine when he was in emotional/intellectual pain and cocaine when he wanted the rush that comes from making quick-feeling connections in your mind.

 

Personally, I'll stick with coffee....

[sittything]

 

 

I do have some concerns for Molly's safety in S4.  I hope I'm wrong.

 

Me too! I have a fear that either Molly or Mary is in danger of season 4. My unease is mostly derived from what the writers have said about consequences and (I think) tragedy. I'm hoping the writers' latent fears of angry suffragettes may yet save them both. The female contingent to the cast is fairly modest, so it would be nice to keep what they have.

 

 

Nope, nope, nope.  I can't even begin to think about something happening to Molly.

[T.o.b.y]

I'd be more than happy for them to kill off Mary (I'll admit that forgiveness isn't my strongest point!), but I don't want anything bad to befall the other female characters.  There are, indeed, so few of them and they are all strong characters - Molly, Mrs Hudson, Irene, Sally...and I'd like Mummy Holmes to reappear, preferably in avenging angel mode after discovering who shot her son.  Unfortunately, I think this is unlikely to happen, as I don't think the writers are going to give older women much more than walk-on roles.  Mrs Hudson's disgruntled reaction to Watson's stories in The Strand would also be justified in the modern version.  Clearly, John and Sherlock love her and she wanders in and out of the stories, mostly as comic relief, but I can't see a story being built around her, or any older female character.  That's not a criticism unique to this show, of course.

 

No, sadly not. More's the pity - I often really like older female characters in fiction. Mrs Hudson is a great favorite of mine, I'd like to see more of Mummy and Lady Smallwood wasn't so bad either. I don't know where this preference of mine stems from. Maybe it's because I am getting older myself, maybe I like seeing women serve other narrative functions than "(potential) love interest", maybe my personal experiences influence my taste - I've had some very strong, important relationships with women one or two generations above mine.

 

[T.o.b.y]

 

 

Just a thought: As much as I personally like "Sherlock the addict" and as little opposed I am to him taking as many substances as he can get his hands on, what if he actually didn't take everything on the list? 

 

I think, just to preserve our own sanity, we have to assume that Sherlock overdid the drugs, regardless of what did or did not appear on the list.  Personally, I have trouble believing that he *could* have kept an accurate list of how much he took when he was that high, but I think this is a point on which we have to take the plot as written.  If we go down the rabbit hole of trying to question how much he really took and whether he noted it  and what effect it had on his perception of the "real life" events, we'll make ourselves nuts.

 

Probably... In any case, you are right that we should take the plot as written. I am just personally amused by the idea that Sherlock pretends to take more drugs than he really has, just to piss off Mycroft and teach him a lesson about never locking his little brother up in solitary confinement again. I do think he is childish enough to act that way: "Ha, you care about me, so if I take a lot of drugs you'll regret not having gotten me a pardon right away. Serves you right for putting me through all this."

 

Clearly, I do not think of Sherlock as a terribly good person... But I love him anyway.

 

 

Nope, nope, nope.  I can't even begin to think about something happening to Molly.

 

Molly must not be harmed. Repeat: Molly must not be harmed. Not a hair on her head. I will turn absolutely monstrous if they try.

 

I too found the Victorian Holmes too remote and offputting ...

 

I liked him. I liked him much better than I had expected I would. I was afraid they'd make him too nice, but they didn't. He was his old self in my eyes, and I was happy to see him. Didn't look half as nice as modern Sherlock (I am not a fan of that hairstyle and some of his suits I thought were downright ugly), but then Sherlock Holmes was not originally meant to be attractive and I thought they got the personality just right.

 

Can we ever say for certain how things really are and how they seem to be?  I think that applies even more to real life than to most fiction -- since most fiction is intentionally written to be understandable.  In the case of TAB, however, we seem to have gone a bit in the other direction.  I don't think we should be too worried about not knowing what's real -- I doubt that Sherlock has any better grasp of the difference right now

 

:D

 

There is certainly a case to be made for the idea that the "real" Sherlock Holmes has always lived in the 19th century and the series is nothing but his speculations about the future. But I prefer to think of the modern version as the "real" one, at least within this particular fictional universe. I think that in the special, everything that happens on the plane is real and everything that doesn't is not. At least not in the same way... ;)

 

 

I find myself liking the Special better and better the more I think about it. There are a few unfortunate elements that I wish had been handled with greater sensitivity (or simply left alone), but for Sherlock, I am willing to make more allowances than I probably should (love is blind). The Conan Doyle references I enjoyed very much.

 

Such as, Toby? I know some people are bothered by the idea that Sherlock was high when he said goodbye to John, and I can see why they might be, although for some reason I'm just letting it slide.

 

Personally I'm troubled by the implication that, once again, Sherlock appears to think murder is an acceptable means to achieve justice.

 

Neither of these two things bother me. I think the tarmac scene is really touching, and if Sherlock had to take drugs beforehand to be able to stand it at all, that only makes it more so. As for him condoning murder if the motive is right and taking justice into his own hands, well, he's always been like that. In the books, I mean. It's not the way I want people to think or behave in real life, but in his own little world, he's allowed to be that way in my mind. After all, where he lives, evil exists, and that kind of changes the rules.

 

No, I was referring to linking a feminist group to the KKK - that was bad - and also to fat Mycroft. It's really not such a great idea to imply once again that being fat is an acceptable reason to make fun of people. If this was any other show, I would probably go on a long rant and be somewhat upset. Since this is my beloved Sherlock, however, I am making allowances. After all, I am female, I think of myself as feminist and I have been quite overweight myself at times, so I guess I am a potentially insulted party and thus entitled to forgive and forget.

[sittything]

I was actually pleasantly surprised with BC's performance.  I was concerned that this Sherlock was going to be unrecognizable as a Sherlock and that wasn't the case at all.  

 

Fat Mycroft made me a bit uncomfortable, even though I found his scene with Sherlock and John to be hilarious.   I kinda understand why they did it, since Mycroft was fat in the books, but I felt like it was maybe played up a bit too much.

 

I'm less concerned with the women's group/KKK thing.  I don't know why they left their headpieces pointy like the KKK, other than making it more directly match the original story?   I don't think Mofftiss was trying to make that comparison from everything I've heard them say on the subject, but like the fat thing... I wish they had been a bit more sensitive/aware?  I do wonder if neither Loo or Amanda mentioned anything to them?

[T.o.b.y]

I was actually pleasantly surprised with BC's performance.  I was concerned that this Sherlock was going to be unrecognizable as a Sherlock and that wasn't the case at all.  

 

Fat Mycroft made me a bit uncomfortable, even though I found his scene with Sherlock and John to be hilarious.   I kinda understand why they did it, since Mycroft was fat in the books, but I felt like it was maybe played up a bit too much.

 

I'm less concerned with the women's group/KKK thing.  I don't know why they left their headpieces pointy like the KKK, other than making it more directly match the original story?   I don't think Mofftiss was trying to make that comparison from everything I've heard them say on the subject, but like the fat thing... I wish they had been a bit more sensitive/aware?  I do wonder if neither Loo or Amanda mentioned anything to them?

 

I think there's a danger with art / fiction that if you make people adhere to certain standards of what is culturally acceptable / PC, the quality of the work suffers. If someone doesn't have a certain sensitivity by nature, they don't usually do very well when trying to fake it. There have been plenty of shows / films where I thought I could tell that the creators were really trying to be progressive / polite / correct, and that didn't really heighten my enjoyment. Star Trek comes to mind here, or the new Star Wars film.

 

I guess I wish people just didn't find fat people inherently ridiculous or that it simply wouldn't occur to them to use the KKK from a Doyle story as a model for a group of feminist activists (no matter how radical they are). But as long as it does and they do, I had rather they just openly say so, because then we can challenge these things and discuss them. If people think shit but say what is proper, how are we supposed to get anywhere?

 

Anyway. There is so much I have seen and read that wasn't PC at all and / or insulted a group I personally belong to, and I have enjoyed so much of it and been so little appreciative of more carefully constructed fiction that I really haven't much of a right to complain. I don't think they meant to be mean to anyone with the Special, that's for sure. And as long as people are just a bit insensitive and a bit clueless rather than malicious and hateful, I can manage pretty well.

 

[Janine M. Adler]

I have seen someone questioning about Molly's profession. I think she is actually a doctor who graduated from a medical school who later persuaded her career in Forensics. I myself  work in forensics and I am a medical school graduate. So when Lestrade adresses Molly as Doctor Hooper, I think it is her true designation.

[bedelia1984]

 

I'm less concerned with the women's group/KKK thing.  I don't know why they left their headpieces pointy like the KKK, other than making it more directly match the original story?   I don't think Mofftiss was trying to make that comparison from everything I've heard them say on the subject, but like the fat thing... I wish they had been a bit more sensitive/aware?  I do wonder if neither Loo or Amanda mentioned anything to them?

 

I do think both aspects were a little (unintentionally) insensitive (though Mycroft was wonderful and funny. But I think Gatiss is good enough at surreal humour to have found a more creative way to do it, rather than going for a cheaper laugh.) Also, about the weight jokes, when you're in a cinema with other people, many of whom may have weight issues themselves, who are just as excited as you to see the movie, it does take away a little from the fun to know fans could feel a bit excluded or belittled by that sort of humour.

 

Part of the problem with both the weight jokes and the feminism thing is that they are sort of unprecedented in Sherlock as a series. They are usually smarter than that. I think it it was one of their short 'extra' fan videos, they would have totally gotten away with it, but because it is full length people expected a little more substance. Which is not to say I didn't really enjoy the episode, because I did. 

 

I wouldn't expect the actresses (Louise or Amanda, or even Una) to object, really, as it isn't their place and may be beyond their level of clout. When I saw the feminist KKK though, it made me really question how much of a say Sue Vertue has on anything that ever happens in Sherlock. I know she is in no way a writer, but they do like to have her guest on panels quite often, which I now have the impression in more down to tokenism, than to the idea they value a female perspective. I suppose they like to limit the writing staff, but I would love to see how a good female writer would take on an episode of Sherlock, even as a co-writer.

 

 

 

No, sadly not. More's the pity - I often really like older female characters in fiction. Mrs Hudson is a great favorite of mine, I'd like to see more of Mummy and Lady Smallwood wasn't so bad either. I don't know where this preference of mine stems from. Maybe it's because I am getting older myself, maybe I like seeing women serve other narrative functions than "(potential) love interest", maybe my personal experiences influence my taste - I've had some very strong, important relationships with women one or two generations above mine.

 

 

I so agree that I would like to see more of Mrs. Holmes. And, joking aside, they could do more with Mrs. Hudson (once they don't hurt her, I live in fear of Una Stubbs retiring and them deciding to do something dramatic). In the Mark Gatiss interviews the cast bit shown in cinemas, they have that part where Una says she thinks the amount of Mrs. Hudson is just right, but I do feel they could give her an extra scene here or there that goes a bit deeper. I loved that they had her and Lestrade chatting, actually.

[sittything]

Oh yes, if they made Mycroft fat for the humor.. it wasn't needed.  Everything that was hilarious in that scene was 100% Gatiss and his delivery and had NOTHING to do with the fat suit itself.

[sittything]

I can see why maybe they said nothing, or they did and maybe it was brushed off, I just wondered if they even brought it up with anyone since Amanda seems very outspoken and Loo is so big on feminism.    Either way, I'm not losing any sleep over it nor am I personally offended.  Both just made me think... "a bit not good."

 

ETA:  Both meaning the fat suit and KKK outfits.   Not Loo and Amanda.  

[bedelia1984]

I can see why maybe they said nothing, or they did and maybe it was brushed off, I just wondered if they even brought it up with anyone since Amanda seems very outspoken and Loo is so big on feminism.    Either way, I'm not losing any sleep over it nor am I personally offended.  Both just made me think... "a bit not good."

 

Yeah, I have to say I wouldn't like to be in the wardrobe department if they'd tried to make Amanda put on one of those purple cone hats. And I was surprised in a way that Louise would be okay with it (but we really don't know that she was, I imagine she has zero involvement with the writing at that level). But maybe they bribed her with all the juicy male disguises and ambiguous Sherlock Molly moments.

[sfmpco]

Here's a well-written blog breakdown of the episode:

 

http://nikkistafford.blogspot.ca/2016/01/sherlock-abominable-bride.html

Edited January 11, 2016 by Arcadia
moved as requested :-)

[J.P.]

Either way, I'm not losing any sleep over it nor am I personally offended.  Both just made me think... "a bit not good."

 

Actually I thought: "some people will find it a BIT not good." I have no problem with this personally.

Maybe we all are just terribly biased and will take everything from the makers because, well, it's Sherlock?

[SherlockedCAMPer]

When I watched the episode on Jan 1 I noticed that PBS had crazy credits again.  With the on-demand they currently have going, I finally figured it out.  The letters grabbed from various crew members & producers spells out Ecliptic Obliquity.

[Arcadia]

Wow, you lot have been busy today! Wheee!
 

 

Personally I'm troubled by the implication that, once again, Sherlock appears to think murder is an acceptable means to achieve justice...

You mean sending Moriarty over the falls? .....

 

No, not at all ... I'm referring to his attitude towards the League of Women Killers. I quite agree with your analysis of the Reichenbach scene. By the time that was resolved, Moriarty was clearly nothing more than a representation of Sherlock's inner demons, imo, to be blown away with a laugh on the breeze.
 

I think Arcadia's talking about his positive attitude toward the Bride Brigade.

Indeed. And after last night's viewing, I'm fairly sure that wasn't their intent, to approve of murder, even if I still think it comes across that way. But I think now the message was more metaphorical than actual -- men had better watch their step from now on, because modern women have found their power at last and will, er ... hold them to a higher standard. So I can slough off the implication that the Victorian ladies were simply glorified assassins. I also still think the abuse of women they had in mind was not so much Victorian as contemporary; i.e., the Taliban and their ilk.
 

Other things from tonight's viewing:
 
When Holmes and Watson are waiting in the greenhouse, and then see the supposed ghost, which turns out to have been a reflection -- that trick had been done solely for their benefit, because the reflection would not have been visible to Sir Eustace in the house.  Even though Holmes claims to be baffled as to why Lady Carmichael hired him to prevent and/or solve a murder that she herself intended to commit, it seems to me that she wanted him and Watson to be there as witnesses to the ghost's presence.

And it dawned on me last night, a potential explanation for why he abandoned that line of inquiry. Bear with me, it takes a bit of explaining.
 
By that point (in the underground lair) Sherlock was "too deep" into his own fantasy; he was forgetting that he wasn't actually investigating that case, that he was just thinking about it. Later (on the tarmac, I believe), when he's in control again, he says something about the case being real, but his investigation of it was not. So there was no answer as to why she asked him to look into the case ... because she never did. He was never there.
 
Of course, that begs the question ... why then have the trick with the mirror, because that does indeed seem to have been solely for the boys' benefit, which means Lady Carmichael did expect them to be there... Hrm. I haven't worked that part out yet. Phooey. :P
 

To me, Molly's hostility was not completely out of character. Molly is not in love with Sherlock. She is madly in love with the handsome, charming detective that visits her lab regularly. That man is not Sherlock. Sherlock's only charming when he needs to be, when he wants to manipulate Molly into doing something for him. Whenever Sherlock is truly himself around Molly, she gets upset, angry, or feels hurt. (Which is, to some degree, understandable because he is often acts somewhere between bluntly honest and completely rude.) We see this when he does not want to have coffee with her. When he identifies Jim from IT as gay. At the Christmas party. When he gets high "for a case".

Within his mind palace, Sherlock is completely himself - or his perception of himself -, and that's not someone Molly particularly likes....

I like your point, but I went somewhere slightly different with it -- to whit, his perception of himself is that he is someone who Molly shouldn't like. He thinks he's not kind or good, and he thinks she deserves better than him.
 
But he has no way of knowing what she actually likes, particularly since, as he has admitted himself, women are not his area of expertise. For instance, I adore the churlish brute, in spite of his many faults. :P But there's something there worth cherishing ... and damned if I can explain it any more than Sherlock can. I blame Benedict, he's too good at acting. :D
 

... I would bet that Sherlock took some sort of opiate (heroin, maybe) before the tarmac good-byes to literally dull the pain, then realized when Moriarty was back and the plane was turning around that he had to be thinking quickly, so he went for his upper of choice....

That was my thinking as well, although I don't have a clue how that would actually work ... can an upper really counteract a downer like that? Or is the process entirely different than I imagine? Never mind, I don't really want to know, the whole thing makes me want to punch Sherlock's lights out for being so stupid. (Did I just say how much I love him? :P )
 
Well, frickity frack, I just exceeded my allotted # of quotes ... to be cont'd....

[Arcadia]

Part 2....

 

 

Nope, nope, nope. I can't even begin to think about something happening to Molly.

Molly must not be harmed. Repeat: Molly must not be harmed. Not a hair on her head. I will turn absolutely monstrous if they try.

 

Wow, Moftiss better watch out, looks to me like we're forming our own Army of Women Who Take Revenge on Men right here!

 

 

I too found the Victorian Holmes too remote and offputting ...

I liked him. I liked him much better than I had expected I would. I was afraid they'd make him too nice, but they didn't. He was his old self in my eyes, and I was happy to see him. Didn't look half as nice as modern Sherlock (I am not a fan of that hairstyle and some of his suits I thought were downright ugly), but then Sherlock Holmes was not originally meant to be attractive and I thought they got the personality just right.

 

This may be one reason I'm a Sherlock fan, but not really a Sherlock Holmes fan -- I don't find the character in the books/other versions unlikable, but he's not my cup of tea either. This Sherlock, for whatever reason, I swoon over. So I suspect any other version is bound to suffer a bit in my eyes.

 

 

 

I find myself liking the Special better and better the more I think about it. There are a few unfortunate elements that I wish had been handled with greater sensitivity (or simply left alone), but for Sherlock, I am willing to make more allowances than I probably should (love is blind). The Conan Doyle references I enjoyed very much.

Such as, Toby?....

 

... No, I was referring to linking a feminist group to the KKK - that was bad - and also to fat Mycroft. It's really not such a great idea to imply once again that being fat is an acceptable reason to make fun of people. If this was any other show, I would probably go on a long rant and be somewhat upset. Since this is my beloved Sherlock, however, I am making allowances. After all, I am female, I think of myself as feminist and I have been quite overweight myself at times, so I guess I am a potentially insulted party and thus entitled to forgive and forget.

 

Right, I get the KKK thing, that was pretty tone deaf, but I've already brushed it off ... if anyone thinks they are seriously comparing women to the KKK, they haven't really watched the show, imo.

 

But fat Mycroft ... if it helps, to me the joke was not that Mycroft was fat, the joke was that Sherlock has such a distorted image of his brother. Oh, Sherlock ... so snarky, so cheeky, and so desperate to find something -- anything -- at which he excels more than his sibling. To me it was the funniest bit in the whole thing. But I wasn't laughing at Mycroft, I was laughing at Sherlock's gross exaggeration. Does that make a difference?

 

Well, okay, I have to modify that a bit ... the first time I saw it, before I knew it was Sherlock's perception and not the "real thing", I was laughing at Gatiss' over-the-top portrayal, because I knew in the books Mycroft was supposed to be of some girth ... but not that much!

[Arcadia]

When I watched the episode on Jan 1 I noticed that PBS had crazy credits again.  With the on-demand they currently have going, I finally figured it out.  The letters grabbed from various crew members & producers spells out Ecliptic Obliquity.

Huh. I was watching for that last night but couldn't spot anything. Hmmm, may be doing another rewatch tonight.........