Episode 1.3, "The Great Game"

[Pseudonym]

Awwwww, thank you.  :applause: Now go convince him of that. 

[Arcadia]

He never listens to me, I'm just his goldfish.

[J.P.]

Jim couldn't meet Carl at the swimming competition because he surely needed some time to prepare the mixture, knowing that Carl has eczema. He could not know in advance that he would meet someone laughing at him.

[Pseudonym]

But if they'd met at previous competitions and Carl had laughed at him then. Say Carl beat Jim in a semi final, mocked him for losing, and evil little Jimmy-boy decided to get revenge since Carl would be swimming in the finals and he wouldn't. Where he got or how he made the poison I don't know, I don't know how complicated it is, and I'm not sure I want Google searches on it showing up on my internet history!  :P  

[J.P.]

Ah, okay, that works!

[Hikari]

That's always been my theory.  If they were both really good swimmers, they could have been competing against each other fairly often in some sort of British-Isles championship events.

 

'Nother thing that puzzles me, though, is Jim referring to Carl as "little Carl."  Is he speaking from an adult perspective simply because he's an adult now?  Or was Jim older than Carl?  Or did he have his growth spurt earlier?  Or was Carl simply a smaller person than Jim?  I don't see how Jim could have already been an adult when Carl died, because we know that Sherlock was a kid then, and he seems to be about the same age as Jim.

 

Sherlock tells John about the Carl Powers incident that he recalled from his own school days, but not as a direct peer of Carl's.  Sherlock seemed to have been a class or two behind Carl, and not involved with a swim team.  Sherlock says something to the effect of "I was only a kid myself at the time (of Carl's death)".  He didn't know Carl--or Jim.  But Jim obviously knew *of Sherlock* back then, I'm supposing, or why else would he leave Carl's shoes in a tableaux for Sherlock to find literally underneath his house?  The schoolboy Jim had some kind of perverse crush on Sherlock--definitely wanted to get his attention, and this murder was meant to do just that.  It didn't work at the time, so Jim has bided his time for 20 years, preserving the incriminating evidence of Carl's cherished sneakers, and planting them to invite the grown-up Sherlock to come and play.  Jim has been stalking Sherlock for these last two decades.   He knows where he lives (and has no trouble whatsoever getting in.)  He knows where he works, and ingratiates himself into St. Barts.  He knows who Sherlock's close contacts are, and ingratiates himself with one of those, too (Molly).  How long was 'Jim from IT' on the scene before he is 'introduced' to Sherlock & to us?   Then the first thing he does is leave his phone number under a dish for SH to find. 

 

There is no recognition then on Sherlock's part that he's ever seen this guy before, and little reason to think that they attended the same schools.  So how did schoolboy Jim get so fixated on Holmes when both were younger?  Sherlock hadn't built any sort of reputation yet as a young teen, except inside his own family.  How did the skinny little Irish bloke get wind of him?  That is left a mystery.

 

As Watson observes in the middle of 'The Great Game', while innocent people are dying, "It's all for you."  "Yes," replies Sherlock, with a little smirk.  What if he'd just rung Moriarty back and made a date . . could all this death have been avoided, along with the whole Reichenbach scene and all that ensuing damage? 

 

Jim Moriarty, Spurned Lover . . that's where all his rage comes from . . 'my dear'.

[J.P.]

I would rather suppose that Jim kept the shoes as a souvenir of his first crime. There is nothing that would say me he and Sherlock have ever known each other.

It's not hard to get Sherlock's address as he was advertising on his website.

[Hikari]

I would rather suppose that Jim kept the shoes as a souvenir of his first crime. There is nothing that would say me he and Sherlock have ever known each other.

It's not hard to get Sherlock's address as he was advertising on his website.

 

Is his address on his website?  His phone number is, because he prefers to consult by text message, but I figured he only gives out his address to those clients he has prescreened and agreed to see.

 

Posting one's address and phone number online seems at the best extremely naïve for London's leading expert in crime, doesn't it?  I always marveled that Conan Doyle's Holmes ever had a single moment of client-less boredom (or what the rest of us call 'peace and quiet') considering that his domicile was published for the benefit of the entire English-speaking world.  Even London alone was 4 million souls at that time. 

 

I still think getting the adult Sherlock's attention via *this* crime in particular is significant, and not just because it was his first murder.  Sherlock mentions to Watson that his pubescent self had been in contact with the police at the time, offering his services as a junior profiler, but he couldn't get anyone to take him seriously.  Perhaps *here* were the seeds sown of his future self-made career of consulting detective--he makes the police listen to him now, and they all clamor for his insights.  It wouldn't have been beyond the young Moriarty to be aware of a peer adversary/rival on his tail then.  That whole opening gambit with Carl's shoes smacks of "You should have known it was me back then, Sherlock.  You were this close." Jim didn't choose a souvenir from a more recent crime that would have fallen under the adult Sherlock's purview, but one from when he and Sherlock and the victim were all kids.  That points to some prior connection/awareness to me, at least from Jim's side.

 

Of course, now in the wake of S4, when Sherlock has been shown to be a trauma-damaged head case (so say Mofftiss), all of his childhood memories are suspect.  Perhaps he did know Carl and a weird, intense Irish kid at the time and blocked them out after Carl's death.  Why not?  He did it before.  (So say Mofftiss.  I personally reject S4's conclusions entirely.)

[Arcadia]

BBC Sherlock's address is on his blog, but not his phone number. Just the opposite of the way I'd do it, but ... he's Sherlock. :)

[Pseudonym]

Well, he does hate talking on the phone. Of course, I'd hate people turning up at my door even more, but then I'm not Sherlock - apparently he doesn't mind. Weirdo. 

[Boton]

He needs to see them oscillate on the pavement so he knows whether to take their case.

[Pseudonym]

That part he just enjoys. "Want my attention? Oscillate for it."

[Carol the Dabbler]

Well, he does hate talking on the phone. Of course, I'd hate people turning up at my door even more, but then I'm not Sherlock - apparently he doesn't mind. Weirdo. 

 

He keeps his doorbell in the fridge, remember?  I suppose whenever he's bored, he takes it out just long enough to get a client.

 

Regarding the idea of Little Jim killing Little Carl in order to get Little Sherlock's attention, that's not how I interpreted it.  My take is that (as Jim stated) he killed Carl because Carl had laughed at him.  He presumably kept his shoes as a souvenir (like J.P. says) and/or because they were the main evidence against him.

 

Then Jim somehow caught wind of the stink that some kid he'd never met was trying to raise over the missing shoes.  This both infuriated and intrigued him.  He didn't follow up on it at the time, but he didn't forget it either.  Later on, when that same busybody shows up, interfering in his professional crimes, he knows just how to get his attention....

[Pseudonym]

Um... does anyone else hate The Gollum? I find the fight with him cheesy in the extreme, and he doesn't really have much point. 

[Janyss]

That's just style from Mark Gatiss, who has enjoyed monsters and horror films for a long time...there's much humour in the fight, something kind of absurd referring to old fashion horror movies like the ones with Béla Lugosi, but it clearly doesn't bring anything to the storyline. That's not the point, I think...and I absolutely like it.

[Pseudonym]

It's just a fairly serious episode and that part is so... slapstick. And doesn't seem like it's meant to be. 

[Artemis]

It seemed to last forever, too, and the noise is so irritating.  I usually mute the TV for that part.

 

 

[Janyss]

It's just a fairly serious episode and that part is so... slapstick. And doesn't seem like it's meant to be. 

 

MG's way of doing things...remining us we are in a game with the viewers, in a world of representations, even in the middle of the most serious moments...one likes it or not.

 

[Pseudonym]

I don't think it's intended to be that meta, I think he just thought it would be fun. 

[Janyss]

Moffat himself aknowledged that the show was "quite arty", and Gatiss often refers, in his interviews, about how to deal with cultural references...Thus, yes, I think there can be "meta" here and there in the show :)!...

[Pseudonym]

Here and there, yes. But I don’t think here. We shall have to agree to disagree.

[J.P.]

But it was Golem. Gollum is the one from LOTR, Golem is from a Jewish legend. And apparently the guy is indeed that big.

But it does little for the story, apart from giving another Czech detail (Bohemian stationery and Mrs Venceslas). Which again didn't bring anything to the story, because Mrs Venceslas could be from any place on earth. Maybe it has something to do with the canon stories?

[Hikari]

But it was Golem. Gollum is the one from LOTR, Golem is from a Jewish legend. And apparently the guy is indeed that big.

But it does little for the story, apart from giving another Czech detail (Bohemian stationery and Mrs Venceslas). Which again didn't bring anything to the story, because Mrs Venceslas could be from any place on earth. Maybe it has something to do with the canon stories?

 

I've read the Canon (two or three times) and there is no Wenceslas.  I think Mofftiss may have been poking fun at the snobby Euro-intellectual art crowd with this character.  She's played by ubiquitous British character actress Haydn Gwynne who turns up constantly in guest roles in British telly dramas.  Gwynne has played tons of different characters, though none Czech before, and based on the amount of struggle she had with the Czech accent, this attempt was not anywhere approaching her best work.  She's usually more reliable--but she's usually playing her own nationality.

[Pseudonym]

But it was Golem. Gollum is the one from LOTR, Golem is from a Jewish legend. 

 

Ah yes, of course! I thought something wasn't quite right when I was typing it.  :Gollum:

[J.P.]

Hikari, I didn't mean the name but the "Bohemian connection"