S04.E02: The Lying Detective

[Tardislass]

44 minutes ago, Pattycake2 said:

ETA:  I hope they give poor Molly a happy moment in the next episode.

I'm firmly in the Lestrade/Molly ship. They are the last two semi-decent people left on the show who have gotten the shaft this far. Poor Molly is now the babysitter/maiden aunt of the group as well as working fulltime and diagnosing Sherlock. Not to mention that Sherlock is hung up on The Woman and John. Lestrade is looking mighty fine and I noticed Sherlock saying that the lady detective wasn't right for him. Hint, hint. There need to be at least one relationship that is healthy...but knowing Moftiss, I'm not holding my breath.

[kieyra]

I'm usually not one who picks up on the details of this kind of show; I just experience it in the moment and miss tons of clues and symbolism and whatnot. But jeebus, would any therapist in their right mind be administering grief counseling in a room with a rug that makes the floor look like a murder scene? It was ridiculous. If I thought it felt like an anvil to the head, it must have been truly painful for those of you who are more attentive. Between that and the bad wigs/glasses, I don't know if they just missed the mark on subtlety, or if they were inviting the less astute viewers (like myself) to see the world as Sherlock sees it. 

I'm not saying I figured everything (or anything) out, just that my mind immediately went "bad wig, therapist is obviously fake, guess I'll find out who she is eventually." This, in turn, made the therapy scenes annoying to sit through.

So at this point I have to ask--is wig technology still that bad, or are we meant to spot them? Should the hair and makeup people be feeling bad and getting tips from RuPaul, or is this all working as intended?

I did like this episode, but I had to fast forward through most of the serial killer's gloaty scenes. He reminded me of a cross between the serial killer taxi driver in the very first episode and Magnusson, and I've just had enough gloating creepy white dude villains on this show. No offense to creepy white dudes. 

[Arnella]

Quote

As for John, I think Gatiss/Moffat want him to be a player. While he was gentler with the ladies in the canon stories, I never got the impression that Watson was a "ladies man". But evidently the writers want us to believe it so I'll just try to go along with it.

Actually, it was suggested in canon in a subtle Victorian way:  

• Watson said something about having experience of women in several continents.
• Holmes says something about leaving the fair sex to Watson rather suggestively.

I'm afraid that I am too lazy to look up the quotes but the impression was left that John Watson got his share of action.

[Amers]

18 hours ago, TomServo said:

I keep coming back to "Miss Me" and its significance.  On the surface, we've now seen that phrase connected to Moriarty, Mary, and Eurus (Euros?  I don't care!).  Random thoughts:

- The most obvious (and therefore I doubt where they'll actually take it) is that there is or was a professional connection between those individuals.  In other words, Sherlock's first impression of the DVD--that it indicated Moriarty's next move--was actually the correct assumption 
- It could just be a symbolic connection relating to people who are gone but won't stay gone.  Moriarty died but "came back" both in the video and in everyone's minds with whatever his final trap is for Sherlock.  Mary died but "came back" in Sherlock's DVD and as a figment of John's imagination.  Eurus was thought to be out of the picture or otherwise contained, but not so fast...
- Was there a use of "Miss Me" before His Last Vow?  If not, then Mary had to have made that DVD recently.  Even without writing "Miss Me" on it, it's still likely she made it after Sherlock returned from his "exile" (you know, the one they sent him on that was going to kill him in six months because "The world needs Sherlock Holmes" and therefore sending him off on a suicide mission was preferable to sending him to prison, or something).  Alternate theory: whoever the real big bad is might have known Mary had that DVD and appropriated what she wrote on it to set up the rest of the plan.
- Hurting John is a Moriarty calling card, which puts all the elaborate schemes from bus lady to the therapist in perspective.  From stuffing him in the Guy Fawkes bonfire, to putting a bomb vest on him, to the snipers...  Mary's message may have been more literal than we realized.

Maybe miss me is a anagram.

 

Moriarty. 

I

(Lady) Sherwood or Sandler something I just woke up but it starts with a S.

S

Mary

Euros

We are only missing 2 letters....

[fastiller]

1 hour ago, Amers said:

Maybe miss me is a anagram.

 

Moriarty. 

I

(Lady) Sherwood or Sandler something I just woke up but it starts with a S.

S

Mary

Euros

We are only missing 2 letters....

I think what you're going for is an acronym (where the starting letters of a series of words create a word).  For an anagram, since it's such a small number of letters, that's tough: S* Mimes & M* Semis are the only two I can think of that make sense.  

*S = Sherlock?; M = Mycroft? Moriarty?

[Amers]

11 minutes ago, fastiller said:

I think what you're going for is an acronym (where the starting letters of a series of words create a word).  For an anagram, since it's such a small number of letters, that's tough: S* Mimes & M* Semis are the only two I can think of that make sense.  

*S = Sherlock?; M = Mycroft? Moriarty?

I had just woken up, haha. Brain wasn't fully functioning but I sure thought I was clever. Sorry about that! Yes, I meant acronym. 

[fastiller]

@Amers - I've been trying to come up with an acronym:

Mycroft

Is

Sherlock's

Stupid

Meddling

E________________

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Must

I

Start

Sending

Mycroft/Moriarty

Emails?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe

I

Saw

Something

Mrs. Hudson

Eats

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yep, it's Friday & my mind is clearly not at work right now!

[kieyra]

Stating the obvious, but I guess Euros was a shout-out to Euros Lyn?

[Arnella]

Quote

Stating the obvious, but I guess Euros was a shout-out to Euros Lyn?

I don't know who Euros Lyn is but the East Wind was mentioned in His Last Bow.  Holmes was referring to WWI but he talks about an East Wind coming and how it may destroy everything.   I noticed the call back used in the same context in His Last Vow.  Euros seems to be just a way to twist East Wind into a girl's name.

[cardigirl]

East Wind  

[kieyra]

1 hour ago, Arnella said:

I don't know who Euros Lyn is but the East Wind was mentioned in His Last Bow.  Holmes was referring to WWI but he talks about an East Wind coming and how it may destroy everything.   I noticed the call back used in the same context in His Last Vow.  Euros seems to be just a way to twist East Wind into a girl's name.

Euros Lyn is a director who has worked with Mark Gatiss before (on Doctor Who) and directed one of the early episodes of Sherlock. 

[Tardislass]

2 hours ago, kieyra said:

Euros Lyn is a director who has worked with Mark Gatiss before (on Doctor Who) and directed one of the early episodes of Sherlock. 

Also directed Torchwood.

[MisterGlass]

7 hours ago, fastiller said:

Mycroft

Is

Sherlock's

Stupid

Meddling

E________________

Elder brother.

[Pallas]

The Dying Directive. Scandal in Belgravia may prefigure the Euros story. Throughout the episode, Mycroft's battle with/concern for Sherlock is paramount. The scene with Mycroft and Sherlock in the St. Bart's morgue on Christmas night. After Sherlock identifies Irene's not-body, the two Holmes brothers regard a grieving family as they share a cigarette. When Sherlock marvels on how "they" (people not named Mycroft or Sherlock) care so much, Mycroft notes, "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage. Sherlock." As Sherlock starts home, Mycroft phones ahead to John, asking him to stand guard.

And weeks after that, when it all goes really wrong, Mycroft outlines how Irene set up and played the "lonely, naive" younger Holmes, offering "The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption." When Sherlock turns the tables, he drives the point home into Irene: "Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side...I've always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof."

In the last scene, Mycroft arranges to meet with John, informs him that Irene is dead, and asks what they should tell Sherlock. While processing all these mind-boggles, John tells Mycroft that Sherlock is now free of any feeling for Irene, other than despising her. That he never refers to her by name, only as "the woman." Mycroft wonders if that might be more salute than indifference -- "the only one"-- and points out, "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher. Yet he elects to be a detective. What can we deduce about his heart."  And here, the first mention: "He once wanted to be a pirate."  Mycroft goes on to outline a cover story that he and John (adult Sherlock's caretakers) could spin for Sherlock, about how Irene is safely vanished within a witness protection program. While Sherlock will know she is alive in the world, he will be made to understand that he can never see her again.  

Mycroft has done this before. This time though, as opposed to 30 years earlier with Euros, the Holmes boy are both long grown and the parents are not involved. Mycroft can devise and run the scheme to safeguard Sherlock, based on his ultimate insider's status: one of the three.  

I do think Mycroft's dying, that his famous "diet" is another cover story, and that he has been staging a very elaborate game to prepare Sherlock for the loss of his only other sibling -- also anticipating Euros's escape or release. On some level Sherlock knows this ("There's an east wind coming," said mind-palace Mycroft to him). His resistance to Mycroft and Mycroft's knowing intent is a classic patient/doctor psychodynamic. Mycroft also knows that while Sherlock resists he still chooses to engage -- not only with Mycroft but now, increasingly, with the non-Holmes element. He is trying to leave Sherlock something to stand on, when Sherlock is the last Holmes standing.

Did Mycroft orchestrate everything, beginning with John's serendipitous introduction? Well, maybe that introduction (is Mike Stamford is one of Mycroft's?), but I don't think everything. For the viewer, It would cost too much in retrospect for Mycroft to have been the showrunner -- and all for the sake of a creators' conceit. I think Mycroft's efforts are painstaking and imperfect, and they're meant to be: they come from the heart. The show keeps dealing with the subject of what love's worth, and what we're asked to sacrifice for it. In the pilot Lestrade raised this theme: "Sherlock Holmes is a great man. And someday, if we're very very lucky, he may be a good one."

In that view, greatness is only a game. Love is not. Sherlock is the case.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Pallas

[fourPLUSseven]

1 hour ago, Pallas said:

The Dying Directive. Scandal in Belgravia may prefigure the Euros story. Throughout the episode, Mycroft's battle with/concern for Sherlock is paramount. And when it all goes wrong, Mycroft outlines how Irene played the younger Holmes:Irene's plan: "The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption." When Sherlock turns the tables, he drives the point home into Irene: "Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side...I've always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof."

The scene with Mycroft and Sherlock in the St. Bart's morgue on Christmas night. After Sherlock identifies Irene's not-body, the two Holmes brothers regard a grieving family as they share a cigarette. When Sherlock marvels on how "they" (people not  named Mycroft or Sherlock) care so much, Mycroft notes, "All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage. Sherlock." As Sherlock starts home, Mycroft phones ahead to John, asking him to stand guard.

Throughout the episode, Mycroft's battle with/concern for Sherlock is paramount. And when it all goes wrong, Mycroft outlines Irene's plan: "The promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption." And after Sherlock turns the tables, he drives the point home into Irene: "Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side...I've always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof."

In the finale Mycroft arranges to meet with John, informs him that Irene is dead, and asks what they should tell Sherlock. While processing all these mind-boggles, John tells Mycroft that Sherlock is now free of any feeling for Irene, other than despising her. That he never refers to Irene by name, only as "the woman." Mycroft wonders if that might be more salute than indifference -- "the only one"-- and points out, "My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher. Yet he elects to be a detective. What can we deduce about his heart."  He goes on to outline a cover story that he and John (adult Sherlock's caretakers) could spin for Sherlock, about how Irene is safely vanished within a witness protection program. While Sherlock will know she is alive in the world, he will be made to understand that he can never see her again.  

Mycroft has done this before. This time though, as opposed to 30 years earlier with Euros, the Holmes boy are both long grown and the parents are not involved. Mycroft can devise and run the scheme to safeguard Sherlock, based on his ultimate insider's status: one of the three.  

I do think Mycroft's dying, that his famous "diet" is another cover story, and that he has been staging a very elaborate game to prepare Sherlock for the loss of his only other sibling -- also anticipating Euros's escape or release. On some level Sherlock knows this ("There's an east wind coming," said mind-palace Mycroft to him). His resistance to Mycroft and Mycroft's knowing intent is a classic patient/doctor psychodynamic. Mycroft also knows that while Sherlock resists he still chooses to engage -- not only with Mycroft but now, increasingly, with the non-Holmes element. He is trying to leave Sherlock something to stand on, when Sherlock is the last Holmes standing.  

Did Mycroft orchestrate everything, beginning with John's serendipitous introduction? Maybe that introduction (is Mike Stamford is one of Mycroft's?), but I don't think everything. For the viewer, It would cost too much in retrospect for Mycroft to have been the showrunner -- and all for the sake of a creators' conceit. I think Mycroft's efforts are painstaking and imperfect, and they're meant to be: they come from the heart. The show keeps dealing with the subject of what love's worth, and what we're asked to sacrifice for it. In the pilot Lestrade raised this theme: "Sherlock Holmes is a great man. And someday, if we're very very lucky, he may be a good man."

In that view, greatness is only a game. Love is not. Sherlock is the case.

Mycroft has to be dying.              

I am dreading Sunday night. We are either going to be left with too many puzzles. Or we'll have head-scratching to do until S5. Perhaps both.

Edited January 14, 2017 by fourPLUSseven

[Eneya]

I just realised what kind of feeling Eurus is creating in me and what she is reminding me of:

I don't know who has seen/heard this band but... I am interested if anyone else has an association with Eurus and this?
Or I have completely lost it. :)

Edited January 14, 2017 by Eneya

[Driad]

Culverton Smith asked Sherlock Holmes if he was related to H. H. Holmes.  CS may have known that HHH’s real name was Herman Webster Mudgett.  According to The Devil in the White City, Mudgett chose the alias Holmes after the first Sherlock Holmes story was published.

Irene Adler’s “sigh” on Sherlock’s phone: I may have been the last to realize this, but the sigh was probably Sherlock’s ring tone for messages from Irene, not the message she left.  Excuse: I don’t have a smart phone.

[Driad]

Double message, nothing to see here.

Edited January 14, 2017 by Driad

[ohjoy]

11 hours ago, fourPLUSseven said:

Mycroft has to be dying.              

I am dreading Sunday night. We are either going to be left with too many puzzles. Or we'll have head-scratching to do until S5. Perhaps both.

I have not even thought about Mycroft dying -- at least, not in the sense of him being ill and trying to prep Sherlock for his imminent demise. Ugh, Ugh, UGH. My excitement for this finale episode is doing a Schrödinger's cat thing with every viable theory I come across.

[Tardislass]

Going back to John's cheating, the first time I watched TLD I thought it out of character. But I have been rewatching Season 1&2 and from the first episode, John's interest in women is shown. First with him trying to chat up Anthea(I miss her character?), then in TBB they show and his new boss Sarah flirting.. Finally in Season 2, at Christmas, Sherlock lists all of his girlfriends after Sarah which was a fair amount and the Baskerville episode John shows an interest in the female Doctor. So one could say Watson likes the ladies.

ETA- While I miss the straightforward crime solving of Season 1-2, I forgot how bad some of them were, especially The Blind Banker.

[festivus]

The cheating did bother me but honestly mostly because I think cheating is boring. I agree that John has been shown to be a ladies man but I think the cheating was about more than that. He's an adrenaline junkie and domestic bliss was just not going to be enough for him. I do think he loved Mary and I loved the scene at the end of this episode with John and Sherlock and ghostMary. I still wish they had done John and Sherlock's rift a different way but it is what it is. I understand what they were going for, it was time for Sherlock (and um, me) to see that John is just human like the rest of us.

[blackwing]

I loathed this episode.  I thought it was confusing and pretentious and I kept wondering if I had missed an episode because it seemed to me like we were thrust somewhere into the middle of the story.  I was thoroughly confused about Culverton Smith and the daughter and what was going on.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I can't stand Toby Jones.  Everyone always says "but he's such a great character actor".  "Character actor" is usually code for "ugly as dirt".   I hate his voice and he is tough to look at, he seriously looks like someone dropped him on his head.

I'm glad they explained it all at the end, but really.  Perhaps I'm not the target audience for this show, because I prefer my mysteries more straight forward.  I liked "The Six Thatchers" but hated this one.

[jeansheridan]

Quote

I guess that I actually would fall into the shipper category, dampened by the fact that Moffat and Gatiss said in interviews a few months ago that nothing will ever happen between Sherlock and John on this show.  

I love Sherlock/Watson slashfic.  Probably more than I should really, but heck, there are some GREAT fanfic writers.  But I would never, ever ever want it to be on this show.  Hannibal pulled it off in their final moments, but Will and Hannibal had been flirting for three seasons.  Cumberbatch and Freeman don't have that kind of flirtiness.  They just don't.  Amazing friend chemistry.  The best on-screen friend chemistry ever but no sexual heat.  

[jeansheridan]

Quote

Sherlock lists all of his girlfriends after Sarah which was a fair amount and the Baskerville episode John shows an interest in the female Doctor. So one could say Watson likes the ladies.

I think the problem is that the show has Freeman and not Jude Law from the movies.  Freeman is attractive enough, but ladies man attractive?  Not sure about that.  He's a great boyfriend....to Sherlock Holmes, as one of his exes comments!  

Not to bring Elementary in this, but oddly enough they chose not to make the female version of Watson into a one-night stand kind of woman. Double standard much?  Lucy Liu is dishy!

[spottedreptile]

4 hours ago, jeansheridan said:

Amazing friend chemistry.  The best on-screen friend chemistry ever but no sexual heat.  

ITA. I've tried to ship them, but somehow it never works, I end up making a mess of the characters and it just turns out rubbish. I think because I don't really believe it myself so it comes out in the writing. When you write, and you believe in it, it just flows from the pen, or hand, or whatever. When you're not committed, each word is like torture to get out, and it reads crap.

However, the friend chemistry as you say is fantastic, so I go with that. It's (almost) as good!

Edited January 17, 2017 by spottedreptile

[tessaforever]

On 1/8/2017 at 10:11 PM, SimoneS said:

I didn't like the Toby Jones case and the camera focusing on his teeth, but the secret Holmes sister made up for it. I do want an explanation for why Sherlock did not recognize his own sister. Even drugged up the man is brilliant so how are they rationalizing this?

I only had a chance to watch this last night, but I thought later that we've seen several times now that Sherlock is less attuned to himself and the people he's closest to - normally he'd be able to deduce, for example, that John had been texting a girl he met on the bus...but he didn't know. I don't know if he turns himself "off" in order to function with his friends, or if emotion clouds his deductive gifts, or what. But it's happened many times now. 

[VCRTracking]

I admit to not realizing John's new therapist and Culverton Smith's "daughter" were the same person until the reveal, nor that the person who visited Sherlock was not the one who was in the meeting scene in the beginning!

[tessaforever]

On 1/10/2017 at 0:02 PM, Peace 47 said:

When Eurus had the gun on John, she called John, "it" instead of "he" when she was referring to him in the third person. That reminded me of when Moriarty used to speak derisively of John:  calling him a "touchingly loyal pet" and such. By the way, it's funny that none of us are posting, "What happened to John!?!?" at the end.  I guess that we all assume that he didn't die.

Also right in the same episode when Culverton says he likes to turn people into things. And - I assumed that the near-constant references/illustrations of Sherlock's ability to deduce the future means that he put blanks in the therapist's gun when he was there? Or something??

[blackwing]

On 1/22/2017 at 1:08 AM, VCRTracking said:

I admit to not realizing John's new therapist and Culverton Smith's "daughter" were the same person until the reveal, nor that the person who visited Sherlock was not the one who was in the meeting scene in the beginning!

I didn't realise it either, but I think that's mostly because I just didn't care.  What a tedious episode.

[jeansheridan]

I just rewatched this episode (and next one) and it has grown on me. I think my expectations were way too sky-high and with time I can appreciate all the details. In particular I really wish we had had more time with Euros and Sherlock getting to know each other. She's so delighted to be walking with him that evening and then when he makes her "pay" with the gun, swoon. They had good chemistry and Cumberbatch seemed to light up around her. 

I kind of also wish we had physically seen Molly, Mrs Hudson, Sherlock, John, and Euros together at the therapist's office. I wish we could have seen Euros watching them all, drinking in Molly's attentiveness, John's irritation, the fussiness of Mrs Hudson (and I for one think Mrs Hudson would have noticed the wig).