He was sure he would wear the uniform because the army guy had asked for special dispensation to be allowed to keep it. The kind of person would do that is the kind of person who would wear his uniform to a wedding.
― treefell, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:15 (ten years ago) link
Especially the wedding of someone he'd served with.
― treefell, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:16 (ten years ago) link
The case of the flummoxed Finn
― Ward Fowler, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:18 (ten years ago) link
People do occasionally get stabbed without realising it irl and the fact that he was on duty would have meant he'd probably not have been able to visibly react to any mild discomfort.
― Ramnaresh Samhain (ShariVari), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:22 (ten years ago) link
stabbing someone through a leather belt like that is going to take some force though.
― koogs, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:36 (ten years ago) link
i was pretty consciously rolling with the tv/film physics, ie a) any sufficiently fine or sharp edged weapon can go through anything p easily & b) you can even be beheaded by a sufficiently sharp/fine blade and not notice until you cough or scratch your ear or similar.
― woof, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:45 (ten years ago) link
a wire, yes, with both ends attached. but a fine blade would buckle when used in a stabbing motion.
sorry, i have turned into the sort of person i debookmarked the dr who thread because of 8(
― koogs, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:48 (ten years ago) link
Why didn't the Royal Guard dude start bleeding immediately after he took off the belt, why did the bleeding start only after he'd undressed completely and walked to the shower booth?
cause the wound is tiny and it takes a while for the blood to start gushin.... but once it does, watch out
If the wound is so tiny it takes minutes for the blood start coming out, how can it be lethal?
If the photographer guy's motive was to avenge the death of his innocent brother, how could he justify killing another innocent soldier as a way of rehearsing the murder?
uh cause he's a...... MURDERER? and therefore pretty psycho already?
But he wasn't presented as a psycho who randomly kills people, he had a clear, moral motive for the one murder he set out to commit: to punish a person he thought was guilty, to avenge someone he thought had died unjustly. So it felt a bit odd he would unjustly and immorally murder another innocent person to achieve this. If the photographer was so amoral that an innocent person dying didn't matter to him, it would seem he wouldn't want to risk a life in prison to avenge his brother in the first place.
how did the photographer find all those women working for him?
research, i guess. who knows how long he'd been working on this?
"Research" isn't a magic wand, though. If the Major was living in a secret location, and if all his employees signed an agreement of confidentiality, how was he able to locate not one but five them among millions of Britons, and on top of that find their dating profiles? (The Major didn't seem like he was exorbitantly rich, so those five women must've represented quite a large proportion of the number of single women working for him.)
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 11:58 (ten years ago) link
And of course the biggest inexplicable bit was that the two cases Sherlock brings up during his best man speech just happen to be linked to each other and to the wedding at hand, even though Sherlock didn't know about that when he started the speech. But I'm willing to let that one slide, because according to the rules of fiction it would've been pointless for him to blabber about some other cases that had nothing to do with the main plot.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:05 (ten years ago) link
you can get some of the way with that one by saying that his unconscious had some outstanding/unsolved bits and pieces that it was trying to fit together… military murder… sholto at wedding… maybe the middle name thing… & that's why they're in the speech - but then he normally has extremely good conscious access to that preprocessing part of the mind, & it seemed deeply surprising to him, so I don't think that quite does it.
― woof, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:19 (ten years ago) link
And Tuomas claimed NOT to be a sociopath.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:25 (ten years ago) link
Yeah, I guess you could explain the speech thing with unconscious thought processes, but that still doesn't explain why, if Sherlock gets hundreds of potential cases in his inbox, right before Watson's wedding he just happened pick two cases that relate to each other and also to the wedding. There's no way he could've known about those connections when he chose to investigate the cases.
(x-post)
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:28 (ten years ago) link
I can get with this; the wedding speech nerves would hamper his usual conscious access to these links.
― I can still taste the Taboo in my mouth when I hear those songs (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:28 (ten years ago) link
So the murder mystery plot was really just an excuse (because a Sherlock episode has to have a mystery of some sort) to sell all the character development in the episode, which was by far the more important part, and the less you think about the intricacies of the mystery, the better.
(xpost)
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:36 (ten years ago) link
This was fairly disappointing. I wouldn't have minded it, but to make one of three episodes after a two year wait an extended slapstick-y sitcom seems a waste.
All the people I've met who whip their coats on like Sherlock tend to be complete prats.
― painfully alive in a drugged and dying culture (DavidM), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:41 (ten years ago) link
xps
true, it does just push the problem back to case selection… I think it's more of a problem for the guardsman one (because that's almost an arbitrary pick from the inbox iirc), less so for the dating-a-ghost one because… it crosses her mind to visit Sherlock *because* she's seen the invitation, maybe? Which means the investigation is secretly triggered by the wedding, as is the ghost date. And he accepts because he's drunk, because it's the stag, so… that's ok enough for me.
― woof, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:51 (ten years ago) link
sherlock is a complete prat, QED
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 12:56 (ten years ago) link
So it felt a bit odd he would unjustly and immorally murder another innocent person to achieve this.
Loads of people don't think he's innocent (hence the death threats he receives), so I'm just going out on a limb here to say that photog probably doesn't think soldier is innocent.
― Neil Nosepicker (Leee), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 17:16 (ten years ago) link
Er, I was talking about the Royal Guard dude that the photographer almost murders, as a "rehearsal"... Of course he thinks Major Sholto is guilty, that's why he tries to kill him. But the Royal Guard guy has nothing to do with his revenge on Sholto, he just picks him because he happens to be wearing a similar belt.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 17:37 (ten years ago) link
tuomas is it really too much of a stretch to think that a person capable of plotting and carrying out the murder of a retired army major based on nothing more than grief and speculation is also capable of justifying the murder of someone else?
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 17:41 (ten years ago) link
Perhaps Finnish psychopaths have intact moral centers and empathy?
― Neil Nosepicker (Leee), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 17:44 (ten years ago) link
"Probably a monomaniac" was the phrase used IIRC.
― Tim, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 17:44 (ten years ago) link
Also, soz for misreading! xp
― Neil Nosepicker (Leee), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 17:45 (ten years ago) link
I'm with Tuomas on this. While I think that a murderer wouldn't have much difficulty in justifying extra murders, he was planning the murder of a specific person for a specific reason - I see no reason why he would choose a method which required practise on someone who would therefore become to all intents and purposes just an innocent victim like his brother whose death he was avenging.
― ailsa, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 18:15 (ten years ago) link
I'm with Ailsa in being with Tuomas, but it doesn't pay to analyse it too deeply
― Pre-Madonna (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:48 (ten years ago) link
can't believe this sitcom about two mismatched bros sharing a flat and office had an episode that was like a sitcom
― giant faps are what you take, wanking on the moon (sic), Tuesday, 7 January 2014 19:55 (ten years ago) link
the mustache!
― mh, Tuesday, 7 January 2014 20:07 (ten years ago) link
it sort of is a magic wand, though. he had the persistent assiduousness of a murderer hell-bent on revenge. it doesn't matter exactly how he found them. the women each have a different story about how they met him, suggesting a diversity of methods. you can fill in the blanks yourself if you'd like but it's not a "plot hole".
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 01:39 (ten years ago) link
egg chair?sitty thingy?
― mh, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
he's clueing for looks
― Roz, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 04:52 (ten years ago) link
drunk clueing was the best part of the episode
― zanarkand bozo (abanana), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 05:01 (ten years ago) link
No this was the best part of the episode:http://s.mlkshk.com/r/WL81
― Dan I., Friday, 10 January 2014 19:42 (ten years ago) link
Or at least 2nd best...
― Dan I., Friday, 10 January 2014 19:43 (ten years ago) link
http://s.mlkshk.com/r/WL9A
― Dan I., Friday, 10 January 2014 20:28 (ten years ago) link
sitty thing????
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Friday, 10 January 2014 20:29 (ten years ago) link
?deaded?
― kate78, Friday, 10 January 2014 20:55 (ten years ago) link
Enjoyed this a lot, until what happened at the end. I really don't get the obsession with someone who is, to those that have read the books, such a minor character.
― Ian Glasper's trapped in a scone (aldo), Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:06 (ten years ago) link
the fancy house is on the outskirts of my countryside idyll.
its a very (in)famous house round here.
i know the man who made the spiral staircase that was featured a few times.
― mark e, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:18 (ten years ago) link
'sherlock is actually a girl's name'
― bizarro gazzara, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:29 (ten years ago) link
moriarty.gif was also a nice touch.
― bizarro gazzara, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:31 (ten years ago) link
Looks like bobbins to me...
― Mark G, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:32 (ten years ago) link
Watched this with my dad, who is head of hearing, so we had the subtitles on - it was like the show was GIFing itself as it went along
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:33 (ten years ago) link
Could have done without the voiceover saying "remember to keep watching after the adverts.
Thought the MAJOR spoiler from halfway through was very, very well done and I'd like to see exactly where it's been flagged before other than what they mention.
AMERICANS - AVOID THIS SPOILER AT ALL COSTS
― Ian Glasper's trapped in a scone (aldo), Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:34 (ten years ago) link
'Adverts', I meant 'end credits'.
I'm not sure whether the mention of the Sussex Downs and beekeeping means he ends up with Janine after all.
― Ian Glasper's trapped in a scone (aldo), Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:36 (ten years ago) link
Yes. But I like 'head of hearing' anyway...
― Mark G, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:37 (ten years ago) link
The only way to get out of that typo was to write "no I meant my dad is hard", but then I thought, no.
Anyway, that was fun, but the end to the Magnus stuff was a bit disappointing.
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 12 January 2014 22:53 (ten years ago) link
Bottom bit of that spiral staircase looked like Dougal from Magic Roundabout
― kinder, Monday, 13 January 2014 12:23 (ten years ago) link
man ilx does not care about this episode
― ♛ LIL UNIT ♛ (thomp), Monday, 13 January 2014 15:35 (ten years ago) link
A little difficult to discuss without spoilers, I think.
― Ramnaresh Samhain (ShariVari), Monday, 13 January 2014 15:40 (ten years ago) link