So The Hearse Was Empty. But How Did He Escape???

As with The Sign of Three, this is NOT a spoiler-free review, so if you have somehow not seen The Empty Hearse, Season Three's first episode, and would like to remain in the dark, do not read on.  You have been warned.

As I've mentioned previously, I have a friend who is very good with computers, and finding TV shows streamed online and such.  I am no such computer whiz, and in fact, accidentally gave my computer a virus while trying to make the link for The Empty Hearse work.  Heh . . .  I wish I was joking about that.  Unfortunately . . .

Anyway, enough about my ineptitude with technology.  He showed me the proper thing to click, and I was able to see the episode.  I loved how it began with a teaser "explanation" of how Sherlock did it.  I didn't completely buy into it, because A) I was watching The Reichenbach Fall as I was starting The Empty Hearse, and B) Sherlock never would have truly kissed Molly like that, so as much as I loved seeing it, I had my suspicions on whether or not it was real.  And of course, soon enough, Lestrade breaks in to Anderson's "explanation" and we find out the entire thing is a fabrication.

Now, I have to interrupt myself here and explain that the same night as my technological snafu, I was only able to watch the first minute or so of the episode, and so only saw Anderson's explanation, but didn't quite get to it being his own creation.  I got sick of the pauses and loading screen right after Sherlock kissed Molly.  So, I went to work the next day and saw my friend who gave me the link.  He had been able to watch the entire episode, and enjoyed tormenting me with bits of information.  I'd decided early in the day that I just wanted to ask three questions about the episode, and that would be it.  My first one was, "Does Sherlock reveal himself to John?"  Yes.  Okay.  "Does Sherlock get punched when he does the reveal?"  (Remembering Scandal, there.  "Punch me in the face."  "What?"  "Didn't you hear me?  I said punch me in the face."  "I always hear punch me in the face when you're speaking, but it's usually subtext.")  Not punched, but John does attack him on three separate occasions.  Lol, okay.  Damn, he's pissed.

And he told me about the random disguise thing Sherlock does at the restaurant, that yes, Mycroft was in the episode, and that he was in on the fake death, and he told me there was one thing they find that I would totally spazz about.  That he was warning me not to, but that I completely would.  (I actually didn't spazz at anything in the episode.  There were "Squee!!!" worthy moments, sure, but nothing I felt was actually spazz-worthy.  He was referring, I found out later, to the Jack the Ripper thing.  He knows that's what the third Holmes novel I will eventually get back to writing is about, and he knows I've learned all the different stuff about the killer and victims and such.)  Oh, and I almost forgot about this little tidbit, I began watching the show after closing at work, because I had my laptop there so he could show me the correct link to click on.  Well, I saw Watson, and I'd forgotten about that awful mustache, and made some kind of comment about how bad it was.  My friend kinda laughed and said yeah, it was a point of contention for pretty much everyone in the episode.

Anyway, when I was finally able, that night, to sit down and watch the episode, I loved John attacking Sherlock.  Headbutting him the third time, and it just cuts to Sherlock with a bloody nose.

The whole terrorist thing, as I believe Charlotte Anne Walters said, was such a throwback to V for Vendetta, I almost expected Hugo Weaving to pop up in the train car, and for that classical music when Parliament blows up in V to begin playing.  I actually stared at my laptop and said, "Really?  This is straight out of V for Vendetta!  Seriously?"  And that, after the beginning of the episode when Sherlock pulls off his waiter disguise, and I felt it was just like the scene in the RDJ movie where RDJ grabs random items and makes a disguise to approach a hansom cab.  Though I felt Sherlock did it much better, but two throwbacks to two movies in the same episode?  Really, guys?

And while I enjoyed the fantasy sequences of 'how he did it,' it still bugs me that they haven't revealed how he really did do it.  Though I have a theory on that.  Let's face it.  Just about anyone who's read the Canon believes that Sherlock lied to John, probably not only about where he was the three years John thought he was dead, but also about how he survived in the first place.  I think Moffat and Gatiss had a lot of fun at our expense, reading the different, and sometimes far-fetched and insane, theories that were out there.  I also think that from the beginning, they had no intention of explaining it to us, because of what they know about the Canon, and how they set up John's character.  That line John says about, "I don't care HOW you did it, I want to know why."  I literally said to my laptop, "But the REST of us do!!!"  But John, he wouldn't.  It would be more important to him why Sherlock did it.  Because John was more of a victim than anyone in that whole scenario because he was the one Sherlock talked to while he was up on the roof.

Honestly, I wish they would explain it, but I don't think we'll ever actually know the truth.  We just have to accept that 'why' is more important than 'how,' and that Sherlock is sorry.

And because he is Sherlock, we will forgive him and keep watching.

Help. Baker St. Now. (BBC's The Sign of Three.)

I watched The Empty Hearse several days ago, and I will come back on here and give a review of it, but just today, I saw The Sign of Three, and I knew I had to write a review of it immediately.  I read another blog by Charlotte Anne Walters before seeing this episode, and she seems rather lukewarm about it.  Not enough mystery, doesn't seem very Holmes-ish, and the way she describes it, I completely see it.  However, when I actually sat down and watched the episode, (I love my friend who gives me links to TV shows streamed online,) I was laughing, becoming emotional, and just all-in-all, greatly enjoying the ride.

As Ms Walters said, the show begins (and please, if you want a spoiler-free review, this is not it, so stop reading now if you don't want to know things that go on in the episode,) with Lestrade about to make a crucial arrest when he gets texts from Sherlock asking for help.  Lestrade drops everything and calls for maximum back up to Baker Street, and when he gets there, finds out Sherlock's crisis was in writing a best man speech. The end of the scene is positively brilliant.  As is the scene where Sherlock is recalling John asking him to be his best man.  Sherlock, just standing there, completely dumbfounded, and John's eventual reaction: "Now it's getting a bit scary," almost had me on the floor laughing.  And the fact that Sherlock actually showed humility, kindness, and love in parts of his speech were terrific to see.  It was . . . it was a way of making Sherlock Holmes, the deductive, analytical machine into someone human.  Someone who recognized his own character and personability flaws, yet knew that to someone else, he held such great value, and not because he was a consulting detective, but because he was that someone's best friend.

To be honest, I can't praise this episode enough.  Some may feel that the mystery was slapdash, or seemed like an afterthought, or that it was too focused on Mary and John, too focused on the wedding, etc, but I don't see it that way.  I feel BBC did it right with this one.  (And come on, who didn't get a grin out of Mycroft on a treadmill, and then seeing his bare stomach?)  This episode, since they decided they were going to show John and Mary's wedding, was more about the characters' interactions than anything else.  How they get along, how the others see them, how even with all of Sherlock's deductive powers to figure out so much about a person from a single glance, someone like Molly can still figure out how Sherlock would react to a best man speech.  And not only the speech.  (I'll only say one word here: telegrams.  Okay, and I'll say that I loved the scene with John walking in on Mrs. Hudson just laughing hysterically.)

Of the eight episodes I've seen, The Sign of Three is my favorite.  Don't get me wrong, I love the other ones.  However, this one just has something for me that the others don't.  And this, I believe, is a rarity for me where these episodes are concerned.  Season one, I wasn't wild about the Blind Banker.  I liked it, yeah, but not as much as the first and third episodes.  Same with Season two.  I felt Hounds of Baskerville was the weakest of the three.  And I admit, part of that may be because it didn't take place in or anywhere near Baker Street.  It was in a foreign place, and therefore may have just felt foreign to me.  I'm not sure.  I'll have to watch the episode again and really go in-depth with myself.  However, this season so far, The Sign of Three is my favorite.  I can't wait to see what the third episode holds, and I look forward to writing a review of the Empty Hearse soon, because I have a ton of thoughts on it.

Lyndsay Faye and Seven for a Secret

September 18th was quite a few things this year.  It's the 30th birthday of someone I knew from high school, it's my parents' wedding anniversary (36 years,) it's the day my parents left for their vacation until October 3rd, and it's also the day I went up to New York to go see Lyndsay Faye's talk about her new book, Seven for a Secret, which is out in bookstores and online.

It was great to meet Lyndsay.  She was very personable, funny, and friendly.  Her talk was informative, and considering she's writing historical-based novels with Gods of Gotham and Seven for a Secret, she's clearly done her research.  As she said while answering questions, (though avoiding spoilers!) for the Q&A part of the night, she's read journals, newspaper articles, all of that stuff to make things as authentic as possible.  While I haven't read either book yet, I love how it seems she's found a great balance between what to include to flesh out the actual world of old-time New York, and also what she needs to NOT say, because it's not something her main character would take the time to care about.

Anyway, I know, this is a pathetically short entry, but I wanted to get down about meeting Lyndsay and help promote her books.  Gods of Gotham and Seven for a Secret aren't Sherlock Holmes, but she's also the author of, and this is how I initially heard of her, Dust and Shadow, which was her imagining of if Holmes and Watson had gone up against Jack the Ripper.

All in all, this September 18th was a terrific, tiring, completely worth it endeavor.

New York And The Mysterious Bookshop

On April 23rd, my cousin was going into Manhattan for a concert.  Being only sixteen, my aunt obviously didn't want him to go alone, so I went in with him.  (Seriously, there was virtually no point.  We split up almost as soon as we left the train station, but oh, well.)  Anyway, I had a mission.  I wanted to go to The Mysterious Bookshop, because another Holmes author (probably more than one,) had gone there, and told how it had a full wall of Holmes books.  I knew I had to check this out.

I went to Forbidden Planet first, (SO happy to find out they hadn't actually moved, though I was disappointed there was no upstairs to go to like there was the first time I was there,) and was geeking out at the Doctor Who stuff they had there.  I ended up buying two Doctor Who shirts, getting a pic of the golden Dalek cutout they had, and spazzing about the Beatles stuff I wasn't able to buy.  Must go back there soon . . .

Anyway.  I ended up catching a cab down to Warren Street, where the Mysterious Bookshop is.  I walked in, and the first thing I see is a Holmes silhouette on a messenger bag kinda thing.  I walked around the store for a bit before going to the back wall, where what do I see, but Holmes books!  I looked at them, reading blurbs, investigating covers, quietly exclaiming over seeing ones in my own collection, but that were different editions, or hardbounds where I had the paperback.  I saw Darlene Cypser's The Crack in the Lens, among others that I own and recognized, and plenty that I'd never heard of, or only saw on Amazon.  One such book was The Canary Trainer, by Nicholas Meyer.  I've wanted to collect that one for awhile now, and seeing it right there in front of me, in hardbound, I decided this book was mine.  I also got one, I believe called Revenge of the Hound.  Then, I came across the majority of MX books, and imagine how surprised and pleased I was to see copies of my own standing right there, displayed on the shelves!  :)  I looked through them and saw The Detective and The Woman, by Amy Thomas.  I'm in the process of reading both hers and Canary Trainer (because it's yet another Holmes/Phantom crossover that I've been curious about for awhile,) and when I'm done with both, I'll review them on here, hopefully with a follow up interview with Amy.

Until then, happy readings, writings, and other Holmesian endeavors!

Reichenbach Fall Theory - Again!!!

I gotta come up with better titles for these things . . .

I decided to dig out my copy of Sherlock Season 2, and watch The Reichenbach Fall again, and something struck me while I was watching the scene where Moriarty comes to Baker Street just after the announcement of his acquittal.  He mentions a problem to Sherlock.  Their problem.  The 'final problem.'  When I initially watched this, I took it as meaning that Moriarty's final problem was how to best ruin Sherlock's reputation.  But what if that's not it at all?  I'm wondering now if his final problem was how to ruin Sherlock's reputation before committing suicide and therefore dying as a martyr.

I never noticed before . . .  The Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales book that Sherlock looks at in the school after the kids are kidnapped is in the same kind of packaging that the bread crumbs outside Baker Street that John picked up were in.

Once again, I apologize, I'm writing this as I watch.

"All fairy tales need a good old fashioned villain."

I keep coming back to that.  There's got to be something in one of those fairy tales that parallels this story!

Oh, my God . . .  I just realized . . .  The assassins that moved in within spitting distance of 221B Baker Street . . .  I thought they were more of Moriarty's men, stationed there to close the web around Sherlock.  What if the opposite's the truth?  What if they went there of their own volition in order to protect Sherlock?  I just passed the part where the one guy saved Sherlock from being hit by the car and then is killed when Sherlock shakes his hand.  Sherlock comments on it, on them being there to keep him alive because he has something they want.  But what if that's not entirely true?

Just reached the part where Sherlock and John escape, and where Sherlock says, "I'm doing what Moriarty wants.  Becoming a fugitive.  Run."

He knew what the game was.  He knew Moriarty was like a spider, controlling thousands of strings of a web, knowing exactly what buttons to push to make whatever happen.  And he knew that Moriarty was trying to destroy him inch by inch.  He said that, minutes before in the episode.

And yet, he plays into Moriarty's hand there, doing what Moriarty wanted him to do.  Why?  Why would he play into his hands like that?  Why run from the police, making things worse for himself (and John) instead of just dealing with whatever questions, and probably being released the next day?  Cuz if Sherlock is intelligent enough to solve the crimes, he's intelligent enough to figure out how to prove that no, he wasn't involved.  Why didn't he do that, instead of playing into Moriarty's hands?

"There's only one thing he needs to do to complete his game and that's to--"

I think I'm right.  Moriarty knew there would be a final confrontation between him and Sherlock and he knew he was going to die.  And if he died when Sherlock's reputation was in tatters, he'd die a martyr.  He'd die as someone revered, because he'd die as Richard Brook, the 'actor Holmes hired.'

I still don't buy everyone's explanation for why he needed Molly.  I'm still not convinced that she was in on helping him fake his death.  That kind of deception, especially that big of one for that long-term just doesn't fit her character.  I don't think she'd be able to keep up the illusion.  I still think she was asked to help restore his reputation, or something of that nature.

I think the gunmen could hear him.  I think part of the last step of things was Sherlock's own voice telling someone he was a fraud, and that, along with seeing him go off the rooftop, was what stopped the snipers.

This episode confuses the Hell out of me, to be honest.  I don't know what to make of it.  I come up with a new thought, and it contradicts something else I thought I'd figured out.

God, I can't wait for Season 3!

The Reichenbach Fall

Okay, so I've recently been watching some hilarious song related YouTube things of Sherlock, and found a couple tonight that talk about how he faked his death.  The one I'm currently watching mentions the black ball that he's bouncing against the wall before he goes to the roof to meet Moriarty.  People have said that Sherlock would have no noticeable pulse if he stuck that ball under his arm and held it there.  Except, watch the ending of that episode.  Watch him up on the roof with Moriarty, and then when he's standing there, after dropping the phone.  There's no way that with all that movement, that the ball idea would still be a valid one.

I'm ready to dig out the episode again.  For one thing, I wanna see if I can get a good look at the biker.  Someone suggested that that was actually Sherlock, but I'm doubting it.  However, someone else mentioned an original Holmes story, the Priory School?  Something like that, that has a plot similar to the kidnapped children in this episode.

I must speculate further . . .

God, I can't wait till season 3.  I swear, I don't care if I can only play them on my computer, I'm gonna buy the next season off amazon UK when it comes out so I don't have to wait five months before the episodes come to America.

More on Jack of All Trades

I really should make it a point to write on here more often.  I've been busy lately, with the last few weeks of the fall semester in December, then my day job, babysitting for a friend of mine's daughter to try and make things easier for her after their house was damaged in the hurricane, and all in all, I just felt completely uninspired to write.

But then, several weeks ago, I started drawing stuff, including some pictures for co-workers of mine (which came out really cool, if I do say so myself,) and I knew it was only a matter of time before creative writing juices started flowing again.

They haven't, completely.  I haven't really written anything new to further complete Jack of All Trades, but I started typing it up.  Once I have that done, I'll have familiarized myself with the novel enough again that I'll be able to continue the handwritten version and finish it.  Then comes the editing process, which I hope won't take more than a month to complete.  Then, it'll finally be published.  I'm not sure what kind of timeline it'll take me to finish typing and then finish the handwritten version, so I hesitate to give a month when the book'll actually be out, but it is coming.