Airs on 15 January 2012 on the BBC.

Oh. My. Heart. *wibbles*

Through all my tears, a really bad cold and hardly any sleep for three weeks, I produced a transcript.

Comments follow shortly. Take a deep breath - they'll be long!

I apologise abjectly to Steve Thomson for assuming that he would write another episode as bad as The Blind Banker. Mind you, I was told that Moffat and Gatiss had far more editorial control over this script and basically rewrote anything that they didn’t like, which explains part of the reason why it was so much better.

Once again the production team need a real slap for their appalling production of the newspaper articles which are full of mis-spellings (“the ‘underclass’ of prisoners out to reek revenge”), poor grammar, repeated text, and ludicrous lines like “Sherlock Holmes has gained cult following following the publication of his website”.

Great lines:
SHERLOCK: Why is it always the hat photograph?
JOHN (looking at the newspaper article): “Bachelor John Watson”?
SHERLOCK: What sort of hat is it anyway?
JOHN: “Bachelor”? What the hell are they implying?
SHERLOCK (holding up the hat and twisting it back and forth rapidly): Is it a cap? Why has it got two fronts?
JOHN (glancing up briefly): It’s a deerstalker. (He reads more of the article.) “Frequently seen in the company of bachelor John Watson ...”
SHERLOCK: You stalk a deer with a hat? What are you gonna do – throw it?
JOHN: “... confirmed bachelor John Watson”!
SHERLOCK: Some sort of death frisbee?
JOHN: Okay, this is too much. We need to be more careful.
SHERLOCK: It’s got flaps ... ear flaps. It’s an ear hat, John.

Similar to the glorious pen toss and catch which the boys did in The Blind Banker, Sherlock frisbees the deerstalker across the room so accurately towards John that he doesn’t need to do more than bend his hand at the wrist to catch it.

Great line:
JOHN TO SHERLOCK (as he casually walks past the body hanging from the ceiling in the living room): So, did you just talk to him for a really long time?
(And if that line wasn’t inserted by Moffat, I’ll eat Sherlock’s deerstalker!)

This fangirl and eternal slash shipper couldn’t help noticing that John, wearing only a bathrobe and drying himself off, comes from the direction of Sherlock’s bedroom and en suite bathroom... *whistles casually*

I like the continuity (although it’s a bit uber-English!) of all three sets of people – the surveillance team at the Tower, the Bank director and Prison governor – all in the middle of drinking tea when their places are broken into.

I was really dubious about whether Toby Haynes could do anywhere near as good a job with his directing of this episode as Paul McGuigan had done with the other two, but the cinematography throughout this episode was stunning. In particular, the entire scene with Moriarty in the White Tower breaking into the Crown Jewels case was absolutely gorgeous.

There’s no sign of the ermine-trimmed robe in the case that Jim smashes, and I doubt he had time (or a spare diamond) to smash any of the other cases before the police arrived.

Regardless of all the irritating errors in the newspaper articles, I did smile at the line which read, “In a twist worthy of a Conan Doyle novella, Mr Sherlock Holmes was yesterday revealed to be an expert witness ...”!

There is no way that any female prison officer would agree to “slip her hand” into a male prisoner’s trouser pocket. And even if she did and found only chewing gum, she wouldn’t give it to him as it is considered disrespectful to chew gum in court in Britain and would never be allowed.

Considering that this is being hailed as the ‘crime of the century,’ the public gallery is remarkably empty of members of the public or reporters.

I love the transition between Sherlock opening his mouth in the courtroom and him being marched into a cell for contempt!

The clock on the courtroom wall shows 10:42 when the jury adjourns. The clock shows 10:50 when we switch to the scene just outside the courtroom, but John looks at his watch and says, “That’s six minutes.” I suppose he could have taken into account how long it took the jury to actually leave the courtroom and go to their allocated room, but how difficult would it have been to actually show the correct passage of time on the clock?!

Jim is released in what is completely obviously a miscarriage of justice and can only imply a nobbled jury. Not only do they just let him go without (apparently) anyone keeping tabs on him but even Mycroft – who later reveals that he has done a whole world of bad things – doesn’t send security to Baker Street. Surely John is owed enough favours that he could have rung Lestrade and got some police sent round?

The shot of Sherlock playing the violin as Jim walks into the living room makes him look like he (Sherlock) is nearer to the window and/or deeper into the room than the distance shot which reveals that he’s right in front of the mirror over the fireplace.

I love the way that Sherlock gestures towards John’s chair for Jim to sit in, and Jim promptly goes to the other chair instead.

Apparently the forewoman of the jury, and the two oldest of her children who appear in the photograph on her hotel TV screen, are the same people who were photographed as Jeff the cabbie’s ex-wife and children in A Study in Pink. Whether this was deliberate and she was actually intended to be the ex Mrs Hope isn’t clear. It might just be that those extras were easily available again.

I utterly adored the canonical reference to “the final problem” on the first occasion but got a bit fed up with the way the phrase kept getting repeated after that.

Although it turns out to be something of a bluff, I like the way that the “Jim from I.T.” theme continues from season one.

Great line:
JIM: I could blow up NATO in alphabetical order.

Just before Jim leaves the flat, Sherlock stands up before buttoning his jacket. Fandom frequently swoons about how tight his shirts are and there are often comments on Tumblr and other sites about how brave his buttons are in their continual attempts to frantically cling on and keep his shirts closed (and gently encouraging them to give up the fight ...) but oh my lord I went wibbly at how tight his shirt is at this point. I swear that’s a season 1 shirt on Benedict’s season 2 (and much more buff) body ... *Callie goes to her happy place*

A friend of mine got so irate about the timing of events in Scandal that she wrote an essay on her blog about how they can’t possibly work, and this episode also has lots of timing problems. One of the headlines screaming about Moriarty’s release is dated Tuesday 20 September 2011 (and when did he suddenly start being called 'Jimbo' by the press?!) The following one declaring that Moriarty has vanished is dated Tuesday 11 October 2011 (and the article appears to start mid-way through. Please find me a production team member to slap!) That's followed by a "TWO MONTHS LATER". Do they mean two months after the trial or two months after Jim vanishes? Is John taken to the Diogenes Club at Christmas?!

But none of these dates make any sense when John's blog says that Sherlock died in June. The timing of these three episodes – and in fact all six episodes – is thoroughly inaccurate, made worse by Ella saying at the beginning of the episode that John hasn’t visited her for 18 months.

At least they get the beeping noises right this time when John is using his card in the ATM (unlike in The Blind Banker when the tones were wrong)! But John, isn’t it time you learned not to get into black cars every time they stop for you? Is this how you ended up strapped to Semtex at the swimming pool in the first place?!

The indignant old man in the Diogenes Club – the one who uses his walking stick to push the bell on the wall – is played by an actor who played Sherlock Holmes in a BBC series in the 1960s.

Why oh why oh why has Mycroft not simply had the assassins that have moved into Baker Street removed? What with that and what we learn later that he did with Jim, does he actively want his brother dead? Maybe Sherlock nicked his Smurfs when he was a kid.

It’s not (yet) a British thing, but apparently when John slit open the envelope he’d found on the doorstep, all American viewers were screaming at the screen, “Don’t open it, John!” and wailed even more when what looked like dust started to fall out. I’m not American but even I was thinking, “Anthrax!”

Greg names the kidnapped children as Max and Claudette. The end credits name them as Max and Claudia. The kid who plays Max must have a really good agent seeing as he never speaks!

Great line:
SHERLOCK (after intimidating the hell out of the housemistress just to get her to speak quickly): Miss Mackenzie will need to breathe into a bag now.

How awesome was Molly in the lab with Sherlock, offering to be there for him after all he has put her through?

When John shows the envelope with the breadcrumbs to Sherlock, Sherlock says that Jim “said these exact words to me: ‘All fairytales need a good old-fashioned villain’.” Except that Jim said, “Every fairytale needs a good old-fashioned villain.” Anyone else could be forgiven the slight error, but not Sherlock Holmes. *smacks the scriptwriter* They even try to cover up the error by keeping Jim’s voiceover very quiet so you can’t hear him clearly.

Sherlock uses the linseed oil footprints to work out where the kids are being held. He’s incredibly lucky that the kidnapper had been to the factory before he abducted the children. Actually, Jim’s lucky that young Max was such a spy fan, otherwise Sherlock might have found it much harder to trace the children, and it was essential that he did in order to seed doubt in Sally’s and others’ minds.

I love the way that – when Sherlock calls up the mental map of London when he’s at Scotland Yard – all the lights in the office go out behind him and then come back on again when he’s distracted. As the homeless network’s texts and photos start to pour into his phone and he starts placing them on his mental map, the lights behind him go out again and this continues throughout the scene. It’s really effective, made more so by the way that the lights come on with a flicker in the way that neons always do.

I and the three fellow fangirls who were staying with me when this episode aired nearly fell off our respective chairs laughing when Sherlock, in an attempt to “not be myself” when going in to see the little girl, unpopped the collar of his coat!

Sulejmani is shot for shaking Sherlock’s hand, yet later an ambulance crew are in plain sight wheeling the body away instead of being under cover and surrounded by armed police, and apparently the police just let the boys walk away.

Also, what were Sulejmani and his killer doing in that exact spot at that exact time? Is Jim really such a genius that he not only knew that Sherlock wouldn’t let John into the taxi, but also drove the route beforehand to calculate the exact street where his video would end (while fervently hoping there wouldn’t be a traffic jam anywhere on the night), and then lured Sulejmani and the other assassin there (conveniently making sure that Sulejmani would be on the street while the other person was hidden in a nearby building and was carrying a rifle at the time) and then arranged for the other car to take a run at Sherlock, because Jim knew that Sherlock would chase the cab down the middle of the street and wouldn’t realise sooner that it was hopeless to even try and so would make his way to the pavement on his own?

But why would Jim want Sulejmani killed in front of Sherlock anyway?

The boys go back to the flat and Sherlock looks up the local Wi-Fi networks. There are five of them and he declares, “There’s a surveillance web closing in on us right now.” Why does he think that? I’ve got eight Wi-Fi networks within reach of my computer right now – should I be worried?! Also, one of the networks should be their own and should therefore be showing “connected”.

Greg comes to the flat and Sherlock refuses to go with him for questioning. As Greg turns and heads for the stairs, John watches him go and if that’s not a ‘Yeah, I definitely would’ look on his face, I don’t know what is!

Why does the Chief Superintendant not know that Scotland Yard have been calling Sherlock in on their cases when it’s been plastered all over the newspapers for months? He even mentions that Sherlock has been in the press.

Mrs Hudson is really nippy for an old lady. When the police arrive and start knocking on the door, she’s up in the flat with the boys. She says, “I’ll go,” and turns to go down the stairs and almost instantly we hear Greg saying, “Evening, Mrs Hudson,” at the front door.

What the hell were they thinking, bringing armed officers to arrest Sherlock? Just what were they expecting him to do – take Mrs Hudson hostage, break out the harpoon and start a bloody siege? Well, all right, he does promptly take John hostage but that’s in a good cause!

I love the way that Sally apparently realises what’s going to happen just before John moves towards the Chief Superintendant and lowers her head in a desperate attempt not to look.

I’ve never been arrested (honestly!) but I would imagine that it’s very unusual for arresting officers to allow the arrestee to put his coat on before cuffing him, and especially not when he’s just assaulted a police officer.

As the boys back away from the police with Sherlock holding the gun to John’s head, there’s a gorgeous piece of graffiti artwork behind them on the wall with an enormous “IOU” surrounded by dark coloured angel’s wings. You can see it more clearly later when John runs out of 221 to get a taxi after he has discovered that Mrs Hudson is alive.

Great lines:
SHERLOCK (trying to make it easier for them to run together while handcuffed): Take my hand.
JOHN (grabbing his hand as they race onwards): Now people will definitely talk.

The whole handcuffed chase was fantastic – and funny! I especially love the bit when Sherlock jumps the railings without considering that his short-arsed friend will never make it!

After they’ve been shoved out of the way of the oncoming bus, Sherlock grabs the assassin’s pistol out of his jeans. He then proceeds to hold it with his handcuffed left hand. Wouldn’t it be a million times easier to switch it to his free dominant right hand instead?

John sees a copy of the newspaper announcing Kitty’s interview with Richard Brook. He shows it to Sherlock and says, “Some bloke called Rich Brook,” and, unseen by John, Sherlock reacts to the name. It’s very plot-convenient that John says the first name as “Rich” when the article only calls him “Richard”.

I love the way that, when Kitty switches on the lights in her flat, both of the boys are impatiently drumming their fingers on their respective knees!

If Sherlock can pick door locks, I’m fairly sure he could have got the handcuffs off much earlier and didn’t need to wait for Kitty to come home and give him a hairpin to pick the cuff locks.

Andrew Scott is amazing as he plays the role of Jim Moriarty playing the role of Rich Brook, especially in the moment when he briefly switches back to Jim when only Sherlock is looking at him.

As camera angles change while Kitty is showing copies of her article proofs to John, Jim’s hands change from being clasped in front of him, to being lowered, to holding his face.

Rich’s cover story and back-up information – the c.v’s, the newspaper articles etc, are all very good and I don’t doubt his ability to cleverly plant these online and in newspaper libraries etc and to have recorded the DVDs, but did Jim really want Sherlock dead at the end of all this or just disgraced? If the latter, then eventually someone – not necessarily Sherlock himself if he was locked up in jail – would work out that Rich never actually appeared on the TV. I can’t imagine even someone as bonkers as Jim spending hours being The Storyteller (not to mention the new character in the medical drama that Rich apparently joined) and recording TV shows – plus, if they had been broadcast, either Sherlock or Mycroft’s people might have read about him in the press and seen photographs.

The little scene in the Bart’s lab when Sherlock tells Molly that he thinks he’s going to die is amazing, and Loo Brealey’s Molly is staggering in her willingness to help. However, Sherlock is unwittingly horribly cruel to her – when he gazes intently into her eyes and tells her he wants her, she must think that all of her Christmases have come at once.

It seems to be implied that the final scene in Hounds showing Moriarty being released from the cell covered with Sherlock’s name was out of sequence and didn’t actually happen until after he had been arrested following the raid on the Tower of London. It makes sense in regard to why Mycroft said, “Let him go,” back in Hounds because he was/will be only letting him go from the interrogation and after that Jim goes back into ‘normal’ prison prior to his trial, but I wish it had been explained to us better.

I wonder whether Jim accidentally or deliberately channels Sherlock when his final text message to him is signed “JM” rather than “Jim Moriarty” like his earlier one?

John said earlier that they couldn’t go back to Baker Street because the police would be watching the flat in case the ‘fugitives’ returned home, but the police are conveniently missing when John arrives.

According to my German friend who was one of the group of Sherlock fans watching with me, “Rich Brook” absolutely does not translate to “Reichen Bach”.

Great lines (on the roof):
SHERLOCK: You’re insane.
JIM: You’re just getting that now?

Just after that line, Sherlock shoves Jim further backwards on the edge of the roof. In several shots from one angle Jim is holding his hands out and very obviously not grabbing at Sherlock to save himself; but when the camera angle changes he’s holding on to Sherlock’s arm. The first angle is better because Jim is committing himself to Sherlock’s decision whether to drop him or not.

I love the cinematography and the way that the sunlight shines from behind Sherlock and blanks out the lens when he tells Jim that he isn’t one of the angels.

During the scene showing where each of the assassins is in relation to the three targets of John, Mrs H and Greg, the one assigned to Greg turns from his computer – which is showing the now-stock footage (and very out of date footage) of the online news article about Brian Lukis’ murder from The Blind Banker!

As John arrived at Bart’s and Sherlock rang him, I was wailing at the TV, “No! Please don’t make him watch!”

In an attempt to convince John that he’s a fraud, Sherlock says that he researched John before they met so that he could impress him. John must know – and even if he isn’t sure he can later confirm it with Mike Stamford – that Sherlock didn’t even know of John’s existence until he walked into the lab at Bart’s with Mike. Or maybe Sherlock realises that John will be too shocked to realise the truth until later, and maybe this is his way of letting John eventually work out the truth for himself once he’s safe from the assassins.

The fall itself was spectacular. And Martin Freeman’s acting in the next few minutes tore me to pieces, especially when some of the onlookers rolled Sherlock’s body over and John’s whole face just collapsed.

Continuity error/s: John runs forward after the fall and clears the building that blocked his view of Sherlock landing on the ground. He gets his first glimpse of the body, partially obscured by a truck alongside the kerb. The cyclist comes from behind John and hits him, and the camera angle from behind John shows that the truck isn’t there any more. The angle changes briefly and then switches back, and now the truck is visible again but a little further along the road. John falls and is seen lying on the road with his ears ringing, then the angle switches to a view from the rooftop, at which point the truck is further back nearer to the body again.

Why did John never ask to see Sherlock’s body in the days before the funeral – or alternatively how did Mycroft prevent him from seeing it without arousing John’s suspicions?

My theory/ies on how the fall was planned: remember that the little girl screamed when she saw Sherlock? Also remember the comment about how Sherlock’s homeless network are fast. So here’s how it went, IMO: Jim chose the girl’s abductor to look as much like Sherlock as possible, so it was him who was on the ground, having been rounded up and killed by either the homeless network or by Mycroft’s people. It was early in the morning so there weren’t many members of the public around, and all of the people surrounding the body on the ground were either members of the network or others recruited for the job, and their role was to keep John away from the body as much as possible and unable to see it at all the right moments. He never saw the body land on the ground because of the building and the convenient open-topped lorry full of what looked like rubbish bags in the way. The cyclist wasn't just some member of the homeless network - he may well have been someone known by a member of the network and recruited for the job but he was a professional stuntman who knew exactly how to hit John to leave him injured but not dead. Maybe the intention was to knock him unconscious; but at the very least it was hoped that he would leave John dazed enough to be confused by what was happening. Sherlock made John stand in precisely the right place so that the cyclist could line himself up, and then took a swan dive into the lorry which was full of nice cushiony bags. It's also why the camera angle changed for the actual splat - because the body was just dropped from the side of the lorry, possibly even catapulted out by Sherlock's heavy arrival, a bit like two people on a trampoline ... And the 'actors' who were surrounding the body pulled John’s fingers away from the man's wrist not because – as some people initially theorised online – Sherlock still had a pulse, but because otherwise John might have realised that the body was too cold. The reason it looks like Sherlock to us is because we’re effectively seeing the scene through John’s eyes (even though the camera angles are not from John’s POV).

I’m also reminded of how Sherlock was fooled into believing that the body in morgue was Irene Adler partway through Scandal, and I’m sure that he used that experience to help him make his plans here.

There’s also a theory going round that John was somehow sprayed with the suggestibility drug from Baskerville and that’s why Sherlock kept reinforcing that he was going to commit suicide, so that John would believe that the body on the pavement must be Sherlock’s. I love fandom and its constant plotting!

The other option I can go with is that Sherlock swan dived into the truck, someone waiting there (Molly?) threw blood over him and then he hurled himself over the side and lay on the pavement pretending to be dead. It would explain again why people were stopping John from taking his pulse – and rather delightfully someone online has pointed out that if you squeeze a small rubber ball in your armpit, your pulse can’t be taken from your wrist ... and of course Sherlock was playing with a small rubber ball in the lab ...

Anyway, this set of animated gifs gives a very good demonstration of what I’m talking about (scroll down to the bit labelled “The Truck Theory”) and shows in detail just how many deep bouncy bags there were in the back of the truck. And as one of these gifs points out, the truck casually drives away after a body has just splatted to the ground beside it.

And if you think that I’m over-thinking it all, you should see the suggestions from people who’ve actually done all the scientific calculations about whether Sherlock could simply topple over the edge and yet still make it to the truck several feet away from the wall!

Of course, if it was a doppelganger on the pavement, it also means that in the limited time available someone had to run out and get a thirteen hundred quid Belstaff Milford coat and an eighty quid Paul Smith scarf to put on the body but hey, Mycroft's got money and it’s inevitable in my mind that Mycroft was in on the whole thing.

Oh my good gods, the graveyard scene. There’s no point nominating anyone else for the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA next year – just give it to Martin Freeman right now. His voice killed me dead with the way that it kept breaking. And I particularly loved the way John came to attention, nodded to dismiss himself and then turned smartly on his heel before walking away.

As the camera panned across the graveyard while John walked away, I was whimpering, “Oh please oh please oh please oh please,” and wailed with anguished delight at the sight of Sherlock watching him. It was all I ever wanted from the ending of this episode: a moment of hope – either for John or for us. Perfect ending – and the most amazing hour and a half of television I think I’ve ever seen.

I have more to say about the series in general and some of the problems I had with it, but I’ll leave it there for now.

This set of pictures gives a slightly different theory on the fall which I also like. In the comments below the pictures there’s mention of the rhododendron ponticum, a picture of which was sent to Sherlock during the search for the kidnapped children. I’ve read elsewhere that taking a certain extract of that plant will slow your pulse down; and additionally and significantly it has a side effect of making you cry, which could be why Sherlock was so tearful on the roof!

Apparently, the morning after the episode aired in Britain, the same two news presenters as appear in John’s blog were on the BBC morning news, and some fans couldn’t bear it, half expected them to announce Sherlock’s death and had to switch off!

There’s a particular fanvideo out there which seems to be either deliberately or accidentally focussing on the apple which Jim was carving at 221, which made me suddenly think: fairytales, Snow White, ate the apple, presumed dead. Did Jim fake his death just as much as Sherlock faked his? Did Sherlock ever see Jim’s brains all over the roof and - more importantly - the exit wound? Is there no mention of Rich Brook in the papers because by the time anyone got up to the roof, he (and his blood) were gone? But also, or instead, did the apple give Sherlock the idea of how to fake his own death and convince Doctor Watson that he was actually gone?

There’s been some discussion about why Sherlock appeared to be so panic-stricken after Jim’s death and so wound-up before he went to the roof’s edge. I wonder if it’s because he’s thinking, “How much time have I got? Are we being watched and will the snipers be told immediately that Jim’s dead and take out my friends?”

This was my least favorite of the 6.

Sherlock says he may be on the side of the angels but he isn't one.
Clearly neither he nor Moriarty have ever read anything about angels if they think they are nice gentle folk. Azrael the Angel of Death, Michael who would stomp demons without even working up a sweat, the fallen angels, heck, God's army was made of angels. No, angels weren't just wimpy guys in dresses who played harps.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre have done a spoof of Sherlock and it is, as always, bloody brilliant!

It's here.

"Written by those blokes who write Doctor Who."
"Moffat?"
"No, I think they've got it about right."
"And have you noticed how Gatiss ...?"
"I have."

Are you sure you have that link on the right board? I thought it was about a totally different show. ;-)

Love those socks!