This is a spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen The Abominable Bride yet, please go and
watch it and then come back here for the post mortem.
Oh! Because like, post mortem as in-
As in dead people.
That’s clever.
Yeah.
Extraordinary.
Impossible.
Superb. Suicide as street theatre murder by a corpse.
Lestrade, you’re spoiling us.
Watson, your hat and coat.
Where are we going?
To the morgue. There’s not a moment to loose. Which one can so rarely say of a morgue.
And am I just to sit here?
Not at all. My dear, I will be hungry later.
Holmes, one more thing. Tweeds, in a morgue?
Needs must when the devil drives Watson.
Hello, I’m Luke Spillane and welcome to 221D Baker Street. Yes, we’re right next
door to their flat for this very special Sherlock discussion show. Joining me for a canter for
the ins and outs
and “was that all in his mind palace?” of The Abominable Bride is BBC Sherlock France
Forum founder, Helene Coleen and Thomas “Tomska” Ridgewell, YouTuber and comedian.
Welcome both.
Well, millions of people have seen this now in TV and cinemas around the world. Have you
found there has been a certain response to it on the forums?
Some people actually, so far have a good opinion on the episode so far as I have seen. Both
on Twitter and Facebook and even on the forum because we have some members who are
totally UK based, they were totally able to see the episode and comment on it. So far
the answer is very good.
Nice.
Are they excited by… are they more excited about Moriarty coming back, the Victorian
setting or?
It was more the Victorian setting, yeah.
Great.
I know nothing of the social media response because I only got to see it last night so
I’ve avoided Twitter the entire time.
Great.
I have just back it out. I have a Sherlock blog on my Tumblr and I’m just like “lalalalalala”
What did we think of Holmes? A man out of his time, in his original Victorian setting?
Did you enjoy it?
I mean, it kind of goes without saying in that it obviously works. You know.
Yeah, it transitioned really naturally. I think it just all fit in. You didn’t really
have to change anything about the character. Honestly, Watson was a more interesting factor
in terms of the
difference between modern day and past because I love that they made Watson just a sexist.
Like, you know. Like Sherlock the character is naturally above it because he’s just
above all
things man but Watson was just in keeping with the times. Like “Woman, why do you
speak to me?, “Wife, make me tea.”. Like I think that was just a really interesting
kind of plot device,
that he was there to represent the patriarchy. With his moustache.
Yeah.
It’s a great moustache.
The moustache was really better than on series 3. Which was a bit ridiculous.
Also in this episode we got to see alternate versions of the some of our favourite characters.
What did we think of that? What were some of you favourites?
Technically they’re not alternate versions. Are they?
They’re actual original versions.
That’s true, that’s true.
I mean, Mycroft was originally described in the books as being a large-
I think the exact words were “fatty, fat man”.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s original words.
It was… I wasn’t expecting them to be this far but yeah it was actually fun and
I really loved Molly as a man. She was really good.
Are we supposed to believe that Sherlock wouldn’t notice that?
Yeah. I don’t know.
Like, of all things.
Because everyone is like “Yup, that is… yeah.”
And Sherlock is like “Huh?”
I quite like that though because in the modern version he’s always blind to her.
Yeah, I guess that’s very fair.
Like the fact that he’s blind to this girl dressed up as a boy. I loved that. I think
it was really sweet.
Yeah, I guess. Because in the modern version he doesn’t even acknowledge her as a woman.
Just as a sexual being. In this he’s not even acknowledging her sex as well. Yeah.
it worked really well. It was just very funny.
Yeah.
It was very Black Adder. Bob.
So as it turns out this wasn’t really a stand alone special but it was all inside
Sherlock’s mind palace. What did we think of the big twist? Did we enjoy it? What did
we think?
The episode started so well in Victorian era. Just having this in his imagination of his
mind, well I kind of lost interest in what was going on after that because it was just
a dream.
I mean, I don’t think my feelings were quite as harsh but I can see where you’re coming
from though.
Personally though, I am canonically choosing to you know, believe that modern day Sherlock
is just an imagination of actual Sherlock.
Victorian Sherlock.
This may not… we weren’t watching alternate Sherlock. We were watching Sherlock and he
was just imagining what the future is like because he’s so smart. He’s exactly right.
Great. Jet planes, everything.
I’m canonically… any Sherlock I watch from this point onwards is cannon for me now.
I think you made an interesting point in that… once I knew it was a mind palace I think flicking
in between because quite… I kind of almost, like we were saying, wanted the indulgence
and
the enjoyment of victorian England to stay for longer before we saw modern day. I almost
wish that it was a twist at the end.
Well, in this episode we saw the return of Moriarty. In fact the whole episode turned
out to be his return. Now you said that you were thrilled to see his return. You were
happy then? I loved
seeing him back?
Always.
Yup.
Always.
I love Andrew Scott. Overtime he come back to the series I’m really thrilled because
he is… he is kind of the best Moriarty I’ve seen so far, so.
What I love, what I love about the what they’ve done with the character Moriarty is the way
that they’ve been able to keep him alive, keep Andrew Scott in the show is that he does
live in
Sherlock’s head now because… and I guess the whole idea behind that is he bested Sherlock,
Sherlock has now made him this… he projects onto him. He’s made him this
manifestation of all of his insecurities so whenever he’s downing himself it manifests
itself as Moriarty and that’s awesome because it just means we can keep having Andrew Scott
I hope. That’s great.
And with that, did you enjoy seeing the waterfall confrontation? We finally saw the original
Reichenbach. How exciting was that to see? Because personally that was one of my favourite
scenes in the whole thing. Did you enjoy that?
Yeah. Especially after when I saw that it was filming in the studio so it was actually
very impressive when I saw the pictures of what the set was looking like. It would have
looked
better if it was at that moment he woke up instead of a bit before.
Yeah, he jumps off and then he wakes up and he’s like “yeah, ok cool.”
I think the craziness of it, it was a crazy scene. But also I thought there was kind of
this tension. We’ve never just seen them just fight. Like you kind of just wanted them
just to have
a fight. I quite enjoyed the tension of both of them just hating each other but loving
each other. I mean Sherlock resorts to name calling first. He resorts to calling him “short
ass” and
Moriarty does not like that. It’s obviously a very sore spot for Moriarty.
But it’s just the noise he makes.
[Hissing noise]
It just got me.
It’s great.
At the heart of The Abominable Bride case was a good old fashioned ghost story which
is very, very Victoriana I think. Different from what we’ve seen in modern Sherlock.
In modern
Sherlock the closest we’ve probably seen to that is in the Baskervilles episode, we
kind of had that horror and almost “is this a fantasy”-
Supernatural.
Yeah, a supernatural element to it.
Did we enjoy the horror aspect of this and the ghost side of it?
Yeah, I think Mark is really a great when he actually writes that kind of thing. I think
it’s one of his best qualities is to write horror episode like that. He does it very
well on Doctor Who too.
So I really enjoy those.
I think like in The Hound of the Baskervilles, that sequence with the ghost and around the
maze and in the grounds, like you really are going “What is going on here?”. I was
so on the
edge of my seat during that. It was so gripping and I didn’t know what was going to happen
next. It was just nice to be so in the dark about… like you say. You worked it out.
You’re
clever than all of us Tom. But I was like “Is she a ghost? I’m confused. What s
this?”. So I thought that whole sequence was very gripping.
Yeah, I was interested in how they were doing it. There was part of me that was like “I’m
really hoping it’ twins.”.
Yeah, yes.
It just felt very old-timey. It felt like what Watson’s writing was supposed to be
in that it felt, you know, like a Penny Dreadful like “We’re in the maze and there’s
a ghost and it’s all very
spooky” and it felt like what… Sherlock is supposed to be from Watson’s perspective.
It’s hard to explain but it was good. It was good times.
Well, there were some fantastic set pieces in this which I think is a real stable of
Sherlock for me because one of my favourite moments was Lestrade’s telling of the case
and that freeing
on the street moment. Did we enjoy the set pieces? Because for me the sequence in the
street, it reminded me of in the Irene Adler episode, Belgravia, we had that. He was in
the
room and then he stooped down and he was in the car and he was in that field working out
the case. I love moments like that. Seeing Baker Street on the street. It just looks
great.
It was. I had a very nerdy moment right at the start when they rolled the time back and
you see the bride pulling out 1887 single action army revolvers. I was like “Oh, careful
guys. They
didn’t come out until 1887 so you better be after 1887 right now or you’re going
to get into trouble.”.
So when we see Sherlock wake up in this plane, we’ve spoken about it already in terms of
the narrative but were we excited to return to modern day Sherlock? Because I don’t
think we
expected to see, going into this episode beforehand, I didn’t expect to see modern day Sherlock
at all.
Yeah, it was actually nice to have the episode not being a standalone episode but following
series 3 and opening series 4.
I don’t remember all these characters being so nice though. Like, Mycroft was really nice
in that scene. He was like “Keep him safe,
Watson.”. It was like, “What? Didn’t Mycroft just send
Sherlock off to die literally minutes prior?”.
Because in series 3 he was like “We need him back because he’s the only-“
But minutes prior he’s only just put him on that plane now he’s like “Now I’ve
got to get you a pardon.”. Couldn’t he have done that to begin with?
Yeah.
Mycroft was just really nice. It just felt very strange.
So let’s talk about that ending then. The Abominable Bride being the invisible enemy.
That final scene in-
She was feminism.
Is that the reveal? What did we think of the ending?
Yeah, I like that it was the feminist illuminati. Like it was very silly but it was fun for
that episode.
Yeah, I quite liked that resolution like obviously as you say the silliness of it because you
know, this is all within Sherlock’s mind palace and it’s John writing out the narrative
events of-
It’s John Watson’s Penny Dreadful depiction of what a feminist illuminati would look like.
Yeah.
Because even Conan Doyle himself at the time wasn’t exactly supportive of the Suffragettes
or feminism so it does make sense.
Yeah, they would be played up as this spooky, scary group of conspiracy theorists. Crazy
people, yeah.
We’ve now recently know that Sherlock got away from the fall with the help of Molly.
That’s mentioned very briefly at the end.
Was that news?
Yeah.
I thought we always new that.
Because in series 3 it was never confirmed which one of the ways that he got out of the
fall was the real one.
Right.
I think it was always going to be Molly because access to cadavers and like-
Yeah.
And we know now Moriarty is dead, no question. But what’s going to happen next? How excited
are we for what’s next and where do we think the show is going to go?
What’s next for Sherlock?
I’m glad that like, we got some Moriarty without him actually coming back. I’m glad
that he’s dead. I hope he doesn’t come back. I hope he stays in Sherlock’s head.
Absolutely. Because
like season 3 episode 1 where it was all about “How does he get out of it?” and it’s
all like “Doesn’t matter.”, “OK”. And this was like that for Moriarty. Like
“How is Moriarty going to
come back?”, “He’s not.”. And that’s great. The Sherlock’s line “No, he’s
definitely dead.”, basically looks down to camera.
Moriarty is dead, no question.
Which was good. Which I kind of figured at the end of season 3 anyway. It’s like “OK,
he’s going to have pre-recorded some amazing thing because he’s just the world’s greatest
villain” for some reason and I’m not complaining.
And Redbeard? What does Redbeard mean? Could Mycroft-
I mean, Redbeard we know is Sherlock’s dog when he was younger. We saw that at the end
of series 3.
Right.
I missed that.
Exactly.
And we see Vernet. Which is in the books, Sherlock is related, the Holmes are related
to Vernet, the artist. We also see that Mycroft’s notebook. I’m actually wondering what that
means. With the question mark’s and the numbers under it.
Well, thanks for that guys. That was a great discussion and I for one cannot wait for series
4.
And thank you for joining us too. If you enjoyed The Abominable Bride, the good news is it’s
now available to buy from your favourite download site or DVD store. Links below.
Also make sure you subscribe to us, the official Sherlock YouTube channel and follow us on
Twitter @sherlock221b.
In the meantime we’ll leave you with this clip from the one hour of extras on the DVD.
Wow.
Bye!
Come in scrooge, come in.
[Laughing]
I want to see Mark eating one of those in a single shot every single take. A single
take.
My brief was it’s gorging. It’s a feast. He’s eating a huge amount of food and it’s
sort of a breakfast scene but we’ve pushed it a bit more because there will be joints
of meat.
Although in the Victorian times they would have had joints of meat at breakfast so really,
you know, pies, hams, beef etc.
And you know, I’ve just sort of spent three days cooking up a storm basically.
Bought it here and now we’re just dressing it in and seeing what looks best and the best
place colour wise.
And then I just decorate the plates quite heavily otherwise it’s just going to look
a bit brown. Brown room, brown food. Never works.
So just a bit of dotting around, a bit of colour brings it to life.