Sherlock Location Guide Masterpost

London:

S1E0: The Unaired Pilot

S1E1: A Study in Pink

S1E2: The Blind Banker

S1E3: The Great Game

S2E1: A Scandal in Belgravia

S2E2: The Hounds of Baskerville

S2E3: The Reichenbach Fall

S3E0: Many Happy Returns

S3E1: The Empty Hearse

S3E2: The Sign of Three

S3E3: His Last Vow

Download the GPX file of all London locations here (last updated 02/07/2015).

Elsewhere (mostly Wales):

S1E1: A Study in Pink

S1E2: The Blind Banker

S1E3: The Great Game

S2E1: A Scandal in Belgravia

S2E2: The Hounds of Baskerville

S2E3: The Reichenbach Fall

S3E0: Many Happy Returns

S3E1: The Empty Hearse

S3E2: The Sign of Three

S3E3: His Last Vow

S4E0: The Abominable Bride

Download the GPX file of all non-London locations here (last updated 02/07/2015).

Sources: Check out the lovely Location Guide by Sherlockology, and the Consulting Travelers segment (first introduced in Episode 7) of the Three Patch Podcast! And for a fantastic reconstruction of the filming of series 3, see Ruther2’s compilation! Many thanks to @raehub for invaluable help with the locations of The Abominable Bride!

And if you know a location I’ve missed, feel free to send me a message and I’ll be happy to add the location to this list!

I’m going to go on the assumption that the scene they’d dreamed of doing forever was the redrafting Reichenbach Falls, with Watson rescuing Holmes as he inevitably would have wanted to.

And, naturally, they framed it as John destroying Sherlock’s demons. It’s a beautiful thing.

The meta in the mirror.

So… what the hell just happened? 

We were just given a full 90 minutes inside Sherlock’s head. 

This episode is about Sherlock trapped in his own brain. It’s about what happens when Sherlock is left alone with his worst enemy, as Mycroft says. So on the wall of 221B, we have this:

All is Vanity. A double image, an optical illusion. On the surface, it’s a pun: this is about self-reflection, what you see when you look in the mirror, Sherlock left alone with himself. But look closely and you’ll see something hidden; if you don’t look closely, you’ll miss everything.

This is the gift TAB has given us: subtext. This episode, this painting, is a message: Check out the subtext. If we don’t look at deeper meanings here, there really isn’t a point. The plot ends up in a tangled knot. There is no skeleton under the coffin. Why would they give us a pointless plot?

We’re given no choice: we have to look at hidden meanings. This is an explicit invitation to go deeper. Sherlock himself says that he needs to go deep inside himself to figure out what’s going on. If that’s not a written invitation to analyze the hell out of what’s in Sherlock’s head, I don’t know what is. What could be more Victorian than subtext?

90 minutes of subtext, guys. 

UNLEASH THE META.

Just thinking out loud here…

So if we take it that everything in the Victorian mind palace is Sherlock’s attempt to form creative connections between existing pieces of information in his mind, then the scenes with Mycroft surely represent aspects of what he already knows or thinks he knows about his brother:

Also at the end Sherlock says:  “Moriarty is dead, no question. But more importantly: I know exactly what he’s going to do next” complete with a knowing smirky look towards the plane where Mycroft is literally picking up the pieces of his tattered, dysfunctional relationship with his brother (& even the end shot after that line is directly looking out of the plane window towards the car).

So: For whatever reason Mycroft is in balls deep with the Moriarty coming back thing and probably in cahoots with Mary in some way. He could have been involved further back (as far as Reichenbach, possibly even further), and he wants to lose, he wants it to end, and the thing that will ultimately cause him to lose is his feelings for Sherlock. Caring is not an advantage.

Mycroft’s “look after him… please?” exchange with John is FULL of resignation, he knows that despite how much he cares he can’t get through to Sherlock anymore - he can’t save him, he can’t fit it any longer. It feels like he’s formally passing that torch over to John. He’s already lost.

What if Mary gave Sherlock the drugs?

I’ve been going nuts trying to figure out where Sherlock could have gotten the drugs from. He was in solitary confinement. Theoretically he was brought straight to the tarmac along with Mycroft. The hug with Mary has always bothered me, always felt weird to me. And Sherlock smiles during it in a way that always struck me as off.

What if Mary happily provided Sherlock with the tools to kill himself via overdose?

What if John finds out?

Oh GOD @waitingforgarridebs @wellthengameover When Mary and Sherlock hug “Never trust a hug, it’s just a way to hide your face,”- IS SHE SLIPPING HIM MORE DRUGS?!

Sherlock in his Victorian!MP fucking WISHING he was some zen meditator, meanwhile his real-life MP scenes are usually some kind of disco freakout meltdown scrambling through piles of information like he’s late for a final

Sherlock, please,

I count this as tiny nod to The Man With The Twisted Lip. (The setting is different but the pose is highly reminiscent) That robe. Look at it.

Katie Welsh, Indiewire review of The Abominable Bride (x)

So, in Sherlock’s mind, everything before this “sets the scene” and this is where we are when its time to start solving the question of Moriarty’s return. Mary has come to make a last ditch effort at reconciliation with her errant husband and Sherlock is trying to keep playing their wedding waltz (the one HE WROTE) while they fight, neither of them able to see what the use of the other one is. John has no idea of what Mary can do, because he doesn’t really see her, and Mary sees John as a continually surprised sidekick to Sherlock, not as his equal. Sherlock gives up trying to play out his version of their romance as soon as Mary starts disparaging John’s role in his life.

And with that, the stage is set. The curtain rises. He is ready to begin. Ready to go deep.

#notcrying

different century, same old methods of seduction

It’s not 611174 in Mycroft’s notebook.

It’s 6/1/74.

January 6, 1874. (UK does day/month/year.)

January 6 being Sherlock Holmes’ birthday is a red herring, because 1974 is wrong for Cumberbatch/our Sherlock.

It’s actually 1874, and a canon reference.

McMurdo = Birdy Edwards

The Valley of Fear is coming. :D :D : D

So in tplosh, Holmes takes drugs because he can’t be open with the fact that he’s gay and in love with Watson.

And at the end of tab, we get Sherlock saying he no longer needs the drugs because he’s got the real thing now.

Bless this.

TAB Reichenbach is important

Listen to Moriarty’s lines here:

“In the end, it’s always just you and me.”

(And the other bits that I can only paraphrase cause I’ve only seen it once okay?) “Shall we go over together? That’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it?”

And he’s right. In every other Holmes adaptation, this is always what it comes down to. A battle between a man and his arch nemesis, all alone against the falls. And in the end, they always both go over together (or so it seems). And they are alone. John is either not present or just out of reach.

But not this time. This time, John comes in to save the day. This time, they’re not sticking to “the rules” about what is supposed to happen in ACD canon. John, finally, after 125 years of watching Sherlock fall to his death, finally gets to be the one to do the honors and kill Moriarty himself. And save Sherlock from having to stage his suicide in the first place. By making this alteration to one of the most well known and revered portions of ACD canon, the writers are making a big statement.

They said they were fixing the mistakes of canon. And here we are.

Bless you.

Sherlock digging a grave whilst Mary takes John away. 

hallucinated whilst purposefully taking an overdose because Mary took John away.

Loudly [don’t]

I take it back. THIS is the worst thing you’ve ever posted.

Sherlock suggesting a huband to stay where he is to use him as bait 

hElP

John Watson, The Abominable Bride (via dramatisecho)