Tis the season…. For Mince Pies!

Sherlock is not eating a biscuit or a cookie in his mum’s kitchen; it’s a mincemeat pie (AKA Mince Pies, for short), and as I just made the first of the season batch of my own I thought I would explain to non-Brits that it has no meat in it (minced or otherwise) these days. Inside the shortcrust pastry tart you will find a well-matured mix of raisins, currants, brown sugar, chopped nuts, suet (can be vegetable or animal product), and all the Christmas spices, which have been allowed to mature in brandy for about two months before use. Nowadays, most people buy it in jars, already made. Or boxes of complete pies ready for the oven, for the really kitchen-challenged. I use a recipe that is ninety years old and still produces better than any store-bought version. 

Mummy Holmes and Mrs Hudson will have their own different recipes. You can have them hot or cold. I expect the one he’s eating above is hot, fresh from the oven, and they do have a tendency to crumble, which is why this scene turned into an out-take when he started to laugh about it doing just that, as well having taken too large a mouthful. 

This one, however, must have been cold, because he marched into Mrs Hudson’s kitchen and took it from the fridge. I think both Sherlock and Benedict like mince pies! 

Just the one … a calculated risk … a Christmas treat

(He was never the same after that Christmas. It’s as if he had finally woken up … and he started to research, to investigate, to deduce … first a middle name … then deeper and deeper he went. Things like this can come to pass when an otherwise highly disciplined intellect allows his body a little bit of distraction … just a small breath of … chemistry. Just five minutes …)

Impressions from Sherlock BBC:  A Scandal in Belgravia

July, 2019

@ebaeschnbliah: This is good. What do you make of the fact that Mycroft, the brain, offers him the distraction? 

Good question, @gosherlocked  As I interpret the story told in Sherlock BBC, it is Mycroft who downright forces Sherlock to take the case of The Woman. It is also Mycroft who offers Sherlock the cigarette … a chemical drug, after all … a minor substiture for the ‘real’ thing. And it is also Mycroft who releases Jim, Mr. Sex, who then together with Irene, prevents that the Flight of the Dead takes off. If Mycroft represents Sherlock’s ratio, then it is Sherlock himself, his own will, who starts to investigate a certain topic. 

Irene, the libido, beats Sherlock and exposes him to her chemistry. Later, John, the ureliable narrator, notices at Christmas that the counter on his blog, where he offers the public a censored picture of Sherlock Holmes, has stopped at 1895 hits. Mycroft, the ratio, allows a ‘calculated’ shot of chemistry to test a theory …. and then Sherlock starts to investigate earnestly and intensively. He starts with x-raying the phone, the heart, then he wants to know who hides behind the H. of John’s middle name. Hamish is the Scottish equivalent of James. James/Jim, Mr.Sex, is already hidden in plain sight among the other names of the ‘eternal friend’. The Flight of the Dead from ASIB evolves to the Flight of the Sleeping in TFP, where Sherlock is able to safely land that plane. And it looks like the blog, the story of Sherlock’s life, gets now written by himself … a man who, by now, has parted from his facade. 

All of this happens inside Sherlock’s head, innitiated by his own rational mind … hesitation, resistance, conflict, disgust, scorn, doubt and fear included. In the words of ASIP: the whole thing is ‘self administered’. At least, that’s how I read the story. :)

@the-signs-of-two

@ebaeschnbliah: And now this may be splitting hairs but when Mycroft offers the ciggie Sherlock is looking to his right. After accepting it we see him and Mycroft in profile, looking to the left. This could be interpreted as Sherlock taking a 180 degrees turn. ;)

Interesting idea, @gosherlocked  It reminds me strongly of …  “You just went the wrong way last time, that’s all. This time, get it right.“ from TFP. Turning round, changing direction … walking the opposite way. I guess such a turn of direction could additionally be supported by a visual presentation too. 

Also interesting is with the play on mirrors/glass/reflection we get the flame to light the cig actually within Sherlock as it also lights the cigarette, further enforcing this idea that it is a metaphor for sparking something within the character - and mirrors certainly have their own significance throughout the show - with great meta out there on their extensive use, including their use in TAB for creation of the fake bride (ultimately shattered) or the mirror buildings of Roland Kerr Further Education College where John chose the wrong building, the glass/mirror in TFP that was used to meld Eurus and Moriarty and was/wasn’t there for Sherlock and Eurus or you can even consider the original pilot episode a mirror universe of sorts. 

In this scene it is often hard to tell if we are viewing Mycroft and Sherlock through a mirror or one of several windows frames in the scene - from inside the morgue through the door (most are shot from here), from outside the window that looks in, from outside in the hall (where the grieving family is) looking in through the door, or from the door on their right. However, if you really look at the angle of these on the cigarette lighting scene you will see that the window is in front of Sherlock but the the glass is so close that the morgue door has to have literally been moved right up against his and Mycroft’s back for the filming of the scene to get those kind of light reflections - and doesn’t that have a profound metaphorical meaning - he was literally pressed between panes of glass at that moment - the morgue at his back and the window at his front.

Also interesting is the shapes, because I’ve seen a great meta somewhere on the circles being used throughout to represent emotion and the squares to represent logic and in this scene there are a lot of the squares until the moments Mycroft talks to Sherlock about why he might want a cigarette, then we get the lower angle and we can see that on the ceiling there are these large circular light fixtures. Just three of these moments. When he offers it - when Sherlock points out that it is low tar and Mycroft says that Sherlock hardly knew her - and when Sherlock goes to walk away and it is clear that it is a ‘danger night.’

fascinating discussion! I also noticed the visual framing of sherlock within the window panes. I dimly remember a (s3 semester?) meta about similar shots in TGG where sherlock is framed in the lab door window while he's examining the shoes, but it makes it look like sherlock is the one pinned in the slide. @just-sort-of-happened wrote a lot about the circles/emotions and squares/logic visual theme that runs through the entire show. @kateis-cakeis made an extensive video meta examining the mirroring (often literal, mirror-image blocking/framing) between ASIP and the pilot.

It's so interesting looking anew at these earlier episodes, in light of the later ones. So many recurring and developing themes!

MORIARTY ARRIVES AT SHERRINFORD IN A HELICOPTER AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT, MYCROFT HOLMES IS DELIVERED AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT TO AN UNASSAILABLE ARCHITECTURE VIA A FUCKING HELICOPTER

God fucking damn it

John is delivered in a helicopter to Buckingham Palace …. where Sherlock waits, clothed in a sheet …..

I’d forgotten about that part. My immediate thought was being a Christmas present and being delivered by a helicopter, but this adds another dimension!

Wow - great catch @justanotherone16 ! Why have I never thought of this? It’s all so strikingly similar! I don’t know which of the three deliveries that is weirdest, though… And what might they symbolize?

Mycroft (=Sherlock’s brain?) is brought to CAM (= the Media? A Sherlock mirror?) as a Christmas present, according to Sherlock’s plan to protect ’Mary’ (and thereby John), but what CAM gets instead is a bullet to his head.

Moriarty (=Sherlock’s sexuality/internalized homophobia?) is delivered to Euros/Sherrinford (=Sherlock’s emotions?) as a Christmas present, according to Mycroft’s (Sherlock’s brain?) plan to defeat terrorists, but it ends up with Sherlock nearly shooting a bullet to his head.

But the first delivery was the one @ebaeschnbliah mentions: John being brought to the Queen’s Palace, according to Mycroft’s (Sherlock’s brain?) plan to defeat Irene (Sherlock’s libido?). But what happens instead is that John (Sherlock’s heart?) almost gets shot in the head by Mr Archer (Cupido?). Shortly after this, Irene fakes her death, while Sherlock and John celebrate Christmas.

So, what are we to make of this puzzle? :)

hmm!

Gatiss, Lucifer Box, and Christmas

Several of us have done metas about the recurring issue of Christmas in Sherlock, so that we appear to be drawn back to either the five years prior to Sherlock meeting John, and/or the Christmas events in ASiB. At the end of TLD, if Sherlock really is having a birthday (the Day of Epiphany, with King cake that includes a baby in it), then Christmas would have just taken place, again.

In John’s blog entry, the victim has PTSD. He’s incapable of speaking, and there are the clowns, helicopter-jumping Mrs. Hudson, and John doing something he thought he’d never do–but doesn’t explain. S4 in a nutshell, except we still don’t know that that thing is that John did (other than break the fourth wall by referencing LoTR to a user that has a name to the evil light character in that series).

Sherlock continues as a savior figure in S4. It’s possible that he and John finally ‘hooked up’ and he becomes John’s soldier in preparation for TFP. Even the end of TFP involves repeats of dialogue from ASiP and TEH.

We’ve drawn correlations between Moriarty, the Devil, Sherlock, and both being Lucifer “the light-bringer” as opposed to John, the “conductor of light”. We’ve done the same with Eurus being Sherlock’s emotional side, which changed five years ago, after her visit from Moriarty at Christmas.

But, since I like meta about other references being brought in, I thought I would add this to the mix.

Lucifer Box is a fictional character created by Mark Gatiss. A “lucifer box” is the same as a matchbox, lucifer being an old name for matches.

Box is a flamboyant, dashing and elegant figure who displays a prominent sense of fashion. A portrait painter to the rich and influential, he uses this as cover for his activities as a secret agent (in the world of the novels, the Royal Academy is the front for Britain’s secret services). Box is a charming but ruthless figure, who combines a sardonic sense of humour with a cold determination to kill when necessary.

He lives at Number 9 Downing Street (next door to the Prime Minister, famously at Number 10), and presumbably two doors down from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. (Historical note: No. 9 Downing Street is behind the Cabinet Office building at 70 Whitehall and has now been absorbed into that office complex.)

Box is also openly bisexual, and is equally comfortable seducing both male and female partners. He’s also compared to a shark, and often looking for trouble.

He has a sister called Pandora and a servant called Delilah, and in the third novel, The Black Butterfly, has a son called Christmas.

Items in S4 borrowed from the series…

The Vesuvius Club - In Naples Lucifer interviews one of the survivors of the “Cambridge four” group of scientists and fears for his life. Soon after he meets Charlie Jackpot, who invites him to a house of ill-repute. At that point, we learn that Lucifer is bisexual, as Charlie is gay (like Welsborough in T6T), and the two have sex. Charlie then leads Lucifer into the Vesuvius Club, where Lucifer meets the alluring Venus (which also means “light-bringer”), who is not who she seems, and he and Charlie fall victim to sleeping gas. Lucifer awakens in a cell and learns from a fellow prisoner that relics are being sold from excavation sites to finance a larger operation and that the “Superior Funerals” undertakers are part of a smuggling racket.Lucifer escapes and discovers Charlie in a death trap, from which Box rescues him before being discovered. Lucifer and Charlie escape via the sewer system. After another round of ill-fated events, including a bomb, it turns out Venus is actually Victor (Trevor? idk) Lucifer and the others escape and the remaining unclear points of the mystery are cleared up while Lucifer convalesces under the care of Charlie. Lucifer’s heterosexual love interest, Bella, appears and reveals she is the daughter of a man he killed in the early chapters of the book as part of a routine assignment. Charlie intercedes at the last moment to save Lucifer and Bella is killed.

Where are we possibly going?

The Devil in Amber - Actually brings us Jesus and Mary Magdalene, along with their surviving bloodline. It takes place in the 1920′s, but Charlie has died in WWI, so Lucifer gains a new love interest.

Black Butterfly - Lucifer is nearing retirement, but faced with raising Christmas Box alone, and his son wants to be a Boy Scout. Lucifer is knighted, and renews his acquaintance with the Queen. (Insert references to the knighthood and the Queen in ASiB.)

I’m still haunted by Mofftiss repeatedly talking about doing a WWII episode or film, whether it’s a revised The Voice of Terror or otherwise.

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