Sherlock

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I don't know how many people have seen the hit BBC show Sherlock, but I have thought a lot about the end of the second series in 'The Reichanbach Fall', and how exactly Sherlock cheated death. I have my own theory:

Sherlock asks Molly Hooper (the pathologist) for help with a plan. She loves him, so she obviously believes he's telling the truth. He makes her steal a body from the morgue that is his size, and dress it in almost the same clothes as him, then puts the Sherlock prosthetic mask on him. I think there is a Sherlock mask, because it would explain why the little girl screamed when she saw him. Then when he jumps (and I think he does jump) he lands in the rubbish truck full of handy soft rubbish bags. Molly meanwhile throws the other body out of a lower storey window. The people below are a mix of the Sherlock's homeless network and his brother Mycroft's SIS people. Anybody not involved nearby who thought they saw two bodies would think they were just imagining it, because nobody else would say so, and you probably panic when you see a body. John Watson doesn't see the body swap because he has been knocked down by the guy on the bike (also SIS or homeless network). So Molly knows, hence she's not at the funeral, and Mycroft knows, like in the original books.

Anybody who has a different theory, please post below, because as Aspies I think we stand more of a chance of solving it, particularly as Sherlock is Aspie (as said by John in 'The Baskerville Hound').

Thanks everybody.

I have not seen the particular Sherlock series you refer to, but I have seen episodes of older Sherlock series's. There are several older series. I have also, seen several Sherlock Holmes movies, and I own a fancy gift volume of the collected works of Sherlock Holmes. The publisher created it for the Christmas season one year, with the pages done as copies of the original news paper pages in the Strand Newspaper, including copies of the original illustrations. The stories were originally printed in that news paper as serial stories when Arthur Conan Doyle first wrote them. The gift volume was very expensive, but I waited until after Christmas to buy it. The store had a few copies left over, and put them on the discount table, so I only paid a few dollars for this fancy book. I have read this book a number of times. My sister even borrowed it and read it once.

However, I would like to say, Sherlock Holmes is a FICTIONAL character--that is--he is not real. He is a wonderful creation by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I enjoy this creation tremendously, but I never lose sight of the fact that he is not real. I do think however, that the Sherlock Holmes stories have helped at least a little in forming police training programs.

You might also like to read the mystery stores by Baroness Orczy, Josephine Tey, Dorothy Sayers, Ngao Marsh (yes, that's how her first name is spelt), Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, etc. Besides her mystery stories, Baroness Orczy also wrote the Scarlet Pimpernel, although that also is a mystery story.

There are some more modern ones you might like as well.
Emily Brightwell, Catherine Aird (deceased), Charlotte MacLeod, Helen MacInnes (deceased), Dorothy Gilman, Ellis Peters (deceased). There are a number of other fine mystery writers out there. It is too hard to list them all. Most of the ones I have listed are women authors, but there are some fine male mystery authors out there, too. Ellery Queen was actually a pseudonym for two men. They were look-a-like cousins, who created the character of Ellery Queen, and wrote under that name. Some decades ago, they also did tours around the country, and would take turns being "Ellery" at the different towns, with the off one playing the assistant or business manager. There were even at least two "Ellery Queen" TV shows. The first one was black and white. I have one or two episodes on a mystery collection DVD. The second series was color. In that one, the actor Jim Hutton played Ellery, and the actor David Wayne played his father. Unfortunately, both are gone now.

I think my favorite types of books are mysteries and some SF books.

Regarding the BBC series, there is another thing that may be of note - Sherlock was seen bouncing a rubber ball prior to faking his death; there is a magicians trick in which, if you put a ball under your armpit, you can slow and/or stop the pulse of that arm. This way, Watson would have felt no pulse, whilst Sherlock's body would still have been warm (which a morgue body likely wouldn't be).

Option 2 would be to use a harness and a spring loaded fall arrest system that is used by stunt men to slow a descent to safe speeds when filming people falling from a great height. Nobody watching a friend falling 100ft to their death will remember if that person seemed to fall a little bit slower than gravity dictates they should have.

It would probably need to be a wire instead of a rope as the rope would be too visible.

I apologize if I'm "beating a dead horse," but Season 2 was recently released in the US and so this is a rather fresh and fascinating topic for me.

Dr. Watson's odd habit of searching for a radial pulse to determine if someone is dead has always bothered me. Checking the carotid artery instead is part of the firmly established procedure for a quick answer to the question of whether a person's heart is beating effectively, and for good reason. One could make the argument that in this specific scene, Watson was never able to get close enough for more than a quick wrist grasp, but he also uses the wrist-only approach in perfectly calm crime scenes elsewhere in the series.

That said, the rubber ball against the brachial artery is a truly wonderful theory. All the evidence is there and it makes perfect sense but I never would have guessed it on my own. How very apropos for the series!

With regard to the wire theory: I suspect that it would have been prohibitively difficult to hide the gear from Moriarty. The soft landing in the rubbish followed by Molly ejecting a stunt double body is a promising theory, but it leaves the loose end of Sherlock playing with the rubber ball. I can't imagine that the writers put such a puzzling action in for no purpose. Molly might instead have arranged with her colleagues (or with trusted accomplices provided by Sherlock) for Sherlock to be grabbed immediately from the sidewalk and transported into the hospital building on a simple stretcher, an impossible feat for genuine emergency responders as well as completely counter to normal protocol.

The clue of the screaming child is worth contemplating further. I suspect that a simple Sherlock mask would be seen through as a fake rather easily by the two kidnapped children who had to have very close contact with their abductor(s). I can't imagine that Moriarty came into direct contact with them himself, he is quite well established as a character who doesn't do his own dirty work. It's possible that they were shown photos or videos of Sherlock and told how he would do something terrifying to them if he ever saw them.

I feel a bit of a geek talking about this but my theory is this. While Sherlock was talking to John on the phone he was on a different roof top. You can see this for a second when he tells him to turn around and walk back where he came. John is talking to Sherlock but looking at a dummy/corpse dressed to look like him. When the call is finished Sherlock jumps to safety while the dummy is pushed off by someone else.

You feel like a geek for posting one short, concise paragraph and theory after I filled a page? XD

It has to be true that John must observe from a certain spot to make it look real, that much is a given. From that spot the camera shows us that John can see every bit of body language, even some of the expression on Sherlock's face, and watches him move his body in big motions throughout the dive. It would have to be genuinely Sherlock, putting on a convincing show or the ruse wouldn't be nearly as effective.

Also, when they found Moriarty's body (if it was really dead and still there!) they would know exactly where Sherlock should have been.

I think the reason Sherlock tells John not to move is so he doesn't realize he's looking at a dummy. Watch the start of the call where he says "just do as I ask" that's the rooftop he is really on. I don't think anyone knew he was meeting Moriarty so it wouldn't really draw any suspicion. Its a shame the next series isn't till next year.