This video is meant for Britni. If you're not Britni, this video will not be funny, nor will it make any sense.
I hope you enjoyed it!
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Saturday, May 4, 2013
"Sherlock: The Reichenbach Fall" Explained - The Genius's Take*
* Some parts of the explanation explained therein were formulated by a third party. Rest assured, credit is given where credit is due. Anything not credited to a third party was completely formulated my myself or my father independent of any other sources. Any similarity to other theories on this subject is completely coincidental.
Some of you may be familiar with the British TV series "Sherlock." For those of you who do not, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:
"Sherlock" adapts stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous Sherlock Holmes books and places them in the modern era. So Sherlock texts, uses the internet, and drives cars in the course of solving cases. Each episode can be traced, to some extent, to a particular story of the real Sherlock Holmes books. Despite its many similiarities to the books, the plots are always given a twist that makes for very interesting mysteries that are, in my opinion, on par with the original stories.
The latest episode (the sixth) of the series is called "The Reichenbach Fall". In a nutshell... Never mind. If you haven't seen the episode, don't even read this. It's way too confusing. Go get Netflix for one month free and watch the entire series in six days. Then come back and read this.
Okay, now we come to the meat of things. The episode ends with Sherlock Holmes apparently jumping to his death from the roof of a hospital. Watson seems to see Sherlock hit the pavement, although the spot where he landed is partially obscured by a truck. As he runs to the spot where Sherlock seems to have met his doom, he gets hit by a random biker, keeping him from reaching the aforementioned spot for about ten seconds. Then he reaches the spot, but it is kept from getting to close by many bystanders. He is, however, able to get his hand on Sherlock's wrist, feeling for a pulse, and finding none. The last scene in the episode shows Watson grieving over Sherlock's "grave", and then leaving, asking Sherlock to not to be dead. Sherlock himself is seen, alive and well, just outside the graveyard (Watson doesn't see him) smiling slightly.
So the viewer knows that Sherlock is alive, but is not told why. Hundreds, if not thousands, of theories on the subject have gone viral on the internet. Wikipedia listed "tagwords" of the several theories (e.g. mattress, dummy, giant rubber ducky, physcotropic drugs) to account for Sherlock's survival of the fall. The Wikipedia article also mentioned that, on hearing the many theories, one of the creators of the show commented, "there is a clue everybody's missed ... So many people theorising about Sherlock's death online – and they missed it!"
Upon looking over the "tagwords", I noticed something that was missing, that was never explained in the episode: IOU.
And now we begin the mighty theory that accounts for everything in the episode (I think. Don't get too angry if I've missed something, but I'm 98.69% sure I didn't):
First of all, the IOU thing has to be explained before I explain how Sherlock faked his death. If you'll remember, Sherlock grabbed the book, "Grimm's Fairy Tales." Why did he grab it? Well, next we see him in the lab trying to figure out what the five elements found in the footprints are through chemistry. While he's looking at it all, an image of a snippet of the periodic table of elements flies through his thoughts. Around the same time, he gets an epiphany, and mutters, "I... O... U." When asked about it, he says, "Nothing, merely a mental note."
According to a blog I read (http://eva-christine.tumblr.com/post/27733467733/iou-explanation-53-8-92-grimms-fairy-tales-cipher), the author theorizes, due to the context in which the epiphany is found, that IOU refers to elements. The author provides these three elements, "Iodine... Oxygen... Uranium." The atomic number of these elements are, "53... 8... 92." The author suspects that this is a code similar to the one used in "The Blind Banker." The author also suspects that Moriarty left the fairytale book, and that it did not belong to the kidnapped kid. I must say, the genius of this author is amazing. Because the author, using screenshots from the episode, found the EXACT same edition of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" that was used in the episode and examined it. In the table of contents, each story is numbered. The author looked at story #53: Little Snow-White, #8: The Strange Musician, and #92: The King of the Golden Mountain.
You'll have to read the article yourself to see the details I don't want to go into, but suffice it to say that there are MANY parallels from those fairytale stories and the events in this episode of Sherlock. So much so that it is possible to guess what Moriarty had in mind on the roof of the hospital if you were as smart as Sherlock (i.e. From the stories, either from invisible ink that highlighted certain passages or just the gist of the stories, Sherlock could have deduced that Moriarty planned to have three of Sherlock's friends killed if Sherlock didn't commit suicide. Sherlock could've deduced that the suicide would be via a perilous fall due to Moriarty's comments towards the beginning of the episode).
(Update: If the last two paragraphs seem too far-fetched to you, we can simply say that I.O.U. refers to Moriarty's words, "I owe you a fall," to Sherlock. In which case, IOU is simply a threat that Moriarty is going to kill him. And we can say that from those words, Sherlock deduced that Moriarty was trying to get Sherlock to kill himself because it fit into the lie that Sherlock was a fraud. Now that I think of it, this explanation is probably the correct one. But the other one was so interesting I wanted to share it).
And now, here comes my explanation, completely devoid of outside sources. Because Sherlock figured out Moriarty's plan prior to going to the top of the hospital, he was able to arrange for faking his death. He went to Molly, and told her that he needed, in his own words, "You." Does anyone remember what Molly's profession is? I'll get back to that.
Sherlock also noticed, earlier in the episode, that when he went in to see the girl that was kidnapped by, either Moriarty or one of his henchmen, she screamed as soon as she saw HIM. Sherlock is very smart. He was able to deduce that Moriarty was setting him up to look like Sherlock had kidnapped the girl. He must have also been able to deduce how Moriarty had accomplished that. (I figured it out, so could he). Whoever kidnapped the girl wore a mask. A Sherlock Holmes mask. That makes sense.
By the time Sherlock had figured out Moriarty's plan to make Sherlock commit suicide, he had figured out that the kidnapper had worn a Sherlock Holmes mask. Now, either Sherlock found that same mask, or he used that revelation as inpiration for how to foil Moriarty, and had another Sherlock mask made. He then took that mask with him to the top of the hospital.
When he got there, he had a very cryptic conversation with Moriarty. Mainly, Moriarty was disappointed in Holmes for being "ordinary." (i.e. not figuring out something.) The thing that Moriarty thought Sherlock didn't figure out was the message encrypted in "Grimm's Fairy Tales." (Or, if that isn't true, Moriarty thought that Sherlock didn't figure out that there was no key code). Sherlock made Moriarty believe that he didn't figure it out by playing along and pretending to think that the computer program, that could supposedly open anything anywhere, was real.
Moriarty then revealed that if his snipers didn't see Sherlock jump off the hospital to his death, they would kill Sherlock's three closest friends: John Watson, Greg Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Moriarty thinks that he has Sherlock trapped into committing suicide. But after a verbal slip-up, Sherlock deduces that Moriarty CAN call off the snipers without Sherlock having to jump at all. Sherlock then approaches Moriarty and threatens to torture him most severely until Moriarty calls off the snipers. Sherlock says that he wins as long as he has Moriarty. Moriarty, upon hearing that Sherlock would actually torture him, decides to shoot himself because he has no desire to live if Sherlock isn't alive to challenge him and keep him from being bored.
So Moriarty dies. But he didn't count on one thing: Molly. Remember her profession? She's a pathologist. It's her job to determine what the cause of death is for a person. Sherlock put his coat and the mask on Moriarty, props his body up straight at the edge of the building, and makes the call to Watson, making sure that he is at the exact spot where he won't see the fall very clearly, and where the bicyclist can get to him later. He also makes sure that Watson keeps his eyes on him, so that he doesn't see the bicyclist just waiting to take off and hit Watson. Also, so that Watson doesn't see the group of doctors waiting to pick up Moriarty's body. Then he pushes Moriarty's body off the roof, and dons Moriarty's clothes and another disguise to sneak out of the hospital unnoticed. Watson rushes to the spot where Moriarty fell, but is stopped by the bicyclist (a member of the homeless network). In that time, more members of the homeless network, disguised as bystanders get to the body and keep Watson away from it. Then Molly's connections get hospital people to cart off the body very quickly. She makes sure that she's the coroner for the body, and proclaims that it is indeed Sherlock Holmes, and that the cause of death was the fall, not a gunshot wound to the head.
Sherlock Holmes remains in hiding while he tries to get rid of the rest of Moriarty's gang so that they can't continue to assassinate his friends. Meanwhile, no mention is made of the body of Moriarty being found at the top of the hospital.
And that's it folks! I hope you find this explanation satisfactory.
Some of you may be familiar with the British TV series "Sherlock." For those of you who do not, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:
"Sherlock" adapts stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous Sherlock Holmes books and places them in the modern era. So Sherlock texts, uses the internet, and drives cars in the course of solving cases. Each episode can be traced, to some extent, to a particular story of the real Sherlock Holmes books. Despite its many similiarities to the books, the plots are always given a twist that makes for very interesting mysteries that are, in my opinion, on par with the original stories.
The latest episode (the sixth) of the series is called "The Reichenbach Fall". In a nutshell... Never mind. If you haven't seen the episode, don't even read this. It's way too confusing. Go get Netflix for one month free and watch the entire series in six days. Then come back and read this.
Okay, now we come to the meat of things. The episode ends with Sherlock Holmes apparently jumping to his death from the roof of a hospital. Watson seems to see Sherlock hit the pavement, although the spot where he landed is partially obscured by a truck. As he runs to the spot where Sherlock seems to have met his doom, he gets hit by a random biker, keeping him from reaching the aforementioned spot for about ten seconds. Then he reaches the spot, but it is kept from getting to close by many bystanders. He is, however, able to get his hand on Sherlock's wrist, feeling for a pulse, and finding none. The last scene in the episode shows Watson grieving over Sherlock's "grave", and then leaving, asking Sherlock to not to be dead. Sherlock himself is seen, alive and well, just outside the graveyard (Watson doesn't see him) smiling slightly.
So the viewer knows that Sherlock is alive, but is not told why. Hundreds, if not thousands, of theories on the subject have gone viral on the internet. Wikipedia listed "tagwords" of the several theories (e.g. mattress, dummy, giant rubber ducky, physcotropic drugs) to account for Sherlock's survival of the fall. The Wikipedia article also mentioned that, on hearing the many theories, one of the creators of the show commented, "there is a clue everybody's missed ... So many people theorising about Sherlock's death online – and they missed it!"
Upon looking over the "tagwords", I noticed something that was missing, that was never explained in the episode: IOU.
And now we begin the mighty theory that accounts for everything in the episode (I think. Don't get too angry if I've missed something, but I'm 98.69% sure I didn't):
First of all, the IOU thing has to be explained before I explain how Sherlock faked his death. If you'll remember, Sherlock grabbed the book, "Grimm's Fairy Tales." Why did he grab it? Well, next we see him in the lab trying to figure out what the five elements found in the footprints are through chemistry. While he's looking at it all, an image of a snippet of the periodic table of elements flies through his thoughts. Around the same time, he gets an epiphany, and mutters, "I... O... U." When asked about it, he says, "Nothing, merely a mental note."
According to a blog I read (http://eva-christine.tumblr.com/post/27733467733/iou-explanation-53-8-92-grimms-fairy-tales-cipher), the author theorizes, due to the context in which the epiphany is found, that IOU refers to elements. The author provides these three elements, "Iodine... Oxygen... Uranium." The atomic number of these elements are, "53... 8... 92." The author suspects that this is a code similar to the one used in "The Blind Banker." The author also suspects that Moriarty left the fairytale book, and that it did not belong to the kidnapped kid. I must say, the genius of this author is amazing. Because the author, using screenshots from the episode, found the EXACT same edition of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" that was used in the episode and examined it. In the table of contents, each story is numbered. The author looked at story #53: Little Snow-White, #8: The Strange Musician, and #92: The King of the Golden Mountain.
You'll have to read the article yourself to see the details I don't want to go into, but suffice it to say that there are MANY parallels from those fairytale stories and the events in this episode of Sherlock. So much so that it is possible to guess what Moriarty had in mind on the roof of the hospital if you were as smart as Sherlock (i.e. From the stories, either from invisible ink that highlighted certain passages or just the gist of the stories, Sherlock could have deduced that Moriarty planned to have three of Sherlock's friends killed if Sherlock didn't commit suicide. Sherlock could've deduced that the suicide would be via a perilous fall due to Moriarty's comments towards the beginning of the episode).
(Update: If the last two paragraphs seem too far-fetched to you, we can simply say that I.O.U. refers to Moriarty's words, "I owe you a fall," to Sherlock. In which case, IOU is simply a threat that Moriarty is going to kill him. And we can say that from those words, Sherlock deduced that Moriarty was trying to get Sherlock to kill himself because it fit into the lie that Sherlock was a fraud. Now that I think of it, this explanation is probably the correct one. But the other one was so interesting I wanted to share it).
And now, here comes my explanation, completely devoid of outside sources. Because Sherlock figured out Moriarty's plan prior to going to the top of the hospital, he was able to arrange for faking his death. He went to Molly, and told her that he needed, in his own words, "You." Does anyone remember what Molly's profession is? I'll get back to that.
Sherlock also noticed, earlier in the episode, that when he went in to see the girl that was kidnapped by, either Moriarty or one of his henchmen, she screamed as soon as she saw HIM. Sherlock is very smart. He was able to deduce that Moriarty was setting him up to look like Sherlock had kidnapped the girl. He must have also been able to deduce how Moriarty had accomplished that. (I figured it out, so could he). Whoever kidnapped the girl wore a mask. A Sherlock Holmes mask. That makes sense.
By the time Sherlock had figured out Moriarty's plan to make Sherlock commit suicide, he had figured out that the kidnapper had worn a Sherlock Holmes mask. Now, either Sherlock found that same mask, or he used that revelation as inpiration for how to foil Moriarty, and had another Sherlock mask made. He then took that mask with him to the top of the hospital.
When he got there, he had a very cryptic conversation with Moriarty. Mainly, Moriarty was disappointed in Holmes for being "ordinary." (i.e. not figuring out something.) The thing that Moriarty thought Sherlock didn't figure out was the message encrypted in "Grimm's Fairy Tales." (Or, if that isn't true, Moriarty thought that Sherlock didn't figure out that there was no key code). Sherlock made Moriarty believe that he didn't figure it out by playing along and pretending to think that the computer program, that could supposedly open anything anywhere, was real.
Moriarty then revealed that if his snipers didn't see Sherlock jump off the hospital to his death, they would kill Sherlock's three closest friends: John Watson, Greg Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Moriarty thinks that he has Sherlock trapped into committing suicide. But after a verbal slip-up, Sherlock deduces that Moriarty CAN call off the snipers without Sherlock having to jump at all. Sherlock then approaches Moriarty and threatens to torture him most severely until Moriarty calls off the snipers. Sherlock says that he wins as long as he has Moriarty. Moriarty, upon hearing that Sherlock would actually torture him, decides to shoot himself because he has no desire to live if Sherlock isn't alive to challenge him and keep him from being bored.
So Moriarty dies. But he didn't count on one thing: Molly. Remember her profession? She's a pathologist. It's her job to determine what the cause of death is for a person. Sherlock put his coat and the mask on Moriarty, props his body up straight at the edge of the building, and makes the call to Watson, making sure that he is at the exact spot where he won't see the fall very clearly, and where the bicyclist can get to him later. He also makes sure that Watson keeps his eyes on him, so that he doesn't see the bicyclist just waiting to take off and hit Watson. Also, so that Watson doesn't see the group of doctors waiting to pick up Moriarty's body. Then he pushes Moriarty's body off the roof, and dons Moriarty's clothes and another disguise to sneak out of the hospital unnoticed. Watson rushes to the spot where Moriarty fell, but is stopped by the bicyclist (a member of the homeless network). In that time, more members of the homeless network, disguised as bystanders get to the body and keep Watson away from it. Then Molly's connections get hospital people to cart off the body very quickly. She makes sure that she's the coroner for the body, and proclaims that it is indeed Sherlock Holmes, and that the cause of death was the fall, not a gunshot wound to the head.
Sherlock Holmes remains in hiding while he tries to get rid of the rest of Moriarty's gang so that they can't continue to assassinate his friends. Meanwhile, no mention is made of the body of Moriarty being found at the top of the hospital.
And that's it folks! I hope you find this explanation satisfactory.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)