{"id":29825,"date":"2016-01-02T10:36:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T15:36:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=29825"},"modified":"2026-05-11T12:56:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T17:56:46","slug":"moriartys-identity-and-the-sherlock-christmas-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=29825","title":{"rendered":"Moriarty&#8217;s Identity and the Sherlock Christmas Special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last night, PBS&#8217;s <i>Masterpiece Theater<\/i> aired the <i>Sherlock<\/i> Christmas special, &#8220;The Abominable Bride.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That was well-made nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/sherlock-xmas2-640x360.jpg\" alt=\"sherlock-xmas2\" class=\"wp-image-29827\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you ever thought the biggest problem with the Canon was that it wasn&#8217;t phildickian enough, Moffat and Gatiss wanted to reassure you that, yes, Sherlock Holmes can indeed mess with your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The Abominable Bride&#8221; wasn&#8217;t what I was expecting.  I thought the episode would be like the Robert Downey, Jr. <i>Sherlock Holmes<\/i> films, albeit on a BBC budget.  What made &#8220;The Abominable Bride&#8221; different from the previous three series of the series was that this episode was set in Victorian, rather than modern times.  Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman would be wearing Victorian garb, riding in Hansom cabs, walking the cobbled streets, and all of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was, instead, something else entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote twitter-tweet is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was hoping for something more Canonical <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Sherlock?src=hash\">#Sherlock<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014 Allyn Gibson (@allyngibson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/allyngibson\/status\/683128943143063553\">January 2, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was, essentially, an extended dream sequence.  Following the reveal that Moriarty was back at the end of Series 3 \u2014 and after Sherlock was exiled from Britain for straight-up murdering a blackmailer by shooting him in the face \u2014 Sherlock entered his &#8220;mind palace&#8221; to solve an 1895 murder and, by doing so, solve the mystery of how Moriarty was still alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote twitter-tweet is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is this? An Inception-like phildickian mindfuck? <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Sherlock?src=hash\">#Sherlock<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014 Allyn Gibson (@allyngibson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/allyngibson\/status\/683119449981861888\">January 2, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There.  I&#8217;ve just ruined the episode&#8217;s plot twist for you, which comes about an hour into the episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One remarkable thing about the episode was how much it referenced other Holmesian media.  Some shots, like Holmes and Watson in the railway carriage, were clearly derived from Sidney Paget&#8217;s artwork in the pages of <i>The Strand<\/i>.  Laurie R. King&#8217;s Mary Russell novels got a shout-out, Holmes makes a reference to <i>The Seven Per-Cent Solution<\/i>, and the climax of the episode pilfered from <i>Young Sherlock Holmes<\/i>.  I was surprised at some things that felt derived from <i>Elementary<\/i>, such as Sherlock&#8217;s drug addiction in the present day, and there was a musical motif that hinted at the Jeremy Brett theme, as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote twitter-tweet is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I was amused by the Laurie R. King reference &#8212; a &#8220;Monstrous Regiment&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Sherlock?src=hash\">#Sherlock<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014 Allyn Gibson (@allyngibson) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/allyngibson\/status\/683139459366301696\">January 2, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enjoyable nonsense, indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-fullwidth\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/sherlock-xmas3-1200x675.jpg\" alt=\"sherlock-xmas3\" class=\"wp-image-29828\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But this nonsese gave me something to think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am entertaining the idea that Andrew Scott&#8217;s Moriarty isn&#8217;t (or wasn&#8217;t) a criminal mastermind.  Rather, the &#8220;Moriarty&#8221; that Sherlock has been battling across the first three series exists in his mind, a creation of his drug-induced mania and the character that Andrew Scott has played was, at worst, a minor criminal that Sherlock transmogrified far out of proportion to his actuality, and it&#8217;s Sherlock himself that&#8217;s responsible for Moriarty&#8217;s crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There were two things that lead me to this theory.  The first was that reference to <i>The Seven Per-Cent Solution<\/i> (Holmes mentions &#8220;the Vienna alienist&#8221; &#8212; in other words, Sigmund Freud), in which Holmes, out of his mind on cocaine, imagines his school maths teacher is a criminal mastermind.  The second was the conversation in the Strangers Room at the Diogenes Club between Sherlock and Mr. Creosote&#8230; I mean, Mycroft&#8230; about Moriarty as &#8220;the virus in the data.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moriarty-as-Holmes would explain a number of problems with Andrew Scott&#8217;s Moriarty, such as his Heath Ledger Joker-like anarchy, which would be a function of Sherlock&#8217;s drug use, rather than his Canonical &#8220;Napoleon of Crime&#8221; self.  It would also explain the bizarre public suicide at the end of Series 2 &#8212; he&#8217;s a man Sherlock has hounded and harassed who has been backed into a corner and this is his only way out and his only way to destroy his tormentor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This would also explain how Sherlock, at the end, knows what Moriarty&#8217;s next move will be. Sherlock knows, because it&#8217;s <i>his<\/i> idea, it&#8217;s something <i>he<\/i> planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some might say this hypothesis &#8212; Moriarty is an out-of-his-mind Sherlock &#8212; is too <i>Fight Club<\/i> and not at all Sherlock Holmes.  But Michael Dibdin used this idea &#8212; a drug addled Holmes is Moriarty &#8212; in his novel, <i>The Last Sherlock Holmes Story<\/i>, and it&#8217;s an idea that has cropped up over the decades in the Writings about the Writings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My one objection to this hypothesis is that it&#8217;s too neat.  Steven Moffat&#8217;s plot twists are never this well planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In absence of other evidence, however, this will remain my working theory &#8212; Moriarty is Sherlock Holmes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, PBS&#8217;s Masterpiece Theater aired the Sherlock Christmas special, &#8220;The Abominable Bride.&#8221; That was well-made nonsense. If you ever thought the biggest problem with the Canon was that it wasn&#8217;t phildickian enough, Moffat and Gatiss wanted to reassure you that, yes, Sherlock Holmes can indeed mess with your mind. &#8220;The Abominable Bride&#8221; wasn&#8217;t what<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=29825\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Moriarty&#8217;s Identity and the Sherlock Christmas Special&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[232,4374,4228,8,265,32,4127,29,7],"class_list":["post-29825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television","tag-benedict-cumberbatch","tag-james-moriarty","tag-john-watson","tag-mark-gatiss","tag-martin-freeman","tag-philip-k-dick","tag-sherlock","tag-sherlock-holmes","tag-steven-moffat","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}