Originally Posted by eggshell:
“Moriarty pretending to have the key to everything ---because he was bored. (And to make this conceit work the writers had to have Holmes and even his smarter brother believe every word of this piffle)”
Presumably they believed it because they knew there was, indeed, such a key (in their world). That Moriarty had it was made plausible by the fact that he had in fact cracked open the three high-security locations.
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“Then we have the ultimate pretention of Moriarty killing himself because there were no more challenges in the world”
And also to make his plan work. Once Holmes had sussed Moriarty had a way to call off the assassins, he was stuffed.
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“Also the incredibly convoluted plot by Moriarty relied on him getting acquitted and on Holmes killing himself. Boil it down again and the essence of him achieving this is to threaten everybody involveds nearest and dearest.”
I quite like that Moriarty ended up seeming much less impressive than we'd thought. It makes him more plausible.
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“Despite no evidence in defence and Moriarty being caught red-handed -- he's acquitted no questions asked -- really?”
That's the nature of the jury system.
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“He makes up his story about a sonic screw-driver and Sherlocks smarter brother decides he'll get this info by spilling his guts about Sherlock-- really ?”
Everyone has a weakness. Moriarty found Mycroft's.
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“Holmes is convinced that a simple binary code tapped out by Moriarty is the key -- sort of impossible except in Dr Who.”
Why impossible?
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“Best one though is them congratulating themselves on the alias that Moriarty is using that is a play on Reichenbach , the case that Holmes solved ONLY 3 months before. So effectively Moriarty was psychic if he used that as his stage name years before.”
He didn't. He faked the actor's history.
Originally Posted by Virgil Tracy:
“but someone would have to give them the order to kill or not kill since they weren't all at the scene and moriarty's dead . surely they'd be waiting fo such an order from moriarty .”
They were ordered to kill unless they were told otherwise. However, it's true there must have been an observer at the scene who could tell them to stop.
That observer is what makes faking death necessary, and also makes it harder. For example, the fall had to look real from at least two points of view, that of Watson and the observer - and Holmes could only control Watson.
Originally Posted by Trsvis_Bickle:
“The problem I have with the HOUND drug hypothesis is that it's too much of a cop-out for the writers.[...]”
Another problem is that it's hard to see how Holmes could have dosed the observer as well as Watson. If Holmes knew where the observer was and could knobble them, why not just force them to send a false "he's dead" message?
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“c) the ruse does not depend on the involvement of dozens of complicit eye witnesses”
I agree with much of what else you say. However, arranging for a number of complicit witnesses is part of Holmes' modus operandi in the book. In the TV series, he has his network of street urchins ready to do his bidding. I don't doubt that the bicycle rider who rode Watson down, and the crowd that prevented Watson from examining the body too closely, were in on it. That's only about 6 people, not dozens.
but to be fair, that was poor research and direction, not bad acting on Freeman's part.
