Thanks Rhum and Eater. All points noted and agreed with.

no , I don't think it was in his head , after all this is where he arranges to do a deal with Magnusson and bring him the 'christmas present' .


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That's exactly how I feel.

I haven't watched it back but I thought the dog was put down. I don't know if the parents did it because Sherlock was naughty, that would seem out of character for them.
Maybe Sherlock caused an accident and the dog had to be destroyed?

I saw it as possibly being Sherlock's fault. Certainly that the dog had been put down.

It may have been "Summer Holiday, as I have heard of that, but I have no-one to ask as older sister, who might remember, is in Tenerife. Never heard of the Gurney Slade thing. Thanks for the info.

it must have some connection because the child-Sherlock reappears at the end when Mycroft is saying "Sherlock , what have you done ?" .

I guess its another thread we'll be kept waiting on .
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I thought this too.

I don't think he killed Janine, magnussun wasn't a murderer he was a blackmailer he didn't need to kill anyone he used and collected people John let him flick his face and he's not a push over
Janine will have been bullied and blackmailed like everyone else his power was his knowledge
I think that him mentioning Janine was just another subtle hint so we were not too mad about magnussun being shot outright like that clients husband committing suicide we saw sherlock reading in the newspaper.
Magnussun didn't need to kill anyone he'd bully them and control them with his knowledge. If he had killed Janine sherlock wouldn't have had to kill him as there would have been evidence against him

I agree and made that point before.

Also in my mind i consider Magnussen a murderer.
I said before that when he arranged to put Watson in the fire, it is an attempted murder. He clearly said he had people there to prevent it but that's just his word. And even if it's true, it was a very public situation where a lot of unpredictable things could happen, so his people could have been prevented from helping Watson.
In my mind, if something had gone wrong and Watson had died, i would call that murder. And if he did that with Watson, during all the years he did his thing, the probability he did the same to someone else is great.
Even if just Watson, that's attempted murder at least.

I still don't get why they made such an obvious thing of having CAM's men frisk sherlock and watson early on and then not at all later on .

The first scene just draws attention to it's omission later on in fact .


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Molly's boyfriend was there at the bonfire - he was one of Magnussen's cronies

But the thing that magnussun was famous for was his power over people by manipulation, magnussun even said mycroft had been wanting something on him for years so I don't believe he was a murderer or why would they emphasise that he wasnt by his own confession? The whole bonfire thing I admit is dodgy but this is fiction so we are to assume that magnussun was clever enough not to kill off his bait over sherlock to get to his bigger fish mycroft and it was just a test to see how important John was to sherlock

Really? I completely missed that

As Sherlock said himself in his best man's speech he never thought he'd have a friend - let alone a best friend like John. He and Mycroft in The Empty Hearse also talked about their childhoods and how it was a terrible idea to introduce them to other children of their age - neither of them have ever made friends. John is Sherlock's friend by his choice and Sherlock sees that as being important and special - it's why he makes that vow to John (and Mary - but it's at John firstly) that he'll always be there. Sherlock probably views it as his parents love him because they're his parents, that's what happens. John has chosen Sherlock as a friend. Sherlock values that - enough to make that vow and then enough to kill to protect his happiness. I imagine those two years off on his own really brought what John's friendship means home to him (i.e. he was lonley without John).

That's my thinking anyway.

So true! It's funny really. I guess many Sherlock fans aren't familiar with Moffat's Doctor Who. All the over-the-top analysis, the searching for 'significance' in the detail and most of the time it means absolutely nothing.

The first time, he came to Baker St and took over - showing he was the boss by searching them, peeing in the fire.

Later, he was so confident that he was the alpha male that he didn't see any need to check for weapons. He did not think he was in any danger, so didn't bother checking.

If you get the time (and the inclination) watch Cruise Of The Gods, with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon etc. It's about a cruise for fans of an 80s sci-fi series, but where the actors from the series have long moved onward and upward - or in some cases downward and backward!
There's a great scene where the fans are talking about the characters in the series - Romak, Damsar, Riodanto etc., and analysing the character names.
I won't give away the plot, but it is definitely worth watching this scene!

I don't watch Doctor Who but I take your point, that must be annoying.
In fairness to Sherlock though, I think most of the time it's fairly consistent in that much of what happens does have a significance later on.
I've begun watching from the beginning, and even small things, like a seemingly innocuous conversation, have had a bearing on later developments.
I think it's probably a case of lots of threads being laid and the writers deciding which ones to go back to later on.
I've a theory on what might've happened with Redbeard, for instance, based on a seemingly throwaway comment by Mycroft in an earlier episode - I won't bore with it, and could be/ probably am, wrong, but if I'm right then I do admire writers that will keep a continuity going through the different seasons, because that doesn't often happen.

Oh I would like to hear your theory

I never said he was only a murderer. That's in addition to being a blackmailer. Mycroft's comment that Magnussen was just a businessman has to be put in the context that he was trying to convince (officialy) Sherlock not to go after Magnussen. That doesn't mean Mycroft doesn't have information to the contrary.

At the bonfire, Watson was seconds away from dying; how is that just a test? In court, if someone dies from your action and your defense is 'i had people to prevent it but they were too late or something' you're still guilty. Maybe not 1st degree but murder still. The whole show is just fiction, can't use that argument for some part of it, and not others.

I know it was a bit stupid of magnissun to confess to his part in the bonfire kidnap because he still could have been charged with attempted murder but perhaps his leverage over Mary and spilling her secrets would have been enough to stop sherlock and John for reporting that crime at the point he reveals his part he already owns them.
I still don't believe he was a murderer his power was acquiring people and owning them not killing them, he said I'm not a murderer unlike Mary, he had no reason to lie to them at that point

I watch all DW, old and new.
I know Moffat does the same with DW but Who is fantasy/sci-fi. I look for things that are possibly relevent for the story but give him much more freedom than Sherlock.
Sherlock has to be more logical. And it's fun to look even if it's not important in the end. What's important is the journey...
Of course, i won't lose sleep over it, specialy since i read in the Q&A that Moffat said 'Sherlock is not a detective show, it's a show about a detective'

I'm honestly too embarrassed to post it because chances are, I have indeed placed a lot of importance on what was meant to be a trivial remark, and I am in fact becoming a Sherlock geek.
Let's just say, I think the dog might've been killed in an accident that was Sherlock's fault.

Well I posted that earlier and I don't think it's too far fetched.