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#the real mutual understanding was the disappointment in their veiled speeches
whynotimtired · 2 years
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It only takes one hour to become a mike has known about his feelings the whole time truther
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prince-toffee · 3 years
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Villains
Part One
Hordak’s heavy steps echoed across the hallways as he marched alongside four rows of his personal guards, his most skilled and deadliest warriors, two rows on his left and two on his right. In their hands they firmly gripped stun-batons and stun-staffs. Hordak himself had no weapon except for his own bare hands, enhanced by his exo-skeleton armour, plating coating his chest, cables coiled around his thin weak arms, like a secondary thick layer of muscles, and metal boots enhancing his speed. The symbol of the red wings of the vampire were painted onto every armour of every soldier of the Horde.
The reason why Hordak had gathered his guard and set off to the Black Garnet Chamber was because of an act of treachery, and betrayal. Shadow Weaver had taken up the sword against him, so to speak. The clone lord had employed the sorceress for her professional and prideful knowledge of magic arts and his own lack of such knowledge. He was far more of a man of science, he knew things about space and machinery no one else on Etheria did. Well maybe one person did, this Entrapta seemed to be more of Hordak’s speed. He did not know much about the Princess of Dryl, but she seemed bright, she was a rare blessing among the people of the planet he was trapped on. She was a scientist, a true scientist, very little of those on Etheria. Her language he could understand. She was the only person that could hold a proper conversation with him, that was something he quite enjoyed, even though they had only spoken once or twice.
She was one of the hostages Shadow Weaver was holding in the chamber room. The other hostages frozen in place by her dark magic included both Force-Captain Scorpia, recently assigned to that division for her professional expertise to help increase efficiency, and Force-Captain Catra to whom the ex-Scorpion-Princess was assigned to as Catra seemed easily distracted, unfocused, and strangely obsessed with her archenemy. Hordak remembered appointing the Magicat the new Force-Captain, it was in their first interaction. He remembered Shadow Weaver dragged her ward into his throne room hopeing to embarrass and berate and insult her, Hordak didn’t care about such pettiness. From what he understood they were one Force-Captain down, as one of Weaver’s wards had deserted the Horde. So he simply appointed the second best fitting candidate, the records and grades claimed that even though Catra was the most absent and late person on the team, when she decided to show up she showed she was skilled in combat, strategy-crafting, leading, and thinking outside the box. She seemed right for the pick.
Hordak always had a sneaking suspicion that there would come a day when Shadow Weaver would try to betray him, but he had hoped that their promise of mutual destruction would have prevented the either from crossing the line. Weaver needed to leech off of other sources to survive, she usually resorted to people in her earlier days before bowing in front of the Horde and Hordak, afterwards she only needed the Garnet. Hordak had given Entrapta the go-ahead to study and use the Garnet in any way she wished as her experiments seemed to increase the overall efficiency of the Horde. Shadow Weaver didn’t like that. She choose to fight back.
Hordak and his soldiers reached the door leading to the Garnet Chamber. The young general reached out with his claw hand, his greyish-blue talon pressed a green button, waiting for the button to instruct the metallic door to slide up. Before the door itself could open up the metal slab burst open and peeled back like a banana, a black and crimson shadow claw grabbed him. It’s own talons tightened around him forcing out a scream from him. And he was yanked inward into the chamber, he fell onto the cold floor, or at least it should have been cold, but it was getting hotter, no doubt due to the electrical magic expelled by the dark sorceress.
He growled. Before he could get up onto his own two feet the darkness latched onto him, flinging him up into the ceiling, forcing him to crash against various wiring and cables that dislodged and fell down with him. He began to breath heavily as pain shot throw his body.
The troops moved forward to engage, but were frozen by Weaver’s magic almost immediately, like the two Force-Captains and Princess on the side, all simply looked on in fear as the Mysticore witch overpowered the Lord of the Horde. Tendrils of magic wrapping around his frame, tightening and crushing both him and his suit. He got a few good hits off on the woman, one punch braking a shadow construct, the second punch making contact with the witch and the impact threw her across the room. He knocked the wind out of her, that slowed her down as she tried to catch her breath. Bent over, eyes down, hands on her knees, she didn’t see another fist flying in her direction. The hit shattered her mask, pieces of the mask, spit and a single red droplet flew into the opposite direction of the punch. Luckily all the teeth were intact. That got her real angry.
The dark woman drew back her arm, a small black sphere appeared a few centimetres above her palm, red veins of electricity crackled around her hand and the sphere grew to the size of a bowling ball in seconds. And from it shot out a beam of black that hit Hordak directly in his chest. The pain and sensation it inflicted apon Hordak was indescribable, cold like the vacuum of space, while simultaneously burning like being in a whirlwind of a wildfire. He was pushed up against a wall and the dark beam kept him in place, the black mass spread across his body like a thick dense clay. The cold and the burning spread with it. His deep screams and yells increased in volume. Pain like a thousand knives stabbing his nerves.
“We had a deal! You stay out of my way and I stay out of yours! Simple! The Garnet is mine! No one else will touch it!” The black and red mass coiled and spiked, Hordak screamed so much he ran out of breath. “Watch! All of you!” Shadow Weaver turned to the guard troopers and the trio. “Watch as your leader and ‘Lord’ is defenceless, the conqueror conquered!” The clone general attempted to struggle against her hold, but it was all for nothing. The witch noticed the movement and had enough of this, she clamped her fist closed, tightening around the sphere, stabbing her fingers into it, and then flicked them out from the sphere. Like manipulating a voodoo doll, the black mass tore Hordak’s armour apart like plastic. “You were told to fear the Hordak, made believe that he was powerful, terrifying, a demon among men! And yet, all a lie! Look at him, your frail, weak, and sick ‘Lord’! This is the liar and fraud under whom you kneeled! Reject, banish this pretender! And pledge your loyalty to me!... or else.” She turned to Hordak for the finale time, and she blasted him out of the room through the wall, outside.
The soldiers were freed, and they quickly kneeled to the Shadow Weaver, very obviously out of fear. Catra, Scorpia, and Entrapta did so as well. And Hordak, several metres outside and below the point from which he was launched. His last moments of consciousness were that of the hole he was pushed through, a crowd gathering around him and a faint chant, “All Hail The Shadow Weaver.” And then the darkness took over.
“And how’d you make it out of The Fright Zone? All the way here? To BrightMoon?”
“That, I entirely do not know. I remember passing in and out of consciousness I... they must’ve dragged me out of my fortress and threw me out into the desert, to let the elements claim me. There one of your scouting groups found me, correct?” The trapped clone looked past the She-Ra at the BrightMoon’s angel Queen. Angella confirmed the latter half of the story, past that she had no idea. The moment the lilac skinned, feather winged, immortal Queen was given the report that some of her woman somehow managed to capture her nemesis and the leader of the Evil Horde, that moment ranked as one of the strangest in her life. She practically leaped off her golden throne and sprinted through the halls to the front of the castle. And true enough, there he was, bleeding and chained.
Hordak was thrown into the castle prison, or so they called it, but where the clone expected cold metal bars, hard floor, greys and other dull colours, and small claustrophobic spaces. Instead he was greeted with bright pinks and purples, soft pillows and blankets and armchair. He was confused. The only aspect of the location that suggested its own true function and purpose was the thin transparent glass-like, curtain, veil-like force field, a pretty rainbow effect coated the structure.
He did not know what to think of the ‘cell’. It was... nice. Even though the Queen acted like it wasn’t. He was pretty sure that the room was some sort of guest room, it looked too nice for a basement, but that was BrightMoon, they probably have storage rooms larger and grander than most rooms in The Fright Zone. “It is a prison!” The angel Queen argued. After the Queen’s long elaborate speech about how Hordak was a monster and the Horde was an evil unparalleled by anything in BrightMoon’s history, and how he should have been ashamed of his actions and that if she was like him she would’ve killed him where he stood, after all that the She-Ra entered.
“It’s just Adora.”
“Very well, She-Ra Adora.”
“Ugh.”
She massaged her templates, her very brief irritation was cut even shorter by a sharp ‘HA’ that escaped from the snickering Glimmer. “The Mighty Evil Lord Hordak, King of Horrors, the Baron of Bedlam, and the Master of Mayhem? Really? I’m kinda disappointed. You were our greatest enemy? Hahaha, can you even do one push-up? Let me guess Weaver uses your arms to pick broccoli out of her teeth? HA!” Hordak’s face remained blank, unphased, and unamused.
None of them noticed his pupils shifted as they were covered by crimson red lens, and they shifted to Adora. Curiously the She-Ra didn’t engage or enjoy the roast, even the stoic Queen and the Head-Sorceress both held cheeky smiles, but not this Adora. Her eyes remained fixed on him.
The difference between Adora and everyone else in that room was the fact that she was from the Horde. Adora had been with the Alliance for almost a year, it was only a few months ago she was still living in The Fright Zone, studying war under the symbol of the Horde. For most of her life she perceived Hordak as their leader, as a strong, righteous hero, a saint who sought to quell chaos in the world and install control, order, and peace. Adora and all the other cadets all their lives looked up to Hordak. To look down on him now didn’t come to her naturally. All her life she wanted to impress him and now she was told to insult him.
“Could you leave us?” Adora’s genuine and semi-serious question shocked everyone in the room. Glimmer was the first to argue, and was the most vocal about it. The Princess of BrightMoon found the request outrageous. Even Angella attempted to oppose her choice, placed a hand on her shoulder, told her Hordak was a manipulator and a conqueror, he could try to trick her. When she realised there was no dissuading the young woman she let off. She ended with telling the young She-Ra to be careful. Angella motioned for Casta and Glimmer to move out of the room.
Glimmer was the last individual to leave, she turned around and she stuck her tongue out, “You better watch yourself toothpick-arms! If you touch a single hair on her hair-!”
“I got this Glim! Thanks!”  Adora interjected, giving her a thumbs up. Glimmer squinted and walked backwards out of the room. And so Adora and Hordak were the only ones left. A tense silence filled the room. Neither really knowing what to say. Hordak didn’t know why he suddenly felt so uncomfortable, perhaps it was the look the girl gave him. She looked... disapproving, or disappointed. “The war could be over soon. At least that’s what all the others think, but if what you say is true, when I think the end of the war is further away than ever... You know, I don’t know if you know, but I was her ward, I think I was her pet, her favourite. It was hard to tell with her twisted version of ‘love’ if you could call it that. She certainly put everyone else down around me.”
“She certainly felt, in her mind, that you were ‘special’ in some way. She said so when I returned to The Fright Zone with you, and you two met for the fist time. Therefore I can definitely see that sort of favouritism forming.”
“...Wait... when ‘you’ first brought me back to The Fright Zone? D- Do you know where I come from?!” That exclamation gave Hordak pause. He wasn’t sure how to approach the subject, he was trained in the art of war, to combat opponents on battlefields of any kind, he could withstand the void of space, and his mind altered to form battle strategies and tactics in milliseconds, of course all of those enhancements have been long lost because of his defect. But this, he was not prepared for. He adjusted his position on the soft fluffy armchair, no matter how he moved he felt his backside sink into it. He awkwardly cleared his voice, that unintentionally brought Adora’s focus back onto him.
“I... well... yes... I” Hordak was not a liar. In fact Hordak himself had no concept of lying, he didn’t know how to, the clone was loyalty personified. It was figuratively and literally beaten into him. So he had to be careful about what he revealed, he may have been truthful, but he wasn’t stupid, arguably. He didn’t want to show all his cards. So he choose to keep his portal secret, same with his origin. So as he replied he choose to leave some key information out, “I was the one who found you, my personal computer picked up an anomaly, a strange, powerful energy surge.” Hordak noticed Adora’s eyes widened, her mouth was gradually opening wider and wider, as she began to lean forward in captivation. “And, uhm, [clears throat] at the time I was not sure what I found, I did not know what you were. But in the middle of a field of quadrant PT5-5-03 in the west region of The Elder Forest, there I found a crying infant and that was you. And so I brought you back with me to The Fright Zone. I had no use for you, and the noises you were making were causing my anxiety levels to rise so I handed you to Shadow Weaver, my Minister of Magicks.”
Adora’s face betrayed the fact that she was disappointed, and the story was quite anti-climatic sooner than her raised volume did. “That’s it?! Not that I wanted you to, but I was expecting you to have stolen me from like a cradle or something. I kinda hoped you’d know where I came from.”
“I do not... I... am sorry?” That was true. He did not. Hordak’s confusion was apparent, he didn’t know how to react to the hero’s theory. And so they stood and sat there for a moment longer, neither saying anything. In that quiet moment Adora realised that the bat lord wasn’t... scary. I mean it was ‘Hordak’, so the name itself was scarier than the actual man, as all her life the name was taught to the cadets as a monstrous horror entity, ‘Hordak’ was a King who sat on top a throne of skulls and he ate hearts and everything died around his step, he had two heads, and he breathed fire. That was ‘Hordak’.
But the man that sat uncomfortably in front of her was no such thing, he wasn’t ‘Hordak’, not ‘The Hordak’ she was told to believe in, all those cadet scary stories they all told each other all kind of seemed non-sensical now, she had to admit. The man she was looking at was thin, slim, in a not healthy way. He looked like a skeleton, like a weak breeze could push him over. He himself looked weak and fragile, sickly even. Now she was getting worried just scanning over him, she thought maybe she should’ve offered him like some mint tea or warm towels or... or something.
“You’re nothing like what we expected.”
Hordak raised his brow ridge, “How do you mean?” He didn’t know why he asked, he shouldn’t have asked.
“I- no offense, but, uh, I thought you’d be a bit scarier, you know ‘a horror of biblical proportions’ something like that?”
“Sorry to disappoint.” He replied awkwardly.
“Yeah, no, no, it’s cool.” She scratched the back of her neck, “Soooo uh... oh did you say you didn’t know ‘what’ I was? I mean I haven’t ever seen your species around, in The Fright Zone or any kingdom I’ve been to while with the Alliance. Do your species n- eh, how do I not make this sound weird, not have babies? Do you guys grow out of cabbages or are delivered by storks, hehehe?” Her attempt at humour flopped as she noticed he didn’t seem to get it.
His eyes darted around the room as if he was thinking of how to articulate something, ”No we... people like me... we are not children, we are in this state all our lives, from gaining consciousness to death.”
“So where do you come from?”
“...That is enough. Leave me.” That was a shame, Adora thought they were getting somewhere, but the cold and the lack of emotion returned. He dropped the eye contact, he stared down at the floor, he turned into a statue, no slight motion betraying the fact he was a real person. Adora tried to start up the conversation again few times, to no avail. Hordak revealed too much already. So Adora left the room.
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withacorkscrew-blog · 7 years
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Sherlock: The Lying Detective
**Sherlock analysis/spoilers below**
In which some people don’t understand what makes villains villainous, what makes characters human, and the difference between love and disaster (or style and substance). 
And in which, again, “some people” does not refer to Sherlock Holmes (mostly).
Also ft. the id!fic I very specifically asked to not ever see, and sadness. 
Starting with the easiest bits, going towards the hardest. 
Does this give us an arc? The return of Billy. The return of Irene Adler. Appearances by Mrs Hudson and Molly and Lestrade and Lady Smallwood. Redbeard, too. The return of a whole bundle of visual motifs: Sherlock’s case wall, Sherlock’s violence towards his case wall, an almost replica of the shot following Irene Adler’s drugging of Sherlock, Sherlock’s deduction with the window and the attendant visual affects, Sherlock’s juvenile wit with the Bollocks map, Benedict Cumberbatch seeming to infuse a certain amount of joy into the role again during Sherlock’s breakdown...a lot of old favorites returned to the show this week, and it felt good. In the moment. But, at least to this point, those pieces don’t feel like they fit together. The underlying logic that would unite them isn’t there. It could be! What if Billy had given Sherlock some of the memory drug? Or what if Mrs Hudson and Billy were in cahoots to get Sherlock the least damaging drugs since, as she points out, her husband was a drug dealer? What if more of the characters interacted with each other? Or did more than their professions, since we get Molly doctoring and Lestrade detectiving, and none of the cohesive human interactions that make the characters feel like more than props? But none of that happened. Maybe the next episode will create that, but at this point It isn't betting odds imo. Not impossible, but not looking great,
Do Mofftiss understand what makes villains villainous? Culverton could have been brilliant political allegory and a psychologically haunting villain. The idea that power creates opportunities for deadly, consequence-free callousness couldn’t be more timely for either European or US audiences. The idea of a rich, powerful man who takes joy in removing people’s agency, who will discard their lives for fun, and who gets away with joking about it on TV...well. The problem is that Mofftiss don’t understand the psychology of marginalization and precarity well enough to understand why that’s a horrific scenario, what’s at stake, how it feels to face down a power that can hold your life in its hands and decide what to do with you based on a whim. They’re closer to being that power than being subject to it (and that’s one reason why this story would’ve been better told in someone else’s hands). That terror is what would’ve made Culverton work. Instead, we get close-ups of his teeth which, like Magnusson’s face-licking, were affectively gross, but not worth more emotionally then a perfunctory wince, and that does more to tell us more how Mofftiss feel about ugly people than it does to establish investment in this nemesis or Sherlock’s victory over him. Reducing him to a fallible, clownish, one-off villain is a waste, and the lack of understanding is telling and terrible.
Did Mofftiss mean to write the TV equivalent of id!fic? Powerful middle-aged white men who make veiled confessions on TV can get away with murder. Are they even trying for subtlety? I mean, I figured that was just my own reading, but then the back to back “It’s amazing what people will ignore if you’re rich and powerful,” and “With this, I could crack America.” The TARDIS-esque hospital room wallpaper and quick shot to aliens on Culverton’s lot didn’t do much to put me off either. I can no longer tell whether this is self-aware wink-wink nudge-nudging, a total lack of self-awareness, or subconscious leakage. But has anyone checked their airing cupboards?
Do Mofftiss understand what people mean about strong women? Cue maniacal laughter, because we already know the answer. It’s just particularly disappointing in this moment, when these twists could have been really fucking cool. Mrs Hudson is a confident badass and there’s a Holmes sister? That would be brilliant! If it was done brilliantly! So...it isn’t. As much fun as I had watching Mrs Hudson - and it was a lot, until the unease set in - it was so far out of left field I almost hurt my neck trying to look for its source. This is the same Mrs Hudson who jumps at loud noises and cries while being tortured by Americans and can’t tolerate being yelled at by Mycroft - and she’s dodging gunshots and strategically dropping things to handcuff violent drug addicts and convincing the lads downstairs to stuff them in the boot of her sports car? I bought that she might hide a phone in her robe, that sort of matter of fact bravery. I bought her deduction to Mycroft and that she would kick Mycroft’s men out to preserve John’s privacy and emotional space. I’ve long bought that she was exceptional in a number of ways. But put all that in a classic mid-life-crisis-mobile and add a dose of violence, and I’m not sure whether I’m looking at a Mrs Hudson or a retired Bond Girl. I am pretty sure this isn’t the Mrs Hudson we’ve seen before. And Euros...the first thing we learn about her is that she uses her appearance to deceive. The Holmes brothers work on intellect and emotion. The Holmes sister? Straight to feminine wiles. Her first big reveal doesn’t center around her mind; it revolves around the audience watching her recreate a seduction and begin to undress. It’s as though Mofftiss can’t conceive of “strong women” beyond the femme fatale trope and that’s really limited. To say the least. I want to know what Mrs Hudson listens to on the radio and why. I want to know how Molly decides what to make for lunch and what it was like for her to realize who her boyfriend Jim was. I want to know how Irene Adler learned to adminster tranquilizers. I want to know how Donovan felt about Sherlock’s death and how it is for her working with Lestrade and Anderson. I want women with interior lives, with interests and motivations and relationships that don’t revolve around men. Kind of like all the ones I know in real life. 
Who are these people? I’m losing track. John is becoming a superspy, thanks to his internal marylogue, and making some very Sherlock-esque deductions, especially with that happy birthday at the end. He also can’t forgive Sherlock, even though he forgave him a faked death and a two-year-long disappearance, but still has chats with Mycroft (who he has to tell to stop calling?), and is hallucinating his dead wife, who he never really seemed to like very much, and also, in the midst of that, completely rolls with the fact that yet another person who he thought was dead is not actually? Sherlock was abstracted and  distant in the last episode, and in this one he’s half killing himself to provoke John into rescuing him and giving mini-speeches about how death affects people and confessing that he’s afraid of dying and admitting that he texts Irene Adler back and talking about how he has the terrible feeling that we might all be human and holding John in a soft embrace? Mycroft is calling John all the time and flirting with Lady Smallwood and letting information about Sherrinford/Euros slip out accidentally? Lestrade is unconcerned with Sherlock’s well-being? Mrs Hudson is treating central London like Thunder Road? Who are these characters, and where did they come from? And who will they be next week? 
John and Sherlock - what? This meta going around suggests that John has become abusive. Watching the episode, I wondered if Sherlock had. He self-harms as a form of manipulation, he tests John’s loyalty in all sorts of ways, he makes unilateral decisions about what’s in John’s best interest even when that puts John in danger, he puts responsibility for his well-being on John’s shoulders, he condescends to and belittles John regularly, he lies to him, hides things from him, he faked his own death for two years and abandoned him while there were dozens of other people who knew...while the aforelinked meta makes some great points, Sherlock’s behavior isn’t exactly healthy. My point here is not that Sherlock is the abuser, though. My point is that their relationship is deeply, dangerously toxic, and I’m not sure how, or whether, I can keep rooting for it as either a romance or a friendship. My instinct in watching their interactions is that these are two people who have been so deeply hurt by each other that there’s no coming back, no real possibility of trust and good faith. That doesn’t mean there isn’t also love there, or that there couldn’t also be forgiveness, or that there can’t be moments of connection based on their shared history, in which they try to keep being the sources of support and understanding that they once were to each other. I don’t think, for instance, that their hug was unrealistic. But I also don’t think it was a moment of great support and reconciliation so much as a moment of convenience and/or last resort because, as Mary points out, they don’t have other options. That’s not love, platonic or romantic; that’s codependence. And I can’t imagine a scenario in which they would still be able to have a genuinely healthy relationship. For that matter, I can’t imagine a scenario in which they would be able to have a relationship that’s anything other than mutual enabling. If there’s anything to grant here, it’s that they might both want to be in an mutually enabling emotional conflagration; they’ve both got self-destructive streaks a mile wide, and this way they get all the pain and someone else to blame for it, and humans are complicated. And hey, who knows who they’ll be next week? But it’s not a thing I, personally, can hope to see more of. It’s not a thing I want to watch. It’s not a thing that makes me care for the characters or their relationship. With my last reserves of caring about either of them, I no longer want Sherlock and John to be together, in any capacity. I want them at a good distance, preferably with therapists who aren’t villainous family members in disguise. 
And then there’s the show’s treatment of their feelings for one another, which I am too tired on too many levels to even touch with a damn bargepole.
Where does this leave things? If John and Sherlock - their relationship, their teamwork as partners in crime-solving, their interactions - are the heart of the show (which I think they are), and John and Sherlock have both become so destructive to themselves and each other that their relationship, in any capacity, is one I want to see continue - what’s left? 
This episode gives an answer: flash. There were moments that were genuinely exhilarating. Seeing Mrs Hudson play the badass, the reveal of a Holmes sister, the recurrence of ‘Miss Me,’ Benedict Cumberbatch’s joyfully unhinged drug-addled attempts at case-solving...it was exciting to watch. Stylish, quick, colorful. Empty. And a bit sad. This show was great because it was tight and interesting, because the characters were relatable, because viewers’ attention was rewarded. It was never the flash that made it. When the flash is most of what’s left...that’s not much. 
tl;dr:  :( 
Things to watch:
They’ve introduced a technology that can alter memories; on a show based on deduction and intellect that could be an exceptionally powerful plot device. Was it a one-off, or will they manage to make use of it? And if so, will it be as a weapon, or as someone’s choice? And who gets to decide? Or has it already been used?
See also, the trailer for The Final Problem: “Every choice you’ve ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today, is your memory of Euros.” “Your memory of” is an interesting choice of wording, especially since the memory is neither so strong nor so recent that (an admittedly drug-addled but still very observant) Sherlock could recognize her in multiple disguises and on multiple occasions.
Potentially related, Sherlock is intrigued by what drugs do to his mind. Will that become a profitable line of inquiry?  
We keep seeing Redbeard, and it’s clear that that’s important. Is Rebeard an abstract representation of something? Did Euros kill Redbeard? Or is there some parallel there - Sherlock was told they both were sent to live on a farm? Sherlock has confused (or been made confused) one with the other? 
When Sherlock and Mary get shot, we see the bullet in slow motion. When Euros shot, we saw a wisp of smoke, but no bullet. Was it a blank? 
Sherlock not having recognized Euros will probs be a thing too, so therefore a thing to watch, idk.
The female detective who appeared briefly in TST, only to disappear again - was that a character who will recur, sloppy continuity/disposable women, or Euros?
What or who is Sherrinford? Another sibling? A location? A code name? 
What the hell was going on in the Holmes household? 
We still don’t know who sent Mary’s CD. Who? Or is this a continuity issue? Or is the explanation that Mary already knew it was going to happen, which I would roll my eyes v heartily about? 
Who will all of the characters be next week? (It’s an adventure!) 
Random thought: There was a person of color in this episode!  Just pointing it out because that doesn’t always happen. As is, of course, to be expected in contemporary London, where everyone is white. Good times, good times. In addition to all the words spilled on this show’s sexism, perhaps we should dedicate some to this show’s casual racist erasure.
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