Jd- wrote:Pmofmalasia wrote:Spoiler:Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by the lack of any real case in this whole series. Although, Jd-, I'm not sure why you think it was so obvious that there was no actual vault in the first place. Magnussen seemed to have shown the letter to Sherlock in order to make him think that there were actual documents, and there wasn't really much to hint otherwise. Other than the obnoxious overuse of mindpalaces, which I wholeheartedly agree was irritating. Also, I heard someone say that there were two Morans somewhere. Is that true? Because Moran being essentially irrelevant was pretty odd to me, and it would make sense if he were behind Moriarity's 'return.' Overall, while I did enjoy most of the character stuff, I would have enjoyed it more if we had more than 3 episodes, and it didn't take up 2 whole ones. I say 2 and not 3 since the third was at least an attempt at a case, even though it hardly resembled the S1 and S2 cases.Also:Spoiler:The reason I thought that was two fold. Foremost, it was impossible for such a "library" of all such data to be amassed. The more Holmes mentioned it, the more obvious it was he was building it up to a twist--it was really supposed to house the complete source of all coming and past scandals in the western world and beyond? Our glimpses of it didn't indicate anything close to that, which led to my meta reason being that the architecture for the Appledore place was stunningly new, whereas our glimpses of the "vault" were all of this archaic library. Having a simple vault wouldn't really lead to anything interesting, so just saying, "Hey, he remembers it all" was pretty much the only sensible direction to take that. By the time Sherlock took the glasses and missed the memory thing, I was absolutely certain how that was going to turn out. In fact, I think their intention was for the on-screen display to be misdirection into making viewers think that was actual data coming up on his glasses, but I never thought that, so maybe that's why it all became so obvious so quickly.
Personally, I actually try my best to not solve the mysteries as they are happening, instead wishing to be surprised like a character in the show. I really, really try not to play the meta game and make determinations outside of what's directly presented with a specific intention, but when it gets that obvious, it's not really something I fault myself for--especially when the "mystery" of an episode is really not a mystery at all and kind of disengaging due to its sheer obliviousness.
I don't recall an "other" Moran and certainly not an evil one. It would be quite crazy for them to have a second Moran with the exact same name revived just to replay his original purpose when his namesake was already used for an earlier character of complete disassociation.
All the same, Moriarty definitely has a brother, at least in the original canon. His brother defended him after his death, which is partially why Watson wrote and published "The Final Problem", in order to clear up the misconceptions of what had transpired leading up to the fall at Reichenbach. Interestingly, Moriarty's brother is a colonel, like Moran, and his name is also James Moriarty. It seems likely that Gatiss and Moffat will use this curious detail to introduce a younger or twin Moriarty for later seasons.
Spoiler:The face flicking thing. Boy-o, that was stupid/bad/silly/awful/etc.
Spoiler:
I see, so it would make at least a bit of sense for the other Moriarty to come back now (side note, maybe I mixed up Moran and Moriarty when reading, since there is a second Moriarty) since from the first episode it seems like Sherlock's innocence has just recently been revealed. And eh, I didn't really hate the face flicking thing. I thought its stupidity was the whole point, that he 'owned' Watson now and could do anything to him, no matter how absurd. It being so utterly stupid served to mock Watson.
Also, up until the last second I really thought Mycroft was going to end up shooting him. Especially since they were trying to get Sherlock and Watson away from him, as if to give them a clear shot. (They also say target, singular, etc.) You'd think Sherlock would have picked up on that, too. On the other hand, maybe he thought that they would at least try to find Appledore and take him down legally. On the other OTHER hand, Mycroft is smarter than Sherlock and could have known it was in his head already. Plus taking him down legally likely would have involved the blackmailee's secrets getting out... but why am I even thinking about this now it's clearly irrelevant.
Also, up until the last second I really thought Mycroft was going to end up shooting him. Especially since they were trying to get Sherlock and Watson away from him, as if to give them a clear shot. (They also say target, singular, etc.) You'd think Sherlock would have picked up on that, too. On the other hand, maybe he thought that they would at least try to find Appledore and take him down legally. On the other OTHER hand, Mycroft is smarter than Sherlock and could have known it was in his head already. Plus taking him down legally likely would have involved the blackmailee's secrets getting out... but why am I even thinking about this now it's clearly irrelevant.