Twins? … It’s never twins! … But there's always two of us! Two of us against the rest of the world!
There is something about the number 2 in Sherlock BBC, which is impossible not to see after the course of thirteen episodes. And a lot has already been written about it by various people. ‘Two’ and several names which are also meant to express a number of ‘two’ - like double, couple, pair, twins - turn up time and again throughout the whole story.
A summary and some musings on the topic below the cut ...
The two beginnings
First of all, Sherlock BBC is a story with two starting episodes, which in itself isn’t unusual. And yet, if one takes a closer look, there are some things - just minor details - that seem to be a little bit strange after all. The two points of beginning are:
THE UNAIRED PILOT - a 60 min episode called ‘A study in pink’
A STUDY IN PINK - the 90 min official first episode of S1
An extension of 30 min naturally leads to differences, as does a change in directing. The unaired PILOT was directed by Mary Rose Helen Giedroyc, Lady Bowyer-Smyth, known as Coky Giedroyc. The BBC decided not to broadcast the episode because they wished to change the length to 90 minutes. The PILOT was released on the DVD of the first series, and it proved to be slightly different from the final 90 min version, directed by Paul McGuigan.
However … there are certain changes between PILOT and ASIP which seem … odd. Most of all though, some seem quite unnecessary.
Angelo went to prison for car-jacking in PILOT ... for house-breaking in ASIP.
Sherlock can identify (by looking at the hands) a retired plumber in PILOT … an airline pilot in ASIP. (plumber/water, pilot/air … an interesting change)
Northumberland Terrace in PILOT changes into Northumberland Street in ASIP.
The barking dog can be first heard at the end of PILOT and at the beginning of ASIP.
Sherlock and John meet at 221b for the first time on January 14th in PILOT … on January 29th in ASIP (according to John’s blog). The victim prior to the lady in pink dies on January 27th (stated on screen).
The visual appearance changes from natural, vivid colours in PILOT ... to pale and cold colours in ASIP. Especially Sherlock looks like a marble statue in some scenes.
The attraction between Sherlock and John is a much stronger one in PILOT than in ASIP. The PILOT episode isn’t called ‘gay pilot’ for nothing.
Virtually all the scenes from PILOT which have been taken over to ASIP are shot mirrored. The brilliant video Mirror Mirror Mirror by @kateis-cakeis shows this in detail.
If anyone is interested, @callie-ariane did a wonderful script comparison of PILOT and ASIP, side by side, on a download PDF here. This comparison reveals that the biggest parts that have been changed for ASIP are:
the addition of a fifth victim
a short description of the victims
the visual introduction of Mycroft
the (very early) intoduction of Jim Moriarty compared to canon
the transfer of the showdown between Sherlock and Jeff Hope, from the Baker Street 221b living room to the Roland-Kerr Further Education College
All of these are understandable decisions. Even the different visual appearance can be easily explained by the work of another director …. though regarding Sherlock BBC, an amendment like this would largely depend on the creators themselves, I guess.
What’s really odd though are all those little, seemingly unnecessary changes listed above. What makes the difference between car-jacking and house-breaking … between terrace and street … between plumber and pilot … between January 14th and 29th? And the mirrored shooting of almost all the reused scenes. Doesn’t this need a rewriting of all the shooting scripts in question? This seems to be a load of unnecessary extra work for an extension of 30 min .. Anyway, be it coincidence or purpose, there are a lot more ‘2s’ interwoven in this story.
Playing with contrasts happens regularly … red&blue, fire&water, burning&drowning, high above&deep down, no-one&anyone, big&small, consulting criminal&consulting detective ...
Playing with the meaning and double meaning of names and words is also quite common in Sherlock BBC … John/Hamish, sister/nun, brother/monk, beech/beach, rooster/cock, cock/penis, game/game, Underground/underground ...
A choice between two possibilities happens several times …. good bottle or bad bottle, saint or sinner, James or John, forwards or backwards ...
Two twin-houses
Roland-Kerr Further Education College is the place where Jeff Hope takes Sherlock for his ‘good bottle-bad bottle’ game near the end of ASIP. The Cardiff Univerity main-building had been used as film-set and for this scene the building was altered and mirrored to give the appearance of two identical buildings. (Cardiff University (x) (x) (x)
Twenty-three and twenty-four Leinster Gardens ... the empty houses ... appear in HLV. They are Sherlock’s property and Mary’s face is projected on them when Sherlock compaires her to a facade. Originally, there was only one ‘empty house’ in canon, situated opposite 221b Baker Street. Strangely, the place from which John shoots Hope in PILOT would conform to the empty house from canon. (Empty houses The impossible house)
Two high security facilities … with several levels below ground, are visited by Sherlock
Baskerville, the military compound where the fear inducing HOUND aerosol is created. Skulls and crossed bones are displayed on the danger signs.
Sherrinford, the special prison where Eurus, the sister turned into a ghost story, is locked up behind elephant glass. Two ‘pirates’ enter the island.
Two landladies rent a flat to a male couple
Mrs Hudson rents a flat to Sherlock and John and asks them if they will be needing two bedrooms.
Mrs Turner, next door, rents a flat to a married couple. Mrs Turner appears in ACDs story ‘Scandal in Bohemia’ as landlady of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.
Two skulls reside in the 221b livingroom. The inflexible bone skull on the mantlepiece next to the statue of the ancient Chinese bowman and the changeable blue skull painting on the wall behind the sofa next to the equally changeable yellow smiley.
Two palaces with partly similar looking interior …. Buckingham Palace and Sherlock’s mind palace (x)
The secret code in TBB is written in ancient cyphers which always come in pairs. The numbers are references to specific pages of a book and to specific words on those pages.
Two neat plans and two rehearsals
The flight of the dead - code 007 Bond Air from ASIB & the similar project of the plane crash in Dusseldorf prior.
The attempted murder of Major Sholto - room number 207 from TSOT & the rehearsal of it involving Private Bainbridge prior.
Two '00′ (double oh) can be heard related to the ‘neat’ plans (x)
In ASIB the number ‘double oh seven’ uttered by Mycroft, refers to the plane he intends to use for the ‘flight of the dead’.
In TSOT the number on Sholto’s door reads 207 - ‘two oh seven' - Mary calls it.
Doppelganger bodies appear conveniently and seemingly out of nowhere to cover up the fake deaths of Sherlock, Irene and Emelia.
Janus Cars … is the car hire company; assiciated with Jim Moriarty, who helpes clients to fake their death. In ancient Rome Janus was the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He usually is depicted with two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past.
And there is also the not very subtle sexual double meaning hiding in plain sight behind the name of this car hire company ... J-anus C-ars … which basically are two different names for roughly the same area. :)
Two explosions hit 221 Baker Street. The first one, in TGG, comes from the outside. The second one, in TFP, comes from the inside.
Two countdowns from 10 to 1 happen ere someone is in danger to die.
The first one happens in TGG related to the fake Vermeer painting and the kidnapped child who wears a vest full of explosives. It’s he fourth cold case Sherlock has to solve.
The second one happens in TFP when Sherlock aims a gun at himself. It’s the fourth task Eurus has set up for him in Sherrinford in which he should choose between Mycroft and John.
Two ‘falls’ from great heigth come to pass in two episodes:
In TRF Sherlock throws himself down from Bart’s roof - to save his friends - after Jim Moriarty shot himself in the head.
In TAB Sherlock throws himself down a waterfall - without being forced - and follows Jim Moriarty into the abyss, flying and smiling.
Two reddish balloons represent ‘quite the guy’ John Watson in two episodes - TEH and TST.
Two roosters/cocks appear in two episodes which also contain two serial killers with certain similarities. In ASIP the cock is linked to John Watson. In TLD the cock is linked to Culverton Smith. (x)
Felines and canines appear in two different versions. One is harmless, like cats and dogs. One is dangerous, like lion and monster hound. (x)
Two pet animals of two children are taken away by a family member. Sherlock misses his dog Redbeard. Kirsty misses her rabbit Bluebell. (x)
Redbeard and Yellowbeard are the names little Victor and little Sherlock invented for themselves when they played pirates.
Two occurrences define Sherlock’s personality - Carl Powers and Victor Trevor:
‘It’s where I began’ … that’s how Sherlock describes the Carl Powers case about a drowned boy and his missing shoes.
‘Every choice you ever made; every path you’ve ever taken – the man you are today ... is your memory of Eurus’ … that’s how Mycroft descirbes the Eurus case about a drowned boy and a missing dog.
Two serial killers appear, who deem themselves nice. They like to talk to their victims and have quite noticeable teeth. Jefferson Hope in ASIP & Culverton Smith in TLD.
Two stillborn children play a role …. Rachel Wilson, her first name turns out to be the password of the pink ladies pink phone and Mary Morstan, whose identity was stolen by the woman who later becomes John’ s wife.
AMO & AMMO ... two almost identical words for love and explosives
Codename ‘AMO’ … is used by two different characters. Legally by Lady Smallwood & illegally by Vivian Norbury.
Two times Rosamund Mary …. the same name for mother and daughter
Two times Charles
Carl Powers, from TGG, is the boy who had a fit in the water and drowned.
Charlie Welsborough, from TST, is the boy who had a fit in a car and burned.
Two times Faith … Culverton Smith’s daughter, mirror for John, is envisiond by Sherlock as two different persons. (x)
Two variations of the name James … Jim (short for James) Moriarty & John Hamish (Scotish for James) Watson.
Musgrave and Trevor … Reginald Musgrave and Victor Trevor are original characters who appear in two canon stories (Musgrave Ritual & Gloria Scott) which are the only ones linked to Sherlock’s time at university. TFP combines those stories and connects them to a trauma Sherlock might have experienced in his childhood..
Two problematic sisters
John and Sherlock, each ot the two men has a ‘problematic’ sister. John’s sister Harry is an alcoholic and Sherlock’s sister Eurus is locked up since childhood in a high security facility because she is a dangerous genius.
Eurus is revealed on screen only by the end of the (for now) penultimate episode. Harry has still no visual appearance at all.
There is hardly any contact between the siblings during the majority of the story. They ‘don’t get on’ with each other or are completely forgotten at all.
Harry is listed as potential pressure point for John by Magnussen, while Eurus is a potential pressure point for Sherlock, used by Mycroft.
Both sisters are called by male names
Both sisters are mistaken for brothers by Sherlock as well as John, when they are first mentioned in their presence.
These are enough similarities between those mysterious sisters to call it quite strange, I think. Mycroft’s advice for Sherlock comes to mind:
SHERLOCK: For one person to be in both groups ... could be a coincidence.
MYCROFT: Oh, Sherlock. What do we say about coincidence?
SHERLOCK: The universe is rarely so lazy.
As much as Harry and Eurus seem to have in common, there’s one big difference. While Eurus lives her lonely life mostly behind elephant glass, Harry had been married with Clara for some time. But three months before John and Sherlock meet, the women split up and got a divorce.
A Catherine hiding in plain sight
As @shylockgnomes pointed out in her post about the 'High incidence of Katherines’ in Sherlock BBC, the name Clara basically has the same meaning as Catherine … bright, clear, clean, pure. Clara seems to be a Catherine hiding in plain sight, one might say.
Catherine is of Greek origin and became later, in the early Christian era, associated with the Greek ‘katharos’ … meaning ‘pure’. Earlier derivations list as possible roots for Catherine the name of the goddess Hekate and the Greek name Hekaterine ... meaning ‘each of the two’.
And this is the point where especially one possible meaning behind the name Catherine ... ‘each of the two’ … becomes highly interesting for a story packed full of pairs, couples, double ohs and twins.
Each of the two - what might this mean?
Does it refer to two autonomous characters like Sherlock and John or does it refer to two different versions of one and the same character. What if we are dealing with two John’s in this story (alongside with two Sherlock’s)? Two of a kind for each of the two ... but not twins.
John Watson seems to be the character everything else circles around inside Sherlock’s mind palace. But there is a great difference between the John Watson of the PILOT and the one in ASIP. While PILOT-John seems to have not much problems to show his romantic interrest in Sherlock, the same character is much more restrained in ASIP. This attitude grows constantly over the course of the story, until it reaches an absolute low point in TLD. John claims again and again, in almost each episode, that he’s not gay. He downgrades Sherlock’s introduction of him from ‘friend’ to ‘colleague’. He tries to teach Sherlock the appropriate interaction with other people and the correct social behaviour … even when it is quite clear that Sherlock doesn’t like it. He jokes about some of Sherlock’s special characteristics with mutual friends and even tells him to ‘be not himself’ and demands that Sherlock should ‘hold himself to a higher standard’ because of the people who read the stories. And alongside those repeated verbal rebukes there’s also a constant increase of physical violence.
For more than a century the friendship and love between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson is known to be among the most famous in literature. It hardly ever happens that the one appears without the other. Not one of the many adaptations I ever watched, depicts the ‘good doctor’ as someone who behaves like John Watson in Sherlock BBC. This John Watson becomes more and more out of character as the story runs along. Sometimes it’s almost as if this man isn’t THE John Watson at all.
‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains must be the truth’ … that’s a main principle of Sherlock Holmes. If this John Watson is so very much OOC, perhaps this is so, because he isn’t THE John Watson?
Viewing all the characters on Sherlock’s mind stage as aspects, as certain opinions he has on various matters, and not as autonomous real-life people, it could be entirely possible that Sherlock tries to analyze his attitude towards a romantic/sexual relationship by creating different ‘editions’ of John Watson. The special attempt of a genius brain to fathom out his own feelings, desires and fears. If so, are there any indications in this story that more than one John Watson is present?
Two times John?
As mentioned in this post, there exists a scene in PILOT in which John appears twice in one single shot. It happens during the taxi ride to the crime scene of the pink lady, when Sherlock explains his first deductions about John to John. In one of the flashbacks John can be seen entering the lab while he is already inside, offering Sherlock his phone.
Recently I discovered that a similar shot exists in ASIP as well. It’s also in one of the flashbacks during the taxi ride to the crime scene of the pink lady, when Sherlock explains his first deductions about John to John. ‘Wounded in action, suntan – Afghanistan or Iraq’ … that’s the exact point when it happens. This time though the appearance of the ‘second John’ is rather colourful. One might even say … rainbowy. :)
Hope and Faith
The Lying Detecive is the (for now) penultimate episode of the story and very closely connected to A Study in Pink. Each of the two episodes is about a serial killer who deems himself 'verging on nice’, loves to talk to his victims and displays quite noticeable teeth.
Jeff Hope from ASIP has two bottles to offer, good pills and bad pills full of ‘chemistry’, from which Sherlock is expected to choose one.
Culverton Smith from TLD has a daughter called Faith. With her bad leg and the cane, she’s very obviously a mirror for John. The included flashback to John limping away from the pink lady’s crime scene and also the scene in which Faith’s gun gets thrown into the Thames (like John’s in PILOT), underpins the mirroring even more. Faith is displayed as two similar looking but entirely different persons.
As it turns out later, one of the two Faith’s is actually Eurus, Sherlock’s 'other one’, his sister who gets mistaken for a brother (like John’s sister Harry). Eurus represents Sherlock’s emotional side … especially with regards to his feelings for John … hence Faith’s display as John’s mirror with cane and limp.
TBB and the theory of two John’s
The Blind Banker has proven again and again that this episode is the user manual for Sherlock BBC. If there are indeed two different John’s - respectively Sherlock’s - put into this story, TBB should confirm this theory. Are there two John’s/Sherlock’s included in TBB? Yes, surprisinly, there are.
In this episode John as well as Sherlock are presented as double mirrors. Due to several random and minor incidents, General Shan mistakes John for Sherlock.
Debit card, name of S. Holmes.
A cheque for five thousand pounds made out in the name of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
Tickets from the theatre, collected by you, name of Holmes.
We heard it from your own mouth. “I am Sherlock Holmes and I always work alone …”
And so, in General Shan’s view, John becomes Sherlock and Sarah - the ‘pretty doctor companion’ - turns into John. Basically, in every scene in which those three characters interact with each other, there are indeed two John’s and two Sherlock’s present ‘on stage’. It seems the theory that both main characters are represented in two slightly different versions is not that farfetched after all.
That’s not the John Watson I know
There’s this short dialogue from ASIP, the first official episode of Sherlock BBC, (it doesn’t show up in PILOT) ... could it be another piece of evidence that there’s more than one John Watson in this story. Is this a classical case of ‘we told you, but did you listen’?
Two Johns? Two differnt aspects represented by the same character? One positive, one negative? Like Jeff Hope’s good and bad bottles? And also two Sherlock’s?
The concept of an inflexible, unchangeable relationship between ‘eternal’ just-friends, the same as it has been for over a century. A version that will slowly kill Sherlock internally until he ends in the solitude of the Sussex Downs all alone with his bees? Again ...
And the other concept … a finally changed 'new’ friend, a different John, who falls in love with Sherlock Holmes at first sight and never leaves him again? And a Sherlock Holmes who gives in to the softer emotions and his neglected ‘transport’. A man who finally drops his facade to accept love, romance and sex in his life?
The detective and his doctor who, at long last, leave their crime scene and have dinner with each other (fulfill their desire) at a lovely Chinese (emotional) restaurant. :)))
More about pairs: Things coming in pairs Couples & Pairs Double oh 7 - Bond Air is go
I leave you to your own deductions. Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.
1. A pair of children’s shoes that are geared towards encouraging physical fitness by gamifying exercise. The shoes could utilize a system of lights and sounds to instruct the child in simple workout routines, all designed to incorporate branding elements of Nintendo’s Mario franchise. The shoes could correspond to an app that can be viewed by the parent or guardian so they can monitor their child’s physical activity.
2. A watch that works not as a fitness tracker, but as a wellness companion. The watch would track basic self help habits that encourage the user to develop independent life skills. As progress towards personal goals is made, the user received bonuses within their Animal Crossing game that are thematically related. The associated application for the watch would allow people to better add, edit, and track their goals, as well as the rewards they receive for reaching them.
