(no subject)
Because apparently I've been hit with an attack of the busybrain (thanks to 
thrihyrne for that term) I would like to inflict a bit of Sherlock meta on.
Because series 2 has some timeline Issues, let's be fair. And John's blog actually makes them worse, not better.
But here's a solution: what if the three episodes overlapped with one another?
Here me out, at least.
So SCANDAL has some pretty firm time-stamps, what with Christmas and all. Later, Irene says she let Sherlock have her phone for "six months"--putting the demise of Bond Air in May at the earliest, if we allow that she's fudging a bit. Mycroft, in the final scenes, tells John that Irene has been "dead" two months; even if he's compressing time rather a lot and we let the Bond Air fiasco happen in early May, that means the episode didn't conclude until late June 2011 at the very, very earliest.
FALL also has two firm time-stamps: one, Ella says in the prologue that John hasn't seen her in eighteen months, and two, that the Bruhl kids were kidnapped on the last day before summer hols--in the UK in 2011, that's mid-to-late July. So, even if John had one or two more therapy appointments after moving in with Sherlock, that still puts all of series 1 and series 2 in a time frame of eighteen-ish months, or January/February/maybe March 2010 to June/July/maybe August 2011--meaning some of the events of FALL would have to overlap with the events of SCANDAL for both those time stamps to make sense.
(HOUND doesn't have any such specific date stamps, just one relative one--Moriarty getting released from incarceration at the end of the episode. I'll talk about that in a bit.)
So here's my proposal, working backwards in the case of FALL (which gives us roughly three months of timeline, from the break-ins through the trial to Sherlock's "suicide") and forward in the case of SCANDAL (starting from the firm dates of Christmas/NYE):
Christmas 2010 -- Irene sends Sherlock her phone.
New Year's 2010/2011 -- Irene kidnaps John, the Americans make the mistake of roughing up Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock sends Irene his only text.
Late February into March -- Sherlock's triumphant string of high-profile cases.
Late March to mid-April -- Jim stages his break-ins and lets himself get caught.
Late April to early May -- Jim's trial (six weeks after his arrest). It lasts at least two days, probably more, and after tea with Sherlock, Jim disappears.
Early May -- Irene turns up in Sherlock's bed, begging for his help again, after nearly six months of texting silence. She tricks him into solving Bond Air and texts the information to Moriarty, who taunts Mycroft with it. Everybody's surprised when Irene mentions Moriarty, since he hasn't been seen in days/weeks; Mycroft takes notes.
Mid-to-late-May -- Irene ends up in Pakistan. So does Sherlock.
Early July -- Mycroft informs John of Irene's "death."
Late July -- In the span of a few days, Mycroft warns John that property values in the neighborhood are about to plummet; the Bruhl children are kidnapped and rescued; John punches Lestrade's boss and Sherlock kidnaps him; Kitty Reilly's expose is published, Moriarty shoots himself and Sherlock jumps off a building.
Late July/early August -- John has his therapy appointment with Ella, finally drags himself to see Sherlock's gravesite. Sherlock does a bit of an Edward Cullen impression from a completely non-hidden hiding place.
So, yes, the beginning of FALL and the end of SCANDAL have to happen concurrently. But you know what? I think this actually makes a lot of sense. For one thing, no matter how classified the Irene Adler case is, you'd think that at least some of her testimony about Moriarty could've been submitted as evidence against him, but instead the prosecution's entire case seems to rest on Sherlock's testimony. And actually, how is Irene so casual about name-checking Jim when last series Shan got SNIPERFACED for that in BANK? This timeline makes it clear--the trial happened before Irene reappeared, and by the time she was trying to make Mycroft say "uncle" Jim had already made himself known and got acquitted. "The greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the world that he didn't exist...."
When does HOUND happen? We know from this when it CAN'T have--there are specific times when Jim's whereabouts are already known. I would say there's three plausible options:
--End of February/early March 2011, right before the run of publicity that starts with the Reichenbach Falls painting case. Given that Sherlock's running around without a scarf and his coat hanging open in the episode, I'm not super pleased with this one.
--During the six weeks between the break-ins and the trial. That would explain why Mycroft had to release Jim from custody: he had to show up in court not looking too terribly water-boarded. However, that wouldn't explain why Mycroft wouldn't just re-capture him, if he wasn't done with the interrogations. It also doesn't give Mycroft a lot of time to interrogate Jim and then regale him with Sherlock stories. And, well, given the crazy intense media pressure around Baker Street the day of the trial, it doesn't seem like Sherlock would be able to wander around with a harpoon, covered in pig's blood. (I mean, he shouldn't be able to do it anyway, but the Rule of Funny only takes you so far.)
--June. Specifically, assume that Mycroft captures Moriarty not long after Sherlock unlocks Irene's phone. Jim's been on the DL for several weeks after the trial, so Irene was Mycroft's first clue to his whereabouts; well, that, and the nasty texts over Bond Air. Sherlock and John go to Dartmoor in June, not long after Sherlock's return from Pakistan, and near the beginning of July Mycroft is releases Jim.* Jim goes straight to Kitty Reilly, armed with a skull full of Sherlock stories; Mycroft, fully aware of the risks he's taking, tries to up the security on Baker Street and discovers Sherlock and John's new neighbors. This would come after all but the final coda of SCANDAL, and halfway through FALL--awkward in terms of story structure, but in within-universe terms I think it makes sense.
*I'm not giving up my epileptic tree that Mycroft deliberately released Jim just to see what he'd do, and that Sherlock was partly in on it--that this was, in fact, part of the "negotiations" alluded to in HOUND via which Sherlock got access to Baskerville.
Thoughts? Critiques? Forty lashes with a wet noodle?
thrihyrne for that term) I would like to inflict a bit of Sherlock meta on.
Because series 2 has some timeline Issues, let's be fair. And John's blog actually makes them worse, not better.
But here's a solution: what if the three episodes overlapped with one another?
Here me out, at least.
So SCANDAL has some pretty firm time-stamps, what with Christmas and all. Later, Irene says she let Sherlock have her phone for "six months"--putting the demise of Bond Air in May at the earliest, if we allow that she's fudging a bit. Mycroft, in the final scenes, tells John that Irene has been "dead" two months; even if he's compressing time rather a lot and we let the Bond Air fiasco happen in early May, that means the episode didn't conclude until late June 2011 at the very, very earliest.
FALL also has two firm time-stamps: one, Ella says in the prologue that John hasn't seen her in eighteen months, and two, that the Bruhl kids were kidnapped on the last day before summer hols--in the UK in 2011, that's mid-to-late July. So, even if John had one or two more therapy appointments after moving in with Sherlock, that still puts all of series 1 and series 2 in a time frame of eighteen-ish months, or January/February/maybe March 2010 to June/July/maybe August 2011--meaning some of the events of FALL would have to overlap with the events of SCANDAL for both those time stamps to make sense.
(HOUND doesn't have any such specific date stamps, just one relative one--Moriarty getting released from incarceration at the end of the episode. I'll talk about that in a bit.)
So here's my proposal, working backwards in the case of FALL (which gives us roughly three months of timeline, from the break-ins through the trial to Sherlock's "suicide") and forward in the case of SCANDAL (starting from the firm dates of Christmas/NYE):
Christmas 2010 -- Irene sends Sherlock her phone.
New Year's 2010/2011 -- Irene kidnaps John, the Americans make the mistake of roughing up Mrs. Hudson, Sherlock sends Irene his only text.
Late February into March -- Sherlock's triumphant string of high-profile cases.
Late March to mid-April -- Jim stages his break-ins and lets himself get caught.
Late April to early May -- Jim's trial (six weeks after his arrest). It lasts at least two days, probably more, and after tea with Sherlock, Jim disappears.
Early May -- Irene turns up in Sherlock's bed, begging for his help again, after nearly six months of texting silence. She tricks him into solving Bond Air and texts the information to Moriarty, who taunts Mycroft with it. Everybody's surprised when Irene mentions Moriarty, since he hasn't been seen in days/weeks; Mycroft takes notes.
Mid-to-late-May -- Irene ends up in Pakistan. So does Sherlock.
Early July -- Mycroft informs John of Irene's "death."
Late July -- In the span of a few days, Mycroft warns John that property values in the neighborhood are about to plummet; the Bruhl children are kidnapped and rescued; John punches Lestrade's boss and Sherlock kidnaps him; Kitty Reilly's expose is published, Moriarty shoots himself and Sherlock jumps off a building.
Late July/early August -- John has his therapy appointment with Ella, finally drags himself to see Sherlock's gravesite. Sherlock does a bit of an Edward Cullen impression from a completely non-hidden hiding place.
So, yes, the beginning of FALL and the end of SCANDAL have to happen concurrently. But you know what? I think this actually makes a lot of sense. For one thing, no matter how classified the Irene Adler case is, you'd think that at least some of her testimony about Moriarty could've been submitted as evidence against him, but instead the prosecution's entire case seems to rest on Sherlock's testimony. And actually, how is Irene so casual about name-checking Jim when last series Shan got SNIPERFACED for that in BANK? This timeline makes it clear--the trial happened before Irene reappeared, and by the time she was trying to make Mycroft say "uncle" Jim had already made himself known and got acquitted. "The greatest lie the devil ever told was convincing the world that he didn't exist...."
When does HOUND happen? We know from this when it CAN'T have--there are specific times when Jim's whereabouts are already known. I would say there's three plausible options:
--End of February/early March 2011, right before the run of publicity that starts with the Reichenbach Falls painting case. Given that Sherlock's running around without a scarf and his coat hanging open in the episode, I'm not super pleased with this one.
--During the six weeks between the break-ins and the trial. That would explain why Mycroft had to release Jim from custody: he had to show up in court not looking too terribly water-boarded. However, that wouldn't explain why Mycroft wouldn't just re-capture him, if he wasn't done with the interrogations. It also doesn't give Mycroft a lot of time to interrogate Jim and then regale him with Sherlock stories. And, well, given the crazy intense media pressure around Baker Street the day of the trial, it doesn't seem like Sherlock would be able to wander around with a harpoon, covered in pig's blood. (I mean, he shouldn't be able to do it anyway, but the Rule of Funny only takes you so far.)
--June. Specifically, assume that Mycroft captures Moriarty not long after Sherlock unlocks Irene's phone. Jim's been on the DL for several weeks after the trial, so Irene was Mycroft's first clue to his whereabouts; well, that, and the nasty texts over Bond Air. Sherlock and John go to Dartmoor in June, not long after Sherlock's return from Pakistan, and near the beginning of July Mycroft is releases Jim.* Jim goes straight to Kitty Reilly, armed with a skull full of Sherlock stories; Mycroft, fully aware of the risks he's taking, tries to up the security on Baker Street and discovers Sherlock and John's new neighbors. This would come after all but the final coda of SCANDAL, and halfway through FALL--awkward in terms of story structure, but in within-universe terms I think it makes sense.
*I'm not giving up my epileptic tree that Mycroft deliberately released Jim just to see what he'd do, and that Sherlock was partly in on it--that this was, in fact, part of the "negotiations" alluded to in HOUND via which Sherlock got access to Baskerville.
Thoughts? Critiques? Forty lashes with a wet noodle?