separating-my-porn-and-tjlc:

Thesis: One of Moriarty’s players has drugged Sherlock with a “dangerous new drug” that doesn’t come up on any current testing. Sherlock is not consciously aware of this and it’s being done without his consent.

Mycroft’s body language in this scene suggests he thinks Sherlock may actually be high. He knows what a case-high looks like for his baby brother and this is not it. It feels wrong.

I was on board with “it’s a case high” until the rest of TST ended up being fucking crazyballs.

We get lots of weird water effects (slosh, slosh) at times when we know there’s no water in the room. We know water represents emotion, but the effects are meant to feel unsettling, out-of-place. It happens in the Welsborough family’s study:

(lol I didn’t tamper with these subtitles)

We get distortion effects in other stuff, too, like pretty much everything is fucking nuts?! I’m not even convinced John actually moo’d at this point. But mostly the skull portrait being ten kinds of wrong at all times is a big giveaway. You don’t need a picture of that from me, it’s everywhere.

Right after this distortion moment, Sherlock is looking at the creepy tory Thatcher shrine explaining to John that he’s giving it special attention due to his intuition (which is that smashed Thatcher busts smell like Moriarty’s work):

“They represent data processed too fast for the conscious mind to comprehend.”



^ This is really fucking important. Sherlock is explicitly saying that his intuitions are vital in figuring out what Moriarty’s going to do next. IF ONLY he’d listen to the solid intuitions he had in his gay Victorian fever dream… ::eyeroll::

So later, when Sherlock says this:

^ Hey, bud. You should really listen to yourself. First off, your “joke” deduction is clearly everything-you-believe-about-Mary and if you’d take that intuition seriously, you might feel better-equipped to protect John and Rosie. But maybe you also remember someone drugging you out of your mind? I don’t know how it’s administered or who did it, just that it’s Moriarty who ultimately pulls the strings at the top of the terrible puppet show pyramid. For our purposes, let’s say his Belstaff is laced with “a dangerous new drug” like the totally-made-up-and-utterly-bonkers poisoned dress France sent to Elizabeth I in that Cate Blanchett movie. So whatever, it’s either long-lasting or they’re administering it to him repeatedly.

(The Moriarty stuff is based on M-theory basics, go read it if you haven’t– @loudest-subtext-in-tv does not claim to be omniscient but I think the core of it is so thoroughly laid out that I find it difficult to argue with. Moriarty is controlling peeps and it helps me understand the show because I know it doesn’t matter what pieces he moves in what ways as long as some means get him to his end.)

Sherlock is super-duper drugged and not by choice. Remember this from HLV?:

He doesn’t like to have his mind impaired when he’s working. Stopping Moriarty is our boy’s top priority so he’s not trying to fuck around. Someone else is drugging him, Scarecrow fear toxin-style.

Back to the Thatcher busts. The Thatcher-smashing scene transitions look cool but they’re meant to be fucking weird, too. Thatcher’s face superimposed on Sherlock’s?! NO. That’s the definition of this feels wrong. And then there’s the original TST write-up with Pietro and Beppo on John’s blog.

The blog is meant to be canon. We’ve seen word-for-word text on screen match up with the blog content in past series. TheImprobableOne’s comments are important clues into Moriarty’s mentality. The main argument that the blogs no longer have to be considered canon is that “John Watson is no longer updating this blog.” per the notice at the top of every page. I would take that idea more seriously were it not for the fact that…

Papa Lestrade’s over here begging the audience to go check out John’s blog write-ups repeatedly. So they want the audience to see the original TST post and question Sherlock’s perception in S04E01 TST. Perhaps he’s in a waking dream state due to being drugged by Culverton. A state which will persist into TLD and result in the trippy long walk through London. Regardless, right now, Sherlock is a bit obsessed with Thatcher-smashing. John calls it:

Ella, and presumably Sherlock before her, call it:

There’s a good chance bustin’ Thatchers has nothing to do with his recurring dream–we’ll find out next week. ;) Maybe it has to do with kissing John! xxxxx

Onto mirror imagery–the three Sherlocks:

Follow the link above to read a little more detail into what I think each Sherlock represents. Basically? I think foreground Sherlock is our logical detective (with a great heart). Level One Distortion Sherlock is his brain running on fear, when he suppresses important intuitions like the knowledge of how Moriarty could have faked his death or the danger “Mary” poses to John. Level Two Distortion Sherlock represents Sherlock’s mind when he’s drugged and afraid. Shit goes crazy, as we’ve seen all throughout TST. And it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

Case meta that could be clues about Sherlock being drugged:

The Cardiac Arrest: Sherlock may end up physically attacking Mycroft while he’s perceiving something completely different/doesn’t know he’s doing that.

Fresh paint to disguise another smell could = some fragrance (or anything, really) being used to cover up the smell or some other property of the drug that would make Sherlock suspicious enough to detect it. Moriarty’s burn-Sherlock plans are meant to demoralize Sherlock as much as inhumanly possible, so they don’t want him to discover the drug and get sober until after he’s adequately mindfucked.

Oh, and Moriarty’s player may have done a test run of the “dangerous new drug” on Charlie.