It WAS sand put in the gas tank.
I honestly thought the guy with the model glue smell would turn out to be a diabetic in ketoacidosis, based on that glue smell and other symptoms, such as pallor, sweating, and thirst. The insulin pump and artificial sweetener seemed like they were also pointing toward a diabetes-related resolution.
Never mind, missed the next page of responses.
I’m not going to use spoiler tags because this is total speculation. As **amarinth **points out, Roger Rees is a pretty well-known British actor. Almost too well-known for such a bit part… Maybe we’ll find out later on that there’s Mor to him than meets the eye. 
This show continues to be frustrating. Some good parts, some dreadful parts. The previous week reminded me of how good an actress Lucy Liu is. (She’s done some really dreadful stuff lately.) Not so much with this last one.
It seems that the most common scenario is that the killer is a virtual background character (hardly given any lines) only seen for a short period of time twice in the first 40 minutes or so. Nothing obvious is shown that indicates that he/she is likely. Only in the last few minutes does Sherlock make the Big Reveal. So I’m starting to rule out anyone shown only once or more than twice or where they try to overtly suggest the person might be the killer.
After the part about the different SAND in the fuel tank, and how the plane was supposed to go down in the water, I thought of how Kennedy was lost in his plane in the water, no evedence. Gave me a shiver, really like this show, will get through the slow parts just to follow the brain training of the thinking parts.
My wife, who has a great track record at predicting twists, noted that the name of the FAA agent was unusual: Molinari. Odd name, and similar to Moriarty. If that character returns, then my money’s on a female Moriarty.
The idea that a few handfuls of the uneroded sand was freshly detectable by casual glance after being mixed into the regular sand, and further the fact that the sand looked fresh and new and frosted after being clumped up in gasoline and then exploded in a plane crash and got scattered about is pretty ridiculously implausible.
I was kind of disappointed the show wasn’t above using one of those magical video cameras that allows you to zoom in and enhance the image as much as you need to. I suppose that they were a little more interested in setting up the opportunity for Watson to point out to Holmes that the guy had an insulin pump on his belt than worrying about running afoul of this trope, but it would’ve been nice for them to at least make an attempt to get it right.
Watched last night’s episode. ftg’s observation seems to hold true. This one, it is the son of the imprisoned killer from his alibi girlfriend who was married at the time. The son is presumed to be her son from her husband. We meet him once in passing when they go to track down the girlfriend to fill in details, and find out from the son she died.
Later, we find out he volunteers for a reading program at the prison, met the father, and taught him to read. Now apparently he is killing using the signature and framing one of the other suspects to get his father out of prison.
I remembered this trick, so when Sherlock is busy discounting the suspect they arrest, I picked the killer. Not the reason, but the identity.
I don’t remember getting a good close-up on the kid’s face, but I didn’t think his eyes looked blue, I thought they were dark. If I’m right, there goes the alleged tip-off on paternity.
Yeah, I didn’t get a close look either. I was wondering on that, because they didn’t exactly look blue to me, either. I thought it moderately reasonable assumption without the blue eyes, but that gives a tangible reason for the boy to wonder about his parentage.
I didn’t notice them particularly either, but I for one can’t necessarily see eye color of someone on film unless they’re in pretty tight close-up, which this guy wasn’t.
I wouldn’t have noticed on my own that there were blue, but once Sherlock pointed it out it looked to me like the kid had dark blue eyes.
The IMDB page for this episode says that the actor playing Sean Figueroa is Juan Castano. There’s only two pictures of him on IMDB, and his eyes look brown to me. Maybe they had the actor wear contacts.
Not much of an episode. On the plus side, it had Callie Thorne (Rescue Me, The Wire, etc.). Perhaps she’ll return as a not-so-good cop foil.
And there were two therapists that were happy to blab to Watson about what Sherlock said in therapy. Okaaaay.
Anyone not doubt that Sherlock was lying about Irene Adler being dead?
7 episodes in and no hint of Moriarty.
Wow, no comments on last night’s episode yet?
This show continues to grow on me. I wonder how they’re going to resolve the “we’ve only got 23 more days together” thing. Is she going to decide to stay on and continue to be his sober companion, or will they just drop the whole pretense and she’ll become his fellow crime solver? Maybe she’ll go back to being a doctor and continue to help him solve crimes on the side.
I like Alfredo. I wonder if he’ll become a recurring character.
As for the mystery…it’s a little unbelievable that Pradeep (sp?) was walled up for all that time and nobody noticed, and also that in four years nobody else dialed the wrong number and detonated the bomb (unless it was set up to only go off if the number was dialed more than once in X amount of time…I missed if they said that, but that’s what the wrong-number guy did).
Good to see Lisa Edelstein again after House. Wondering how she got the expertise to build the bomb, though. They explained how she knew how to refinish walls, but not how to build time bombs.
I must have missed something in the beginning. Why is she leaving him after 23 days? I liked Alfredo, too, but Sherlock doesn’t need two sober companions.
Alfredo wouldn’t be a sober companion, he’d be a sponsor. If I understand the difference correctly, a sponsor is a fellow recovering addict who’s “been there” and can provide support. Watson isn’t a former addict, she’s a consultant hired to keep Holmes clean. And she leaves after 23 days because that’s when her contract with Holmes’s father expires.
Yes, a sponsor would be an ongoing, nonprofessional (unpaid) relationship. Watson has a paid gig that is supposed to be up in three weeks. Since she mentioned that she doesn’t have another job lined up – and since she’s Watson – I assume they’ll keep her around on some pretext or other.
Definitely hoping they keep Alfredo around, I think that could be entertaining.
A bit of a change-up in plot this week. You knew right off that the enviro-bombing nut (Merc from Episodes!) wasn’t it. When the two company folk walked into the room, I immediately ruled out Cuddy, so I was focusing on the #2 guy. Suspected a secret affair thing. So I was half right.
Was this the first time that a “major” guest character was the perp? I guess you can’t have a guest star as big as Lisa Edelstein on without making her character important.
Here’s the thing. I don’t get drawn “into” the show. These are actors saying lines in a script. I seem to be mainly interested in the structure of the thing. What are the writers thinking about? Why are they plotting out things the way they are. I.e., the making of the show itself is the mystery I am analyzing.
It’s a meta-mystery.
I miss Community.
Regarding this week’s plot.
So - a pager. Sure, why not.
But doesn’t someone have to PAY to keep that pager active, like a cell phone?
Why would someone continue to pay the phone bill for a pager that they obviously want to forget they ever put there in the first place?
So who was paying to keep this pager activated?