# Sherlock - The Abominable Bride (spoilers as it airs) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 1, 2016, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895 "2016-01-01T13:46:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/61 "2016-01-06T16:31:15Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > The visual symbolism couldn’t have been an unfortunate coincidence that went unnoticed by a British production team. In the original Doyle story “The Five Orange Pips”, men who had been marked for death by the Ku Klux Klan receive envelopes containing five orange seeds or pips. The murder victim is an Englishman who’d lived in America and had crossed the KKK. In “The Abominable Bride” Sir Eustace receives an envelope containing five orange seeds, Sherlock remarks that this is used as a death threat in America\*, and then Sir Eustace is murdered by a secret society that marches around at night wearing hooded robes because he had wronged one of their members while in America. The resemblance of the women’s group to the KKK must have been deliberate. > > It also appears to have been totally meaningless, or at least that’s the more charitable interpretation. Either this episode intentionally evoked a violent white supremacist hate group for no good reason or we were meant to see the women’s group as comparable to the KKK. Since I find it difficult to believe that the writers actually thought it would be a good idea to suggest that either Victorian women who wanted to vote and have careers were as bad as the KKK or that the white supremacist cause is as righteous and noble as women’s suffrage, I’m going to assume that this was a case of trying to be clever but going very, very wrong. My take was that they used the shape of the hoods (and the other trappings) as a reference to the original story, but the twist is that it was not an awful hate group at all, and Sherlock’s speech makes it pretty clear that it was not meant to draw a parallel between the two. However, it certainly invites criticism, and was a risky move. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/62 "2016-01-06T16:42:32Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > The book title was taken from the writings of John Knox - against women ruling. I find it much more likely that it was a reference to that than to Pratchett. Far more likely to be Pratchett, since he was one of the UKs most popular writers, and the most popular until J. K. Rowling came along. And Knox’s book also gave the title to Thomas Berger’s **Regiment of Women**. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2016, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/63 "2016-01-06T17:39:49Z")
> [@JSexton](#): > > My take was that they used the shape of the hoods (and the other trappings) as a reference to the original story, but the twist is that it was not an awful hate group at all, and Sherlock’s speech makes it pretty clear that it was not meant to draw a parallel between the two. However, it certainly invites criticism, and was a risky move. That twist is likely what was _intended_, but if so the writers botched it because the women’s group depicted _was_ basically an awful hate group devoted to murdering men. As I mentioned upthread, we were apparently meant to believe that the victims were particularly horrible men who needed killin’, but the episode gave us very little evidence of this. Sir Eustace seemed like a garden variety jerk, not a man so cruel and brutal that he deserved to die. Sherlock’s speech makes it clear that he’s sympathetic to the women’s cause, but since they aren’t just a women’s suffrage group but a violent, hood-wearing secret society, this could easily be taken as a veiled plea for sympathy for the KKK. Like I said though, I find it difficult to believe that the writers actually intended to send an anti-women’s rights or pro-white supremacy message. I think they were trying to make a clever reference to the Holmes canon, got caught up in that, and somehow failed to see the very unpleasant implications. But it is surprising to me that they could be that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/64 "2016-01-07T20:52:57Z")
Agreed. But FWIW, British women’s suffrage groups weren’t always praiseworthy in their tactics: [Women's Social and Political Union - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Social_and_Political_Union) ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/65 "2016-01-07T21:27:45Z")
I’ve had a chance to watch it a second time. As with the series 3 episode _The Sign of Three_, this one was densely written and was a bit difficult to keep up with (at least for me), and one that didn’t grab me right away. On second viewing, though, I love it. The writers are clever bastards; there are gobs of references and crossovers between modern times and 1895, as well as wonderful tiny details. It’ll probably take another viewing or two to begin to catch them all. Here are a few: The picture of a skull in Holmes’s flat is there, just like in the modern one, but the 1895 one is actually a picture of a Victorian lady at her dressing table. It’s a trompe l’oeil. Instead of a bison skull in Holmes’s flat, there’s a stag’s head. I like the “Speedwell’s Tea Room” rather than “Speedy’s Sandwiches”. Watson and Stamford share a pint in Clarion’s, just like in ACD’s story. You can see the partial name of the place on the window behind Watson. The pilot in the jet who comes back to talk to Sherlock at the end is the same actress playing Lady Carmichael. ---
**Author:** ![infinitii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@infinitii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/infinitii)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/66 "2016-01-07T21:46:54Z")
[quote=“teela\_brown, post:65, topic:741895”] Instead of a bison skull in Holmes’s flat, there’s a stag’s head. [\QUOTE] I went to a screening at a theater, and they explicitly showed some of these things. Referring to the stuffed head though, they pointed out that while the modern day one has headphone on, the 1800s one has an ear trumpet (lol). Sorry, can someone help out with the tag there? I don’t know how it is supposed to be exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/67 "2016-01-07T21:49:56Z")
Yeah, I went to that, too. The behind the scenes stuff was excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/68 "2016-01-07T22:02:56Z")
> [@infinitii](#): > > Sorry, can someone help out with the tag there? I don’t know how it is supposed to be exactly. [\QUOTE] should be [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/69 "2016-01-07T22:20:42Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > The picture of a skull in Holmes’s flat is there, just like in the modern one, but the 1895 one is actually a picture of a Victorian lady at her dressing table. It’s a trompe l’oeil. I think it was an optical illusion and not a trompe l’oeil; look at the picture one way and you see a woman at the mirror. Look at it another way and you see a skull. Another reference they mentioned; the Persian slipper containing tobacco was on a side table. And I also saw this in a theater screening. (In the US, a company called Fathom Events shows things like performances from the Metropolitan Opera in New York and oddball one-off events like this in movie theaters around the country.) I was planning to see it at the Tuesday night 7:30pm showing but happened to check the website a little while before and was amazed that it was sold out. So I saw it on Wednesday at 7:30pm in a mostly full theater. I figured; who else is going to the movie theater to see something that was on broadcast TV less than a week ago and will be on broadcast TV again on Sunday? (My excuse was that I was out of town on January 1 when PBS first broadcast it.) But there I was, among a couple of hundred other people seeing this. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/70 "2016-01-07T22:55:29Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > … Imaginary or not, I also found it rather troubling that a Victorian feminist group filled the role played by the Ku Klux Klan (!) in the Doyle story “The Five Orange Pips”. … I assume the _intended_ moral was something like “Women deserve the same rights and opportunities as men” but it came across more like “Women are cunning enough to get away with murdering men, so better to keep them happy.” I had a similar reaction. As you note, the murders didn’t come anywhere near being “justified”…even for those who believe, as Moffat and Gatiss apparently do, that anyone with an urge to kill those who “deserve” it is acting perfectly sanely and even admirably. (As was also remarked on by emarkp, quoted below–) > [@emarkp](#): > > Killing men ‘who deserve it’ is just okay. Moffat and Gatiss offered us this message in _His Last Vow_, too, of course. > [@txtumbleweed](#): > > I find sometimes it is better with Moffett to check the plot logic at the door and just enjoy the ride. Yeah. But I think he’d be a better writer if someone would wrestle his dream journal away from him. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/71 "2016-01-07T23:15:51Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Another reference they mentioned; the Persian slipper containing tobacco was on a side table. A direct lift from _The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual_ surely. Just like the shot of the letters nailed to the mantelpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/72 "2016-01-07T23:24:30Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Agreed. But FWIW, British women’s suffrage groups weren’t always praiseworthy in their tactics: [Women's Social and Political Union - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Social_and_Political_Union) A few months ago, I saw a trailer for a new film called [Suffragette](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_(film)), about the sometimes violent struggle to secure for women the right to vote. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/73 "2016-01-08T01:55:09Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > The pilot in the jet who comes back to talk to Sherlock at the end is the same actress playing Lady Carmichael. Played by the lovely [Catherine McCormack](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001517/?ref_=tt_cl_t12)! ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/74 "2016-01-08T05:01:11Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I think it was an optical illusion and not a trompe l’oeil; look at the picture one way and you see a woman at the mirror. Look at it another way and you see a skull… It was this, wasn’t it? Pretty famous in its day: [Charles Allan Gilbert - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Allan_Gilbert) ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/75 "2016-01-08T05:30:25Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > And if it was a reference to a book, it was more likely to Laurie R. King’s novel _A Monstrous Regiment of Women_, the second book in her Mary Russell series featuring a retired Sherlock Holmes. King, Pratchett, and this episode were all ultimately referencing John Knox’s remarkably misogynist polemic pamphlet _The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women_, published in 1558. I enjoyed reading of the reference to the Monstrous Regiment of Women which I missed when viewing the show. I realise this is not the time or the place to debate the issue but I prefer to think of Knox’s book as being primarily anti-papist than misogynist. When Knox published the book both Scotland & England were indeed ruled by “monstrous” female papists. It was just an extraordinarily badly timed book; Elizabeth coming to the English throne just as the book was published. Knox was quick enough to try and mend fences with a “good” Protestant female ruler only months after the publication of his book. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/76 "2016-01-08T05:35:09Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > It was this, wasn’t it? Pretty famous in its day: [Charles Allan Gilbert - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Allan_Gilbert) That’s it. It fascinated me when I was younger. That one and the one with the hare’s head, the vase with the profiles, and the pretty woman/hag. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/77 "2016-01-10T17:50:08Z")
As a Blackadder fan, it was nice to see Lord Percy Percy/Captain Darling/the Comte de Frou Frou again, and in a dramatic role. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2016, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/78 "2016-01-11T18:14:33Z")
Speaking of Moriarty as campy and tart, as some were upthread, does anyone else think that his “oral” with the Victorian pistol was SO over-the-top that it fell on the other side and turned cool? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2016, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/79 "2016-01-11T20:54:52Z")
I was seeing it more as an allusion to the creepy licking thing Magnussen the blackmailer did. Licking as a marking turf act. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895/80 "2016-01-11T21:41:23Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I was seeing it more as an allusion to the creepy licking thing Magnussen the blackmailer did. Licking as a marking turf act. I kind of doubt it - but I also kind of like it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sherlock-the-abominable-bride-spoilers-as-it-airs/741895.md?page=5)