Cracky Unoriginal "Elementary" Theory

[alias_sqbr]

Irene is Moriarty.

Sherlock found her interesting which means she must be hella weird.

Narrative causality means she's alive: anyone mentioned that often should at least get a flashback or something. If she's alive she must at the very least be in cahoots with Moriarty, and being the same person is more interesting.

Moriarty has never tried to kill Sherlock.

Irene "died" like all of M's other victims, meaning all Sherlock would have found is a pool of her blood. So all she had to do was store up her blood a little at a time in a freezer (EDIT: Apparently this wouldn't work in real life, see the comments. Does tend to work in TV land though...) Maybe faking her own death was the whole point of the exercise, a distinctive method of death which often leaves no corpse but allows for definite identification of the victim.

And if she is coming back and there is going to be complicated black romance between her and Sherlock then it's definitely better there be no romantic relationship between Sherlock and Joan, or there'd be an icky "women fighting over a man" vibe, rather than "woman trying to protect her platonic male friend from his TERRIBLE ex". Thus the creators' insistence that Joan/Sherlock isn't going to be a thing.

One thing that confuses me about Moriarty is why they didn't predict Sherlock talking to Moran long enough to realise it was all a setup. And if Moriarty did predict it, what was the point? To get rid of a henchman who'd passed their usefulness and mess with Sherlock's head? I guess we'll see!


And now I wait for tomorrow's episode to totally prove me wrong.

Comments

[tree]

okay i really hope that irene is actually dead because the 'j/k not dead after all!' cliché is old and i'm really hoping elementary is better than that.

[moonvoice]

I'm in this camp. Hoping Irene isn't dead, and that they didn't take Sherlock's knowledge for granted, because it's actually pretty easy to identify old / stored / refrigerated blood over blood shed from a living person, and if Sherlock didn't identify that himself, the police certainly would have. This show doesn't seem to be in the habit of conveniently forgetting the intelligence of its cast, so I think even if Irene *would* be alive, they'd have to come up with a better way of getting all that blood on the ground outside of storing.

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm! What if the blood was sitting for a long time before anyone noticed? Would that help? (I know nothing of blood, sorry)

[moonvoice]

Blood stored in a refrigerator goes off after a while (like any meat or blood brought from a butcher, for example), and that shows signs of decay and rot that wouldn't be present in living blood. For Irene to have speculatively stored enough in a refrigerator, the first batch would likely have spoiled by the time the last batch had been taken. Even if the blood had been sitting on the ground a long time, there's - from memory - signs that it would have spilled from a *living* person, vs. a dead person, vs. cold storage.

Blood that's been frozen and thawed causes ice crystals to form in the cells, and that - under a microscope - shows clear signs of damage to the cells (kind of how freezing meat can change the texture and taste of a meat, which his due to the ice crystals of the water in cells actually damaging and destroying the cell walls and tissues as they form). Even if it's frozen well (i.e. cryogenically), signs of freezing can still be noticeable.

And both of those things are visible under a microscope, unfortunately. I mean, shows have done it before, you know, I think I've seen it in a Law & Order or an SVU, but it's one of those moments where it's like 'uh oh, didn't consult with forensics' or 'uh oh, hoping the audience didn't pick that one up.' And you know, a lot of shows do that to their audience (except maybe Bones, who actually have some pretty good scientific / forensic consultants, given the incredulity of some of their death scenes), so it wouldn't be entirely *surprising* if Elementary did it - they'd be joining a long line of procedurals who have done just that.

I guess I just, personally, would be disappointed. One of the things I love about Elementary is that Gregson and his team actually seem to be really on the ball, intelligent and able to also solve cases alongside Sherlock, rather than being entirely dependent on him? And I was hope that sort of scriptwriting / plot courtesy would also extend to the crew/s at Scotland Yard in the UK. /raaaamble.

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you! Now if the show turns out to be as ignorant as me I can say "That's impossible!" and feel all superior :)

[moonvoice]

But you know, also, if it's impossible, it's like a win/win - superiority + Irene being alive! :D

[sqbr]

Hee, very true!

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah there's a reason I described it as cheesy :) Though I like the idea of Irene!Moriarty enough that I'd forgive them.