Sherlock: 10 Ridiculous Plot Points Lifted Straight From The Books

4. Posing As An Online Boyfriend

During a sequence of fun editing in The Empty Hearse, cross-cutting Sherlock and Molly reacting to cases with the mundanities of John's doctor's surgery to suggest the latter's words are the former's, Sherlock appears to call a client "a complete and utter pisspot". Just what could provoke such a response toward someone who has come to seek his assistance? It is directed towards an older man that accompanies an upset young woman whose imagined love of her life has suddenly stopped emailing. Sherlock's solution shocks Molly: "Stepfather posing as online boyfriend. Breaks it off, breaks her heart. She swears off relationships, stays at home €“ he still has her wage coming in." While a manipulative online relationship that isn't what it seems, a sort of Catfish scenario, seems very 21st century, this is actually a near exact rendering of the plot of one of Doyle's first Holmes stories: A Case of Identity. Here Holmes' client is a woman whose fiancee disappears after a relationship conducted almost entirely through written correspondence. The fact that the letters are all typed to maintain anonymity tips Holmes off that the fiancee is someone known to her. Deducing that he is the only person to gain from this scenario, Holmes realises the culprit is her stepfather whose plan to break her heart and keep at home for her money is just the same as on TV. And Another Thing: The Empty Hearse is not the only episode the reference this story. It also crops up in the following part, The Sign of Three. When referring to past cases in his best man speech, rolling his eyes, Sherlock refers to previous "touching cases", before the episode cuts a young woman dithering on the 221B doorstep, unsure whether to ring or not. "Oscillation on the pavement always means there's a love affair," Sherlock remarks dismissively, almost the exact words he uses to describe the hesitant client in A Case of Identity.