Thoughts on this week’s setlock; week 4.

welovethebeekeeper:

Weekly random musings, on this weeks ‘Tale of Two Cities’ Cardiff and London.

We started the week with a wonderfully typical setlock deduction after Arwel tweeted a photo of Sue V at an outdoor location ready to watch filming. There was partial street sign behind her. It took @constancecream and myself exactly 11 minutes to nail the location; Sue was opposite the Watson house. We dispatched our setlock sleuths, @StreetwiseLee and @sherlockmanor, who were in the field, to the location. The operation went like clockwork. The intel started to come in to the fandom and we were off and running for a great week of setlocking.

Benedict and Loo were on scene at an apparently John and Mary less flat, but baby Watson [age 2-3 months] made her first appearance to her public in Molly’s arms. The overall impression of this scene was of a ‘worried’ Sherlock. 
Our agents in the field did a fantastic job with the first photos of Benedict filming, although @sherlockmanor was down for a few seconds when she fainted at seeing the beautiful man in person, however she managed to tweet the first photo of him. Then @StreetwiseLee ran in to computer problems and we all waited with baited breath for her photo of Loo and the baby. It was worth it. Great job both agents. 
Filming moved on to Cyncoed Road and a red brick mansion, or was it the white stucco mansion next door? Much speculation about the red brick being Mycroft’s house, but our elite setlock team of @cupidford and @miadifferent ruled that out as a strong probable when they matched the location of Mycroft’s house to Miskin Manor, Pontyclun. Although they concede that the red brick could be a location for some very Miskin Manor like shots of Mycroft’s abode. 
Apparently most of the action was taking place behind the white stucco and red brick houses. SA’s dressed as police and SOCO agents, Mycroft, Lestrade and Sherlock were in the scene. My thoughts went to chemical weapons being involved at an official residence in London.
Then we had the setlock incident of a leaked call sheet. A couple of fans saw an old call sheet on the dash of a parked van. They teased it’s info, backtracked when Amanda found out and told them not to reveal anything, then finally released partial information. The baby is played by boy/girl twins Freddie and Annabelle, the call sheet appeared to be from the day of the Margam Abbey shoot and there was an actor on the list that ‘could’ have been cast as the vicar. Nothing really earth shattering.

Next we moved to London filming. Not our usual North Gower Street port of call but the busy Borough Market. Enter Denver the bloodhound, maybe cast as a modern version of Toby, the dog Holmes ofter used in canon on cases, however Denver was more of a model/close up type of guy, less action more projection. He was not overly impressed by the content of his scene and became a tad difficult. Eventually he had a human stand in and it worked much better. 
Baby Watson appeared again, a slightly older incarnation, maybe 5-6 months, in a pink bunny suit. Now my mind went to bunnies and rabbits in the show. Baby Watson = pink bunny = blue bunny =  bluebelle = Isabelle Watson = Izzy Watson = IS she a Watson?  OK, I know, I will go to any lengths to get her as far away from John as possible. So sue me. 
The smoke and mirrors of the baby and the dog filming led us to overlook a main clue here; the large freezer and a tracker dog. We see but we do not observe. Hormones kicking in to feel maternal/paternal and our deduction skills plummet, Sherlock would be appalled.
Onto a boring shoot in Trinity Church Square, just a sequence shot.
Next day we are hit right between the eyes by lonely fucking Sherlock on Vauxhall Bridge. He was so forlorn. Talk about hormones kicking in, I wanted to rescue him from his sad sorry state by finding and dragging damn John Watson onto that bridge and handcuffing him to his one true love. STAY WITH HIM! Mycroft told you this once, but did you listen? John, look at Sherlock! Look at his face! Now stay put, at his side. Forget your smirking, manipulative, arrogant wife, just stay next to Sherlock, how hard can that be???? Anyhoo, we had a bit of running, a nice white shirt view of muscles [thank you London meterological office for arranging a moment of warmth] some PR shots looking at the Thames, and a possible Moriarty look-a-like sighting.
Our own @cupidford had it all under control, reporting from the site like a pro. She even interviewed crew to get some intel. Most notably, from a very reliable source, that earlier in the day a secret scene had been filmed inside the MI6 Building, in rooms not usually used by film crew. it was a Sherlock and John scene, with only Rachel, the assistant director and the camera crew present. YES!!! 
The day continued with filming in the evening at the London Aquarium, reportedly in the area of the tunnel under the huge tank, which does contain some sharks. This brings us to the dialogue in HLV, see my post on this; http://welovethebeekeeper.tumblr.com/post/143573682088/the-shark [how the hell do you do the x versus the huge link?] Now a man is compared to a shark in canon, no not Milverton, in the Mazarin Stone it is Count Sylvius. Now MAZA, in Holmesian History is considered to be the worse story in canon. It’s odd, it sits outside the usual and when reading it, the story feels very different to the others. Holmes fans know MAZA is an anomaly, it’s the cuckoo in the nest. Hello Mark and Steven!! Hi!!! It is oft considered to be written by a GHOST writer, or Doyle was having a very ‘off’ day. A nice little fanboy clue there? Bless ‘em.
God this week we had a lot of setlock; look at the length of this post? I digress: we should move on to the Curious Incident in Bonnington Square.
Rundown house of Vine Lodge, Mary inside with baby when John and Sherlock arrive by cab. Hello….liking this scenario. Sherlock rings door bell or knocks, Mary delivers Denver/Toby to Sherlock then tells John to take the baby. He looks surprised, then disapproving. [Trust me I do this for a living, I’m one of best in the UK, I know…but it’s true] The small scene was verified by video and also @cupidford, who added that Mary seemed a bit ‘ingenious’. Liking this scene so much more now. We are seeing Manipulative Mary again. When we link the “Toby’ scenes we have the narrative of Sherlock and John arriving at a location, probably to pick up the dog [canon compliant] finding Mary already there, Mary telling them that she and baby Izzy are going along on the investigation, they walk and Mary is taking over as lead on the case as she thinks the two men are idiots.
Finally….phew, it’s the Miles Street Tunnel Delivery Boys. An Audi, [similar to HLV Audi but different colour] is in the tunnel and apparently a HLV prego Mary is pushing a baby out in the back seat. Sherlock is in the front seat, I am sure in both disgust at the event he has found himself involved in, whilst also being in total awe at how well his boyfriend takes command and delivers a child. John is literally delivering his own fate, his own problem, if this is the scenario. Again we have the threesome, polyamory implied, which is a remnant from canon and a Victorian mentality shown in TAB. However in the modern Au the writers are showing us that this will not work, why? Because 1/ Mary is evil, a liar, corrupt, and a psychopath who will only tolerate people as possessions, and 2/ John and Sherlock are in love and really only want it to be ‘the two of us against the rest of the world’. The tunnel, the birth, the small delivery space in a small Audio [!!!??] All scream of pressure, secrets, repression, suppression, cramped relationship, and the birth of something new, something good from all this. Whatever the writers have planned for us, they have the backs of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Rest easy on that.

I expect episode 1 of series 4 to be almost done by this coming week. Hints are they plan to move straight into episode 2, so they are filming in order. Just look for news of new director, lets keep vigilant for Mary/baby involvement in next 2 episodes, don’t forget ring watch, and I do think that the three words maybe ADVENTURE, ROMANCE AND TERROR. So episode 2 may be our 3GAR episode. Episode 2 in a series always reveals a great deal about TJLC; TBB [yes it did on reflection] HoB and TSOT all had, at their heart, romance. Exciting isn’t it? Just don’t panic. It’s seldom as it seems.