Watson Episode 1 Annotations

SWITZERLAND

REICHENBACH FALLS

 

00:00-00:10 The Reichenbach Falls Is location of the final confrontation between Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty. The Falls appears in the story “The Adventure of the Final Problem”, published in December 1893. In the story, Watson is convinced leave Holmes to return to their hotel to attend a dying English lady, but this is a ploy by Moriarty to confront Holmes alone. By the time Watson returns, both Holmes and Moriarty appear to have plunged into the Fall.

00:10-00:40 Watson hears three shots ring out and sees Holmes and Moriarty tumble into the Falls.

·       In “The Adventure of the Empty House”, published in September 1903, Holmes notes that Moriarty “drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me”. In the same story, Holmes clarifies that he didn’t go into the Falls at all: “I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went.”

00:40-01:10 Watson dives in.

·       I have always believed this happened, and although it is not mentioned in either in “The Final Problem” or “The Empty House”, but I think that is only because Watson is too much of a gentlemen to make himself sound heroic.

01:30-01:35: “Shinwell Johnson”

·       A former criminal who acts as informant for Sherlock Holmes, he appears in “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client” published in November 1924. He is described as follows: “During the first years of the century he became a valuable assistant. Johnson, I grieve to say, made his name first as a very dangerous villain and served two terms at Parkhurst. Finally, he repented and allied himself to Holmes, acting as his agent in the huge criminal underworld of London and obtaining information which often proved to be of vital importance.”

02:30-02:35 Watson says: “I went into the water after to go get him. And I-I-I was close, and I thought... I thought I...”

·       I hope he saved Holmes.

02:30-02:35 Johnson says: “Holmes had the bees and the honey…”

·       This is a double pun, “bees and honey” is cockney rhyming slang for “money”,  but it is also a reference to the fact that Holmes ended up beekeeping in the South Downs, Sussex as per “His Last Bow: An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes”, published in September 1917.

05:05-05:07 “John Hamish Watson”

·       Watson’s middle name being “Hamish” is not part of the Sherlock Holmes stories, but is generally accepted since his wife refers to him as “James” in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, published in December 1891, and “Hamish” is the Scottish equivalent to “James”.

06:20-06:25 “He has syndactyly, his second and third fingers are fused”

·       This isn’t mentioned in the stories, but in “The Adventure of the Final Problem”, Sherlock does describe him thus: “His shoulders are rounded from much study, and his face protrudes forward, and is forever slowly oscillating from side to side in a curiously reptilian fashion.”