History Recap / SherlockS03E02TheSignOfThree

->''"The point I'm trying to make is that I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. I am dismissive of the virtuous, [He looks at the priest], unaware of the beautiful [He looks at the maid of honour] and uncomprehending in the face of the happy [He looks at Watson and Mary]. So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend. And certainly not the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing."''

The other is about Sherlock and John going on a pub crawl as John's StagParty, and while still embarrassingly drunk taking on a new client and trying to find out if the man a woman has been dating had existed at all, seeing as he had disappeared. When coming to from his hangover, Sherlock concludes by comparing similar women in similar situations that they were dealing with a man who takes over the identities of recently deceased in order to get to know women.

* BittersweetEnding: The arguably funniest episode we've seen thus far of Sherlock ends with him leaving the wedding, [[AloneInACrowd alone]], realizing that things really will never be the same between him and John.
* BookEnds: Following the ColdOpen, the episode begins with Sherlock and Mrs Hudson discussing the changes marriage brings to a person, how regrettable it is to leave a wedding early, and a couple of other things which come back at the end.

* BroughtDownToNormal: While inebriated, Sherlock's normally amazing SherlockScan completely disappears and he observes the world like average people do without any specific details.
* BrutalHonesty: After the massive disaster of the stag night, John tries to say it was a nice evening out, but is forced to agree with Sherlock's immediate declaration that it was awful.
* BuffySpeak: Sherlock's SherlockScan, once under the influence of several yards of lager, turns things like chairs into "Sitty thing?".
* BusmansHoliday: A good portion of the episode is just Sherlock casually recounting his experiences with John as part of his toast speech. Suddenly he realizes that his stories are actually connected and are indicative of something sinister at the wedding. Cue Sherlock having to foil a murder at his best friend's wedding.

* CantHoldHisLiquor: For John's stag night, Sherlock had calculated the exact amount of alcohol he and John should consume at each pub to have the optimal amount of enjoyment without becoming too inebriated. To the point where Sherlock brings along two marked graduated cylinders for the bartenders to fill. Unfortunately for Sherlock's plans, John sneaks extra shots and has the graduated cylinders spiked with extra hard liquor when Sherlock's not looking. They end up back at Baker Street completely shitfaced after only two hours. After they accept the case to investigate the ghost date, Sherlock and John get arrested for investigating while drunk. Lestrade gets them out of the hold and makes fun of their weak drinking constitutions.

* ChekhovsGunman: The stalker from the Bloody Guardsman comes back into play later on. As does Archie. It's his suggestion that the former could be the murderer among the guests, and he's right. Without this information, Sherlock likely wouldn't have been able to save Sholto.

** Just after they've realised Major Sholto is the intended victim, and he's disappeared. John is surprised Sherlock doesn't remember his room number, but remembering would mean deleting something. Sherlock's mind is a hard drive.

** A drunk Sherlock says "I know ash!", referring to his analysis of 243 types of tobacco ash.

* CringeComedy: The beginning parts of Sherlock's best man toast are rife with this, as he casually insults various guests in a somewhat oblivious fashion. Subverted in that it was all intentional as a way to bring it back around to SelfDeprecation and demonstrate his weak social graces and how John has made his life more full than if he wasn't in it.
* DeathByIrony: Attempted at least: a man who clearly lived for his uniform and all it stood for was to be killed by it.

-->'''John:''' You are not a puzzle solver, you never have been. You're a drama queen! Now there is a man in there about to die, "the game is on", SOLVE IT!

* EmbarrassingMiddleName: Watson's is Hamish, and he doesn't like to tell anyone (Sherlock only finds it out by getting hold of a copy of his birth certificate after a prolonged guessing game). This becomes a plot point when a complete stranger happens to know it.
* EurekaMoment: Holmes, when he's telling the story about the Mayfly Man (a man who lives a day at a time as another identity), suddenly realises both stories are connected to this wedding.

** Watson has been using his military ID for a while to get in and out of places. The Guards Major promptly points out that Watson has been out of the Army for a while and his ID's out of date.

* GeniusDitz: For all Sherlock's genius, he is utterly useless at simple things like the duties of being best man at Watson's wedding. It's driven home when he has no idea what to do to stop a man from bleeding out and dying while Watson has to instruct him to keep pressure on the wound.

* HornsOfVillainy: The imagery is invoked in the scene where Mary is giving both Sherlock and Watson a thumbs up for coercing both of them to take the other one out on a case to alleviate their mutual anxiety, Mary is [[http://pm1.narvii.com/6009/31b22cb44d293482aaab83c9ad0f808b28f9bf48_hq.jpg standing directly below a pair of taxidermied horns on the wall]]. These horns appear to be growing out of her head, making her look devilish. This symbolises her skilful manipulation of the two of them. Next episode, [[spoiler:we find out even more of her chequered past.]]

* NauseaFuel: InUniverse; a post-stag party, hung-over Watson isn't prepared to deal with Mrs Hudson making him a full English breakfast.

* NightmareFetishist: The ring-bearer. Sherlock bribes the kid into behaving by showing him gory pictures of murders.

* NoIndoorVoice: After Lestrade comes to get Sherlock and John out of jail, he makes it a point to speak very loudly as they are suffering hangovers. Heavily suggested that this is to get back at Sherlock for the beginning of the episode.

* NoodleIncident: Sherlock's speech includes mentions to several cases he worked on, among them The Elephant in The Room... which was an actual elephant in a room...Later he regrets the case he chose to talk about and mentions "I should have told you about the Elephant in the Room". John's blog leaves this story a mystery, stating that they're not allowed to talk about the case because of the Official Secrets Act.

* NoSocialSkills: Sherlock texts Lestrade asking him to help with his best man speech. That's all fine and good. However, things would have gone a ''lot'' better if Sherlock hadn't phrased it in a way that made it seem like that his life was in immediate danger.
* NotSoDifferentRemark: Major Sholto says this to Sherlock. This leads to Sherlock convincing him to live.

* PlatonicDeclarationOfLove: During a flashback when John asks Sherlock to be the best man, he also says that he wants to spend his day with the two people he loves most--which, are, obviously, Mary and Sherlock--and [[NoSocialSkills Sherlock's not getting it.]] Sherlock is so surprised when John actually tells him that he's rendered speechless for the next few minutes.

** As mentioned above, the attempt on Major Sholto's life is almost precisely how Empress Elisabeth of Austria was assassinated: stabbed with a thin weapon (a sharpened industrial file, in her case) and held together by fabric [[OfCorsetHurts (her very tightly laced corset)]]. She was killed for being royalty (and therefore responsible for the people's suffering, as Sholto was responsible for the death of his team) in the wrong place at the wrong time. [[note]]Luigi Lucheni had originally wanted to kill Philippe, duke of Orléans, but he wasn't there.[[/note]]

* StagParty: John and Sherlock go on a pub crawl as this. Both are smashed in a couple of hours: Sherlock was pre-planning his alcohol consumption to prevent this, but John spiked his drinks with shots.

* TastesBetterThanItLooks: In the first flash-back, when John enters the kitchen, we see Sherlock sterilising a human eyeball for distraction, which he then drops in his tea. A big no-no in the world of food. A few minutes later, under the shock of John request's for the Best Man position, he drinks the tea, not reacting to the taste or texture. Cue the eyeball popping at the surface for the viewers.

* TheTeaser: A cracking example, with Lestrade and Donovan repeatedly catching a gang of thieves only for them to walk free from court every time. After the teaser, they're never mentioned again.

* TimeDelayedDeath: The Mayfly Man kills his victims by stabbing them with a blade so fine that they don't feel the wound, and perfectly places the stab wound so that the victim's belt holds it closed, and he doesn't realise that he's been stabbed until he takes his belt off. His first victim, the Bloody Guardsman, is in the middle of taking a shower when he starts to bleed to death.

** Sherlock when he reveals that Mary is pregnant.

* TooMuchInformation: Watson's reaction when Mrs Hudson starts describing her late husbands' physique.
** Also Molly happily tells Sherlock that she and Tom are having quite a lot of sex.

* UnreliableVoiceover: Sherlock's best man speech is full of flashbacks. One involves how John first asked him to be his best man. After John finally told him bluntly that he wanted Sherlock to be his best man, Sherlock explained in his speech that he told John how honoured he was, etc. Cut to the flashback where Sherlock just stands there staring at the same spot for several minutes, while John waits patiently. Sherlock then continues that it was only later he realized that he said none of that out loud.

* WhamLine: In-universe. The ''one'' thing that he never saw coming was being asked to be John's best man. This breaks his brain enough so that he can't verbalize any of his thoughts for several moments.

-->'''David:''' They were right about you. You're a...bloody psychopath!\\
'''Sherlock:''' [[InsistentTerminology High-functioning sociopath]]...''with'' your number!

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Fans complained that it was implausible for Major Sholto not to notice he was stabbed through his belt, but this is in fact how [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Elisabeth_of_Austria Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) of Austria]] was assassinated, though it was her corset that held her together, not her belt. It's only if the spike was in the belt buckle/corset and already extended when put on that it's weird for the person wearing it not to notice on both occasions.

* SuspiciouslyAproposMusic: During John and Mary's wedding reception in "The Sign of Three, the song "December, 1963" by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is playing. It's revealed in the next episode "His Last Vow" that [[spoiler: Mary is living under an assumed identity. The lyrics we hear at their wedding include "Oh, what a night/ '''You know, I didn't even know her name'''/ but I was never going to be the same/ What a lady, what a night."]]

* RealityIsUnrealistic: Fans complained that it was implausible for Major Sholto not to notice he was stabbed through his belt, but this is in fact how Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) of Austria was assassinated, though it was her corset that held her together, not her belt. It's only if the spike was in the belt buckle/corset and already extended when put on that it's weird for the person wearing it not to notice on both occasions.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: As mentioned above, the attempt on Major Sholto's life is almost precisely how Empress Elisabeth of Austria was assassinated: stabbed with a thin weapon (a sharpened industrial file, in her case) and held together by fabric [[OfCorsetHurts (her very tightly laced corset)]]. She was killed for being royalty (and therefore responsible for the people's suffering, as Sholto was responsible for the death of his team) in the wrong place at the wrong time. [[note]]Luigi Lucheni had originally wanted to kill Philippe, duke of Orléans, but he wasn't there.[[/note]]

* LudicrousPrecision: On the pub crawl Sherlock insists on buying beer in units of 443.7 millilitres instead of just buying it in pints (473.2 millilitres). The difference is well within the margin of error given how it's served; in fact, it's less than the head on the beers.