sherlock60 | Canon Discussion Post: Wisteria Lodge

Welcome back, everyone! Let's have some canon Sherlock Holmes discussion, shall we? What did you all think of Wisteria Lodge? As always, I've written up a few of my own random thoughts and questions, which are behind the jump. Add your own in the comments!

Discussion about the Granada adaptation of Wisteria Lodge is available in this week's Granada discussion post.

- "My dear Watson, you know how bored I have been since we locked up Colonel Carruthers..." - Wait a minute. The only Carruthers in Sherlock Holmes canon is in the Solitary Cyclist, which we haven't even gotten to yet and doesn't happen for another five years. And anyway, he's not a Colonel. So who's Colonel Carruthers? Any takers for a 60 or a comment with a theory?

- "But I will tell you the whole queer business." - Sometimes I get myself into trouble with my slash goggles, which turn themselves on (heh -- pun unintended, I swear) without warning. They were on overdrive for Wisteria Lodge with Eccles and Garcia. Was Scott Eccles attracted to Garcia? It sounded that way to me, as he described meeting the Spaniard, "as good-looking a man as ever I saw in my life." The attraction seems mutual, to Eccles, at least. "He seemed to take a fancy to me from the first," he says. Within two days, Garcia was visiting at Eccles' home, and then "one thing led to another, and it ended in his inviting me out to spend a few days at his house, Wisteria Lodge." My personal headcanon is that the young and beautiful Garcia could tell that the older, graying English "bachelor" was lonely and instantly drawn to him, and used that to his advantage, coming on to him or seducing him in his desperate scheme to find and kill Don Murillo. But your mileage may vary widely on that one.

- Inspector Baynes is impressive! Very rarely do we see an investigator be able to hold a candle to Holmes, but Baynes does a remarkable job here, deciphering many clues out of the note from the fire, hiding in a tree to watch Don Murillo and his captive, and working an elaborate scheme to draw him out by arresting the wrong man that even Holmes doesn't see coming. Baynes earns the great detective's respect, a high honor indeed. This is the only time we ever will see him in canon, though. What do you think happened to him later in his career? Did he ever escape his provincial drudgery as he hoped?

- The villain of Wisteria Lodge turns out to be an escaped Central American dictator, which is a surprising reveal and a very welcome one. It's an unexpected turn, and it offers a good deal of intriguing implications. I love to imagine the back story of the characters we encounter, and the tale of San Pedro is a rich playground for that, as does Don Murillo's six months on the run after this case followed by his eventual murder in a hotel under yet another assumed name. You know there have to be good stories to be told in there. For one thing, what happened to his two daughters?

Comment away and join us next week for Silver Blaze!