#Retired Colourman

[spooksicl-e]

thrilled to have worked on this piece, ecstatic that it was chosen as the header for the upcoming shco case<33

[ghostofnuggetspast]

I am so very, very impressed!! And creeped out!! 10/10 great work

My comic for The Retired Colourman! I love this scene between Mariana and Sherlock sm

[sherlock-and-co-incorrect-quotes]

Sherlock: *walks by with a hammer*

John: What're you gonna make?

Sherlock: Noise

[johnlockifconvenient]

Love that Holmes got distracted thinking about how hot Watson is

[dathen]

“There being no fear of interruption I proceeded to burgle the house. Burglary has always been an alternative profession had I cared to adopt it.”

INCREDIBLE THING TO TELL TO THE POLICE INSPECTOR

Holmes is so proud of his burglarsona

[weeesi]

‘Sherlock don’t say juices this is a family show’

‘you just said fuck’

have I mentioned that I love this podcast

[jay-wasreblogging]

Everyone: *laughing*

Sherlock:

[voilaammayi]

I was worried that the retired colourman case won’t be as compelling as the others - reduced just to the detective part - but then I was thankfully unceremoniously killed by a gunshot in the heart when sherlock jumped to strangle an old (murderous) man the moment he started laughing at john being blown up.

incomparable experience, would recommend it to everyone. my funeral is on wednesday, you’re all welcomed.

[murd3rouscrow]

Holy shit... The retired colourman might be my new favorite mystery, as always, spoilers below

I just want to start by how much more gruesome this one was, especially compared to the last episode with the ai. I really really like the more gruesome stories. It amps up all the emotions.

Also very fun story, like you know the murderer is, that's not the mystery. It's not the who, but the what... Oooo very ominous, very cool.

Also Lillian. She was there, ngl she kinda grew on me. Let's be real, we'd probably be just like her. Also didn't think she'd go through with the true crime podcast after getting sprayed blood. I'm going to assume john have her some important podcaster wisdom while they were outside.

Also, more Mariana, which I'm always happy about. Especially Mariana basically solving the mystery. Love it. Love her. Especially loved the emotion and her little moment with Sherlock in the cellar and attic

Further making me want a Sherlock and Mariana only episode, I swear they'd be so efficient. Also just Sherlock reassuring her that she doesn't have to the bodies, he'll do it. Like yes, I've been waiting for some Sherlock x Mariana, so far they're dynamic had only been making fun of John together (which is also great)

This entire mystery was just fueling my inner baker street poly heart.

Overall, great episode, loved the emotion, I like very much.

[holmesxwatson]

"Let us escape from the weary workaday world by the side door of music."

[sleuth-112]

Love a Sherlock Holmes adaption in which he actually respects and values the police.

[tremendously-crazy]

We, as sherlock holmes fans, are so quick to diss the casebook of s sherlock holmes, but forget entirely about this cold scene from the Retired Colourman:

"This is my friend Mr. Barker,' said Holmes. "He has been interesting himself also in your business, Mr. Josiah Amberley, though we have been working independently. But we both have the same question to ask you!"

Mr. Amberley sat down heavily. He sensed im- pending danger. I read it in his straining eyes and his twitching features. "What is the question, Mr. Holmes?"

"Only this : What did you do with the bodies?"

[johnlockifconvenient]

[dathen]

I started reading the latest Letter from Watson when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, but then had to stop bc I had to be fully awake to react to this:

“With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice. What about the girl at the post-office, or the wife of the greengrocer? I can picture you whispering soft nothings with the young lady at the Blue Anchor, and receiving hard somethings in exchange.”

PINNACLE ACE MOMENTS FROM AROACE ICON OF ALL TIME SHERLOCK HOLMES

We got:

Holmes expecting Watson to flirt information out of all the ladies like a stereotypical DnD bard or the Face from the A-Team or something

Him acting like it’s? such an obvious approach?? what do I have an allo partner for if he’s not gonna seduce information out of everyone???

Incredible Ace Moment of accidentally making innuendo WAY more extreme than you intend. HARD SOMETHINGS FROM THE LADIES, MR. HOLMES?!?!

The completely matter-of-fact pragmatic approach to how hot Watson is

Incredible. Iconic. Happy “Watson whispering soft nothings to receive hard somethings” day to those who celebrate.

[weeesi]

‘Follow the thought. Don’t run away from it. It’s natural to be scared when you know what you’ll find at the end of it.’

[jolieblack]

Jolie's thoughts on

The Retired Colourman (Sherlock & Co. podcast)

This case, in ACD's original version, is the opposite of a favourite of mine. It's somewhat pedestrian, doesn’t have particularly memorable characters, doesn’t have particularly memorable deductions, and the only memorable dialogue or interaction is Holmes famously enumerating all the ways Watson should have used his charm to get the local ladies hot and bothered. Oh boy, that just changed a lot!

Lilian Barker - In ACD canon, Barker is Sherlock Holmes's "friend and rival", the other gifted and clever private investigator that just randomly pops up out of nowhere, never mentioned before and never mentioned again after… Weird, just weird. I prefer this Barker who finally gets a personality and a narrative function (other than being a painfully transparent red herring)!

Loved Sherlock going ballistic when she turns out not to have called the police, though. And how he keeps hating her even when she provides some useful evidence. (Thank you for not letting her actually solve the case though. I was worried there for a moment.)

Another plus: The deduction that the bad guy has a prosthetic leg goes absolutely nowhere in ACD canon but suddenly it becomes an important point!

Interesting dynamic between Sherlock and Inspector MacKinnon, too. Either Sherlock has realised that the police are not always idiots or MacKinnon is a very special person, in which case I want to know more about him and how he knows and why he trusts Sherlock. And how he managed to sell Sherlock & Co. to his superiors as a "third party investigation unit"!

Details I liked:

Did it take anyone else an age to realise that Amber Lee = Amberley? I‘m so slow.

John nattering away about low emission zones for a reason.

"The plot is thickening like a thick, evil… soup."

The chess metaphors! In ACD, the chess aspect just goes nowhere, except to serve as an explanation why the miserly, unsociable bad guy sometimes has a visitor at all. Great use of it here!

Sherlock "strangling" Mr Lee when he makes fun of John's injury, and then it turns out a pretty nifty move to secure evidence. (Or was it? Interesting question, hen or egg? I guess we'll be in sweet unknowing agony about this forever.)

Mariana = Mari? Sweet but uncomfortable at the same time, for obvious reasons.

I do love the confirmation that Mariana co-owns the business and is not just an employee, though.

"Don’t say juices, it’s a family show." - "You just said fuck."

John taking his frustrations out on the wall with a sledgehammer.

And then oh boy again for how dark this whole case is. Even Sherlock actually being really considerate and protecting Mariana from trauma took a pretty creepy form. Honestly, the way he said, "Follow the thought. Don‘t run away from it. It’s natural to be scared when you know what you'll find at the end of it.", I honestly expected for a moment that he was talking her into looking at the bodies, just from the tone.

I also can’t help feeling that that moment in the attic would have belonged to John, not to Mariana. I mean, yeah, she did deserve to reap the fruit of her earlier clever deductions about the water pipe system, and Watson is absent from the final resolution in ACD’s story, too… But I‘m not sure I can ever get over the fact that John did not hear Sherlock say "check mate" in that voice.

Reality check: The police are incompetent if they missed both the walled-off extension/basement and the walled-off part of the attic after a week of searching, and if they even considered taking the bad guy to court without having done that first.

Also reality check: Like with The Cardboard Box, straight up cruel and unimaginative domestic murder hits too close to home for me to be ideal entertainment, but then Joel Emory absolutely gets points for realism. What Sherlock and Mariana find at the end of the case - two human bodies having decomposed in water for a week - is straight out of ACD canon. The podcast version just calls the horror by its name, instead of elegantly glossing over it, and gets kudos from me for that.

Check out this amazing art for the episode by @abstractfrog (Sherlock and Mariana), and @subtlehysteria 's fantastic John with a sledge hammer!