I really don’t think that Sherlock “woke up” the first time we see the modern scene in TAB. Imho, he goes a level down, not up. Like, I know that this stuff is nearly two years old, but let me sum it up, for posterity. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am making it too complicated but anyway, this is how I see those scenes.
What happens here in this scene? Holmes takes cocaine. This is Holmes inside the 21st century!Sherlock’s mind, and in this scene and do forgive me for saying this…
He goes deeper into himself. He has a conversation with Moriarty….
Then the MP begins to fall apart. The Elephant falls (does not shatter though)
Sherlock eventually falls into his chair
Aaaand wakes up. Or does he? Yeah… no, I don’t think.
And why? Because:
First of all, why does he, completely randomly start speaking in Watson’s voice? I think it’s because this scene is a part of the fantasy Holmes has after he takes cocaine. The scene with Moriarty and the first plane scene are Holmes’ cocaine-induced fantasy.
And proof? Holmes talking about a jet in the scene where Watson finds him on the floor. Interestingly enough, he only mentions that John and Mycroft were there with him, not Mary. But that’s just a side note. If I have to make it complicated, the first plane scene is, basically, Sherlock inside Holmes’ mind inside Sherlock’s mind. Though it really isn’t THAT complicated, it’s similar to Inception, they have their own rules though.
And, I already talked about this bit yesterday, so…
He’s drugged in this scene and momentarily, he has lost control again. He doesn’t know if he is awake or not, not anymore. Modern world?
Must be the reality, except… it isn’t. And again, why would it be? This is exactly the same thing that happened the first time before we switched to the modern world. Moriarty appears out of nowhere and Holmes all of a sudden starts losing it and “waking up” and the victorian world becomes the modern world, but, as demonstrated in the graveyard scene, being in a modern world does NOT mean that it is the reality.
The skeleton attacks Sherlock and poof, scene cut. The Waterfall. But this scene has nothing to do with any other scene in TAB. One would think that because Watson and Holmes are acting like a cross between the victorian and modern versions of themselves, that we’re on the edge of MP, ready to dive back into the reality. But, that is not quite true. I mean, alright, Watson kicks Moriarty off the cliff, Holmes jumps and…
…viola, the 21st century Sherlock awakes.
Or so we’re led to think. Remember what I said about the first plane scene? It’s a part of Holmes’ cocaine-induced fantasy. So, what does that mean? What about this scene? Well, I believe, that this scene and therefor all of these scenes as well
Are Holmes’ fantasies as well, and, like I said, it starts here, again, with Moriarty appearing out of nowhere:
And why do I think that? Because of the actual last scene of TAB. The ending is – Watson and Holmes sitting in their chairs. Talking about the case that, in their “world” happened, most probably, a couple of days prior to that. Hard to tell since Watson is wearing different clothes but Holmes isn’t. Also, they talk about the 7% solution and Holmes’ take on the modern world, things they, again talked about sooner which means that only a short time must have passed since it feels like they are continuing a conversation.
These are not the Holmes and Watson who have fought with Moriarty in the waterfall scene. These are the Holmes and Watson we last saw in this scene:
Holmes and Watson from the universe where this and everything after that did not happen:
This next part might sound like a stretch and I don’t really have any proof for that, it’s just an assumption. Holmes must have sort of “blacked out” for a moment during the scene in the catacombs, like, he was still drugged after all. So, he experiences a blizzard of bizarre fantasies, that end with this:
And that’s it. It’s where it ends, after the car drives off, he comes back to himself, they go back home, few days pass and he and Watson end in front of the fireplace. I mean, sitting. But, like I said I am not really sure about this part, if anything it’s just an assumption, might as well be just a headcanon of some sort.
You could argue that in this last modern scene of TAB Sherlock says “I know exactly what he’s going to do next” and since Lady Smallwood repeats the line in the beginning of TST then that means these scenes are definitely related and the last properly modern TAB scene must be real, except… first you must ask, why EVEN would Lady Smallwood know what Sherlock said there on the tarmac? And also, why did Mycroft stay behind in TAB? Why didn’t they go straight to Lady Smallwood to solve the problem immediately, since it was a matter of national importance? It’s clear, from the way everyone is dressed in TST, that it is a completely different day. Plus, Sherlock suddenly has a twitter. And also, like many other people pointed out too, since Sherlock tears apart The List from modern scene #1 in modern scene #3 then that can only mean, that neither scene #3 is real.
And, imho, it’s neither what precedes TST. TST is not the continuation of the last modern scene of TAB. Imho, it’s what follows after THIS happens in TAB.
It’s what happens after Holmes, once again, “goes deeper into himself”, this time, however, I am not sure if voluntarily or not. Either way, it explains all the TAB references in S4, Mary’s “my darling, John“, it, explains, pretty much everything. And like I once mentioned already, I think that S4 might as well be: Sherlock inside Holmes’ mind inside Sherlock’s mind.
One more thing. I am afraid that drugs have a lot to do with it. It seems, the more drugs Sherlock/Holmes takes the deeper he falls, or, maybe, he just has less control over the events. Maybe he isn’t even the one drugging himself? Who knows. All I know is what exactly made him start using drugs again…
Okay y’all buckle up, I’ve got dante @57–circlesofhell here in Seattle, I just fed them full of edibles, and when it hits I will be turning on TFP and liveblogging their thoughts
There’s a lot been written about a scene in series four of Sherlock. Including how in “The Lying Detective” it was necessary that John Watson beat Sherlock Holmes—punching and kicking him, brutal and relentless.
The scene was thematically necessary, some have said, so that Sherlock would need to forgive John, just as John had to forgive Sherlock for vanishing for two years and la la la blah blah blah no no no NO NO NO.
In storytelling as in real life, in all the all that there bloody well is, tit does not mean tat, balance is not a universal prerequisite, and at no point is horrific physical abuse ‘thematically necessary,’ a fetching plot point, or a necessary evil. Not as part of ‘pay back’ not as part of a process of mutual forgiveness, not as part of storytelling, not as part of anything.
Here’s the thing, here is the absolute unmitigated truth of the thing:
Writing that sort of brutal scene is easy.
It.
is.
easy.
When I first started writing I wrote horrific things, I detailed terrors happening to human bodies. Because I wasn’t very good at writing and so I wrote what was easy to write. Abuse is seductively easy because it’s like a runaway train, it goes headlong of its own accord, it carries the momentum of the story all by itself and you don’t have to be a skilled writer to make people feel. They’ll always feel horrible when a character is beaten or used, you don’t have to have good prose, you do not have to be a good writer.
It’s much harder to tell hard stories without the lush set piece of a beating or a rape (because that’s how they’re so often used, they’re gorgeously framed, framed close close close). Hurt may happen to a character, sure yep, but the suffering pornography, the loving detail of it? It’s lazy writers like Mofftiss who love suffering porn. Why do you think so many women are raped and children killed in films and books? They’re shorthand. Crib notes. No-brainer ways to make us feel, to ‘move the story along,’ to give the hero pain as motivation. They show us the blood of abuse so we excuse the hero who goes on to abuse.
Lovingly detailing suffering isn’t skill. Breathless close-ups on misery are not good story telling. They’re lazy. They’re what we do when we don’t have much else in our writing arsenal.
We must have better arsenals.
— Refinery29 has some thoughts on this, including how rape is used merely as ‘a plot device.’ Share your thoughts with IP.
What stands out to me about those scripts is the progression, over the seasons, of the level of self-indulgence and lazy writing. I mean, there’s a reason all that crap got cut, but none of it should have been in there in the first place.
Mofftiss aren’t geniuses. They’re a couple of hacky TV writers who got lucky and surrounded themselves with people who made them look smarter and more gifted than they really are. And they let success get to them and make them believe their own hype, and then they stopped listening to the people (including us) who pushed them to the very heights of their own limited talent.
There’s no conspiracy here, lovelies. They’re just not who or what we thought they were. The magic was something far greater than the sum of its parts, and it was too fragile to survive their all-too-clumsy handling.
Ah, fuck, this is making me sad.
for the record, this is my opinion re the show and tjlc, and has been pretty much since tfp aired.
fake-faith wearing all black with dyed black hair?????? whaatttt…..
Hi my name is Faith Dark’ness Elizabeth Elsa Smith and I have long ebony black hair with a slightly flamboyant walking cane and scars on my arms and icy grey eyes like a tranquilizer gun and a lot of people tell me I look like Eurus Holmes…
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