The set design of the lab at Bart’s when John and Sherlock first meet shows us their feelings towards each other with regards to their emotional availability.
In front of John the tableau reads like something out of TBB: “always in pairs, John”. (Thanks to LSiT for talking about the importance of that line in TBB, and that theme in the whole show). When we look at John we see sets of two identical things in front of him and behind him symbolic of a couple. We see a green light behind him signalling his readiness to pursue a relationship.
Two blue dots flank the opening of the door: circles represent their feelings towards each other, the blue represents that we are seeing them and they’re representing themselves as straight. and we see the door as a new begging. They’re both walking through this relationship door on the way out.
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How we see Sherlock
What we see about Sherlock is very dissimilar. When we see him, the tableau of objects directly between him and John is a jumbled mess: chaos, busyness, there seems to be no pattern, at all, only unrest.
Behind him, from left to right: we see a lamp, symbolic of feelings via its solar system like quality, and the lamp is mustard yellow, the colour of cowardice and lies. He will not pursue a relationship because he’s afraid and he will pretend he is not interested.
Then to the right, the explanation, the cabinet of emptiness and fears. We see here, this contrastingly barren cabinet with slight allusions to the couples theme but with unevenness and difference. The pairs that are identical are filled with a different colour liquid, the ones that are filled with the same colour liquid are very dissimilar and the colour is very dark and opaque. This shows his alienation, he doesn’t feel that anyone is equal to him, whether he’s different from them due to his intelligence or whether he feels beneath people and unworthy of them. The dark liquid is pessimistic and foreboding: his impression of relationships is that they’re something to be avoided. Yet, he’s lonely as the cabinets is relatively empty. We can see why he’s afraid and wants to hide it.
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What they see about each other
How Sherlock sees John
The camera works shows us John and Sherlock’s separate states of mind as well as their perceptions of each other.
Sherlock sees John how we see him: ready to couple up, open, his green light on. This is John wearing his lipstick,
This show us that Sherlock has a realistic view of people and that it is he, ironically, not John who’s being emotionally perceptive, here.
How John sees Sherlock
First off John doesn’t get to see the things between them from our point of view: he is robbed of the perspective that shows a jumbled mess of obstacles between them.
The cabinet is cut in half by John himself. He is the reason he can’t see more. Maybe he projects too much. Maybe, it’s because he’s a romantic, he doesn’t want to see his bad side. He does see the lamp of lies, though.
To further the idea of John as a romantic who can only see Sherlock but not things about Sherlock, we get,
This is the romantic, ‘all I see is you’, viewpoint. We can read this a clear indication of John’s romantic interest but must also note the obvious disadvantage to being a romantic: he’s editing out information about Sherlock that he does not want to see, because it’s negative.
Note that Molly sees Sherlock similarly,
This is the price you pay for your rose-coloured glasses: you can see the best of someone and love and appreciate them but if you don’t understand the background, the circumstance, the terrain, you’re in for a world of hurt and confusion.
We see here that Sherlock is guarded and John is open. Sherlock sees John how he is. John sees Sherlock in an idealised way, through the prism of his attraction.
In the end, a sad epitaph: Sherlock puts on his scarf and turns away,
John is here, open, though wounded, wearing his plaid shirt of bisexuality, with couples symbolism and a green light on. Sherlock is attracted, in kind, but his desk is a confusing mess and his background a sad, fearful, desolate place. Nonetheless, they make a connection. But, then he puts on his blue scarf straight façade and winks at a door with two blue dots on it. Their feelings, here, must be platonic, straight feelings because the dots are blue. Because he scarf is blue, because Sherlock’s desk is a mess and his shelf is sad and empty.
We see that open John Watson is going to go for it at Angelo’s, however obliquely. He’s got nothing left to lose but maybe there are too many pairs in front and behind John. Maybe being in a couple is too much on his mind. Maybe that level of symbolism implies fixation and neediness. (He does also feel out Anthea in a similarly indirect way and similarly quickly) John is so vulnerable here that while he does like Sherlock he is also lonely and desperate. It may be unhealthy to get involved when it seems like the only thing that will make you feel like you’re not broken.
When he does hit on Sherlock he will not only not be surprised from what he’s seen, which he liked btw, but we can see that turning him down is a foregone conclusion from what we’ve seen of both of them here.
Finally, all of this would seem to support Sherlock’s idea that sentiment does cloud the analytical mind. We can empathise with him, here, because it’s illustrated by John’s view so well.
not to discuss bbc sherlock as a real entity but opening the show with John crying and distressed at a martin freeman quality level was such a move… that immediate vulnerability sets the viewer up so well to love and understand him through the following standoffishness and the damn my leg shouting… you know when you can feel yourself actively unzipping as you type…
Pics from Sherlocked 2016 Pt 11 – Props from A Study in Pink – from the Costumes
area – These are my photos, so please do not repost
Anywhere, You may make Edits with these if you wish, but please put a link to
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I’ve a seen few people throw around the idea of Chekhov’s gun in reference to S4 (I think the first was @finalproblem) but I don’t think anyone has put this in one place yet, so here we go. Full disclosure: I’m a supporter of alibi theory (linking @inevitably-johnlocked‘s tag for this, because there’s a lot there).
We are first shown Sherlock’s knife in A Study in Pink, when Sherlock stabs his mail to the mantel. This is basically the first thing we see happen at 221B.
This knife remained on the mantel until the Watson Domestic in His Last Vow, when we saw it standing between John and Mary. @just-sort-of-happened noticed this years ago.
Next, we see a Victorian version of the knife in The Abominable Bride, when John and Sherlock arrive at the beginning of the episode, and John is narrating. He explains that there are truths that he can’t tell us.
“Over the many years it has been my privilege to
record the exploits of my remarkable friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, it has
sometimes been difficult to choose which of his many cases to set before
my readers. Some are still too sensitive to recount.”
On that familiar theme, “Some are still too sensitive to recount”, we focus on the knife.
[During S4 setlock, Sherlockology posted a picture of the knife stabbing the deerstalker into the mantel. A problem that remains to be solved? I’m not keen on its reappearance in The Lying Detective, so I hope so. But I digress.]
In The Six Thatchers, the first thing that happens in 221B is again Sherlock plunging the knife into the mail on the mantel. But this time, it’s a new knife. (Yeah, it was in the setlock photo above, too.)
What happened to the old knife? Like Chekhov’s gun, it was sitting there all this time, quietly waiting to be used, and now it has been replaced.
The dominant theory about Mary’s death appears to be that it didn’t occur in the way that we were shown, but we all seem to agree that she was shot. We keep seeing that smoking gun, as a dream or in memory (check out @somedrunkpirate‘s gun meta if you haven’t).
Then why is the knife missing? And why does a missing knife sound familiar? In John’s The Six Thatchers blog post, a man kills his lover, and then hides the murder weapon, a knife, in a bust of Margaret Thatcher. John and Sherlock catch the killer, but the story still nags at Sherlock.
Sherlock has now had five years (since A Scandal in Belgravia) to figure out how to do that.
One way or another, the knife has to have been involved in Mary’s death, such that it had to be disposed of, and I think that means that Mary’s death probably occurred at 221B.
But who was wielding the knife, who did they stab, and how does the gun factor in? Did Mary threaten Sherlock with the knife, prompting John to shoot her? Was Mary even shot at all? Her body was cremated, so maybe she was stabbed. Maybe the gun is a red herring, after all.
Now that we’re dealing with multiple weapons, this really is beginning to sound like a game of Cluedo.
This is an amazing meta! The tie in with the six thatchers is a clever catch! Your point about that Sherlock had 5 years to think about how he would hide a weapon is great. It could be the missing knife, or maybe the knife is a stand in for the gun in our The Six Thatchers, where the main murder weapon seems to be a gun. There are theories that John shot someone (Mary) with the Walther and Sherlock hid it somewhere clever. For us, he seems to have hidden in in a story… One with enough truths that we will swallow the lie.
Subtextually the knife represents Sherlocks frustration and resort to emotion (aggression/anger) when he can’t solve something logically. As told by lovely Hudders. Is the missing knife a hint to us that he understands what is going on now? (or that emotional reactions could solve the problem too and he stabs Moriarty to death, I personally would be fine with that)
Besides, I agree with the Clue thing. As Clue the Movie says: It’s not a game anymore.
Sherlock never needed a roommate. Either Mrs. Hudson lets him live at 221B for free or Mycroft pays for it. He had already moved in when he asked John, despite “together we can afford it.”
Here’s what happened:
Mike Stamford made friendly conversation with Sherlock in the lab, asking how he was getting on, etc. Sherlock mentioned he had moved to central London.
“Oh really?” Mike said, “How’s the new place?”
“It’s fine, nice enough rooms.”
“Rooms? You get a flatmate?”
“Ha. No. I would be a difficult man to find a flatmate for.”
Then Mike went to the park, saw John, brought John to the lab, Sherlock looked at him for 0.75 seconds and did the slidey, big pupils, toffee eyes thing, realized that Mike had misunderstood, and rolled with it.
also sherlock asking john if he’d like to come along and john saying “of course if you want me to” and then: sherlock (brightening). like their acting directions were “hey just glow ok?”
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