hey anon! it’s not the same shot there’s one thing that has been clear to me since the episode aired: this hand holding the gun is absolutely not eurus’ but john’s.
our eye is trained from the introduction of tld to realize that this gun is going to hurt john, we see him laying down like he was already dead… moreso, the hand is john’s, i could recognize martin’s hand anywhere tbh and the credits also want us to understand that this gun, this hand, these two belong to john:
just like the superposition of the gun on john’s face and 221b is important, we know that john is in danger, from his own gun.
now what does the gun shot means? and also when do we see it in tld?
we see it three times:
– at the beginning, with a long shot panning to john laying down/unable to sleep. we know that subtextually it means that john is suicidal again, we get way too many echos to asip and his desire to just end it. it’s here for a reason. john wants to die because he’s alone and can’t be saved by anyone, unless that ‘anyone’ is sherlock
– second time during the scene of sherlock and faith talking at sunrise and the shot happens while sherlock says this:
SHERLOCK: “Taking your own life.” Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. (Resting
one hand on the railing, he looks westwards along the river towards the
London Aquarium. In a brief cut-away, a pistol fires towards the
camera, then there’s a brief shot of the exterior of the Aquarium as the
gunshot echoes and then smoke rises from the end of the pistol.
Sherlock now has both hands on the railing as he continues to gaze along
the river.) SHERLOCK: Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. (Faith has looked in the direction he’s looking but now turns to face him again. He lowers his head, his back to her.) SHERLOCK: Your life is not your own.(His voice becomes strained.)Keep your hands off it.
the gun is again linked to suicide idealization, suicide attempt and what would be the repercussion of killing yourself to the people you love. now we know that john has been deeply traumatized by sherlock’s fall. we see him being depressed, feeling suicidal and yet not wanting to end it this way. not 100%. he has one last hope: only sherlock could save him from dying, his life is not his own but sherlock’s… if sherlock wants him back.
– finally, the last shot, with eurus pointing it at john. we know eurus is an obvious john’s mirror but we also get the shot colored in red, à la james bond. sometimes in the narrative happened and john is on the verge of dying.
3 out of 3: the gun means john is dying and more probably by his own volition.
now whatever happening in s5, the reverse of asip would be quite interesting. one of the most iconic scenes of the show is after all john saving sherlock by shooting the cabbie, and we know the cabbie is a john’s mirror. sherlock saving john from a self-inflicted garridebs (of any kind) would close the circle.
‘save my life before my room i am lost without your love save my soul seek my room’ fcking hell
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.
Well, I just googled how a tranquilizers gun looks like and I got this photo.
And yeah, I know there’d be many more types but looking again it’s even the same. The long thing. And looking back to Eurus’s gun, for me it doesn’t look like to a “tranquilizer gun”.
So make your deductions.
So it always has that long shape for shooting the tranquilizer.
2nd- blink and you miss it. Sherlock is on the bridge after he says, “Its not who will miss it.”
Then we get this shot of the London Aquarium (excuse the status bar please)
3rd gunshot
4th- Euros
5th- right after Euros, right before the credits
Did you notice anything different about two of those guns?
#2 and #4 are the same. There is an extra piece of metal at the bottom under the barrel opening. #1,#3,#5 are all the same.
We’ve also got Euros wearing this when she shoots John (#2 ):
But the person with the other gun in shots #1, #3, & #5 is wearing a dark long sleeve shirt.
It’s not Norbury because she has a white shirt under her jacket cuff and the trigger of the gun is different.
Its not Mary either, because she is left handed and wearing gloves when she shot Sherlock:
However, there is someone who was wearing a black jacket and made a shot that looked similar to this
(if someone can get a shot without the status bar id be so grateful and would link your blog here. I know you cant see his sleeve but I promise its all black)
According to Mofftiss, we’re about to get the story they’ve been telling us from the beginning. I think we’re all in for quite a ride.
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