the thing is, a lot of the plot holes don’t matter. it doesn’t actually matter about how they survived the explosion or got on the boat or got john out of the well. the problem is that the overall conclusion of the episode’s plot, no matter how you look at it, is unnecessary. we didn’t need this episode for Sherlock to realize that he’s better with his emotional connections in juxtaposition to Eurus’s lack of them, because Sherlock realized that exact thing in TAB and acted in accordance with that realization in TST and TLD. we didn’t need Sherlock’s family to be remade in a better image because the underlying love between Sherlock and Mycroft has always been clear, even if it hasn’t been perfect. we didn’t need Sherlock to understand the importance of having or saving a best friend because he realized it in TRF. we understood from the end of TLD that John and Sherlock have reconciled and are now ready to trust each other and work in partnership again (which TFP actually undermined by Sherlock ignoring John’s Vatican Cameos warning, incidentally). we knew Sherlock was willing to die to protect his loved ones two seasons ago. there was no emotional fall-out or gain for the characters on the basis of going through Eurus’s games.
we just…didn’t need a single thing this episode gave us. that’s the plot hole I can’t let go of. that’s what makes this so unsatisfying. it wasn’t just sloppy, it was a waste.
Never in mainstream pastiche has Sherlock Holmes been so emotionally abused, so disrespected, victimised and cast aside for inferior characters than in BBC Sherlock’s season 4. This is the root of my anger at the show. It’s not the lack of confirmation of johnlock, hell I’ve had a lifetime of disappointment on that score. No, it’s this; the character of Sherlock Holmes suffered more intently and for no reward in this adaptation. I never thought the end of The Sign of the Four could be made any more tragic than in the original, Mark and Steven proved me wrong. Not only did their Mary take John away from Baker St, but she entered into the dynamic between the two men and totally ruined it. Nice job there fan boys. At least Doyle knew he’d made a mistake [a knee jerk panic and addition of a beard] and so kept it on the periphery, you two had to bring it front and centre, shit, it was NEVER going to work. Rule One of writing Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson: they are a pair, you never divide them. Not such a brilliant idea after all eh?
The moment they (through Sherlock) tried to convince us (via John) that Mary and Sherlock are morally equivalent–the same “type” that John likes. Sherlock being the one who would do anything to see John happy, even give him up; and Mary being the one who would do anything to keep him, even kill.
Everything from that moment on was gaslighting. They gaslighted their own characters, and us through them.
John not trusting Mary any more after she shoots Sherlock, and feeling guilty about it? YOU’RE RIGHT, JOHN, YOU SHOULDN’T.
Sherlock going to a therapist and trying to just talk to John honestly? THAT WAS RIGHT, SHERLOCK. TRY AGAIN, DON’T HALF-KILL YOURSELF BECAUSE MARY SAID SHE KNOWS JOHN BETTER.
John saying he always wanted more than Mary like it’s a terrible secret? GOOD, JOHN, YOU SHOULDN’T FEEL HAPPY ABOUT YOUR WIFE BEING SOMEONE YOU DON’T REALLY KNOW.
Everything after Mary shoots him reads like an abuser’s manuel for how to mess with your victim’s sense of loyalty.
Steven. You said once that when fictional characters start keeping secrets from their writer, that’s when they become real. But they told you, didn’t they, and you didn’t listen. You thought that John-”I don’t mind (anytime)”-Watson and Sherlock-”there’s something I’ve meant to say always”-Holmes live platonically together in Baker Street, raising a daughter, re-building their home? Look at them. This home is filled with love, laughters, and kisses. So take a deep look in the mirror and think carefully about why they did not share that secret with you.
i am choosing to love what the show used to be because it meant a lot to me for a long time. others are choosing to take a step back from the show. others continue to have hope. there is no right answer right now so please respect how people are dealing with this situation
It all comes to this really: If you fill your story with romantic tropes and plot twists and you fail to deliver closure for both, you’re a bad writer.
This is sort of a follow up to my earlier post about “The Final Problem’s” self-indulgence and the way the writing ultimately betrays the extraordinary work being done by everyone involved in the production–including, I am about to argue, the actors.
One of the first questions that emerged as I pondered my own response to this episode was: why was I so much more affected by the scene in which the prison governor dies than I was by what I am sure was intended to be the emotional climax of the Eurus-experiments sequence, which is the scene in which Eurus demands that Sherlock kill either Mycroft or John?
Below the cut tag I’m going to talk about why. The short story is that the second scene is the moment where the whole production has to pay the piper for the cumulative effects of Moffat and Gatiss’s bad writing decisions.
I promised I’d put together a list of tv show and films based on everyone’s recs last night. This isn’t extensive, just what people said would be gay things to watch in the middle of this tough time.
TV Shows
Skam
Eyewitness
The Get Down
Brooklyn Nine Nine
In the Flesh
Cucumber
Banana
OITNB (be careful with this one)
How To Get Away With Murder
Carmilla
Sense8
The L Word
One Day At A Time
Wynonna Earp
Yuri On Ice
Shadowhunters
Please Like Me
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Queer As Folk
Supergirl
Films
Pride
Carol
Blue Is the Warmest Colour
Wilde
Brokeback Mountain
Total Eclipse
Imagine Me and You
Saving Face
Rent
But I’m A Cheerleader
A Single Man
4th Man Out
The Way He Looks
The Kids Are All Right
The Celluloid Closet
Happy Together
Paris Is Burning
I Killed My Mother
Weekend
Big Eden
Feel free to add to this post or let me know if you have shows or films to rec!
Shameless
Grantchester. Life in squers.
Soldiers Girl. I love you Phillip Morris. Maurice. Heavenly Creatures. Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Lilting.
You’d think that I’d be all over TFP tinhatting. I’ve been entranced by the “you can’t trust what you’re seeing” imagery in BBC Sherlock since I started watching it. I even wrote a post, shortly before TFP, about how we as the fans are like John looking up at BBC Sherlock on the roof at Bart’s, watching him as he lies to us, trying to have faith.
“Faith is a funny thing,” I wrote in that post. “It’s not inherently good or bad. To lose faith when it ought to be kept is a tragedy, but so is to keep faith when it ought to be cast aside.”
Like a lot of people, I’ve been flipping back and forth between two readings of TFP. The first reading says, “BBC Sherlock is actually terrible. All the things I thought I saw – the imagery, the clues, the characterization, the mirroring, the references – I must have just made up. TFP is real, it has to be.” The second reading says, “BBC Sherlock has gotten really, really meta. TFP is fake, and they’re violating all sorts of norms about how television works in order to surprise everyone and make a point. TFP is fake, it has to be.”
These readings are in conflict, not just with each other but with me. Believing either requires me to question my own reality. If I accept that TFP is real I have to question my ability to read and understand stories. If I accept that TFP is fake I have to question all sorts of norms about how the world works and how tv gets made.
Neither feels tenable. And I feel like, well:
(Image by @livingthegifs)
I doubt I’m alone in this. And the idea that anyone else in fandom feels like this, especially the younger fans, the other queer folks, the people who already deal with mental health issues – it breaks my heart.
So I want to be absolutely clear here:
Your perceptions of reality are not flawed. You are not wrong to be deeply upset by TFP. And you are not alone.
There are, more or less, three theories about TFP:
1) We made up everything. We took coincidences and concocted a false narrative in our heads. Our predictions were wrong because our perception of the evidence was wrong.
2) TFP is fake. We’ve been right all along, and the creators are preparing a giant rug-pull, hopefully without realizing how much distress they’ve caused. Our predictions will be proved right because our perception of the evidence was right.
3) TFP is real, and all the ‘evidence’ we thought we had was planted either to fuck with us or because the creators changed the story they were telling. Our predictions were wrong, but our perception of the evidence was largely correct.
I am going to go ahead and eliminate #1 as impossible. We did not make up everything. We did not make up the ‘question reality’ imagery used over and over again in the show. We did not make up the references to queer icons, including to Oscar Wilde and Freddie Mercury in TFP itself. Much of the stuff we’ve pointed out in our metas may be coincidence but not all of it, and not all of it together.
One of the other two options must then be the truth. I can’t say which it is – obviously I’d prefer #2, but #3 is still possible. But both imply two things:
* The creators are fucking with our sense of reality.
* Our sense of reality is just fine.
And this is what angers me so deeply. Because gaslighting is awful. It’s a textbook sign of abuse. It’s something that multiple BBC Sherlock villains engage in – Culverton Smith most notably, but also Frankland in THoB and Moriarty in TRF. And yes, yes, the writers are villains, the mystery writer is the criminal, but that’s symbolism, okay? It doesn’t excuse gaslighting just like it wouldn’t excuse Moffat or Gatiss if they went out and actually murdered someone. It’s still a shitty thing to do.
And it’s a shitty thing to do at this particular moment in history, when we are all struggling so hard to figure out how to trust each other, how to build a shared and reliable reality. I mean, f I want to be gaslit, I’ll go read my President-elect’s twitter.
Look, it’s good to question the stories you’re told. Very good. And it’s good to question the stories you tell yourself, occasionally, to keep an open mind and admit when you’re wrong. But this type of questioning comes from a place of strength. You question the stories you’re told because they violate your values or your knowledge. You question yourself when something about what you’re doing or thinking feels out of line with who you are. It’s hard to do that when you’re wracked with self-doubt and in pain.
I love every last person in this fandom and I want you all to feel whole and strong. I want that for your own sake, because you deserve it, but also, selfishly, because I need you. I need you to help me fix all that’s wrong with this world – to help me fight Trump and the rise of fascism, to help me protect and nourish the next generation of LGBTQ folks, to help me build a better and kinder world.
So be good to yourself. Throw yourself into analysis if that makes you happy, take a break if you want to, reach out to friends and family, do whatever it is you need to do to remind yourself that you’re okay. And, if you can, help others to do that. Share your love and your strength. Don’t try to push your opinions about reality onto anyone else – we’ve had enough of that already. Treat each other with gentleness. Treat yourself with gentleness.
Several hundred marginalized brainiacs came up with a braver, better, more beautiful story than two self satisfied middle aged white men. I find that astonishingly easy to believe.
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