A Study in Soundtrack, Part II: Addendum in Johnlock

holmesianscholar:

Hello again!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for all the kind words and appreciation for my music meta for S4!

I’d like to mention a few more things in this post, as the analysis seems to be well-received. ❤ I am back after studying the soundtracks for series 1-3 (sans TAB- I don’t have the audio files and the episode itself’s music is hard to hear). It’s been enlightening to go back AFTER working on S4. These you may already know, but it’s sort of refreshing to revisit, I think.

I will start by saying that S4 by far has the most musically creative and diverse pieces out of them all; whereas series 1-3 are mainly recycled iconic materials, S4 is full of new motifs, techniques, instruments, orchestrations,…  It’s very fun. Even TFP, which is basically a ~Theme & Variations on “Eurus.”~

Which brings to my main point: this simply cannot be trash. If the music was THIS carefully scripted and interwoven with multiple layers….. I think we can remain hopeful. This much engineering takes a lot of work. Also probably why it’s so fucky- there aren’t as many “Sherlock” and “John” themes as before. They’re either heavily doctored (hehe) or just really subtle.

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S1: iconic.

S2-S3

TRF-“Prepared to do Anything” is the same theme as when HLV!Sherlock freaks the fuck out in his Mind Palace after being shot by Mary. (In fact, this is the “emergency/crisis” theme song.) But what do we hear as Sherlock literally comes back to life? What happens when he’s afraid that John Watson is “definitely in danger?” JOHN’S THEME. IN HIGH full STRINGS!!!!! He is prepared to do anything to come back for John Watson, and voila! He has come back. (How beautiful is this? Especially after having seen the script?)

TRF-One more thing about “Prepared to do anything.” John’s theme at the end of this track is EXACTLY the same as John’s very VERY first theme that we hear when he just wakes from a nightmare before meeting Sherlock. THE EXACT same instrumentation. Slightly slower OKAY BUT HE HAS LITERALLY REGRESSED TO PRE-SHERLOCK STATE UPON SEEING HIM DEAD!!! BLOODY FOKIN ELL. SAME THING HAPPENS LATER AT THE GRAVEYARD in “One more miracle” UGH PLEASE STOP

TRF-OK please bear with me. One more thing about this scene. “Blood on the Pavement”– as gory as it sounds- is the worst thing from S2, of course…But would you believe me if there’s something worse? It’s John’s theme in this particular scene. We hear his theme, but… it’s.. broken. It’s audibly, horribly dissonant. Jagged. Made of clashes. He’s in pieces. We’ve NEVER heard it this dissonantly, ever. Even when John was back from the war, he wasn’t this bad; this is some next-level disaster. John is literally and figuratively and in every way possible, broken. This theme plays as sherlock’s body is taken away from him and he finally swallows the horrible truth – that sherlock really died in front of him. I’m crying again

TEH-“God rest his soul”– Mustache!John visits Sherlock’s grave with Mary. It’s been 2 years. Notice that his theme is STILL in broken chords. THEY ARE NOT WHOLE CHORDS OKAY THEY ARE FUCKN BROKEN. He is still in pieces.. 

TEH-“Floating Dust”– materials from S4 foreshadowed. Namely the coffin smashing scene (“Pick Up”), and TLD’s Hug (same harmonic language!); this theme is shown at the same time that John revisits 221B after 2 years in TEH. (It can be distracting because young lads are asking for a penny for the Guy) THERE IT IS!! The pattern of high strings! This is the connection to Molly as John’s mirror. We know now that both Hug and the Coffin scene are about complicated feelings of love. Since this motif appeared prior to S4, I think it’s safe to say that this theme belongs to John and his (repressed/unsaid) romantic feelings. I really wish I could make a video or some audio collage or something to demonstrate but if it’s not hard to find because these must be deliberate….

HLV- “The Lie in Leinster Gardens” – John finds out about Mary’s true identity. Same harmonic language as “Floating Dust” bit and “Pick Up” AHHHH. Also “Mary’s theme (the waltz)” in minor key. Literally. Very gloomy. Also, @mercy-in-darkness just told me that she’s found the dark version of waltz when John says “YOU MADE A VOW” as Mary dies. This, to me, sounds like John has some unsaid issues about his marriage.

S4: all about John’s vulnerability. 

TLD’s first track is called “Stopped Lying Down.”
We see a smoking gun, then John lying down. We hear vocalisations. It’s safe to assume that these vocalisations are John’s raw emotions. We soon learn that John cannot talk about this with the therapist. I think it’s likely that it is John who shot Mary. This piece of music is what represents his pent up emotions: Guilt. Shame. Anger. Self Loathing. Grief. Pain. His shoulder pain is back (and so are nightmares, probably), he drinks again, and he doesn’t sleep. He just stops lying down. His soul cries out and we can actually hear it in music. And it’s painful. He’s been this vulnerable at least twice before, as far as we know: Post-War/Pre-ASiP, and Post-TRF. This vocal phrase happens three times.

The next time this theme shows up again is in “No Charges.” The corresponding scene: LITERALLY THE WORST SCENE.

“He’s entitled. I killed his wife.”
“Yes you did.”
<-cue vulnerable music. This is bad. They’ve both succumbed to the lowest possible state.  

(Irrelevant Bonus: guess who else said “No charges”? Cabbie!MORIARTY)

TLD’s penultimate track is called “Who I want to be.”
These vocalisations come back exactly when he says “I cheated on you, Mary,” followed by a whole speech that we very well know. He need to get the hell on with it.

May I also bring up the parallel between S2’s “The Woman” & “SHERlocked” to S4’s “Who I want to be” & “Pick up” ? We already know the Battersea scene by heart, which clarifies that both Irene “Well I am” Adler and John “Not Gay” Watson are both Sherlocked AF.  But as if we don’t already have tons of evidence, they not-so-subtly inserted the motif from ‘Who I want to be” into the scene in which Sherlock is actually forced to say “I love you” first to an unmarried person who is practical about death, who’s always truly loved him. Just like The Woman who was Sherlocked – John wants to be that man to whom Sherlock says “I love you.” 

John must be dying though. The musical moment that Sherlock’s hands curl into John’s trembling, sobbing body for a hug in TLD is the same moment that those hands destroy a John-sized coffin in TFP. Sherlock is probably whispering sweet nothings into comatose John’s ears. meow. 

Wake up, John. Open your eyes. Somebody loves you.

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@jenna221b @shawleyleres @the-7-percent-solution @tjlc @love-in-mind-palace @joolabee @inevitably-johnlocked @marcespot @marcelock @waitedforgarridebs @teapotsubtext @sherlockology @amo-not-ammo @loveinthemindpalace @tjlcisthenewsexy @sherlocksdivine @all-shades-of-everything @huddersismyhomegirl

mind bungalow beauties

may-shepard:

mrskolesouniverse:

the-7-percent-solution:

may-shepard:

I really hope that this reading of tfp, as John’s tab, which @the-7-percent-solution has been talking about since practically the moment the episode aired, and which has been expanded upon incredibly skillfully by @marcespot, gains the traction it deserves, because it results in some absolutely gorgeous textual call-and-response, and unfolds some truly beautiful johnlock dynamics. 

Waterfall vs. Well

In TAB, Sherlock comes to the understanding that, no matter how brutally he feels he needs to wrestle with his inner demons, and no matter how brutally they beat him, with John by his side, everything is fine. John in Sherlock’s dream is a super manly man, with full control over his pistol (hur hur), and the ability to stand with Sherlock, even in this place where his inner Moriarty is beating the crap out of him, and his emotions are on full, gushing display.

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John is all he needs, in order to take the leap at the end of dream. He does it willingly, joyfully, with complete confidence.

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John, on the other hand, has not managed his emotions at all, which is abundantly clear from the entirety of s4, and I think, might account for a lot of the ooc stuff we see in tst and tld. He’s caught in a deep conflict, between the dissatisfaction of the hetero cover story life he’s chosen for himself, and the real connection he wants to have, with Sherlock. He isn’t the man he wants to be. 

Rather than the free flow of emotion, potentially overwhelming, and powerful, that Sherlock experiences at the end of tab, John is deeply stuck. I know on a textual level everything about the well in tfp is dumb, but on the level of the dream, it’s incredibly profound.

(More below the cut.)

Keep reading

This. All of this. The moment i realized this was what we were watching is when The Final Problem became one of my all time favorite episodes. I love everything about it. They love Garridebs so much they made a whole episode fit into it. This writing is masterful. It is the best of the series so far. But just like John said, all we’re missing is “context”.

“Emotionally, John needs to know that he is loved, that he is safe, before he can step forward” – absolutely!
That’s why Molly (John’s mirror) asked Sherlock to say “I love you” first. John needs to hear these words from Sherlock. Sherlock is ready, Sherlock is full of love and desire, he allowed himself to make a step into a waterfall of his feelings and emotions for John. And John is the one in the “tower”. He’s afraid, he can’t land. He needs Sherlock’s help. Garridebs is coming, and it’ll be the most heartbreaking that we’ve ever seen!

@the-7-percent-solution I wrote a few days ago about how tfp might end up being one of my favourite pieces of media, ever. I am still marveling at how they managed to make such a textual level mess happen simultaneously with such a subtextual beauty. Each beat, each shot, the way it strings together moment to moment, it’s a masterpiece. 

They love Garridebs so much they made a whole episode fit into it.

Yes! and doesn’t this square so much better with everything Moffat said, once upon a time, with the importance of Garridebs? 

@mrskolesouniverse Thank you for this comment! What an amazing observation about the Molly scene. Of course! Beautiful. 

roadswewalk:

madadhruadh:

roadswewalk:

Unanswered question?  …He stabs it.  |  S04E03 The Final Problem


John is so interesting in this scene.

“Let me hold this thing that distresses you, so that you can stab a knife into it, inches from my hand.” 
So much trust, not to mention how close they must be standing for this.

Certainly closer than the latter shots imply. 

It’s surprisingly sweet, for a violent moment!

For an ex-Fusilier, this speaks volumes.

My husband is also an ex-Fusilier with major trust issues. I asked him who he’d trust to stab the knife in and he nodded and said “you”.

I cannot point out enough how huge that is.

Ahhhh!  @madadhruadh thanks for this real-life perspective!  There is one person that John Watson finally learned to trust this much.  And of course it’s Sherlock.  His wife, his sister, his therapist with a patient confidentiality agreement – none of them came even close.  I don’t know what the creators intended
to communicate

with this blocking choice, but as always the actual meaning is clear.  Guh.


Some other replies…

@cuccaine:

is that john’s letter from tst

@loveinthemindpalace

No but does anyone know what the letter says?

Skully asked about this a while back, but people’s best efforts at
ENHANCE revealed only that it’s on official letterhead of some kind, and
signed “Sincerely”.  So, definitely not legible, but not from John.  Best guess was NSY or some other agency, IIRC.  Unfortunately I can’t link the post anymore.  😦

@posh-boy-clever-boy (and others):

But can we talk about the intensity of John’s looking at Sherlock?

As usual Martin’s expression says everything, but I am happy to talk about it, too!  It was this look (landed on at random while seeking) that made me back up and start framing for a gif, and only then did I notice the hand placement.  THESE TWO!  You can’t put them in a room together without sparks flying, seriously.  That look definitely affects my head-canon for the letter, too: it’s clearly something important to make John look at Sherlock with so much concern.

tfp, the ring, and the art of the false climax

myladylyssa:

may-shepard:

TFP had a number of different intertexts–mainly, specific movies–which it drew upon for its motifs, themes, moment-to-moment imagery, and plot points. As approximately a million people noticed in the TFP aftermath, many of the movies referenced in this episode are horror films. Predominant among them was The Ring.

(For the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on Gore Verbinski’s 2002 film, rather than the Japanese source film Ringu / Ring, because the former is much better known in the West, and I think it’s more likely that it’s The Ring, and not Ringu, that Moffat is talking about in this interview, where he mentions watching it. However, since the broad strokes plot outline of both The Ring and Ringu are very similar / the same wrt the idea of the false climax, the argument I’m making holds either way.)

The Ring is well known for being a really beautifully done horror film. It looks incredible, for one thing–it’s visually gorgeous and thematically dense. But mostly, it does something with the concept of hauntings, ghostly origin stories, and the standard horror plot that, at the time of its release, was incredibly stunning and exciting.

In short, The Ring fakes out its audience by presenting a false climax that appears to resolve the story, in a way that is emotionally nice, if a little unsatisfying, before pulling the rug out from under its own plot.

Because The Ring is such a standout intertext for TFP, i.e., TFP not only draws on it, but resonates with it in multiple ways, via names, repeated motifs, the framing of certain shots, as well as relying on it for nearly its entire climax, I really think the story of s4 and the series as a whole is not over. Even if you think there aren’t any further episodes coming down the pipe, I’m hoping this discussion might help people understand why the story feels incomplete. (Because it is).

If you’ve been trying to sit with the idea that the Redbeard reveal / presentation of Eurus’ backstory / resolution of Sherlock’s story is real / supposed to be taken at face value, but that reading isn’t working for you, maybe this will help.

Basic premises: the reading I’m doing here is a mind bungalow reading. The rationale for The Ring as a major intertext of TFP is that John has been shot, and TFP is the content of his hallucination as he’s bleeding out, which offers an understanding of why it’s so bizarre and tonally shifted from everything else we’ve seen in Sherlock. This reading pulls on the newly revealed information, in TST, that John is a horror movie buff–enough so that he feels the need to correct Mary on the difference between The Omen and The Exorcist. John’s proclivity for horror films offers one justification for why they not only seem to inform TFP, but practically take it over.

I’m hoping to show, for people who aren’t familiar with The Ring, exactly how wildly it dominates TFP, and to talk about how we can use this fact to make some sense of the episode, and possibly the future of the show.

Ridiculous levels of detail under the cut:

Keep reading

Impressive! I didn’t realize how much I had forgotten about The Ring.

Hi hun, I saw you post earlier that Sherlock had apparently made sure his furniture was child-proofed for Rosie at the end of TFP. Can you show me some examples because everything in the flat looks the same to me with the exception of John’s chair?

inevitably-johnlocked:

Sure Nonny!

So when the flat is apparently destroyed everything except their chairs and that rug and everything else, Sherlock replaces a lot of the “cornered” furniture with rounded furniture:

A. That’s not their original breakfast table and chairs. They’re now a rounded set with a little shelf under them.

B, C, and D. Same with the long table, the chair at the end of the couch, and the stack of magazines. The sitting room table is now a small rounded one, the chair now has fully padded arms, and the stack of magazines have been replaced with rounded dressers, which Sherlock probably now keeps his military porn stash the magazines:

(E) used to be a hard-edged metal table, and (F) used to be a shelf with a lot of breakables on it.

And (G) used to be a very wobbly-looking side table. It’s been replaced with the sturdy one we see in TFP:

Plus, I believe the bookshelves are also less-cluttered as well, and those glass cases we see in the above image no longer have breakables in them

Sherlock literally changed the common area of the flat so he could be a better parent for Rosie.

Stab me.

Look, I’m not a fan of parentlock in this arc, but good god this is EXACTLY how I imagined Sherlock as a parent. And if we’re going with the John’s TAB theory, this is exactly how John imagines Sherlock as a parent too.

ivyblossom:

delurkingdetective:

Oh my goodness this gif meta.  This meta!

John’s words have power.  John misreads Sherlock and it shapes the text, it shapes how Sherlock sees himself, it shapes how he behaves.

HOLMES: […] all emotion is abhorrent to me. It is the grit in a sensitive instrument …
HOLMES and WATSON (almost simultaneously): … the crack in the lens.
WATSON: Yes.
HOLMES: Well, there you are, you see? I’ve said it all before.
WATSON: No, I wrote all that. You’re quoting yourself from The Strand Magazine.

I love this meta, and I love this show.

John criticizes Sherlock carelessly on the presumption that he’s incapable of being hurt by it. Sherlock takes in all of John’s criticisms, strips them of all their context, and uses them to punish himself. 

wssh-watson:

wssh-watson:

Sherlock
Holmes has become such a beautiful, strong man.

Look how
he patiently listens to John Watson telling him to make a move on a woman he
has zero interest in.

Oh, he
tries to tell John: “As I think I have explained before…” he starts, but John
interrupts him. John knows him better now. Romantic entanglement would complete
Sherlock as a human being, he thinks, and John Watson is right, he’s always
right, it’s boring, isn’t it?

It doesn’t matter if you think that

  • John is talking about himself and Mary
  • John is talking about himself and the bus lady
  • John is talking about himself and Sherlock (…obviously…)
  • Sherlock thinks John is talking about himself and Mary, whom he lost

The point
that comes out clearly in this gif-set, is that whatever we or anyone else
thinks either of them is thinking about, Sherlock is clearly reacting to one
thing.

That
chance doesn’t last forever. Trust me, Sherlock, it’s gone before you know it.
Before you know it!

This is
what Sherlock reacts to, with a face so heartbroken it chokes me up, because…

This is
the same face. That chance doesn’t last forever. Trust me, Sherlock, it’s
gone before you know it. Before you know it!

John,
Sherlock knows that very well. He has lost you so many times over and over
again, and he’s let you go each time because he thought you’d be happier that
way. He let you go to Mary, because you chose her. He let you go at the tarmac,
because he knew his death would destroy your life, just like what he wanted to
say wasn’t “Sherlock is actually a girl’s name,” but very probably, “I’m in
love you, thank you for all you’ve done for me.” But he didn’t.

Because
he knows if you knew that chance would have been there–only to see it
irrevocably go this time, to Serbia, to death–this would have broken you, too.

So he
chose to be kind instead. He may have left you, first, but he paid the price.
Multiple times. You probably began thinking this up there after his fall…

You said
it now. You said it years later; you’ve been thinking it the entire time. It
has haunted you.

Don’t you
think it’s haunted Sherlock, too, once he realised he had been in love with you
all this time? The self-loathing, John, that you have not been privy to
in TAB, must have been intense. Gone before you know it. Yes,
Sherlock has been there, too.

But he’s
been kind to you, and he is being again, now. Oh, he tries to tell you…
“Forgive me, but you are doing yourself a disservice,” he starts, and is about
to tell you that it is you, that it has only ever been you, who
is his fulfillment of ‘romantic entanglement,’ but just like before at the
tarmac and at your wedding, he lets you go. He lets you choose. You interrupt
him by confessing “I cheated on her,” because it’s something you need to get
out. It’s something you need to resolve, and this is the right moment for you.

“Forgive
me but you are doing yourself a disservice. I have known many people in this
world but made few friends, and I can safely say–”

So he
lets you speak. He lets you interrupt. He lets you, once again, not let him say
it. He lets you once again silence him.

He is
being kind. He knows you need this. He knows this is the wrong moment. He lets
you. He allows it.

He wants
you to know, I think. He is so ready to say it here. But his last face in that
gif-set? He may not know where he is standing with you–do you hate him? are you
okay to be friends with him again? you said he didn’t kill your wife but you
still harboured strong resentment towards him for various reasons–but he will
will not allow you to belittle yourself, because you are so much more, to him.
You’re human, even you, and he is done letting you beat yourself
up. You’re doing yourself a disservice. Out of all the people in this world,
there has ever been you
. You’re human, and you’re imperfect, but you’re
perfect for me.

He wants
you to know that. And, wanting that, he makes that face in the last gif-set,
listening patiently to you telling him to make a move on a woman he has zero
interest in. Maybe he’s thinking about how little you realise things, still,
even though you’re so clever. You’re an idiot, after all.

He is
hurting, he is resigned. This pains him. He wants you to stop talking about it.
“It was just texting.” Texting means nothing. Texting Irene is your bus lady
moment. It’s nice to know you are being wanted. It’s nice to allow yourself to
feel wanted, sometimes, to try it out, even if you may not want that person
back.

But this
isn’t it. This isn’t ‘more.’ You wanted more, and you still do.

Now look
at Sherlock in this gif-set and tell me he hasn’t wanted more, for years,
and still does.

Please,
let him speak, next time, John. Let him speak. You will want to hear what he
has to say.

Try not
to beat yourself up too much after that though: you could have had it long ago.

I scream every time the moaning text alert goes off because
John goes absolutely still while his subconscious walks around saying
things like, “posh boy and dominatrix,” taunting and provoking him while he walks towards Sherlock
like a fucking predator totally intent on–?? on what?? I don’t even know.

Everything vanishes from John’s head when he hears that noise, and it isn’t curiosity.
If you were curious about this you’d stop, maybe turn around and say,
“Oh, so you’re still on with her, then?” Throw in an impish grin or two,
give a thumbs up. Good on you, mate. Go for it! It’s time.

What does John do? He’s going stupid on the inside while trying to keep it cool. But he’s going around the bend.

And, “Seriously, we’re not going to talk about it?” ??? What is there
to talk about, John? Why are you so intent on this? You’re even worse
than TAB Watson, and he already was… you know. Quite intent. There’s nothing to talk about… but that doesn’t stop him.

He
can’t believe Sherlock doesn’t text her back. She’s alive, for one.
Everyone else seems to be dying these days, but the Woman is alive,
right? And she’s good for Sherlock. Beats him professionally, not
when she has psychotic breakdowns. They’re the same level of weird.
She’s just as clever as he is, he’d never call her an idiot, would he?
Not like John. With his psychotic breakdowns, his stupidity, his
constant trying to be normal; God, no, not like John, with all his bloody
issues. (Quite literally bloody, too. Like Sherlock on the floor in a morgue.)

Irene
is better for Sherlock. Could maybe be the only one for him–there
aren’t many psychopaths around, though John has met quite a number of
them–so why doesn’t Sherlock go for it?

John’s self-loathing is
incredibly strong here. Let’s throw in a ‘mate,’ there, he has the
necessary distance now. It’s not weird if he rants about her now, is it?
He is pushing Sherlock towards her, right? No one can make this
into anything it isn’t, because–well, it isn’t anything else. John just
dislikes the noise. He can’t stand it. Had to listen to it 57 times, Christ, and–

no. No, that’s not good. It doesn’t matter. The point is Irene is good for Sherlock, even if she’s Irene Adler.

Anyone but John.

If
only Sherlock weren’t staring up at him with his eyes–wet? are they
wet?–like they are, silent, just letting John go on. When he wants to say something, it’s good that John can just cut him off. Isn’t it?

Go (to your kitchen and get me some morphine).

artfulkindoforder:

just-sort-of-happened:

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I’m fascinated by the aggression and danger of the Baker Street confrontation in HLV.

I think everything that Sherlock does in this scene with regards to John is for John’s immediate safety.  In the long term, too, but at that moment, Mary is armed, dangerous and backed into a corner, they cannot afford to have John antagonise her.  There’s a possibility that Mary’s mission protocol after being caught is to terminate them both and flee.

I think that, with this in mind, we could see Sherlock speaking to Mrs Hudson as he walks through the door as an attempt to immediately get rid of her, for her own safety.  If Mary were to suddenly abort the mission and shoot John and Sherlock in the head, Mrs Hudson would also be a target because she would be a witness.  I don’t think Mary would want to leave any loose ends if this were the case.

So, when they come home and Mrs Hudson happens to be there in the flat, Sherlock immediately tells her to leave, specifically to go to her kitchen.  Sherlock knows about Mrs Hudson’s drug habits: the line, ‘isn’t it time for your evening soother?’, is, after all, from ASiP, the first episode,

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Bonus: Sherlock says this to get rid of her.  This line means, ‘Isn’t it time for you to go?’.  Here a reference to Mrs Hudson going to get drugs means, ‘get out of here, immediately!’.  Also, note the similarity in his facial expression as he says, ‘what exactly in the point of you?’, in HLV and here, in ASiP, as he encourages her to leave his flat.  

Mrs Hudson’s specific drug habits are reinforced via Magnussen’s earlier assesment: Marijuana and alcohol,

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This is a reminder to the audience about Mrs Hudson’s backstory: it does not include using morphine.  In fact, that’s one of Sherlock’s pressure points according to Magnussen (upon seeing his behaviour when they meet at the restaurant) but not one of Mrs Hudson’s.

Later at the Baker Street Confrontation, Mrs Hudson reminds us that it was not she who was the drug dealer, it was her husband,

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Sherlock brings up her past as an exotic dancer, reinforcing the idea that Sherlock knows a version of the facts that Magnussen showed us earlier,

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Again, no references to morphine in sight.

Sherlock must know that Mrs Hudson does not have morphine in her kitchen or anywhere else in her flat and yet he asks her to fetch him some.  I think this is Sherlock’s veiled attempt at getting her to safety.  In this scene I think he’s trying very painfully to get John to understand that they’re in grave danger.  He can’t come right out and say it precisely because they are in great danger.  He tries to redirect John’s anger at himself even as he tries to give John hints of how much danger they’re really in.

I think it’s worth noting that Sherlock avoids eye contact with Mrs Hudson as he requests morphine from her and immediately after as he yells at her.  I think that when Sherlock lies he often fails to make eye contact and I think here he’s hoping that she’ll just go away and be offended enough not to come back.  We see how he protected her in ASiB, I don’t think he’s doing things any differently in this situation: he’s just doing it covertly.

Mary instantly heads to a defensible position when they enter 221B.

She stands with her back to the wall, within easy reach of the knife in the mantelpiece.

Whatever her intentions, she’s definitely prepared for a fight. I think she’s not convinced that John won’t go for the knife to use against her.

My anti-Mary posts: highlights

silentauroriamthereal:

Bless whoever has started circulating all of my old Mary hate posts reflecting on Mary Morstan, lol. I ended up trying to find one of my older ones and then it occurred to me that maybe I should make a master list, though I’m still searching for half of them! Here are some of the highlights, in chronological order of posting. There were many (MANY) others, but these are some of the more notable ones. 

1. Reasons I didn’t like Mary even before she shot Sherlock. The original, haha. (I’m just talking about my own posts.) Posted on February 26th, 2014, this post lost me about 50 followers in one day. Everyone loved Mary back then! Not me. Lol. 

2. “I agree, I’m the best thing that could have happened to you.”. Posted January 24th, 2015. 

3. Just a reminder that Mary being a thoroughly hateable character is canon. Posted February 1st, 2015. 

4. “Oh, are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas.” Posted June 4th, 2015.

5, Mary, Mary, quite contrary (Traits of a psychopath). Posted August 26th, 2015.

6. Mary likes to embarrass people. Posted January 2nd, 2016. 

7. “Who else hates me?” Posted May 24th, 2016. 

8. Mary’s redemption arc (answer to an ask from ttime42). Posted January 8th, 2017. 

9. Every title I could think of was too long, too. Posted January 16th, 2017. Reflections on series 4 and BBC Sherlock as a whole, much of which centres around the character of Mary Morstan. 

10. John hated being with Mary. Posted January 9th, 2017. 

11. How Mary Morstan destroyed the moral centre of BBC Sherlock. Posted February 2nd, 2017.