Omg CAN I. Like, sorry it took me actual eons to respond to this ask, and thank you for sending this ask. I’ve been avoiding answering it, in part, because I wanted to get all my ideas together. I don’t think I really succeeded, but here’s my attempt at an answer.
.
PART THE FIRST: Oscar Wilde & ACD Canon
Since Oscar Wilde influenced ACD when he was writing the Sherlock Holmes stories (they were living at the same time and had met, more on this in a second) anytime anyone adapts ACD Holmes they are inherently influenced, at least a tiny bit, by Oscar Wilde.
So how was ACD influenced by Wilde?
Wilde and ACD met for the first time at a prearranged dinner and basically both left agreeing to write a new story. Inspired by that dinner, Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Grey. ACD wrote The Sign of Four. Here’s Sherlock Holmes fanboy and Oscar Wilde biopic star Stephen Fry telling you more about that, because why the hell not.
After Wilde was put on public trial for sodomy and his reputation was essentially destroyed, ACD distanced himself from knowing Wilde, even though he had spoken positively of him in the past. [As mentioned in this biography.]
But ACD didn’t forget Wilde. Many people believe that ACD referenced Oscar Wilde’s trial in 1895 in “The Adventure of the Three Students,” an Sherlock Holmes story where Watson says they had to leave London because of “a combination of events, into which I need not enter.” Which is the way one might reference a super-scandalous and highly upsetting public scandal in a piece of popular literature set during one’s lifetime. Here’s more tumblr meta from johnnlocked about the dates of the trial.
.
PART THE SECOND: Characters in 221B (or Oscar Wilde as a Persona)
Part of Oscar Wilde’s influence during his lifetime was the sheer amazingness of his public persona. He spent almost a year early on his career (in 1879) not writing but lecturing through the United States, London and Canada on ideas of the aesthetic, or this pretty radical concept of the value of beauty all on its own, rather than art that existed to share an obvious moral.
Which is to say, Wilde thought the outside mattered–and part of his super-strong personal brand were his funny quips, outlandish (for the time) outfits and overall larger-than-life personality. His ideas were so popular at the time that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote an entire operetta mocking the aesthetic movement.
So just on a basic level, let’s look at how the outside of some two of our most major BBC characters compare to Wilde:
Moriarty: Obsessed with his expensive clothes (Westwood!); always ready with a quip or snark; outwardly performs his sexual identity (both as “Jim the IT guy” flirting with Sherlock, but also once he’s revealed to be Moriarty); uses people as props/playthings (kind-of like Wilde manipulating actors by writing plays); Moriarty’s Irish background also reminds me of Wilde‘s own Irish background; Richard Brook’s CV includes a major role in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Sherlock: Many items in the above list apply to Sherlock, too. Again, a very smart dresser who clearly cares about his overall look; snarky around everyone (but especially people from Scotland Yard). Sherlock carefully cultivates a public persona (albeit not always a popular one) and I think Sherlock’s perpetual lack of fair in the government (as seen through his insolence with Scotland Yard and his frustration with Mycroft) can be perhaps be seen as the legacy of Oscar Wilde’s own troubles and frustration with the law. At the very least, Sherlock is a nonconformist, just like Wilde was. Finally, take a look at the thesis of one of Wilde’s essays, “The Soul of Man Under Socialism.” It’s basically “people who try to help out based on feelings just waste everyone’s time and everyone should focus instead on what they’re actually good at if they want to improve the world.” Does that sound like anyone we know? Like. Anyone at all.
.
PART THE THIRD: The Most Wilde-Esque Episodes
If the characterizations weren’t enough, let’s take a look at two episodes of BBC Sherlock that make direct (or indirect) allusions to Wilde:
The Reichenbach Fall: Sherlock’s defamation of character, wherein he falls from a celebrity to a man doubted by society on the run from the law, parallels with Wilde’s own fall from public approval, public trial and conviction after he was accused of committing sodomy (a crime in England during Wilde’s lifetime). couldntpossiblycomment points out that Moriarty’s trial was set in the same courthouse where Wilde’s trial actually took place. I think there are many more connections we could draw between these two incidents (for example, how the press discusses John and Sherlock’s relationship and sexualities throughout the episode), but I’ll leave that for another discussion/other people to unpack. I will only say that TRF ends in Sherlock’s separation from John and society for two years, much like Wilde’s trial ended in him going to prison for two years.
The Sign of Three: John has green carnations in the floral arrangements at his wedding. Oscar Wilde and his followers wore green carnations, which came to be associated with homosexuality–so it’s no surprise that these flowers appear in an episode where Sherlock publicly expresses his love for John. It’s a little surprising the flowers show up blending into the background of the set of John’s heterosexual marriage.
Again, I’m sure these few comparisons are just the tip of the iceberg of Sherlock and Wilde connections. But they’re not a shabby start.
.
A CONCLUSION TO THIS MADNESS: What Wilde Means
So, literally any version of Sherlock Holmes is going to be connected to Oscar Wilde in some way. The writers of BBC Sherlock have gone out of their way on more than one occasion to reference Wilde on their own–and that shows no sign of stopping, based on what we know about the special.
This is huge, in a way, for TJLC (<–that links to the infamous “Softly, Softly” meta from loudest-subtext-in-television, because how could I not). I think it would be hard for me to understate the importance Wilde has for the queer community. He is a beloved author and artist, but also a key figure for his honesty and the trauma he endured.
His tomb in France is covered with lipstick kisses, and when
authorities put glass in front of his tomb in 2011, people who visited started kissing the glass.
The Legacy Project in Chicago, celebrating major figures LGBT history, included Wilde in its first set of members. Wilde’s plaque includes this text describing his legacy: “The publicity surrounding Wilde’s trials…led to the development of a nascent gay and lesbian consciousness that became central to the success of the GLBT civil rights movement that was to follow.“
Tying BBC Sherlock to Oscar Wilde is no small act on the part of Moftiss. It’s tying their show to a deeply meaningful, landmark moment in British history and queer history.
(2/2) so do you think John truly understands now? Like if he woke up right now would he just pull Sherlock down for a kiss immediately or would he still need Sherlock to say it first to be able to believe it? And his repression/Eurus was healed with a loving hug so is that barrier down for good now? And in that case was that montage at the end really the best that John can imagine or does he still not dare envision himself and Sherlock as a full blown couple? Thank you and sorry for the bother 😉
Woah there, Nonny!
Thank you for your kind words. It’s no bother at all, but I just wish I had all the answers! I mean, don’t we all? That said, I’m gonna try my best and give you a coherent answer to these questions with my humble opinion. 😉
On Mary’s characterization at the end:
John just made up a whole story about someone who’s able to completely brainwash people with a seemingly friendly/helpful message. Before shooting him, Eurus told John “you can hide behind a smile”, so he dreamt that “smiling is advertising”. Think of the ‘Miss You’ DVD as John’s implementation of this theory. Mary may look sweet but what she says is actually not good at all: it’s all manipulation. One of the things that stands out the most to me, is the way John seems to translate Mary’s words from the real ‘Miss me’ DVD. He turns “the man we both love” into “I know what you could become”. But that’s in no way a supporting statement on what Sherlock and John ‘could become’: that’s John thinking she always knew about his and Sherlock’s true feelings for each other. And given her actions since TEH, that only speaks ill of her! So I see this message as John realising he’s been thoroughly manipulated by her. I mean, he even hears her fueling his self-loathing in “who you really are doesn’t matter”, and voicing his fears –and possibly her contempt towards them– describing them as “a junkie who solves crimes to get high and a doctor who never came home from war”. That’s the opposite message from literally the whole story! It negates their character development. Though it makes sense that as the villain, she’d want them stuck in the past with their issues unsolved. And of course, note the possessive pronoun in “My Baker Street Boys”. Ownership, chains.
On John understanding Sherlock’s feelings for him:
We can’t know whether this is how John thinks Sherlock truly feels, or how he’d want Sherlock to feel.
But he certainly imagined Sherlock caring for him, crying for him, being soft with him, telling him is not too late for them, breaking him free, saving him and saying ‘I love you’ three times. Now, the climactic ‘I love you’ scene gives us a good insight into John’s pov. Everything Molly says is what he thinks. Again, it reflects his fear that Sherlock only wants him as a friend to tag along for the cases, and therefore that his love is unrequited. We can see his incredible repression and his desperate need to hear Sherlock telling him those three words. And literally, his dying wish to confess his love for Sherlock. Then, after Molly (read:John) is gone, and Eurus reminds us of aborted declarations of love (”all those words unsaid”) John imagines Sherlock in denial and desperate about losing him. To the point of almost commiting suicide later on (”I’m remembering the Governor”). We also get the whole Eurus=Sherlock parallel, with John characterizing her as an unfeeling machine, a freak that turns out to be a traumatized emotional being that “just needed a hug”, and gives her a redeeming arc. So, given that John’s dream centers around making Sherlock an emotional vivisection in order to figure him out, I’m inclined to think this is not ony the creators showing the audience Sherlock’s true nature, but John himself understanding it.
On John’s attitude, and daring to envision himself and Sherlock as a full blown couple.
He couldn’t even imagine the ‘I love you’ exchange without the use of a mirror– grant it, this is as close as the creators could get without spoiling the real love confession! But the image of them raising Rosie together did flash before John’s eyes. Also, Sherlock might’ve confessed his love to an unconscious John for all we know. He may actually remember hearing those words. Now, we saw how repressed John is, how unsure he feels. I don’t think John “I find it difficult, this sort of stuff” Watson would just ‘pull Sherlock down for a kiss immediately’, like you put it. Not without Sherlock reassuring him his feelings are requited. Also because in this aspect, what we saw in
Sherlock’s Mind Palace and John’s Mind Bungalow harmonizes perfectly: in TAB Sherlock realizes he’s the one who has to make the move and finally confess, while in TFP John wishes Sherlock to be the first one to say ‘I love you’. They’re on the same page even on this, it seems 😉
That’s my take on it, Nonny! Hope that helped. Thanks for the ask.
Another three episodes. Another series finished. Another set of surprises. Another cliffhanger.
As is to be expected, fans have been going wild, theories have been spreading like wildfire, and conversation is roaring.
I have a few theories of my own, and after a few rewatches, I’m ready to lay them all out. I’m going to try to lay them out chronologically so that you can consider them as and when you rewatch the episode, but some jumping about will be necessary.
So, here we go:
THESES: The woman we know as Mary Morstan was in cahoots with Moriarty. Sherlock was lying about trusting her. Mycroft saved Sherlock’s life.
Mary first.
Let’s have a think about the scene in which Mary shoots Sherlock. The first thing that leaped out at me was her clothing. Mary is dressed in the clothing of an assassin. People have been arguing that Mary has changed and left that life behind her. Has she really? She kept the clothes, and the gun. She kept them hidden from John, too. Even if she’s no longer ‘in business’, she hasn’t retired, either.
Now, let’s take a look at the shooting itself. Just before it takes place, the following dialogue occurs:
SHERLOCK: “Mary, whatever he’s got on you, let me help.”
MARY: “Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step, I swear I will kill you.”
SHERLOCK: “No, Mrs Watson.* You won’t.”
*An appeal to Mary’s sentiment by referencing their shared connection to John?
Then, of course, she shoots him, and notice the look of surprise on Sherlock’s face:
His last word before he falls unconscious is “Mary?”
He was not expecting that, which supports my theory that she really did shoot to kill (bear with me).
Sherlock, in an attempt to save himself, enters his mind palace, where one of the first things that the Molly of his imagination says is: “You’re almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus.”
Then we have Mycroft: “It’s all very well having a mind palace, but you’ve only three seconds of consciousness left to use it.”
Then Mycroft says “What was directly behind you when you were murdered?”
Sherlock says “I haven’t been murdered yet!” to which Mycroft replies “Balance of probability, little brother.”
Now, remember that Molly and Mycroft are not really present – all of this takes place in Sherlock’s head. Conclusion? Sherlock thinks that Mary shot to kill.
She succeeded, too. His heart stopped. The surgeons moved away, they gave up. Sherlock died.
What saved him?
John arrived and spoke to him.
Then Moriarty, in Sherlock’s mind palace, said “…And John will cry buckets and buckets. It’s him I worry about the most. That wife! You’re letting him down, Sherlock. John Watson is definitely in danger.”
Again, remember that Moriarty is not really the one speaking. This is all in Sherlock’s head. Sherlock fought his way back to life because he believed John to be in danger from Mary. Sherlock does not trust Mary, and he certainly doesn’t trust her with his best friend.
Then there’s what John said at the hospital: “His first word when he woke up? ‘Mary’!”
He woke up thinking of her. He definitely does not trust her.
Look how she reacts to hearing that he’s alright, too:
That is not a look of relief.
Then Mary visits him, and says: “You don’t tell him. Sherlock! You don’t tell John. … Look at me, and tell me you’re not going to tell him.”
If she was sorry, she would’ve said so. If she was sorry, there would have been at least a hint of remorse in her tone. There was not. Her tone was threatening. She didn’t ask him not to tell John, she told him, and by this point, we and Sherlock both know what she is capable of doing to people.
This is also proof of just how selfish Mary’s love for John is. When you love someone, really love them, your priority is their safety. Mary’s priority is not John’s safety – if she has such a dangerous past, the safest thing for John would be to come clean, because at some point, it’s possible that John might be targeted because of her (just as he has been because of Sherlock, and it was through Mary that Magnussen observed Sherlock’s reaction to John being placed in the fire).
It’s not “I’m sorry that I shot you. Even if I didn’t care about you one bit, I know that my husband does, and I am sorry to have caused him any pain through harming you.”
It’s “Don’t you dare tell my husband what I did, because then he will leave me.”
She loves John, certainly, but she is very, very selfish about it.
Of course, Sherlock’s still drowsy at that point. A little later, though, Janine visits, and just before she leaves, she says: “I’ll give your love to John and Mary.”
At this point, Sherlock’s face becomes determined, and he turns down the morphine tap. He gets ready to make his escape.
Cut to the mind palace, and look how Mary appears:
She’s dressed as she was the day she and Sherlock met. Which, by the way was suspicious in itself, as she appeared to have no idea who Sherlock was – “John? John, what is it? Oh, no, you’re- [Sherlock].” Sherlock was all over the papers. Everyone knew what he looked like, and someone so close to John certainly would. That implies to me that she knows more about him than she was willing to let on, and so pretended to know nothing at all. Liar.
Then look at how she reacts to discovering Sherlock’s ‘number 1 bolthole’:
That is a look of pure suspicion and trepidation. Not only does Sherlock not trust Mary, she doesn’t trust him either.
Now let’s talk about the dialogue back in 221b:
JOHN: “He knew who shot him. The bullet wound was here, so he was facing whoever it was.”
LESTRADE: “So why not tell us? Because he’s tracking them down himself-“
JOHN: “Or protecting them?”
LESTRADE: “Protecting the shooter – why?”
JOHN: “Protecting someone, then. But why would he care? He’s Sherlock. Who would he bother protecting?”
And this is the shot as he finishes speaking:
In this shot, if only very partially, is John, Lestrade and Mrs Hudson, the three people Sherlock risked his life to save when he jumped off the roof of Bart’s. If you want some subliminal messaging that Sherlock was not protecting the shooter, but, as John said, ‘someone’, there it is. At the center of the shot is John, who then, of course, comes to a realisation: he’s sitting in my armchair. He then asks:
“Mrs Hudson, why did Sherlock think I’d be moving back in here?”
The realisation hits him then. Sherlock was not protecting the shooter. He was protecting his best friend.
Let’s skip along a little bit. Mary goes to Leinster Gardens, where Sherlock calls her. He brings her to his bolthole. How does he describe that bolthole?
“The empty houses.”
Let’s take a look at an extract from The Adventure of the Empty House:
I had imagined that we were bound for Baker Street, but Holmes stopped the cab at the corner of Cavendish Square. I observed that as he stepped out he gave a most searching glance to right and left, and at every subsequent street corner he took the utmost pains to assure that he was not followed. Our route was certainly a singular one. Holmes’s knowledge of the byways of London was extraordinary, and on this occasion he passed rapidly and with an assured step through a network of mews and stables, the very existence of which I had never known. We emerged at last into a small road, lined with old, gloomy houses, which led us into Manchester Street, and so to Blandford Street. Here he turned swiftly down a narrow passage, passed through a wooden gate into a deserted yard, and then opened with a key the back door of a house. We entered together, and he closed it behind us.
The place was pitch dark, but it was evident to me that it was an empty house. Our feet creaked and crackled over the bare planking, and my outstretched hand touched a wall from which the paper was hanging in ribbons. Holmes’s cold, thin fingers closed round my wrist and led me forward down a long hall, until I dimly saw the murky fanlight over the door. Here Holmes turned suddenly to the right, and we found ourselves in a large, square, empty room, heavily shadowed in the corners, but faintly lit in the centre from the lights of the street beyond. There was no lamp near, and the window was thick with dust, so that we could only just discern each other’s figures within. My companion put his hand upon my shoulder and his lips close to my ear.
“Do you know where we are?” he whispered.
“Surely that is Baker Street,” I answered, staring through the dim window.
“Exactly. We are in Camden House, which stands opposite to our own old quarters.”
“But why are we here?”
“Because it commands so excellent a view of that picturesque pile. Might I trouble you, my dear Watson, to draw a little nearer to the window, taking every precaution not to show yourself, and then to look up at our old rooms–the starting-point of so many of your little fairy-tales? We will see if my three years of absence have entirely taken away my power to surprise you.”
I crept forward and looked across at the familiar window. As my eyes fell upon it, I gave a gasp and a cry of amazement. The blind was down, and a strong light was burning in the room. The shadow of a man who was seated in a chair within was thrown in hard, black outline upon the luminous screen of the window. There was no mistaking the poise of the head, the squareness of the shoulders, the sharpness of the features. The face was turned half-round, and the effect was that of one of those black silhouettes which our grandparents loved to frame. It was a perfect reproduction of Holmes. So amazed was I that I threw out my hand to make sure that the man himself was standing beside me. He was quivering with silent laughter.
“Well?” said he.
“Good heavens!” I cried. “It is marvellous.”
“I trust that age doth not wither nor custom stale my infinite variety,” said he, and I recognized in his voice the joy and pride which the artist takes in his own creation. “It really is rather like me, is it not?”
“I should be prepared to swear that it was you.”
“The credit of the execution is due to Monsieur Oscar Meunier, of Grenoble, who spent some days in doing the moulding. It is a bust in wax. The rest I arranged myself during my visit to Baker Street this afternoon.”
“But why?”
“Because, my dear Watson, I had the strongest possible reason for wishing certain people to think that I was there when I was really elsewhere.”
“And you thought the rooms were watched?”
“I knew that they were watched.”
“By whom?”
“By my old enemies, Watson. By the charming society whose leader lies in the Reichenbach Fall. You must remember that they knew, and only they knew, that I was still alive. Sooner or later they believed that I should come back to my rooms. They watched them continuously, and this morning they saw me arrive.”
The specific enemy in question, who Holmes and Watson apprehend, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, the late Moriarty’s right-hand man, described thus:
Moran, Sebastian, Colonel. Unemployed. Formerly 1st Bangalore Pioneers. Born London, 1840. Son of Sir Augustus Moran, C. B., once British Minister to Persia. Educated Eton and Oxford. Served in Jowaki Campaign, Afghan Campaign, Charasiab (despatches), Sherpur, and Cabul. Author of Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas (1881); Three Months in the Jungle (1884). Address: Conduit Street. Clubs: The Anglo-Indian, the Tankerville, the Bagatelle Card Club.
On the margin was written, in Holmes’s precise hand:
The second most dangerous man in London.
A trained assassin, currently unemployed, who Holmes and Watson confront in an empty house. Remind you of anyone?
Let’s add to that her very suspicious behaviour regarding apparently not recognising Sherlock on the day they met. May she, like Moran, have known that Sherlock was alive, and have been watching him?
Here, again, Sherlock demonstrates that he does not trust Mary: “Remind you of anyone, Mary? A façade?”
His later demonstration of apparent trust is most certainly an act.
Almost as soon as Mary enters the building, her hand goes to her gun:
She certainly doesn’t have any qualms with killing Sherlock. She confirms this herself not long afterwards:
MARY: “You were very slow.”
SHERLOCK: “How good a shot are you?”
MARY: “How badly d’you wanna find out?”
Now, of course she doesn’t then actually kill him – that would ruin the narrative; the shooting of the coin has to serve as a suitable alternative. She of course shoots it excellently. Now, here comes the odd bit:
SHERLOCK: “And yet over a distance of six feet you failed to make a kill shot. That wasn’t a miss. It was surgery. I’ll take the case.”
And yet, it wasn’t a miss. It was a very good shot. Sherlock died. So why say it? I’ll come back to that.
MARY: “What case?”
SHERLOCK: “Yours. Why didn’t you come to me in the first place?”
MARY: “Because John can’t ever know that I lied to him. It would break him and I would lose him forever, and Sherlock, I will never let that happen. Please, understand, there is nothing in this world I would not do to stop that happening.”
Like killing one of the most intelligent and observant men in the world who also happens to be his best friend, for instance? Your selfishness is showing again there, Mary.
Now let’s take a look at the confrontation between Sherlock, John and Mary back in 221b:
JOHN: “You… What have I ever done? Hm? My whole life… to deserve you.”
SHERLOCK: “Everything.”
JOHN: “Sherlock, I’ve told you… Shut up.”
SHERLOCK: “No, I mean it, seriously, everything. Everything you’ve ever done is what you did.”
JOHN: “Sherlock, one more word and you will not need morphine.”
SHERLOCK: “You’re a doctor who went to war; you’re a man who couldn’t stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den, beating up a junkie. Your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high. That’s me by the way – hello! Even the landlady used to run a drug cartel. […] John, you are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You’re abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people. So is it truly such a surprise that the woman you fall in love with conforms to that pattern?”
JOHN: “But she wasn’t supposed to be like that! Why is she like that?”
SHERLOCK: “Because you chose her.”
At first, this seems cruel. It seems as though Sherlock is forcing the blame of the situation on John, and certainly, that’s how John takes it – “Why is everything… always… MY FAULT?”
However, might this not be more evidence for the Mary-as-Moriarty’s-ex-right-hand-(wo)man theory? She’s not dangerous because John chose her or vice versa, but she put herself in John’s path because he’s caught up in that dangerous lifestyle, and with Sherlock.
She is, after all, a nurse, and does that suit her? Presumably she’s taken innocent lives. If she had only taken the lives of bad people, why would John care? He’s done exactly the same, as she presumably knows – he was, after all, in the army in a protective role. Mary is not an altruist. She does not have a personality suited to nursing. She presumably trained as a nurse during her five years since taking Mary Morstan’s identity, too, and not an NHS nurse, either – she works privately at John’s clinic. Less background checks, then. It seems to me that Mary intentionally put herself in John’s path. The Moriarty connection is looking likelier and likelier.
Let’s go a bit further.
SHERLOCK: “John, listen, be calm and answer me. What is she?”
JOHN: “My lying wife.”
SHERLOCK: “No, what is she?”
JOHN: “And the woman who is carrying my child who has lied to me since the day I met her.”
SHERLOCK: “No. Not in this flat, not in this room, right here, right now, what is she?”
JOHN: “Okay. Your way. Always your way. Sit.”
MARY: “Why?”
JOHN: “Because that’s where they sit! The people who come in here with their stories. The clients – that’s all you are now, Mary. You’re a client. This is where you sit and talk and this is where we sit and listen. Then we decide if we want you or not.”
In this scene, John completely places his trust in Sherlock and disowns Mary. He also mentions that she is carrying his child. Let’s continue.
Mary hands John a memory stick:
SHERLOCK: “A.G.R.A. What’s that?”
MARY: “My initials. Everything about who I was is on there.”
Oh, really? You said you would do anything to prevent John from finding out the truth about you, and yet you just happened to be carrying all of the information about your past with you?
Liar.
For those of you who aren’t away, the initials are a reference to a Great Agra Treasure of The Sign of Four, which turns out to be missing, the case empty:
“That is all over,” I answered. “It was nothing. I will tell you no more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is the treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring it with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see it.”
“It would be of the greatest interest to me,” she said. There was no eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which had cost so much to win.
“What a pretty box!” she said, stooping over it. “This is Indian work, I suppose?”
“Yes; it is Benares metal-work.”
“And so heavy!” she exclaimed, trying to raise it. “The box alone must be of some value. Where is the key?”
“Small threw it into the Thames,” I answered. “I must borrow Mrs. Forrester’s poker.”
There was in the front a thick and broad hasp, wrought in the image of a sitting Buddha. Under this I thrust the end of the poker and twisted it outward as a lever. The hasp sprang open with a loud snap. With trembling fingers I flung back the lid. We both stood gazing in astonishment. The box was empty!
No wonder that it was heavy. The ironwork was two-thirds of an inch thick all round. It was massive, well made, and solid, like a chest constructed to carry things of great price, but not one shred or crumb of metal or jewellery lay within it. It was absolutely and completely empty.
“The treasure is lost,” said Miss Morstan calmly.
I don’t think that that memory stick contained the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, do you?
Then let’s look at this speech of Sherlock’s:
“By your skill set, you are or were an intelligence agent. Your accent is currently English but I suspect you are not. You’re on the run from something. You’ve used your skills to disappear, Magnussen knows your secret, which is why you were going to kill him, and I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him.”
‘Are’ is not looking likely. Look what MI6 has to say about that role:
‘What about secrecy? Well obviously the details of your work will be secret and we ask you not to discuss your application with anybody. That said, once you join us you’ll be able to disclose your role to one or two close friends or family. We’ll help you create a credible cover story for everyone else.’
So why haven’t you disclosed your role to John, Mary? Where’s your credible cover story? No, she’s not an intelligence officer anymore.
She has disclosed her role to someone, though. Remember how quickly she said “Oh, he would have needed a confidante!” in reference to Sherlock going on the run? You’re on the run too, Mary. Who’s your confidante?
Then there’s this:
MARY: “The stuff Magnussen has on me – I would go to prison for the rest of my life.”
JOHN: “So you were just gonna kill him?”
MARY: “People like Magnussen should be killed, that’s why there are people like me.”
JOHN: “Perfect. So that’s what you were? An assassin? How could I not see that?”
MARY: “You did see that. And you married me. Because he’s right. It’s what you like.”
She’d go to prison for the rest of her life? Not if she was still with the secret service. She worked for much nastier people than that.
Here we also see another nasty trait of Mary’s come to light: she’s emotionally abusive. She turns the blame of the situation away from herself and onto John. She did say she’d do anything to prevent him from leaving her.
Look at John’s face, how he responds:
He is devastated, furious, he certainly doesn’t look like he plans to forgive her. So why do we see him do exactly that?
Well, for one thing, she’s carrying his child. He evidently cares about that – when she falls unconscious, he says to Sherlock: “Did you just drug my pregnant wife?” Emphasis on the ‘pregnant’.
For another, Sherlock tells him to: “John, John! Magnussen is all that matters now. You can trust Mary. She saved my life.”
Prior to that, he claimed that she fired “One precise shot to incapacitate [him] in the hope that it would give [her] time to negotiate [his] silence.” Yet again, she quite literally killed him. There is no proof that she really did call an ambulance, either – the scene in which we see her doing so is a reconstruction of Sherlock’s claim, and I used to have a horse. I saw lots of accidents. Multiple people would call an ambulance, and upon doing so, later people to call would be told that an ambulance had already been sent out to that particular incident. That didn’t happen to John. Perhaps there was good traffic that day, or an ambulance happened to be in the area. Besides, Sherlock fell unconscious within three seconds, went into shock (which can cause memory loss) and was dosed with morphine (which causes disorientation). Hardly the right circumstances to provide for a thorough analysis of the situation.
So why does Sherlock insist that Mary is trustworthy when he quite obviously doesn’t trust her? My guess is that he wants to placate her. He does, after all, say this in her presence. He wants to lull her into a sense of false security. We know that he wants what Magnussen has on her – “I want everything you’ve got on Mary”; “In return for the password, you will give me any material in your possession pertaining to the woman I know as Mary Watson” – but we don’t know why. Is it really to protect her? Or is it because he wants to know her secret?
John may be in on that – after all, he and Mary did undergo “months of silence”, and the timing of their ‘reconciliation’, just before the drugs took effect and everyone fell unconscious, was fortunate. I’m sure Sherlock invited John AND Mary to Christmas dinner for a reason. Perhaps John is just burdened by guilt and a sense of duty, and really is trying to forgive her, but the evidence suggests that he’s highly suspicious of her, too.
There’s also the fact that, when reconciling with her, he says “I’ve thought long and hard about what I want to say to you. These are prepared words, Mary. Chosen these words with care.” He also later says “I am very pissed off and it will come out now and then.”
John is not a good liar. Sherlock established this in The Empty Hearse:
JOHN: “One word, Sherlock, that is all I would’ve needed! One word to let me know that you were alive!”
SHERLOCK: “I’ve nearly been in contact so many times but I worried that, you know, you might say something indiscreet… You know, let the cat out of the bag.”
Now, nobody sounds natural when they speak from rehearsal. John’s repeated claim that that is what he’s doing, as well as letting Mary know that he will lose his temper with her in the future, is the perfect cover for an act by a not particularly good actor.
The editing of this section is important, too. It cuts between the confrontation scene in 221b and the reconciliation scene. That, to me, suggests that we are not supposed to buy into John’s forgiveness. It’s hard to, when we’ve just seen him so devastated and fuming.
So, onto the Magnussen scene. He really solidifies my theory that she was in cahoots with Moriarty. Let’s look at some of the things he says about her:
“I’m not a murderer, unlike your wife.”
‘Murderer’ is an interesting choice of word. It suggests worse than working with the secret service. If that was all he meant, presumably he would’ve said ‘killer’. There are implications behind the word ‘murderer’ – implications of immorality.
“Oh, she’s bad, that one. So many dead people. You should see what I’ve seen.”
Again, suggestions of immorality.
And my favourite:
“All those wet jobs for the CIA. Ooh! She’s gone a bit freelance now, bad girl. [laughter] Oh, she’s so wicked. I can really see why you like her.”
She clearly worked for someone who was not at all moral. Again, my bets are on Moriarty.
So why did Sherlock shoot Magnussen?
Well, let’s take a look at his expression upon discovering that Magnussen apparently keeps all of his blackmail material in his mind:
He looks horrified. Why? Because he cannot obtain the information and hence protect Mary? Or because he cannot obtain the information and hence learn her secret and hence protect John?
Then let’s consider what Magnussen says to John shortly before Sherlock shoots him:
“I know who Mary hurt and killed. I know where to find people who hate her. I know where they live. I know their phone numbers. All in my mind palace. I could phone them right now and tear your whole life down. And I will. Unless you let me flick your face.”
After that, killing Magnussen seems to be Sherlock’s safest bet at protecting John. Mary may well be a risk to him, but so are all the people who hate her. John would be be fighting a war on two fronts if Magnussen set Mary’s enemies on her.
Then there’s the fact that Mycroft’s present (and in control). I think Sherlock suspects that Mycroft would protect him, and therefore allow him to continue to protect John. After all, as he said at the cottage: “Your loss would break my heart.” Indeed, he immediately commands: “Do not fire! Do not fire on Sherlock Holmes! Do not fire!”
In fact, I believe that Mycroft is the hero of this story.
Earlier on, at the cottage, he said to Sherlock:
“I have, by the way, a job offer I should like you to decline. […] MI6. They want to place you back into Eastern Europe. An undercover assignment that will prove fatal to you in, I think, about six months.”
This is, of course, the assignment that Mycroft arranges for Sherlock to be sent on rather than being sent to prison for killing Magnussen. Now, would Mycroft do that without a plan? Would he really rather send Sherlock to his death than have him in prison? After all, “There will always come a time when we need Sherlock Holmes.”
Remember, too, how much Mycroft knows. He’s more intelligent than Sherlock, and Sherlock invited Mary to the family home when Mycroft was there. I suspect that Mycroft is well aware that something is up with Mary.
So, what does he do? Stages Moriarty’s resurrection. Brings back Sherlock, and, if Mary was in cahoots with him, smokes her out (she does sound suspiciously tense upon being told that Moriarty is still alive). Kills two birds with one stone. Yes, he reacts with surprise to the news, but he does so over the phone. He could very well be acting. He responds very calmly, after all.
I think Sherlock was counting on Mycroft. This dialogue is very suggestive:
JOHN: “The game is over.”
SHERLOCK: “The game is never over, John. But there may be some new players now. That’s okay. The east wind takes us all in the end.”
JOHN: “What was that?”
SHERLOCK: “It’s a story my brother told me when we were kids. The east wind, this terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path. Seeks out the unworthy and plucks them from the earth.”
Are you expecting the east wind to pluck Mary from the earth, Sherlock?
Then, when Mycroft calls Sherlock and asks how his exile is going, he replies “I’ve only been gone four minutes.”
We’ve seen him pass comment on Mycroft’s timing before – in the Baskerville labs in The Hounds of Baskerville and in Mycroft’s office in The Empty Hearse. Was he expecting to return? Quite possibly. So soon? Possibly not.
Perhaps Mycroft’s not slipping as much as Sherlock thinks he is.
–
Additional commentary on this theory, including clarifications and clearing up potential faults:
Also, re. Sherlock stating that it may have been his last chance to speak with John, I imagine this is either, again, to placate Mary (she was present when he said so) or because he could not be 100% sure whether or not Mycroft would be able to retrieve him, despite his apparent faith in his brother (in which case, killing Magnussen was still the safest bet, as it narrowed down John’s potential threats to one, and one whom Mycroft could keep an eye on).
Must-read post on the possibility that Sherlock knows Mary is lying and everything he does after the empty house is done to placate her until she has the baby.
There’s a lot I love about this theory since it seems nearly impossible to me that Sherlock would really believe Mary didn’t mean to kill him with that shot or that John, being a doctor, wouldn’t know better.
There are a few threads that bother me though.
If John was in on it with Sherlock:
* Why does Sherlock say, after shooting Magnussen, “Tell Mary she’s safe”? No one was there except John and Sherlock, so there was no one to put up that facade for if John and Sherlock were in cohoots together to placate Mary.
* I do feel Magnussen’s “put it on a T-shirt” is telling us that John doesn’t understand Sherlock’s motives for killing Magnussen (that he did it for him). John seems genuinely shocked.
* I could buy that John was acting at the Christmas party and, in fact, the burning of the USB drive in front of Mary would be a good part of that act.
* The plane scene, however, is another inconsistent bit to me. John and Sherlock could have been acting out the scene for the sake of Mary, who was watching, knowing Sherlock would be coming back shortly. But he way Ben and Martin played it, it felt like they were really saying goodbye, Sherlock was really giving his full name as a parting gift, John really was asking where Sherlock was going, etc. If they both knew Sherlock wasn’t really going into exile that makes little sense. Also, we all know, and as wsswatson pointed out, John is not a good actor.
If John wasn’t in on it:
* Let’s say the “let’s just placate Mary until she has the baby and then we can take her out” plan was something Sherlock knew, perhaps in cohoots with Mycroft, but didn’t tell John about. That makes more sense of what he said to John about “Tell Mary she’s safe” at Magnussen’s and the plane scene.
* But FUCK, that means that Sherlock is ONCE AGAIN totally lying to John and playing with him emotionally – convincing him to forgive and go back to his lying, assassin wife even though Sherlock doesn’t trust her in the least. That’s just what he did over the Fall, not trusting John ‘not to blab’. And that is not the character growth we’ve been led to expect in every other way from Sherlock this season. That would be a very shitty thing to do.
* I suppose Sherlock alone could have been lying at the plane, for the sake of Mary, who was watching. Sort of takes away the power of his goodbye.
* If Sherlock didn’t trust Mary, and flew off into exile leaving John married to her, well… he wouldn’t. So that would mean he definitely had a plan with Mycroft that would get him back to England. Which I’m willing to buy.
Anyone care to convince me? I want to believe Sherlock is way too smart to forgive and trust Mary and that they’ve already got a plan to deal with her.
NOTE: Actually, it would be a nice character growth moment if Sherlock didn’t tell John about the Fall, selfishly, because “he might blab” (as he said in TEH), but he does tell him about the Mary plan. This would show growth in Sherlock. But we still have the issues above if John knew.
XA
This is brilliant. I just wish I had my computer cuz this is a bitch to read on mobile
The thing I love about tab is that the first layer of subtext is that its referring to the canon, but then deep down its really referring to Sherlock’s own thoughts, like Sherlock feeling like he’s always faking when he’s in front of other people “do you have to pose while you do your deductions?” or Sherlock wanting to write out what he did to John at Baskerville “I was barely in the dog one” or regretting his recent relapse and feeling like John was the only thing that made him be better for a little while “Perhaps since I convinced the reading public that an unprincipled drug addict is some kind of gentleman hero.” this is all terrible
I appreciate the collection of perspectives, which I myself love perusing. My own view is probably closest to Ivy’s, in that I can’t think they’re ‘making love too difficult to work’ because even in this, John and Sherlock parallel each other. In their difficulty, their brokenness, their painfully sharp edges. I mean, we definitely love their idealized selves in fandom, and create new legends around them as much as we psychoanalyze and decide when something is ‘too much’. But it’s the characters who could really tell you when it’s too much, and I think that finally, in TLD we see that Sherlock and John see and accept all of one another. You could say that *theoretically* this should break them, but in fact it makes them stronger. If nothing else, by the end of TFP, it seems they’re happy. It’s not a tragedy, after all. It’s just a brutal thing to watch, they’re definitely both traumatized, by this and many other things. Their brokenness is supposed to be something they can use, though. As Ivy said, John’s flaws are part of what Sherlock needs and can use. The violence is part and parcel of how it works, because Sherlock knows how to help John channel it, how to make London into John’s warzone. And sometimes it’s all too much, but that’s been true for Sherlock, too. Sometimes Sherlock himself is way, way too much. But somehow they’re exactly what the other needs and can handle. That’s the secret of their dynamic.
Of course, I agree, it didn’t have to explore this possibility, even if it always existed in the realm of the possible for this or any Holmes and Watson. But at the same time, this started in Series 3, ‘cause they kept not dealing with the old traumas enough, ever since Reichenbach, and then piling on complications. John was set on a collision course with himself as soon as he married Mary and she turned out to be the worst possible option. It was a bad decision compounded by her pregnancy and further exacerbated by the ensuing series of events– that unfortunate vow, the shooting, Sherlock back on drugs and saying he killed Magnussen ’cause he’s a sociopath, Sherlock pushing them back together and John choosing to do it without dealing with any of their problems. Everything kept being swept under the rug, with the only explanation being that John ‘chose her’ and he should just deal with it. So he let it go, and let it go, and controlled himself and held back. And then (as Martin Freeman said), he just needed an excuse when he failed again (this time to protect Mary). In John’s mind, someone has to be in control: usually that’s Sherlock ’cause as Ivy said earlier, Sherlock can do anything. Sherlock is his superhero; his ‘commander’. Alternatively, of course, John *himself* expects to be in control, or it’s a personal failure. Remember how he took it in HLV, with Sherlock telling him (ruthlessly, from John’s perspective) that he chose Mary: it’s his ‘fault’. John automatically jumps to the question of whose *fault* it was that Mary was the way she was, and he wasn’t ready to take responsibility and accept this, but Sherlock pushed and so he did. Then, when another traumatic event happens, John doesn’t have any reserve left, I guess.
What I’m saying is, I think many of us knew that some kind of reckoning had to be coming for John in S4. But all the talk about John’s arc was mostly supposed to be about John getting better, not worse. And if he got worse, we expected to see him recover, step by step. And that didn’t happen. We got a hint, a first step, and I understand why that’s not enough for many people. At the very least, though, I don’t think it’s the same as the ‘tragic gays’ trope would have it. In TLD, even if they didn’t show us everything, they showed enough that it’s clear they do always save each other, even if it’s not in the ways that Mary or anyone else would expect. Even if John can’t see it anymore, or thinks he’s not that person, he’s still the person who makes Sherlock better. And when John stumbles, Sherlock would believe it enough for the both of them. And I do think, in the end, that it is enough.
I’ve often wondered if John’s easy forgiveness of Sherlock after being drugged in Baskerville ended up hurting them both more than helping.
Sherlock drugged John. A man with PTSD. A man that could have easily hurt himself or others while he was under the influence of the drug. John was terrified. And yet? He forgives him without even a moment’s hesitation.
If John had been more livid, more upset, asked Sherlock “why would you ever think that is okay to do that to me?” and stayed angry for some stretch of time, Sherlock would have not come back from TRF thinking all would be forgiven in a moment’s notice.
Sherlock would have known that jumping off the roof at St. Bart’s in front of John, and staying dead for two years, is not something easily forgivable. John was betrayed. Yet Sherlock comes back expecting the easy forgiveness he saw in Grimpen.
John does forgive Sherlock in TEH but marries Mary because he knows he can’t trust his heart to Sherlock.
What would have happened if the forgiveness after Baskerville wasn’t as easy? I think the entire jump and aftermath would have changed.
Their play with one another, and the affects that has on their mutual trust does interest me a great deal (yes I have a half finished meta on it). I think that HoB, was the first instance of Sherlock pushing John almost beyond what he could bear, and you can see that Sherlock is angry at himself for it.
In HoB John told Sherlock, “Get me out, Sherlock. You have got to get me out!” But Sherlock kept pushing, and pushing, when he really should have dropped it right there, should have just comforted John and been done with it. But he didn’t. John told him to stop, and he pushed through anyway. He knew he’d done wrong the minute he saw John’s face, but it was too late to take it back, and Sherlock, being Sherlock, didn’t quite know how to fix it, so he just turned that anger on himself and the situation.
I think his anger in the lab, when he throws the microscope slide against the wall, is as much anger and frustration at himself, for where he took things with John earlier, just to prove a point, as it is frustration over not finding any trace of a drug in the sugar (which further underscored the fact that he pushed john that far for absolutely no reason at all).
But, I agree with you that John needs to learn to speak up for himself, or that dynamic can go south fast. Part of John not doing so may come down to his (I suspect) abusive upbringing. He’s used to just taking the kind of treatment that undermines trust, and is used to making himself small, and to brushing things off and just getting on with it. But he can’t keep doing that. He really should have said, “That was not in any way okay! Don’t you ever push me that far again, do you understand!”
For lack of a better term, I don’t think that they have ever really set a ‘safe word’ with one another in this game they play (john doesn’t know his limits or when to say stop, he just let’s sherlock push him, even when it goes past what is bearable), and that is going to lead to trouble.
TRF DEFINITELY broke trust, almost irreparably. I do think that John felt he forgave Sherlock in TEH after the train car thing, and as weird as it may be to most people, the thing with the bomb really was a smart thing on Sherlock’s part. He pushed John to the edge again, right to the edge, almost too far, but then he had that big ‘ta-dah!’ moment where he revealed that he had been in control all along, that he had a plan, that he had called the police. It was Sherlock’s way of saying, “See, you can trust me. I do have a plan. We can go back to our play, I’ll give you the danger, the adrenaline rush, but I won’t ever push you that far, too far, again. I will never make you feel that your trust in me was misplaced. I’ve got you, John. You’re safe with me.”
So John forgives him, and is willing to go back to their old dynamic, their old play, but there is still a part of him left bleeding, and that loops back again to the point I think you are trying to make here, that John forgave, truly forgave, but that the trust wasn’t fully repaired, even if they both thought it was. It’s going to take a lot to fix that.
And remember, what does Sherlock turn around and do AGAIN in HLV? He shuts John out, he lies to him to keep him safe, he makes his own plans with Magnussen, and he fails at those plans, and the result is John having to watch Sherlock go to his death all over again, as he is shipped off to Eastern Europe. HLV was just TRF all over again. Even if John had been starting to let himself trust again a little bit between TEH and his wedding, all of that started to unravel again in HLV.
I hate HLV, so much. But then I think that is where Seasons 4 & 5 are going to have to take us, it’s what those seasons will have to address. How on earth do you repair a breech of trust so huge, and especially with a man who came to the table with trust issues in the first place?!
Sherlock and John have their work cut out for them, that’s for sure.
This is why I love HLV though. I think it’s actually a step in the right direction for them both, not a repeat of TRF. Sherlock doesn’t shut John out entirely. He doesn’t go off to confront Mary on his own. He doesn’t show up later and say, oh by the way your wife is the one who shot me, but it’s already been taken care of. He doesn’t put himself in yet another situation that might get him killed (because he knows that Mary isn’t going to shoot him with John there). Instead he asks John to trust him again. He puts John in that chair and says sit and listen, you need to be in on this, I want you to be part of this. John places an awful lot of trust in Sherlock to just sit there quietly while his wife aims a gun at him, a lot more trust than he probably has allowed himself to show since Sherlock came back really, but he does as Sherlock asked because he is allowing that trust between them to start to grow back to where it once was. And in doing so, it allows him to be in on all the secrets for once, to see that Sherlock trusts him, too. When Sherlock came back in TEH, he said he hadn’t been in contact because he was afraid John would let the cat out of the bag, and here in HLV he is literally opening the bag right in front of him and trusting John not to let the metaphorical cat escape. And that is a huge step in the right direction, and John even cements his regained trust in Sherlock in the domestic scene. “Your way. Always your way.”
Now we don’t know a lot about what happened before Christmas and how much of the CAM plan John was or wasn’t in on, so maybe that was a step backwards for them. But either way, I think that while Sherlock shooting CAM and subsequently getting sent off to Eastern Europe was obviously not something John would have wanted him to do, it isn’t really the same as TRF. Even in the midst of things, it was clear to John that whatever plan Sherlock had come in with, whether John was in on it or not, it had gone wrong. He was hoping Sherlock maybe had a backup plan (”Sherlock, do we have a plan?”), but Sherlock just closes his eyes and John knows he doesn’t. And so of course Sherlock improvises and does something drastic to try to get them out of it, to try to save John, but it isn’t the same as TRF because it wasn’t part of the plan. It’s shocking, yes. It’s likely the wrong choice, yes. But it wasn’t the huge betrayal of trust that TRF was because Sherlock didn’t intentionally manipulate him and lie to him about what was happening. Again, a step in the right direction. A small one, but one going the right way nonetheless.
I agree about Sherlock telling John that Mary shot him being a step in the right direction. A huge step in the right direction, actually. But, the only way I can see the Magnussen fiasco as not being another TRF, is if we find out in Season 4 that there was a plan all along, that Sherlock telling John that he could trust Mary during the 221b domestic was part of some deception that the two of them had arranged ahead of time, that John forgiving Mary was also a part of that deception, that there was some sort of mutual arrangement going on there, and that the thing with Magnussen was supposed to be the capping off of the whole plan, but for some reason went wrong.
Thing is, that John seems truly, and sincerely shocked when Sherlock drugs his entire family on Christmas day, and a helicopter shows up to take them to Magnussen’s place. John really seems to not have a clue what Sherlock’s got up his sleeve when they get there. I really think it was all a huge surprise to John. So, I don’t know…
(Or: Things that everybody thinks make Sherlock canonically straight but they really really really don’t and why don’t you see that, because it’s so beautiful!!!)
Apologies to my Doctor-Who followers for this ongoing Sherlock intermezzo, but I just need to vent a little longer: I. Loved. Series. Four!!!
In particular, I loved The Final Problem. I loved Sherlock calling John family, I loved the smashing of the casket, the touching of non-existent glass, the air plane metaphor, Mycroft outside his comfort zone, etcetera etcetera etcetera. I loved the whole bloody thing.
But my favourite, favourite moment was the one when Eurus asks Sherlock to “play you”. And he plays the theme of The Woman.
Because it is the bravest thing Sherlock has ever done. And it makes this moment incredibly powerful.
Ok, so the Holmes parents know that Eurus is like a neon, nuclear-powered genius and they don’t have like say a library for her? Where she can see books? And can learn about anatomy and physiology? So, she has to dissect her own arm to see how it works? Dude…
Just. dude.
If Eurus isn’t 100% symbolism and not meant to be taken seriously as a human for a single second then I can understand this. Because it’s not supposed to make sense. but if it is then, yikes.
like mummy holmes is a math genius who’s like not aware that her child geniuses need outlets for the intelligence? Sounds fake but okay.
And like Molly before me, I know it’s not. It’s not. It’s not supposed to make sense literally but like it’s so hard for me sometimes just not to come crashing into the rocks of the surface narrative with just a million questions regarding the basic common sense of like anyone in TFP.
How can I think that we’re meant to take this narrative seriously, at face value? Like, ‘kid was so smart she was a killer?’. Dude, if that’s not about Sherlock’s feeling alienated because he was a gifted child, I don’t know what is.
Maybe Sherlock, as a child, had some of these thoughts and maybe shared them with others and those others weren’t cool but flipped out and jumped to some extreme labels for him like, ‘sociopath’, etc.
So, I can either believe that the writers really think that being super smart is intrinsically and mysteriously dangerous or maybe they’re trying to tell us something that’s actually off about that idea. Like, to the extent that everything about Eurus as a dangerous person seems fake: she can control your mind with her clichés, etc., we can see that this is a satire on the very idea that someone’s, ‘too smart’, for their own good.
The whole of Sherlock is basically an ode to the importance of thinking for yourself, of using your brain, and lately, your heart, too. I really don’t believe that, ‘incandescent’, and poorly parented Eurus is supposed to be a real child that the Holmeses had. She’s symbolic of how the Holmes parented their children as being, ‘different’. But, in light of the fact that we know that Mrs Holmes is a, ‘genius’, as of HLV, then even this theory falls apart. Why would a genius not know how to handle her genius children?
Because here, ‘intelligent’, is code for gay. Since it doesn’t make sense that Mrs Holmes doesn’t know what to do about her smart children, it makes more sense that she doesn’t know what to do about her gay children. (I legitimately forgot my own theory that, ‘sociopath is code for gay’, so yeah, Eurus is a sociopath and therefore gay. She’s the gay secret of the Holmes children).
Now, who seems more incandescently gay: Sherlock or Mycroft? I’d say it’s a tie, personally. Since, ‘this is family’, according to Mycroft, himself, let’s speculate that this, ‘Eurus’, phenomenon is about both of them. The Holmes parents found them to be incandescently gay, some might say, ‘flaming’, as children and they internalised the message that that was somehow a pathology.
I think the parents didn’t intend this but they didn’t realise the influence that Uncle Rudy’s struggles and their own ignorance would have on them. The message they received is that their true feelings were dangerous and needed to be locked away in a very secure part of themselves. Lest something terrible happen if their feelings were released.
So, yeah, as facile as it is that Eurus psychopathy is suddenly cured by Sherlock’s hug, it makes actual sense to think that facing family secrets actually can heal a family. Finally having the Holmes family discuss that Eurus is still alive, means finally talking about the fact that their kids are you know, ‘still’, gay, despite having hidden it all these years. The parents never wanted that, but they didn’t realise that it had happened, either. It makes way more sense to think that the Holmes parents didn’t know how to raise two gay boys than to think that they didn’t know how to raise to geniuses considering that Mrs Holmes, herself, is one, too.
Looking back on Eurus’ ludicrous mind-control powers we can see that this is actually a satire of how ridiculous homophobia is. Like, people fear that hanging out with a gay person will make you gay. Somehow, through their gay magic they will make you gay, too. This is equally as absurd as what Eurus does with her incandescent intellect.
Seriously, think about the word, ‘incandescent’. Why that word? Mycroft is not prone to poetic liberties, why here? Because it’s code for, ‘flaming’. To be a, ‘flaming homosexual’, means that you’re very obviously gay; everyone can tell. Eurus isn’t just symbolic of the Holmes siblings’ queerness, she’s symbolic of how easily others could see it. This is why they internalised that it must be hidden, because it was very obvious to others, even when they were children.
Back to Eurus’ powers: homophobia often includes a fear of seduction by a queer person. Dracula doesn’t just drink your blood, he makes you want him, first. He puts you under a spell. We get tons of Dracula coding for Sherlock in series 1. (Part 1, Part 2, Mary, Molly, Sally).
In a way, then, TFP is a satire of horror movies because it’s a satire of homophobia. It’s satirises the fear of intelligence and that intelligence is code for, ‘the other’, ‘woman’, ‘gay’.
If you’ve read @heimishtheidealhusband‘s meta about victorian ghosts you will know that Gothic Horror expressed the anxiety of that time about same sex romance. So, it’s possible that the reason that TFP appears to be both an homage and a satire of horror movies, is that it’s really about the destruction of this homophobia. It’s about throwing out all of these fears and stereotypes that are deeply embedded in our horror movies because they’re deeply embedded in our psyches.
This is the third update of the original TFP Survival Pack posted on 20/1. It contains all of the information in the original along with the most recent meta.
New highlights include:
A section addressing concerns and counterarguments
Meta on specific subtheories, such as John going blind on one eye
Clues about January 29th
Search Ctrl + F + “[NEW]” to look at only the new information.
(Note: if the section is labelled [NEW], all meta in that section is new.)
—
Still screaming over that crazy episode? Some hope remains! This masterpost and theory table collect the fandom’s last hopes—and they’re less crazy than you’d think.
The main takeaway is that the episode contradicts the rest of the show and real-world events far too much for it to be just a mistake. In fact, the evidence suggests that there will be a fourth episode.
“What? That’s ridiculous!”
That’s what I thought at first, too. But things in real life don’t add up, and they can’t be explained by bad writing. At this point, a rug pull is simply the most logical explanation. And if we’re wrong, well…it can’t really get any worse, can it?
This pack has 6 parts:
Issues: Everything within the episode that makes TFP not only a dumpster fire, but a (literally) unbelievable dumpster fire.
Clues: Real-life weirdness such as cast quotes that don’t fit, scenes missing from filming, and strange new promos that hint at a fourth episode.
Descriptions of the two main theories
Theory table: Compares which theories explain which issues
Resources: Links to meta that explain specific issues or the episode’s weirdness as a whole
Conclusions: What it all means, and why we should hold out a little longer.
Enjoy!
-soe
Disclaimer: Everything in this post is speculation. If you don’t want to get your hopes up, by all means skip it. However, I’d suggest at least waiting until January 29th before going full-out against Mofftiss (reasons below).
=============== Issues ================
Everything weird about that episode. With over 70 nontrivial plot holes, it’s hard to view the episode’s quality as an accident.
(The bolded phrases are descriptions, not the actual titles.)
Scenes that were filmed but that we’ve never seen? Quotes that make no sense with TFP as the finale? Something is up.
==============Theories================
It’s in Sherlock’s Mind
Everything in Season 4, since either the end of TAB or Mary shooting Sherlock, is in Sherlock’s mind as he is comatose. This theory requires all three episodes to be at least partly imaginary. A main variation is that John is talking to him as he is comatose, and that what John describes influences what Sherlock imagines.
For meta on variations of this theory, including EMP and John’s alibi, please see the TST Survival Pack.
It’s in John’s Mind
Everything in TFP is in John’s mind after John is shot. Variations include:
TST and TLD also took place in John’s mind.
Mary shot John, not Eurus.
This one is starting to gain more ground, particularly because it would make the whole season an adaptation of “The Three Garridebs”, leading to canon Johnlock, etc.
==============Theory Table=============
Green = Completely addresses this issue
Yellow = Addresses this issue somewhat plausibly, but not the best solution
They broke every rule of writing unless it’s a rug pull. The filming, cast and crew quotes, promotional material, and subtext within the episode make no sense unless a fourth episode reveals that it took place in John’s or Sherlock’s mind. The reputation of the whole show relies on them successfully revealing the real season finale.
So when would they reveal this fourth episode? When would it air?
They’ll air it on 29/1 or announce it on 29/1 and air it soon afterwards, via:
“The Final Problem” is either sheer stupidity or utter genius. Either way, let’s enjoy one last conspiracy.
The game is on.
I will be updating the table and theory list regularly.
If you have theories, issues, or meta to add, please comment.
If you think a theory does address an issue that the table says it does not address (or vice versa), please comment.
If I described your theory inaccurately or you just want to add something, please comment.
If I tagged any of your meta above: I would love to add any other work you’ve done that I haven’t seen. If you’d like to add something, please comment it and I would love to include it in the next update.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 