“We have a plan to top it. And I do think our plan is devastating. We’ve practically reduced our cast to tears telling them the plan… we’re probably more excited that we’ve ever been about Sherlock,” Moffat told reporters asking if he thought the next season could beat season three’s epic run.
Gatiss chimed in later that night: “We’re going to try to take it somewhere we’ve never been before — and I don’t mean outer space. It will be challenging place to go. We always start with a re-introduction that builds toward a darker climax — we might just be going darker [from the outset]. We got a very, very good set of ideas.”
“Near this was a square brick building called the Aquarium, and serving, as the name implies, as a place of seclusion for habitual drunkards”
—
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Narrative of John Smith (1883)
“There’s
clearly no one new in your life, otherwise you wouldn’t be spending your Friday
nights in an aquarium. That probably accounts for the drink problem, too—the
slight tremor in your hand, the red wine stain ghosting
your top lip.” (The Six Thatchers)
hey anon! it’s not the same shot there’s one thing that has been clear to me since the episode aired: this hand holding the gun is absolutely not eurus’ but john’s.
our eye is trained from the introduction of tld to realize that this gun is going to hurt john, we see him laying down like he was already dead… moreso, the hand is john’s, i could recognize martin’s hand anywhere tbh and the credits also want us to understand that this gun, this hand, these two belong to john:
just like the superposition of the gun on john’s face and 221b is important, we know that john is in danger, from his own gun.
now what does the gun shot means? and also when do we see it in tld?
we see it three times:
– at the beginning, with a long shot panning to john laying down/unable to sleep. we know that subtextually it means that john is suicidal again, we get way too many echos to asip and his desire to just end it. it’s here for a reason. john wants to die because he’s alone and can’t be saved by anyone, unless that ‘anyone’ is sherlock
– second time during the scene of sherlock and faith talking at sunrise and the shot happens while sherlock says this:
SHERLOCK: “Taking your own life.” Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Oh, once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. (Resting
one hand on the railing, he looks westwards along the river towards the
London Aquarium. In a brief cut-away, a pistol fires towards the
camera, then there’s a brief shot of the exterior of the Aquarium as the
gunshot echoes and then smoke rises from the end of the pistol.
Sherlock now has both hands on the railing as he continues to gaze along
the river.) SHERLOCK: Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. (Faith has looked in the direction he’s looking but now turns to face him again. He lowers his head, his back to her.) SHERLOCK: Your life is not your own.(His voice becomes strained.)Keep your hands off it.
the gun is again linked to suicide idealization, suicide attempt and what would be the repercussion of killing yourself to the people you love. now we know that john has been deeply traumatized by sherlock’s fall. we see him being depressed, feeling suicidal and yet not wanting to end it this way. not 100%. he has one last hope: only sherlock could save him from dying, his life is not his own but sherlock’s… if sherlock wants him back.
– finally, the last shot, with eurus pointing it at john. we know eurus is an obvious john’s mirror but we also get the shot colored in red, à la james bond. sometimes in the narrative happened and john is on the verge of dying.
3 out of 3: the gun means john is dying and more probably by his own volition.
now whatever happening in s5, the reverse of asip would be quite interesting. one of the most iconic scenes of the show is after all john saving sherlock by shooting the cabbie, and we know the cabbie is a john’s mirror. sherlock saving john from a self-inflicted garridebs (of any kind) would close the circle.
‘save my life before my room i am lost without your love save my soul seek my room’ fcking hell
they had a whole thing about secret twins and then didnt even make sherlock and eurus twins
they also have a whole thing about how a person could gake their own suicide by shooting themself in the head yet Moriarty really died by a suicide by shooting himself in the head
they have that thing too where they repeatedly tell us that shotgun wounds are not like the movies and don’t splash blood everywhere, and then mary’s death
Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s assume the johnlock conspiracy is true. Let’s assume Mark & Steven have been planning it from the beginning, and want it to be the biggest gay relationship reveal to date.
I know the common theory is that both Ben and Martin have known since casting, and that their “acting choices” throughout the show reflect that they have been given this information. In this meta I’m going to offer an alternative possibility.
If tjlc is true, Mofftiss has good reason not tell Martin Freeman about it. Even if Johnlock is endgame, at this point, Martin might still not know.
During the s4 CC Panel in 2016, the producers discussed withholding information from their actors in order to keep from revealing too much of the twist too soon. In this case, it was in regard to the Mary twist in HLV. Amanda Abbington was not informed that Mary would be revealed to be an assassin until the last possible moment. They kept key information about Mary’s character from Amanda for as long as they could in order to influence her performance.
Sue Vertue said [to Amanda]:
“It’s quite good though that you didn’t know number three.”
Amanda says:
“Absolutely. I would have played it differently had I known that that was the outcome in episode three. I would’ve played her with more of an edge and more…knowing. But the beauty of [me] not knowing was that you thought, oh, she’s a real mild-mannered, very sweet, charming character, and actually she was ruthless.”
Mark Gatiss says:
“…And eventually I said to him [unnamed actor], ‘pretend you know nothing.’ It is actually easier when you’re trying to disguise yourself, rather than playing the result… It’s better not to know, because then you don’t present anything, and then we don’t give anything away to the audience. There are no tells.”
Cumberbatch has to know something, given the fact that they’ve been having him play a lovesick puppy:
They clearly want to communicate Sherlock’s feelings to the audience. They want those ‘tells’. They’re clues for us. Maybe Ben doesn’t know whether or not Sherlock’s feelings are bound to be requited, but he’s clearly been told that Sherlock has some sort of romantic feelings for John. Sherlock pining over his lost love was the focal point for s3. In fact, Mofftiss might have even told him that Sherlock’s feelings wouldn’t be requited, that they will remain as unspoken subtext, same as Sherlock’s sexuality. That way, Ben expresses a specific sort of emotion that translates to, ‘what if, woulda coulda shoulda, but it’s for the best and I’ll suffer in silence long beyond my dying day’. You know, typical, self-sacrificing, pining Sherlock.
The laundry list of problems with Sherlock’s last two seasons is long and convoluted, but one person seems to crop up on it frequently: Mary.
Unfortunately, Mary’s character seems to be the wrench that first threw the show out of alignment in S3. It’s not that Mary Morstan shouldn’t have been introduced, or that Amanda’s performance wasn’t well done. It’s that Mary was inserted into the show and then manipulated in a way that broke the logic of the plot, not to mention the dynamic of the two leads. More than that, the writers used her repeatedly to bait-and-switch the audience, without ever following up on the ideas they planted.
For some reason this meta I wrote after S4 is going around again, and when I re-read it, I was reminded of a recent conversation that gave me some perspective on the Sherlock fandom experience. (@bendingsignpost, I hope you don’t mind if I paraphrase you here.)
When I was in full Sherlock-obsessed mode, I took Sherlock very seriously, because the show seemed to be a serious show. It sent out all the signals of a real-deal drama. The problem was, it turned out to be a farce – ultimately, it made no sense, especially from a character development perspective. I wrote dozens of metas like the one above, trying to work out how this could have happened.
When you are deeply invested in something, as I was, and then realize it wasn’t what you thought it was, you feel betrayed. Angry. Taken advantage of. And you feel like maybe you shouldn’t get so invested in something again.
But Ben and I were chatting recently, and he pointed out the value of finding a fandom that isn’t so serious. A fandom that recognizes that its canon is flawed from the outset. And you know, that sounds pretty damn fun.
Sherlock fandom has taught me this: question the source material.
As lovely as you made my “wisdom” sound, I think I should state for the record that I said something like “a fandom that recognizes the canon is a dumpster fire, and is rescuing the bits we liked from the flames.”
Yes. This. ^^^^^
The precise quote is even better. ❤
@marsdaydream, I can’t thank you with for all the meta and fic you have written… And the venting, which was therapeutic to me and for the writing of my meta article (which I link here in case it helps others like it did me–also I’m a writer who craves feedback): https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/1465 😀
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