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
So the Christmas Sherlock called his brother (although he prefers to text) because he needed his help …
the Christmas of danger nights and caring not being an advantage …
the Christmas of telling John not to leave Sherlock because Mycroft was afraid his brother would relapse …
… is the same Christmas Mycroft gave his brother’s worst enemy as a Christmas present to their dangerous sister who wanted Sherlock dead and killed his best friend.
I have been wondering about this sentence since 2012 because we never learn anything about the very private things that are revealed in the article. No one ever mentions them. In TEH for example John does not even know Sherlock’s parents were alive. But this is not the most curious thing about the article.
Because at this point Jim had already met Eurus. I am quite sure that Jim did not say hello, recorded the videos, and went away. Eurus must have given him something in return and I suppose it was information about his beloved adversary. Which means that Mycroft as well as Eurus told Jim all about Sherlock’s life story.
Question: So what was in the infamous article by Kitty Riley? Neither Redbeard the dog nor Eurus, Victor Trevor, Uncle Rudi, the fire, nor anything else of importance could have been mentioned because then John and everyone else would have known about Sherlock’s past. And if Jim knew all about Sherlock, why did he not use it against him?
The only one who tried to use information about Sherlock’s childhood is Magnussen. Think of that.
Just remember the entirety of Britain lost faith in Sherlock the moment his “whole life story” was exposed in The Reichenbach Fall. After that piece of media, the whole world thought Sherlock was a fake genius, a fraud, a liar, a deranged lunatic.
Also remember the entire Sherlock audience lost faith in BBC Sherlock the moment his “whole life story” was exposed in The Final Problem. After that piece of media the whole world thought BBC Sherlock was a fake genius, the project of two frauds, two liars, two deranged lunatics.
Here’s another question, why the hell would Culverton Smith show anyone the letter to begin with??? He could have just torn it up and Faith would have forgotten about it. It doesn’t make sense.
Moriarty was the person I thought of, too, @hufflepuffpentaholicinthebau. Especially given how the entirety of S4 was billed to be some sort of ‘showdown’ concerning him. I believe it was @loveismyrevolution that thought it was meant to be Mycroft? I’m still on the fence with just how ‘bad’ he might have been, but that is another possibility that I think might hold water.
Because your question, @sherlock-meta-collection is one that has bugged me as well. What exaclty was the point of ‘whomever’ it was giving the note to ‘Faith’? Culverton took the letter from the ‘real’ Faith (though, how do we know that really since TD12 compromises memory, and how did Sherlock know about that whole meeting? To recreate it on the street perfectly? Are we to infer ‘Faith’ described it in such detail?) So, Smith took the letter to keep his daughter from ‘remembering’ (almost a kindness, in his twisted way) But, then gave it to ‘fake Faith’ in order to have Sherlock come after him? WHY? And how did Smith and ‘fake Faith’ know each other in order to be of use to one another??
All this is to me is another case of Sherlock re-using events, playing them out over and over in his head because haven’t we had this sort of thing before?
HOLMES: One small detail doesn’t quite make sense to me, however. Why engage me to prevent a murder you intended to commit?
It never made sense that distraught Lady Carmichael went to Mycroft for help with her husband, who then sent her to Sherlock in order to prevent his murder by ‘the bride’ only to actually go through with it herself. It didn’t make sense because Lady Carmichael didn’t kill Sir Eustace.
So, why would we believe Smith had, in a roundabout way, asked Sherlock for help in ‘preventing’ more murders?
(Pre-warning, this got a bit longer than I had intended)
@monikakrasnorada I also think that most, if not all of S4 is taking place in Sherlock’s head/MP. Even before I heard about EMP, I always got the feeling that the note in TLD was somehow from Sherlock and the deductions he was supposedly making about Faith, he was actually making about himself:
SHERLOCK: Well, you’ve changed. You no longer top up your tan and your roots are showing. SHERLOCK: Letting yourself go?
Says the scruffy, unkempt Sherlock who is usually immaculately dressed and primped.
SHERLOCK: Oh, of course you don’t own a car. You don’t need one, do you, living in isolation, no human contact, no visitors.
Remember what John just told his therapist in the beginning of the episode?
JOHN: I haven’t seen him. No-one’s seen him. He’s locked himself away in his flat. God knows what he’s up to.
Then, Sherlock goes on to deduce:
SHERLOCK: Cost-cutting’s clearly a priority for you. Look at the size of your kitchen: teeny-tiny. (He walks past her towards the right-hand window then turns back to her.) Must be a bit annoying when you’re such a keen cook.
Says the man that, although his family seems to be wealthy, needs to have a flatmate for some reason, and so far as the small kitchen/keen cook goes, I’ll just submit these stills from later in the scene:
Then, later when Sherlock and Faith are sitting at the bus stop eating chips
SHERLOCK: You see the fold in the middle? For the first few months you kept this hidden, folded inside a book. (He looks at it closely. Beside him, Faith is eating from the carton of chips on her lap.) SHERLOCK: Must have been a tightly packed shelf, going by the severity of the crease. (Brief flashback to the folded piece of paper being put inside the pages of a book.) SHERLOCK: So obviously you were keeping it hidden from someone living in the same house at a level of intimacy where privacy could not be assumed. (As he speaks there’s a flashback of a hand putting the closed book back in its place on a shelf amongst many other books.) SHERLOCK: Conclusion: relationship.
This is referring to when John was living with Sherlock in 221B. So if the note is real, Sherlock kept it hidden away.
P.S. Does anyone else think that those hands look like they belong to Benedict Cumberbatch???
Also, that shadow sure as shit looks like Dr. John H Watson by the way, and I think others have addressed this fact, but I’m not sure who at the moment.
(More under the cut, this got reeeeeeeaaaaalllyy long)
So, there are some of the Sherlock
comparisons, but what about the note, what exactly is the note and what is it
trying to tell us? That’s where I’m having a difficult time. I have noticed
that there is a list/note theme in the show (others as well, I think there are
even meta’s, but I’ll have to check later). We have the conversation between
Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock in TSoT:
MRS HUDSON:
Your mother has a lot to answer for. (She takes the cup and saucer over to him.)
SHERLOCK: Mm, I know. I have a list. Mycroft
has a file.
And of course the many instances of list
conversations in TAB:
MYCROFT HOLMES:
You’re in deep, Sherlock, deeper than you ever intended to be. Have you made a list?
HOLMES: Of what?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Everything.We will need a list.
And in the “real world” on the plane:
SHERLOCK: Maybe there are one or two things that I know that you
don’t. (He looks across to Mycroft, who returns his gaze.)
MYCROFT (pointedly): Oh, there are. (He
pauses for a moment.) Did you make a list? (Sherlock has looked away again and is chewing on a thumbnail. He
turns to look at his brother again.)
SHERLOCK: You’ve put on weight. That waistcoat’s clearly newer than the jacket
…
MYCROFT (angrily): Stop this. Just stop it.Did you make a list?
SHERLOCK: Of what?
MYCROFT: Everything, Sherlock. Everything you’ve taken.
…
MYCROFT (his face turned away): We have an agreement, my
brother and I, ever since that day. (Sherlock bites his lip. In a cutaway flashback, a much younger
Sherlock is lying on a mattress on a floor. Nearby, candles are burning in
bottles. Sherlock is writhing and grimacing under the influence of the drugs
he’s taken. Mycroft, apparently in his early/mid-twenties, is sitting on the
mattress near his brother’s feet and now reaches down to a piece of paper lying
next to Sherlock’s legs.)
MYCROFT (voiceover): Wherever I find him … (In the present, Sherlock closes his eyes.
In the past, Mycroft picks up the piece of paper and unfolds it to read it
while his young brother continues to writhe in agony.)
MYCROFT (voiceover): … whatever back alley or doss house … (In the present, Mycroft sinks back in his seat.)
MYCROFT: … there will always be a list.
I am not sure exactly what to make of it, but
it does seem to me that Faith’s note actually looks like a list. If you try to
imagine for a minute that you don’t know the story behind Faith’s note
It says:
Police Office
Judge
Broadcaster
Me
I need to kill
someone
Who?
That looks like a list of people that someone
needs to kill, and notice that ME is crossed out in blood, like the person has
chosen to kill themselves from the list.
I don’t have concrete conclusions, I just
wanted to put down all of my thoughts on Faith’s note. I will have to clean
this up later and make a proper meta out of it.
Making Sherlock himself appear as a stand-in for the busts,
Alluding to the idea that he (as a person) or he (as a historical figure) has a secret inside somewhere and through the breaking down of layers will we finally find what’s been hiding there all along,
BUT THEN you remember there are six busts that are owned by only five people, the fourth victim owned TWO,
And the fourth victim is the only one who was murdered
And now we’re shown that the person hiding the information in the busts was desperate, so desperate they would kill the holder of the busts to keep their secret from escaping, they would kill the fourth owner who had two busts
So here we are noticing this doesn’t follow The Nix Napoleons, Harker didn’t own two busts in that one but this Harker does, and she is the fourth
It makes no sense for Ajay who’s looking for the busts to wait until the second-to-last person to attempt to smash two busts at once. Harker should have been his very first stop, since there was a higher probability that she had the flashdrive. She was the fourth stop. Changing the order doesn’t affect the show at all, Harker could have been first, Welsborough second, Hassan third, and so on to make the episode still make sense. But why include a character that owned two busts at all? Why add that detail? For time, perhaps, but they didn’t need to do that, they could have had six people own six busts and follow the trail the same way.
No.
They gave the fourth owner two busts, then killed her.
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