I think the strangest part about TFP from a neutral audience perspective is that it just…doesn’t make any sense. There were SO MANY plot holes. SO MANY loose threads. To the point where i’m amazed the BBC put it through? Did no one look at this script from a reader’s perspective? What really stood out to me were two things:
The errors of logistics, both in terms of story and literal physical movement (how did the characters get, physically, from point A to point B? and of course, in terms of story, how did we get from the end of TLD to the beginning of TFP?) How do the plot points connect, and where?
The amount of suspension of disbelief required just to accept that the episode itself exists, that it happens, let alone that it makes sense. Because for an episode of a show that is ostensibly set in reality (as in, what happens on the show, while fictional, could plausibly occur in actual real life) there is a hell of a lot of suspension of disbelief required to get through it. To the point where I think time travel might have made more sense. This episode required Doctor Who levels of suspension of disbelief, and for a show that prides itself on being gritty and real, that is a ludicrous expectation to have of its audience.
I have more specific queries listed under the cut. There are many of them. Note that these aren’t meant to be answered; rather, these are meant to illuminate the fundamental problems with the writing of the episode itself. (Though I’d love to open up a dialogue!) They concern mostly TFP, but questions from the rest of the series cropped up as well:
the seemingly dismissal of the fans by the creators is little irritating. You can’t bait the audience and then get mad when they don’t get what they were expecting. There is a reason Sherlock Holmes books and this show are at the center of queer media critique, and there should be a level of respect for that type of decades-long scholarship.
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Kudos for this writer, and her comprehensive review of the so many faults in this episode and season. Plz thank the writer on her twitter account:
I made this and now I feel slightly more happy about the episode 😁
Much better, thank you!!!
I don’t hate Mary, but the narration was completely unnecessary, especially coming from her.
Reblogging again because I finally listened to this properly and I actually happy-teared up. Like how I felt back in 2013 when I first watched this show and Sherlock and John were walking off at the end of ASiP. I knew then that this was going to be my favorite show. S4 kinda slapped that idea around, but with this video I am back to loving my show again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
steven moffat like “demand better from your writers!” but the minute you start demanding better from him he throws all his toys out the pram and spits in your direction
If you want to play with the canon, Steven, do not throw the canon
Can we also give Loo Brealey a standing fucking ovation for that performance, like holy shit I’ve always admired that mix of strength and utter raw vulnerability she gives to Molly Hooper, but that last episode just blew everything out of the water. Every twitch and blink meant so much and you could see grief and pain and YEARS of heartbreak coursing through her, and when her voice broke when she was trying to tell him it was true, and that she couldn’t say it BECAUSE it was true, I swear she made my heart burst with how much empathy she gut-punched out of me, and even in the midst of this hellish power play with Eurus she ensured Molly still stood tall with strength and dignity, she showed that her love and vulnerability wasn’t weakness, it was strength AND YOU COULD SEE IT ALL IN LOO’S BEAUTIFUL FACE, 10/10, A+, someone give her her own tv show asap thanks
12/10 from me. I was gutted when she drew the phone away from her ears the moment she heard what Sherlock wanted her to say.
It might have been the only moment I was emotionally connected to the story.
“being mary watson was the only life worth living” the fact that this is an actual line makes me furious
I remember when TAB came out and several people on my dash were less than happy with the message of the episode. Sure, it used a fantastic tale of murder suicide to talk about the beginning of the feminist movement and the lack of value ACD placed of female characters. That sounds good right? The show runners touted it as a feminist episode. Except our main characters remain male.
John is deliberately a period-appropriate sexist.
The main dialogue explaining everything comes from Sherlock and Mycroft. Mycroft states that we must let the women win. Why thank you Mycroft you will allow it? Is that a royal ‘we’ or do you speak for all men? You are too kind. Cue my fucking curtsy. The whole thing smacks of classic British Imperialism’s idea of moral justice. The white men will bring us freedom, culture, and justice. The ending reveal with Sherlock was Mansplaining at it’s finest.
Every great cause has martyrs; every war has suicide missions – and make no mistake, this is war. One half of the human race at war with the other.
The invisible army hovering at our elbow, attending to our homes, raising our children, ignored, patronized, disregarded, not allowed so much as a vote.
… but an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes, to put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So, you see, Watson, Mycroft was right. This is a war we must lose.
Thanks Sherlock for letting us know.
For some TJLC fans the only reason this episode was acceptable was as a metaphor for the modern LGBT agenda. It’s okay that Mofftiss were so clueless to womens’ right to star in their own narrative if it was overlooked in their quest to make a statement about modern civil rights. A tiny miss-step in their endless exuberance.
Except if it isn’t a story about LGBT representation then all the times the female character’s were used as tools of the male narrative become unforgivable to people who felt they were fans of the show. The show they thought they were watching isn’t there. It isn’t just about the lack of LGBT representation it’s also about the unforgivable use of female characters. As Moffat explains about Molly in the last episode,
“I can’t see why you’d have to play that out. She forgives him, of course, and our newly grown-up Sherlock is more careful with her feelings in the future. In the end of that scene, she’s a bit wounded by it all, but he’s absolutely devastated. He smashes up the coffin, he’s in pieces, he’s more upset than she is, and that’s a huge step in Sherlock’s development.
“The question is: Did Sherlock survive that scene? She probably had a drink and went and shagged someone, I dunno. Molly was fine.”
In short her feelings aren’t as real, as deep, or as important as Sherlock’s. They never were. Nothing new. Just as Leia once comforted Luke about one dead guy he just met, it seems as far as popular fiction is concerned, we haven’t moved forward since the late 70′s.
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