remember last week when jules was like ‘we were reichenbached, next is the empty hearse’
and now all this derren brown theory … and the empty hearse is the ep derren brown appears in ……
Okay, I got way too excited about this, but. it sounds SO legit, because like, think about it: Reichenbach being TFP made me think about the rest of series 2, and it is DISTUBING. i made a list:
T6T = ASIB
Bond Air, the flight of the dead in ASIB
All those plane scenes in S4 (talking about the Churros-in-john’s-window in T6T here, but ofc also applies to The Fucky Problem)
“The Woman” in ASIB
“The English Woman” in T6T
Irene’s phone in ASIB
Sherlock being on his phone all the time in T6T
Irene drugging Sherlock in ASIB
Mary drugging Sherlock in T6T
The CIA Agents in ASIB
Mary and her agent pals in T6T
Battersea and Morocco? not sure about that one
John flirting with Anthea but she’s actually working for Irene (he thinks Mycroft) in ASIB
John flirting with bus stop lady but she’s actually Churros Holmes in T6T/TFP
camera phone as protection in ASIB
The flashdrive as protection, ABSOLUTE TRUST in T6T
Sherlock saving Irene in ASIB
Mary jumping in front of Sherlock in T6T
Sherlock “save John Watson” Holmes in T6T
TLD = THoB
Sherlock taking the case because of one (1) word – hound – in THoB
Sherlock taking the case because of one (1) word – anyone – in TLD
Case being about Henry’s father in THoB
Case being about Faith’s father in TLD
going to the hollow trying to find the hound in THoB
going to the hospital in TLD
Sherlock being scared af, turning crazy even, in THoB
Sherlock being scaredaf, turning crazy even, in TLD
Henry shooting his therapist in THoB
Doctor Churros, A* therapist, shooting John in TLD
OR Henry shooting Louise without wanting to in THoB
John hitting Sherlock without anting to in TLD
John being angry at Sherlock in THoB
John bein angry at Sherlock in TLD
Words (H.O.U.N.D. not Hound, Liberty In etc.) in THoB
Words (Cereal killer, anyone, I’m a cock) in TLD
Baskerville in THoB
The hospital in TLD
Sherlock putting John in “danger” (the lab) to make progress in the case in THoB
Sherlock putting himself in danger (”I want you to kill me”) to make progress in the case (confession + getting John back) in TLD
Henry about to commit suicide in THoB
Sherlock about to get killed in TLD
Henry changing Doctor Frankland into a dog because he couldn’t cope with the memory in THoB
Sherlock changing Victor into a dog because he couldn’t cope with the memory in The Fucky Problem
THE DRUGS in THoB
THE DRUGS in TLD
Closing scene showing Moriarty being released from his cell in THoB
Closing scene showing Churros Holmes is on the loose and doesn’t actually have a degree in TLD
TFP = TRF
Media attention in TRF
Media attention in the whole of S4, especially TLD
Moriarty’s dance in the Tower in TRF
Moriarty’s dance in Azkaban in TFP
Moriarty breaking the glass to the crown jewels in TRF
Glass Sex, Moriarty apparently helping Churros make the glass disappear(=break the glass) in some weird way in TFP
“GET SHERLOCK” in TRF
“TELL MY SISTER I’M HERE” in TFP
Jimmy “You always want everything to be clever” Moriarty in TRF
Churros “Mind control” Holmes in TFP
Moriarty with his fake identity in TRF
Churros with her fake identities in S4/TFP
The media “killing” Sherlock in TRF
The media killing TFP (lmao)
Molly “You do count” Hooper in TRF
Molly “Actually I was supposed to be inside that coffin but nvm, anyways, I love you” Hooper in TFP
Mycroft giving information to Moriarty, partially his fault, in TRF
Mycroft letting Churros talk to Jim “I love reaction gifs” Moriarty in TFP
Moriarty MENTIONING the final problem in TRF
TFP
The massive cliffhanger and everyone theorising hat happened in TRF
The plot holes and everyone theorising what is fucking wrong with them in TFP
Three Snipers in TRF
The embarrassment of the three dangling Garridebs in TFP
OH MY GOD. The only people who actually fell in TFP were the Dangledebs. hat if that was fake? WHAT IF THEY FAKED THE THREE GARRIDEBS’ “DEATH” (THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF THAT SCENE)?
yesterday we explored the theory of illusionist derren brown’s involvement in bbc sherlock, both the show itself and the wider alternate reality game built around it, there’s a lot of interesting connections to him and the show + he appeared in the empty hearse
some of his tricks have to do with planting trigger words or phrases in the minds of large groups of people so that when they hear these words or phrases, they’re immediately brought back to a thought or a feeling
the idea is maybe some of these subconscious markers have been laid into the dialogue of sherlock all along, which accounts for why certain phrases from the show seem to automatically pop up into our heads when we’re discussing meta or theorizing, that these triggers were placed in the show to help us draw connections between ideas and solve the clues and puzzles
trigger words/phrases are also mentioned in both TLD (when sherlock is under the influence of TD-12 and is triggered by the word ‘anyone’) and in TFP when mycroft tells sherlock he’s been using strategic triggers phrases to check in on sherlock’s mental state over the years—there are definite in-show clues that point to this idea
i know a lot of people are saying that subliminal advertising is illegal in britain, but tbh i don’t think this is that?? writing certain lines in your show that stick in the audiences mind doesn’t have anything to do with tricking them into buying things, so no i don’t have a background in communications law in the uk but it still seems plausible to me
okay so this is all from memory of like 200 different posts, so forgive me if i leave something out, but basically falka @egglestrade has been freaking out about derren brown’s connection to bcc sherlock over the past few days, which obviously we all knew to some extent because of appearance in teh, but there are some other really interesting things to note
he’s apparently a really good friend of mark’s (easily google-able)
benjamin caron, who directed the final problem, has also directed a bunch of derren brown magic specials
a bunch of his specials involve tricks with subliminal messaging
today we started talking about the possibility that as part of the sherlock arg, mark and steven involved derren brown to send subliminal messages through the episodes of sherlock to teach us, the audience, how to make deductions on our own, so that as we’ve been watching this show we’ve been conditioned to make connections a certain way,
then i was thinking about something that happens a lot when i’m discussing the show or theorizing about is is it’s almost like certain lines just pop into my head, as if the connection was already there between that idea and the line from the show, (hello subliminal messages)
then there’s this part in tfp where mycroft tells sherlock he used strategic trigger words to check on him, as well as the discussion of trigger words in TLD (anyone) AND THEN
so there’s been a meme/actual theory in tjlc for a while that Steve Thompson, the third writer in sherlock s1-3, isn’t … even …. real lmao, like, you don’t have to dig very far on google to realize something’s weird about his … existence?? like doesn’t seem real, there are very few pictures of him, also there are lots of other steve thompsons, etc.,
then @nondeducible wrote up a post about an article that basically makes it sound like steve thompson is made up by moffat lmao, so we could have been on the right track all along (stumbling around the edges of this one for ages)
then someone said that steve thompson is derren brown, which led me to remember that i was thinking recently surely mark and steven would want to to have written the Reichenbach Fall that’s so central to this ARG, so that must mean steve thompson really is fake because he’s credited as writing the episode WHICH MEANS TRF is a collaboration between mark, steven, and derren, which makes sense given that we’re living through events foreshadowed by fiction right now lmao
that would also mean that maybe the steve thompson we’ve seen is a hired actor, like “””richard brook””” in trf, if you really wanna go hardddd with the conspiracy
basically it all connects together, and derren brown is steve thompson and we’ve all been mass hypnotized and hopefully we’ll live through this
im remembering that “welcome to the hexagon” post and realizing how real that is, like that was most of tfp.. some outdoor scenes, like.. two scenes at 221b? that airplane mess without the main cast, that one scene at mycroft’s house… like ~65% was the hexagon lmao
remember when they fukin … went into the lusciououous welsh rural fields and took a fukin rotating bed with them for one quick transition shot….. and then in s4 they built that stupid rotating room so ben could jump on some walls trainspotting style… like all of this was so unnecessary but they went there…….. and then. hexagon
like look at this shit
or compare tgg’s exxxplosion vs that bullshit… like i have no #receipts and i wont bother lookin it up rn but my intuition tells me the budget only got bigger and bigger, like…….. remember that unnecessarily gorgeous and eksztra window deduction in tld…………….why waste all those good pound sterlings on the middle ep instead of your finale, especially if you hype it up this much
i said last week confirmed steve thompson for fake because i’m pretty sure mark and steven would have wanted to be part of writing the ep that would be central to this alternate reality game they’ve created
if we’re on the right track, the best possible connection i’ve made so far is that The Reichenbach Fall could be a collaborative effort between mark, steven, and Derren, because that’s the episode that literally foreshadowed real world events that have already taken place
in order to obfuscate this fact they could have either concocted someone entirely, or took a real person who’s low profile and had them agree to use their name and likeness as a placeholder
i have no theories that explain the blind banker at this time lmao
Steve was given free reign to create storylines and he went on to pen The Blind Banker, and The Reichenbach Fall episode in which star Benedict Cumberbatch plunges to his ‘death‘, getting the “whole nation talking”.
“We hired a famous magician to come and help us,” reveals the Cambridge resident, “and we sat and talked it over. Originally I wanted to chuck him off The Shard, but that would have been quite hard to film.
i’m absolutely 100% sure derren brown helped with trf lol
Jesus Christ, you guys, I was KIND OF KIDDING about Derren Brown WHAT THE FUCK
This sounds crazy, but hear me out because this would make for a great fix-it fic even if none of this is real and I’d love to read it.
So. Remember the beginning of His Last Vow? We see John dreaming and Sherlock doping again? These two ideas hold a lot of weight in the narrative of series 4 and TAB. I believe we’re seeing alternate realities converge into one to create a mind palace sequence that doesn’t belong to any character, but belongs instead to the viewer.
Remember when Molly said “Forward or Backward?” as Sherlock got shot? The answer was backward. I think everything shown from that moment on has been something either Sherlock or John has fantasized before that moment – in the month of their separation. We saw the narrative as going forward, when really we were being filled in as to what happened “backward”.
This started out with a little distortion I noticed on some of the pictures, but the holy mother of subtext that I found turned this into a full meta.
We’ve analyzed the unreal quality, distortions, and strange darkness present in specific promos, but there’s a connecting theme here that we’ve hardly touched on.
In this meta, I’ll analyze how the major overarching theme of this season will be the devaluation of truth until it is indistinguishable from lies.
Introduction: The Twisted Smiley
Something is wrong with the smiley face in the new promos.
Here’s the original smiley from TGG and the Series 2 promos.
This is not a happy face. This is a derp face crossed with a grimace. It’s some twisted version of the original.
And even we didn’t notice that the smiley had
changed! Why didn’t we notice that something familiar had gone wrong? Keep that
in mind—it will be important later.
So why has the smiley
gone from a quirky happy face to a twisted grimace? And what does that mean for
the show?
The Promos: Blurring Reality, Distorting the
Familiar
There have been two
major trends in the promotional materials for this season: taking familiar elements and presenting them in a distorted way, and blurring fiction and reality.
Distortions
What was safe—such as the happy
smiley—is now a
twisted mirror of itself. And it gets worse:
remember how the original smiley, the one painted in 221B, was the happy one?
So what is this in the mirror?
WHAT IS THE TWISTED
SMILEY DOING IN 221B???
Why isn’t the original, “uncorrupted” version there? What has intruded into 221B to change it?
It’s okay. Don’t
panic. Nothing could ever compromise the safety of 221B. Nothing could happen
to it—
Between 221B and the
smiley, there’s a trend of what was once familiar and safe becoming
compromised, distorted, “wrong.”
Blurring Fiction and Reality
Promos such as the
baby’s birth announcement, the advertisements in cities throughout Europe, and
the Amazon trailer blur the line between the world of the show and our world. We are never shown the baby’s face, to the point
that it’s still up for debate whether it even exists.
The “unreal” released scenes—the one with the dog and the one in 221B—seem more like nightmare scenarios than real events. Even the fandom is questioning what is Mind Palace and what isn’t.
On many levels, it’s getting harder and harder to tell what
is reality and what is fiction.
Note: In addition, mirroring in Doctor Who continues the theme of combining fiction and reality. @tjlcisthenewsexy discusses it here.
Finally, the rainbow glitches
in the videos combine both of these approaches: They call to mind something
being hacked (a distortion) and imply that villains within the show can access PBS footage (blurring fiction
and reality).
Revisiting the Past…With Consequences
The promos have shown the
distortion and confusion of familiar elements from the show. But what might
those familiar elements be?
We know the new season will revisit aspects of past seasons. They’ve
even told us that they will retro-engineer events to make trends more clear (x).
Past elements that we know will be revisited are:
The Fall. They foreshadowed this in TAB with the sort-of-Moriarty case;
moreover, “The Final Problem” is named for the original Reichenbach story.
The Six Thatchers.It’s
already a case on John’s blog, but there’s a nearly-identical one in the new
series.
The smiley. It’s a callback to TGG.
Sherlock’s past. They laid the foundation with Redbeard and “the
other one”; now, it’s time to see how Sherlock became the quasi-sociopath of
the first series.
John’s past. We’ve seen his parents in the footage of the christening. Major Barrymore,
who had books on Thatcher, mirrors his father. How did he become so repressed? (More here.)
However, Series 4 will
do more than just revisit the past. It will revisit the past gone wrong, just as the promos corrupted
familiar elements. They’ve told us series 4 is about consequences. They even
began this process in TAB, with Sherlock discovering the secrets of literal and
metaphorical ghosts. Series 4 will
revisit cases and themes that we already knew, but revealing the darker links
that were originally unexplored.
How might they do
this?
M-Theory. To explore the idea of Mycroft and other characters being under Moriarty’s
thumb, they could revisit previous cases and show extra scenes. That would make
it clear how Mycroft knew about threats to Sherlock and was powerless to stop
them.
The smiley as a mask. There’s a possibility, discussed by
@shawleyleyeres here and here, that the
smiley has grown to represent Mary’s façade; @tendergingergirl discusses the
idea of it being Sherlock’s façade instead here. Regardless
of whose mask this is, keeping secrets could turn out to have severe
consequences.
Other consequences. The creators have said that there are some
themes that no one seems to have picked up on, which makes me suspect that they
have other consequences in store. What consequences, exactly? I’m not sure, but
I welcome anyone’s speculation.
An Ongoing Theme: The Corruption of Truth
We’ve established the
role of consequences and distortions of what we already know in the new series.
But how does this connect to ongoing themes in the show?
@delurkingdetectives
made an excellent post discussing the treatment of truth and lies on the show. We go from outright lies
about Sherlock in TRF, to exploited secrets in HLV (i.e., stretching the
truth), and therefore, we’ll progress to “the devaluation of truth” itself in Series 4.
So how can we combine
all these elements in the show and the promos to predict the themes of Series
4?
In the new series, we’ll start out knowing what’s
true and what isn’t. But over the course of the series, the truth will be
devalued, distorted, until characters can no longer tell the difference between
fiction and reality, truth and lies.
Speculation
So, if truth is
indistinguishable from lies, and someone had to make a choice with that
distorted information, then they’d have two identical choices…a good one and a
bad one…why does this sound familiar?
Oh.
Someone’s meta (link me, please; I’ve gone and lost it)
mentioned the need to revisit ASIP, because we never learned which was the
right bottle. Similarly, we’ve never fully addressed Sherlock’s choice between
his brain and his heart, nor John’s choice between a calm, domestic life and a
dangerous, adventurous one.
Revisiting these
themes, Sherlock, John, or both will need to make a choice in this season.
[NOTE: Speculation on specific events is obsolete as of 1/22/17. Thematic speculation still applies.]
John:
Why are John and
Sherlock estranged at the end of TST? Perhaps because Mary lies to him, forcing
him to make a choice between Mary and Sherlock. Maybe she tells him the baby is
Sherlock’s; maybe she forces Sherlock to lie to John and hurt him. Whatever the
circumstance, John would then have to choose between two near-identical
options, one of whom is a lying villain—but he doesn’t know which. Good bottle
or bad bottle? He will have to decide.
Sherlock:
If Sherlock is drugged or blind in TLD, his ability to determine what is real and
what isn’t will be severely limited. What if he isn’t sure whether Culverton Smith or John is near him?
Is it his friend (the good bottle) or the villain (the bad bottle)? Moreover, if
Culverton Smith is a satire of Trump and/or a conversion therapist stand-in,
he’ll try to get inside Sherlock’s head and cause him to question his own
emotions and decisions. This would also hinder Sherloc’s ability to make clear choices.
Another option is to make Sherlock choose between his heart (John) and his brain (Mycroft) in TFP.
Maybe one has betrayed him and he doesn’t know which; maybe some other plot
device makes the choice difficult. Theories welcome.
In sum: This season, the confusion of fiction
and reality, the distortion of familiar elements, and consequences of past
choices will result in the devaluation of truth until it is indistinguishable
from lies. This will culminate in a character’s difficult choice.
I was genuinely not expecting them to take the idea of confusing reality with falsehood this far. But hey, it’s been fun!
How do the events of Series 4 fit
this theme?
“Real”
events are getting less and less plausible.
That’s why more and more of our theories involve EMP, unreliable narrators, or
hallucinations. They gradually built up the confusion between truth and lies, reality and fiction, up through TFP. The whole season was designed to say, “THIS IS NOT REAL.”
By episode:
TST was
full of plot holes, but the surface reading could still hang together if it was the incomplete truth. That is: all
the events could be true, but other things had to be true as well; or, all the events were partially true, but through a biased lens. That’s why there are so many projectors.
TLD might have had fewer plot holes, but it also
explicitly told us that parts we thought were real actually weren’t. For example,
Faith Smith never existed, even though the audience was shown scenes with her
as thought she was real. That is: we saw
a lie, but we were told it was a lie.
TFP takes this to completion. We’re
shown an episode with so many plot holes and narrative leaps that it’s
literally unbelievable. We saw a lie, but
we were told it was the truth.
After TFP, even observant viewers
doubted the subtext they had seen: reality had been distorted to the point that we confused it with falsehood. Was it
a good bottle episode or a bad bottle episode? We’ve gone all the way back to ASiP.
This completes the arc of distortion of
reality. From the media falsehoods in TRF to the 90 minutes of hallucination in
TFP, we’ve seen the truth get twisted to the breaking point. It’s the thematic climax of the story.
So how does this issue get resolved?
By
revealing the truth. The fourth episode needs to establish, unequivocally, what
was real and what was not real since at least the start of Series 4.
But of course, the truth doesn’t stop at
resolving plot holes. It also means revealing the romantic endgame of the
series: the truth that’s been hidden since day one.
In fact, the romance is why the issue of truth and reality triumphing over falsehood and lies has been so important to the series. The showrunners want everyone cheering for truth over fiction; “who you really are” versus “the legend”.
I didn’t even realised the smiley was different, I guess I just trusted Arwel when he said he was using a stencil because “they all have to be the same”. Turns out he wasn’t, after all? That sounds fucky to me.
**IMPORTANT** More on John’s hallucination theory.
Which you can see in this video, this post, and this one. In the latter I tackled the subject of John’s repression in TFP, but I just have the need to expand on this and continue to draw your attention to it because, the way I see it, it was the central theme of John’s dream. Seriously, it gets much better.
So, John sees himself imprisioned in a hellish institution that serves to “trap demons”, according to Mycroft –who John imagines as no other than Lady Bracknell. That character of Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ is first and foremost a symbol of bigoted Victorian upper-class negativity, and its conservative and powerful repressive values. They invented the ‘demon of homosexuality’, but of course “there never was any monster” –as John heard Sherlock say (keep that detail in mind). Could go on but I think you get the idea (I recommend Ghost Stories Are Gay Stories by @heimishtheidealhusband.)
Now the coffin John pictures in the center of one of the gray rooms of his mind has “I Love You” carved on the lid. It’s his love for Sherlock that he puts into a coffin. Remember when TAB gave us the decoder of coffins = cupboards?
JOHN IS CLOSETED AND WISHES SHERLOCK WOULD ‘BREAK HIM FREE’
Only Sherlock’s love would save him. He thinks “I am lost without your love, save my soul”. He listens to “I Want to Break Free”, and envisions Sherlock bringing down his walls just like in Queen’s music video.
Remember John projects his feelings onto other people, like Sherlock did in TAB. Shaky Molly telling Sherlock “I love you, you know it’s always been true, you say it first” is the personification of John’s tiny feels. He wants Sherlock to love him back so bad. And he comes to that conclusion, that Sherlock does love him and will not let their love die, that losing him would make Sherlock suicidal. That exchange they had at the end of TDL when Sherlock told him “We might all just be human… even YOU.”, resonates in John’s mind, so he knows Sherlock understands him, and is willing to help him break free from his island of hell, to come down from his plane of isolation and land safely on his loving arms.
Remember Eurus is John, he even pictured her wearing his favourite jumper. Like I wrote on that link above, Sherlock stepped closer to him, and even entwined fingers with him because HE DIDN’T SEE A BARRIER. This is the representation of overcoming queerphobia, because remember, John heard Sherlock say “there never was any monster”. Sherlock not noticing the glass is the same Moffat did with Vastra’s “when you stopped seeing it”, and I can’t stress enough the importance of that.
JOHN KNOWS EMBRACING HIS LOVE FOR SHERLOCK AND THEREFORE COMING OUT IS WHAT WILL SAVE HIS SOUL. Embracing his identity is the solution to the final problem. That’s why the episode ended with that ridiculous line in Mary’s mouth. Mary saying “who you really are doen’t matter” IS THE FINAL PROBLEM. Remember in T6T when Vivian was retelling the Samarra story and Mary showed up just to say the word “death”? Because Mary is
the representation of death, she is the tragic ending in Samarra, the embodiement of heteronormativity, the ultimate villain who must be defeated.
There’s no possible way TPTB had put themselves in that position and not deliver resolution, not answering the question “can Samarra be avoided?”, and not give us John and Sherlock going to Sumatra’s fix-it story that Sherlock dreamed of since he was a child. The fourth episode is a must. It’s the only way Ben’s words make sense:
“There are a huge number of pay-offs in this series,” he says. “I think, in the past, you could get away with watching a few episodes in isolation, but this… they’re vine branches in the jungle of Sherlock, you have to keep swinging from one to the next to really understand. And really… the pay-offs are massive if you do.” (x)
If you don’t read TFP as John’s Garridebs hallucination, that statement would be ridiculous because plot-wise nothing would make sense. But knowing this was John’s horror nightmare and that there will be another episode literally bringing the solution to TFP in which ‘love conquers all’… the pay-offs will be massive indeed. Pulling this off will be television history.
I really love this theory, or any theory that would make S4, especially TFP, not real. The only downside to this is that with TFP (and possibly TLD) being John’s nightmare / hallucination, we would have to assume T6T events were real as well.
That Mary died a fake Hollywood death while Dr. John Watson sat there and moo-ed, blaming Sherlock, and that it somehow started / continued her redemption arc.
That the baby is real in the first place and that it really is Mary and John’s child when it has been coded since S3 to be neither real nor related to John and Mary.
All those consistently inconsistent elements in T6T – including cameramen in the frame. I would love a TFP (and TLD) is John’s nightmare / hallucination even more if it were taking place in the story’s timeline prior to T6T.
In the meantime, I’ll hang on to my “A Villain (Mary and/or Jim) is the Story Teller of S4” theory. I’m alone in it and no one’s even considering it, but that’s the only comfort I have for everyone being far too wildly OOC ever since T6T.
@consultingeastwind Thank you for this, my friend! How come I haven’t seen your “A Villain (Mary and/or Jim) is the Story Teller of S4” theory D: sounds brilliant, pls link me to it, I wanna read it!
I mean, yes, I did make the connection of Moriarty’s “I’m the storyteller, it’s on DVD” with Mary’s Miss Me DVD like I posted here, but only in the sense of her recorded message being an act. As in, she wanted for Sherlock to trust her while actually sending him to his death and telling him not to tell John, like, there’s absolutely no way John could’ve known he had to save Sherlock. If it wasn’t for badass hero Mrs. Hudson telling John about the existence of that DVD, Sherlock would’ve died. I expanded on all that here. But the thing is, Mary planned it so well, it LOOKS as if she made John save Sherlock. They make it look as if she’s been redeemed, but she has not. She’s acting as pure while being evil. She managed to keep manipulating both Sherlock and John even through a posthumus message, and remain as a Saint in their eyes, while she’s actually the villain.
So, no, I don’t see her ever having a redeption arc. Because like I said before, all the time we see her in TLD that’s NOT HERSELF,
it’s a ghost. It’s the image a deceived John has of her. His concept of Mary is “corrupted”, like Culverton would say. The ONLY time when she appears as herself being ‘nice’ is in TFP, in an alternate Miss You DVD –please note these are opposite titles Me vs You.This series gave us two DVDs showing two completely different versions of Mary: she’s (covertly) evil in one (in which she can’t even resist the little “go to hell” joke, like David Collar in that Twitter case, you can see the parallel here), and openly good in the other. So what’s the truth? “Me or You?”, said the bride in TAB. We’re told to choose, the two cannot coexist. It’s either one or the other. Which leads me back to the hallucination theory. Since this is all in John’s head, he imagines Mary The Saint left this lovely message for them, but THAT DVD DOES NOT EXIST. The only real DVD is the Miss Me one, which equates evil Mary with evil Moriarty. Btw, I just think all of this is a perfect metaphor for an heteronormative reading of what’s really happening in the story; people being presented with the choice to be blind to Mary’s evilness and taking it. Embracing that apparent redemption arc without looking closer or question anything, ‘choosing to ignore everything they see that doesn’t comply with it’, like Sherlock would say. It’s just like the story of 130+ years of people getting the canon wrong. They started proving it wrong with TFP. They showed us what happens if you choose the wrong DVD, just so they can fix it. I’m in love with this great complex metaphor.
Now, regarding Mary’s hollywoodesque death, I initially thought she might have faked it –becasue of the striking resemblance that shot of her coffin has to Diamonds Are Forever which I talked about here. And although I see some perks to have her coming back for revenge, I’m frankly irked by her and I don’t want to see her anymore. Her mere presence is annoying to a lot of us, and you know what, I think that’s the point and it makes sense. Because, you see, I think they deliberately wanted to showed us how she ruins the Sherlock and John show. They’re not her Baker Street Boys. Like I said above, they coded her as evil, they want us to hate her.
So I started thinking, what if her fake act of selflessness taking the bullet for Sherlock was real? And it blew my mind how likely that could be! Listen, we know she’s a psycho villain, she would go to any lenghts to get what she wants. We herd it from her own mouth, she told Sherlock:
“John can’t ever know that I lied to him. It’d break him and I will lose him forever, and Sherlock, I would never let that happen. Please, understand. There is nothing in this World I would not do to stop that happening.”
At last I get the full meaning of that ominus statement! The point is
–just as it happened with Moriarty (see parallel here)– neither Sherlock or John have any idea how far she was willing to go for her selfish reasons. She’d do anything it takes –anything– to make sure John loves her forever. Even if that means ending her own life to burn a corrupted image of her into John’s memory forever. She traumatized John by taking the bullet for Sherlock and killing two birds with the same stone; making John hate Sherlock thus causing thier estrangement, and earning John’s eternal devotion thinking she was Angel Mary. Plus the added bonus of chopping off Sherlock’s self worth too (remember Sherlock thinking Mary gave her life for him and he doesn’t know how to ‘spend that currency’, ugh!) And this remains to be fixed. Woah, man, she’s disgusting!
So I think the hollywoodesque death is their way to point out that wasn’t an act of self sacrifice at all. It looks fake because it was; it didn’t come from a pure motive, it actually was a selfish, evil act. Again, just like David Collar did, (see here) Psycho bitch gladly took a bullet like a kamikaze to traumatize our boys forever. Yes she felt pain, but she was struggling to put up the act until her very last seconds. Wow, amazing.
Now onto John’s reaction. Given that he’s been thoroughly brain-washed, I can understand why he would feel confused and express his emotions through anger, specially towards Sherlock. That’s what you do when you’re being pushed to the edge, you take it out on the person you love the most. But it’s worse in his case, this is a soldier who fought in War. He was projecting af, he was actually blaming himself,
blinded by anger, and epically Fucked Up, unable to measure the impact his words would have on poor Sherlock. Same reason why he beat him; he was actually beating himself –but I don’t wanna get into that because it’s too painful, you get the idea.
Plus, John was right there, not only able to take her pulse like he did in TRF, but to actually check the bullet-wound with his doctor fingers. Watch it and you’ll see how his professional fingers really get in there. I just think if it was fake, he must’ve noticed the absence of a hole in her flesh. He didn’t, instantly assessing it as fatal. Otherwise he would’ve been able to save her.
But I just can’t wrap my head around those little fucky details, like John’s blog, or the cameraman (tho I did propose an explanation for the skull painting changing colours as the only element of Magical Realism of the show and why that could be important in the link I added here). And as for the baby, no idea. I don’t know why those “baby’s day out” scenes seem so OOC. Maybe just to make us cringe? If that’s the case, it works.
But the baby seems very much important to John, since the possibility of him and Sherlock raising Rosie together as a family flashed before his eyes! But maybe that’s not Rosie.
That may be the toddler he imagines he could adopt because the prospect of becoming a father some day has already made a home in his heart and he wants Sherlock to be the father of his child? ❤ After all, Steven did say “Sherlock doesn’t rule out the idea of one day being married and one day being a parent.”(x) Imagine a series 5 starting with a teenage lady in trouble who you think is the client, like in every cold opening, and she comes home calling for her father and turns out you see a slightly gray-haired Sherlock welcoming her home?? *rip me* Many adaptations did this. So many possibilities! Like Martin said, “a daughter makes stakes get higher” indeed, and we haven’t really seen that yet. But if they already pitched that idea to Ben and Martin, no wonder they said we’ll problably have to wait a bit more for next series!
Woah, this got longer than anticipated, but I love this exchange. Thank you for making me rethink these things, CEW! Anyone else wats to join in please do.
Just on the Rosie as their daughter issue. The writers want to take and fix all adaptations and that includes the Mary Russell books. I have said for a long time that John’s daughter could be The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Not Sherlock’s wife, but his daughter. It’s why I think Rosie is in the plot. She is a pay off for a special 12-15 years from now. It also solves the ‘heirs’ issue at the beginning of TPLoSH. Rosie is a fix it in the making.
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.
Did you see how both TAB and TFP began with a close-up shot of John’s and little Eurus’ (Mirror-John’s) left eye, respectively? They’re letting us appreciate that precious thing from up close, because we’re not gonna be able to see it anymore. Yes, you can start mourning it.
Remember how we thought Sherlock was gonna be the one going blind thanks to Skully’s brilliant theory? Well, I guess we got many of the hints at ‘blindness’ happening at some point, only that it wasn’t Sherlock’s, but John’s in one eye.
Sherlock Fandom Archive 