“Listen to the tape. Do it now, listen. Just listen!”
Because John tells us to pay attention to the tape–and we really should. So I put it all together,
isolated the audio, tried to tune my ear to hear what they say, and transcribed it for you guys. Maybe you can decipher the bits I couldn’t understand? But I think this is enough to get the idea.
If you follow me you probably already know I read this episode as being a product of John’s unconscious mind. With that in mind, paying attention to this conversation is truly revealing, since it’s John himself who comes up with this dialogue. The Governor is John’s mirror. Eurus deduces that he doesn’t trust his wife, that she’s selling him a fake image of her while hiding something, that he’s struggling with his feelings towards her, that he is sad, and that he has a secret.That secret possibly being his bisexuality(and his love for Sherlock). John also really seems to be rethinking his morals/ethics –which is actually a running theme in this episode. He keeps questioning himself what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, in the scenarios he imagines, and relates them to his wife. Since he’s also figuring out Mary’s true nature in his hallucination (just like Sherlock was able to figure out a lot of things at the same time in TAB) I just think John might be reconsidering if it’s bad to feel the way he does about Mary, when he’s supposed to be mourning her. Notice the Governor saying “I like my wife”, as if that’s what he knows he HAS to say–but it’s not what he truly feels and Eurus knows he’s lying when he says that. Just like John, he never truly trusted his wife.
Also, I just clutch my chest seeing how the incredibly repressed Capt. John Watson tells himself he doesn’t need to cry–while actually knowing it’s okay to do it. Clear callback to that scene in TLD. Being embraced by Sherlock was just so important for him, because Sherlock let him know without a word that it’s okay to cry. God, my feels.
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