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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years ago

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Hiii I'm really new to the fandom, like I just discovered the show this month and I loved the end but I should say that even if the 3rd and 4th season weren't as good as the first two to me tfp was amazing, the only thing that I hated was how they portrayed Mary as a saviour and how in tld she was the one that told John to save Sherlock because John would've done that alone and honestly I would've never forgive her and I was just about to stop watching the show because I hated that part, to me is unrealistic how they forgot everything and were fine with her and I was glad when she d*ed tbh but they still used her and well but I thought that tfp was an amazing chapter and I was surprised to see that the fandom hated it :( why do they hate it so much?

Hey Nonny!

First off, welcome to the fandom!! We’re happy to have you here!

Secondly, I want to preface this with: it’s totally okay to have liked S4 / TFP, and it’s totally okay if you saw something there that I certainly haven’t. It’s not my place to gatekeep the fandom. You’re allowed to enjoy it, and as a heads up to my lovelies who want to reply to this ask too, to please be respectful to my Nonny and their enjoyment of S4.

That said, PLEASE know that this WILL get ranty and it is NOT an attack on you, Nonny. I really am not upset at you and I am very happy that you enjoy the series. I, on the other hand just get very emotional whenever I talk about S4 and what it could have been. Quite honestly, I envy you Nonny; I’ve been too deep into fandom and meta and learning about narrative storytelling for WAY too long to think of it as anything other than a terrible conclusion to what was once an amazing series all because Mofftiss wanted to “shock” people.

With that segue, I’ve essentially summed it all up in a few other asks here, so you can go down that rabbit hole if you like:

Why do most fans hate S4, especially TFP? (THIS POST HERE LISTS A LARGE CHUNK OF WHY I DON’T LIKE S4)

Why Do You Hate S4, I’m Just Curious (huge discussion post)

FOLLOWUP: Can I Tell You that I love you?

Why Does Everyone Seem to Hate S4 and Mary So Much?

How do I respond to people who say they liked S4

Controversial Opinion: S4 Sucked

S4 Didn’t Feel Like BBC Sherlock

The main TL;DR for me about why I dislike TFP: It didn’t feel like an episode of Sherlock AT ALL, the characters were ALL out of character, and it essentially erased 7 years’ of plot / character development:

Molly regressed to S1E1 Molly after establishing that she moved on from Sherlock

Moriarty was essentially a patsy and not a mastermind, and in turn leaving Carl Powers as a HUGE plot hole

who the FUCK is Mycroft in this episode??

Sherlock would NEVER ignore Vatican Cameos

Eurus’ whole character destroyed the world that these characters existed in for 12 episodes prior (ie. BASED IN REALITY). They made her essentially an X-Man. Her very role in the whole season was too fantastical. Why would you break out of this prison only to go back in so you can play a weird Escape room with Saw traps?

John’s entire character was destroyed

Sherlock’s entire purpose in the entire series was reduced to being a woobie because Mofftiss has a “hurting Ben” kink, it seems

Mary basically saying if it wasn’t for her, John and Sherlock could never be, even though they WERE before her stupid face ever was in the picture

They ruined Mary’s character; she could’ve been a badass villain but they made her a martyr through an unapologetic, undeserved, non-redemption. And her DVD’s were stupid and disgusting and just proves what a cruel character she was while trying to convince us that she wasn’t.

Anyway, I could keep going, but you get the idea. Check out the posts linked above for even more.

I think for me, it stems from being someone who wrote meta to help understand characters and narrative constructs, and the narrative took a complete 180 and did something completely different than what people assumed would happen all because I feel Mofftiss was spiteful that we guessed most of TAB, so they wanted to “subvert expectations” and did a piss-poor job of it. I don’t know. It’s not good writing when watching the entire show as a whole. S4 doesn’t feel like Sherlock, because the John-and-Sherlock relationship (regardless if you ship it or not) just ISN’T THERE. It turned into the “Mostly Mary, Occasionally Sherlock, and maybe John when we need someone’s character to destroy” show. I’ve a sneaking suspicion AA had a lot to do with that, but it’s all gossip and hearsay, so I’ll leave it there.

Anyway, Nonny, this whole thing isn’t meant to insult you. I’m GLAD you enjoyed S4 / TFP. I can’t even watch the series without cringing, and the only way I can sit through S4 is if I read it as John’s TAB. I’m envious that you can enjoy it on the surface. I want to say give it a few years and you’ll be one of us old jaded folks, but mreh, not my place. If anything, I hope that my reply and all the links posted above let you understand why the fandom and critics at large didn’t enjoy it. I genuinely can see why people do like it: Ben and Martin are fantastic with what they have to work with, and the first two episodes look really pretty. But I just... can’t be swayed. I made a genuine effort to like it, I really did, when it first came out. But I guess just examining it too closely and trying to understand why Mofftiss made such a decision to destroy their most profitable property, it’s just really bizarre to me.

Hope you have a good day, Nonny, and I do hope you’ll stick around! <3 I’ll understand if you hate me now, LOL. <3

#steph replies #chatting with nonnies #writing meta instead of working #s4 shitposting #shitposting steph #my thoughts #inconsistencies #something's fucky #Anonymous

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thewatsonbeekeepers · 4 years ago

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Chapter 12: Three Men in a Boat [TFP 2/3]

[This was completely missing from my tumblr, via every search function and everything! So I’ve reuploaded - thanks anon for letting me know!!]

This section of the meta is going to deal with the events at Sherrinford – I’ve broken TFP up into three sections to try and get the most out of it. This isn’t just a read through like the first part of the meta, it has a specific structure, much like Eurus’s trials for the boys, so it’s really important to take this bit in one chapter. My hypothesis is thus – that each episode of s4 has been a different obstacle to be broken through in Sherlock’s mind, and that each of them is represented by one of the different Sherrinford tasks. It’s essentially an illumination of Sherlock’s progress through his mind – but it’s set up by Eurus, who is Sherlock’s mental barrier, so these are going to represent Sherlock’s darkest fears about each of the obstacles. Ready? Let’s go.

We take up the episode at the pirate hijacking, which is quite BAMF, but also illuminates a couple of things that we should bear in mind going into this episode. The first is that the transition from a blown up Baker Street to Sherlock and John hijacking a boat without a scratch on them is absolutely bizarre and leaves SO many questions – it’s dream-jumping of the most obvious kind. The second is that water has played a long role as a metaphor through the show, particularly in the EMP sequence, and it’s climaxing now – we are in the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind.

Mycroft and John working together in the disguise sequence is metaphorically lovely – in the Oscar Wilde scene of the last part we saw Sherlock’s brain and heart finally coming together, and here for the first time they’re working together to give Sherlock the ability to go and confront Eurus. This is what makes Mycroft’s line so powerful. He says:

Say thank you to Doctor Watson. […] He talked me out of Lady Bracknell – this could have been very different.

Comic throwaway? Maybe. But given what we know about Lady Bracknell from the first part, this also has a more powerful meaning – heart!John finally stopped brain!Mycroft from being an obstructive force in Sherlock’s psyche, and they started working together instead to save him. This could have been very different is far more loaded than it sounds. All this whilst creating an image of Mark Gatiss as a Victorian aunt – wonderful.

When we first meet Eurus proper, her similarity to Sherlock is striking. She plays the violin – this isn’t a Holmes thing, because Mycroft doesn’t – it’s Sherlock’s motif throughout. Her hair is like a feminine Sherlock, her pallor and cheekbones match Cumberbatch. For reference, this is a picture of Sian Brooke and Benedict Cumberbatch together in real life.

I’ve done a section on why I think Eurus is the most repressed part of Sherlock’s psyche, and his traumatic barrier to love and life – I sometimes glibly refer to this as gay trauma, but that’s its essence. The similarity between Brooke and Cumberbatch in this scene is really compelling, looking the same but lit and dressed in opposite colours. Similarity and difference both highlighted. Even nicer, the white of Sherlock’s shirt is the same notable brightness as Eurus’s uniform, but it’s hidden under his jacket – a visual metaphor for her being hidden inside him.

Eurus gives Sherlock a Stradivarius as a gift. This should set alarm bells ringing for anybody who has seen TPLoSH. If you haven’t seen The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, please do so immediately because my God you are missing out, but TLDR – a Russian ballerina offers Holmes a Stradivarius to have sex with her so she can have a brainy child, and he declines because he’s gay. (This is not just my interpretation, this is genuinely what happens, just to be clear.) Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius is a deliberate callback to the film which Mofftiss cite as their biggest inspiration; just like the ballerina tempted Holmes to feign heterosexuality, so does Eurus – and both make clear that it’s not without its rewards, which is unfortunately true for real life as well. This moment in Sherlock’s psyche also recalls the desperate unrequitedness of Holmes’s love for Watson in TPLoSH, a reference to our Sherlock’s deepest fear at the moment – he has realised his importance but not John’s romantic/sexual love for him, as we’ll see. So here, trauma!Eurus isn’t just referencing closetedness, but is actively drawing on a history of character repression with which to torment Sherlock – metafictionality at its finest.

The Stradivarius is specifically associated with closetedness, but violins more generally in the show are used to show expressions of love that can’t be voiced out loud – think of John and Mary’s wedding, or the desperate bowing of ASiB. So Eurus, gay trauma that she is, telling Sherlock that she taught him to play is a moment of distinct pain – she is the reason he can’t speak his love aloud, but instead has to speak in signs.

When Sherlock plays ‘him’, rather than Bach, to Eurus (he has a big Bach thing with Moriarty in s2, take from that what you will because I don’t know!), he’s playing Irene Adler’s theme. As a fandom, we’ve generally agreed on associating Irene’s theme with sexual love, which ties in nicely with Eurus’s question – has Sherlock had sex? It’s unanswered. At the end of ASiB, Irene calls Sherlock the virgin, suggesting that he hasn’t.

My favourite moment in s4 without a doubt is Jim dancing to I Want To Break Free. I know it’s the most boring thing to say, but my two greatest loves are Andrew Scott and Freddie Mercury, so it was like Christmas. Here it is also Christmas, but there are two possible timelines. I hypothesise that this refers to Christmas 2010, but it’s absolutely conceivable that it could be Christmas 2009. If we acknowledge that Sherlock is in a coma in 2014, then five years ago is Christmas 2009; however, given that we’ve jumped to 2015 in dream time, I’m going to make the guess that Jim’s visit to Sherrinford is supposed to take place in 2010. This ties up with the idea that this is when Moriarty first started taking an interest in Sherlock, who had never heard of him before ASiP, particularly as this is all in the EMP.

I firmly believe that Jim represents the fear that John is in danger – I highlight this in the chapter on HLV, where you’ll recall we first encounter Jim in the EMP and he sends Sherlock on his journey through the EMP with the words John Watson is definitely in danger – a pretty big sign. Even without this, though, his biggest threat to Sherlock has always been hurting John, whether in TRF or with the idea of burning the heart out of him with Semtex. It’s not unreasonable then to assume that MP!Jim first getting inside Sherlock’s subconscious to represent this fear happens in 2010, when he first meets John. He slips in and stays there, and he melds with Eurus. We see this in the powerful visual of the two of them dancing in front of the glass as Jim’s image slowly becomes Eurus’s reflection – the fear of John dying embeds itself into the gay trauma that Sherlock has stored up, even without him realising it. This ties in nicely with the choice of I Want to Break Free, which is famous for its use of drag in the music video – Jim melding into Eurus is the dark side of queer genderbending that we hate to see. It’s also a pretty fitting song name for an intensifying of repressed gay trauma, even without the association with queer king Mercury.

[A side note to all of this – there were wonderful TEH metas about trains in tunnels being sexual, which isn’t just a tjlc thing but is a well-established idea in cinema – Moriarty’s consistent train noises here seem like a horrifyingly inverted version of that sexual longing.]

Task 1 – The Six Thatchers

The governor is set up as a mirror for John in this task, which provides some helpful context for the episode as a whole. Heart!John makes this comparison himself, by drawing out the similarity between the situation with the governor’s wife and his with Mary, though in this case the governor does kill himself because of his wife – or so it seems. The suicidal instinct matches with everything we’ve learned about John in s4, but I want to hypothesise, perhaps tenuously, that he’s more connected with Eurus than we might think. We know that Eurus has had control of the governor for quite some time, and one of the things we hear her saying to the governor in the background of the interrogations is that he shouldn’t trust his wife. This is an odd thing to pepper into the background when he’s about to commit suicide for her, and perhaps suggests that he’s more of Eurus’s pawn than he lets on, though I grant this may be spurious.

The idea that he distrusts his wife because of Eurus is important, however, because we’ve already seen John engage with Eurus in various forms, but this seems like an extension of E; Eurus, aka Sherlock’s hidden self, has been making John doubt Mary, even before she shoots Sherlock. John cannot know she’s a spy at this point, so it’s unlikely he’s doubting her goodwill; he’s simply doubting her.

Before we look at how the actual task impacts the governor and how that illustrates what’s really going on in TST, it’s worth pointing out that it is the governor’s engagement with Eurus which prompts the entire shutdown of Sherrinford and forces Sherlock (with brain!Mycroft and heart!John ever at his side, of course) to engage once and for all with Eurus. This points to everything that s4 has been telling us – that Sherlock’s understanding of the relationship between him and John, including his power to save him (we’re going to see the governor play the foil here) is what sends his brain into stay-alive-overdrive. Sherrinford is the peak of this.

Summary of the task, for those who hate TFP: Sherlock is given a gun and told he can pick either John or Mycroft to kill the governor, otherwise the governor’s wife will be killed by Eurus. As I’ve written about in its chapters, TST is about Sherlock trying to get to the bottom of Mary and why she tried to kill him – and, of course, the impact this will have on John. In brief, by displacing the shot onto Mary in his mind, he’s discounting his own importance and instead thinking about what it will mean for John to lose Mary. His greatest fear is that losing Mary will break John, and it isn’t until the end of TLD that he recognises that the return of John’s suicidal ideation isn’t over Mary, but over him. TFP presents the horror version, the version of TST that Sherlock’s trauma wants him to believe but which he has to overcome. In this case, Mycroft and John resolve to keep the governor alive in their passivity, but that passivity – Sherlock’s coma – is not enough to keep the governor from killing himself over Mary. This is the most feared outcome from Mary’s death that Sherlock can think of – his fear of losing John combined with John’s love of Mary, which in TST Sherlock is still taking as read.

Double naming in this show should never be neglected, and in this case we learn shortly before the governor dies that his name is David. Again, the dramatic manner in which we learn this (on the moment of execution) draws our attention to it – we know another David in this show.

Yup – Mary's ex who’s still in love with her from TSoT. So even though Sherlock is experiencing the panic of John killing himself for loss of Mary, his subconscious is still pointing out to him that that’s not what’s happening here. This mirror version of John that he has set up, who is broken by the loss of Mary as Sherlock fears in TST, is actually the other man in Mary’s life – even with Eurus forcing the worst possible scenario onto him, this still can’t quite fit John’s character. And so we move onto the second task.

Task 2 – The Lying Detective

This section of the Sherrinford saga is the three Garridebs, the closest thing that the fandom has ever got to a collective trauma. I do think, however, that it’s fully reclaimable for tjlc and means the same as we always wanted it to; I also think that it’s possibly the most gutting part of Eurus’s metatfictional power play.

If you haven’t read The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, it’s quite short and the most johnlocky of the Holmes canon, so I’d thoroughly recommend. For the purposes of mapping bbc!verse onto acd!verse, however, here’s the incredibly short version. A man called Evans wants to burgle Nathan Garrideb, so he calls himself John Garrideb and writes an advertisement from a man called Alexander Hamilton Garrideb (make of that what you will, hamilstans) declaring that he wants to bequeath his fortune to three Garridebs. “John” gets someone to pretend to be a Howard Garrideb to get Nathan out of the house to meet him – he comes to burgle the house but Holmes and Watson are lying in wait. He shoots Watson, and Holmes thinks Watson is seriously injured and so we have this wonderful section:

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say you are not hurt!”

It was worth a wound–it was worth many wounds–to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

“It’s nothing, Holmes. It’s a mere scratch.”

He had ripped up my trousers with his pocket-knife.

“You are right,” he cried with an immense sigh of relief. “It is quite superficial.” His face set like flint as he glared at our prisoner, who was sitting up with a dazed face. “By the Lord, it is as well for you. If you had killed Watson, you would not have got out of this room alive. Now, sir, what have you to say for yourself?”

Mofftiss have referenced this moment as being the greatest in the Holmes canon for them, the moment when we see the depth of Holmes’s affection for Watson, and so it seems odd to waste it on such a tiny moment in TFP. Many fans, myself included, were really upset to see Eurus drop all three Garridebs into the sea, the implication being that tjlc would never be real, and it was that moment that caused many (including me) to walk away. I came back, obviously, but I completely understand why you wouldn’t. However, I want to map one Garridebs story onto the other to show how they might match up.

The Garridebs that Eurus presents us with are not the three Garridebs from the story. In the story, there are three physically present Garridebs – Nathan, John and Howard – although admittedly only Nathan is an actual Garrideb. Alexander was completely invented by John and existed only in a newspaper advertisement. Evans, alias John Garrideb, is the criminal in the Garridebs story; Alexander is an invention.

So – what happens if we substitute John for Alex in bbc!verse, as in canon they are the same person? This is interesting, because double-naming means that John becomes the killer. Whilst it’s true that John Garrideb is known as Killer Evans for his murder of a counterfeiter back in America, in canon he is done for attempted murder – of John Watson, of course. Here we have a situation where a John is set up killing John. This is exacerbated by the victim in bbc!verse being called Evans; Roger Prescott, the counterfeiter, would have been a much more canonical nod to the books, so we can assume that the choice of Evans is therefore significant. It should be noted that Evans and John/Alex Garrideb are the same person in acd!canon - so killing Evans is a representation of suicide. But, in case we weren’t there yet, the reason that Evans took the name ‘John’ is acd!canon is very likely to be because Evan is Welsh for John – so whatever way you look at this situation, you have Sherlock deducing John killing John.

This is, of course, exactly what Sherlock deduces at the end of TLD, far too slow, when we see Eurus shoot John in an exact mirror of the shot from TST – I explained in a previous chapter why this means that John is suicidal without Sherlock. However, much like the passivity of Sherlock, John and Mycroft in the first task, here we see that Sherlock’s act of deduction is good, but can’t actually save anyone; Eurus kills off our Garridebs moment as Sherlock is left to watch, and it’s notable that heart!John is the most distressed about this. Remember, in the first task Eurus left Sherlock with an image of a John who was suicidally devoted to Mary, and although the Garridebs moment is one which metafictionally highlights the relationship between Sherlock and John, she’s still presenting him with a Garridebs moment in which he is fundamentally unable to save John. This is a direct result of the Redbeard trauma that Sherlock has experienced – helplessness is key to that, and this is what Eurus has come to represent in his psyche. But – Eurus isn’t real, Eurus is testing Sherlock, trauma trying to bring him down, and Sherlock’s job in TFP is to break through the walls that his consciousness has set up for him.

The power in Sherlock saying I condemn Alex Garrideb is heartbreaking, then, because it is Sherlock recognising that he is the reason that John is going to die. Eurus is there to make him confront that reality, which she explicitly makes him do. We get the split-second moment where he thinks he’s saved Alex, and then he’s plunged into the sea – but remember, this is Eurus taunting Sherlock, presenting him with worst-possible-scenarios. TFP is set up as a game for a reason – it is a series of hypotheses cast in Sherlock’s mind by his trauma that he has to break through one by one. Remember, although she’s ostensibly trying to hurt Sherlock, Eurus’s ‘extra’ murders in the first two tasks are aimed at hurting John, which wouldn’t make sense if he weren’t the mp version of Sherlock’s heart.

Task 3 – The Final Problem

Pretty much straight after this episode aired, people were pointing out that Molly is a clear John mirror and that pretty much all of the deductions Sherlock makes here could be about John. Again, we’re seeing Sherlock’s emotions being resolved in a heterosexual context – the presence of Eurus means that he’s unable to process them in their real, queer form. However, if we take Molly to be a stand-in for John in this scene, it may tell us what TFP is about – and the scenario that Eurus presents will be the worst one, the thing that is causing Sherlock the most pain.

TLD/the previous task have shown us that John is in imminent danger, so the transition to Molly Hooper’s flat being rigged with bombs is not a difficult one; we must assume this to be the suicidal ideation that we’ve just deduced. The time limit suggests that Sherlock is running out of time to save him (fucking right he fell into a coma SIX YEARS AGO). Putting Molly in a bad mood isn’t really necessary for this scene – they make her seem a lot more depressed than she would necessarily need to be, and they emphasise her aloneness and her ability to push people away, which isn’t something we know Molly to do. These traits are all much more important in the context of a suicidal John – they paint a much clearer picture of someone who is depressed and alone than we really need for this scene, where it’s not relevant to the surface plot.

Sherlock and the audience believe he has won this task, but of course he hasn’t - there were never any explosives rigged up in Molly’s flat, and it was a ruse to destroy his relationship with Molly. This is what he fears then – what if he’s wrong? What if coming back to life because he loves John won’t save him – it will destroy him and their relationship? The problem to be wrestled with is how to save John – according to the symmetry of these tasks, that is the final problem. We know that the scenario Eurus has presented isn’t real, but Sherlock doesn’t; he is being held up by his inability to cope with interpersonal relationships, and to get to the bottom of that we’re going to need to understand what he’s been repressing – part 3 of this meta.

There’s a wonderful shot just as Sherlock is destroying Molly’s coffin which zooms up and out through a ceiling window, all the way above Sherrinford, as though to emphasise not how remote Sherrinford is but just how deep inside it Sherlock is. Given what we know about the height metaphor as well as the water metaphor, this shot is a pretty clear way of telling us – this is as deep inside Sherlock’s mind as we go, this is the nub. But Sherlock smashing up the coffin has another powerful connotation – he's refusing death. In terms of metaphor, he’s refusing John’s death – there will be no small coffin, because he will not let it happen – but the visual of him smashing the coffin also suggests that he is rejecting his own death. The two are, of course, inextricably linked. Our boys’ lives are tied together.

Epilogue: The Hunger Games

I can’t watch this without thinking of The Hunger Games, I just can’t! But regardless of how much Sherlock seems like Katniss in this section, let’s press on. I don’t count this as one of the typical tasks, because this isn’t Eurus presenting a ‘haha I tricked you scenario’ - far from it. This is Sherlock’s way into unlocking his repression. The key takeaway from this scene, as we’ll see is that trauma has hurt Sherlock, and it’s going to try pretty hard here to mutilate him – but it can’t kill him.

We get a great line from Sherlock at the beginning of this, where he tells John that the way Eurus is treating him isn’t torture, it’s vivisection. Because it’s an experiment? Perhaps. But the more logical way to phrase this would be that it isn’t vivisection, it’s torture. Torture is much more emotionally charged than vivisection as a phrase – from a writer’s perspective, this phrasing is strange because it seems to negate rather than intensify the pain our characters are undergoing. Why, then, would vivisection be more important than torture? Well, put simply, vivisection is the act of cutting someone open and seeing what’s inside – and that’s what we’re doing. This isn’t just an analogy for experimenting on people, it’s an analogy for going literally inside somebody. In EMP world, then, these words are well chosen.

Sherlock is offered the choice – John or Mycroft? Heart or brain? We might initially think that this is Eurus pressuring Sherlock into death, but that’s not the case at all – we know from the early series that Sherlock has survived before (although very unhappily) with just one of these two dominating the other. It has taken his EMP journey to unite them into a functioning entity, and Eurus is bent on destroying that, mutilating either his emotional capacity or his reasoning, the two parts that make him human. This is a good sign, as well, that trauma has been acting on Sherlock through the first three series, when his psyche was dominated by brain!Mycroft - Eurus is keen to revert to that state, when trauma had control. It is touching, then, that brain!Mycroft is willing to relinquish that control and leave Sherlock with his heart, perhaps because this new unity allows him to recognise how damaged the Sherlock he created was. We should also note that this diminishing of Sherlock’s heart is compared to his Lady Bracknell, which we know to be his repression of all Sherlock’s romantic/sexual impulses – except this time it’s less convincing, because his brain doesn’t believe it anymore. What is also devastating is heart!John’s lack of self-esteem or knowledge, the sense that he isn’t useful to Sherlock, which of course will be proven wrong.

[if anyone has thoughts on the white rectangle on the floor, do let me know. It’s bugging me!]

Mycroft says that he acknowledges there is a heart somewhere inside of him – again, this is emotionally powerful in the context of the brain/heart wrangling that we’ve seen inside the EMP. Just as Sherlock’s psyche has tried to compartmentalise them all this time and they’re finally working together, now there’s an acknowledgement that the compartmentalisation into personae is maybe inaccurate as well – brain!Mycroft’s pretence to be emotionally detached is not in fact correct, as we’ve been suspecting for a long time.

Brain!Mycroft also states that it’s his fault that this has all happened because he let Eurus converse with Jim. If you spend any time thinking about the Eurus + Jim meeting, like many elements of this show it doesn’t make sense. There isn’t a feasible way this could have been planned, recorded etc in five minutes, and although it’s true that Jim could have come back to shoot the videos under the governor’s supervision, it’s not clear why he’s so important. Unless he takes on the metaphorical significance that we’ve assigned him, letting Jim see Eurus seems pretty unimportant – he is only the garnishing on Eurus’s plan. Instead, Mycroft is at fault for letting John be in danger – not only did Sherlock misdeduce Mary (although we can lay the blame for that at the feet of heart!John - see meta on TST), his reasoning was blinded and so he missed John’s suicidal urges and the danger to his life. Brain!Mycroft holds himself responsible – all of these EMP deductions are way late, comprised of things Sherlock should have noticed when his brain wasn’t letting his heart in.

Five minutes. It took her five minutes to do this to all of us.

The lighting is dramatic, so I can’t properly gauge Ben’s expression at this moment, but his eyes look crinkled in confusion, just like they are at the moments when a sense of unreality starts to set in in TAB. Indeed, these aren’t very appropriate words for when you’re about to kill your brother; it’s like he’s being distracted, like there’s something important that he’s missing. Mofftiss are drawing attention to the sheer impossibility of the situation – and Sherlock’s nearly there. His Katniss Everdeen move, threatening to kill himself, is the recognition that his trauma doesn’t have that power – it can hurt him and deform him by twisting his psyche into unbalance, like it has before and like Eurus is trying to here, but it cannot kill him. We can see that Sherlock has risen above the one-sided dominance that he began the entire show with when Eurus shouts at him that he doesn’t know about Redbeard yet – that’s not going to change his mind today, but it’s a direct throwback to the days when it would have, in ASiP with the cabbie. Character development, folks.

The shot of Sherlock falling backwards into the dark water links to two aspects of the EMP. One is the continued metaphor of water to represent sinking into the depths of his mind. The water is so dark it looks oily – it could be argued that this is the oil that is corrupting the waters of his mind as we finally cut to the repressed memories. I quite like this reading, though I have little other oil imagery to link it to in the show. The other notable point is the slow-motion fall backwards – instead of showing Sherlock, John and Mycroft all falling, we cut to Sherlock falling backwards exactly like he did in HLV when he was shot by Mary. This is a really clear visual callback. Even though we’re going deeper, we’re linking back to the original shooting, back in reality, suggesting that this depth is paradoxically going to lead us back to the start. To go back to the oil imagery, don’t forget that oil floats on water – although it looks like we’re sinking, there’s a real sense that these repressed memories are actually pulling us to the surface of Sherlock’s subconscious, quite unlike the deep zoom out we saw when Sherlock was destroying the coffin.

And that’s it for part 2 of the TFP meta! Part 3/3 will deal with such highlights as John not being able to recognise bones and presumably getting his feet pulled off by chains. Good thing this is just a dream. See you then!

#meta #emp theory #tjlc

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kajaono · 4 years ago

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@femboykurapika asked me:

And I think this a very good question that not only applies to TJLC but so many different fandoms. I think there are two different sides to pay attention to.

Side 1: The fandom. I think many of us are in fandoms to have a good time. And when we see racist or sexist comments we get angry, but we mostly skip over it. But we need to prevent that such little extreme groups form in the first place and we can only prevent that by engaging with those people (getting them of the website) or blocking/reporting them directly. Because once such extreme groups formed stopping them is nearly impossible. This is also why fandoms from the very beginning make really clear where they stand, and that they do not tolrate racism, sexism and homophobia. And they also need to show that to the outside with actions that can also be seen by the cast and writers

Side 2: The official writers. Writers these days need to realize that active fandoms are a serious part of the people who watch a show/movie and can have extreme power when they have an idea. (See here, the racism against Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega in Star Wars). Writers should not ignore that or even worse, feed those trolls (here: See Mofftiss, but also Disney dropping John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Kelly Marie Tran to please the white fans, including Reylos). Writers also need to make a clear stand from the beginning and stick to that even when they have the face big piles of hate, because in the end the racist will get bored and leave. (Here: Star Trek Disco. The more the not-my-Trek people grew the more actions the cast and crew took. They took more people of color in the show, spoke up against homophobia by taking part in the purple day, made a whole episode without white people, and integrated a trans and nb character in their show). Of course you do not need to be that diverse, but it helps to scare of the assholes.

In conclusion, people who engage in fandom are the closest to these extreme groups and need to help prevent that those groups do not form in the first place. And the witers need to make a clear stand from the beginnin because this backs up the fans and helps them to make a clear stand.

Never ignore or even feed these groups. And never excuse these groups with: But they are only a little part of the fandom.” because it can quickly out of hand.

But in the end toxic fans are in nearly every fandom and we can never prevent that, we can only work on keeping them small. I don’t think their is a general fandom dynamic which leads to the formation of these groups, they will allways form, ignoring them only helps them to grow.

What do you think?

#tjlc #ask #this is not about tjlc but the extreme sexist and racist people within tjlc and other famdom

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marta-bee · 7 years ago

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I’ve been posting a bit of Mofftiss wank lately (incidentally, because that’s where the clever content happens to be; I’m not committed to hating S4, generally). But I’ve been thinking about S4 on my own, and in the interest of fairness, I thought I’d open the floor to people who want to talk about it positively.

If you thought S4 had an overarching story or point to it, what do you think that was? Does it connect up with the story/point of S1-3, and do you think it’s reached its natural stopping-point or does it still feel unfinished to you? If you think it’s a different story they’re telling now, why do you think they changed tracks?

I’m particularly interested in why they killed Mary when they did (odd to kill off a major character in the first act like that), and why they introduced a previously-unknown antagonist for the final episode. Particularly if this was meant as the final final episode: what’s the point of Eurus in story terms? (I love her; but as an author it’s not a choice I’d make, especially with such a good history of developing villains over the whole series/seasons previously).

Critical thought is welcome, of course, but please don’t use this post as a platform for hating on S4. There are places for that, I’d just rather this not be about that.

#sherlock #sherlock holmes #mary morstan #eurus holmes #sherlock s4 #talk to me please

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sherlolo-land · 7 years ago

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We’ve already covered this subject in full, so we’ll point what stood out to us and talk about it.

“Anyways, back to the issue at hand. Martin has the right to voice his opinion in the way that he wants to and it’s a bummer if he doesn’t do it in a more respectful manner, but you know what else is a bummer? Fans being dickheads right back."

It’s funny how you guys used to hate Martin, (and hated John even more) and now ever since that interview it’s like you’re all buddies? Why? Because of what he said about fans of the show? Be honest, at what point of the interview did you change your mind and decided Martin was a suddenly good guy? We Johnlockers love Martin regardless, yes, he says some abrasive things, but that’s Martin and we wouldn’t want him to change who he is. No doubt he’s not happy with the way S4 went, and he’s tired. Fucking tired. And another thing, how long did you look in the johnlock tag to find everyone being a dickhead to him? 30 seconds? 5 minutes? Be real, Oswin. We’ve only wished that Martin used better words, but like we said, he’s fucking tired but we’re also sad for you that saying “pick better words” means “being a dickhead” to you.

“Remember the death threats to Amanda back in 2015? i mean she and Martin ended up contacting police because one person started to really freak them out and they were both scared. What about Benedict and Sophie’s stalker back in 2015 too? The one who actually showed up at their home where they lived with their infant son, leaving red ribbons around windows and even his car.”

We all remember that, but what does that have to do with us? Are you seriously pinning those two horrible things on Johnlockers? That’s sad, and a little sick that you think we would go after our favorite stars and their families.

“....where “fans” insult creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. “Fans” will even insult each other just because of the characters they ship together."

Again, Oswin, maybe if you did some more research and looked into the actual complaints some of us sent to BBC, you’d discover it was done professionally and nicely. Also, hahaha, wow, we’re sure Moffat and Gatiss are big boys and can handle some criticism, like being asked why created so much Johnlock subtext and then went in a complete 180 direction. Why they lied to us. Why they ruined their own show. It’s baffling that you think complaining about the quality of a show gone wrong to its writers is called “insulting” and “attacking.” You know what attacking is? Look above. It’s sending death threats to Amanda and scaring the daylights out of Ben and Sophie - that of which we never did. That’s an attack. Not telling Mofftiss that they “gave up” on Sherlock. Give us a break.

Sherlock was not the first show to lead its fans into the direction of a gay relationship, and definitely was not the first to screw it up, so forgive us for being disappointed in being fucked over and queerbaited. Again.

“Give me a chance and please do NOT stop reading due to my next sentence. I ship Sherlolly with my life. I’ve always loved Sherlolly. You know, Molly is the first person Sherlock ever apologized to. He has given her many kisses on the cheek and has wished her true happiness and don’t even get me started on Sherlock’s second “I love you” (I swear to every deity it was an epiphany) and him smashing her coffin to bits.”

Sherlock has done a lot of things for John that he’s never done for Molly. He’s called her John many times because John is ALWAYS in his head. He’s saved John’s life many times, and vice versa. He vowed to protect John and Mary. He’s risked his life to save John, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson. He’s --- oh wait, we forgot, you just said you ship Sherlolly, so you don’t care about what happened between Sherlock and John because you didn’t observe.

“Sherlolly is my OTP because I agree with Martin. John can’t be gay. There’s no evidence in the series that he is and if he isn’t gay than JohnLock isn’t possible.”

He ain’t straight either, honey.

“[Martin] is exasperated and tired of being disrespected by his so called fans. I’m a stage actress and I’ve been in shows where it’s been criticized and my character has been criticized and it is exhausting and it honestly really hurts.”

Like we said earlier, we have said that we wished Martin had chosen better words, but he’s always been critically honest and we like that about him. There’s always going to be this handful of fans that are going to be extremely critical on you and disagree with something, but that’s life in showbiz. We’re sorry that you have had experience with harsh criticism but you probably already know that it’s going to happen when you’re out there in the real world. Everybody gets criticized. But the majority of Johnlock fans are just amused with Martin’s choice of words because we know he’s not happy with S4 and he doesn’t know that the rest of us exist. You get a handful of asshole fans clawing at you, you’re certainly going to believe everyone else is an asshole, as well.

But Ben has said pretty harsh things himself, and subtly threw Martin under the bus, so we’re wondering when you’re going to make a post about what HE said.

“Again, as an actress I know how this thing works.”

You don’t have to be an actress to know how criticism works. Sorry.

“And to Martin Freeman, I still love you and respect you, but I do agree that you could have been kinder. But at the same time I understand exactly why you weren’t kinder and I didn’t really expect you to be.”

Yes, he could have been kinder. But we’re just still confused why you and your friends suddenly respect him. It’s not like you always have.

“#JohnLock, #Martin Freeman, #Sherlolly, #Sherlock, #BBC Sherlock, #Sherlock BBC, #MyStrade, #Mollstrade, #Warstan, #Mollock, #Sheriarty, #Molliarty, #any tag that gets every Sherlock fan on Tumblr to see this post, #this is important,”

We don’t have a problem with being tagged, but if one of us had written about Loo Brealey and said that we weren’t too happy with something she said, and we tagged your ship, no doubt you would all be bitching about the whole tagging business. We understand you weren’t causing any trouble in your post, but you were wrong on a lot of points.

We weren’t being dickheads by wishing Martin hadn’t been so severe.

We’ve never gone after Amanda, and we’ve never gone after Ben and his family.

We’ve never ATTACKED Moffat and Gatiss.

John is bisexual.

Martin doesn’t realize that a lot of his fans are not all like this, but he’s tired and we cut him some slack.

We don’t see anything being talked about what Ben said....?

Think it through next time.

#sherl0llian logic #martin freeman #benedict cumberbatch #s4 #john watson #sherlock #the sudden whiplash of hating martin then respecting him is apparent #tw: homophobia

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rough-tweed-action · 7 years ago

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🔥 about tjlc and the tinfoil hat conspiracists

This is a tough one. I'm guessing my opinion (why are they doing this to themselves?) is actually a popular one. So, an unpopular opinion about these people, hmm.

Have you seen Rowan Atkinson's sketch about Toby the Devil? He welcomes souls to hell and divides them into groups: murderers, thieves, French and lastly, Christians. 'Christians? Ah yes, I’m sorry, I’m afraid the Jews were right.' Apart from being hilarious, it makes me wonder: what if we, the non-johnlockers, are wrong and they are right? What if everything I think I know about Sherlock is wrong because I'm a straight, adult woman and judging from the post-TFP dramatic posts, the majority of the cult consists of gay youth. What if BBC Sherlock really is a romantic story and I saw none of that because I'm biased?

What if they were rightfully angry after series 4? I mean, from what I heard, they predicted TAB's content pretty well. Maybe they aren't as delusional as we think. Maybe they were, in fact, portrayed on the show not only as the First TJCLer Hudders but also as the league of furies. Maybe today's gay youth needs more recognition than suffragettes. I don't know.

What if Mofftiss did betray them? What if they intentionally made Sherlock gay and John bi to attract the attention of gay fans? What if they wanted to give them the kiss, but the BBC didn't let them?What if Mark Gatiss, who seems like a lovely person, is actually the evil incarnate and a homophobic, cruel gay who likes to torment people like him? How can I tell? I don't know him. What if Mofftiss are lying liars who lie about lying about lying about lying and they really are playing a long game here. Maybe they intentionally made series 4 not gay and hurt the fans only to make the kiss in series 5 sweeter? Who can tell?

Did Gatiss honestly tell gay fans via Mary that it doesn't matter who they really are? Would he do that? Will he and Moffat butcher Dracula and make him not explicitly gay?

What if I, a Sheriarty shipper, completely misinterpreted the Moriarty episodes? What if Sherlock is, in fact, scared of Moriarty and there's no chemistry? Perhaps Sherlock wanted to catch Moriarty to save John and be gay with him? Could the Sheriarty content be just a cynical milkshake to lure the hungry Fannibals to the yard? What if the Sheriarty scene from TAB was not sentimentally and sexually charged? What if Moriarty's motivation was 'if I can't have you, then no one can'? WHAT IF SHERLOCK JUST HAD A GUN IN HIS POCKET AND WASN’T PLEASED TO SEE HIM?

What if Adlock isn't canon? Is Irene's theme really a johnlock theme? The person who deflowered Sherlock, Irene or John? Were Irene's pupils dilated because she was scared? Did she say 'Well I am [gay], look at us both' to prove there was no Adlock, not because saying 'Well I am bisexual' would make no sense? Were all the reminders of Irene meaningless? Do I ship it bc I'm straight? Was I.... straight-baited?

Was it a coincidence that Sherlock said 'I'm you' to Jim and played Irene's theme when asked to play himself? Was the Adlock/Sheriarty mash-up (TAB) unimportant? Is Sherlock actually attracted only to his exact opposite, John boring dull predictable Watson?

What if that Arwel guy is not a funny person who likes elephants and things that glow? What if he taunted the cult with gay elephants all those years? I'm actually surprised to have heard of the Eurus' glass elephant just recently and not from a cult member. Huh. Is the glowing skull a secret sign? What if the billboards from HLV were not a coincidence?

And what if all the small inconsistencies like the disappearing John from the T6T scene with Hopkins are, in fact, important? Look, as a Holmescest shipper, I watched the Unwise, brother mine scene many, many times. Two inconsistencies there.

What if the First TJLCer and John are actually likeable characters? Is John's abusive behaviour excusable bc of sexual frustration and being closeted? Was his awful comment about Mycroft (what goes around comes around) justified? We may never know.

Is johnlock actually a sweet, lovely, vanilla ship, romantic and pure? Despite all the women deceived and used to stop the gossip? It bothers me, actually. Maybe it's because I think that honesty in any relationship is crucial. Did Sherlock and John really flirt with each other in Mary's or Irene's presence? Did John make a decision to marry Mary just to prove he's straight, although he could have just ditch the bitch and make out with his loved-up booooooooooyfriend? Is it ok for a bi-curious person to lie to their straight partner and use them a shield? Should I root for a gay couple who try to get together on the fucking WEDDING RECEPTION in front of the clueless bride? Is this good? Do I find it disgusting and inexcusable bc I'm not gay? Maybe it is a gay fantasy, the opposite of the hetero wish to turn a gay person straight? Mystery.

Is this theory that the true villain of BBC Sherlock is anyone who thinks Sherlock is not gay right? Do I erase an important part of his personality bc I don't want Sherlock the fictional character to be happy the way he should have been from the start? Was ACD inspired by Oscar Wilde and the original Sherlock Holmes was in as gay as Wilde? Did Watson invent Mary Morstan to be safely gay with Holmes?

Is the unaired pilot gay and I can't see it bc I am not? Did Sherlock say that he knew being gay is fine not because John said his 'which is fine' the way I say 'I do like the Germans and I’m not scared of the German nationalism and do not resent them for using the most hideous language in the world, no sir'? Did Sherlock never correct the people who assumed he was John's boyfriend not because he simply didn't care what they thought about him?

What if Mary killed herself to make Sherlock commit suicide? What if Sherlock hated her the whole time and only pretended he liked her, so very convincingly? Did he and John conspire to murder her while she was heavily pregnant and sipped tea in John's chair? Was she the real Moriarty? Did she work for CAM? For Mycroft? Did the homicidal Sherlock and John try to protect her from Ajay because... they wanted to kill her themselves?

Was the Warstan reunion in HLV not sweet and realistic but sinister? Did John threaten her while she was pregnant with his child?

Is the *sigh* M theory true? Moriarty, Mary and Magnussen using Mycroft to destroy johnlock? Because nothing else that universe is more important than these two Brits licking Marmite off the other's prick.

What if our perception of the acronym cult is wrong? Maybe it's not just toxic. Maybe it helps its members embrace their sexuality. Maybe they were just trying to defend themselves? Maybe the only member who needed therapy was one of the leaders? Was it ok for another leader, the one who's still active, to respond to my message by going through my blog and judging the content? Despite my having mentioned twice in the message that I was just curious and had no evil intentions. I'm no expert.

Is the concept of a slow-burn romance (with a huge portion of miscommunication) between John and Sherlock possible? Wouldn't Sherlock just say: 'John, we should kiss, for science!' or John, when Sherlock returned, 'I have missed you so much. Don't ever leave again. Also, I love you, I can say this now.'

Did the suggestion to name the baby Sherlock actually meant 'I wish we have got married, I'd love to be your Sherlock Watson'? Did John the free widower say 'the chance doesn't last forever' and put so much emphasis on the word 'alive' because... I dunno, really.

Does John's 'I am not gay/not Sherlock's boyfriend' mean: 'I'm bisexual and would love to show Sherlock some military discipline'? Wouldn’t bi-John feel comfortable with Hudders, enough to tell her his secret?

Was John's reaction to Mary's death really less emotional than his reaction to Sherlock's suicide?

Was John's WTF when Janine strode out of Sherlock's bedroom jealousy and not the strong feeling that Sherlock either changed overnight or was doing some serious bullshitting?

Is Sherlock’s reaction to Janine and that other female character flirting with him a definite proof that he does not want to offer his virginity to a woman? Even... The Woman?

Was the idea of Warstan bad enough to make Sherlock suicidal on FIVE separate occasions? I counted: the sad, suicidal chips in TEH, the conversation with Sholto through the door, the post-wedding relapse that was NOT for a case, the TAB overdose and the TLD relapse. Dude. Sherlock, son, maybe find a hobby.

Did Mofftiss lose their minds and made not one but TWO 'all in your head' series? Is John dying? Is Sherlock in a coma? Was Eurus real? Is Redbeard a dog? Do I care?

Are Adlock and Smallcroft shippers delusional bc both Holmes brothers are so obviously gay? Is it all right to say that a character's sexual orientation cannot be different from the actor's (but only if the actor is gay)? Does Gatiss have a right to play or create non-gay characters? Is he morally obliged to make every Sherlock character gay? Does he owe anything to the gay community?

What if having your otp work together and raise a kid together is not enough?

WAS THE LAZARUS REAL? I do agree with finalproblem on this particular subject, 100%.

Is Jim Moriarty alive? Is Mary alive? Is Rosie real?

IS FUCKY a real, useable word?

WAS IT HUDDERS WHO SAID 'SOFTER, SHERLOCK' IN TFP??? That old, stoned witch, I knew I shouldn't trust her.

WHAT IF THERE WILL BE A LOST SPECIAL/LOST GAY BAR SCENE/THE KISS AND WE, THE NON-BELIEVERS/CASUAL ANTIS, WILL DIE OF SHOCK AND CHOKE ON OUR HOMOPHOBIA?

WHAT IF IT WAS TWINS???

Seriously, though. Do I think conspiracy theorists are crazy in real life? No. I think I'm fairly normal despite my strong belief that General Sikorski was murdered by the British. I will NEVER accept that it was an accident. Never.

Thank you, that was a journey.

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nightingveilxo · 8 years ago

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How Do You Keep Sherlock Holmes Alive? You Make Him A Monster.

“He wasn't busy, he just... sometimes he struggled to fit in. He couldn't switch off, couldn't relax. He just struggled with people, I think. Yet the video... it showed the other side to him. He was rude, yeah. Arrogant. Apparently lacking in anything resembling empathy. But I'd forgotten just how funny he could be. He was so charming. So... human. It's bizarre because most people would say he was the most inhuman person they'd ever met. But he wasn't. He was everything a good person should be.“

TGG

JOHN (switching off the phone): Try and remember there’s a woman here who might die. SHERLOCK: What for? (He looks up at John.) SHERLOCK: This hospital’s full of people dying, Doctor. Why don’t you go and cry by their bedside and see what good it does them? (John looks away in disbelief. Unmoved, Sherlock looks back into the microscope but just then the computer beeps a result.)

SHERLOCK: People have died. JIM: That’s what people DO! (He screams the last word furiously, his personality changing in an instant.)

ASiB

On another occasion, two little girls are sitting together on one of the dining chairs while Sherlock paces in front of the fireplace. LITTLE GIRL: They wouldn’t let us see Granddad when he was dead. Is that ’cause he’d gone to heaven? SHERLOCK: People don’t really go to heaven when they die. They’re taken to a special room and burned. (Like Mary supposedly is in T6T, but Sherlock was supposedly buried after TRF. Odd...) (The two girls look at each other in distress.) JOHN (reprovingly): Sherlock ...

LESTRADE (looking at a bag of evidence): Well, according to the flight details, this man was checked in on board. Inside his coat he’s got a stub from his boarding pass, napkins from the flight, even one of those special biscuits. Here’s his passport stamped in Berlin Airport. So this man should have died in a plane crash in Germany yesterday but instead he’s in a car boot in Southwark. (Like Sherlock in TAB and TLD) JOHN: Lucky escape(!) LESTRADE (to Sherlock): Any ideas? SHERLOCK (examining the man’s hand with his magnifier): Eight, so far. (He straightens up and looks at the body again, then frowns momentarily.) SHERLOCK: Okay, four ideas. (He turns to Lestrade and looks down at the passport and the ticket stub of the passenger, John Coniston, who was meant to be travelling on Flyaway Airways [oh, good invented name, production guys(!)]. Straightening up again, he gazes up into the sky.) SHERLOCK: Maybe two ideas. (The shadow of a passenger jet passes overhead.)

In the street, Sherlock is doubled over with John on his back half–strangling him. John’s face is contorted with pent-up anger and frustration, and Sherlock is struggling to pull his hands off him. SHERLOCK (half-choking): Okay! I think we’re done now, John. JOHN (savagely): You wanna remember, Sherlock: I was a soldier. I killed people. SHERLOCK: You were a doctor! JOHN: I had bad days! (John, chill, son.)

MYCROFT: We’re in a morgue. There’s only so much damage you can do. (Sherlock inhales deeply and then blows the smoke out again.) MYCROFT: How did you know she was dead? SHERLOCK: She had an item in her possession, one she said her life depended on. She chose to give it up. (He takes another drag on his cigarette.) MYCROFT: Where is this item now? (Sherlock looks round at the sound of sobbing. A family of three people is standing on the other side of the doors at the end of the corridor, cuddled together and clearly grieving the death of someone close to them. Sherlock and his brother turn to look at the family.) SHERLOCK: Look at them. They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us? MYCROFT: All lives end. All hearts are broken. (He looks round at his brother.) Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.

THoB

JOHN: Um, Henry, your parents both died and you were, what, seven years old? (Henry is concentrating on taking his first drag on his cigarette. As he exhales his first lungful, Sherlock stands up and steps closer to him.) HENRY: I know. That ... my ... (He stops as Sherlock leans into the smoke drifting up from the cigarette and from Henry’s mouth and breathes in deeply and noisily through his nose. Having sucked up most of the smoke, he sits down again and breathes out, whining quietly in pleasure.) JOHN (trying hard to ignore him): That must be a ... quite a trauma. Have you ever thought that maybe you invented this story, this ... (Henry has exhaled another lungful of smoke and Sherlock dives in to noisily hoover up the smoke again. John pauses patiently until he sits down again.) JOHN: ... to account for it?

BARRYMORE: You’re one of the conspiracy lot, aren’t you? (He grins as Sherlock rolls his eyes.) BARRYMORE: Well, then, go ahead, seek them out: the monsters, the death rays, the aliens. SHERLOCK (nonchalantly): Have you got any of those? (Now it’s Barrymore’s turn to roll his eyes.) SHERLOCK: Oh, just wondering.

SHERLOCK: The sugar, yes. It’s a simple process of elimination. I saw the hound – saw it as my imagination expected me to see it: a genetically engineered monster. But I knew I couldn’t believe the evidence of my own eyes, so there were seven possible reasons for it, the most possible being narcotics. (Narcotics = monster.)

JOHN: Yes, you said: fear. Sherlock Holmes got scared. You said. (Sherlock catches him up, takes hold of his arm and pulls him round to face him.) SHERLOCK: No-no-no, it was more than that, John. It was doubt. I felt doubt. I’ve always been able to trust my senses, the evidence of my own eyes, until last night. JOHN: You can’t actually believe that you saw some kind of monster. SHERLOCK: No, I can’t believe that. (He grins bitterly for a moment.) But I did see it, so the question is: how? How? JOHN: Yes. Yeah, right, good. So you’ve got something to go on, then? Good luck with that. (Doubt, not fear = monster)

MHR

When we see real doubt begin to take hold. For Sherlock, and John.

TSOT

This is when Mofftiss really starts integrating Rathbone/Bruce versions of the stories into the Sherlock series, and there are items in the box John receives that directly correlate to those versions. Terror By Night, Trains, & Sherlock ( x )

FLASHBACK. John’s blog entry entitled “The Bloody Guardsman” drifts across the screen for a moment, then fades to a view of Sherlock standing in the living room of 221B looking at his information wall behind the sofa. He turns to where Mary is sitting at the dining table and John is sitting in his armchair and looking at his phone. [That case was June 29th, but John and Mary’s invitation will read May, the sign at the wedding has no date, and John’s blog entry is in August. x ] SHERLOCK: Need to work on your half of the church, Mary. Looking a bit thin. MARY (smiling): Ah, orphan’s lot. Friends – that’s all I have. Lots of friends. (We get a glimpse of the paperwork on the wall and realise that Sherlock is organising the hell out of the wedding. There is a list of things which need to be done, all of them ticked off, and the wall is divided into areas which are headed, “Transport,” “Catering,” “Rehearsal,” “Wine,” and probably other items too. On the table beside Mary is a cardboard 3D model of the reception venue.) [Transport, not transportation….] SHERLOCK: Schedule the organ music to begin at precisely 11.48. MARY: But the rehearsal’s not for another two weeks. Just calm down. SHERLOCK: Calm? I am calm. I’m extremely calm. MARY: Let’s get back to the reception, come on. (He walks over to the table.) MARY (handing him an RSVP card): John’s cousin. Top table? SHERLOCK (looking at the card): Hmm. Hates you. Can’t even bear to think about you. MARY (looking up at him): Seriously? SHERLOCK: Second class post, cheap card … (he sniffs it and grimaces) … bought at a petrol station. Look at the stamp: three attempts at licking. She’s obviously unconsciously retaining saliva. MARY: Ah. (Over her shoulder to John) Let’s stick her by the bogs. [Transcriber’s note: ‘bogs’ is a slang word for ‘toilets.’] SHERLOCK: Oh yes. (He sits down. Mary leans closer to him.) MARY: Who else hates me? (Instantly Sherlock hands her a sheet of paper. There’s a long list of names on it.) MARY: Oh great – thanks(!) JOHN (looking at his phone): Priceless painting nicked. Looks interesting. [Same idea as TRF.] MARY (looking at paperwork on the table): Table four … SHERLOCK: Done. JOHN (chuckling at something on his screen): “My husband is three people.” MARY: Table five. SHERLOCK (looking at a list): Major James Sholto. Who he? MARY: Oh, John’s old commanding officer. I don’t think he’s coming. JOHN: He’ll be there. MARY: Well, he needs to RSVP, then. JOHN (firmly): He’ll be there. MARY: Mmm … JOHN (reading from his phone): “My husband is three people.” It’s interesting. Says he has three distinct patterns of moles on his skin. SHERLOCK (standing up and speaking quick fire): Identical triplets – one in half a million births. Solved it without leaving the flat. Now, serviettes. (He squats down beside the coffee table, reaches under it and pulls out a tray with two serviettes folded into different shapes. He gestures to them as he looks up at Mary.) SHERLOCK: Swan, or Sydney Opera House? MARY: Where’d you learn to do that?! SHERLOCK (looking down): Many unexpected skills required in the field of criminal investigation … MARY: Fibbing, Sherlock. SHERLOCK: I once broke an alibi by demonstrating the exact severity of … [The John alibi Post-It note.] MARY: I’m not John. I can tell when you’re fibbing. SHERLOCK (exasperated): Okay – I learned it on YouTube. [MHR itself] MARY: Opera House, please. (She leans to one side and reaches into her trouser pocket.) MARY: Ooh, hang on. I’m buzzing. (She takes out her phone and lifts it to her ear.) MARY: Hello? (She listens for a second, then stands up.) MARY: Oh, hi, Beth! (John’s eyes lift from his phone as Mary heads for the kitchen.) MARY (into phone): Yeah, yeah, don’t see why not. JOHN (standing up and looking at Sherlock): Actually, if that’s Beth, it’s probably for me too. Hang on. (He heads for the kitchen, while Sherlock sits down on the floor cross-legged and facing the coffee table. In the kitchen, John smiles at Mary as he walks closer to her. They talk quietly.) JOHN: He knows we don’t have a friend called Beth. He’s gonna figure out that it’s code. [TLD burning up = cipher to be broken] MARY: He’s YouTube-ing serviettes. JOHN: He’s thorough. MARY: He’s terrified. JOHN: ’Course he’s not. MARY: Right, you know when you’re scared of something, you start wishing it sooner just to get it all going? That’s what he’s doing. JOHN: Why would he be scared that we’re getting married? It’s not gonna change anything – we’ll still do stuff. MARY: Well, you need to prove it to him. I told you to find him a new case. JOHN: I’m trying. MARY: You need to run him, okay? Show him it’s still the good old days. [You mean like a dog, Mary?] (She nods encouragingly to him. He doesn’t immediately respond, and she nods again and gestures towards the living room. He looks around, then turns and slowly starts towards the door between the kitchen and the living room. Mary puts her hands on his back and shoves him forward. Sherlock is still sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table, his head propped up on one hand. He briefly looks round at John, then turns back and gestures at what’s in front of him. There are at least seven serviettes folded in Sydney Opera House shapes on the table, and sixteen or so more on the floor.) SHERLOCK: That just sort of … happened. (He looks round at John again, who frowns but then smiles. Glancing back into the kitchen for a moment, he walks towards his friend.) JOHN: Sherlock, um … (Sherlock stands up.) JOHN: … mate … (Again he frowns briefly, perhaps wondering if he is overdoing it.) JOHN: I-I’ve … (He walks over to the dining table. Sherlock glances towards the kitchen where Mary can be heard talking as if she’s on a phone call, then they both sit down at the table.) JOHN: I’ve smelled eighteen different perfumes; I’ve sampled … (he stops to think) … nine different slices of cake which all tasted identical; I like the bridesmaids in purple … [TLD ends with cake.] SHERLOCK: Lilac. JOHN: … lilac. Um, there are no more decisions left to make. I don’t even understand the decisions that we have made. I’m faking opinions and it’s exhausting, so please, before she comes back … (He glances towards the kitchen, activates his phone, clears his throat and holds the phone across the table. The screen is showing Sherlock’s “Science of Deduction” website.) [Which isn’t even used anymore. They were using John’s blog by this point.] JOHN: … pick something. (Sherlock’s eyes flicker down to the screen a couple of times.) JOHN: Anything. Pick one. SHERLOCK: Pick what? (John blinks a few times and then laughs.) JOHN: A case. Your Inbox is bursting. Just … get me out of here. SHERLOCK (leaning closer and speaking quietly): You want to go out on a case? N-now? JOHN: Please, Sherlock, for me. [Don’t be dead.] (Sherlock takes the phone.) SHERLOCK (quietly): Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll get you out of this. [Again, alibi.] (He starts to flick through messages on his website. After only a few seconds he finds something of interest.) SHERLOCK: Oh.

Transcript ( x )

TLD

At MI5, or wherever it is, Mycroft walks into the surveillance room, a grim look on his face. Lady Smallwood is standing behind the computer desks. LADY SMALLWOOD: We can keep tabs. You didn’t have to come in. MYCROFT: I was talking to the prime minister. LADY SMALLWOOD: Oh, I see. (Mycroft looks at the screens, and particularly at a camera watching Sherlock walking along a road.) MYCROFT: What’s he doing? Why’s he just wandering about like a fool? LADY SMALLWOOD: She died, Mycroft. He’s probably still in shock. MYCROFT: Everybody dies. It’s the one thing human beings can be relied upon to do. How can it still come as a surprise to people? LADY SMALLWOOD (turning to him): You sound cross. Am I going to be taken away by security again? MYCROFT: I have, I think, apologised extensively. LADY SMALLWOOD: You haven’t made it up to me. MYCROFT: And how am I supposed to do that?

FAITH (offscreen): Sex. (Walking with her along Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus, Sherlock looks round to her. They are now each carrying a can of energy drink.) SHERLOCK: I’m sorry? FAITH: Sex. How did you know I wasn’t ... getting any? SHERLOCK: It’s all about the blood. (Close-up of the bloodstain on the paper, which Sherlock now gestures to.) SHERLOCK: This one comes from the very first night. You can see the pen marks over it. I think you discovered that pain stimulated your memory, so you tried it again later. I’m no expert, but I assume that since your lover failed to notice an increasing number of scars over a period of months, that the relationship was no longer intimate. [Pain stimulated your memory. So if this coma, trance, EMP or whatever, this is our queue that Sherlock’s pain is stimulating his memory.] FAITH: How do you know he didn’t notice? SHERLOCK (shrugging): Oh, well, because he would have done something about it. FAITH: Would he? SHERLOCK: Wouldn’t he? Isn’t that what you people do? FAITH: Well, that’s interesting. SHERLOCK: What is? FAITH: The way you think. SHERLOCK: Superbly? FAITH: Sweetly. SHERLOCK: I’m not sweet; I’m just high.

MARY: So all he needed to do was find the first available lunchtime appointment with a female therapist within cycling distance of your surgery. (While she speaks, John turns his head away and rubs his nose briefly.) MARY: My God, he knows you. (The ambulance drives past the limo.) JOHN: No he doesn’t. MARY (smiling): I’m in your head, John. You’re disagreeing with yourself. DRIVER: You ready, sir? (John is alone on the back seat. He turns and looks at the blank space, speaking a little angrily.) JOHN: Yes, I am. (He turns to look into the rear-view mirror where the driver is watching him in the mirror through sunglasses. The man turns his head away.) MARY (back sitting beside him): He is the cleverest man in the world, but he’s not a monster. JOHN (looking at her): Yeah, he is. MARY: Yeah, okay, all right, he is. (She mock-shudders.) Urgh! (She chuckles.) MARY (softly): But he’s our monster. (John turns away again.) In a TV studio, Smith smiles into the camera. SMITH (in a loud whisper): I’m a killer. (Outside the building, a large billboard is being carried away by a couple of people. The image shows someone – presumably a man but the picture only shows him from the neck down – wearing a suit and tie and holding up a large sharp knife covered with blood. To the right of the person, text reads: ROWBANK MEDIA A ROWBANK ORIGINAL SERIES ROUGE [in bright red] SERIES PREMIERE 8TH MARCH EXCLUSIVE TO PLAY TV Along the bottom of the poster it reads: ON MARCH 8, THE SECRET WILL BE UNLEASHED

SHERLOCK: I’m at the bottom of a pit and I’m still falling and ... (he shakes his head and clenches his eyes closed) ... I’m never climbing out. (Mrs Hudson turns away sadly and goes back to the kitchen.) SHERLOCK (standing up): I need you to know, John – I need you to see that up here ... (he gestures to his temples with both hands) ... I’ve still got it, so when I tell you that this ... (he walks to the side table to point to the open laptop) ... is the most dangerous, the most despicable human being that I have ever encountered; when I tell you that this-this monster must be ended, please remember where you’re standing, because ... you’re standing exactly where I said you would be two weeks ago. (Grimacing in pain, he slumps into a chair beside the table.) SHERLOCK (more quietly): I’m a mess; I’m in hell; but I am not wrong, not about him. (He points to Smith’s photo on the laptop.) JOHN: So what has all this got to do with me? (Folding his arms, he smiles humourlessly at Sherlock.) SHERLOCK (savagely, still looking at the photo): That creature, that rotting thing, is a living breathing coagulation of human evil, and if the only thing I ever do in this world is drive him out of it, then my life will not have been wasted. (Related to the wet paint discussion, because there is something dead rotting away. Culverton also talks about H.H. Holmes, the man who built a hotel to use as a deathtrap. Because, at this point, there is a bigger monster than Sherlock could ever be.

SMITH: Oh, I don’t know. (He pulls back the sheet on the table to reveal the head and shoulders of the corpse. There is a Y-shaped cut, sewn up, in the chest.) SMITH: No, I’ve always found ’em quite pliable. (As he says the last word, he reaches out to the body – which we can now see is an elderly woman – and pulls her jaw down with his fingers.) JOHN: Don’t do that. SMITH (staring at the woman intensely): She’s fine. She’s dead. (He smirks, still holding her jaw down and staring at her misty eyes and stained, misshapen teeth. He finally releases her jaw.) SMITH: H. H. Holmes loved the dead. He mass-produced ’em. SHERLOCK (probably for John’s benefit): Serial killer, active during the Chicago Fair. (He walks off and starts wandering around the mortuary.) SMITH (raising his head to look at John): D’you know what he did? He built a hotel, a special hotel, just to kill people. You know, with a hanging room, gas chamber, specially adapted furnace. You know, like Sweeney Todd ... (He reaches out to the dead woman’s jaw and moves her mouth up and down with his fingers while he speaks through clenched teeth as if manipulating a ventriloquist’s dummy.) SMITH: ... without the pies! (He chuckles, releasing her and turning away.) SMITH: Stupid. So stupid. (Instantly John grabs the sheet and pulls it over the woman’s face.) JOHN: Why stupid? SMITH: Well, all that effort. You don’t build a beach if you want to hide a pebble; you just find a beach! [Insert the visual of Mycroft’s feet at the pebble beach at Musgrave in TFP] (Sherlock has stopped at the far end of the room and is leaning back against a sink.) SMITH: And if you wanna hide a murder, or wanna hide lots and lots of murders, just find a ... (He pauses for a moment then meets John’s eyes.) SMITH: ... hospital. x )

TFP

MYCROFT (looking at him): Memories can resurface; wounds can re-open. The roads we walk have demons beneath ... (he turns his gaze to Sherlock) ... and yours have been waiting for a very long time. I never bullied you. I used – at discrete intervals – potential trigger words to update myself as to your mental condition. I was looking after you. SHERLOCK (softly, intensely): Why can’t I remember her? (Mycroft pauses for a moment, glancing in John’s direction but not looking at him.) MYCROFT: This is a private matter. SHERLOCK: John stays. (John had been about to get up but now looks across to Sherlock, surprised. Mycroft leans forward in his chair.) MYCROFT (in a harsh whisper): This is family. SHERLOCK (loudly, firmly): That’s why he stays. (The brothers lock eyes for a long moment. John smiles and lowers his head. Eventually Mycroft sits back. John clears his throat.) JOHN: So there were three Holmes kids. (He pulls the lid off his pen and re-opens his notebook.) JOHN: What was the age gap? MYCROFT: Seven years between myself and Sherlock; one year between Sherlock and Eurus. (Capable of reprogramming people since age 5.)

MYCROFT: Musgrave. (Sherlock and John stand either side of him a few paces behind him.) MYCROFT: The ancestral home, where there was always honey for tea. (Not sugar or coffee)

MYCROFT: After that, our sister had to be taken away. SHERLOCK: Where? MYCROFT: Oh, some suitable place – or so everyone thought. Not suitable enough, however. She died there. JOHN: How? MYCROFT: She started another fire, one which she did not survive. SHERLOCK (firmly): This is a lie. (John looks towards Mycroft, who hesitates only for a moment.) MYCROFT: Yes. It is also a kindness. This is the story I told our parents to spare them further pain, and to account for the absence of an identifiable body. (Supposedly why Mummy and Daddy never said anything else or ever showed photos of Eurus? Pfft)

@monikakrasnorada @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @swimmingfeelsinajohnlockianpool @loveismyrevolution

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shit-bc-haters-say · 8 years ago

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Anon submission: USE THE SAME CLOTH AND IT STILL MAKES THE SAME BAD SUIT!

“Why are people who didn’t like Sherlock season 4 still complaining? Guys, if you don’t like a TV show just simply don’t watch it! It seems that you never watched television in your life. Unfortunately it happens that a TV show doesn’t completely satisfy you. Why, after almost one month, are you still sending hate to Mofftiss? I don’t understand. Seems that your life is based on Sherlock bbc and this is really creepy.”

Great sentiment really, and I agree totally with it. It appears that someone else agrees with it too because I actually found this little gem of a comment from someone on Gator’s Hate site and she replied with a hearty agreement (as did a number of other skeptic/haters). I guess it is a case of “even a stopped clock is right twice a day”.

Funny thing is, let’s just tweek the wording a bit and see if some self-awareness can’t be recognized…

“Why are people who didn’t like Benedict Cumberbatch’s marriage to Sophie Hunter still complaining? Folks, if you don’t like his marriage just simply don’t pay it any attention! It seems that you never learned to mind your own business in your life. Unfortunately it happens that a celebrity doesn’t completely do everything in their private life just to satisfy you. Why, after over 3 years, are you still obsessing and writing hateful, nasty things about a woman who you have never even spoken to? I don’t understand. Seems that your life is based on hating Sophie Hunter and this is really creepy.”

Let’s get a serious “Word.” from Gator and her pals now! Strange isn’t it - they can see the insanity of the obsessive hating on Mottiss and recognise the futility in blind, unjustified rage against someone who has done you no harm. They can dole out sage advice about moving on with your life and the creepiness of inserting your personal disappointments into the lives of strangers. But they can’t make that mental leap to see that what they are doing to SH is exactly what the butthurt TJLC people are doing to Moffat and Gatiss.

The parallel is crystal clear and unquestionable. But that is a bridge too far for them to cross over.

Both groups ought to be ashamed of themselves and grow up. They both say they are doing it for a greater “good” cause - but if they were honest they both would just admit that they are behaving in a immature, hurtful fashion because they don’t like the way that things turned out and their “fan” dreams were dashed.

No different - both cut from the same warped cloth. To bad self-awareness escapes the people who need it the most.

As usual please keep me anon.

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abumblebeeat221b · 8 years ago

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Why Mary Should Have Lived.

Okay. First off. Sorry for the mini-hiauts. I know I should have written a bunch of metas by now, and I *was* going to. But then series 4 happened. John emotionally cheating on his wife happened. Mary’s death happened. John beating Sherlock up happened. Euros happened. And I noped out.

Or I would have if this had been the fan fic it felt like.

Basically, I spent the past 3 months searching for the little ‘x’ in the corner.

Did I find it? Is that why I’m back?

Not quite.

For the record, I did try to finish a few things during the past 3 months, but every time I went beyond the safe shores of the first paragraphs, no matter what originally my post was going to be about, it ended up being a collection of reasons why Mary should not have died. Why the general idea behind The Lying Detective is genius, but I’m not sure what Mofftiss were thinking when they sat down to write it. How on earth they wrote The Final Problem and thought it was a good idea. Or generally, why odds are the real Moffat and Mark Gatiss got abducted by aliens after writing The Abominable Bride.

And I realised to break that slightly self-destructing pattern, I need to sit down and explore that monster of a post that is begging for my attention. So, here it is. A short, comprehensive guide to why killing Mary off was the worst creative decision in Moffat and Mark Gatiss lives (and no, this post is NOT contradicting the message behind ‘The Final Problem does not deserve this’. I still believe writers are allowed to write whatever they need to to get *their* story out there. I’m allowed not to like everything about the end result. I’m not allowed to try and ruin their careers or attack them as a person).

All right. Let’s talk Sherlock series 4. Let’s talk Mary.

I came into the Sherlock fandom as someone who used to bingewatch NCIS. And as much as Gibbs and his pre-Bishop teams will always have a place in my heart (no idea what the show is like now) something I have always loathed about it was the lack of women. Everyone and their aunt uncle and their dog had a dead mum. Seriously. How difficult can it be to add a few not obviously sexy female characters to a show?

So, when they aired A Study in Pink, I was over the moon that we had Mrs Hudson. We got Sally who did not have to cater to anyone’s opinions. And that they did not turn Molly into some bone saw swinging eye candy. And no dead mums as far as my eyes could see (apart from the sadly deceased murder victim, of course, but even she got to play her clever part and her death was not used to highlight some man pain). Who’d have thought something like that was even possible. On a crime show.

An episode later John’s new girlfriend did not have to sacrifice herself for the sake of the plot.

We met Irene Adler who was allowed to trick the genius hero of the show and live.

Even The Reichenbach Fall did not feature any overtly tragic deaths of female characters.

Well. And then they gave us Mary and said they’d like to issue a correction: Doyle did not mention Mary would die in the original. And I think it was that moment that I really, head-over-heels fell in love with this stupid show and pledged everlasting loyalty to it.

Of course, the obvious next step from there was that in the first episode of the next season Mofftiss killed her off.

See my issue? No? Good. You don’t need to.

During the last hiauts Mofftiss kept saying that actions come with consequences. And apparently, they thought they were referring to how they shouldn’t have married John off. They thought they were stuck with the problem of having an overtly skilled ex-super-spy who’d always have John and Sherlock’s back.

*Oh no, how could they ever rise the stakes again and write a good story?*

They tried to reset the show, they let Mary sacrifice herself for her best friend.

You asked for consequences? Here, have some consequences, because where does that leave them? What did they end up with?

A sometimes reckless ex-army doctor with an unhealthy adrenaline craving which demands to be fixed.

A (hopefully) recovering ex-junkie who LOVES solving crimes.

And a baby.

Guess who of these have the necessary skills and patience to deal with a child?

John. Because he is a doctor and loves his daughter. And because there are plenty of single dads doing a good job raising children (although probably not as many as NCIS wants you to believe).

And Sherlock. Because he’d certainly try to make an effort. He likes Rosie, and John, and Mary and he’d do it for them. Being part of John’s social network he would promise to be available for baby sitting duties - he knows if it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes a village, a consulting detective, a former secretary of a drug cartel who also did some dancing, a pathologist, and the British government to raise one who has to grow up without one of her parents.

And even if Greg knocked at 221b with the perfect ten of a case he’d say no.

Once.

Twice.

Three, or maybe ten times. The number doesn’t matter. In the end, he is Sherlock Holmes, who is married to his work, and who has been neglecting his wife.

John would understand. He’d stop writing the blog, not because the last time we looked at it, it was a fake PICTURE of an even faker website, but because he wouldn’t be there to record their adventures. Sherlock’s adventures. And not reporting from first hand experience just wouldn’t be the same.

And he’d be fine between being there for Rosie and juggling his shifts at the clinic, having his own little adventures. Believe it or not, children change people. Especially your own.

He’d be fine till one far too early morning reality would remind him that the reason Sherlock had asked him to come along all those years ago hadn’t only been because the pompous prat had needed a friend.

This time Sherlock would live.

And John would make him promise not to get himself into a situation like that ever again, knowing Sherlock’s words are not worth the air. Because he knows Sherlock. He’s been there. He’s seen it happen.

Sherlock would try to step down a little. For John’s and Rosie’s sake. For Mary’s. For the sacrifice he would have never ever asked for. He, John and we know in this show there is no plot armour, even the major characters can die.

But it’s just a matter of time and Greg would show up with another perfect ten. One, he hates to cross 221b’s threshold with, but it’s an emergency. And with Mary’s death looming in his mind palace, Sherlock wouldn’t allow John to come along.

They’d get lucky again. And soon Sherlock would get hooked, telling himself, always the addict, he’d know how to calculate the risks.

Till one time he would not.

And Mofftiss sacrificed Mary to get some creative freedom.

What freedom?

Also, please note, it’s not Rosie who’s stripping the story off its possibilities, but Mary’s death. It’s what makes this show far too real for comfort.

#sherlock #sherlock bbc #bbc sherlock #mary watson #mary morstan #as far as i'm concerned mary is well and alive thank you very much #this has been a rant #or a #sherlock meta #i don't know #i don't care #mary's death #why mary should have lived #if you need me to back up some of the few factual statements mentioned in this post #i'm running an interview archive #shoot me a line

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codenameantarctica · 8 years ago

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The Final Problem - Portrayal vs. Perception

(This morning @i-like-shooting-walls and myself had a bit of conversation on our impression that after TFP the appreciation of - if not the love for - Mycroft is at an all-time high. In fact, I think that this outcome is one of the mayor archivements of TFP and it's not in any way by chance. I found people wonder what Mofftiss had in mind, when they had Mummy Holmes call Mycroft idiot boy and limited. Most people seem to find that she was being absolutely unfair here, and she was. Yet Mofftiss are not stupid. They know what they're doing and what they're doing is making use of the difference between Portrayal and Perception. What the actors say or show is on the one hand whilst our perception, our reaction is another thing altogether.)

(I’m sorry the post got rather long....)

Abstract, stiff, unfathomable, shady, untrustworthy:

This is a journey from Mycroft's exposition in Episode 1 // via him being rather a plot device in Sherlock's and John's adventures and Sherlock's characterization // to the moment when you (whether you liked him before or not) want to wrap your arms around him for a hug and maybe even a declaration of love.

From the very first episode the relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft is established as being difficult (this is quite an understatement). Mycroft mentions to John that Sherlock might perceive his big brother as his arch enemy, and when John later tells Sherlock that he had just met Sherlock's arch enemy Sherlock knows instantly that John is talking about Mycroft (ASIP).

In the whole of season 1 and 2 Mycroft remains quite abstract. He is the British Government or at least one of the most powerful men in the country, but what he does exactly we only see glimpses of. His name literally opens doors to secret, high security facilities (as in THOB). He fills a plane with corpses to blow up in midair to fool some terrorists (as in ASIB) and generally keeps an eye on Sherlock and John, trying to get Sherlock to help with Government's issues. All the while Mycroft remains shady - or as my best friend put it 'stiff and unfathomable'.

We have to wait until season 3 to finally see a bit more of Mycroft and some other nuances of the character that might suggest that there is a softer core to the Ice Man. He personally gets to Serbia to free Sherlock though he very likely could have sent a team of agents to do so. He also plays operation and 'the deduction thing' with Sherlock. For the first time ever we see him without wearing a jacket what in terms of Mycroft means that he is essentially naked. At his most humane we find him in HLV with upturned sleeves (which as some people pointed out is basically porn) at the kitchen table of his mother, he is alluded to by a nickname that he doesn't like, he hates Christmas, tries to hide from his mother that he is smoking, and asks Sherlock to decline an offer by MI6 frankly because he is scared that Sherlock might die if he accepted the offer. Most importantly he eventually attempts to express his feelings towards Sherlock ('your loss would break my heart') and we even see him in shock and deep concern for his brother after Sherlock shot Magnussen. And yet on the other hand he is still uncannily at some points of season 3 with his cryptic statements ('Do you remember Redbeard?', 'I'm not given to outbursts of brotherly compassion. You know what happened to the other one.')

TAB, whilst finally giving us a bit of background to the relationship between the brothers Holmes (in telling us that Mycroft would usually be the one to go and find Sherlock in drug dens and get his younger brother off drugs), also pushes us into speculating over the meaning of the cryptic discussion between Sherlock and Mycroft in Sherlock's drug induced Mind Palace. They bet when Mycroft might die which led a great many people to believe/fear that Mycroft's days were counted and that he would die in season 4. A very integral moment of the plot of TAB is the scene when Sherlock, Mary and John get off the plane in the end. Mycroft calls John back and - for what I think is the first time - doesn't use John’s first name but calls him 'Dr. Watson' (and if I remember correctly he never call’s him John again in season 4). He asks John to look after Sherlock in a very melancholic expression, even using the word 'please' which is a first time, too. Has he just decided to be the nice big brother for once or is this foreshadowing? We do know now, but back then we might have been led to assume that this was just another hint, that Mycroft's days were counted and that he knew it.

The first two episodes of season 4 bring back the shady Mycroft. We see the Ice Man that is using the machinery of the state to keep tabs on his family, who is powerful enough to conceal that his brother is a murderer without even letting the PM know, and who uses spooks to find out what triggered this new incident of drug abuse of this younger sibling and to get rid of the evidence. Plus, there is the moment his tongue slips when talking to John on the phone ('The fact that I am his brother changes absolutely nothing. It didn't the last time and it won't with.... with Sherlock' - TLD) calling into our memory the 'You know what happened to the other one' from the end of HLV and his obvious and outright lie to John when John understands that there is another Holmes child. Furthermore, if you didn't like Mycroft before, the 'get out of my house, you reptile' moment with Mrs. Hudson was what would have broadened your antipathy towards Mycroft even more.

At the exposition of TFP we have a Mycroft, that has obviously been lying to Sherlock and John for a long time, that is shifty, deeply untrustworthy, really powerful, rather abuses the machinery of the state to control his brother than trying to intervene on a brotherly level (which I am sure he simply can't and Sherlock would never accept), and who seems to be very much devoid of any kind of emotion or empathy. (Did I mention that I REALLY like him =D)

Send in the Clowns:

Pranking Mycroft in the beginning of TFP is a wonderful proof for the friendship and funny dynamics between John and Sherlock. They are an impaccable team not only in carrying out the prank but also in planning as John explains that it was not in the first place - as we might have thought - Sherlock’s idea but John’s.

From the moment on that we arrive in 221B Baker Street both speech and facial expressions of John and Sherlock establish the ‘we against you’ plot. First Mycroft is dissed by Mrs. Watson (’the kettle is over there’) and both Sherlock and John smile. Whenever John snaps at Mycroft, Sherlock smiles. When Sherlock tells Mycroft, that John will stay, because he IS family, John smiles quite triumphantly. You can indeed read the joy from Sherlock’s face when John points out, that he knows the quote by Oscar Wilde (’the truth is rarely pure and never simple’).

After we arrive on Sherrinford the mood of the ‘we against you’ dynamic shifts pretty soon and heavily. Until now it has been one of two very close friends facing the brother of one of them who has been lying to both of them, but on Sherrinford the attitude of Sherlock and John towards Mycroft becomes dismissive if not hostile.

It’s in the look Sherlock gives Mycroft after his brother’s dry heaving, but then turning to John and asking him if John was ok. It’s in the ‘I’m beginning to think that you are not very clever’ comment by Sherlock towards Mycroft and in the many times when Mycroft is completely disregarded or cut off by Sherlock. We’re influenced to pick the side of Sherlock and John because of Mycroft’s refusal to play along, because we know that he allowed the meeting between Moriarty and Eurus, because it was John who figured out first that Eurus had taken control of Sherrinford. We’re supposed to see Mycroft as being weak, squeamish, to be a spoilsport and absolutely inhumane when he suggests that they must get the girl on the plane to crash into the sea.

While Sherlock and John do their best to be soldiers to pull through Eurus’ tasks Mycroft is the third wheel. He understands quite soon that him and John are being made to compete with each other and also tries to make John aware of this, but again he is dismissed. He is disinclined to play Eurus’ game and whilst John and Sherlock put a lot of effort in their attempt to work through (because of their nonsensical hope they might win) Mycroft is getting more and more dispensable both by his own doing and by the attitude of the other two.

It’s make your mind up time

When we arrive at the Eliminiation Game we find ourselves with two characters that work together flawlessly, that have been inseparable from the start of the episode and that need each other to pull trough. If you didn’t like Mycroft all along or were pushed into not liking him because of all you saw in TFP so far, you might be very sure and maybe even content with Mycroft now biting the dust. If you still liked him, you might be very scared for him now.

Mycroft attempts for the last time to stop his sister, but realizing that she’s not gonna give in, he steps forward and starts to bash John. What we are supposed to feel in this moment is bewilderment because WE know how much Sherlock and John need each other. If we didn’t know before TFP then we learned in this episode. How can Mycroft not be aware of this? And we’re meant to be outright furious because of those nasty things Mycroft says not only about John but also in confessing that he had always despised Sherlock. Mycroft is picking at Sherlock’s and John’s self-esteem what angers us, pushing us towards a climax of complete contempt for Mycroft (if he had meant it, would anyone still be resolved in liking or even loving him?).

And then the rug is being pulled from under our feet

Whatever antipathy, doubt or contempt you might have felt towards Mycroft it’s falling apart with just a few words: “He’s trying to be kind. He’s trying to make it easy for me to kill him.”

Here is the Ice Man, that seemed to be so much devoid of emotion, that is a control freak, is abusing his possibilities as one of the most powerful men in the state, has no empathy for others and who would just be dragged along as a third wheel while Sherlock and John fought on as soldiers. And there is the Big Brother that is - beneath that shield of iciness, beyond the facade and the posh suits - willing to sacrifice himself as he DOES know that Sherlock would never recover from losing John. He eventually tries to push Sherlock into it by bashing John, by abasing Sherlock, by laying the blame for everything onto himself.

Even Mycroft

The whole episode of TFP we are pushed and persuaded and influenced into antipathy towards Mycroft because that is the message that is conveyed troughout most of the episode by the attitude/portrayal of Sherlock and John. We’re told that Mycroft is the one to be blamed for everything Moriarty and Eurus did.

Yet at the very end we can't bring ourselves to stick to this antipathy and we don’t lay the blame on him. When John answers Lestrade's explanation that Eurus put Mycroft into her old cell with 'what goes around, comes around' we don't agree. When Mummy Holmes glowers down at Mycroft, calling him 'idiot boy', telling him that he is very limited because he didn't manage to do better, we want to burst into the room to tell her off. We are left to feel angry about the way Mycroft was treated, though we are well aware of his mistakes. We throw them into context - ‘context’, that is one of the catch phrases of the episode. All the dynamic against Mycroft, all the mistakes he made, we still do not find it in our hearts to despise him or to condemn him. And all of this just because of that short ‘brother mine’ scene. Now we see who he is underneath. We see beyond the disguise, beyond the facade and find a character that not to like, that not to vouch for or not to defend becomes quite unbearable.

Here the discussion at the end of TLD is true once again: Sherlock: "It's not a pleasant thought, John, but I have this terrible feeling from time to time that we might all just be human." John: "Even you?" Sherlock: "No. Even you." Ultimately: Even Mycroft.

#mycroft #mycroft holmes #the final problem #sherlock #sherlock bbc #ice man #tfp

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