It’s interesting to note that, in series 3′s grand rule of three, we are introduced to three engagement rings. Three engagement rings for three doomed couples, in which, arguably, at least one person is “faking”: Mary & John, Molly & Tom, Janine & Sherlock.
We can also argue that in these 3 relationships, there is one person from the “good” side (John, Molly, Sherlock) getting engaged/proposing to someone most likely working with Moriarty. My belief is that Mary, Tom and Janine have all been deliberately placed on John/Molly/Sherlock to seduce and hurt them, also keeping them from developping an happy relationship with the person they have feelings for (Sherlock, Lestrade, John).
Love and committed relationships seem to be Moriary’s weapon of choice against his ennemies. Then again, his biggest threat consists in “burning the heart out of you”. It is interesting to note Jim knows how much love can hurt and destroy a person. An event from his own past?
Anyway, in series 3, we know of three engagements with people who have ties with Moriarty to hurt their significant other. We also get to see the three engagement rings, quite different from each other: three engagement rings telling us three different stories.
The next series of Sherlock, the hit BBC drama, could be the last, the programme’s creator has warned, as he suggested that Benedict Cumberbatch is now such an internationally-renowned actor that he only does the show out of loyalty to its fans.
Steven Moffat, the executive producer of the BBC One show, said that he was “amazed” that the corporation had managed to secure “film stars” such as Cumberbatch, who plays the eponymous detective, and Martin Freeman, his sidekick Doctor Watson, for a fourth series, which is expected to air in early 2017.
He added: “I don’t know how long we can keep it going. I’m personally willing but I’m hardly the main draw. I would be moderately surprised if this was the last time we ever made this show. But it absolutely could be.”
Sherlock, which runs as a three-part miniseries, has become one of the BBC’s most popular programmes, amassing a cult following, and was nominated for six Emmy Awards yesterday.
A Victorian-themed special episode, which aired in the New Year, was seen by more than 12 million viewers on BBC One.
BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s commercial arm, revealed this week that the ninety-minute festive special, The Abominable Bride, was the corporation’s biggest overseas export in the past year.
The Abominable Bride has been sold to broadcasters in 216 international territories over the past twelve months. It was also released in cinemas across the world, selling over 190,000 tickets in America and Canada, and topping box offices in Russia, South Korea, Hong Kong, and China.
Moffat, who is also in charge of Doctor Who, said the shows would not be based on any of Conan Doyle’s best known detective stories. He said: “There are stories that we are making use of in different ways. We’re using stories that people don’t know so much. Now we are getting into equally good, but far less well known, Conan Doyle stories.
The producer said that both Freeman, who starred in the Hobbit films, and Cumberbatch, who was nominated for an Oscar for playing Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, did not do the show for the money.
He added: “We do have two film stars in the programme. They haven’t needed to do these jobs for a very long time. They’re coming back because they want to.
“I’m amazed that we’ve got this far. I thought that once they had become extremely successful, we would only get to do one more series.
“There’s never going to come a time when we do a longer run, because this is what the series has become. It’s an occasional treat where you get three movies. It’s how it works.”
Moffat said that if the pair’s schedule became too hectic to commit to future series, the corporation could return to the show years down the line.
He added: “That’s why I think it’s unlikely that we’ve completely finished it. There would be nothing strange in stopping for a while. It could go on forever, coming back now and again.”
The BBC has made a habit out of keeping Sherlock fans guessing about which of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories it will adapt for the screen.
The corporation yesterday released this photograph of Benedict Cumberbatch, clad in a scarf, posing with a bloodhound, but it would not provide any insight into the dog’s role in the show.
There is a fleeting reference to the breed in one of Conan Doyle’s short stories about the detective, The Adventure of the Creeping Man, in which Holmes is engaged to discover the cause of the strange behaviour of a university professor.
Newspapers and their headlines…
What this essentially means, is that series 5 might not be on in 2019 as you might have expected.
Personally I wanted the entire series together with series 5 wrapped up by the end of 2020. But it looks like that’s not going to be the case.
First of all, I think I’ve read somewhere literally years ago that Benedict had already signed up for series 5. Meaning that the 5th series are definitely on. But apparently, Benedict is just one of those actors who have a hard time saying ‘no’, because he’s signed up for a great amount of other projects, now having new work lined up for the next three or so years.
It’s pretty much the same with Martin. He’s not having such an enourmous flow of projects as Benedict, because he somehow still has that everyman reputation, but still he’s finally starting to get recognised for what he is, i.e. a fucking fantastic actor, and no doubt he’s got his schedule already filled with work other than Sherlock for the next few years as well.
But as Steven Moffat himself confirmed, both Benedict and Martin have had no reason to do Sherlock for years. They just could’ve found dozens of far more well-paid projects in Hollywood and rejected such a preposterous notion of doing more Sherlock entirely years ago. But they haven’t, have they?
They have repeatedly stated that they were really enjoying themselves doing Sherlock and that they weren’t going to stop doing Sherlock for as long as it was going to be good. Given that Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are such fantastic writers, and the whole cast and crew are just a joy to work with, this can be interpreted as Benedict and Martin being happy with doing the series indefinitely (Benedict’s ‘I’d like to age with [Sherlock]’ as the case in point).
So while it’s not necessarily good news for people who still expect Sherlock to have new series every year, it’s still fantastic. We’re essentially getting a better deal than we’ve ever expected to get. Yes, after series 4 of Sherlock air, we might not see new series on our screens again for another 3 or even 5 years. But we’re getting them. And probably the next as well. Maybe in 5 years as well, but we’ll be getting them. And then probably some more. Because, as was previously stated, Benedict and Martin are very busy, but they are still hyped for doing more Sherlock and want to age with their characters. And Steven Moffat is actually saying that chances are, it’s actually going to happen.
This is probably going to be the worst TV-series to watch. They’ll probably be doing new sets of episodes once every 5 or so years (not even the 2-year hiatuses that everyone hates). But it’s also going to be the best TV show in the history of television. Historically-wise, there’s no better way to adapt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon than over the course of decades. Remember, the creator of the original Holmes and Watson kept coming back to writing them every now and again for 40 years. And he managed to do it so masterfully, that despite (or because of) the fact that there’s no specific ending to the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, we still feel like the characters continue to live on. And chances are, that’s exactly what’s going to happen to BBC Sherlock. Years into the future, the show will finally be complete. But in a way, also incomplete enough, that you’d know it doesn’t end when it actually ends. Benedict and Martin are going to grow old. Hell, we are going to grow old. Yet there’ll be not a single person who’s going to be disappointed in the ending. Because the ending is going to be better than good; there’s not going to be an ending at all. And it’s going to be both the worst and the best thing to ever happen to us. Because that’s how BBC Sherlock essentially is: both the worst and the best, or in other words, just absolutely perfect.
There was also the previous statement about s4 containing a climax of the story they’ve been telling so far. I know there have been metas about how that could still mean a 5-series arc, but I don’t think so. TAB already showed us the major shift in Sherlock’s character that’s necessary to resolve things with John. Generally speaking denouement doesn’t last for 20% of the total story length, which is what it would be if the story climaxed in s4 but didn’t end until s5.
What the Brits excel at is using the television series format to tell a story and then stop when it’s done, so this could indeed be it. BUT these are beloved characters, like you say, and particularly successful versions of them, and the source material is mostly serial in nature. If your future timeline prediction is right, @heimish1881, I’m thinking we’ll get canon johnlock by the end of s4, and maybe future Chistmas specials or one-offs, consulting husbands style? Which would be fucking amazing.
Whatever happens they’ve gotta turn the good ship John Watson around in a hurry. Let bijohns be bijohns 2017!
tbh when tab just came out i was dead set on having johnlock only in s5. i thought they’d take the whole of s4 to be done with mary, with a series cliffhanger being the much talked about three garridebs moment where john gets seriously injured. then a special where john figures out his feelings for sherlock while being unconscious (not mind palace, but sort of a dream sequence) because sherlock figured out his feelings for john in tab; it would only be fitting to have john figure out his feelings for sherlock in another special. and then 2020 series 5 where john wakes up, each of them confessing their feelings to each other, and we get the whole series of john and sherlock being together, solving crimes, domesticity and so on so forth. but
apparently it’s a whole new story. if those ‘sherlock’s going to climax in series 4′ weren’t blatant enough, now we’ve got steven saying that they have no fucking idea when series 5 is going to come out, meaning it could be years in the making, meaning they are not able to postpone johnlock much longer. it’s going to happen sometime in the next few years. so seeing as series 4 is probably the only sherlock thing that’s going to come out in the next few years, johnlock is definitely on for series 4.
but then there’s the question of what’s next. judging by steven’s comments, they are legitimately planning retirement!lock. given the age of the leads, it’s not going to happen for at least 15-20 years. so there should be at least two or three series of sherlock in-between. what are they going to do, i have no idea. but it’s definitely going to be something exciting. after all, it’s bbc sherlock that we are talking about. it’s probably be solving cases and domesticity. and yeah, i’m pretty sure they are going to be doing series, not just specials.
i would’ve liked for the series to go the way i thought they would go. like end it in a few years with johnlock as its climax and still ‘fresh’. so you could rewatch the finished 5 seasons indefinitely from time to time, and be at peace with the fact of it finally having ended.
but then in a way actually doing it indefinitely makes more sense. you know, like they are fans of dr who, the thing that basically has no end. so rather than pull off ‘the office’ they are going to pull off a ‘dr who’ and it makes sense. another, even more valid reason for doing something like that, is being the closest to the original canon. like acd never ended it. it just went on and on, and now, a hundred years later, you just reread it just as a complete thing, but at the same time, with a practically open ending, you feel like holmes and watson still live somewhere among us, solving cases, smoking, having this friendly sort of victorian banter. just enjoying their lives. you know, after all ‘the hound of the baskervilles’ is considered to be the best acd story but he wrote it in like 1902 and still was making hella great stories for the next 20+ years.
so like. johnlock in s4 for bbc sherlock is not going to be the end. it’s going to be the beginning of another, absolutely new chapter. they are going to normalise this experience of seeing an explicitly gay couple on tv. they are literally going to make history. like right now the show is mostly for our enjoyment and it’s also going to introduce that first major canonically explicitly gay relationship into the history of tv. but i think it will become even more important over the years. the impact it’s going to have on our generation will literally echo in eternity. papers will be written, head canons created and accepted. it’s literally going to be talked about in decades or even centuries from now. they are not just doing it for some millions of people to be content watching it nowadays. they are making it to make fucking textbooks, to be the show that everyone knows as ‘the one that made a breakthrough, having introduced and normalised lgbt relationships on one of the most mainstream shows in the history of television, film and art’. because as of yet, it has not properly been done. not as something as major as this. but they will do it. and it’s going to be as massive as you think it is.
I was with you on your original timeline, and wouldn’t be too surprised if these statements by Moffat are lies.
Agreed that whatever happens, this is the moment for this show to make history. Lately I’ve been wondering if the next Ritchie film isn’t going to make them a couple, and moftiss are on a deadline now. Who will let them be gay first?
Dutch Angles are a type of camera effect used in filming, where the camera is tilted at an angle. You’ve probably seen it before, especially if you’ve watched older movies where the effect was used a lot more than it is today. And in BBC Sherlock it is used sparingly, to effectively suggest disorientation, confusion, unease, and loss.
Here this use of the Dutch Angle makes a lot of sense. Sherlock has just been shot, he’s in the process of dying, he’s slowly falling apart. This mood is conveyed effectively by tilting the screen and focusing in on Sherlock going into shock.
We’ve also got the whole bit with Redbeard filmed this way. This is followed by Dutch Angles during the padded cell with Moriarty, before the camera finally rights itself again upon Sherlock gaining consciousness. HLV contains more of these types of angles than any other episode. It’s mean to represent in visual terms the consequences of wrong choices that have led to this painful mess.
Another scene where Dutch Angles are used is, rather unsurprisingly, the Fall.
It starts once Sherlock falls. Once John hits the pavement, the camera continues to stay titled while focusing on John.
Again, for the context of this scene, the use of Dutch Angles makes a lot of sense, and works well paired with the shift between in-focus and out-of-focus. John’s view of the world has literally been thrown off balance, and while the rest of his grieving scenes are more stable, similar colour schemes bleed out of the Fall and onto the rest of his life.
Given some examples of where the Dutch Angle has been used, I now want to focus on a moment that drew my interest to this technique:
This shot doesn’t make sense. It is during Sherlock’s Bond Air deduction, but for a brief moment the camera looks at John and tilts, dramatically so. Based on all the other uses for this angle we have seen, a Dutch Angle shows a character who is at in that moment under great stress, loss, and/or confusion. No body is dying in this scene, by all accounts Sherlock is the only one who should be mildly disoriented, not John. So there must be a reason for this usage that goes beyond John being a bit perplexed at Sherlock’s deductions.
In context:
Ah, yes, that’s makes more sense.
Sherlock is trying to deduce the numbers and Irene is trying to flirt with Sherlock to get what she wants. Sherlock generally looks annoyed at her kissing him but John actually slams his mug down. You can see a very brief blink-and-you-miss-it shot of his face. He looks hurt. Angry. His jaw is set and brows furrowed.
This seemingly simply scene of good old bumbling John being confused as usual looks a whole lot different if you consider what John has been through by this point. This isn’t like earlier when they first confront Irene and he is generally annoyed but otherwise neutral towards her. Now he has seen her drug and beat Sherlock without consent, he’s seen Sherlock affected by her supposed death, then watch her come back to life and learn that she flirted at him via text. And then he realises Sherlock overheard him say that he wasn’t gay, but that issue was not resolved.
To say John is confused and annoyed by this point is an understatement. He’s worried for Sherlock, angry at Irene, and from his viewpoint it looks like against all better judgment those two are ready to have sex right there in front of him as if all those wounds were never dealt.
As if he isn’t there and doesn’t matter.
That’s why we get this seemingly incongruous Dutch Angle, one that conveys extreme confusion and loss. The cinematography in this show isn’t taken lightly, we’ve seen all kinds of creative uses for crazy shots. It then makes sense that we are meant to realise John’s point of view in this scene. We shouldn’t be rooting for Sherlock to be with Irene or any other female for that matter, because John, our narrator of this story, sees this and the story world loses balance. It is equated with Sherlock throwing himself off a building or Sherlock getting shot and having to raise himself from the dead, because this is one of several moments where we are supposed to share John’s anger and confusion.
Thankfully, of course, the camera does right itself again, and it is eventually revealed Irene only flirted with Sherlock to get what she wanted, and that he found her annoying and pathetic. John doesn’t know this, but we do as the audience. All is right again, until of course Moriarty ruins everything and Sherlock jumps off a building and then John goes off and marries an assassin. This culminates in the finale episode featuring a ton of Dutch Angles screaming at us that none of this is right, that Mary is the cause of a lot of these problems, and that the world won’t be right until Sherlock and John are actually back together again.
You have to admit, the filmmakers know what they’re doing and they’re great at it. They’ve also instilled in me a lifelong love for the awkward, rare Dutch Angle.
In The Sign of Three, both of John’s love interests give him a code word or phrase. His reaction to each of them is very different.
When John realizes that, ‘Beth’, is calling Mary, his reaction is literally the most pissed off he’s ever looked on the show. He is so annoyed, he literally looks at the camera like he’s on the Office and just holds that look. This is how bothered he is. As far as we can tell Mary is being adorable and inventive and he looks positively fed up with her. He then does a deep sigh and seems to have to will himself to get up from his chair. As he enters the kitchen he avoids eye contact and then forces a fake smile; he turns it on like a light, it’s totally synthetic. He’s trying really hard to be nice, there, despite finding this situation really annoying.
When Sherlock says his code phrase, John immediately becomes alert and gets ready to help. He is all in. Whatever Sherlock needs he is doing. He even stands to offer his services. This is so natural to John, to be there when Sherlock needs. This is John in his element.
Now, while in the story we can say that Sherlock’s code is of life or death importance whereas Mary’s is just a trivial, wedding playing related matter, the point is that we have this parallel about codes words. His response to a fairly easy issue with Mary is to be more annoyed than he’s ever looked and his response to Sherlock is that he’s ready to immediately do anything for him.
By the beginning of HLV we can see that John’s marriage is in trouble, for sure. But, even here, before the wedding, I think that we see him being way too annoyed with Mary. At this point in the story she’s done nothing but be cute and supportive, we have no reason to think that John would be this annoyed with her. John is sending us clues as to his unhappiness with Mary even before it becomes really obvious.
Sir Edwin: If this is some expression of familial sentiment… Mycroft: Don’t be absurd. I am not given to outbursts of brotherly compassion. You know what happened to the other one.
That exchange from His Last Vow immediately sent fans into a flurry of theorizing regarding the identity of “the other one” that has lasted until this day. Me? Apparently I’m so normalized to hiatus at this point that I figure posting about it two and a half years later is good enough. But hey, I brought a six-pack.
In The Sign of Four, Dr Watson falls in love with Mary Morstan, a client who seeks out the aid of Sherlock Holmes. Watson remarks on her attractiveness, her kindly disposition. By the end of the case they are engaged to be married, much to the disappointment of Holmes. Keeping in mind Mofftiss sticks relatively close to ACD canon when updating Sherlock, why do you think they chose to introduce Mary into John’s life at a time when Sherlock was gone? Why didn’t they introduce her when Sherlock was alive? Because this John Watson wouldn’t have picked her. He announced on his blog in episode 4 that his life with Sherlock didn’t involve him dating other women. John gave that part of his life up because his life with Sherlock – whatever you want to call it – was what he preferred. This divergence from ACD canon is incredibly important. Mary came at a time when John was mourning. In order to propose to her, he had to go back to Baker Street to “move on” and say his final goodbye. He hates doing that, you can tell by how horrible he looks and the fact Mrs Hudson suspects him to be gravely ill, but he needs to put one part of his life to rest in order to continue with a new chapter. Mofftiss diverged from canon to emphasize the similarities between Mary and Sherlock. They are rivals. It’s spelled out in the way the camera groups them together in TAB with John on the outside, or the way John has to choose between continuing his proposal or addressing Sherlock when he returns unexpectedly. John groups them together in TSOT when talking about “the two people” he loves most and who have turned his life around. “You two should’ve got married”. Even Sherlock groups himself with Mary in his best man speech and when discussing John’s weight gain and mustache. Mary and Sherlock are meant to be seen as two people fighting over John’s affection. This would never have happened had Sherlock not lied to John about faking his death (what the climax of TAB was all about, btw). In this version, everything about Mary is meant to be seen as a rival and obstacle to our title hero. It is incredibly convenient that Mofftiss wrote her with a few huge character flaws. As much as i love her character, she will not win out against Sherlock. There cannot be two winners here. John will choose once he has all the information out in front of him, and he will choose Sherlock, just as he always has.
Similar to the ways in which John is not the John Watson we know, she is not the Mary Morstan we know, either. You could go one step further and argue that, because Mary Morstan is not her name, and actual Mary Morstan is long dead, there is no Mary Morstan in this version. She’s someone else in a Mary Morstan skinsuit. She’s Moran. She’s the empty AGRA treasure box. She’s a cog in the Moriarty network.
This John Watson is uniquely characterized to be Sherlock’s equal. This Mary Morstan is uniquely characterized to be Sherlock’s rival. (Pro tip: Sherlock always admires his rivals, as much as he knows he has to defeat them. The fact that he likes her is as strong a piece of evidence of their enmity as it is of friendship. He admired Moriarty too.)
This gave me a thought–one that’s probably been explored before, but here goes.
The empty AGRA treasure box got me thinking about John’s Christmas speech. Here’s the thing. John’s speech is full of flat statements that could be taken as good or bad, which is what leaves people coming away with opposite conclusions (which I fully believe is intentional, you-were-told-but-didn’t-listen stuff, but I digress).
So, if the AGRA thumb drive is empty like the treasure box, John could have plugged it into his computer and seen it was empty, but he could still truthfully say that he hadn’t read it.
Could this be a point about Maslow’s hierarchy? Sherlock only goes out with John when he isn’t hungry, because food or the act around eating is purely utilitarian for him so otherwise he may see it as indulgent. But it seems he maintains agency with Magnussen by satisfying his bodily needs first before dealing with him. Is this the only time we see him eat?
warning: this is disturbing & uncomfortable
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I think that this emphasises Magnussen’s sexually threatening interactions with Sherlock. His threats in the deleted scene, in the hospital, have shown us this dynamic and I think that here we see a type of strategic, “flirting”, from Sherlock. I think he’s trying to play Magnussen’s game on his turf and just like he, “flirts”, with The Woman because that’s what her game requires I think he does this here with CAM, too. (I see Irene as reverse Magnussen, well benign Magnussen, anyway).
He says, ‘I’ve been thinking about you…’, and CAM’s like, ‘I’ve been thinking about you, too’, and like this is like mock up of flirting. They’re threatening each other but there’s a veneer of sexual innuendo there,
Sherlock is eating because he’s making himself sexually vulnerable and because he’s also being threatened in a vulnerable place: with blackmail about his sexuality and his love of John. Like, he’s accepting/acknowledging that he’s sexually vulnerable in relation to Magnussen.
Magnussen eating his food and putting his fingers in his glass just further cement his boundary-crushing insidious personal aggression, I think.
I think the use of bokeh in this scene also shows us that this scene is about feelings (I think that circles/spheres on the show represent feelings because of their connection to the solar system, something that Sherlock claims to not have any use for and know nothing about, just like sentiment). I mean we know CAM knows, ‘things’, about people and most people’s weak spots have to do with their feelings, their lovers, their relationships, etc. Here we see Sherlock admit that he wants to see into Appledore, he wants to see all the secrets,
I think on a more surface level Sherlock is playing Magnussen’s creepy game and one a deeper level Sherlock is becoming emotional/sexually vulnerable and admitting he wants to know what the secrets are: his own and those of others.
The idea that food = sex on the show is very well accepted (probably originated with LSiT like so many others) so that would go back to the idea that this is a sexually vulnerable position for Sherlock to be in. Maybe he’s becoming vulnerable on purpose to seem weak and try to lull CAM into a false sense of security. He’s literally, ‘showing his neck’, here (a behaviour animals will do when they’re under threat to show their surrender). So, I do think it’s a power play for Sherlock to appear, ‘weak’, to CAM. The latter will even add, ‘morphine’, to the list of Sherlock’s pressure points but for all we know Sherlock showed him this side of him on purpose: he gives himself more morphine in front of CAM specifically. Maybe to cope with him or maybe to emphasise his, ‘weakened’, position against Magnussen.
I’ve speculated that food is actually romance esp because of the Woman and his conclusion that she’s romantically interested in him, not just sexually attracted to him. But, like, either way, what CAM knows goes to the heart of Sherlock’s vulnerability in both a sexual and romantic way.
I agree with this, but my focus is more on the fact that Sherlock is eating by himself before Magnussen comes in, and then Magnussen, who doesn’t have his own food, takes the food off of Sherlock’s plate. This is, IMO, a clear rape metaphor. With the deleted scene, this serves much the same purpose, but more thinly veiled.
I also question whether this scene actually exists in the “real world”..it is odd. It may be a Mindpalace occurrence, as sherlock dragging himself to a restaurant with IV pole et all is a bit much. ( I’ve fic’d it this way, and I still haven’t decided if it is real or MP yet).
2/2 he doesn’t leave mary, sure he would have if knew Sherlock loved him back but is that IF what bothers people it’s like suddenly John’s love is conditional I only hope S4 explains that Mary manipulated John into staying with her from the very beginning
Anonymous said:people hate on john because they think he doesn’t really loved sherlock, if he did then he would have dumped mary as soon as he came back, even if he thinks Sherlock is incapable of returning his feelings he would have wanted to be with him but instead he leaves sherlock and marries
Anonymous said: I don’t think John needs to be redeemed for forgiving Mary because it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t actually forgive her BUT I do think he needs to redeem himself for marrying her in the first place instead of going back to Baker St. It’s like he will only be by Sherlock’s side if he returns his feelings like he doesn’t values Sherlock’s friendship or doesn’t love him enough to accept it if Sherlock doesn’t feel the same
Anonymous said: the problem is not that john forgives mary, that’s fake, but he did love her and he decided to spend the rest of his life with her instead of sherlock because he had a relationship with her and thought sherlock couldn’t love him back so john decided that sex was more important for him than to be with sherlock he prefered a relationship with mary than a platonic friendship with Sherlock
Look, I love John. He’s a very complex character who is very difficult to understand because unlike Sherlock, he DOESN’T wear his emotions on his sleeve. He hides them. He needs to learn to open up and accept himself before their relationship moves any further, which I believe that S4 is going to focus heavily on.
I think a lot of people mistake our John’s character as the one that fanon turned him into: a homebody, tea making… well… helpmeet who just occasionally takes care of Sherlock and goes out on adventures with him while being in utter fascination of him.
I can see the point y’all are trying to make, but no one should have to “redeem themselves” for being confused and misunderstanding someone else’s intentions, and you are severely misunderstood on what the word redemption actually means:
There is a lot about John moving on with Mary that I understand. I do. I’ve thought about John’s motives a lot and discussed with friends again and again.
One thing that I’ve always believed is John trusted Sherlock with his heart. In s2 he gave up dating and was willing to stay by Sherlock’s side for life. Without anything. No commitment, no discussion. He wasn’t dating women anymore loved him without end. And as far as John knew, romantic feelings would never be returned.
And then Sherlock jumped.
John, the man that has trouble trusting (this is the first thing we learn about him), the man that has struggled his entire life, trusted his heart to someone that committed suicide in front of him. That broke him. It truly did. He grieved like a spouse, a widower, a soul mate. He never got over that.
Two years later, he finally knows he needs to move on. Sherlock is dead. He takes Mary to the grave. This is the first time we see Mary. Think about that. Mary, a symbol of his new life, saying goodbye to his old life that even now he can’t seem to move past.
And then surprise! Sherlock isn’t dead. And instead of Sherlock explaining that he jumped because he was blackmailed, that he spent two years away thinking nothing but of John, that he’s finally back, and he finally wants to tell John that he is his everything too, Sherlock makes a joke.
At this point in Sherlock’s narrative arc Sherlock just didn’t understand how much the betrayal broke John. If he had understood, he would have told John another way. He would have explained everything the moment he saw him.
So from John’s pov, Sherlock is back. He’s still arrogant and doesn’t understand the first thing about John’s pain and betrayal. John does forgive Sherlock. He didn’t fake that. But he can’t trust his heart with him again. He tried that and it almost killed him.
So he trusts his heart with Mary. And he places Sherlock in the “best friend” slot and tries to move on.
But we all know Mary betrayal is worse than Sherlock ever was, and Sherlock only did it to protect the person he loves.
Our dads have set up an incredible story. Don’t worry, John will trust Sherlock again, with his heart and his life, and everything will be fine.
MI6 scene: what if we discover that John went to Mycroft after The Watson domestic, demanded to know everything they had on AGRA, Mycroft and MI6 ask him to spy on her, keep her close, plan her downfall. John said he has to stay with Sherlock till fully recovered, then he’ll do it. At Xmas he starts his mission, Sherlock nearly blows it by killing CAM, that was not part of Mycroft and John’s plan. Afterwards Mycroft assures John he will get Sherlock exonerated. John keeps on with his mission. S4 episode one, things heat up, AGRA takes an assignment. For some reason John has to reveal his mission to Sherlock, they meet in the MI6 building, the only safe place for the revelation. ‘’You didn’t think I would really go back to her after what she did to you?”
Watson does really work for Mycroft. Sherlock just got the wrong Watson in his MP in TAB.
Okay the core idea here seems really plausible though. How many interviews do we have with TPTB when they basically talk about the fact that Dr. Watson is actually very smart, and very capable, and he only looks bumbling in comparison to sherlock? And then bemoan the fact that Dr. Watson gets written off as stupid?
If you’re writing from that standpoint – that the audience never expects brilliance from John – then John taking charge certainly would be, as they said it, “the very last thing you would expect.”
I love this.
What I’ve learned from TAB: the more johnlocky it gets, the more fandom tropes they’ll use. They are fanfic writers in the end. And John being on a secret mission against Mary is such a huge fandom trope. I hope they’ll go there. It’s much needed.
Re MI6. Which part of the building would be recognized as MI6? (btw do we really believe this to be true? Has there ever filming been done before? I’m a bit doubtful they would bend security protocols for a tv series)
Just some interesting info, they even had to have agents on site outside to make sure they weren’t filming things they shouldn’t when doing the Thames Path shoot.
It’s true that although we were told about the closed set we have no proof. Do we know if other shows have been able to film inside before? This website talks about it’s interior use within Bond films, but not entirely convinced if this wasn’t replicated with studio shots or other locations – I’d have to do more research. SAs were of course housed in the building next door, not in MI6.
This makes me think of that scene in TAB, where John says he is willing to walk behind Sherlock and play the fool for him, if that’s what he needs. John is willing to walk a step behind Sherlock and act dim if it means Sherlock is safe and happy.
They then discuss Sherlock holding himself to a higher standard because of John’s ‘idiot stories’ (his love letters to Sherlock, essentially, in which John is often quite the unreliable narrator, always painting Sherlock in the best possible light, always making him so much cleverer than he really is). Then, suddenly, Sherlock mentally interrupts himself with the telegram telling him that Mary is getting to the heart of the conspiracy and might be in danger.
Sherlock’s observed some of the details of what is going on, but he’s possibly not put them together correctly?
Think of the scene of John, Sherlock and Mary we saw filmed with the dog the other day. A lot of people felt John was looking too much the role of suburban dad. Mary out in front, leading the way with the dog, John trailing behind with Sherlock, his daughter strapped to his chest. But what if this was just a prime example of John trailing behind and playing an unassuming role on purpose (not that I think being a nurturing father makes you suddenly an invisible non-entity, but given people’s general reaction to that scene, it seems a likely first impression for people to draw).
Mary also underestimates John a lot. It’s to his advantage to let her continue to see him as a bumbling fool. Remember Sherlock has observed enough of their marital interactions that when they argue in his head, in TAB, Mary tells John that all she really thinks he does on cases is tag along and take notes. So John is happy to play into that perception (tag along behind carrying the baby) if it is for Sherlock’s benefit–which in this case it would be. Let Mary continue to think she’s the one in control, continue to play the slightly dim sidekick, let her think that John is too stupid to be up to anything, and by extension keep Sherlock safe.
Because it isn’t that Mary is getting to the heart of any conspiracy, and is in danger (a theory that only presents itself to Sherlock’s mind after they discuss John playing the fool for him, and those idiot stories which are love letters in which John is an unreliable narrator). It is that Mary IS the heart of the conspiracy, Mary is the danger, and John is willing to continue the game of ‘unreliable narrator’ and bumbling idiot, because it is for Sherlock’s benefit.
John is doing what he has always done–keep Sherlock happy and safe by whatever means possible, even if that means protecting Sherlock from his own arrogance and overconfidence that he always has a plan and can fix things, solve things.
It’s an interesting idea, John having a grand plan of his own, keeping Sherlock safe, letting people underestimate him. People right now (including Sherlock to a certain extent) seem to see John as some baby-rearing damsel-in-distress. People seem to be dismissing and underestimating him, his intelligence and competence for the same reasons they often underestimate women, imo.
It’s really interesting to me, and is, I think, linked to some of the same reasons people underestimate the chances of Mary being a villain. It’s people taking traits they stereotypically associate with the feminine, like nurture, child-rearing, bread-baking, softness (think of Mary’s soft new curls and soothing blue costuming for instance) and automatically assuming that is all there is, dismissing strength and intelligence (and even evil), because those stereotypical female traits are present and in a lot of people’s minds the two can’t coexist.
The funny thing is that the writers actually addressed this issue with the band of women in TAB. They stayed at home, raised children, engaged in traditional female pursuits, and so were written off, underestimated, disparaged. But they were just as capable as anyone else. They were capable of murder even.
Sherlock thought it was just about women, but that wasn’t quite right. It was about a larger overarching problem that seeps into every aspect of society and doesn’t just cause us to underestimate women. But also anyone displaying what have traditionally been considered female traits, or even men who just don’t subscribe to all the tenants of traditional masculinity.
Sherlock and Mary, both, have ignored, patronised, and disregarded John. By the end of TAB, Sherlock is starting to see that maybe he shouldn’t. John is pretty damn smart. But I wager these new revelations will be tested this season.
I like color. I think the designers are using color to enhance the messages in BBC Sherlock. It’s another (broad brush) pattern we can read to fill in the blanks.
We meet Sherlock in sharp neutral tones- black and white and gray. All brains/no sentiment, crisp and logical. One wall (almost black and white) dominates 221b with a large elaborate, highly structured pattern. This is the wall Sherlock pins his case notes on, the wall he stares at while he’s solving a mystery.
For quite a while I assumed these neutral tones, that boldly patterned “brain work” wall, represented Sherlock. Other colors swim around him- he is fascinated by Moriarty’s blue, he is warmed by John’s red. But Sherlock’s heart and mind are in the Work; and the Work is black and white deduction. Right? 🙄. Wrong. I got trapped in first impressions.
So… Where in 221b is Sherlock at ease; where can he be himself? His bedroom, and his kitchen/chemistry lab. Guess what? They’re both GREEN. (Actually, I think we see several shades of green on various walls in 221b, it is scattered throughout.)
Now that we have spent an entire green-soaked episode inside Sherlock’s Victorian Mind Palace, I think the message is clear. Sherlock pretends to be neutral- cool and detached- but his real self underneath is green. Gay carnation green, rich earthy lusty green, young springtime in love green. We’ve seen a lot of variations. When the designers give us green, they’re giving us authentic Sherlock.
So why the baroque big pattern wallpaper in 221b? Why S1-S2 Sherlock dressed in black and white? I think they’re pointing out the biggest influence in Sherlock’s life: Mycroft.
I’m sure lots of folks got this long ago, but I really just now saw it:
MYCROFT is the character whose color is “no color”. To the world, Mycroft is a neutral, unassuming, minor-position-in-the-government ghostly shadowy shade of gray. In Sherlock’s mind, Mycroft is a powerful, black-and-white controlling discipline that Sherlock both loves and hates. Mycroft looms large in Sherlock’s life, just like that wallpaper looms large in 221b.
We see Sherlock’s small rebellions on the Mycroft wall. He starts with decor: the momento mori skull floating in swimming pool blue. Later Sherlock vandalizes the overbearing wall with a yellow graffiti John smiley face, and shoots at it in a rage.
Amazing. Arwel and his team designed 221b to mirror Sherlock’s mental landscape. The kitchen/chem lab and Sherlock’s bedroom are green safe havens, but when Sherlock walks in the door, THERE is Mycroft’s wall staring down at him, inescapable. Directly opposite is Sherlock’s heart(h), beneath the mirror where he sees his true self (“it’s my face”). The wallpaper is a delicate pattern, warm red-gold-green woven together (a Johnlock promise, I think). And their two chairs, facing each other, together against the rest of the world.
(Now that I’m associating THAT wall in 221b to Mycroft, I’m remembering TAB. It was shimmery, wasn’t it? Difficult to see clearly, depending on the angle of light. Sometimes blue I think (danger!) with garish flowers. What is Sherlock’s subconscious telling him by putting that sooo changeable wallpaper on Mycroft’s wall?)
Tagging a few folks for your bemusement, I can’t believe I’m looking for character clues in wallpaper…!
