Mary, Redemption, and the Long Game or:

 How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Series 3

 (Sherlock Meta by archipelagoarchaea)

Every time I hear someone say that Mary was redeemed by the end of His Last Vow, the writer in me wants to gnaw my arm off. I wondered if I was conflating the narrative trope of redemption too much with the actual definition of redemption, so I looked it up.



Nope. Turns out I was right. Let’s make this clear: regardless of whether or not John and Sherlock truly forgave Mary, she was not redeemed. Forgiveness and consequences come from without. Redemption comes from within. Redemption may occur before, after, or entirely independently of forgiveness. It requires conscious action on the part of the person being redeemed, and that action must be sacrificial or at the very least difficult. If we look at His Last Vow, we see nothing of the sort. Mary gets a new family? That’s a prize, not redemption. It’s something she wants. This may be confusing to people who’ve seen a lot of stories about characters redeemed by families, but there’s a very important component to those stories: the character must make sacrifices on behalf of that family. Mary lies to John continually and then shoots Sherlock to keep her secret. Sherlock is not a sacrifice to her. He’s a sacrifice to John. No redemption. Mary’s husband doesn’t talk to her for months? Those are consequences, and rather mild ones at that, for actions she never intended him to know about. She did not choose to risk her husband’s ire by telling the truth — that was Sherlock’s doing — therefore his anger does not even begin to redeem her. In fact, aside from the months of estrangement, Mary gets everything she wants in His Last Vow — often at the expense of Sherlock. This is the very opposite of redemption.

So is it possible that Moffat and Gatiss truly intended for Mary’s past to be taken care of, and her actions redeemed? Technically, yes. However, this is a show that just spent 4 1/2 hours painfully redeeming the main character for an arguably lesser sin. Redeeming Mary this easily requires a level of cognitive dissonance I cannot ascribe to writers on their level.

[...]

Sherlock is based on a series of short stories and novels that were written over a hundred years ago. There is a limited stock of available references. In addition, I believe that Moffat and Gatiss had an overall narrative planned from the very beginning. Following this arc in a well-balanced way is much easier with a planned end point than when trying to wedge it into an Möbius strip of infinite possible stories.

Whether you believe in TJLC or not, it’s clear that this show has a goal. Lestrade told us in the first episode: Sherlock was a great man. Maybe someday he’d be a good one. Mycroft gives us a possible expansion on that arc in the first episode of series 2 when he describes the romantic fiction that Irene offered: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption. (See darlingbenny’s brilliant gif set, though she had to fudge a couple of gifs since the arc isn’t actually over). Now, the most obvious interpretation of this is romantic (hello again TJLC), but a sort of platonic romance could also work. A romantic/pseudo-romantic arc would intertwine rather neatly with Sherlock’s character growth, and frankly, that looks like what we’re getting.

I will be honest. When I first watched His Last Vow I ended the show with a sense of sickening horror. Was this really where we were going? John and Sherlock partially estranged? John callous to Sherlock’s feelings? The woman who shot Sherlock sleeping in John’s bed — and him knowing it — without even the slightest hint of remorse? After I’d had time to calm down a bit, I remembered what I’d been hearing going into Series 3: how Moffat assured us that the next hiatus we would be even more frustrated than we were with Reichenbach. And when I look at His Last Vow, I can see absolutely nothing that fits that description, save the state of John and Sherlock’s relationship. It’s not Moriarty: he’s a tease, not a serious frustration. It’s not Sherlock’s murder of Magnussen: We have time to deal with that, and given that his only witnesses were John and the police, there’s potential that his actions will never be publicly known. So in a sense, Moffat reassured us before Series 3 even happened. He knows we hate what has happened to John and Sherlock, and he has no intention of leaving it there.

Let me point out a few patterns in His Last Vow. One: after Sherlock is shot and Mary confronted, we are consistently distanced from John’s feelings on the matter by both the narrative and the camera. This suggests intent, and intent suggests planning. So what’s the plan? Two: we are manipulated in the most effective possible way into trusting Mary (first two episodes) and then feeling unbelievably betrayed. Mary didn’t just shoot Sherlock. She shot him after he offered to help her and demonstrated a frankly ridiculous level of trust in her. We are given a remorseless Mary who’s ‘forgiven’ in absolutely the most jarringly quick way possible. The editing cuts to John ‘forgiving’ her before we’re even given the scene in 221B. There is no faster possible cut. This is not the pattern of redemption. This is the pattern of writers who want us to be angry and off balance. Three: we’re given several months that we know absolutely nothing about save that John didn’t talk to Mary. Where have we seen this kind of absence before? In The Reichenbach Fall, when Sherlock was setting up his fake suicide. Conclusion: something else is being set up. What and by whom is still up in the air.

Everyone has a right to deal with this uncertainty in their own way. Personally, I find it easier to be relatively optimistic. I can start panicking when we get closer to Series 4, but until then I’d rather play with the possibilities. I understand that other people find it easier to deal with possible heartbreak by keeping their expectations low, and that’s fine. But if that’s not what works for you, if you do prefer optimism, then keep heart. This the third act of five parts. This is the great misunderstanding before everything comes together. This is a romance, platonic or otherwise. It has to hurt before it can feel better.

Finally, let me just say that as an aspiring author, little gives me more glee than the idea of making my imaginary fans suffer through the suffering of my characters. I will write happy endings, but I’ll make them hurt first. And I’m a nice person. Do you really think Moffat and Gatiss would miss the chance to make a love story painful? Estranging John and Sherlock like this is basically proof to me that they’re going to be closer in the long run.

No, we don’t know how Series 4 is going to go, but that’s a good thing. It means we have something to actually watch. There are plot holes that appear unfillable. This could be bad, or it could be a sign that we’re missing something important but brilliant. We won’t know until Series 4 airs, so until then: keep analyzing. Keep reading into things. Keep theorizing before you have all the facts. It’s fun. It builds your skills as a writer and consumer of fiction. It forces you to confront how you judge people and their actions. It brings fans together (well, mostly). But most of all, don’t lose heart. For all its flaws, this is not a show that will ever lose sight of its central premise: John and Sherlock as two halves of a whole, a friendship — or romance — so powerful it’s one of the most enduring and iconic in fiction.