The Heart of the Matter: On Human Error and the Lie in Plain Sight in His Last Vow

 ( Sherlock Meta by stephisanerd)

(Note: This is a follow up to this post on The Empty Hearse and this post on The Sign of Three.  It’s also basically a rewrite and expansion of this post, because my opinions have changed. It…got away from me a bit, and is quite wider in scope than the other pieces, because Sherlock’s humanization is tied into the things he missed all series long, but also into the lies that he, John and Mary tell each other and themselves. I focus mainly on Sherlock’s lies, and his facade, but it’s equally true that John and Mary have their own as well. I touch on those briefly especially towards the end, because it becomes this interconnected parasitic mess in which all 3 of them basically feed the others’ lies.)

“There’s something – something, something I’m missing, something staring me in the face…Sometimes a deception is so audacious, so outrageous that you can’t see it even when it’s staring you in the face.” Sherlock, in The Empty Hearse

* * *

Sherlock, before his return in The Empty Hearse, was always portrayed as somewhat self-serving, manipulative, and selfish. He lowers people’s expectations, especially when it comes to his ability or desire to care. “Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did I wouldn’t be one of them.” Sherlock has always valued his cleverness and his intelligence, but seemingly nothing more. He is above it all, all of it. “Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side,” he once said. It’s not until the end of The Reichenbach Fall that we find him being particularly human at all. He sacrifices himself for his friends, and calls John to deliver a heart-wrenching goodbye. We later find out though that it’s all a bit of a magic trick. It was part of a plan that would allow him to go after Moriarty’s network. He comes back after two years expecting to be able to pick up his life where he left off, as if the world had somehow frozen in time.

As soon as Sherlock returns, it’s clear that he has grossly miscalculated John’s reaction to his death and resurrection. John has moved on—he has rebuilt his life (or so he thinks), and though Mycroft warns Sherlock that it’s possible that he won’t be welcome, Sherlock refuses to accept it. He breezes in to surprise John trying to be clever, and when that fails, he tries to make John laugh in an attempt to diffuse the tension. Presumably, given what we’ve seen of their interactions, that usually works, but it doesn’t here. “You let me grieve. How could you do that?” John asks him. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to him?” Mary asks. Sherlock begins to comprehend the cost of what he’s done as he continually tries every tactic he can think of to make it okay.

He’s out of his depth, and he wants to make things right, but he can’t begin to figure out how to do that. “I said I’m sorry. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” he says to Mary. Mary tells Sherlock that she’ll talk John around, at which point, Sherlock takes a closer look at her. “Liar” was there for him to see, but Sherlock somehow doesn’t register that information as important. Might that be because more than anything, he wanted to believe that Mary would help him reconnect with John? In that moment, that was more important to him than anything else, so he let it go.

Later, he doesn’t register the fact that Mary had recognized a skip code on sight. Why? Because his only concern was saving John. He jumps into the fire and pulls him out, again discarding potentially important information.

In The Sign of Three, he discards or misinterprets the evidence again. He thinks well of Mary, because he knows that John loves her. He completely misses the fact that she has no friends from more than 5 years ago. He doesn’t question why she knows Major Sholto’s room number when even he can’t remember it. John loves Mary, and Sherlock, as John’s best friend, is going to make sure that they have the perfect day. But while it’s true that Sherlock missed information about Mary, the cost of it isn’t simply that. John had accepted his apology for faking his death, but there is no taking any of it back. John has Mary now, and their wedding forces Sherlock to face the fact that in many ways, he has lost John to Mary.

Mary: I’m pregnant – I’m panicking.
Sherlock: Don’t panic. None of you panic. Absolutely no reason to panic.
John: Oh, and you’d know, of course?
Sherlock: Yes, I would. You’re already the best parents in the world. Look at all the practice you’ve had!
John: What practice?
Sherlock: Well, you’re hardly gonna need me around now that you’ve got a real baby on the way.
Sherlock: Both of you, now, go dance. We can’t just stand here. People will wonder what we’re talking about.
John: Right.
Mary: And what about you?
John: Well, we can’t all three dance. There are limits!
Sherlock: Yes, there are.

Mary seems to be the only one that can acknowledge it at all. “What about you?” she asks tearfully. The truth of it is staring them all in the face, but they only make an uneasy truce with it. John and Mary dance off together, and Sherlock is left standing alone.

Sherlock, as we find out at the beginning of His Last Vow is not handling that loss well. He’s moving on or attempting too, but the truth of it is that he’s working pretty hard not to feel it at all. John finds Sherlock in a drugs den while searching for his neighbor after not seeing him for a month. Sherlock asks if John has come for him too. John has always been there to notice when Sherlock has disappeared, and Sherlock is almost cheerful at the prospect that John has finally noticed and come after him. John’s not handling the loss well either, and it’s only here that they seem to be able to interact at all because they’re on familiar ground. They don’t have to deal with the rest of it.

Sherlock and John arrive at 221B to find Mycroft and some members of The Empty Hearse searching the flat for drugs. Sherlock is defensive and angry and continues insisting that it's for a case. We don’t know much about why Sherlock has done drugs in the past, but we can make some deductions. The only previous time that we’ve seen any significant hint of worry that Sherlock might be using is in A Scandal in Belgravia after Sherlock has just identified Irene’s body at the morgue, and Mycroft calls John to tell him that Sherlock is on his way.

Mycroft: He’s on his way. Have you found anything?
John: No. Did he take the cigarette?
Mycroft: Yes.
John: Shit. He’s coming. Ten minutes.
Mrs. Hudson: There’s nothing in the bedroom.
John: Looks like he’s clean. We’ve tried all the usual places. Are you sure tonight’s a danger night?
Mycroft: No, but then I never am. You have to stay with him, John.

They’re concerned that Sherlock might be start using drugs again, and have searched the whole flat to make sure he doesn’t have any, because of the loss of someone he didn’t even know very well. John stays with him all night, even though he has plans that he has to cancel.  Sherlock may have cared about Irene and was fascinated by her, but his relationship with John was much more important over a long period of time.

No one calls him on that, instead choosing to focus on the case. And the drug use isn’t the only obvious indicator of what’s actually going on that everyone ignores. While they’re standing there, John notices that his chair is missing from the room.

John: Hey, what happened to my chair?
Sherlock: It was blocking my view to the kitchen.
John: Well, it’s good to be missed.
Sherlock: Well, you were gone. I saw an opportunity.
John: No, you saw the kitchen.

Of course the man who is occasionally so lazy that he makes John get his phone out of his jacket pocket while he is wearing it moved a heavy piece of furniture because it blocked his view of the kitchen. His flat is a mess, to the point that Mycroft calls it a “toxic waste dump”. He hasn’t bothered to clean anything at all, but he moved the chair. It’s not even a good lie.

Sherlock attacks Mycroft and kicks him out, and John makes no further comments on the chair or the drug use or any of the reasons that Sherlock might have done either. He doesn’t point out that Sherlock is high and has just viciously attacked his brother. He asks about the case.

John: Er, Magnussen?
Sherlock: What time is it?
John: About eight.
Sherlock: I’m meeting him in three hours. I need a bath.
John: It’s for a case, you said?
Sherlock: Yep.
John: What sort of case?
Sherlock: Too big and dangerous for any sane individual to get involved in.
John: You trying to put me off?
Sherlock: God, no... Trying to recruit you.

Magnussen is blackmailing a woman—Lady Smallwood. Sherlock is trying to obtain the letters that he is using for leverage. This is safer neutral ground for the two of them—the case doesn’t require them to face up to any of the rest of it. This is what they do. It’s simple and direct. They don’t have to confront Sherlock’s or John’s feelings. They’re just going to break into Magnussen’s office and get the letters back. When they get in, though, they realize that someone else is there with Magnussen.

Sherlock: Claire-de-la-lune. Why do I know it?
John: Mary wears it.
Sherlock: No, not Mary. Somebody else.

We soon find out that the case is going to very much involve the emotions that they are avoiding. It is not only Lady Smallwood that Magnussen is blackmailing, but Mary. Sherlock, finally, discovers that he has greatly misjudged her. He has missed every hint, every detail that he should have and would have spotted previously.

He continues to misjudge her, even as the truth of it is staring him in the face, as he finds her standing over Magnussen, armed with a gun.

Sherlock: Mary, whatever he’s got on you, let me help.
Mary: Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you.
Sherlock: No, Mrs Watson... You won’t.

She shoots Sherlock in the chest, and he retreats to his mind palace in an attempt to save his own life. At this point, he can no longer avoid the pain of his broken heart, both the one ripped into him by a bullet* and the metaphorical one. They have become one and the same. Mary has shot him literally wounding him, but her marriage to John and her pregnancy is intimately tied into Sherlock’s heartbreak and loss.



Very subtly, of course.

As he avoids falling into shock,Sherlock begins to feel the pain of both the literal and metaphorical heartbreak ripping through him.He fights for control, and finds himself facing Moriarty who is, here, everything he fears.

“You never felt pain, did you? Why did you never feel pain?”
“You always feel it, Sherlock. But you don’t have to fear it! Pain. Heartbreak. Loss. Death. It’s all good.”

It would be easier if he didn’t have to feel all of this pain. He’s spent so much of his life avoiding feeling any of it. But it’s not simply because it makes him a better detective, because it’s a disadvantage.  It’s because his emotions frighten him. He’s been fighting not to feel any of it—the loss, the heartbreak, the pain— ever since his return. Control! Control! Control! His mind continues to lure him towards a death that will ensure he never has to feel or fear any of those things ever again.

“You’re gonna love being dead, Sherlock. No one ever bothers you. Mrs Hudson will cry; and Mummy and Daddy will cry and The Woman will cry; and John will cry buckets and buckets. It’s him that I worry about the most. That wife! You’re letting him down, Sherlock. John Watson is definitely in danger.”

But there it is. You’re letting him down. John Watson is in danger. Sherlock starts to fight his way back towards to life. He will face his heartbreak, his loss, the pain and everything he fears if it means that it will save John, if it means that Sherlock will not let him down again.

He eventually escapes from the hospital, much to John’s confusion. He knows that Sherlock must have seen his shooter, and he can’t figure out why he didn’t say anything.

Lestrade: So why not tell us? Because he’s tracking them down himself.
John: Or protecting them.
Lestrade: Protecting the shooter? Why?
John: Well, protecting someone, then. But why would he care? He’s Sherlock. Who would he bother protecting?

The answer, to that, as usual, is staring John in the face. Everyone that Sherlock would bother protecting is standing in that room.

Mary eventually tracks Sherlock down, as he intended. He knew that she would ask the people that no one else would bother with, and so planted the information. He confronts her at Leinster Gardens.

Sherlock: Can’t you see me?
Mary: Well, what am I looking for?
Sherlock: The lie – the lie of Leinster Gardens – hidden in plain sight. Hardly anyone notices. People live here for years and never see it, but if you are what I think you are, it’ll take you less than a minute... The houses, Mary. Look at the houses.…
Mary: What am I looking at?
Sherlock: No door knobs, no letter box, painted windows. Twenty-three and twenty-four Leinster Gardens … the empty houses. They were demolished years ago to make way for the London Underground, a vent for the old steam trains. Only the very front section of the house remains. It’s just a façade. Remind you of anyone, Mary? A façade.

He confronts her about the lies and about shooting him. He goads her into proving that she could have killed him easily and that she hadn’t done so on purpose.

Sherlock: I’ll take the case.
Mary: What case?
Sherlock: Yours. Why didn’t you come to me in the first place?
Mary: Because John can’t ever know that I lied to him. It would break him and I would lose him forever – and, Sherlock, I will never let that happen.

But, as Mary finds out, John has heard the whole thing.  It would have been really easy for Sherlock at this point to simply let all the chips fall where they lay. Mary had shot him. She was not who John thought she was. It wouldn’t have required any effort at all to ensure the end of their relationship. It would have happened naturally. It would have meant that Sherlock could have what he wanted when he first got back to London. He could have gone back to living in 221B with John, but he understands what the weight of a betrayal like this would do now. He wants John to be happy and he thinks that he would be better off with Mary.  John has never indicated that he would want anything else to Sherlock.

And so, from the start, Sherlock sets out trying to keep John and Mary together. He works to maintain the uneasy truce that has existed between the three of them since the wedding.  It’s not just Mary who’s hiding behind a façade. All three of them continue to lie to each other and to themselves about who they are.  The whole conversation is another desperate attempt to not address the elephants in the room and so they confront almost nothing. **

“You were a doctor who went to war. You’re a man who couldn’t stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie. You are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You’re abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people.” Sherlock tells John. It is true, of course, but John doesn’t really ever face up to that fact or what that means, and instead lashes out.

“WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY FAULT?” John asks.  It’s a fair question—he is not at all responsible for Mary’s actions, even as she refuses to take responsibility for her lies or deceptions.   But it’s also true that he is furious, not necessarily just at Mary’s betrayal, but because she was not what he believed her to be or what he thought he wanted her to be. He doesn’t handle it well when someone’s role in his life changes.

Mary maybe comes the closest to any sort of truth, but she simply gives them both the basic information, and gives John a flash drive, with information about who she was on it. She can’t face telling them all of it, and she can’t face John finding it out in front of her. "Everything about who I was is on there" she tells them, as if her past can be completely separated from her current reality.  It is a lie she tells to both herself and John and Sherlock.  She shot her husband’s best friend out of a selfish desire to not be exposed and the truth of it is that her secrets puts and will continue to put all three of them in danger, though Sherlock continues to try and convince John otherwise.

John angrily lashes out at Sherlock as much as he does Mary. Sherlock is a safe target and appears to be standing strong and stoic. “Is everyone I’ve ever met a psychopath?” “But she wasn’t supposed to be like that. Why is she like that?” “Look at you two. You should have gotten married.”

Sherlock lets him do it. When he describes himself to John, he tells him “your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high.” He’s trying to support John and so he doesn’t let on how badly he is hurting. He continues to lie. He lets John continue believing that he doesn’t feel things like that.  John in turn, continues to believe it because it means he doesn’t ever have to confront his feelings as they relate to Sherlock. He ignores the fact Sherlock is, in fact, barely able to stand at all.  

When Sherlock finally collapses as the paramedics arrive, he tells them “I believe I’m bleeding internally and my pulse is very erratic. You may need to re-start my heart on the way.” We’re not just talking about the literal injury here—everything that he has just done, all of the things that were said have emotionally ripped his heart to pieces, but he doesn’t let on. “I believe I’m bleeding internally.”

We can only guess about the intervening months, but Sherlock invites them to Christmas at his parents house, hoping that it will help them reconcile.

John: I’ve chosen these words with care.
Mary: Okay.
John: The problems of your past are your business. The problems of your future … are my privilege. It’s all I have to say. It’s all I need to know. No, I didn’t read it.
Mary: You don’t even know my name.
John: Is ‘Mary Watson’ good enough for you?
Mary: Yes! Oh my God, yes.
John: Then it’s good enough for me, too.

Sherlock’s plan works, but notice—John chooses willful ignorance about what Mary was and is over the truth of it. He’s good at that. They’re all good at that. Neither of them have to confront the elephants in the room here. It’s not the only place where John employs that particular trick. He also continues to be willfully ignorant about Sherlock and about himself.  Sherlock continues to hide the truth of himself from John and from himself. They’re all still hiding behind their facades—behind their lies.  “You won’t love me when you’ve finished,” Mary had said, but maybe she’s not the only one that believes that. Maybe they all do.

* * *

And of course, getting them reconcile wasn’t Sherlock’s only plan. He’s still going after Magnussen because he has information on Mary that could ruin her and John’s relationship forever.

Sherlock thinks he’s got it all worked out. He keeps plotting, attempting to outwit Magnussen and trying to save Mary and therefore John, even as it should have been clear to him that he was missing something big.  When he confronts Magnussen thinking that his glasses are where he stores all of his information, he is wrong. It should give him pause, but it doesn’t. He assumes that he has the upper hand —that he is winning this game. He and John take Mycroft’s laptop to Magnussen ostensibly to trade it for the information that he has on Mary.

The truth of it, though, is that Magnussen has always seen straight through Sherlock.

“Very hard to find a pressure point on you, Mr. Holmes…the drugs thing I never believed for a moment, anyway, you wouldn’t care if it was exposed, would you? But look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.”

“I don’t think he feels things that way,” John once said. The truth of that is now staring John in the face, though he continues to let it go unacknowledged. “You put me in a fire for leverage?” he asks Magnussen.

And then, of course, Sherlock’s whole plan falls apart.

Magnussen: For those who understand these things, Mycroft Holmes is the most powerful man in the country. Well … apart from me. Mycroft’s pressure point is his junkie detective brother, Sherlock. And Sherlock’s pressure point is his best friend, John Watson. John Watson’s pressure point is his wife. I own John Watson’s wife, I own Mycroft. He’s what I’m getting for Christmas.
Sherlock: It’s an exchange, not a gift.
Magnussen: Forgive me, but I already seem to have it.
Sherlock: It’s password protected. In return for the password, you will give me any material in your possession pertaining to the woman I know as Mary Watson.
Sherlock: Oh, I think you’ll find the contents of that laptop …
Magnussen: …include a GPS locator. By now, your brother will have noticed the theft, and security services will be converging on this house. Having arrived they’ll find top secret information in my hands and have every justification to search my vaults. They will discover further information of this kind and I’ll be imprisoned. You will be exonerated, and restored to your smelly little apartment to solve crimes with Mr. and Mrs. Psychopath.
—
Magnussen: It works like this, John. I know who Mary hurt and killed. I know where to find people who hate her. I know where they live; I know their phone numbers. All in my Mind Palace – all of it. I could phone them right now and tear your whole life down – and I will unless you let me flick your face. This is what I do to just because I know.

“Sherlock, do we have a plan? Sherlock?” “Sherlock, what do we do?” John asks, but there’s no magic trick to get them out of this one. Sherlock had been wrong all along—about all of it. Mary. The drugs. The glasses. The vaults.  He has lost.  His cleverness and all of the rest of it stripped away, he makes the same choice that John once made for him. He grabs John’s gun and kills Magnussen in cold blood.

“This is your heart and you should never let it rule your head.”

In the end, it was obvious. It was textbook. It’s a gut reaction, but you can’t help but wonder how you didn’t see it coming, because it’s made for the same reason Sherlock has made every choice he’s made this series. He jumped into the bonfire for John. He was willing to step massively out of his comfort zone to be John’s best man. He was willing to lose John to Mary, even as it ripped his heart to pieces. He worked to get them to reconcile because he thought it would be better for John.  He’s in this position because he was trying to get the information that Magnussen had on Mary to protect her and therefore John. Everything he’s done, all of it, has been for John. He has both loved and lost John, but the truth of it is that he loves him still, and so he does the only thing he can do to protect him and to ensure his happiness.    

“Bitterness is a paralytic; love is a much more vicious motivator.”

Sherlock throws the gun down and turns to John who is standing there shocked and horrified. “Give my love to Mary. Tell her she’s safe now,” he tells him. Sherlock turns and gives himself up to certain death, be it actual or the loss of everything he has ever believed himself to be.  Maybe he thinks death is easier here; maybe he thinks that he doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe it’s just simply as close as he thinks he can get to redemption for all that he has done and failed to do. It’s probably not what John would have wanted Sherlock to do, but John never told him that.  He never really told him anything.

Sherlock, here, still doesn’t tell John the truth, even though it’s staring them both in the face. Everything Sherlock has ever tried to hide about what he feels and what he is is exposed, but he hides behind his usual lie. “Oh, do your research. I’m not a hero; I’m a high-functioning sociopath,” he told Magnussen. Maybe Sherlock needs to believe it , but he also believes that John needs to, just as he continues to believe the lies about Mary.  Sherlock needs John to continue to believe it.

Do you see it yet?  The lie hidden in plain sight?  What Sherlock would go to any lengths to hide about himself? Maybe not, because really, we’ve known all along. It wasn’t us he was hiding it from.

He’s only human after all. His judgment gets clouded by his emotions. He makes mistakes. Sometimes he loses the game. He loves. He bleeds if you punch him. He’s as susceptible to loss, heartbreak, pain, and death as anyone else.

“My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective.  What might we deduce about his heart?"  Mycroft once asked John.

The truth of that is now staring them in the face, though it too continues to go unacknowledged.

* * *

Sherlock can’t escape the consequences of his actions.  As he prepares to go on a suicide mission to Eastern Europe, he says his goodbyes. He and John are standing there with almost everything that they have always believed about themselves and their relationship stripped away.  It is awkward. How could it not be? They’ve stared everything in the face and confronted nothing. Everything that Mary was is what caused Sherlock to make a deal with Magnussen in the first place.  It is not as behind her as she might have believed.   If John had noticed what Sherlock was feeling and confronted him, if he had told Sherlock how much he mattered to him, if he hadn’t assumed that Sherlock was infallible in his plan against Magnussen, it might have ended differently.  If Sherlock had realized how many mistakes he was making, if he had really realized what his pressure point was, he might have done it all differently.  No one addresses any of that or why it was that Sherlock killed Magnussen.  They don’t address anything.

All three of them are standing there under cracked and crumbling façades that are about to fracture and fall away entirely, but they all pretend not to notice. Sherlock and John can barely even confront the truth of the fact that Sherlock is leaving for good.  For a moment, Sherlock looks like he might confront it at all, but he changes his mind. Maybe it’s too hard or too painful for him. Maybe it’s just too much. Or maybe, he knows that John still struggles with emotions, and he doesn’t want him to deal with the weight of it—one last thing he can do for John. Maybe it’s a combination of all of it. He instead makes a joke  making John laugh one last time. He walks away, he thinks, for good. All of it will go unsaid.  The façades will stand.

But, of course, then there’s a voice. “Did you miss me? Did you miss me?” and a phone call. The plane turns around.

There’s an east wind coming.  How much longer do you think those façades can stay standing now?

* *

Note: All transcript excerpts from here.

Special thanks to drunkonbooks for reading over a draft of this monstrosity, and also to reshmarambles , thursjournal and the-navel-treatment who have all let me ramble on at length and offered their opinions and suggestions.

*I realize the gunshot wound may not have actually hit him in the heart, but I think that the implication they were going for. You’ve got Sherlock and Mycroft playing Operation and failing to remove the broken heart, and then you’ve got Sherlock telling Mary “That wasn’t a miss. That was surgery.” I’m not sure how I feel about the implication that Mary wasn’t really trying to kill Sherlock, but I’m inclined to believe that we’re supposed to accept it and that they were privileging foreshadowing and metaphor over the reality of the fact that she very well might have killed him. (I realize that it’s not what many people took from that which is totally valid. I think they failed in getting the point across, because, of course, it’s totally ridiculous.  You don’t shoot someone in the chest and not expect to kill them. )

**I know the 221B confrontation scene has been…a  bit of base breaker.  I initially thought it was just badly written, but the more I think about it, I think the fact that they managed to confront  exactly nothing of importance was deliberate. They’re all still telling each other and themselves lies, and even at the end they haven’t managed to resolve anything, because it’s basically three addicts sitting in a room where no one is willing to admit they have a problem. (I’m sure there are other things that they managed not to address, but I hit some of the highlights.) At least that is what I’m going to tell myself, because otherwise it’s just a hot mess.  Also, lord only knows what Mary is still hiding and whether she was honest at all, but I just dealt with the text as we have it.YMMV.