Sherlock wanted Anderson as assistant

 (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

There are lots of things that occur to me far later than they should. The thing about Mrs Hudson that I should have noticed but didn't was the first one: I'm sure there will be a million more, because I am not particularly detail-oriented, to be honest. This is the second thing I just realized: Sherlock didn't originally want John to be his assistant. He wanted Anderson to play that role.

Sherlock: Who's on forensics?
Lestrade: Anderson.
Sherlock: Anderson won't work with me.

Not Anderson is an idiot, but Anderson won't work with me. Sherlock then proceeds to take John along with him to a crime scene, and is remarkably patient and accommodating with him. Why does he do that? Sherlock is neither patient nor accommodating as a general rule. When John deduces only the most obvious and basic details about Jennifer Wilson's death, Sherlock isn't scornful at all. Why does he behave this way?

Lestrade: He's not your assistant.
Sherlock: I need an assistant!

We know he doesn't bring John along for his own innate skills, because when John asks why he's there, as they're standing over Jennifer Wilson's body, Sherlock says, "Proving a point". He doesn't really care what John has to offer to the investigation of the crime scene, that's why he's not bothered by John's simple description of the cause of death. That wasn't the point.

He's trying to make Anderson jealous.

These two appear to have a tumultuous relationship; they must have argued over bodies before. Sherlock must respect Anderson's abilities; why else would he want him as an assistant? So Sherlock wants to demonstrate, in the most childish way possible, that if Anderson won't play ball, he will lock him out altogether. That's the worst thing Sherlock can imagine: being tantalizingly close to the crime scene and his own dazzling deductions, but not be able to hear them or participate.

So Sherlock slams the door in Anderson's face. It's not because noting that Rache is a German word is dumb (It was something that passed through Sherlock's mind as well, as we know); it's because Sherlock is proving his point.

I don't need you. See? See me not needing you? How do you like that, Anderson? HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT? I can deduce the fact that you're cheating on your wife with Sally, I know what you were doing last night. See? Aren't I good? That's how good I am. You want to be my assistant, Anderson, don't you. You need to, because I'm dazzling and you need to watch me. If you ask really nicely I might let you act as my assistant next time. I just might. 

Sherlock doesn't realize at that point that the perfect assistant for him is John. Anderson won't fire a bullet with the steadiest of hands through a window for him. Anderson won't help him behave appropriately in social situations and smooth out the rough edges of his interactions. Anderson may admire Sherlock's abilities, but he'd never say so out loud. Anderson will never love him. John's arrival utterly alters the job description of "assistant" for Sherlock. We never hear the word "assistant" again, in fact (to my knowledge).

Sherlock's reactions toward Anderson, and all the negative things he has to say about him thereafter, appear, in this light, to be more a reaction to Anderson's rejection of Sherlock than any scornfulness about his abilities.

Sherlock has the emotional life of a nine year old.

Janine, reconsidered 

 (Sherlock Meta by mild-lunacy)

I was rewatching HLV in preparation for The Reckoning (aka Series 4), and I noticed something off about the Janine scene at Baker Street. As we know, Sherlock was acting weird, but then, he was *acting*. People have various explanations of how/why Janine was acting weird. Most people point to her willingness to forgo sex with Sherlock as the odd thing, or alternatively her willingness to believe he was really proposing. The usual point is, how could a savvy, smart woman go for that?

Well, that’s what I’d call an example of an ‘argument from real life’, which is almost always a dead end when analyzing genre fiction. I realize it’s really, really popular for a reason, and that is that it comes really naturally and is part of how most people process and relate to stories. That being said, I’m inclined to dismiss it. If you think these points suggest Janine isn’t believable or coherent as a character, fine. That simply means you’re not satisfied with the show, but that’s not offering a useful critique for further analysis. Nor is it a good reason to go against explicit canon and insist she did have oral sex with Sherlock at least. Anyway, the oddness in Janine that I’m speaking of is the stuff John canonically found weird himself, based on his scandalized, weirded out look: coming out without her bottoms, calling Mycroft ‘Mike’ and blatantly helping herself (staking a claim) in the kitchen. In other words, she was both forward and rude, in context: not acting very British. Then she was super-demonstrative, sitting in Sherlock’s lap later; people have theorized that this is because she knows about Sherlock’s plans, but there’s a simpler explanation. One that doesn’t require breaking a plot point in HLV (always important).

Janine’s inappropriate behavior fits if she was actually *trying* to make John uncomfortable, hoping to rub it in with her new relationship to Sherlock. Not to help Sherlock for whatever reason, but because *she* was jealous. Remember, she knows how important John is to Sherlock because of their conversation at the wedding. Sherlock made his fixation on John clear by his behavior there, and in fact Sherlock rejected her at the time (both sexually and as a candidate for the position John’s marriage represented an end to). The walking around half-dressed makes sense if you essentially want your lover’s ex to suffer. It really is that simple sometimes, and it also makes sense as a mirror with Mary’s dynamic with Sherlock and John in HLV, as well. Mary was starting to resent Sherlock’s role in John’s life as well, sniping at him earlier in the episode about some people not having heard of Sherlock.

The whole performance being directed at discomfiting John becomes truly obvious when she tells Sherlock right in front of John, “I’m the only one who really knows what you’re like, remember?”

That’s just *blatantly* a reference to John as well as John’s (presumably former) role in Sherlock’s life. It’s the sort of thing you don’t say in front of someone’s questionably-ex 'partner’ if you don’t have to, or you’re being friendly. If you’re not trying to score emotional points, you don’t say that sort of thing even to 'play along’ (assuming she’s doing that, rather than Sherlock, which I think is the actual reality of the situation). We know that Janine is canonically nasty and vengeful (from her going to the newspapers about her sex life with Sherlock), so this behavior is totally understandable. Further, if she was taunting John right then, it makes sense she’d been in that mode the entire time.

Not to say that this is somehow an anti-Janine post, but I’m guessing that one reason fandom hasn’t really talked about this before is that it’s not particularly flattering to Janine. We tend to be a bit protective about female characters in the show. In Series 3, however, every female character– Molly, Janine, Mary, even Mrs Hudson– repeatedly acted somewhat insensitively, and everyone except maybe Mrs Hudson was also manipulative and even emotionally abusive to various degrees. With Molly, I’m referring to the contentious yelling episode at the lab, and with Mrs Hudson, I’m mainly referring to the multiple times in TSoT where she mysteriously stomped over Sherlock’s apparent anxiety about John’s impending nuptials. Mary, on the other hand, exemplified every single aspect of this sort of insensitive, manipulative behavior throughout the Series, of course.

The other reason I haven’t seen anyone mention this interpretation before in the Johnlocker circles I travel in is probably because it treats Janine’s canonical heterosexual/heteroromantic feelings seriously. There’s not much I can say about that except that it’s my best judgment that they were indeed real.

ASiP Retrospective: They Won’t Work With Me (Because Only John Will)

 (Sherlock Meta by radvera, just-sort-of-happened and ivyblossom )

radvera: 

That’s right, it’s 2016 and I’m writing a Johnlock meta about A Study in Pink. Luckily, it doesn’t matter that I was an infant when this episode first aired because Johnlock is the one facet of all our lives that is eternal and will always be. I’m also revisiting season one again because I love dying.

Not that we haven’t noticed and written extensive metas about everything in the show, but did you ever notice or write an extensive meta about how Sherlock says, “[They] won’t work with me?” The first time he says it, he’s talking specifically about Anderson, saying he needed an assistant but that Anderson, for some reason, wouldn’t work.

SH- Who's on forensics?
GL- It's Anderson
SH- Anderson won't work with me

Later on in the episode, it becomes very clear why Anderson wouldn’t want to work with Sherlock. But what about that second time he says it? Sherlock is asking John if he’d take a look at the body; Lestrade protests, saying they had a whole team of medical people outside, and Sherlock replies, “They won’t work with me.”

So what, exactly, does that mean? Anderson, understandably, is not willing to work with Sherlock on cases, but did Sherlock really offend the living hell out of an entire team of medical experts to the point where they can’t bear to put aside their personal distaste for the sake of professionalism and work with Sherlock on a case? Actually….possibly. But let’s take a look at that first “Anderson won’t work with me.”

GL- Well, he won't be your assistant
SH- I Need an assistant.

Why did Sherlock insist that he needed an assistant? That’s like, not even true. Sherlock doesn’t NEED an assistant, he just would LIKE one. He works better with one – speaking aloud to someone else helps him think – but Sherlock saying he needs an assistant and then ultimately agreeing to come to the crime scene even though Lestrade didn’t promise him an assistant at all sounds like he was just trying to kick up drama when there was no question whether or not he would go in the first place. But was he just being a baby, or was he trying to get out a message to a certain someone sitting 10 feet away? In this context, listening to this conversation, the audience is clearly meant to think immediately of John when Sherlock says that he needs an assistant. The real question is, did Sherlock intend for John to be his assistant from the minute Lestrade walked through the door?

After twirling around for a while, Sherlock puts on his coat and his little scarf and bounds out the door, leaving John and Mrs. Hudson in the dust. Mrs. Hudson then briefly talks about her husband to a pissed-off-looking John, and John yells because what else does John even do besides yell. Mrs. Hudson is off to make tea and John opens up a newspaper. We’ve all seen it like a hundred times so I’m paraphrasing.

But then…Sherlock comes back. He appears at the door again, purring about how John is an army doctor. Did you guys ever notice how long of a while it is between the moment Sherlock leaves and the moment he comes back? True, it seems like a very short time – only a few things happened and only a few words were said. But it’s kind of a long time for Sherlock to be gone, especially the way he was swooshing around, and we know how fast Sherlock can swoop down a flight of stairs when he has someplace to be, only to decide to…come back? And, unless I am completely misinterpreting the layout, there are only two flights of stairs between the ground floor and Sherlock and John’s flat, because the flat is just one floor up, right? So…when did he decide to come back? When he heard “Damn my leg” and decided that he couldn’t miss out on John’s super hot yelling? It’s possible, but it’s also possible that Sherlock had intended to come back into the room anyway. What I’m saying is, Sherlock must have deduced somewhere between meeting John and the moment when he asks him to join him to the crime scene that John would actually WANT to go. That he missed the adventure and would WANT to be his assistant. And, after all, Anderson won’t work.

GL- We have a whole team right outside
SH- They won't work with me.
GL- I'm breaking every rule letting you in here...

Fast forward to the second time Sherlock says “They won’t work with me.” An entire professional medical team refusing to even be in the same room as Sherlock, or just Sherlock bullshitting so Lestrade will let his bf take a look at the evidence? I think it’s the latter. I think Sherlock is not only curious about how good of a doctor John really is, but he wants to see if they’re actually compatible. (Not that being a hot army doctor doesn’t immediately put you on Sherlock’s Acceptable People List.) And maybe Sherlock isn’t necessarily comfortable with or ready for a relationship at this exact moment, or maybe he is, but at the root of it all, having John as just a friend is a really, really good start.

And maybe it’s not just Sherlock talking, either, when he says “They won’t work with me.” Maybe it’s the writers trying to tell us something. If something is repeated, pay attention to it, right? This show has constantly, since the very beginning, repeated lines, made the same thing pop up multiple times as if to say, “Hey, this is important so why not pay some attention to it, because we are trying to tell you something here.” (@ the entirety of The Abominable Bride) When Sherlock says “They won’t work with me”, maybe it’s the writers, the producers, the Sherlock team, Jesus, and all them, trying to say, “No one else will work.” Lestrade quickly and nobly offers his squadron of doctors and Sherlock shoots them all down at once. They won’t work with me. Because there is only one person in this entire show that really, truly, undeniably works with Sherlock.

They won’t work with Sherlock, because only John will.

just-sort-of-happened: 

I love this. Also, makes the TEH Works Beautifully sign a callback to this. A reminder of how well they fit together.

ivyblossom:

But John’s first outing with Sherlock isn’t a test of John’s skills at all, or even of his compatibility as an assistant. John doesn’t need to prove himself useful at that point, which is good, because he isn’t. Sherlock still wants Lestrade’s team to help him. The reason Sherlock brings John along to the crime scene was to prove a point to Anderson, to Sally, and to the rest of Lestrade’s team who refuse to work with him. What was that point?

You won’t help me? That’s fine. You’re expendable. I don’t need you. I’ve found someone else to take your place, look how easily I did that! Does that change your tune? Don’t you want to be inside the room rather than outside it? 

Sherlock is intensely petty and childish, and he brings John along to make Anderson jealous. He wants to shut Anderson out the way Anderson wants to shut Sherlock out. The fact that John is an army doctor is helpful in making his case for bringing him in to Lestrade, and make the whole thing seem at least marginally legit. But it’s not John he wants at that point. John is just his accommodating flatmate with an obvious lust for adventure. It’s Anderson and his team he wants in the room with him.

You can tell this is true because the most important part of John’s presence at that first crime scene was certainly not his contributions. He agreed that the victim was dead. John is resolutely not useful at the crime scene, but Sherlock isn’t petulantly disappointed about it. In fact he was gracious and patient with John’s stumbling deductions; how out of character! He doesn’t actually care what John says about the body. He doesn’t need John to have any deductions about it. He only wants John to take up time so that Anderson has to wait at the crime scene. He wants to slam the door in Anderson’s face and make him wonder what was going on behind it. So John has already fulfilled his role, as far as Sherlock’s concerned. Proving a point.

John goes on to completely surprise Sherlock several times: first by being as enthusiastic about deductions as Sherlock is. He wasn’t counting on praise. He wasn’t even looking for it, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. But it’s nice, and it changes things. Then, John goes on to demonstrate his ultimate capacity by figuring out where Sherlock is and shooting the cabbie with the steadiest of hands. Sherlock really wasn’t expecting that. 

What started as a petulant trick to get Lestrade’s team on side turned into discovering not only an assistant but a true partner. That’s the moment when John becomes, not just someone “who will work” with Sherlock, but someone who takes his russian roulette life and makes it about something much more. John makes him more than a puzzle solver. John makes him a hero.

The Love Story of Sherlock and John 

(Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

I’m a broken record on this: Sherlock is already a love story, and it’s been a love story since the beginning. Nothing that happens in the next two weeks or 10 years will alter that fact. Nothing whatsoever!

Sherlock and John have outsized feelings for each other, and they both know it. Everyone around them knows it. So far this story has been largely about the various ways they try to make sense of this basic truth, and try to find an arrangement that satisfies them based on what each of them thinks they want.

They try being friends who solve crimes together; John’s dating gets in the way, and he fails to distinguish between one girlfriend from the next. Without discussing it, they become monogamous and ambiguous life partners who sometimes share a bed and don’t bother correcting people who assume they’re lovers. Sherlock, with his big ego and low self-esteem, fails to understand the nature of his complicated relationship with John and inadvertently breaks up with him (oops). Two years later, Sherlock wants his relationship back, but John has understandably moved on.

But John can’t quit Sherlock altogether. He needs and loves Sherlock as much as Sherlock needs and loves him. But how do you square this circle? They are very different people who appear to want very different things. John wants a romantic, ideally sexual relationship and everything that Sherlock is. Sherlock wants John to solve crimes with him and be with him at all times, and artfully dodges everything else.

John shifts his language to best friend, best man, godfather of my child, and they slip back into something of their former closeness, but with the addition of Mary. Their relationship is still far more intense and involved than would be considered usual, but what’s the word for it? What are the rules?

John’s happiness is reliant on his relationship with Sherlock. Fortunately Mary doesn’t mind, and fortunately Sherlock is prepared to do whatever’s required of him. Mary and Sherlock learn to comfortably share John, though it’s not clear that John is comfortable being shared. You’d think he’d be happy, he’s got everything we thought he wanted: the normal life and romantic/sexual relationship with Mary that he seemed to crave, even a child, and he still has Sherlock. Everything should be perfect, but it isn’t.

John doesn’t just love danger and adventure. If he did, Mary’s danger and adventure would be equally thrilling to him. He doesn’t just love hints of sociopathy and acting as someone’s moral compass, or he’d be as invested in helping Mary become a better person as he is in helping Sherlock. Mary’s brilliance doesn’t excite him the way Sherlock’s does. John is a man with trust issues: he isn’t able to forgive Mary the way he’s able to forgive Sherlock. John’s feelings about Sherlock go beyond the adrenaline and the thrill of danger, and beyond a mere admiration for his abilities.

People don’t always understand what it is they want. Sometimes it’s through convolutions like this that they work it out.

Considering this progression, it makes perfect narrative sense for John to act upon the knowledge he’s gained about exactly how deeply and irrevocably in love with Sherlock he is, and that he is not capable of forming this unique kind of bond with anyone else. It makes sense that Sherlock, who has thus far has deliberately avoided romance, love, and sex, to finally mature enough emotionally to accept that he has these needs as well. It makes sense for them to admit all of this in one way or another. They are made for each other. They are both better people when they are together. They will only be truly happy with each other.

If Sherlock and/or John decide not to address this, it will be a tragedy in the classic sense. But it will not mean theirs has not been a love story.

Love Live Irene Adler 

(Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

I love it when Irene comes up, because Irene is the embodiment of Sherlock’s sexuality. She’s the question that he tries very hard to ignore. She is the road not taken, but a road he could still take, possibly, if he wanted to. When Irene pops up, it’s a cue to think about Sherlock as a sexual being. It’s that for John as well, clearly.

I don’t want to be self-referential about this, but I feel compelled to be tonight: we fanfiction writers know how great it is to have Irene crop up as a conversation between Sherlock and John. It’s a crisis point conversation. It’s the best way for John to ask all the questions he wants to without actually asking them, and that’s pretty much what happened here as well. He wants to know: are you straight, are you gay, what are you, Sherlock? What do you want? Do you love her? Is it her, or is it me? 

That conversation usually ends like this: “I could go to her, but I’d rather stay with you.” (Why would he do that, John? Ohhh right, because he loves you!) We’ve all done that, haven’t we? Haven’t we all written that in one way or another? I don’t want to disparage my favourite screenwriter by saying “low hanging fruit,” but…Irene is low hanging fruit, we all grabbed it, didn’t we?

I like this idea that Sherlock sometimes responds to Irene’s texts. That’s good; that’s some ice melting off of him. To me that says he’s been thinking about the possibility that maybe a sexual relationship is something he wants. With her? Probably not. But she’s an entry point to it, she’s his libido, and yes, he has one, and he just acknowledged that. That’s great. Tonight, in this episode, Sherlock acknowledged that he sometimes considers the possibility of engaging in a sexual relationship. That’s huge.

I’m so glad Irene came back up just now.

John was about to leave. He was going to abandon Sherlock 20 minutes early, why? He’s trying to put distance between himself and Sherlock because he is not the man Mary thinks he is. Does this make sense? What does that have to do with Sherlock?

And why does he suddenly need to tell Sherlock what to do about Irene?

Because it’s not only Mary who needs him to be a good man. Sherlock needs him too, and John feels that he’s failed both of them. Why is he sending Sherlock off to Irene? He’s saying: I’m not good enough for you, Sherlock. Irene loves you too, go to here instead.

But that’s ridiculous. We all know Irene can’t keep Sherlock right. If anything, she’d send him down the worst paths, as she’s done before. John says to Mary, and to Sherlock: I can’t be the man you need to be. I cannot live up to your expectations. I am not that man.

And both of them say, yes you are. You’re human, you do the best you can, and that’s why we love you, and it’s good enough for me.

And John hears that, and he doesn’t leave.

I like it.

Evaluation of John's reaction to Sherlock in The Lying Detective

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

We knew from the outset that this series was going to be about demons. What’s interesting, and unexpected, is that so far it’s been about John’s demons, not Sherlock’s. We didn’t really think about John having demons, but I think that was the point.

Everyone in this story has a high-octane dysfunction of some kind. What’s always been true is that Sherlock is seen as the sexy, amoral weirdo who is secretly normal on the inside. John is the opposite. He’s a milquetoast, average guy on the outside, and an violent, rampaging action hero on the inside. Both Sherlock and John aspire to be what they project themselves as, and do their best to fight, dismiss, and hide from their inner reality. That core conflict is the fuel that drives each of them to despair.

Resolving this inner/outer conflict is the overarching theme of Sherlock. We see this very clearly with Sherlock himself: this is the story of how Sherlock learns to accept his human needs and emotions and becomes a greater consulting detective because of it. But running in parallel, we’ve now discovered, is the story of how John reconciles his inner monster with his stout, ethical heart.

We always thought it was Sherlock who was striving, and often failing, to meet John’s high expectations. But it turns out that the opposite is also true: Sherlock’s (and Mary’s) idea of who John is forces him to be that man, too. John knows he fails, but he doesn’t think Mary and Sherlock know this, and surely they would reject him if they knew. They can’t know how he struggles to be who they think he is. This series shows us exactly how.

We think of John as being moral, patient, forgiving, and above all, profoundly fair. But he holds Sherlock responsible for Mary’s death when it was clearly not his fault. John is meant to be the good guy, but he cheats on his wife and lets his grief and his anger overtake him when he beats Sherlock bloody. These things are so inconsistent, and no one can tell you that better than John Watson himself. He hates this about himself. These are his demons. He cannot live up to the expectations he has set for himself, let alone those or the people he loves. He fails them, badly and repeatedly.

That’s why John tells Sherlock to go to Irene. Because he knows what Sherlock needs him to be, and he knows he cannot deliver. He is a fraud.

Sherlock knows all about being a fraud. He is not a sociopath; he’s a profoundly emotional man who wants to love and be loved. Of course we know that by now. We know that the best Sherlock is a blend of all that he is, not just one or the other. The same is true for John. The guy who sprained someone’s wrist for not answering a question, the guy who shot and killed an unarmed cab driver because Sherlock was about to voluntarily swallow a pill that might be poison, the guy who beat Sherlock until he was spitting blood, that guy, with his desire to be loving, normal, good, that guy has the capacity to be a hero.

Sherlock embraces John’s inner violence, he always has. It’s the thing that first drew Sherlock to John, his improbable contradictions. He accepts, and even depends upon, the monster in John.

Is this a template for a good, healthy relationship? Uh, no. Are you kidding? No, these people are not moral exemplars by any means. They are profoundly and dangerously flawed people. But they have the capacity to be good, to be great, even, with each other’s help.

Why does Sherlock show Molly affection?

 (Sherlock meta by fuckyeahsherlolly)

Q: Why does [Sherlock] show Molly affection in that way [in TEH]? Why did he care that he hurt her on Christmas [in ASiB] ? He's upset people in the past and not thought about it twice. John's teacher girlfriend, Hudders and the flour, Lestrade... Always. Why apologize at all, and furthermore, why was he actually upset (enough) that he'd hurt her? I understand the day they spent [in TEH] was a thank you. He was kind, cordial, accepted her help. That's a lot from him. So why say all of the things he said? Why chips? Why kiss? [...]

A: For me it has a lot to do with the fact that he truly and utterly cocked up. Sherlock wasn’t being ‘cruel’, he was 'teasing’, but he didn’t understand the weight of his words until he saw what everyone else already knew, that the gift was for him, that she cares for him. He doesn’t understand that, in the same way that he didn’t understand that John saw him as his best friend - he’s at a loss, because he doesn’t see himself as a person who is worthy.

I think a lot of what he does try do to in series 3 is to show that he’s much more receptive, not afraid, but it’s more the - “you can’t do this anymore” that gets me really. It’s not supposed to mean anything, is it?

Then why say it, why not go for chips?

The kiss is almost like a goodbye, like this was their first and last time doing anything like this, because she is engaged.

And then there’s the fact that she slaps him in the later episode, and tension is high, and I’m basically on the edge of my seat wondering what the hell is going to happen between the pair of them in series four.

Whatever it is, I’m ready (not really).

One Last Little Pre-S4 Molly Meta 

 (Sherlock meta by theleftpill)

[...] So I was thinking this morning about TAB, and how it’s all about *women*, both their importance in the world and Sherlock’s (raging hard-on) High Regard and Esteem for them, and thinking about the various metas written about why Sherlock initially sees Molly as a man. A lot has been said about her needing to be in disguise to hold her position in the Victorian era, about whether Sherlock knew or didn’t know that she was a woman, but one idea I haven’t seen:

Molly’s reveal in the church reveals her to Sherlock (and to the aware audience) that she’s a woman. This happens in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. They share a tender moment of recognition. This is the moment when Molly changes for Victorian Sherlock from a trusted and equal colleague, a professional in a professional capacity, to a real human being, to a woman, to a personal connection.

This is the moment in Sherlock’s brain when Molly shifts. Ever so slightly, if you weren’t paying attention you would miss it, but Molly changes for Sherlock here. She’s no longer just the pathologist, she’s no longer a trusted and dear friend. She’s now a woman.

Series 4 has answers. Let’s see where it goes.

Why does Mary not recognize Sherlock?

 (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

It seems odd to me that Mary does not recognize Sherlock when he shows up at the restaurant in The Empty Hearse. 

If she is secretly employed by Moriarty, or is Moriarty, or is in any way related to Moriarty and his various and nefarious enterprises, either as an assassin, a colleague, a family member, or whatever, surely she would recognize Sherlock right off. If her purpose in lying to John and staying close to him is in any way related to Moriarty’s plans for Sherlock, she definitely should have.

If she is none of these things, and is merely a secret contract assassin with no ties nor interest in Sherlock Holmes whatsoever, it’s still odd hat she didn’t recognize him, given a) Sherlock’s notoriety, combined with b) her boyfriend’s past and his current status as Sherlock’s mourning best friend. She’s surely seen pictures of him. How did she not recognize him?

If she did recognize him for either of these very reasonable reasons, but chose to pretend she did not recognize him when John did in the restaurant in The Empty Hearse, what purpose could it possibly serve?

Why on earth did Sherlock investigate Mary's guests and Mary's ex-boyfriend but not Mary herself? 

(Sherlock Meta by beejohnlocked and ivyblossom)

Anonymous asked: 

Why on earth did Sherlock investigate Mary's guests (I assume Archie was one of hers since John never acknowledged him) and Mary's ex-boyfriend but not Mary herself? He found out about her stolen identity and that she'd been on the run for five years pretty quickly after getting shot, so it must not have been that hard to find information on her. He plans every detail of the wedding and studies David's Twitter habits but doesn't once think of at least googling her like he did Sholto?

beejohnlocked:

Oh nonny, there are so many possible answers to this question. I’ll take a stab at it and give my personal reading of the situation.

I think Sherlock had a huge blind spot when it came to Mary for no other reason than she was John’s chosen person. Sherlock came back from a two year absence in John’s life, after killing himself in front of John, and Mary had already been in the picture for several months. To say Sherlock feels immense guilt over what he did I think is an understatement. You see it in the way that he goes above and beyond as John’s best man and in the way he treats everyone around him more kindly. When he left, he hurt John badly. It doesn’t matter if John forgives him or not because he isn’t over it and Sherlock knows this. In some ways, it’s a simple case of “shoot-the-messenger” syndrome. Look at what happens in TGG when Sherlock to deuces that Moriarty is gay. Molly blames SHERLOCK for spoiling everything. And keep in mind, Molly wasn’t even serious about Jim. Now let’s look at the situation in TEH. John is engaged to marry this woman. If Sherlock brings up the misgivings he has about her, it’s possible, (even likely given John’s state of mind at the time), that John will get angry at him about it, especially given Sherlock’s track record of rudely picking up on the personal business/flaws of others.

That being said, this idea that Sherlock was “slow” as Mary puts it, I don’t believe for a minute. Sherlock knew there was something off about Mary. But he didn’t know what it was, and John chose her to be with, and I think Sherlock decided to give her the benefit of whatever doubt he had for John’s sake. We saw Sherlock notice about the skip code, and we saw him notice about Mary knowing Sholto’s room. He knows that a lot of people don’t like her. He deduced that she is a liar. So this idea that Sherlock doesn’t realize that there’s something off about Mary is incorrect as far as I’m concerned. For example, if you look at something like the David situation, to me it shows that Sherlock doesn’t trust Mary either. If Mary had an ex-boyfriend hung up on her but had no interest in anything happening between them I think Sherlock could trust her to take care of herself where David is concerned. He certainly would not feel the need to downgrade David’s relationship with Mary and make it so that he can only see Mary when John is there to supervise. If Sherlock trusted Mary, he wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen with David and Mary alone, would he? But it is a concern for him, which means that Sherlock doesn’t completely trust her.

Sherlock is focusing on the things that he can control. He can’t control John and the fact that he’s chosen to marry this woman. But he CAN control David and get him to back the hell off.

As for why Sherlock didn’t investigate Mary, he knows that there is likely something to find, something less than good. Given that Sherlock just spent two years keeping something huge from John and feeling guilty about it, if he knew for sure that there was something bad about Mary he knows he would have to tell John. I think Sherlock is just hoping that whatever is in Mary’s past isn’t too bad and just leaving it as it is and choosing to believe that she loves John and will do right by him. Blissful ignorance as it were. Thanks!

If anyone has anything to add, or if you disagree, feel free to respond!!

ivyblossom:

Interesting. I think Mary was right; Sherlock was “slow” to figure her out.

Sherlock didn’t think there was anything off about Mary, as far as we can tell. He thinks he can see what she is, and he accepts the evidence of his senses. We see his deductions about her; they were overwhelmingly normal and upfront. The secret tattoo, her political leanings, the fact that she bakes. Public things, private things, all right there and obvious to Sherlock. Everything he sees is reasonable, rational, logical, and normal, making her seem to be exactly what she says she is.

He knows that she’s a liar. But what’s that mean? Everybody lies. Is that something to suggest that her whole identity is false? Everything Sherlock can see about her is 100% harmless and normal, even her secrets. Even the fact that she lies. John lies, too. What he doesn’t know is that the deductions he’s making about Mary are themselves based on lies.

Mary make herself appear to be exactly what she wants people to think she is, not only in what she says, but in the expression on her face, what she wears, how she holds herself, and what she chooses to say. She is a master actor, perfectly method. She is very good at taking on a new identity and making it so close to real that it nearly becomes so. She was good enough to fool Sherlock, and Sherlock was fooled.

I’m sure Sherlock did investigate Mary. He found out what everyone in John’s family thinks of her. He knows about her ex-boyfriend, their interactions. You don’t get to the ex-boyfriend without stalking Mary. To complicate things further, he likes her. He doesn’t like a lot of people, but he likes Mary. And she likes him. She’s a friend. He thought they understood each other and cared about each other. Liking her helped him to ignore things he shouldn’t have.

It wasn’t belated research that revealed Mary to Sherlock. It was new evidence.

Sherlock doesn’t know how wrong he is about Mary until the moment that she shoots him. He steps forward when she tells him not to; the person he’s certain Mary is wouldn’t pull the trigger when a friend is offering to help her. But he’s wrong. That bullet is the evidence that he doesn’t know Mary at all.

Understanding that resets Sherlock’s sensor. He combs back over his interactions with her to see what he’s missed. It’s inner research, not a google search.

If the internet could uncover Mary’s secrets, killing Magnussen wouldn’t have done much good. Sherlock only learns what he knows about Mary accidentally threatening her, and then by verifying what he guesses to be true through testing her and asking her directly. In other words, the “slow” way.

The Progress of Sherlock Holmes*

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

I was thinking about The Abominable Bride, and all the ideas swirling around about what statement its making about the relationship between Sherlock and John. Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think it says a whole lot about it. The story is mainly (thought not only) about Sherlock trying to work out how someone who shot themselves in the head with an audience might still be alive. So much so that I found it slightly odd that there isn’t even room for Sherlock to feel any relief about being released from his death sentence. Where’s his joy and being able to go home and take his life back, even if it’s just for a short while? He’s all work all the time, that guy.

But then I started thinking sideways about what kind of statement The Abominable Bride makes about Sherlock’s relationship with John. Look how far he’s come since series one, where he abandons John all over the place, and how he waited until John left the flat to sneak off and meet Moriarty that time. He is a solitary figure in the early days, even as his partnership is getting started. He ditches John most terribly at the end of series two, as if he’s still a completely independent actor without any ties to bind him. And in series three Sherlock is gobsmacked when he discovers that John considers him his best friend. As he’s dying and seeking comfort and control, Sherlock has his demons for company, but John is completely absent. He’s very much outside of Sherlock’s reach, and Sherlock is very much alone in his head. As essential as they are to each other, there is still a distance and disjointedness between them.

At the end of The Abominable Bride, while Sherlock’s wrestling with his demons as they threaten to consume him, for the first time John steps in and saves him from himself. Sherlock is no longer alone in his battles. From here on in, there’s always two of them; two of them on a case, two of them against the rest of the world, two of them saving Sherlock from the things that haunt him. He started out stubbornly independent, all doors shut to vulnerability and personal connections. But now, it seems he’s left one of those doors ajar, and John has slipped in.

So that’s something.

* Self-plagiarism is a thing.

A conversation about Lestrade and Tom at the wedding

(Sherlock Meta by urbanhymnal, provocatrixxx and anneincolor)

urbanhymnal:

I need people to talk about how sad Lestrade looked at the wedding. We have a picture of him sitting off at his table, drinking by himself while everyone else is mingling and chatting. Then he had to sit next to beautiful, literally looking-like-a-ball-of sunshine Molly and her fiance, Tom. Everyone around him is so happy and there is Lestrade and his troubled marriage, all alone. No plus one with him.

He gives up on a huge arrest to check on Sherlock (making a bit of a fool of himself by scrambling over there with back up), gets left out of the stag night, and doesn’t get to party after the wedding because he has to clean up the mess again. He didn’t get to dance, either.

Papa Greg deserves better, damn it.

provocatrixxx:

Do you think maybe he’s feeling.. not ‘old’ old, but just… very aware of the passage of time?

I mean, he’s watching John marry Mary, and Mary is perfect for John. If we assume that John is one of his closest male friends, which seems reasonable, the happiness that he feels for John is going to be shadowed by his own insecurities. John chose the perfect woman and is marrying her and is glowing with it. Greg’s own marriage was completely wrong for him. For someone in Greg’s position, that’s going to hurt, there’s going to be something in the back of his mind that says he will never find his own perfect partner.

Molly, I think, is an extension of that. She was pining for Sherlock, but she decided to move on and she’s sticking with it. See how confident she is when Sherlock visits her in the lab? She makes him apologise to her. How very different from the first time we meet her and her faffing with the lipstick.

And Sherlock too. He’s difficult, he delivers an absolute mess of a speech, but he’s trying. And he gets there. He gives John a fantastic wedding. He’s slowly becoming ‘good’ as well as great.

So where does that leave poor Greg? He’s still in his job, he’s either still with his wife and unhappy about it, or he’s in a cramped little flat somewhere that’s dark and distressing which is why he lives in his office.

Everyone around him is going through massive changes and coming out the other side of them as better people. Greg is solid and dependable and that’s why we love him, but he’s too old and too tired to change any more.

For me, I think John’s wedding is that realisation in technicolour. Greg’s job is to be solid, and for the most part, I think he’s happy with that. But sitting at a beautiful wedding beside the woman who took her life back and became fierce with it has got to hit him somewhere in the gut.

Poor Greg. What are your feelings about Omniscient Older Brothers who spend too much time on treadmills?

anneincolor:

I think we all know that Tom is a sort of placeholder, at this point. Molly was positively horrified by his contributions to the wedding. He only speaks to make her upset and embarrassed, which does not bode well for his future as a character. I mean… Meat dagger? If you notice, when Greg does his thing about the dwarf, Molly isn’t upset; she’s got second hand embarrassment, sure, but her face looks a bit… endeared. She likes Greg, she knows Sherlock likes Greg, she’s not concerned that he didn’t get the correct answer. When Tom stands, though, and then speaks, she looks like she wants to fall through the floor. No matter who Molly was at the beginning, she’s now a part of Team Deduction, and Team Deduction has pretty simple rules: Greg can be kind of an idiot, John can be overly sentimental and “miss everything of importance,” but no one else gets a lot of leeway to be wrong in Sherlock’s presence. Tom can’t be a Team Deduction member, and thus, he’s always going to be outside.

The framing of this episode captured Greg and Molly together over and over again. I’ve been shipping this couple since ASiB, because of his reaction to her when she took off the coat, but I do think that we’re being set up to think about Greg pining a bit after Molly. We can assume he didn’t cross her path much since Sherlock was gone, but now that Sherlock’s back, there’s a chance again - only, she’s engaged to this complete idiot. There are several emotional moments in TSoT where Greg and Molly share a look, most intimately when Sherlock says he never expected to be anyone’s best friend. These are people who understand Sherlock, who love him, who’ve known him much longer than John, who at points define themselves by their association with him. Both of them.

My hope for Molly is that she recognizes Tom for what he is: an attempt to not-really-move-on from her hopes about Sherlock. And then, maybe once she ends that and has a few girl’s nights, she could look across the table at Greg, because (in my humble opinion) they would make a fantastic couple.

While I’m pretty much neutral about Molly/Greg I do have to say that I think that the storytelling was incredibly clear about Molly not in fact having moved on. At this point, I would rather see her happy with pretty much anyone (or happily single, that’s a thing that does actually happen) than to settle with someone she’s not happy with. I have to admit to being pretty torn about some of her behavior in this episode.  Tom may not be brilliant but he probably loves her and thinks she loves him, and she treated him pretty harshly.  I would love it if she did the mature thing and broke it off.

I also really hope that they aren’t just keeping her on the hook for Sherlock because 1. boring 2. boring 3. that’d be a dick move to pull on a character they claim to love and leaves her stagnant, growth wise.

The Magnificent Decency of Detective Inspector Lestrade

 (Sherlock Meta from before S3 by drinkingcocoa)

[...]

There is a bastion of decency in BBC Sherlock, an indicator of trustworthiness, and his name is Lestrade.  His very presence conveys security.  His character judgments are sound because where people are concerned, Lestrade doesn’t just see; he observes.

In “A Study in Pink,” what is John to make of the potential flatmate?  Genius or madman?  Mrs. Hudson seems to like Sherlock, but for all John knows, she could be mad, too.  And then a heavy tread on the stair announces a man in a trenchcoat talking half telepathically with Sherlock:  This one did.  Will you come?  And Sherlock whirls away.

What just happened?

John opens the paper.  There.  Just below the fold.  “DI Lestrade:  In charge of the investigation.”  And everything changes with that photo.  It anchors reality.  Lestrade is proof:  Sherlock Holmes is real.

At the crime scene, Sergeant Donovan voices every doubt John might have.  “Psychopaths get bored,” she warns, and just as John is pondering this –

“DONOVAN!”

Donovan immediately turns to obey Lestrade.  She leaves John with “Stay away from Sherlock Holmes,” but her warning is too late:  Lestrade has anchored reality again.  If this Donovan heeds Lestrade, and Sherlock also heeds Lestrade, and Lestrade believes in Sherlock… then Sherlock must be real.  Lestrade’s approval is confirmation enough for John.

They believe in Lestrade at the Met.  Proud, defensive DI Dimmock is not above Lestrade’s mentoring.  Lestrade advises DI Carter on Sherlock (“try not to punch him”) with the manner of a man who knows this grizzled cop will listen to him.  The Chief Superintendent calls Lestrade “a bloody idiot,” but the show makes sure he gets chinned later.

In “The Great Game,” Sherlock spurns Mycroft’s entreaties for help, but the moment Lestrade calls, he says, “Of course.  How could I refuse?”  In “Hounds,” and probably long before, Mycroft calls on Lestrade to intercede with Sherlock.

Even Moriarty acknowledges Lestrade, whom he casts as King Arthur to Sherlock’s Sir Boast-a-lot.  In “The Great Game,” Moriarty’s mouthpiece says, “It’s okay that you’ve gone to the police.”  But Sherlock didn’t go to the police.  It was Moriarty who involved the police by leaving them something to give Sherlock.  Moriarty recognizes the significance of Lestrade’s role in Sherlock’s life before Sherlock does.

We see in “The Great Game” that Lestrade is a childhood dream come true for Sherlock, though perhaps Sherlock doesn’t know to appreciate this.  Moriarty does, though.  Moriarty has been keeping track of everything that happened once the Carl Powers case hit the papers:

“I made a fuss,” Sherlock tells John.  “I tried to get the police interested, but nobody seemed to think it was important.”  But now there is Lestrade, who comes personally when Sherlock requests “your least irritating officer,” who vouches for Sherlock with skeptical co-workers, who accepts Sherlock’s deductions with nothing more than “You sure about this?”  The Chief Superintendent points out that Sherlock’s been given access to all kinds of classified information.  Exactly.  Lestrade is aware that Sherlock has handled all of it flawlessly, confidentially, every single time.  There is no way Lestrade’s faith in Sherlock could waver; he has long-verified proof that Sherlock is real.

What makes Lestrade so certain?

He doesn’t just see; he observes.

Watch him in the “drugs bust” scene.  He’s focused almost entirely on Sherlock, and yet he’s simultaneously aware of every single person on the premises, so deftly in control that he can even afford humor (“No, Anderson’s my sniffer dog”):  he slots his interpersonal dealings according to priority without ever losing track.  He’s so attuned to people that he knows when it’s time to deviate from the script:  when he cuts off Sherlock’s resistance by revealing his own nicotine patch, we see a world of untold story about an authority figure who once, long ago, understood that the way to gain trust was to give something of himself.  How mercilessly Sherlock must once have deduced Lestrade’s nicotine addiction.  How little he must have expected that this surprising policeman would be secure enough to take it as invitation instead of attack.  Younger Sherlock probably loathed hypocrisy; Lestrade has none.

Once Lestrade has secured Sherlock’s participation, his eyes bear down intently on Sherlock.  His gaze flickers only when Sherlock asks why the dead woman would still be upset about a stillbirth:  Will the new man see Sherlock as a sociopath or as the rare treasure he is?  The camera cuts sharply to a close-up just of Lestrade’s eyes snapping to John, without his head moving.  He observes John, understands instantly who John and Sherlock will be to each other, then snaps his focus back to Sherlock.

With Sherlock’s permission, at Sherlock’s invitation, he’s plugging into Sherlock’s brain:  Sherlock is offering himself as a deducing machine for the two of them to use together, in partnership.  It’s incredibly intimate.  Especially considering the way Sherlock experiences revelation, Lestrade’s observation feels almost like watching for a mental orgasm, with a climax and an afterglow.  This accounts for Lestrade’s always slightly-too-interested demeanor, as we see at the Christmas party when Sherlock says “No, it was me” of the text alert.  But it accounts for Lestrade’s respectfulness as well, the measured but trusting dismissals when Sherlock goes his way.

By the time John asks Lestrade why he puts up with Sherlock, Lestrade has identified John as Lestrade’s ally for life.  His answer brings John fully up to speed.  Lestrade trusts in Sherlock for his job (“because I’m desperate”).  He treasures Sherlock for his gift, the same thing Sherlock values in himself (“a great man”).  And he is personally fond of Sherlock, invested in what becomes of him (“if we’re very lucky…a good one”).  This tells John:  yes, it’s okay to need Sherlock, admire him, and like him, too.  Lestrade does, and Lestrade’s judgment is sound.

Lestrade’s liking for people and his sensitivity for what makes them tick are the sources of his strength.  We see that he relies on these powers as securely as Sherlock relies on his deductions and perhaps, like Sherlock, he doesn’t fully understand what it’s like not to be himself:  he’s genuinely surprised that Donovan and Anderson can have seen Sherlock’s magic over the years and not believe that it is real.  This is part of the appeal of this character:  his innocence of his own gifts.

Perhaps, too, Lestrade’s powerful sense of humanity tells us why he missed when he shot at the hound in the fog.  The poison works with fear and stimulus to make people feel uncontrollably aggressive.  Sherlock sees the face of his fear:  Moriarty.  What did Lestrade see?  Perhaps he saw himself as a cop who has become jaded and brutal, violent, punitive.  It may be just as disorienting for Lestrade to lose touch with his decency as it is for Sherlock to be unable to trust the evidence of his senses.  Perhaps he felt so much unfamiliar aggression toward the menacing hound that his alarm interrupted his aim.  Of course, he could have just missed.  But he did see something he feared; they all did.

Moriarty’s attack in “The Reichenbach Fall” causes Sherlock, finally, to consider his relationship to Lestrade – to grow aware of Lestrade in a way reminiscent of a child maturing into new understanding of his parents.  Lestrade’s steadfastness, unblinking even when Sherlock tests him with a tap on the third eye, tells the whole story of his character.  The viewer knows, though Lestrade does not yet, that by the end of Series 2, Sherlock has become the good man that Lestrade always hoped he could be.  Lestrade’s comprehension of Sherlock’s goodness is one of the great pleasures to look forward to in Series 3.

"Sir, there’s been a break in" / "Not our division"

 (Sherlock Meta by intellectualfangirl)

I love this moment. Not just because it’s pretty hilarious; I think this reveals much of what you need to know about Sally Donovan and Gregory Lestrade.

Let’s look at Sally: she’s shown in motion, opening a door and delivering her line at the same time. She creates action, she sets events into motion, and she’s bent on justice. Sure, she functions as the giver of news here, but there’s an implication in what she says: there’s been a break-in and she wants to do something about it. Additionally, she doesn’t wait until Greg has acknowledged her presence: she knows that she is dealing with a pressing matter, so propriety is not her first priority. However, she still adheres to some etiquette (addressing Greg as sir), indicating that she respects him. Now look at her clothing choices: Sally wants to get shit done, and she wears what she wants while she does so. She wears feminine, practical clothing: there’s a beautiful necklace around her neck, and her shirt has this gorgeous pattern that I originally thought was lace-inspired. Still, it’s all stuff she can move in. But her clothing is much less whimsical than Molly’s, for example: notice the geometric lines of the necklace and the practical watch she wears on her left wrist.

Now look at Greg: Greg reacts to things. He’s clearly busy, and finding a moment to put his feet up and have a bit to eat (is that a scone? or in the tradition of stereotypical cops everywhere, is that a doughnut? we may never know)…and to have some coffee, of course. As he speaks, frustrated, harried, crumbs fall from his mouth (which really makes the humour of this moment, in my opinion). Paperwork is scattered on his desk, but besides an inexplicable paperweight/ornament and the cushy chair, the office looks rather utilitarian. Greg’s feet are on the desk in the classic “power pose,” but in his case the position serves to display his shoes, which don’t quite seem to match his already rather rumpled suit (well, rumpled by television standards). Is he wearing brown or black? I can’t really tell, but he’s not the natty dresser Sherlock is, that’s for certain.

She’s the newer member of the force, he’s the greying veteran. He’s in a traditional position of power (both by his pose, his job, and his status as white, male, and older), while she’s somewhat of an intruder (or she could be seen as one). But Sally is the more active one—he’s so clearly exhausted. And when you look at their interactions beyond this scene, it’s so clear that he respects her, and she respects him, and they have a very effective working relationship—they might even be called friendly, if not friends. And I like to think that Sally, Sally who could so easily ignore him or mock him or just do her job and nothing more, I think Sally is responsible for that.

This has been a Sally Donovan and Greg Lestrade (but mostly Sally Donovan) appreciation post.

John Read the Flash Drive
(Sherlock Meta by archipelagoarchaea)

So I was going through HLV frame by frame, like you do, when I noticed something I hadn’t really noticed before. This is probably because John spends the entire confrontation scene furious and sarcastic, so it didn’t particularly stand out, but I think it’s important.

Remember the bit where Mary tells John not to read the flash drive in front of her, because she doesn’t want to watch him fall out of love (as if shooting Sherlock weren’t the worst thing she could possibly do)? Well, here’s John’s reaction, after snatching up the flash drive.



And in case you missed it, a slower, larger view of John’s face as he looks back at her.



If you’re still not sure, here’s the last frame of that.



That’s a smirk, I’m positive. And while I’m somewhat leery of making too much of a short clip, I think one thing is clear: John’s reaction wasn’t ‘my poor wife, I’m furious with her but I still love her’. It’s incredulity and scorn. If I had to guess what he was thinking in this moment, it’d be ‘Seriously? You think that’s going to work on me now?’

So here’s the thing. While it is technically possible that John was prepared to forgive Mary by Christmas (though I personally think it would be out of character for the man who punched the Chief Superintendent of NSY), that’s not when he got the flash drive. He was given the flash drive during a confrontation in which he showed no trace of love or affection for Mary, a confrontation in which he looked scornful and furious and murderous. And that’s before Sherlock collapsed again. And yes, Sherlock tried to convince him that Mary was trustworthy, but John was incredulous about it.

So what would you do if you were in the hospital waiting for your best friend to wake up from surgery because your wife had shot him, your wife was completely unapologetic, and you had information she didn’t want you to have burning a hole in your pocket?

John read it. Nothing else makes sense.

The Manipulation by Mary Morstan

 (Sherlock Meta by welovethebeekeeper)

It struck me that from the beginning there was something fishy about Mary.



Mary pretends not to recognise Sherlock. Even if we look at Mary here without knowledge of her past as revealed later in HLV, Mary is not believable. Let’s say she is an ex assassin, running from that life, assuming a new identity as a nurse and just happens to fall for one of the doctors in the practice. She supports her new boyfriend through his grief from losing his best friend, even pays respect at said dead friends grave. Who amongst us would NOT have googled Sherlock Holmes? It’s what we do when we enter a new relationship, we have a need to know about that person. Especially an issue which is badly affecting our new partner. Plus we have the fact that dead best friend was famous. OK, wow, photos and news reports are available. It’s not like Sherlock is any run of the mill looking dude here; he is damn unique, you wouldn’t forget that face in a hurry. Plus there is innuendo concerning your new boyfriend and his dead best friend; hints of a gay romance, enough to put any new girlfriend’s gaydar into operation. Yet when dead best friend arrives as a waiter at your table one evening, and your boyfriend is having an emotional crisis on the other side of that table, you look at the waiter and don’t know who this is? We know Mary is a smart cookie, observant, and yet she struggles to recognise the man before her? Fishy.



Then Mary suprizingly takes Sherlock’s side in the ensueing fight between Sherlock and John. She is not outraged that her boyfriend has been duped, hurt, manipulated, oh no, Mary begins to support Sherlock. By the time we reach the kebab shop we have John feeling alone, with Mary and Sherlock in some weird union of sorts.



Mary is acting as if John is behaving outrageously, she is giving Sherlock signals that she is agreeing with him, lulling him into a sense of simpatico.

Outside the kebab shop Mary choses to remain with Sherlock while John goes to flag a cab. She offers Sherlock help in bringing John around and back to Sherlock. She KNOWS exactly how to work Sherlock.



And how to work John.



The next we see is Mary teasing John about meeting Sherlock again, in a way that is filled with some vague sexual tease. Mary sounds like she is talking to a girl friend here about seeing a guy that the friend is interested in. It is almost as if Mary is using the sexual tension John feels for Sherlock to move him as a chess piece on the board. Move him into position.



Mary easily outwits both these men and by the time we see her ensconced in 221B, she has won. She has both men exactly where she needs them to be, in fact Mary is relishing her role, flaunting her power of observation and manipulation. The scene is demeaning towards the men and disturbing in it’s blatant power dynamic; a third party has moved in to the world of Sherlock and John and utterly destroyed the very heart of who they are. No wonder we get the image of a ‘horned devil’ at scene end.



Finally the coup de grâce, the wedding. Mary keeps on twisting that knife into Sherlock’s heart, and is openly gleeful about the effect she is having on him. Sherlock tries to strike back, his best man’s speech is a triumph of a love letter to John, he undergoes a life changing self revelation in the midst of it, he summons John back to him in several ways, he almost pulls off a ‘hail Mary pass’. But then Mary brings out the big guns, her secret plan for a wedding gift to Sherlock; she allows Sherlock to deduce her pregnancy. Check mate.

Looking at Mary from a non-Johnlock perspective, I can admire her skill and planning, what I cannot see is a woman in love. It is only in HLV when her need for John surfaces that I finally see true emotion in the character. Her desperation to keep John and her fake life is Mary’s defining emotion, and it is selfish, reckless and rings very true. It is the only real emotion I believe we see from Mary in S3. Everything else reads as manipulation toward a goal, as CAM says she is a very clever, very bad girl. I can admire that from a distance. As a Johnlocker I just need John to start fighting, not Sherlock, John. Because by the end of HLV John knows he’s been played, John knows he made the wrong choice, John needs to sort this.

A few thoughts about a Mycroftian trope: 

Would Mycroft ever have kidnapped Greg Lestrade? 

 (Sherlock Meta by theopoiesis)

Mycroft. He kidnaps everybody. Snags people off the street, makes veiled (and not so veiled) threats, sends messages via ATM. He’s creepy and Orwellian and more powerful than most people probably understand.

I’ve read a fair few fics where Mycroft kidnaps Greg the first time he meets him. Here’s the thing: I don’t think he would.

I suspect that how Mycroft “meets” Sherlock’s associates is context-sensitive. Mycroft threatened, kidnapped, and attempted to bribe John to see how he would react. He wanted to know what kind of man John is, see what John would do, because John was going to be constantly in Sherlock’s company. Sherlock’s asking John if Mycroft had offered him money means he has probably done it before, with others who might have been thinking of rooming with Sherlock. Considering Mycroft’s position and Sherlock’s general attitude, Mycroft has probably done this with anyone who has tried to share rooms with his brother.

In such cases, it makes a twisted sort of sense. Anyone around Sherlock would have to be able to deal with weird things, with the unexpected, with threats and mysteries. Mycroft has always known this. If someone about to share a flat with Sherlock couldn’t handle a little creepy intimidation from Big Brother, there is no way they’d be able to cope with eyeballs in the microwave and severed heads in the fridge.

Talking to John via ATM after John had proven himself was, I suspect, as much Mycroft’s sense of humor as anything else, but people are watching John and Mycroft may not always want someone to know details. Anyone could be listening in to John’s mobile. Hacking the ATM would certainly allow for private communications.

My question is, would Mycroft ever have kidnapped Greg Lestrade? I don’t think so, and this is why:

I believe Mycroft would take Greg’s position as a police officer into consideration. He would approach Greg differently. You don’t just snag a cop off the street. You don’t threaten a cop. Someone like Greg would respond to a show of authority and to a request for a meeting to discuss Sherlock, considering that it has to do with his work. He’d probably expect questions from his supervisors or other higher-ups. Mycroft might have collected him in one of his black cars, but I don’t think any threats, veiled or otherwise, would have been used. There might have been some talk of Sherlock being under government surveillance and a request for Greg to cooperate. Mycroft may even have scheduled an appointment with Greg at NSY early on, for all we know.

The use of intimidation, threats, and bribery would put someone like Greg off entirely. Mycroft doesn’t need to know whether or not Greg is brave or reasonably loyal, because the man goes out to work every day in situations where someone might kill him. It’s what he does. Bribery would most likely result in an extremely negative reaction - not just a “shove your money up your ass” response but going to his superiors and reporting an attempt at bribing a police officer, which is pretty serious stuff.

To offer Greg a bribe would be to imply that he’s a bent cop, and I can’t see him responding to that in anything but the most negative manner possible. Threatening him would leave him ready to fight, and to bring his people in on it. It would attract far more attention than Mycroft would want. These things would shine light into the dark corners where Mycroft conducts most of his business. It would cause overreactions where a simple phone call or a quiet meeting would actually produce results.

Mycroft would know that. He’s a subtle manipulator, and he knows which tools to use with which people, and under what circumstances. Bribing a police officer would not be politic, and I’m sure he’d be aware if Greg had ever been susceptible to such things. Greg’s record would be easily available to him, and he would certainly have looked it up.

Add to that the fact that Greg is a professional contact, not a potential flatmate. He’d see Sherlock, but he wouldn’t be spending every day with him. He wouldn’t be living under the same roof. He wouldn’t have cause to be in nearly as close contact with Sherlock on a regular basis, and therefore would be a lower priority on Mycroft’s radar.

Mycroft might have kidnapped most of Sherlock’s potential flatmates, but I don’t think he’s ever had reason to do it to Greg.

Notes On Sherlock and Mycroft: Your loss would break my heart. 

 (Sherlock Meta by stephisanerd)

(Note: Spoilers for all of Series 3. This is a really long analysis–including admittedly copious quotes, it’s nearly 3,000 words. There are several thoughts that made it in, mostly contrasting John and Mycroft that aren’t really expanded on but I’m going to do it elsewhere, because this is reaching such an obscene length.)

The relationship between Sherlock and Mycroft has always been a little tense and snarky, and before this series, it was generally impossible to tell who was getting the best of who, when. You were never quite sure who was outwitting who, or even really, how much emotion was hiding beneath their interactions. It was often-times the comic relief, and we never had quite enough context to judge what was really going on. But then we got series three, and it not only provides the needed context and a completely different perspective of their interactions, it recolors all of their earlier interactions and makes you look at them in a different light.

For example, take this interaction from The Great Game:

SHERLOCK: How’s Sarah, John? How was the lilo?
MYCROFT: Sofa, Sherlock. It was the sofa.
SHERLOCK: Oh yes, of course.
JOHN: How …? Oh, never mind.

In the larger scene Mycroft is in 221B, attempting to get Sherlock to take a case. Sherlock is resistant, mostly to spite him, and on first watch, it plays as simple sibling rivalry. Sherlock doesn’t want to take the case to spite Mycroft, and there’s no mention of the fact that Mycroft has come by shortly after news broke that a group of flats opposite his on Baker Street had blown up.

In the context of this scene from The Empty Hearse, the thing reads a little differently.

MYCROFT: Don’t be smart.
SHERLOCK: That takes me back. “Don’t be smart, Sherlock. I’m the smart one.”
MYCROFT: I am the smart one.
SHERLOCK: I used to think I was an idiot. …
....
SHERLOCK: I’m just passing the time. Let’s do deductions.
SHERLOCK: Client left this while I was out. What d’you reckon?
MYCROFT: I’m busy.
SHERLOCK: Oh, go on. It’s been an age.
MYCROFT: I always win.
SHERLOCK: Which is why you can’t resist.

This gives their earlier interaction, one that originally just seemed to be simple bickering, more weight. Mycroft has out-deduced Sherlock, and again Sherlock is second best. As he always is. Series three draws into sharp focus the idea that Sherlock sees himself as inferior to his more powerful and smarter older brother. But notice, for all that Mycroft can deduce about the hat in The Empty Hearse, he misses the human element—he misses the possible isolation, something that Sherlock, notices immediately.

SHERLOCK: But you’ve missed his isolation.
MYCROFT: I don’t see it.
SHERLOCK: Plain as day.
MYCROFT: Where?
SHERLOCK: There for all to see.
…
SHERLOCK: Well, anybody who wears a hat as stupid as this isn’t in the habit of hanging around other people, is he?
MYCROFT: Not at all. Maybe he just doesn’t mind being different. He doesn’t necessarily have to be isolated.
SHERLOCK: Exactly.

MYCROFT: I’m sorry?
SHERLOCK: He’s different – so what? Why would he mind? You’re quite right. Why would anyone mind?
MYCROFT: … I’m not lonely, Sherlock.
SHERLOCK: How would you know?

But they’re speaking two different languages here- both seeing and not observing, neither hearing what the other is saying, and it continues to happen all series long. Maybe if they could have bridged that gap, it all could have ended differently. By the end of His Last Vow we, as the audience, are aware of two things–first, that Mycroft deeply cares for his younger brother, and wants to protect him and second, that Sherlock sees himself as lesser than his older brother, a disappointment to the man that he still very much wants to impress. Neither one of them understands how the other views him, and it is one of the smaller, understated everyday tragedies of a very human Sherlock Holmes.

MYCROFT: Anyway, you’re safe now.
SHERLOCK: Hmm.
MYCROFT: A small ‘thank you’ wouldn’t go amiss.
SHERLOCK: What for?
MYCROFT: For wading in. In case you’d forgotten, fieldwork is not my natural milieu.
SHERLOCK: “Wading in”? You sat there and watched me being beaten to a pulp.
MYCROFT: I got you out.
SHERLOCK: No –I got me out. Why didn’t you intervene sooner?
MYCROFT: Well, I couldn’t risk giving myself away, could I? It would have ruined everything.
SHERLOCK: You were enjoying it.
MYCROFT: Nonsense.

Notice here—though Mycroft is being a touch condescending, he really is relieved that Sherlock is safe now. Sherlock interprets the thing differently and immediately berates Mycroft for not wading in faster, believing that Mycroft was enjoying watching him get tortured. Mycroft can’t express his concern and relief in a way that Sherlock can understand. Sherlock is caught up in the idea that Mycroft had to rescue him (I got me out!) Different languages.

MRS HUDSON: Oh, isn’t it wonderful, Mr. Holmes?
MYCROFT: I can barely contain myself.
SHERLOCK: Oh, he really can, you know.
MRS HUDSON: He’s secretly pleased to see you underneath all that…
MYCROFT: Sorry – which of us?
MRS HUDSON: Both of you.

Mrs. Hudson is right, of course. But neither of them see it or comment on it.

By the beginning of His Last Vow, the gulf between their perspectives becomes even more clear. After Sherlock tests positive for drugs, he gets to 221B to discover that Mycroft is there, waiting.

MYCROFT: Well, then, Sherlock. Back on the sauce?
SHERLOCK: What are you doing here?
JOHN: I phoned him.
MYCROFT: The siren call of old habits. How very like Uncle Rudy – though, in many ways, cross-dressing would have been a wiser path for you.
SHERLOCK: You phoned him.
JOHN:’Course I bloody phoned him.
MYCROFT:’Course he bloody did. Now, save me a little time. Where should we be looking?
SHERLOCK: “We”?
ANDERSON’s VOICE (from upstairs): Mr. Holmes?
SHERLOCK (furiously): For God’s sake!
 …
MYCROFT: What have you found so far? Clearly nothing.
SHERLOCK: There’s nothing to find.
MYCROFT: Your bedroom door is shut. You haven’t been home all night. So, why would a man who has never knowingly closed the door without the direct orders of his mother bother to do so on this occasion?
SHERLOCK: Okay, stop! Just stop. Point made.
JOHN: Jesus, Sherlock.
MYCROFT: Have to phone our parents, of course, in Oklahoma. Won’t be the first time that your substance abuse has wreaked havoc with their line-dancing.

We find out that what Sherlock had in his bedroom wasn’t really drugs, and we also recognize eventually that Sherlock’s behavior is at least partially explained by his attempts to convince Magnussen that he has a drug habit (A fact that Mycroft reacts to with some alarm.) However, this scene plays out entirely from Sherlock’s perspective—he’s frustrated, angry, and defensive. He reacts badly to the intervention, in a way that is very true to real life, as anyone who has been confronted by concerned friends and family about self-destructive behavior could tell you.* He sees the disappointment, the anger, the frustrated ‘oh-here-we-go-again-with-you-fucking-up’, but he misses the concern that is beneath it all. Compare the above scene to the one from A Scandal in Belgravia below from John’s perspective.

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.
JOHN: I’ve got plans.
MYCROFT: No.

We see the deep concern that both Mycroft and John have over even the possibility that Sherlock may be in danger of using again, something they want to prevent. But Sherlock misses it there, as he does in His Last Vow. Magnussen, when he reveals to Sherlock that he is Mycroft’s pressure point puts it like this “Mycroft’s pressure point is his junkie detective brother, Sherlock.” He reinforces the idea to Sherlock that Mycroft sees him as a junkie, his screw-up younger brother, and again, though we know differently, Sherlock does not. 

But it’s not just Sherlock that’s missing something obvious here. Mycroft, with his tendency to miss human emotions, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care how Sherlock believes Mycroft views him.

During The Sign of Three, when Sherlock is attempting to figure out who the murderer present at the wedding is, we get a different look at his mind palace than we have before, and it is clear that Mycroft—his smarter older brother, the voice of reason and intelligence that Sherlock holds so dear, looms large. He literally hold court in Sherlock’s head, helping him reason out the correct answer.

MYCROFT (disapprovingly, offscreen): Oh, Sherlock.
MYCROFT: What do we say about coincidence?
SHERLOCK: The universe is rarely so lazy.
MYCROFT: So, the balance of probability is …?
SHERLOCK: Someone went to great lengths to find out something about this wedding.
MYCROFT: What great lengths?

But it’s not the solution that Sherlock wants or needs. In the end, Sherlock chooses the human connection—saving the life. Mycroft has always encouraged him to stay unattached and uninvolved, and even mocks him for his clear involvement when Sherlock calls him at the reception. Sherlock chooses John over Mycroft here, in what could be an interesting bit of foreshadowing of His Last Vow. 

Aside from being a figure that Sherlock looks up to, it’s also clear that also Mycroft acts in a different capacity in Sherlock’s mind. After Sherlock has been shot, and he is trying to reason out how to save his own life, the following scene plays out in Sherlock’s mind-palace.

MYCROFT (offscreen): Oh, for God’s sake, Sherlock.
MYCROFT: It doesn’t matter about the gun. Don’t be stupid.
MYCROFT: You always were so stupid. (Sherlock continues towards him, but now he’s a young boy – about eleven years old – and wearing dark trousers and a shirt with a buttoned dark green cardigan over it. He walks slowly towards his big brother.) 
MYCROFT: Such a disappointment.
YOUNG SHERLOCK (angrily): I’m not stupid.
MYCROFT (sternly): You’re a very stupid little boy. (He stands up and walks around the table.) 
MYCROFT: Mummy and Daddy are very cross … (He reaches the other side of the table and leans against it.) 
MYCROFT: … because it doesn’t matter about the gun.

In his own head, Sherlock is a small child that his adult brother is berating for being a disappointment. It works—Sherlock does come to the correct solution—the mirror behind him didn’t shatter, so the bullet is still inside of him, but one can’t help but wonder how often Sherlock feels like this when interacting with Mycroft. How many of their interactions over the course of the series have played out like this in Sherlock’s head? How often does Sherlock feel like he is simply a disappointment to his brother?**

As the plot of His Last Vow moves forward, Sherlock continues working his scheme to get the best of Magnussen. As the plan is set in motion, though the audience doesn’t quite know what it is yet, this exchange happens:

MYCROFT: I have, by the way, a job offer I should like you to decline.
SHERLOCK: I decline your kind offer.
MYCROFT: I shall pass on your regrets.
SHERLOCK: What was it?
MYCROFT: MI6 – they want to place you back into Eastern Europe. An undercover assignment that would prove fatal to you in, I think, about six months.
SHERLOCK: Then why don’t you want me to take it?
MYCROFT: It’s tempting … but on balance you have more utility closer to home.
SHERLOCK: Utility! How do I have utility?
MYCROFT: “Here be dragons.”
…
 MYCROFT (without turning around): Also, your loss would break my heart.
SHERLOCK: What the hell am I supposed to say to that?!
MYCROFT: “Merry Christmas”?
SHERLOCK: You hate Christmas.
MYCROFT (pretending to look puzzled): Yes. Perhaps there was something in the punch.
SHERLOCK: Clearly. Go and have some more.

Sherlock accepts that Mycroft wants him here because he’s useful, albeit maybe slightly bitterly, but he doesn’t have any idea what to say to the implication that he means something to Mycroft beyond his ability to do legwork as Mycroft so often calls it. Sherlock often underestimates how much he means to those around him, and he does so here, again.*** Mycroft doesn’t spell it out for him, and lets it drop.

The audience finds out pretty soon after that there is, in fact, something in the punch, as Sherlock needs to knock everyone out in order to put his plan in motion—he’s taking Mycroft’s laptop in an effort to trade it for all of the information Magnussen has on Mary. And Mycroft appears to be completely aware that it’s going to happen. I agree completely with the interpretation of the scene found here (X)–Mycroft isn’t ignorant of the fact that Sherlock has drugged the punch—Mycroft could probably deduce why Billy was there in an instant. He’s letting him do it, and Sherlock is telling him here that he has a plan, that there’s an end-game. So Mycroft doesn’t stop him, and Sherlock takes the laptop.

And then the plan falls apart.

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. Mycroft has been looking for this opportunity for a long time. He’ll be a very, very proud big brother. 

We find out that Sherlock has grossly underestimated Magnussen, and that the vaults were only ever in his head. Mycroft isn’t going to be a proud big brother, after all. He’s going to be very, very disappointed. He’s going to have a huge mess to clean up. But note this, it would have been salvageable, at least as far as John and Sherlock’s immediate futures. The whole 'trying to sell state secrets’ thing would have blown over. It wouldn’t have stopped Magnussen from going after Mary, John Sherlock, and Mycroft though, and so, as the plan comes crashing down around Sherlock’s head, he makes his choice. He kills Magnussen, to save John. He does everything Mycroft has always warned him against—he’s emotional, involved, and his actions are not logical or reasonable.**** He throws the gun down, and raises his hands and falls to his knees in front of the helicopter, (much like he ended up on his knees in The Empty Hearse, begging forgiveness from John) Who knows what the hell he’s thinking in that moment, but he has to be painfully aware of how bad he’s messed it all up for Mycroft. He’s the junkie detective younger brother who wasn’t smart enough to figure it out, who was too involved and missed the obvious. He has gone too far, and made an irrevocable choice, one that cannot be fixed or swept under the rug. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that in that moment, he believes himself to be unworthy, and a deep disappointment.

But as the camera changes, we begin to recognize that’s not how Mycroft sees it. Mycroft frantically tells his men not to fire at Sherlock, and then removes his headset, before quietly whispering “Oh, Sherlock, what have you done?” For once, he doesn’t sound condescending or even disappointed. He’s devastated. “Can’t handle a broken heart, how very telling.” “Your loss would break my heart.” The camera angle changes again, and Mycroft is staring down, not at his adult brother, but the childhood version, who is standing there, hands raised and tears streaming down his cheeks, terrified. This is what he sees, probably what he always sees, and Sherlock has no idea.

There is no stopping the fallout. Mycroft arranges to send Sherlock off on a suicide mission to Eastern Europe, and Sherlock prepares to go, accepting it as his due.

SHERLOCK: The game is never over, John but there may be some new players now. It’s okay. The East Wind takes us all in the end.
JOHN: What’s that?
SHERLOCK: It’s a story my brother told me when we were kids. The East Wind – this terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path.
SHERLOCK: It seeks out the unworthy and plucks them from the Earth. That was generally me.
JOHN: Nice.
SHERLOCK: He was a rubbish big brother.

While doubling as a neat canon reference, it’s also a callback to something that Mycroft said in Sherlock’s mind-palace earlier in the episode when he was dying. “The East Wind is coming, Sherlock. It’s coming to get you.” Is Sherlock really joking as much as he appears to be, or does he really believe himself to be unworthy? I’d be willing to argue that he, at least, believes that Mycroft sees him as unworthy.

Notice, from his perspective, he sees his older brother sending him to a death that he believes is his due. He still doesn’t see the rest of it—your loss would break my heart. Oh Sherlock, what have you done? 

And Mycroft, cold and logical, misses what he has missed all along—that Sherlock is desperate to please him, that he believes himself to be a disappointment. He doesn’t allow him to be emotional about what has happened—I’m not given to outburst of brotherly compassion, he comments. He coldly refers to his brother as a murderer. He does not offer understanding or forgiveness.

And like it does in so many other places in this episode, in the end, all the things that really matter are left unsaid. Sherlock boards the plane and flies away. And then—there’s a video, a voice, an emergency and a phone call. Sherlock suddenly has utility. Here be dragons. It’s not much, it’s not enough, but it’s a chance.

—

Note: All quotes taken from here, with thanks.

*A fact that convinces me that for all that Sherlock was doing this for a case, there was at least an element of self-destruction here, deliberate or otherwise. Also, having had friends stage interventions about my occasionally poor mental-health, I can tell you that this scene was PAINFUL to watch in it’s accuracy. The perceived disappointment, the anger, the lashing out. It’s clear watching it that this isn’t the first time Mycroft and Sherlock have had this particular confrontation.

**I’m not including it, because this is more than long enough and there are about 50,000 other things from that scene that I’d want to touch on, and really it just needs its own post, but go watch the climax of A Scandal in Belgravia again. Ouch.

***Yeah, that also needs to be a separate post—but as an example, Sherlock obviously underestimates what he means to John, but John eventually spells it all out for Sherlock in a way that Mycroft doesn’t here.

****I’m pretty sure that Mycroft would never consider any sort of self-sacrifice to be logical or reasonable.