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possiblyimbiassed · 4 years

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John’s “therapeutic” blog

I’ve been fascinated by the wealth of content in John Watson’s blog since I first noticed it; I think it was some time after S2. For being a complementary work to a TV show, it’s surprisingly well crafted and packed with information. Joe Lidster, who has written the fictional blogs and websites of John, Sherlock, Molly and Connie Prince, is a screenwriter who has been working also with Doctor Who and its spinoff Torchwood.

Unlike the rest of the content within the BBC Sherlock franchise, for example the online game ”Sherlock the Network”, the escape room “The Game is Now” or the book “Sherlock Chronicles”, John’s blog is fully available online for free, you don’t even have to register anywhere. And unlike the other blogs of the franchise (Molly’s and Connie Prince’s blogs and Sherlock’s website), John’s blog is lengthy and has a lot of posts in it. It gives us background and explanations of cases that aren’t mentioned in the show, or only referred to, and I also think it provides a “second opinion” of what we see in the show. It’s a bit like what John says in TLD:

It certainly seems like this blog has been created as a special little treat for the fans, since most of the casual viewers of the show probably don’t even know it exists ‘IRL’. But I think the blog is much more than that; partly because it’s so heavily referenced in the show – with frequent, accurate and exact pictures of it (at least until S4) – and partly because it tells us so much about John’s character. I think John’s blog is significant and important in trying to analyse BBC Sherlock. And maybe the version of John we see in the show will actually get more nuances to it if we look at the blog, which is expressly written by John himself?

More under the cut.

As some of you might know, I’ve written a meta series (X) where I try to explore the idea (originally from @raggedyblue) that the blog describes the ‘real’ events in John’s and Sherlock’s life more accurately than the show, and that what we see in the show up until HLV is Sherlock reminiscing their life together while reading up on the blog. In my view, the show might be Sherlock’s embellished and dramatized version of the events - ironically a bit similar to what Sherlock usually accuses John of doing in both Doyle’s canon and on the blog. But I find the blog’s writing style far more prosaic than the show, and also more prosaic than Watson’s stories in ACD canon; in BBC Sherlock the roles might have been inverted compared to canon.

An example of this would be the scene in TEH (which I talked about in this meta over a year ago) where Mary is (supposedly) reading the following un-published post directly from John’s blog editor:

“His movements were so silent. So furtive, he reminded me of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent. I couldn’t help thinking what an amazing criminal he’d make if he turned his talents against the law.”

Something doesn’t seem quite right here, though. While the rest of the post is text from another, already published, post (The Speckled Blond), this first part is taken almost verbatim from ACD’s story The Sign of Four (SIGN). It describes a crime scene where Holmes has just “whipped out his lens and a tape measure and hurried about the room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches from the planks and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird”. I see a big style difference between this and the rest of John’s blog. Since the quote above never appears on the ‘IRL’ blog, I’d rather believe that in BBC Sherlock this is merely wishful thinking from Sherlock that happens inside his Drama Queen Mind Palace. This impressive description is, I think, what he would truly wish that John had written. ;)

I also suspect that the continuing references to different blog posts in S4 are all made up in Sherlock’s mind, since John’s blog ‘IRL’ stopped updating after TSoT, when Sherlock hacked it and took over the storytelling.

Be that as it may, this meta is a reflection upon what John Watson’s famous blog actually might stand for, and what I believe it tells us about his character. In these months of quarantine, I’ve been passing the time by reading through the whole online version of the blog and taking notes of it.

Therapeutic origin

It seems like the initiative for John to start a blog came from Ella Thompson, his therapist. I believe Ella’s initial idea was therapeutic; if it was almost impossible for John to talk to her about his feelings and inner problems in their sessions, she might have found it difficult to help him. Therefore she suggested that he write it all down on his own instead. And if Ella could persuade him to talk about his life on an online blog, she would also be able to read it.

Of course this wouldn’t be the same as if John told her about his inner reflections in confidence, in a real therapy session, but maybe the blog would give him an incentive to talk about his life at all. And you have to start somewhere.

At the end of TST we see Sherlock visit Ella, but when she asks him to “open up completely” he refuses.

If S4 is happening inside Sherlock’s head (as I believe it is), this might have been Sherlock’s way of trying to psychoanalyse John, to ‘solve John’s case’, by envisioning the therapy situation in his mind palace. A well-known method of Sherlock Holmes is that he tries to put himself in the other person’s place and think about what his own response would have been to the situation. In ACD’s story The Musgrave Ritual (MUSG), Holmes says: “You know my methods in such cases, Watson. I put myself in the man’s place, and, having first gauged his intelligence, I try to imagine how I should myself have proceeded under the same circumstances.”

Which is also evidence that the character of Sherlock Holmes does indeed not lack empathetic capacity. Also in the show, John’s assertion that Sherlock “doesn’t feel things that way” etc. is basically BS in my opinion. The problem is that John refuses to see this.

John’s state of mind before Sherlock

John’s first three blog posts (in the middle of December - January) seem to completely lack motivation.

And this is maybe what one could expect from the deeply depressed John (as he appears in the beginning of the show), isn’t it? No surprises there.

Everything seems meaningless, and John only makes two attempts at blog posts to comply with Ella’s recommendations, but he doesn’t actually write anything in them. After the second attempt his old army friend Bill Murray tries to contact him, but John seems to have cut off his ties with the rest of the world; he doesn’t answer the comment.

At the third attempt over a month later, John seems to want to delete the blog he has started, but lacks the technical knowledge to do so. The fourth attempt is just a snide comment to Ella:

She doesn’t respond, however (not very surprisingly perhaps). Instead, John’s sister Harry discovers the blog and tries out this means of communicating with him. But John ignores her.

But at the fifth attempt at least John has gone out with some friends and describes it – almost bitterly. Sadly, it also seems like John met up with them mainly to avoid his therapy session with Ella.

So, the problem is that whatever Ella may have thought that the blog would mean for John’s healing, I think she aimed well but unfortunately missed the target. John Watson does not ‘open up’ himself on the blog. When he finally starts to really write - after he met Sherlock - it’s not actually about him (supposedly); it’s all about Sherlock. Basically, John goes directly from ‘Nothing happens to me‘ to ‘Sherlock happens to me‘.

What the blog tells us about John ‘after Sherlock’

John’s blog may be all about Sherlock, but there isn’t actually that much praise for Sherlock in the blog posts as one might think. My impression is that John applies his (perhaps somewhat overestimated) writing skills to project his own failures and self-loathing on his closest friend. More than anything else, I think the blog is John’s emotional outlet for his frustration over his unsatisfactory relationship with Sherlock and his own inability to improve it. Instead of trying to actually talk to Sherlock, he uses the blog to vent his frustrations over Sherlock, speculating wildly about what he believes Sherlock is thinking and feeling.

The stories and adventures are thrilling and entertaining, yes. But his assessments of Sherlock’s character are really not very uplifting. John doesn’t strike me as an ‘analytic’ person, which in this case means that John’s theories about Sherlock are rather based on his personal emotions than logical conclusions. It’s sometimes even a bit difficult to follow the chain of events in John’s posts, because it’s usually so intertwined with his gossipy and out-of-context comments about Sherlock’s personality.

Unfortunately, Sherlock doesn’t seem to realise this projection, and neither do we see him address the issue of John’s misconceptions about him. I believe Sherlock takes many of John’s jibes and insults at him at face value, which – sadly - only adds on to his own self-loathing. I also think that Sherlock trying to draw conclusions about his mysterious friend through the written blog might be a mistake; it may eventually tell him a lot about John’s problems, but to see these he needs to look behind all the cover-up of blatant criticism of him, Sherlock. Maybe that’s what Sherlock’s trying to do in S4, by setting up scenarios in his mind palace?

Judging by how John comes across on the blog – and in the show – I think Sherlock’s claim “You’re abnormally drawn to dangerous people and places” in HLV is a perfectly sound analysis - on the surface. However, I think one must read between the blog lines in order to see other possible motives for John wanting to hang out with Sherlock. Reading John’s posts textually, he gives a strong impression that he’s there for the adventures; when there is danger in the air, John’s never bored.

In the comment section Sherlock never mentions John’s evaluation of his character. Instead he repeatedly criticises John’s writing style. I get the impression that this is Sherlock’s subtle way of getting back at John without having to directly address John’s misconceptions about him. As I said above, I think John’s writing style is very different from Watson’s style in canon; far less respect for Sherlock and a far more prosaic and simple language. Canons Watson seems careful not to speculate much, while John does this all the time.

Examples that form a pattern

There’s a good deal of praise of Sherlock in John’s posts, but it has almost exclusively to do with his admiration for Sherlock’s intellectual capacity; he’s repeatedly described as ‘clever’ and after the Fall, John claims that “nobody ever really outwitted Sherlock”. But in fact, I’ve found very few blog posts where John doesn’t also criticise or complain about Sherlock in some way or another. And there are only two posts (out of a total of 45) where John says something positive about Sherlock’s character:

1. After their first meeting he calls Sherlock “strangely likeable” and “charming”.

2. In what John meant to be his last post ever (he believed Sherlock was dead), he calls Sherlock “funny”, “charming” and “everything a good person should be”.

On the other hand, there seems to be nothing in John’s own (supposed) opinions about Sherlock that he regards as too negative or inappropriate to publish online. I very much think this is about self-loathing; he projects his own shortcomings on his “psychopath” friend and flatmate. Like it’s always a relief to have a scapegoat. An additional explanation might be that if John is closeted and in public denial about any romantic feelings for Sherlock, this makes him not want to appear too ‘besotted’ on the blog. ;) Thus, he might believe he needs to compensate the praise with criticism. Problem is, with this contradictory approach the readers might ask: What is John’s actual relationship to Sherlock? Handler? Hostage? Lover? Concerned citizen? It’s hard to claim he’s a ‘real’, professional colleague, since John’s actual profession is a medical doctor. But why would John be friends with a psychopath?

To seriously claim that his best friend is a psychopath seems perfectly OK to John, though – he does it repeatedly, and quotes Donovan’s claim that Sherlock “gets off on it”. At the end of A Study in Pink, John talks about Sherlock and the serial killer as if they were both psychopaths, one undistinguishable from the other:

“The taxi driver drove him to a college of further education so they could both educate each other on - well, on how their minds worked, I guess. It's not something I'll ever really understand and, to be honest, I'm not sure I ever want to understand it. To be that much of a psychopath. To be that above the rest of us.”

John even seems to pretend to prefer ignorance to understanding, only to find one more opportunity to blame Sherlock. Here are some examples of other things John calls Sherlock publicly on the Internet:

Arrogant

Rude

Imperious

Pompous

Madman

Freak

Childish and

Not safe.

He also says on the blog that Sherlock is spectacularly ignorant about some things, like the solar system.

Little Freudian slips

In the post titled The Speckled Blonde

(which is basically a re-count of canon’s The Speckled Band - SPEC) John’s closet angst reaches new heights:

Apparently John finds it important to preventively point out to his readers that he was not sharing a bed with Sherlock. Or, actually, that he even preferred sleeping on the floor before sharing a bed with his flatmate. The thing is, however, that the information that they spent the night in Julias bedroom isn’t at all necessary for the story, since - unlike in ACD Canon - nothing of importance apparently happened during that night. John actually tells us nothing about the night as such. The only ‘feature of interest’ is that Sherlock found a suspect bottle of bubble bath on the victim’s night table, which he took to Barts for analysis (and he was right - the bath had killed Julia by poisoning). Obviously, John could have described this crime scene investigation entirely without mentioning that they had spent the night there. So, if this little morsel of information was so embarrassing for him, why did he even include it? Hmm...

In my biased mind, I can only think of two alternative explanations (not mutually exclusive, though): 1. John had spent so much fantasies and subconscious energy on reliving this night that he just couldn’t keep this info entirely to himself (Freudian slip), or 2. Something actually happened that night - something that had no bearing on the case. After all, John never says that he slept on the floor, only that he was going to sleep on it. ;)

Speaking of bubble bath, I find the fact that Julia died from it slightly suggestive, and even metaphorical, as such. Because there’s also another case on John’s blog describing someone dying in a bath: The Deadly Tealights. The victim suffocated in a bathroom where the candles consumed all the oxygen. John has included this little comment:

Why does John bring up the idea that a person taking a bath with candles would potentially be judged? What has his own bath routines to do with the crime case? Does the victim really need John to find excuses for his private life? Methinks this rather might be John’s closet angst speaking again. Someone has tried to belittle John for liking baths, and apparently John seizes the opportunity to vent about it on the blog. Metaphorically, this tells me that the closet is suffocating for John, and that the ‘chemistry of love’ is involved.

John - The Moral Compass

John is often referred to as the part of the duo who a) is more sociable and b) works like a sort of moral guide to Sherlock. The detective, on the other hand, is shown as a “sociopath” who supposedly doesn’t understand this kind of things. And – to be honest – Sherlock doesn’t actively say much to contradict this perception; sometimes he even appears to agree with it.

(I think his actions should be a clue to the contrary, though).

According to the blog, John seems to believe he himself is the adult one in this acquaintance, the one who does understand the rules of society. He repeatedly calls Sherlock “childish”. Judging by John’s descriptions in the blog, one might almost think that John had been forced to hang out with Sherlock, trying to do the best of it. But seeing as it’s entirely voluntarily it’s a bit hard to understand, for example, how John can blame Sherlock for “leaving me and Sarah to be kidnapped” in The Blind Banker:

John makes is sound like Sherlock left them to the enemy deliberately, knowing that someone would come after them. But weren’t they at home, supposedly on a date? If John didn’t like it, couldn’t he have left any moment and gone out to continue the date he was supposed to? But no; John counts himself among the innocent persons whom Sherlock “involves in his adventures”:

After reading the whole of John’s blog, all I can say is that this guy is a living, breathing contradiction. How can he be Sherlock’s moral compass if his needle is spinning all the time? :))

In The Great Game John describes himself as just a “pawn” in Sherlock’s and the killer’s great game, equalling himself with the other victims. With his insinuations, he indirectly blames Sherlock for the death of 12 people and goes back to Sally Donovan’s “freak” accusations:

Another interesting bit is this, describing Sherlock’s reaction at the pool, when John for a moment appeared to be behind everything: “I should have been horrified that he'd even doubt me for a second…” Wait – what!? John is capable of telling the whole world the most damning rubbish about his friend, but if Sherlock for any second doubted John, he’d be horrified? This part is also of interest: “But the laser sight simply moved to Sherlock's head and I was forced to let go. For a second, I wondered if Sherlock would have done the same for me but then all I knew for certain was, at that moment, I knew I was going to die.”

Before that, John had just described what could easily be interpreted as Sherlock calmly trying to talk Moriarty out of having John killed, but to John this was just “The two men talked, both clearly pleased to…”. In John’s view, he was the only one who was forced to let go of the killer because of the threat to Sherlock. Honestly, who is it, between the two of them, that most appears to lack empathetic capacity?

Creds and Competence

John appears to be a rather honest, humble and straightforward in the show, quite competent in his medical profession, and in TSoT he is highly praised by Sherlock:

But on the blog John is more ambiguous, and he isn’t always modest. Sometimes he appears to enhance his own role in the crime solving and take credit also for things that are clearly Sherlock’s doing. For example, in The Great Game there’s this:

“Between us, we worked out that while Connie's death had been made to look like the result of a tetanus infection, it had actually been caused by poison - their houseboy, â–“â–“â–“â–“â–“, had overdosed her on Botox!”

But if we’re supposed to believe the show, John actually believed it was a tetanus infection, while Sherlock deduced and later demonstrated poison:

John also expresses a slightly childish vindictiveness in making a lot of fuss about Sherlock’s failures; every single time Sherlock can’t solve a case, John points it out on the blog with glee. It almost gives me the impression that the doctor is suffering from inferiority complex. He even uses “Sherlock Holmes Baffled“ as a title for one of their cases.

This seems to be written in jest, since Sherlock frequently is rude about other people’s lower intellectual capacity, but actually hates ‘not knowing’.

I admit that this may be funny to joke about once, but it gets a little tiresome that John has to point it out every time. Why does John even do this, even as Sherlock has explicitly asked him to not publish the unsolved cases? Which I assume would not be good for their business?

If John truly is Sherlock’s colleague, wouldn’t he also be more interested in helping to solve the cases, rather than talk about the failures? It seems to me that John is struggling so hard against his own feelings for Sherlock that he feels the need to provoke rather than help him.

The Most Inhuman Human

Sherlock’s supposed lack of humanity is a recurring theme for John; he claims that “people” want to know that Sherlock is human, as if anyone - on the blog or in the show - except John had ever questioned this.

I can’t remember anyone on the blog except John showing an interest in this issue, though. In the post Many Happy Returns he writes this (my bolding):

“Yet the video... it showed the other side to him. He was rude, yeah. Arrogant. Apparently lacking in anything resembling empathy. But I'd forgotten just how funny he could be. He was so charming. So... human. It's bizarre because most people would say he was the most inhuman person they'd ever met. But he wasn't.”

He wasn’t? Wow - great revelation, John! [sarcasm :)]. But who said that, actually? Not even the haters and trolls on John’s blog ever claimed Sherlock was inhuman. It’s one thing that Donovan and Anderson called him a freak and a psychopath, but John is the only character I can think of who has ever implied that Sherlock would not be a human being. Only John calls him a ‘machine’. Which is a load of BS of course; John really doesn’t strike me as a professional doctor when he says this, even less as a friend - always trying to mark the distance.

So what’s Sherlock’s ‘complete lack of empathy’ in that video actually about (mini-episode here)? Was it because he didn’t want to go to a birthday dinner with people? Hardly - John seems to understand this about Sherlock. Or was it maybe because of his comment: “How can John be having a birthday dinner? All his friends hate him!” Well, this probably hurt a bit (even if I rather think he sounds bitter and jealous - he wants John for himself ;) ). On the other hand, Sherlock then backtracks and seems to regret his little outburst:

Mary’s role in John’s life

The blog is where Mary Morstan appears to be introduced to John; on John’s first blog post about at least a year after Sherlock’s ‘death’, she suddenly just shows up in the comment section, sending him kisses and inviting him out:

John ignores her, though, and when his sister asks him who Mary is, he doesn’t answer. Mary seems to hang in there, however, and the next time she appears is on the Deadly Tealights post (the one with the dead flatmate in the suffocating closet bathroom). And now she’s called Mary Morstan. Next time is The Inexplicable Matchbox. Both times her only comment is ‘ignore the trolls’. John rather seems to ignore her, though. Finally, he finishes his Many Happy Returns post (which was supposed to be his last) with saying that he has now “found someone” (without naming them) and should concentrate on that.

All this is a little bit weird, though, considering Mary’s comment in TEH, when she is logged in and reading aloud from the editor of John’s blog: “The famous blog, finally!” As if she hadn’t already read all his posts and tried to interact with him on the blog? Hmm.

In the show Mary just seems to come from out of nowhere, suddenly showing up in the graveyard holding hands with John.

Her anonymity reminds me of Doyle’s treatment of Mary in canon, where she’s only mentioned by name when she’s still a client, before she marries Watson.

On the blog Mary is not mentioned by name until over a year after John met her, in spite of her presence in the comment section long before that. And it’s not until John’s first post after Sherlock’s return - The Empty Hearse - that John says something appreciative of her. Suddenly she is (still without name) "...the best thing that's ever happened to me. Sorry, Sherlock :)”. For the rest of the blog posts, John’s (very scarce) answers to Mary’s comments are never flirty or appreciative in the least. Mary’s own last comment, on the very last post - this time written by Sherlock who hacked the blog after John’s and Mary’s wedding - is this: “SHERLOCK! SHUT UP NOW!”

None of this gives me the impression that John has fallen in love with Mary. The silence with which he treats Mary on the blog rather makes me think of her as someone basically not very important; a sort of substitute in a desperate attempt to fill an emptiness in his life. And I think it might be significant that as soon as John recognises the existence of Mary in his life, he seems to use her as a sort of buffer towards Sherlock. A façade. First it’s the gleeful “Sorry Sherlock :)” comment above. Vindictive, it appears. And then, in the post Happily Ever After, John insists that his and Mary’s impending (heterosexual) marriage must clearly be the reason why Sherlock chose to help a gay couple getting together, one of them leaving an abusive marriage which was basically a façade. This whole ‘conclusion’ is so stupid that I’m rendered speechless.

Summary

To summarise - for those of you with enough patience to have followed all my ramblings in this marathon meta - I think the picture of John’s character that we can discern from reading up on the whole of his blog possibly tells us even more about him than the show. If the show reflects Sherlock’s mind, albeit almost entirely focused on his own perception of John Watson, this blog might actually give more insight into how John’s own mind works. I think it shows us someone who is struggling desperately with his own feelings. Someone who is trying to mark a distance that he believes is healthy for him, but that he actually doesn’t want, towards the object of his affection, by criticising them. The full-fledged, living, breathing contradiction that is John Watson comes to its full right by the blog. We could almost say he’s ‘human’ :). Kudos to Joe Lidster and the other showmakers for providing us with this gem.

Tagging some people who might be interested: @raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sagestreet @sarahthecoat @tjlcisthenewsexy @elldotsee @88thparallel @sherlock-overflow-error @yeah-oh-shit

#John's blog is important #John's blogging is his therapy

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that-sweet-little-posh-thing · 7 years

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Sherlock S4: A Study in Failure

I saw a lot of people in here making their own lists of all the inconsistencies of TFP, so I decided to make my own and to cover not only the final episode but also to take a look at everything since TST. Also I included some stuff from panels & interviews but didn’t mention anything about setlock, otherwise this list would be much longer. I tried to make it as detailed as possible so be prepared for 2.5k words. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

Things we were promised to get: 1.”Every clue and red herring will be paid off” 2. “Making TV history” 3. “Insane wish fulfillment” 4. “Groundbreaking” 5. “Shattering climax” 6. Culmination of everything TPTB have been working on for six (6) years. 7. “Everybody got it wrong – we want to get it right” 8. “They were made for each other” 9. “Love conquers all” 10. “Sherlock Holmes is in love – but who with?” I’m sure there are loads more, these are the ones I recall. What we’ve actually got: TST 1. Mary’s death has an only explanation – a story about an appointment with Death. 2. Somehow everyone knows this story even though it’s not that popular for practically everyone to not only know it, but even to QUOTE . 3. Why make Mary a villain in HLV and then give her a redemption arc in TST? 4. The outstanding transition from dangerous assassin to exemplary mother and vice versa throughout whole episode. 5. John’s blog is a jpg. picture, but he somehow manages to post there a heartwarming story about fatherhood even though the child isn’t born yet. 6. John and Mary have an ability to grow their hair at a horrifying speed in a few days, that’s the only reasonable explanation of their haircuts changes. 7. The whole TST case has already taken place in the past – still no one mentions this fact experiencing massive amnesia. 8. “It’s never twins” – never addressed or resolved. 9. THE SCULL which sometimes glows like a Christmas tree and sometimes turns into Malevich’s Black Square. (and it’s completely different from the one that is present in s3) 10. What was the point of Eurus flirting and sexting with John? 11. Charlie Welsborough dying under the fake car seat (no comments). 12. Water dream sequence for some reason trigged by Margaret Thatcher. 13. One of the plaster busts Ajay was looking for is conveniently owned by Welsborough family. (this happens in the same show which claims that universe is rarely lazy to create coincidences). 14. Mycroft knows about every single one of crimes Moriarty was involved in but never tries to arrest him. 15. Why introduce a new character (DI Hopkins) for a scene a few minutes long? 16. That odd words exchange about devil and Antichrist repeated twice. About their own baby. We need context. 17. By the time 4 out of 5 plaster busts are smashed the police should have known that a criminal would target the last one that remains left – still no one bothers to lay an ambush near the house. 18. Mycroft has worked with AGRA and certainly known who Mary really is – but doesn’t reveal anything neither to Sherlock, nor to John. 19. Fucking camera man in the shot. 20. Someone points at John with a laser aiming rifle– but Ajay makes an appearance with usual gun. 21. Mary catching a bullet: - before she actually catches it a bullet makes a half way to its destination, leaving no possibility to do anything in milliseconds. - Mary’s ‘getting shot’ scene happens exactly like it CAN’T happen in real life (which was explicitly explained in HLV) 22. John does nothing to help Mary apart from shashing her. 23. Mary’s death scene - ??? 24. What reccuring dream does Ella talk about? 25. The note stuck to Mycroft’s fridge – “13th” – never addressed. 26. Ella’s room making no sense. 27. Mary calling Sherlock “dragon slayer”. 28. WHAT WAS IN JOHN’S LETTER??? 29. Mycroft saying ‘”There’s no place we can keep Sherlock Holmes in without having a riot on the everyday basis” – did he forget about Sherrinford that’s specifically built for “uncontainables”? TLD: 30. What was the point of Eurus becoming John’s therapist? She’s written as a character who’s incapable of human emotions but still she doesn’t fail to perform a therapist session? 31. Where did she take money to buy clothes/wigs/contacts? 32. Why did she shoot John with tranquilizer from an ordinary gun? 33. What friends does Rosie stay with the whole season? Considering the fact that all John’s friends hate him even I become a bit worried about her. 33. Why attract so much attention to TD-12 and then never use it again? 34. Why did Culverton keep that note and even give it to Eurus? 35. What mutual friend put them in touch? She’s been kept in Sherrinford for her whole life and Moriarty is already dead at that point. 36. How did Eurus know that Culverton said exactly one word/ not a name – she wasn’t participating in that meeting? 37. Sherlock can deduce what circumstances the note was kept in but can’t tell the difference between the woman in front of him and the woman on the photo. 38. What if the window opposite kitchen note board would have blinds? 39. Why does the word “anyone” trigger memories about Redbeard? 40. Why is John surprised that Sherlock’s on Twitter when he was using it constantly in TST? 41.How did Sherlock steal Culverton’s phone when there were more than 10 people directly looking at them? I’m afraid to assume what pocket the phone was in. 42. Nobody knows that it’s actually John’s blog. 43. John beating Sherlock to a pulp – what the hell was that??? 44. John knows that Smith’s favorite room is a mortuary, he hears Culverton saying that he might move Sherlock to his favorite room – but ignores it completely??? 45. Police officer visibly tries to enter a ward, he makes quite a bit of noise – no doubt Culverton hears it but he doesn’t even try to rush. 46. Lestrade somehow knows not only about Mary’s past but even about Sherlock killing Magnussen. 47. “Romantic entanglement would fulfill you as a person” – what is the point of including it if you never going to use it again? 48. It’s obvious that John visits Eurus quite in a while (not once for sure) – still no one tries to find missing therapist whose body would already be quite stinky. 49. Smallcroft - ???? 50. WHY DID EUROS GO IN SUCH TROUBLES TO GET IN TOUCH WITH BOTH SHERLOCK AND JOHN??? 51. Why return back to Sherrinford after a successful escape? Is it the only place where Eurus can take a revenge? TFP: 52. The whole thing with that girl on the plane: did Eurus deliver her lines? If so, how?? Was it somebody else? Guess we will never know. 53. Mark GaHttis’ playing. Number one Emmy’s nominee. 54. Hybrid of umbrella/sword/gun (literally no comments) 55. Fucking clown???? 56. Portraits crying blood tears. I wonder how Sherlock managed to do that. 57. “HEY BRO” 58. Sherlock wearing a deerstalker. He has just forgotten that he hates it. 59. Why does Mycroft still lie about Victor Trevor? He should have known that Eurus would tell Sherlock about it. 60. Fake graveyard? Not a really healthy way to entertain your children. 61. REDBEARD - Where were Victor’s parents? - Why nobody had a clue where to look for a missing child even though Eurus explicitly named him “drowned Redbeard”? - Why Sherlock’s parents never mentioned his sister? Did they just get over it like nothing happened? - FUCKING DOG BOWL??? The dog was not real! - Did Sherlock forget about his dad’s allergy? - Redbeard was licking Sherlock’s face in his MP. And the dog has never existed. But Sherlock remembers someone licking his face. I’ll leave it to your deductions. - Whole Sherlock’s life is deep, deep waters – his suppressed memories about drowned friend. But Sherlock didn’t know he drowned, he, in fact, didn’t know at all how he died. So where do these water memories come from? - Why did Mycroft write all those numbers in his notebook on the same page with “Redbeard” written? What was the point of “vernet”? What was it all for? 62. Fucking drone! Smashing the window! Isn’t it a bit dangerous doing that with a grenade taped to it? Why did Eurus even try to kill them if she wants to play the game? 63. John, an army man, doesn’t know what grenade looks like. 64. Mycroft knows exactly what type of grenade it is but still waits for motion sensor to activate. Well, I think they just had to justify the need to jump out of the window. 65. What phone call Sherlock talks about? John’s daughter is a toddler. 66. Mycroft asks if café below is opened, because grenade is that powerful that it can make a hole in the floor but SOMEHOW it doesn’t even cause any damages to the furniture in the room & flame just goes through things without burning them to a crisp. 67. DAT EXPLOSION aka Adobe Premiere in its finest. 68. After jumping out of the first floor window on the concrete and rolling head over heels down the stairs no one has a scratch. 69. How did they even get on a boat??? Did they use Dr. Strange’s cape? 70. So they know that the safety of Sherrinford is probably compromised, and if Eurus has indeed left the island there should have been definitely more than one person helping her. Knowing that they come there with no back up, no security, and no one knowing that they are making a visit. Very smart. 71. Why dress up as a fisherman? Why go in such troubles if they could just arrive there with trained people and detain everyone? 72. Where did the glass go??? And why Sherlock doesn’t see it’s missing? Did Eurus hypnotize everyone to ignore this fact? 73. If she is capable of enslaving people why didn’t she make somebody to be her friend in childhood? For example Sherlock? 74. All this concept of Eurus’ superpowers is kinda automatically fucked up if it doesn’t work all the time. 75. Sherlock ignoring Vatican Cameos - WHAT???? 76. The moment she jumped on Sherlock and tried to suffocate him, what was it all about??? 77. Who edited all those Moriarty videos & sounds? 78. 5 minutes was enough for Euros to tell the whole story about Redbeard, instruct what videos Moriarty has to record and come up with an evil plan how to play Sherlock and Mycroft. So we may consider that Moriarty worked for/with her? The perfect example of how to ruin character’s story. 79. And then Jim never uses Redbeard against Sherlock??? 80. What was those convulsions in front of the glass about? Can somebody explain their purpose? They had only 5 minutes and I have a feeling that biggest part of that time was spent on those movements. 81. Mycroft purchases grenades, tries to kill a clown but out of sudden he refuses to kill a man because he doesn’t want blood on his hands. 82. So they just try to save the girl by killing other people. What a concept. 83. After they are all trapped in the cell why did every prison worker disappear? Did Euros talk to every single one of them and programmed all the necessary actions in advance? 84. THAT PUKE. 85. Who builds secret doors in cells????? 86. Who painted the room and put a rifle in it? 87. FUCKING GARRIDEBS. 88. Does Sherrinford naturally have this mechanism to hang people? 89. During Euros’ game they have a motivation to play in form of the girl on the plane but the moment comes and it just stops working. They kill people, solve cases to save the plane and suddenly stop caring about it at all. 90. Who delivers a coffin to a secret island? 91. Why nobody outside this island controls it or knows what’s happening there? No one comes with inspection? No one watches camera’s tapes? No one notices missing glass? 92. John cares about girl and other people on the plane but doesn’t care if his daughter becomes an orphan. 93. A coffin is small and Sherlock suggests it is for woman. Tall women and short men? Never seen one. 94. How did Euros get to know that Molly’s in love with Sherlock? Did she pretend to be her therapist as well? 95. Who put cameras in Molly’s house? 96. Molly talking to a lock screen – pfff why bother indeed. 97. Even if the girl would be real how the hell they planned to help her to land a plane? 98. Tranquilizer darts coming out of the walls. Because secret doors weren’t enough. 99. John and Mycroft don’t care if Sherlock shoots himself, they only care about the girl on the plane. 100. That black goo. 101. FAKE ROOM - Who built it? - How did Euros bring it there alone? If she wasn’t alone where were her assistants? - Why even do this? What’s the point? 102. How did she bring Sherlock and John there? 103. Who and why put Sherlock’s coat on him? The last time we saw Sherlock he was in a suit. 104. Somebody has to go down the well with John to chain him up and then climb back up – it takes at least two men to do this and still Eurus is the only one arrested after all this mess. 105. John, the same man who can break every bone in human body while naming them can’t tell apart dog’s bones and human bones. 106. Who set up all those cameras and projectors? 107. “Try as long as possible not to drown”. Sherlock just stops caring about John and a girl on the plane AT ALL with NO REASON WHATSOEVER. His sisters’ riddle is much more important. 108. John climbing up a rope with his feet chained to the bottom of the well. This never fails to make me laugh. 109. Lestrade is the only one police officer in the world – wherever Sherlock gets in troubles he is always going to be there. 110. “He is a good one” – What exactly made him say this? For sure there must be a good reason to complete Sherlock’s character arc, but all he does is … hugging his sister? 111. Btw Eurus just HAPPENS to give up her game and tell Sherlock where’s John. So in the end, all she needed was a hug. And we are supposed to feel compassion. Never mind that she killed lots of people, she turns out to be not as bad as everybody thought. 112. They put her back in Sherrinford. In the place she has already successfully escaped from. 113.”She had passed beyond our view. No words can reach her now.” What does it mean and how did this happen? 114. Molly visiting 221B St. like nothing happened. She probably shagged someone and simply got over it. No need to go in depth because she’s just a plot device. 115. Mary’s DVD and voiceover – was it so necessary? Why her? Why do we keep seeing her after her death? When these DVDs will end? And who sends them at the right moments? 116. “Who you really are doesn’t matter”. (drops mic)

I want to finish this with a quote of Steven Moffat who’s 100% sure that “There isn’t something we have to come back to address.” If you ever hear this man saying that, laugh him in the face because he’s both a liar and a overconfident queerbaiter who elects to ignore the facts, but still considers his audience to be dumber than he is. Sorry for my English ^^ Johnlock is real. Tagging my all-time favourites:

@weeesi @thepineapplering @221boylove @wellthengameover @waitedforgarridebs @redpeacoat3 @the-7-percent-solution @221bmeta @astudyinsnoggy @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest @cheuwing @deducingbbcsherlock @finalproblem @freebatchhell @hubblegleeflower @inevitably-johnlocked @kirkallalong @loudest-subtext-in-tv @notagarroter @opttoremember @pearlrebs @maryray1895

#sherlock #tfp #meta #s4

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lady-0f-time · 7 years

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The Final Problem - Breakdown

so i just watched Sherlock "The Final Problem"

i had listened to all the fans who disliked the episode and i decided im going to do an episode breakdown to make everyone feel a little more at peace with the episode. now i understand there

may be some things that dont make sense in the episode and i understand that what i write here cannot make those things any better than what the writers had already intended. so lets

begin with the epsidode breakdown!

we start off the episode with Euros shooting john with a tranquilizer and a little girl in an airplane. now i understand how and the end the airplane was a metaphor for being mentally unstable

but i felt that it was more of a distraction. but in the end, it made sense (we'll get to that part in a moment))

we see that for some reason the little girl is on the airplane and she is the only one awake. everybody else is asleep. to me this paralles the plane of the dead we saw a the previews episode.

what we know about this plane is tat it was supposed to crash and the passengers were supposed to die so they put dead poeple on the plane so that when it crashed there wouldnt be any

dead people in the terrorist attaack. ((atleas thats what i got from it). we see the air masks hanging from the cabin roof and we see the stewardess on the floor, it looks as if she has been

attacked and and that the plane has been taken over by terrorists. although its highly unlikely that this is the situation, it looks to be if that could be a possibility. yet when they flash to the

cabin we can see the inside of the cockpit which is usually behind a very thick door that keeps people out so there cannot be a hijacking. now if th plane is in darkness heading from possibly

somewhere in the UK or europe we can infer that the lane is heading west over the pacific ocean possibly. what this means is that Euros is imagining herself going home to the UK (which

would be west) i say the pacific because we're not told where the plane is. we dont find out til the end that its actually a metaphor so sherlock might think she's on another half of the planet. (i

imagine this part being where she may have had a bad trip to sherrinford and since she's been there since she was a little girl, she has no other memory of being on a a plane possibly and she

is imagining the ocean between sherrinford and britain. her more emotional half is still the age of a young girl where nobody can understand her, nobody can talk to her and she see's her

mental state crashing into the ground and she is begging people to answer her. Next we come to a scene were we see mycroft sitting and watching a movie involving a woman and a police officer and he seems to know the movie word for word. I feel this has little to do

with anything other than context. we see the film start to flicker and show home movies from his childhood but he cant understand what is going on and it starts to scare him. we know that

mycrof is a very reasonable man and can undrerstand many logical things that even sherlock sometimes cant. what we know is that the unknown shacers the holmes boys and euros more

than anything else. skipping through the scene we se a clown, a little girl and a multi use umbrella. mycroft loves his umbrella, it reminds me of when he first met john. the clown seemed a bit

over the top and i can only assume that its because mycroft might be afraid of clowns but that is probably for another time. once sherlock admits that he was at fault in scaring his brother we

see john very forward about how it was his idea to get him to tell the truth only when he was scared shitless. john seems very angry at mycroft but we can obviously deduce the reasoning

behind this as it has always been john who is disliked around mycroft, as if he is intruding in his brothers space, making him more emotionally attatched to things. we know that sherlock has

gone out on a limb for John many times including faking his death and even accepting the possibility that he might die at the hands of a serial killer. at that point in the last episode we know

sherlock doesnt want to die but he trusts john with his life. he trust him sometimes more than he can trust himself and that is what makes john sherlocks heart and his motivation for

everything he does. mycroft is upset when he finds out the euros has "escaped(?)" from sherrinford and we learn that it was Euros who spent the night with sherlock eating cps and talking about her father

being a killer (we know it was the other girl) but euros either way, performed wonderfully as the daughter. we know mofftiss like to use mirrors and we can see john in her. her limp, her

readiness for death and how she dresses. we see sherlock, who is dying because john is no longer the light in his life, the motivation behind everything he does and for a moment, he takes her

into the night and she becomes his movitation to do what he always does. but we also see him hit the ground, go fuzzy and its almost like she isnt even there. Im not sure what the drug is

called atm, but we know in TLD that a drug was being used to change memories which is also a very imporant piece of information at this point. at the end of the lying detective we see euros

point a gun at johns head and shoot, at the begginning we see part of that scene and we switch to mycroft. sherlock tells john "it was just a tranquilizer" and they move on. it would be a good

guess to say that euros loves tranquilzers and would have used one with a bit of memory potion on sherlock when they're sitting and talking about the case of smith. it would be why when he

turned around he had a problem seeing her as if she was no longer there, information obtained but not understood how. how would sherlock know about the father who wanted to kill without

her...she wanted to see who he was. what he was. and in the process she eliminated herself from his memory just as easily as she could escape sherrinford, if not easier. back at the flat sherlock and john are in their chairs, mrs.hudson is in the doorway and mycroft ist standing there upset that he is being treated like a client instead of a sibling of sherlock, or

even a friend at that matter. mycroft does have the problem of imposing and we can see how that negativly effects sherlock and john. mrs. hudson also seems upset about what has happened

to her boys while they were away. mycroft and sherlock are also very literal, they dont always see the emotional side of things that say, john would be able to pick up on. i assume john may

have picked up a vibe that eurus was more of his idea than anything because he is equally upset at mycroft even beford they start to talk about their childhood and how their sister became a

monster. irritated, mycroft does not wish to discuss family matters in front of john because like i stated earlier, he doesnt see him as a friend or family member, but an outsider. and intruder.

when he starts to argue this point, sherlock tells him that, that because its a family matter, john stays and we see john give a little smirk like "deal with it" ((i picture irritated inlaw but thats

my johnlock showing)) mycroft begins telling the story about the house they used to live in and how he would look after sherlock. he began talking about redbeard who we've come to know as sherlocks dog. they

show a blonde girl who is euros, a "chubby" kid we automatically assume is mycroft because we see sherlock as the pirate he wanted to become. (quick idea interejection - sherlock is a year older than euros but we see her as a blonde child and then a black haired girl, that is relevent to another part of a theory, but what if she's

adopted? like i know its highly unlikely but think about it, sherlock might not have been so easily able to erase her if she was with him from birth til her departure to sherrinford but what if

that isnt the case, she wasnt always there?) mycroft tells john that she was very smart, and that she was able to kill the dog and refused to tell anybody where she hid the body. after she tried to burn the house down they sent her

away. mycroft says she doesnt understand pain, but we know that she was hurting for her brothers attention, she was falling into darkness in her mind. becaue she was so smart, she didnt

have the basic understandings of the human body, which sounds crazy but let me explain. she saw higher than love or emotion, yet felt them but wasnt able to understand them. see, even

scientists are only able to understand emotions and what they do to us chemicaly, so explaining these feelings to a child who can only understand it from a science POV makes her seem like

she has no emotions or incapable of feeling them. he explains this when she says "which one" when asked if she feels pain. drone flys in with grenade and then comes a wonderful exchange of

dialog that allows for a momentary view of sherlocks grand character development. they begin talking about a quote and then mycroft explains he played a character in a play and sherlock,

liked it. his facial expression does not say 'sarcasm' so we can see that he is prepared to not make it out alive even though he believes he will. the next part ive concluded is a part that doesnt

make sense to others watching the series as to how real it is. i remember there was a character that got thrown out the window and had several injuries and was required to be taken away by

paramedics, but we see john and sherlock jump out the window to escape the blast and then there is darkness around the before we see them again on the boat in the next scene. however, as i

have thought over that scene, as i went into the show today thinking about all the problems the people have pointed out, i have come the conclusion that there was a small time gap between

the explosion and the time we see them on the boat. now, how great that may have been has not yet been explained. but when the guy in charge of sherrinford finds out that a boat is about to

crash into the island he puts the place on high alert, asking about how mycroft is. he's told that he was in an accident and is in critical condition and might not make it and sherlock is reported

as missing. so what exactly is the ammount of time needed to be in critical condition (as in make it believable) and then report sherlock missing while also secretly procuring an aircraft and

flying out in the middle of the ocean with the plan of getting a disguise.

now on the more arugmentative part. Vatican Cameos

why on earth would sherlock ignore that? because as the director of sherrinford had just explained, everybody who comes in contact with Euros is compromised so why would that make

sherlock any different? she stares into him and he is emotionally attatched because he feels like part of him was stolen when he found out she was taken away and he also wanted to know

about redbeard and why she would do such a thing to him. despite what she has done he is still curious, still ever the scientist and see's her as something he wants to know more about. again

we see another mirror, this time a metaphorical mirror. unlike the others we see, now sherlock and euros are starting to come together. she has made the connection she has made herself

very interesting to him and he was willing to let her into his head to find out, much like he was willing to let the serial killer get him because he trusted john. he doenst trust her, not yet but he

is intrigued and cocky as to what she is capable of. sherlock pulls the earpiece out and trows it to the ground. sherlock is involved, way deeper than he's been and out of control. just wher

euros wants him.

we're going to ignore the plane because we talked about it.

moriarty makes an entreance and from euros's mouth she says "oh you've had sex, i have" i think this is a really useless line but then again it sounds very slashfictiony. so i dont know what to

do with information other than mycroft gives her treats and that maybe after her 5 minutes un-supervised with moriarty she was allowed a visit by him, supervised but i wouldnt put it past

her or moriarty to have a relationship since both of them are very dangerous and she knew that moriarty was very intrigued with sherlock, the brother she used to know. whatever they

discussed she was in for the game that was sherlocks fall and subtle rise again after. now she has them in her chamber, shes in charge and she wants to evaulate emotions because she still

doesnt understand them. her mind is still in that plane, her child self is still scared but she is a computer, a machine that doesnt understand the concept of love, fear and emotion and now she

has the one who seems to lack emotion in her chamber, his brother and his BEST friend. (make note of that). she knows johns his best friend and sherlock infered that because when mycroft

tried to kick john out the room, sherlock says because its a family matter john stays, so we know john is more than just a best friend and that makes him family. mycroft may be in a situation

of government where he has people do whatever it is he wants, he is used to having the control over other people. dogs to do his bidding for him and then he's able to recieve those reports.

when euros tells sherlock that one of them has to kill the director or else the wife dies. mycroft cant kill, its not in him. we see that in the beginning when he's faced with the clown. he chose

the gun over going straight with the sword. had he not pulled the sword off, he might have been able to attack the clown in his house, but sherlock knows him better than that. he wouldnt hire

people that would get killed. they wouldnt work for him if they were going to die. so he knew that mycroft wouldnt use the sword. but the gun was unloaded just in case, and that was a life or

death moment, which strangely enough, he was able to do but yet he couldnt kill the director. john is a soldier, he makes that reference through the sherrinford trials. he has the guts to kill

but only when he has to but he doesnt want to kill anybody and know that its a pointless kill. his morals win and the man kills himself and euros kills his wife. from that moment on, john

realizes that in order for things to go as they need to. he needs to put himself back in a situation where morals are the least of his concern and that is war. or as mary said "the soldier that

never came home from war".

"i love you"

many people feel that molly hooper has been deduced to a love interest but i can say that it is only slightly true but incorrect. why? we have all the evidence of course. back in episode one, we

see molly putting lipstick on and asking sherlock if he'd like to have coffee with her. first sign. she's there through the entire series until he hurts her feelings and then he realises what he did.

but molly, oh she's still there doing things for the duo and when mary dies, shes there with john helping with the baby. at that moment she loves him and despises him. her anger towards him

is because of what john may or may not have told molly about how mary died or what sherlock did that got mary killed. mary on the other hand died for her boys. died because she was a

person who needed redemption and even though she had just gotten married, she had to redeem herself somehow from all the horrible things she had done and all the people who got killed

because of her. she was a spy til the end, leading her stalker right to her family and even then when she ran away she was found. she knew that no matter what she did her past would haunt

her and get her family killed and she needed one last thing to do before she injured them more than she may have already hurt them. she loved john and sherlock and she knew that what

they would become (safe and a family) without her. but her death was not planned, she knew she was going to die but nobody knows when. she saw the signs, death coming for her and just

like in sumara, she ran right into death. letting it take her john, who could have tried to save her was in shock. nobody is ever prepared to deal with a death of a loved one, not even a soldier

like john. he is smart, and quick witted but sometimes he doesnt see what is right in front of him, he feels and then thinks until he has to think first and then he just does whatever comes

naturally including shooting cab drivers from a window. what a shot. molly is not angry at sherlock for what he did to her. she is mad and sherlock was her scapegoat. she see's marys death as the body that sherlock put on the table. the one that he could have

taken the fall for had people not been there to back him up. john would have let that happen only for a bit. john blamed sherlock, beat him for the death of his wife and in the end, came to the

truth through his mind that he was not at peace with mary. he loved her with his entire being yet he wanted more. the fun of being with another woman...if only texting. it wasnt that he

wanted to cheat, he had every intention of being the man mary wanted him to be. but he slipped, back into what a man in survival mode does. a man whose instinct is to take what he thinks

belongs to him. mary had injured him with her lies. sherlock had lied and he too was mad. so instead of going back to sherlock for his comfort, he goes to a random woman he met on a bus. all this molly knows so when sherlock starts asking her to say something that he knows to be true, something he puts off all the time because its not what he is interested in, she feels the

pain of humilation that he has brought her all the times in the past. she feels betrayed again even though john is back at his side, she's lonely and she still clings to the idea that sherlock has

done wrong to her and wrong to john. sherlock says "i love you" because he wants to survive. she says it because its true...but when the bomb dont detonate, euros says that its all that he did

to her that destroys her. sherlock destroyed molly not bombs. his ignorance to her emotions and he forced to say things he didnt mean, that she did mean. that was painful for her. euros

doesnt understand emotions but knows how they work. she wants to see what happens when somebody is destroyed by their emotions and who better than sherlock. the one without

attatchments.

the garidebs wasnt useless but it was in the same way. john was able to show off his skills, euros still killed all three. the next round was the elimination round, so the garideb case was a skill

round, see who is useful and who isnt to sherlock. in the elimination round we see mycroft is angry, mean and ready to let john die and john is willing once he realises who he is and who

mycroft is. mycroft is the government and john is the solidier, sherlock is the civilian. euros wants sherlock to kill mycroft and that is what moriarty wanted as well. but what sherlock does

instead is surprise euros because she thinks that after all the other trials, that sherlock and the others are predictable and know the consiquences of not following rules, they wouldnt dare

break any more of her rules. but what sherlock does to surprise her is turn the gun on himself. she can do anything because she needs to have him around. and much like the euros we were

introduced to before as mirror john, she tranquilize all three of them and begins her next step in the plot. for whatever reason, she is out to get sherlock and take him apart, see what his limits

are to save her, to save the girl in the plane. johns in a well. he's going to drown, under deep under . its revealed that redbeard isnt a dog, but a boy that sherlock was very close to. his BEST

friend. she knows she needs sherlock to save her from the hell she is in. but she will do anything to get what she wants and that means killing those closest to sherlock. she killed his best

friend and now he was going to kill the person who he cared for most. his heart. moriarty said he would burn the heart out of sherlock, euros wants to drown it. she also says that moriarty's

revenge was her, so we know who sherlock cares for most in the world. john. for a moment we see sherlock and euros sitting beside each other, hugging and she's crying. sherlock has finally

hit bottom of his heart. john is saved and the only thing left is his emotions. he has found them where he left them, with her before she left for sherrinford. sherlock had learned to care from

john, and she reminded him about that love and he saw it in her in her broken scared state. despite what she did to him, he continued to see her, when nobody could get her to talk, sherlock spoke in a language she could understand, a music they both shared. time passes, mary has

willed that her video will would be released at certain times. she tells her boys that she knew they would be together forever in their flat, solving crimes. euros speaks more and more and

eventual e crimes and be who they are. a family.

#Sherlock #The Final Problem #TFP #Johnlock

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theabominableblogger · 7 years

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Shakespeare in Sherlock

So we got two Shakespeare quotes so far altogether

Sherlock (TST): By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes

Context of line: The Witches in Macbeth are talking about the arrival of Macbeth, who wants to know something that the witches don’t want him to know but end up doing so anyway (they show him three apparitions that tell him that someone not born of natural birth will kill him and that he will never be defeated until Birnam Wood marches to fight him at Dunsinane Hill)

How it applied to TST: It foreshadowed Mary’s death and the whole AGRA situation with AJ’s lost flash drive and Amo/Vivian. Plus it kinda highlighted Sherlock’s obsession with Moriarty in my opinion.

Sherlock (TLD) (mid drug rant): Pretty much half of Henry V’s “once more unto the breach” speech

This is when we see him rampaging around the flat, pictures of Culverton Smith are EVERYWHERE, and he’s pretty much hit the deep end. And poor Mrs. Hudson just wants to check on him and get him tea. :(

Context of line: Pretty obvious, it’s Henry V giving his men a rally to arms and try to take down the walls of Harfleur (some place in France)

How it applied to TLD: Sherlock is trying to take down serial killer Culverton Smith and he had already blasted the dude via Twitter so he’s trying to think of an alternate idea to try to take him down.

So what quote are they gonna use for TFP (”The Final Problem”)?

The only super important quote we have from the actual episode so far is from Mycroft:

“Every choice you’ve made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today is made in the memory of Eurus”

Plus we know that A) we’re getting E back (I’m calling her E because I’m too lazy at the moment to spell out her name) and B) MORIARTY!

So wouldn’t it be awesome if we got the last Shakespeare quote of S4 from Moriarty?

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition (Iago from Othello, Act II, scene iii)

Just an example of what the quote could be. Though Mycroft could drop another quote from Macbeth to refer back to E but ideas are endless. Any thoughts?

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock meta #shakespeare #my meta

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possiblyimbiassed · 6 years

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Trying to explain the inexplicable

Sherlock wouldn't very likely admit that something is inexplicable, would he? His usual MO is to investigate and investigate further, until he has it all cleared, so admitting that something is 'inexplicable' would be much more like John than Sherlock any day of the week. This thought struck me after trying to make sense of John's blog post "The Inexplicable Matchbox", which he published during the hiatus before Sherlock's return in TEH.

There's a number of things with this post that make me curious.

First of all is the fact that the whole case is so top secret that John apparently isn't allowed to write anything about the solution to the case, just that "we solved it” and found out “who’d killed who and how and why".

If Sherlock had been able to comment at this point, I think he would probably have questioned why John decided to write it down in the first place, just like he did before, when John hinted something about Irene Adler (X). According to John, that “adds context. Gives people an idea about the real you”. Which Sherlock also questions. And still, in TSoT, he does mention this ‘frustrating’ case in his best man speech at John's wedding...

...which means that Sherlock - contrary to his usual opinion of this behaviour - did choose to share a glimpse of this case with the wedding guests in spite of it being, apparently, either ‘inexplicable’ or a top secret case of international importance (”We’re talking about Every Official Secrets Act”, according to John’s blog post). So here we have a clear teaser, in my opinion; a whole case that is merely hinted at, but it still appears in both the show and in John’s blog. But in neither of them are we actually told the solution.

So, parting from the conviction that nothing is inexplicable to Sherlock (which is confirmed by John’s blog telling us they did actually solve it), let's dissect this blog post, pice for piece! :) There's a number of objects and phenomena mentioned in this post that pop up frequently in the show, so let’s see what they might mean:

1. Matchboxes. In the picture from TSoT above, Sherlock looks like he’s being enlightened by the ‘inexplicable’ thing that’s in the matchbox. Might there be anything significant about matchboxes - like some sort of clue? There aren't actually many of them, except for the ones in the ‘inexplicable’ case, but they are at least mentioned in ASiB:

But since matchboxes are not so often used by smokers these days, we might as well also include lighters, right? Strange, by the way, that Sherlock would even ask for a matchbox before he asks for a lighter...

Either will do. So, on what occasions do we see Sherlock using a match or a lighter? Well, I’ve tried to collect the data, but since Sherlock apparently had quit smoking at the beginning of the show, we only ever see other characters using them before TSoT, which seems logical; he doesn’t need a lighter, since he has John Watson for a conductor of light. In ASiP there’s Jeff Hope’s pistol lighter. And later in ASiB, after Buckingham Palace, we see Sherlock smoke, but it’s Mycroft who lights his only cigarette. In THoB Henry Knight uses a lighter on his own cigarette, but Sherlock’s cigs are hidden behind the skull on the mantelpiece - ‘hidden’ on his own request apparently.

And in TEH Lestrade is holding a lighter to his cigarette the moment Sherlock returns from the dead, telling Lestrade that smoking will kill him. And that’s about it. And the lighters are all very ‘explicable’, as far as I can see. In HLV Sherlock is smoking again, though, in spite of being fresh home from hospital (no lighter in sight, though).

But then in TAB’s Victorian scenes and in TFP, there are indeed some matchboxes that seem to require explanations:

At 221B, when Lestrade comes to visit, Holmes lights his pipe with a match,

which transforms into Emilia Ricoletti’s pistol barrel:

Is this significant in any way? Might be, but I don’t see it just yet. Need more data.

Later, in the Carmichael house, Holmes strikes a match to light a lantern, and tells Watson to stay in the hall. And then comes an interesting scene (my bolding - thanks for the quotes, Ariane De Vere).

Watson is supposedly speaking to the ghost of Emilia Ricoletti:

WATSON: You’re human, I know that. You must be. (It’s dark in the corridor. He puts his revolver onto a table beside him, on which is a candle and a box of matches. He picks up the latter.) WATSON: Little use, us standing here in the dark. (He strikes a match and picks up the candle to light it.) WATSON: After all, this is the nineteenth century.

That last remark is a curious one, isn’t it? As if they should be ‘enlightened’, since it’s the 19th century. But this is all happening inside 21st century Sherlock’s head, so why does he imagine Watson referring to Victorian times as ‘modern’ here? And Watson, who is usually addicted to danger, is now vacillating between being terrified by the supposed ghost and speaking to it as if repeating his recent conversation with Holmes about human ‘impulses’. Adding to the importance of this scene, it was also one of the selected scenes for the TAB trailer, IIRC.

Enlightenment seems to be a sort of theme, because in TFP John says it outright (to Mycroft):

And then in TFP there’s a scene, voice-over by Mycroft, where little Euros is drawing family pictures, but on every one of them her brother Sherlock is dying a horrible death of some sort. (For some reason he also has red hair and is wearing the same yellow-and-blue-striped jumper).

Then she grabs a matchbox,

lights a match,

and then apparently sets the whole mansion of Musgrave Hall on fire. (We don’t actually see her doing this, though).

Now, that’s kind of an ‘inexplicable’ matchbox, isn’t it? Why did Euros do this? This reeks of Childhood Trauma to me. Since I actually doubt that Euros even exists (I think TFP is all happening in Sherlock’s mind, and Euros might represent a part of Sherlock himself) I do wonder what actually happened to Sherlock...

2. Isaac Persano. According to Sherlock in TSoT, he was a “French decathlete found completely out of his mind, surrounded by 1812 matchboxes, all empty except this one”. Apparently John (see blogpost above) couldn’t believe his eyes when Sherlock showed him the content of the matchbox. Persano had been missing for a year and a half, after the murder of his trainer. He was found in a hotel room in Brighton and couldn't speak. John diagnosed it as PTSD, but apparently Sherlock proved him wrong. The trainer had also been found in a hotel room, beaten to death with a heavy object.

Isn’t it a strange coincidence that first we have this missing person, Isaac Persano on the blog. And then we get Isaac Whitney in HLV, who is also ‘missing’ but later found in a drug den, together with Sherlock. Not to mention that his family name, Persano, sounds almost like Persona. As if someone would be impersonating someone else, right? Maybe someone who likes to use disguises?

3. Clowns. It’s mentioned twice in the blogpost that Sherlock had to dress up as a clown, so I assume it’s important. We never see Sherlock as a clown, though, but there’s two occasions in the show where someone else is dressed up as a clown. The first is the Waters gang in TSoT:

And the second is in TFP, in Mycroft’s house, where Sherlock apparently has hired a clown to scare his brother into telling him about Euros (which in itself seems extremely weird and illogical to me):

So none of these clowns are actually ‘real’ ones, who make people laugh, but rather acting to frighten people or using the outfit for disguise while comitting a crime. Hmm... Childhood trauma?

4. Helicopters. According to John, Mrs Hudson was thrown out of one (we have no idea how or why). Apart from this blogpost case (the helicopter sequence is not shown in Sherlock’s Best Man speech), there’s only one other occasion described by John: when he was “whisked away in a helicopter and taken to Buckingham Palace”. We also see this scene in the TV show. But there are plenty of other helicopters mentioned and/or shown in the TV show: Already in ASiP, Sherlock is talking of getting a police helicopter to track down the murderer. In TEH, Sherlock is chased by a helicopter in Serbia (we only ever hear the sound of it and see the grass move from its wind, though). Also in TEH, when Sherlock is telling John how he survived The Fall, he considered a helicopter rescue. In TSoT, Greg summons a police helicopter as backup when he thinks Sherlock is in danger at 221B. In HLV Sherlock and John are transported to Appledore in a helicopter. Then Mycroft also arrives in a helicopter (which looks suspiciously similar to Magnussen’s). The same helicopter is then shown in the manipulated footage at the top secret hearing in T6T. Then there’s the police helicopter in TLD, chasing Mrs Hudson’s red sports car.

Also in TLD, there’s a surveillance helicopter following Sherlock and Faith through the streets of London by night. And - last but not least - there are several helicopters heading for Sherrinford island in TFP. First there’s Jim’s ‘I want to break free’ helicopter. Then the one that transports Euros back to prison. And finally there’s the one that takes Sherlock out to Sherrinford to visit his sister, at least twice. If I haven’t miscalculated, that’s 14 helicopters in total. Quite a lot, isn’t it? Even more than one per episode...

5. Mrs Hudson being where she wouldn't likely bee. The idea of Mrs H being pushed out of a helicopter is very horrible indeed, but doesn’t actually make much sense to me. Is John really a reliable narrator here? Why would an old lady be pushed out of a helicopter? To harm Sherlock? Was it the CIA-guy’s revenge? Or did it have something to do with her past in the drug-dealing business? And if she was pushed out, how did she survive? Was the helicopter parked on the ground? Too many questions here (and too many helicopters as well, I’d say). But then again, we have this remarkable scene in TLD, where Hudders is speeding a red Aston Martin with Sherlock in the boot, being chased by the police.

So apparently we can now expect just about anything from her, on any location...

Another strange thing about Hudder’s car is the registration plate; why on earth would it have the scientific genus name of the Honey bee (Apis mellifera) on it? Hmm...

6. John doing something he never thought he'd ever do. Well, here I’m totally lost. Unless... Well, from HLV and onwards, I think John has actually been doing lots of things I never thought I’d ever see John Watson do. Like beating up a junkie for no specific reason. Or having a go at Sherlock while he might be dying from a re-opened gunshot in the chest. Or forgiving his wife while knowing that she almost murdered Sherlock. Or blaming Sherlock for her death, without even having seen what happened. Or - worst of all - assaulting Sherlock, kicking him on the ground, when he’s very obviously high on drugs. So yes - that prediction does make sense, thinking about it.

Comment section. Apart from the actual content of John’s blogpost, there’s also the comment section:

Sauron!? What’s this - an in-joke as a nod to the actor who plays The Hobbit? :) In a show that is also frequented by ‘dragon-slayers’... ;) Jokes aside, these two commenters - ‘Sauron1976′ and ‘Scarlet Glove’ - have been hating on John’s blog about Sherlock more or less since he ‘died’. ‘Scarlet Glove’, however, who is claiming that The Inexplicable Matchbox events never happened, makes me think that this name might be a clue - some sort of ‘red herring’, maybe telling us that HLV-S4 actually didn’t happen in the ‘real’ world?

So, in summary, I think there’s a lot of foreshadowing for the rest of the show in this blogpost about the Inexplicable Matchbox. At first sight, S4 was rather ‘inexplicable’ to me. But I feel sure that before the show is over (which it isn’t yet), most of the weirdness actually will be explained.

Tagging some people who might be interested: @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @tjlcisthenewsexy @monikakrasnorada @sagestreet @fellshish @tendergingergirl @sherlockshadow

#Matchboxes #enlightenment in Sherlock #John's Blog

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