On the flip side, why is Mycroft so unable to condone the shooting of CAM, given the kind of intelligence work he's involved in? Why was Sherlock's killing CAM so much of a stretch for Mycroft?

In real life, yes, it should be prosecuted as murder, but it seems like it's not that much of a stretch for what's condoned in this 'verse, particularly given how many people high-up would have been glad to see CAM gone...and I think it's being hinted that he associated with Moriarty (who physically killed people) but we still have to find that out.

Sherlock is something of a "private citizen who takes the law into their own hands" - but he also kind of works under the auspices of the police and government.

Willow wrote:

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

It's always struck me that here, in the US-- almost EVERYBODY'S addicted to something-- as per US modern perceptions: If you have a glass of wine or a drink every evening, you're a "maintence alcholic", smokers are considered addicts, there's food addiction, internet addiction, relationship addiction, sex addiction, ; we have a very cut and dried , black and white view of it, and we are most often quite punitive in the way we handle it. That attitude in Sherlock makes me sad, because I've always thought of our cousins accross the pond as being far more enlightened and sensible about such things.

That said, I can understand that it was done for dramatic licence. Still doesn't make me love it. 

It's yet another of the dualities that Moftiss love to write; we have John sliding shots into his own and Sherlock's drinks on his stag night, yet going bonkers when he finds Sherlock in the dope den. John's sister is an alcoholic yet John really wants to get drunk on his stag night; he simultaneously recognises that alcohol is a drug yet sets it apart as if it isn't a drug, really.

Fortunately our culture has not yet succumbed to the extent that the US has, possibly because we have the NHS, which everybody pays for, not wishing to use funds on stuff which appears to be designed to ensure that every single person has something wrong with them for which they should have expensive treatment.


 

You do wonder if the Stag Night contributed to Sherlock's fall off the wagon...and if John felt so strongly about Sherlock staying off drugs, and about Harry, it was pretty irresponsible or hypocritical to get Sherlock drunk. 

The author of the Decoding the Subtext blog reviewed the Russian series and pointed out that that series eliminated the cocaine issue..that western media takes addiction too much for granted. 

But in the case of Sherlock Holmes and drugs, we can't really blame modern western media: since he uses co

lil wrote:

Expecting Sherlock/John to already have the huge and wonderful relationship they have in canon and we know they are going to have before the events that formed it happen , actually happen is a mistake.
At the end of TRF John is sad and mourning yes ,in the graveyard scene, but I don't see a totally devastated emotionally crippled man..he mourns and misses Sherlock loads but he does eventually get on with his life.
Sherlocks return and the events of series three eventually bring them closer together. TRF is dealt with and over by the end of TEH. In TSOT as a duo they are better than they were before.
John is confused and OOC in HLV because he is realising that the person he clicks with and the person he loves best and what makes him happy..is not some wife and a kid and a quiet life in the burbs...its adventures with Sherlock.
John is all over the place..torn between Sherlock first ( heart) and Mary first (head).

Sherlock already knows the only person he clicks with and loves is John..thats why he trys to do whats best for John and not himself.
Maybe Sherlock learnt from actually dieing this time..that he actually doesn't want to die ..he has a reason to live ..and it's not just cases..its cases with John.

Everyone and everything is stalemated atm tho..by the baby issue.
Thats why Sherlock manipulates the marriage reunion.
Thats why John can't face Marys truths.
Likely thats why Mycroft hasn't tipped lestade to the shooters ID.

A lot of the OOC John is annoying and hard to understand and I think we all really feel for Sherlock this series which exasperates it.

However it is going through all theese times together..good and bad ..that will lead us to the /endgame and the fantastic "us against the world" inseperable symbiotic combo seen in canon.
We have seen the relationship grow and grow and yes heres a rocky patch or two but...My guess is we are almost there.

I'm not sure it's so much John being out of character as the fact that throughout Sea

Wiggins wrote:

Do she and baby die in canon? I've just started reading them having come to Dharkock thi December and rapidly watching and rewatching all three seasons in just a couple weeks time.

I thought I had read online that she dies in child birth but then read on some posts here about her just disappearing.

I wasn't sure and haven't investigated much bc I don't want to end up reading plots of books I haven't made it to you yet.

However even in canon- I believe it's Scandal in Belgrave that starts out saying after the wedding Watson and Sherlock lose touch and a distance forms between after wedding due to the setting up of house and such.

So despite all the angst here- the strained relationship is straight out of canon and honestly true to real world relationships.

Yes, there is a mention in canon of the wedding putting some distance between them. Watson says this; however, there are multiple instances of him jumping when Holmes calls - and going away with him and/or spending the night with him, either at the location of the case, or sometimes even at Baker Street, when there's theoretically no reason he couldn't go home for the night. Also, Holmes' excuses for needing him are often flimsy. And sometimes Holmes turns up at the Watson house in the middle of the night, asks if he can stay over and have Watson go with him on a case in the morning...and Watson seems to sit up with him most of the night.

There are also times Watson drifts toward Baker Street and visits Holmes for no apparent reason (Holmes will be on a case, but Watson doesn't know that when he shows up.)

There is no actual mention of a baby in canon - just of Mary having died before Holmes comes back from Hiatus. And there's a sense of their relationship being stronger after he gets back - Watson moves back to Baker Street and gives up his own practice.

besleybean wrote:

I suppose that would be canonical(the Sherlock not being involved part!)...but I somehow feel Sherlock may get involved...to save John, if nothing else.

I actually almost wonder if he WAS involved in canon...her death comes across as very convenient.

There could be a need for her to go into some kind of hiding, akin to witness protection, and John could have the option of going with her but choose to stay with Sherlock?

The most tidy ending to HLV would have been for MARY to be the one to shoot CAM and either get killed in the process or take the punishment...but that would be too easy for these writers.

I wonder if the MPs will end up just letting Sherlock off the hook...to be honest, even though treating the killing of CAM as a crime was morally correct, I was surprised by that, given how many people wanted to be free of that guy. And if Moriarty and CAM were associated in some way, than CAM was associated with someone who strapped bombs to people...

Someone made a joke in another thread about Sherlock and John being "basically robots," and I suddenly thought, hey, what if what Sherlock shot was a robot (that actually stored data?)

And I read someone else's prediction that someone else actually shot CAM at the same time (Lord Smallwood? Having faked his suicide?)

I also have the idea that it could turn out Mary was never an assassin - either a phony background was planted by Mycroft and/or Sherlock for some reason, or she's indeed in hiding and living under a false identity because she was targeted by assassins, or the mob, in some way, or even because her family ARE those people. Which would make her still guilty of lying to John about her past, and mean that there was real danger to her...but that doesn't get me around her shooting Sherlock (which is more of a problem for the character, in the sense of what makes her a bad guy, than the background) unless one of her family was a sister looking just like her.
 

I wonder if "the other one" is a twin to Sherlock...who will turn out to be the one who really went to Appeldore and shot Magnussen. Because, forget the survival of Moriarty...how are they going to pull Sherlock out of this one? Or Mary?

besleybean wrote:

The love between those boys...

And yet...someone...shot Sherlock....and John stayed married to her....and let Sherlock sacrifice himself.
 

Eselin wrote: (sexual need can bring someone's defenses down completely)

This is why it backfired on Irene in the end! I am never crazy about female characters being shown to "wield power" through sex, because it makes THEM vulnerable to the men, too. Agatha Christie often did this with her female murder victims who were supposedly femme fatales - showed that the men they were involved with were exploiting THEM.

And I guess, I see that kind of female character's characterization as revolving too much around men, and  giving men something the men really want, even if the female gets something out of it too. 

CaseyB wrote "the drugging and beating him bit"
The drugging and beating Sherlock is something else that makes me go: wait, shouldn't that be a bigger deal, in terms of making Sherlock see her as an enemy? Unless he has...those kinds of...tastes?

Didn't she threaten John somehow, too?

I'm familiar with canon and with the Jeremy Brett series, and that's where my belief in "Johnlock" comes from. Holmes and Irene's contact is minimal in canon, but she's a cool character. (There is one "biographer" that theorizes that Holmes and Irene hooked up during his Hiatus...everyone forgot that she got married in the story where she appeared.) If my only knowledge of Sherlock Holmes were this series, perhaps I would be either a Sherene-er, or a Moll-ock-er.

As some fans have mentioned, I could defintely see Irene offering Sherlock a "reward" after he saved her...but I would more see him calling in the favor by having her help him fake his death, or hide out. 

Willow wrote:

Incidentally, at the beginning of the season Sherlock has just been extracted from a lengthy and very dangerous mission; John, who has PTSD, really should realise that people in those circumstances have difficulties in adjusting back into normal life. This is, after all, his own justification for the psychosomatic limp he possessed when we first met him.... 

Yes, and we still haven't heard much about Sherlock's mission during the Hiatus, and whether he's traumatized by it. We saw what he went through after being shot, but it was all related to that shooting. I don't think we've seen trauma symptoms or memories connected to the mission?

What bothered me was at the moment when Mary was responsible for Sherlock's condition and near-death, John screamed at Sherlock as though it was Sherlock's fault that he (John) had ended up with a former assassin. And I think Mary would have been better off letting Sherlock help her. Her putting him out of action gave CAM time for more dirty work (Lord Smallwood is dead by Christmas.)

It would make sense for him to still be mad at Sherlock over the faked death...in that regard part of the problem is that we had TSoT in between the two episodes, with a much lighter tone to their relationship. So when John's anger surfaces again in HLV, it seems out of the blue, disconnected from the original source.

 

Perhaps because the characterization of Watson is less thorough in canon than the characterization of Holmes, there have been many different Watsons:

 - in canon, Watson is very much a follower, EXCEPT where medical matters are concerned: he takes stands about Holmes taking better care of his own health - and he (Watson) will drop everything to be with Holmes, especially when Holmes is depressed or ill. This Watson also declares that it was worth getting shot to see Holmes' concern.

- sometimes he's a bumbler or an idiot (mostly in the Basil Rathbone films)

- many pastiches have him very conventional while Holmes is progressive (sometimes Holmes will rant about how women commit crimes because they're given nothing productive to do)

- in the Jeremy Brett series, Edward Hardwicke is Watson takes care of Holmes like a doctor, or dare I say, a spouse, but he can be very assertive, trying his own deductions and calling Holmes out on some of his stupider moves (like Holmes experiment with the Devil's Foot chemical). That Watson showed a little hurt over the Reichenbach Falls deception, but mostly joy that Holmes was back. And he never married!

- Fan fics often have Holmes kind of swooning over Watson - for his bravery, but also his decency and gallantness - so we get an idealized view.

- I wonder if BBC's John is too much like Sherlock. He doesn't seem to do very well with relationships either, and while he may be more aware of the human consequences of their cases, he is also in it for the excitement, not for justice. He can very angry and even violent (including toward his friends and allies), and he doesn't strike me as particularly caring in a "soft" way.

And then someone else wrote that he deals with emotions by repressing them...that's like Sherlock.

I have never seen an adaptation where Holmes and Watson fight as much, or as aggressively, as they do in BBC-Sherlock. In canon, the most violent acts each one does are in the name of protecting each other. Hol