BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Some thoughts about Sherlock and Mary

SolarSystem · January 16, 2014 9:36 pm

Davina wrote:
Of course 'Liar' could pop up for anyone, however, in all the deductions he has made before this word has never appeared so frequently. I do not believe that Sherlock would disregard this.

I tend to agree. But if it's true what was mentioned here as well, that Sherlock likes Mary and therefore doesn't really want to see her bad sides, it makes sense again.

And right, Susi, he made a mistake by ignoring this. And in the end that makes him just this tiny bit more human.

silverblaze · January 16, 2014 9:48 pm

Willow wrote:
Gosh! Another thing I must have overlooked; I recall Sherlock noting that she had faked her identity but I don't think that there was anything there about her faking her own death.

Excuses for watching it again to check it are always welcome, but I'm having difficulty with the idea of Sherlock investigating it from his hospital bed after he had been shot, not least because research takes time, and a decent wifi connection, which he didn't have in hospital. If he had bothered to check up on Mary's X, the usher, then I really doubt that he would not have looked at Mary at all.

And then there's Mycroft whose life revolves around seeing connections; I very much doubt that he would have omitted a security check on the fiancée of his brother's best friend. It goes with the territory, and Mycroft is not a guy who would overlook the blindingly obvious...

Mary's ex wouldn't have told him anything. All her friends were from after she took on her new identity. Mycroft doesn't really get involved with Sherlock's relationships at all, only when there is a real problem or need.

SusiGo · January 16, 2014 10:11 pm

She took the identity of stillborn Mary Morstan, that is all we know as far as I remember.

I agree that her ex did not know anything about her past. I suppose they met after she became Mary Morstan and before she meets John.

SolarSystem · January 16, 2014 10:15 pm

SusiGo wrote:
She took the identity of stillborn Mary Morstan, that is all we know as far as I remember.

I agree that her ex did not know anything about her past. I suppose they met after she became Mary Morstan and before she meets John.

Agreed. Everything from the time before she became Mary would have to be on the memory stick.

lil · January 17, 2014 5:29 pm

I completely agree with the poster of this thread...something here is off for sure.

Sherlock is stuck between a rock and a hard place isn't he...there's also if John looses Mary/child because of something to do with Sherlock...the shoot the messenger angle..John will always remember and resent that..idk. Its off but...so is

In the moments after Sherlock is shot he deduces that he is almost certainly going to die...within three seconds and he does in fact die ! Yet we are supposed to swallow the ...she saved my life comment .hmmm
So her shooting...totally reformed character? but where and why does she keep the ninja clothes and the gun hidden from John...and Where does she practice her shooting ? You cannot pick up a gun after idk more than five years and shoot like that ! impossible .
Her objective was...hiding the truth from John..so logically she should of killed Sherlock cos obviously...he will tell John.
Apparently that's why she saved Sherlock because...she should of shot to kill .. but uh she did... Its contrary at best .

And then her threats to him in hospital...it was chilling...not a sentimental I am sorry please dont...a nasty hissing threat...

So John is attracted to her cos of the danger buzz addiction and he likes psycopaths .ok .
But uh he didn't have a clue...and uh ok if he did he is not getting it from Mary because..he is dreaming of Sherlock and needing to get his fix from a drugs den...another contradiction .
And why suddenly they are all psycopaths...they have spent the whole of all the other episodes showing us Sherlock is not a psycopath or a Sociopath....so uh contradiction . Dangerous yes ok...but psycopath ..well maybe Mary , but them ? No.

And where is the investigation ..Lestrade and Mycroft are not stupid..but what , they just let it go .
John told Lestrade Sherlock was protecting someone...who could that be apart from the three people in that room at the time?
OK , no proof perhaps...but wow no action/mention/wth about it at all.

In the mind palace Sherlock connects her to Moriarty ish...it is Moriarty who mocks John being in danger , and "that wife!" ..thus Sherlock Comes.Back.To.Life!
( here we have a free lance assassin by coincidence hanging around Sherlocks very same friends that,,,were threatened by Moriarty via free lance assasins unless Sherlock fell/died just as rumours of him being alive surface...coincidentally called Morstan confronted in the empty house fooled by a dummy..just like Moran...Moriarty's right hand man ? wow all coincidence!)

This is all written off because..Sherlock tests her shooting..and wow amazing after all those years and firing just one shot at Sherlock in many years...she can still hit a flipped coin...so Obviously she did't mean to killl......uh ok.

Just a few of the contradictions.... so either this is idk flimsy writing and a bit weak.. and ok this is fiction and as an audience we are supposed to ..yeah ok its a fictional story...but with Moftiss? this ? Dissapointing .
I do get that some people just want to go with the flow and thats fine but obv. quite a few of us are... see this post.

OR Sherlock is faking it / playing a long game at the moment...buying time, and he has arranged Moriarty's return to smoke Mary out ?

btw the guardian deduction ties in with lib dem and means the popular liberal newspaper.
On lieing...Sherlock calls her out on the moustache thing , before he even deduces her.idk why he continues to ignore it.
Does Sherlock like / dislike her at first ... when has Sherlock ever liked/dislike anyone? ever ~ he finds her interesting and clever in the way he did Moriarty. Lots of people hug / kiss him ... Hudders..Lestrade..Janine ...grateful clients many times i am sure. That means nothing.
Do not believe a word the writers say...they are self confessed liars and mislead on purpose.

So uh yeah bit of a rant...but it is all a bit off.

Last edited by lil (January 17, 2014 5:31 pm)

Willow · January 17, 2014 5:58 pm

Yep; I really should have picked up on the shooting point. Well, at least now we know why she was working part time- the rest of the day was devoted to practising her marksmanship

SusiGo · January 17, 2014 5:59 pm

Well, I think we do not agree completely because I like the story arc of series 3 very much and just tried to show how I explained the complex Mary situation to myself. Of course there are different interpretations. But I never said it was bad writing.

lil · January 17, 2014 6:12 pm

@Susie yes I do not like to say that , perhaps we are meant to see it as flimsy , because he IS making it up because....what else can he do right then because of the baby angle....hence the long game thoughts . I do hope it is explained somehow it is not the tight story/plotlines we are used to, we are probably spoiled by the brilliance so far.

Last edited by lil (January 17, 2014 6:14 pm)

NotYourHousekeeperDear · January 18, 2014 12:37 am

@lil. I agree! I think with Mary, Sherlock is playing a game of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.

besleybean · January 18, 2014 8:36 am

I don't think Sherlock considers Mary an enemy at all.
I do think he knows she's important to John.

Clancy · January 18, 2014 11:28 am

I have trouble believing Sherlock 's acceptance of Mary, for several of the reasons given elsewhere in this thread (mostly the fact she' s still in practice and the fact his survival very nearly wasn't, as well as her still being a possible risk to John, if she's a true psychopath and eventually gets bored with him).

The thing is I can't tell if the creators mean it to be uncertain or if it's a result of Moffat 's style of writing, which I don't think of as bad necessarily, but he certainly doesn't let details get in the way of the story.

Since this is largely based on inference I can't think of a way of resolving it, short of series 4.

besleybean · January 18, 2014 11:34 am

Which is possibly the writers' intention!

miriel68 · January 18, 2014 1:36 pm

I've got a gut feeling that Moftiss had two intentions when creating the character of Mary: 1. Let's the audience come to like her in the first 2 episodes and then introduce the twist as a surprise (something they LOVE to do2. Add to the first the need of getting rid of Mary sooner of later (we can't have a family comedy/drama on Sherlock for long, can we? And there is canon, as well...) and the audience should love Mary LESS and the end of 3rd series in order not to be too outraged when she will be dealt with in some definitive way in the 4th series....

Willow · January 18, 2014 2:50 pm

miriel68 wrote:
I've got a gut feeling that Moftiss had two intentions when creating the character of Mary: 1. Let's the audience come to like her in the first 2 episodes and then introduce the twist as a surprise (something they LOVE to do2. Add to the first the need of getting rid of Mary sooner of later (we can't have a family comedy/drama on Sherlock for long, can we? And there is canon, as well...) and the audience should love Mary LESS and the end of 3rd series in order not to be too outraged when she will be dealt with in some definitive way in the 4th series....

I think you are certainly correct in predicting Mary's definitive departure in Season 4; the big question is whether she will pop her clogs nobly saving the day, in some size, shape or form.

I can't see that happening for a number of reasons; firstly, the show is called Sherlock and it is his story above all others. If anyone is going to die nobly saving others it's going to be Sherlock, and he's already done that.

Its competitor already has a female Dr Watson, so the BBC would be less than happy if their Sherlock seemed in some way to be tagging along with the US version. However much the writers think it might be fun they still have to sell it, and I can't see them losing sight of that objective.

Mary following along behind shooting anyone she thinks might endanger them takes the programme much too close to Dexter; the writers know that they cannot have their cake and eat it. It is not unreasonable for Magnussen to be blackmailing Mary, and the audience may sympathise with her to that extent; the audience would not sympathise with her polishing anyone else off.

One way out of the predicament might be for Mary to disappear into the Witness Protection Scheme, as Irene Adler was said to have done, but it's difficult to see how they could deal with the character of John Watson in those circumstances.

So, my own view is that she will die ignobly; I think it is likely that she is linked in some way with the apparent return of Moriarty, and the final twist in the 'Who is Mary' saga will be that outcome. But I have at least a year to change my mind in...

lil · January 18, 2014 3:07 pm

Willows comments on witness protection reminded me of the cam wedding telegram threat.mentions if your family could see this this. The family is often used as a nickname for the cia,, which links to her past with them..which links to her being on the run..indicating mary on the run from the cia.
So if they turn up..eh idk.interesting though.

Last edited by lil (January 18, 2014 3:29 pm)

sherlocked · January 18, 2014 3:13 pm

Maybe, that's too much of a real life thought.... but are John and Mary even legally married, if she used a false identity???
Don't know a thing about British law....

Willow · January 18, 2014 3:34 pm

sherlocked wrote:
Maybe, that's too much of a real life thought.... but are John and Mary even legally married, if she used a false identity???
Don't know a thing about British law....

No, they are not married. She provided someone else's birth certificate, fraudulently obtained, and that invalidates the marriage.

Of course, if Sherlock is right about her English accent being a fake then she is unlikely to have been born here and therefore does not have British nationality. She has not obtained British nationality because her marriage is invalid, so she could be deported and/or extradited.

Frankly, I cannot see Mycroft exerting himself to prevent that happening, particularly if he ever finds out that she shot Sherlock. In fact, now that I come to think about it, Mycroft finding out would result in a more terminal disposition of Mary than extradition...

besleybean · January 18, 2014 4:18 pm

I do hope we do not see Mycroft either personally or organising the executing of Mary.
Might hamper relations with John and Sherlock...
So does the world just think CAM shot Sherlock?

Willow · January 18, 2014 4:58 pm

besleybean wrote:
I do hope we do not see Mycroft either personally or organising the executing of Mary.
Might hamper relations with John and Sherlock...
So does the world just think CAM shot Sherlock?

It might hamper relations with John and Sherlock if they knew about it; Mycroft is wholly capable of organising it without getting caught. He has very substantial resources available to him, and it appears improbable that Mary parted on good terms from her previous employers. We don't know who those employers were, but if Lil's speculation about the CIA is correct then he would be able to notch up a favour owed to him simply by letting them know about her.

An alternative possibility is that 'the family' is the mafia; Mycroft would have no official connection, but then I'm fairly sure that he knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. From Mycroft's perspective she would be a loose cannon, never to be trusted and always capable of precipitating a dreadful scandal, quite apart from the fact that she almost killed someone he unequivocally loves.

As for the public explanation of 'who shot Sherlock', we have been left completely in the dark. I would think the cover story would be that Sherlock was shot when he nobly took a bullet aimed at CAM by an unknown assailant who later managed to finish the job, just before Sherlock arrived too late to save him.

Obviously there would be the problem with the witnesses, ie the armed police who saw Sherlock shooting him, but perhaps they removed the other brother from his straitjacket in the cellar long enough to persuade the police witnesses that the mad brother was who they had seen

besleybean · January 18, 2014 5:12 pm

It's possibly just thought that CAM had so many enemies!