Mouse wrote:

Swanpride wrote:

The best character to kill is actually one which is beloved by audience, but wouldn't be missed nevertheless. Since they love to crush our souls, it would have made much more sense to make Mary as beloved as possible. But this would also have been the predictable route.

Whatever eventually happens to Mary, I am sure they will somehow manage to make it unexpected.

That's what I thought, too...wouldn't it make more sense for us not to be conflicted about her if they were going to kill her off so they could crush us? But maybe that's what the baby is for.

But there are rules about what you do with the stars of the show and what you do with the lesser lights; you reserve the huge emotional charge for the stars. There are marvellous ensemble actors in Sherlock- it's one of its great strengths- but push comes to shove they don't get to dominate. The scenes have to be very finely balanced, and they managed to walk the high wire in HLV very well indeed, but in the end it comes down to Sherlock and John against the bad guys.

If you move the writing away from that then you have a much less attractive script, in professional terms, for the two stars. Benedict and Martin are hugely in demand, and they do have agents; allowing Season 4 to be all about Mary is not a good plan, looking at it from the perspective of working actors trying to maximise their career potential.

Ideally, Sherlock's plane will turn out to have been sabotaged so that it crashes as it attempts to land, with Mary being blown up in the ensuing explosion, so it will be all over in the first minute of Episode 1, but they may drag it out a bit 
 

Or at least acceptable.

I didn't have any problems with Mary at all until she shot Sherlock, but now I'm still having difficulties reconciling that and why he came to the conclusion that she gave him a non-fatal shot. Sure, she called the ambulance for him before John did but HE DIED. He actually died and had to crawl his way back to life for the sake of John Watson. So, considering she's supposed to be this crack shot, she did pretty damn badly. What made him think he didn't intend to kill her? Why would John get the blame for it? Who in the entire world would think that John had shot Sherlock? I'm confused...

besleybean wrote:

Because he would have been the only one there alive and conscious!

Where's the weapon? Where's the gun? There wouldn't have been any proof. Even if John did have his gun with him, no shots would have been fired from it.

Yes, that is a tricky thing. 
Let us assume she would have shot both CAM and Sherlock and escaped. Then John would have been the only conscious person in the office and might have become a suspect. 
I think Sherlock deduced she did not want to kill him because she chose to shoot him in the chest and not in the head which would have meant his sure death. This is not entirely logical but all we get for an explanation. 

Yeah OK, so, she didn't kill CAM or Sherlock because she knew John was in the building and didn't want him to become a suspect - the only conscious person. It was a split second decision and she probably didn't consider things like ballistics reports, forensics etc. I'm sure that if this had happened - if CAM and Sherlock had both been killed, John would have been vindicated eventually but it's true that he may have been a suspect in the beginning.

So, split second decision - shoot Sherlock, knock out Magnussen. Why didn't she deliver the non-fatal shot to Sherlock and still blow Magnussen's head off? Why did she only knock out Magnussen, essentially giving up what she came there to do? If she knew Sherlock would be alive to vindicate John from responsibility, then it wouldn't have mattered if she'd killed Magnussen.
 

besleybean wrote:

Possibly she also didn't want Sherlock to be implicated...they still had to explain why they were there!

Well, Sherlock had a diamond engagement ring in his pocket and a receipt from Hatton Garden; he was there to propose to Janine 

For the benefit of non-Londoners Hatton Garden is the main jewellery centre here, hence Sherlock asking the cab driver to take him there.
 

Swanpride wrote:

And because she called the ambulance (how he knows how fast the ambulance was there is anyones guess, but perhaps he asked John when he woke up). Let's not kid ourselves, Mary was ready to do whatever necessary to protect John and she wrongly belived that this included hiding the truth from him - but if there is one person on earth who would understand the concept of doing whatever necessary to protect John, it is Sherlock.

 
Yes and no; Sherlock would not have killed indiscriminately whereas Mary would. Sherlock was prepared to take the consequences of his actions but I really don't think that applies to Mary; she would and could justify anything as being for John. And she could not carry on 'protecting' John from a prison cell or on a dodgy mission to Eastern Europe, so she would always evade responsibility...

Clancy wrote:

Other possibilities for the shooting/ambulance thing include

- Mary didn't shoot Magnussen because she thought there was hard copy somewhere that might get found in the course of a murder investigation (the secret service would be all over Magnussen's effects, given a chance).  Her initial intent had been to torture him until he handed it over.  Unlikely IMO - I prefer the protect John line here.

- accepting Mary as a highly skilled assassin she had to know there was a fair chance of Sherlock dying.  Maybe she didn't go for a 'kill immediately' shot because she wanted John to be distracted trying to save Sherlock and thus give Mary time to get clear.

- It's possible that Mary didn't call the ambulance.  That could have been done by Magnussen (we only saw the pistol whip in Sherlock's recap, Magnussen might have been conscious), to preserve his line to Mycroft.  Perhaps the ambulance station is just alot closer to Magnussen's office, or Magnussen has done something to ensure a rapid response to his office, in case he ever needs it (massive donation if he's a smart as they say).

 
I wondered whether Mary had obtained the memory stick from CAM since I cannot think of any other reason why someone would carry incriminating information about themselves; she would still, of course, have wanted to be sure that the info was wiped off the hard drives she assumed CAM would use.

The 'use John's time saving Sherlock' idea works for me; she knew John was there, and knew he would recognise that a bullet through the brain had no possible survival chance.

And yes, billionaires probably do get ambulances faster than the average 

Clancy wrote:

Willow wrote:

If you move the writing away from that then you have a much less attractive script, in professional terms, for the two stars. Benedict and Martin are hugely in demand, and they do have agents; allowing Season 4 to be all about Mary is not a good plan, looking at it from the perspective of working actors trying to maximise their career potential.
 

Both Benedict and Martin are in great career shape at the moment, Amanda is Martin's partner and they seem to get on well.  I agree the creators probably still wouldn't make Mary the sole focus but I could see the stars accepting a fairly major role for her for series 4.

 
Both Benedict and Martin are up for leading roles; it's not a good time for them to start allowing focus to slide away from them. The show is being sold all over the world; it's making a lot of money and however well they all get on together it is still risky to move away from a winning formula.

They can't suddenly turn Mary into a nice suburban wife who can stay home and look after the baby whilst S&J save England, and Moffat has noted that they can't allow a homicidal nurse to follow them around shooting anyone she thinks may be a risk to them. That doesn't really leave much in the way of plot lines available; I am betting on her having some link with the alleged return of Moriarty...