When they meet again later in the CAM building, the first thing they do is get coffee. John and two paper cups of coffee, where have we seen that before? Right.

The final point of the reversed development. It’s over. This is the end.


It’s touching that while Magnussen is talking about John to Mary, the camera is on Sherlock’s face. “Coming here? What would your husband think? Your lovely husband, he’s honourable. So English. What would he say to you now?”

Sherlock walks up to Mary, realising he was totally wrong about her, and offers his help although she threatens him. As if to say, please let me be a part of your life, and if that’s not possible, kill me.
He gets shot, which nearly costs his life, but also saves it in some way.


“Fall now.”
Sherlock is trying to stay alive, but not really fighting, he seems to be giving up rather easily (“they’re putting me down, too”), mainly trying to avoid the pain.

And finally, after eight and a half episodes, we get a real insight into the mind palace. It’s a mortuary.

Except, Sherlock can go upstairs and enter a prettier world, corridors flooded with light, where he can meet old friends. The architecture is very similar to the building in which the pink lady’s corpse was found in ASIP, at the very beginning of the “story of two men and their ridiculous adventures”. So obviously Sherlock constructed all this, the whole more pleasant part of his mind palace, only after he met John.

But all his old friends are dead and/or gone, aren’t they?


Sherlock made the enormous mistake of trusting other people. He let his heart rule his head. He had feelings for Mary, for example. He got symbolically married to her, made a vow to protect her at all costs and believed his affection was returned.

That was stupid, wasn’t it, getting involved that way?

Apart from that, we’ve already seen that going back to the life he had before John wouldn’t be good either. It would be like a mortuary, cold and sterile, a lonely world no one would like to live in, and it would ultimately kill Sherlock.

So, if feelings kill you, and having no feelings will kill you, too – you might as well give up and die. Everything else will only cause pain.


Moriarty, of all people, is the one who saves the day. The chained up mental image of him gives Sherlock some clever advice. “You always feel it. But you don’t have to fear it. Pain. Heartbreak. Loss.” And he makes fun of Sherlock’s death with a mockery song.
In other words – you’re just running away, Sherlock. You wish you could have relationships with other people, but whenever the chance is there you run away from them because you’re afraid of the heartbreak. You are a coward. Wake up.

Will Sherlock do that? Is it worth it? For Mrs Hudson, or Mummy and Daddy perhaps? No. For Irene “The Woman” Adler? Surely not. Irene is cool, but Sherlock won’t come back from the dead for her. He’ll only do that for one special person.

“You’re letting him down, Sherlock. John Watson is definitely in danger.”


And finally we saw the physical proof that Sherlock does have a heart.

Sorting things out is not so easy after all, as we learn during the Christmas dinner with Mummy and Daddy Holmes. John and Mary haven’t been talking to each other for a long time (I wonder if John lived with her or in Baker Street? We don’t get to know), but they’re both there, reunited.
Of course there’s also a very serious reason why John was invited. The Magnussen case has to be solved. John doesn’t really have to be convinced to follow Sherlock to Appledore. They work as partners again, more or less.

If John still had any doubts about what Sherlock feels for him, the video Magnussen shows him of how Sherlock saved him from the fire, and the fact that he’s Sherlock's pressure point, should tell him everything he needed to know.
“Look how you care about John Watson.” Caring is not an advantage? No, it really isn’t, but what can you do.
Again, that’s a parallel to an earlier episode. Once we thought Irene was Sherlock’s “damsel in distress”. Way off the mark. “Sherlock’s pressure point is his best friend John Watson.”


John looks shocked. This is sort of a turning point, but not in the way one would expect. From now on it just gets frustrating, and that’s mainly because of John. Sherlock is ready to sacrifice everything he has achieved up to this point in order to save Mary and therefore John. We expect John to react in some way, but he just stands there and does as good as nothing.

The same thing happens in the final scene when Sherlock is about to get into the plane. For Sherlock, of course, this is the only way out – the other option for him would have been to go to prison for the rest of his life, while John would continue living without him, probably even stop visiting Sherlock after a while … So it’s better to go back to where he came from. Eastern Europe. And death.

John appears surprisingly emotionless and reserved. We’re not in his perspective, so we can’t see what’s going on in his head. We can only guess that he’s probably inwardly desperate, confused and overwhelmed. It’s the same problem we had with Sherlock in series 1 and 2, only the other way around. Now John seems to be the cold and heartless one. I’m curious how this and the Sherlock-John-Mary-conflict will be resolved in series 4, and if the writers will manage to continue the story with them as a trio or if one of them (that would have to be Mary) has to get out of the way.

On a positive note, at least this:


is better than this:


And that's the end of this analysis. Thanks for reading.

Thank you for taking the trouble to think very carefully about this episode and share it; in doing so you have certainly provided me with plenty of food for thought!

You are, I think, right in noting the shift of perspective; I had caught glimpses but not put it together in quite the same way. To a very considerable extent Moftiss have left us with more unanswered questions than there were at the end of S2; in the end that was just about the how. Only John failed to understand the why, and his failure to understand the why is underlined throughout S3; Dr Watson has many virtues but Moftiss stick closely to canon in their depiction of him, give or take a few punches here and there.

Moftiss have also chosen to raise the stakes; in the beginning of TEH we have someone who has spent 2 years undercover, in considerable danger, coming home naively imagining that home has remained unaltered; there have been an awful lot of novels written about the warrior coming home from the war, returning only to discover that the ideals fixed in his memory no longer exist, and perhaps never existed, so this is has many resonances on many levels. We know that John, feeling deserted, has himself deserted Mrs Hudson; he intends to propose marriage to someone whom he hasn't known for very long, and apparently employs, thus giving an ambiguity to their relationship. The extent to which he just doesn't know this woman is demonstrated in no uncertain terms by her willingness to put a bullet into Sherlock's chest, and yet he still apparently doesn't want to know her any better because he destroys the memory stick.

And at the end of the season John remains an apparently distant, almost aloof figure whilst Sherlock seems positively emotional by comparison; it is difficult to comprehend the reasons for John's refusal to contemplate even a variant on one of Sherlock's forenames as a name for his child. It seems petty, even mean spirited; the point at which our John departs from canon because one cannot imagine the original refusing such a request, had it been made.

So, Moftiss must have a formidable game-plan up their sleeves for S4 because John seems to be in danger of losing the respect of those around him; Sherlock loves him, and will forgive him, but it is not difficult to judge the reactions of Molly, and Lestrade, and Mrs Hudson should they learn of John's apparent desire to live his life untroubled by the knowledge of why Mary's enemies are her enemies, notwithstanding the fact that those enemies remain a continuing danger to her and all those around her, including her child.

Mycroft might have been content to stand back and allow the axe to fall in the course of time, I suppose, but once Sherlock's plane turns back Mary and John become liabilities; Sherlock may wish that he had John's assistance in investigating the apparent return of Moriarty but he cannot trust him in the way that he used to, and neither will Mycroft...

Willow wrote:

Only John failed to understand the why, and his failure to understand the why is underlined throughout S3

I think it's not just that he fails to understand why Sherlock faked his death. He also fails to understand why Sherlock came back, and that's a much bigger problem.

Moftiss have also chosen to raise the stakes; in the beginning of TEH we have someone who has spent 2 years undercover, in considerable danger, coming home naively imagining that home has remained unaltered; there have been an awful lot of novels written about the warrior coming home from the war, returning only to discover that the ideals fixed in his memory no longer exist, and perhaps never existed, so this is has many resonances on many levels.

That's true. That might be one of the reasons why Sherlock was compared to Major Sholto.

The extent to which he just doesn't know this woman is demonstrated in no uncertain terms by her willingness to put a bullet into Sherlock's chest, and yet he still apparently doesn't want to know her any better because he destroys the memory stick.

The relationship between John and Mary would be another interesting part to write an analysis about. I left Mary out most of the time because I wanted to focus on the Sherlock-John-relationship. Only in the fireplace scene the three of them were inseparable. But there's probably a lot to find when you pay attention to the details.

 

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

Willow wrote:

Only John failed to understand the why, and his failure to understand the why is underlined throughout S3

I think it's not just that he fails to understand why Sherlock faked his death. He also fails to understand why Sherlock came back, and that's a much bigger problem.

Moftiss have also chosen to raise the stakes; in the beginning of TEH we have someone who has spent 2 years undercover, in considerable danger, coming home naively imagining that home has remained unaltered; there have been an awful lot of novels written about the warrior coming home from the war, returning only to discover that the ideals fixed in his memory no longer exist, and perhaps never existed, so this is has many resonances on many levels.

That's true. That might be one of the reasons why Sherlock was compared to Major Sholto.

The extent to which he just doesn't know this woman is demonstrated in no uncertain terms by her willingness to put a bullet into Sherlock's chest, and yet he still apparently doesn't want to know her any better because he destroys the memory stick.

The relationship between John and Mary would be another interesting part to write an analysis about. I left Mary out most of the time because I wanted to focus on the Sherlock-John-relationship. Only in the fireplace scene the three of them were inseparable. But there's probably a lot to find when you pay attention to the details.

 

 
I do appreciate that including Mary would have required another very detailed analysis which would take up even more of your time, but I should be most interested should you have the time at some point.

And you raise the further point that John not only didn't understand why he had been excluded from the knowledge of the fake suicide, but also carries on loudly broadcasting Sherlock's return notwithstanding the fact he was told that this was also supposed to be secret, with Sherlocks life at risk, because Sherlock had returned to get to grips with a major terrorist plot so dangerous that Mycroft himself had gone into the field to extricate him.

I take your point about Sherlock and Sholto; they are both people who have returned from service with scars, visible and invisible, to be met by a less than generous reception by the people for whom those scars were suffered in the first place. I have written a compare and contrast between Sholto and Mary elsewhere on this forum since I really don't think the writers set these two characters up accidentally, so I won't repeat it here, but it is, in my view,  a very important aspect which has been overlooked.

Willow wrote:

Tinks wrote:

I do certainly think there's been a reversal in season 3.
Up until this point the focus was on John, I think - the traumatised war vet who formed a friendship with this extremely difficult, seemingly selfish and unfeeling man.
I felt that the writers loved and sympathised with John, and wanted us to feel the same way.
This season John has moved on, and Sherlock is no longer the central figure in his life.
Sherlock is the one who is now traumatised - he's given up two years of his life, we don't know exactly what happened to him during this time, and he comes back to find everyone's lives have gone on without him.
Far from being selfish and cold hearted, he makes yet more sacrifices for John - from small things to actually socialising at his wedding, to big things like risking his life or liberty by killing Magnussen.
And John, the one who has always pointed out right from wrong to Sherlock, and who has always been quick to pull him up on his lack of concern / uncaring behaviour to others, hasn't been aware of any of this.
He's the one , this time around, who seemed to see things only as they affected him - the biggest red flag to this was when he didn't notice how much trouble Sherlock was in, when the two of them were in Baker Street with Mary and Sherlock was - literally - bleeding to death.

Yes, sadly there's not much scope for feeling good about John in this season, notwithstanding the warm and fuzzies in Sherlock's Best Man speech at the wedding, he is no longer the man who saves lives. I would very like him to go back to being that person; at present he is extraordinarily self centred guy fixated on himself. Reminds me of Mary, really, in a rather chilling way, but we'd better leave that for another day and another thread
 

Actually, you're making me think of Magnussen's quip about John and Mary being Mr. and Mrs. Psychopath. 

Kind of creepy-- and actually, I hope that the writers don't have some sort of big reveal that John is... well, whatever. :-)
 

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

Tinks wrote:

Sherlock is the one who is now traumatised - he's given up two years of his life, we don't know exactly what happened to him during this time, and he comes back to find everyone's lives have gone on without him.

In the metaphorical sense I think it doesn't even matter what happened to him. He was "dead". Like John says in the final scene of TEH, "When you were dead, I went to your grave." He doesn't say, "When I thought you were dead, I went to the place that was supposed to be your grave." Because literally, there is no Holmes without Watson. John is the one who writes Sherlock's story. If they're separated, or if John stops writing down his thoughts about him, Sherlock dies. Maybe other people will try to continue his story, but then he'll turn into a stranger, like "Shezza" or "Sherl" in the beginning of HLV, or the unfamiliar looking person we see at the beginning of TEH. Or at the very beginning of PINK, where we see Sherlock in a mortuary and his only friend is a skull. John brought him to life, or saved his life, and he needs to understand that and continue doing it.
 

Certainly those parts of Canon written in the first person by Sherlock seem 'off' to us; the metaphor of Sherlock existing only through the prism of John's reporting seems to me to be an interesting one. However, using the same metaphor, John too was dead. That is underlined by his choosing to propose to someone whose business is death...
 

I can't wait to get my DVD's from Amazon in a couple of weeks because there are so many things I want to re-examine. When they go back to Baker Street for the Watson "domestic" there's all this subtext going on when Sherlock explains to John why he fell in love with Mary.  All that stuff about being 'attracted' to dangerous people (Yes, that's you Sherlock, by the way. Obvious) but there's one line I want to watch and hear the way it was delivered again. After John says, "Why is she like that?" with such despair, I seem to remember Sherlock's eyes move away and then back to John with a sad, almost haunted look, as he says quietly, "Because you chose her". My Johnlock heart hears in subtext, "And you didn't chose me". A Johnlock interpretation for sure and a subtle one.  Probably no one else heard it that way......
Sherlocklives, I agree with your comments above.  The whole series was about Sherlock's love for John. I did wonder myself for a while about John being 'omitted' from Sherlock's dying mind palace but now I think it made perfect sense from a dramatic point of view. It was an extremely powerful moment for me when Sherlock's eyes flew open and he willed himself back to life because his demon whispered to him that John was in danger.  That's all I needed to see and know to realize the depths of his feelings of love and commitment for John.  I didn't need to see John helping and coaxing him through the horror.  That would have been overkill (no pun intended) - and somehow I don't think Sherlock would not want John to "see" him "in extremis" - and so John was omitted in those moments as he died. However, as Sherlock hauled himself hand over hand up those metaphorical stairs, my imagination did allow me to envision John at the top waiting.  It just might have been too "corny" to actually show that.

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

Isn’t that adorable?

Absolutely lovely.  My own title for TEH as "The Wooing of John Watson" or "Winning Back the Injured Lover".  TSot is Sherlock's "Till Death Do Us Part" pledge - which he then pretty much fulfills in HLV.

One interesting little aside - I was re-reading "Performance in a Leading Role" by MadLori and she pretty much nails the scene where Sherlock and John say good-bye after they finish filming in Toronto with the way it was done at the end of HLV.  Almost eerie down to the handshake but without the baby name business :-)