Well put.

SusiGo wrote:

Just imagine - Mary killing Magnussen and living happily ever after with an ignorant John and a baby and Uncle Sherlock.  

What a cruel imagination.
 

They must have chosen different settings for Mary's almost shooting CAM and Sherlocks shooting him deliberately: the one sneaking in to protect her secrets, the other one waiting until he's in plain sight. Not that I'm happy with Sherlock shooting, not a bit! I have as much trouble with that as with regarding Mary's deeds or plans as proof of strength, efficiency and prevention of evil. I find Sherlock being all alone left out for his deed and Mary safe back and comforting John as evil as it  can get tbh. More evil than the suicide of a side character.

Last edited by mrshouse (November 9, 2014 1:44 pm)

Zatoichi wrote:

SusiGo wrote:

Liberty wrote:

In fact, in the end (as the writer points out) he ends up just taking over Mary's plan to shoot him in the head.  Except that Mary's plan would have been a lot more efficient (she's a professional killer) - if she hadn't been interrupted, she wouldn't have been traced, a lot of evil would have been prevented (included Lord Smallwood's suicide, amongst other things), and they could have carried on as normal - no risk to Mary, John, Sherlock or Mycroft.  

Just imagine - Mary killing Magnussen and living happily ever after with an ignorant John and a baby and Uncle Sherlock. This would be completely against the art of storytelling where you need all sorts of impediments and misunderstandings and tragic turns. And it would be against the moral principles of Sherlock and John as well. This is really not what I want to see. 

And hadn´t we concluded that Mary couldn´t have shot him without the documents he seemed to have on her? Not that it makes a big difference, but I think she couldn´t have shot him even without Sherlock interrupting. If it was just about killing Magnussen, then why let him kneel and beg for his life and appeal to her? One shot from the door and the job would have been finished. There must have been more.. (well, at least if it´s supposed to make perfect sense, which I doubt by now, so.. never mind ^^) 

I'd thought that might be the case, but in the deleted scene Magnussen says that Mary had come to kill him.  It could be that she guesses he doesn't have any actual papers, although I don't think so (because she would have told Sherlock.   But maybe I'm overthinking - she couldn't have told Sherlock because he needs to have that revelation at Appledore, rather than plan around it in advance!).   Or maybe she would still be a lot safer with Magnussen out of the way (his information might be encrypted and not used after his death, or not accessible to anybody who wants to harm Mary - but Sherlock is keen to check that it doesn't exist before he kills Magnussen.  Possibly, Mary was most concerned about John knowing, rather than her old enemies, whereas Sherlock is making sure she's safe from them too).  I think that most likely, Mary really had it in for Magnussen (he is a character who could easily inspire hate) and wanted to make him squirm before she killed him.  She wasn't wearing a mask, and I think she wanted to him to know who she was and look him straight in the eye. 

I think that John does need to know the truth about Mary, but that's about the only good that comes out of postponing killing Magnussen.  It's a case when the right thing to do might not have been the most efficient at saving lives, and I don't really see Sherlock getting a better outcome given what we see (he's fooled by Magnussen more than once, and may well have been fooled at Magnussen's office.   What leverage did he have?).   So the only good that would have been achieved by Mary going to Sherlock for help, would be letting him and John know about her in a more gentle way.   (Assuming Sherlock would have told John, but it's not a given.  He might have thought it was best for him not to know).

I do think Sherlock is moral, but his views aren't conventional.  I keep thinking of the Camdem garrotter story.  The article was saying that Sherlock was annoyed that Mary didn't come to him, and I agree that at that point he thinks she should have.  But at the end, I think he'd be able to see that if Mary had got away with the shooting, at least one life would have been spared - Mary was actually handling it better on her own than he was.   There wasn't another solution.  Sherlock had more noble reasons than Mary for kiling Magnussen, but he also understands self-protection as motivation (he protects Irene - I don't agree with the writer that he doesn't care if she lives or dies).   So I think it's morally grey (for him) - it wasn't necessarily a good thing that he interrupted Mary and stopped that particular death at that moment.

Perhaps the best outcome would have been Mary killing Magnussen, Sherlock not involved, Mary confesses to John and Sherlock afterwards (they both have a history of keeping quiet about murder in certain circumstances ). 
 

Oh, me too - however I look at it, I find it very difficult to forgive Mary shooting Sherlock and then threatening him afterwards.  If she does turn out NOT to be a villain, I'm going to have try to block that out somehow. 

But I do think that what happens proves that she had good reason to not go to Sherlock - he just didn't do a good job on that case (until he took over her job).  Getting them to run with her would have worked - except that Janine knew she'd let Sherlock in, and other people had probably noticed him and John approaching the office.   Ideally, I suppose it would have to go back to Lady Smallwood not going to him for help either!  In which case, Sherlock would have heard about the death and shed no tears and Lord Smallwood would be alive.  

He does cock up a bit in this episode.  I know he's fallible and prone to the "human error" that he takes advantage of, but I'm hoping that he gets a chance to really shine again in S4, to be outstandingly clever and outwit the villain.

Last edited by Liberty (November 9, 2014 4:40 pm)

So I´ll put this here from the Johnlock-thread:

besleybean wrote:

But doesn't it make it a bit more interesting that Mary can be forgiven, even after committing almost the worst crime she could?

What troubles me most is not that she´s forgiven, but that the surgery-explanation sells it like she committed no crime at all.. she just did what she had to and even saved his life, no biggie. Accordingly she never even apologizes for all the hurt she caused. She is cold and threatening and is still forgiven for almost killing Sherlock, while Sherlock has to constantly apologize and literally beg on his knees for hurting John´s feelings while saving his life in TRF. It just seems not right, and something is definitely missing in this story-arc to make it an satisfactory ending.. that´s where I hope the cliffhanger is (but I don´t dare to let my hopes fly too high).

Last edited by Zatoichi (November 9, 2014 8:54 pm)

I trust the team to deliver.

besleybean wrote:

I trust the team to deliver.

I trusted the team to deliver until I heard the commentary!  Now I'm not so sure (but still hoping). 

"You saved my life" doesn't make any sense, when she killed him and only by a miracle did he survive (and without brain damage or other long-term effects). 

I can just about buy that John would forgive her (Sherlock persuades him) and possibly even that Sherlock would forgive her (he's able to see it in a practical way - he got in the line of fire when she was protecting herself), but I find it really difficult to buy Sherlock actually believing the "surgery" story. 

The thing is - I think up to Mary most fans could share sympathies and antipathies, you basically knew who was on the side of the angels and who was not even if they were sometimes morally grey characters. Imagine us disliking Sally even though for calling him a freak. And now we are meant to forgive a lying assassin who shot the protagonist? Well … 

This is not about acceptance but about credibility.