Fine, thank you. Not sure what I am going to make of it. Of course it has to be strictly scientic. 

As for the Christmas scene - I always get the feeling that they did everything to make her look as ugly as possible. The Red and Green looks awful together. In TEH and TSoT there are scenes in which she looks lovely but did you notice that she gets uglier from the outside while getting uglier in her behaviour? Or is this just me? 

Yes. I am relieved as well because I did not want to be a poor pregnant woman/Amanda bashing idiot but she looks so terrible in that scene that my first thought was: Why the hell should he go back to that woman when he can have that glorious looking man? But maybe this is just shallow me. 

And as for the record - a pregnant woman does not necessarily have to look like that. Or did they want to show how badly she has been suffering from John's distance?

Thank you, dear. 

I think they are working on two levels: 
- the obvious level:  John forgiving his wife, she is in tears, happy future with baby in spite of all that has happened
- the subtextual level: she does not look happy or pretty, and what always makes me angry - her bickering about John not even being allowed the choose the baby's name. 

IMO Moffat does exactly the same in the Baker Street scene before: John is understandably angry, Sherlock looks terrible and deserves our empathy, Mary looks cool, some have even called it reptilian. But on the surface we are meant to forgive her and see her as the perfect partner for John. 

 

Yes, her lovely appearance disappears the more we get to know about her. This is really cleverly done and cannot be coincidence. 
I am still trying to get my head around why they make her wear the same coat in the bonfire scene and on the tarmac. 

Yes, excactly. But what just came across my mind that if we just consider how the actors look they handled Sherlock and Mary very differently (although the Mofftiss keep emphasizing that they have similar morals and are more fitting than we think):
Sherlock looks miserable in the Baker street scene, true, but his face is soft, his looks are with soft eyes and even when he spells out the "truth" about John being all addicted to certain characters his voice is sad and soft. You want to hug him and just tell him everything will be allright.
In the christmas scene when Mary is to be forgiven and they reconcile the first thing we get from her is snark. When you only want to shake her through and yell at her " Be a bit more humble! You caused these two men pain!" It is underlined by this horrible combination of red and green like a christmas gobblin. I think pregnant women can be truly pretty but also the presentation of her belly just screams "Don't annoy me!" The lightning is all bright and not caressing for her at all. John on the other hand looks quite handsome in his jacket and shirt.

Well, one could argue that Sherlock wears the same coat all the time (but that's canon, I suppose?). 
If I remember correctly, Mary wears three different coats altogether. The red one, the black one after the restaurant scene and yet another one when she is standing at Sherlock's grave with John - am I right? So the question is indeed why she's wearing the red coat twice.
She starts wearing it after Sherlock's return - and yes, I am aware that we see next to nothing of her before his return. But still. In both the bonfire and the tarmac scene she basically is a bystander, she watches Sherlock saving John and she watches John saying goodbye to Sherlock. She lets things happen - maybe because deep inside she knows that everything will play out to her effect? But maybe the red also means that she tries to draw attention to her herself in a sense of 'I want to be part of this, I am part of this, look at me, it's not just the two of you anymore'...? 

edit: sorry, I was late with my post, it was a rersponse to Susi...

 

Last edited by SolarSystem (August 14, 2014 9:38 am)

The grey one, Solar, as seen in my post above, is too tight for her at the end of her pregnancy.

 

Reasonable as always, tobe. 

And I am by no means sure of the symbolic meaning of that coat but for me the colour in this sad farewell scene is like a slap to the face. 

Mary will be glad that Sherlock leaves. Why should she wear anything "sad-coloured"?

SusiGo wrote:

Yes. They could have done many good things to make us like or at least understand her but did nothing to achieve that goal. Or shall we think it funny when they start bickering about mowing the lawn and choosing baby names after all that happened?

Actually, I think it is quite common for couples to start joking around right after they have just reconciled after a conflict. I guess that's what this is supposed to be - but I'm not bying it.