Thank you. I am very happy it ended on this note and not with them holding hands while Sherlock's plane flew eastwards. 

 Thank you. 

SusiGo wrote:

Here is a little thing I did for tumblr which fits the topic:

This is what gives me hope

There has been much talk about the tarmac scene in which Mary seems to be the winner, triumphant in her red coat. But we should remember that this is not the last impression we get of her. 

Mary looks horrified. John is proud, happy, and relieved, a small smile on his lips. The game indeed is never over. 

Wow, I'm really sorry, but in this case I tend to observe something else. Such things certainly lie in the eye of the beholder, because to me John looks a bit disbelieving and Mary just looks surprised - although in Mary's case I find it hard to tell, just because she's out of focus.
 

Agreed, in this shot Mary looks like "Shit, what's happening now?!".
I'm not sure about John though. I mean, his "There's an East Wind coming" right at the end of the scene says it all for me anyway, because that's really John being excited and pleased about Sherlock coming back. But in this screenshot he looks more like "Oh Mycroft, what is it now...?" to me.
But I'll have a look at the whole scene again asap.

I don't know, but they didn't have another scene together prior to the tarmac scene anyway, did they? I'd have to have a look again at the moment she gets out of the car and walks up to Sherlock and Mycroft.

I agree. So far we know next to nothing about their relationship - I mean, do they even have one?

Of course, Schmiezi. For science and science only!

By the way, I'm sure we have an extra thread for this, but since we talked about Mary and Mycroft: In my opinion it is absolutely unthinkable that Mycroft did not know the truth about Mary right from the start. He kept an eye on John while Sherlock was away, and either he and his people messed up big time (and like I said: unthinkable) - or they knew what they were doing when they did background checks on Mary and then knew about her past. And then the question would be: What the hell was going and why the hell didn't Mycroft tell anyone about her?

La Jolie wrote:

silverblaze wrote:

I think Mycroft planned the whole suicide mission because he knew Sherlock would get himself involved in something really bad. Why else would he offer him a job only to be refused? 

Now that's an interesting thought. Makes a lot of sense if you subscribe to the theory that Mycroft was in on the Appledore/"Christmas present" scheme. But if you don't subscribe to that, it probably is just a narrative device, not to have the mission pop up out of nowhere and also to give Mycroft the chance to declare his love for his brother.

La Jolie, I agree with most of your points (especially #1) and it all makes perfect sense when you take the story at face value. It's entirely plausible that this is just Moffat's sledgehammer approach at foreshadowing (great writer, not always subtle), in fact, I could totally see him being at the end of the first draft and realise that the ending comes out of nowhere, and then write in this scene. The story really does make sense this way. 

However, I've got a little science background and although I don't 'subscribe to theories' before the data is in, I do love to play with alternative hypotheses and scenarios. My main objection is not that the story doesn't make sense this way, it's that Mycroft seems a bit slow in this and that we know that Moftiss like to lead us to believe something that turns out to be something else. So here is an alternative hypothesis in which Motiss are clever and devious:

We can be relatively sure about this:
1. After their conversation in 221B, Mycroft knows that Sherlock really hates Magnussen and is going after him. 
2. After the shooting, Mycroft knows that Sherlock knows who shot him and for some reason doesn't want to say who it was. 
3. Mycroft would probably know at least as much about Mary as Sherlock does. Maybe he's even given Sherlock that information. 
4. Mycroft was working with a map of Poland when Sherlock escaped. 
5. There was a job for Sherlock in Eastern Europe and Mycroft felt the need to tell Sherlock this, even though he didn't want him to take it. 
6. Mycroft puts quite a lot of effort into getting Sherlock that job. 
7. At the end, he says 'I hope you have learned your lesson'.

Here's how you can also connect those dots: Mycroft know that going after Magnussen will very likely get Sherlock in deep trouble, maybe with the law, or maybe with the blackmailer himself. So he comes up with this job in Poland, and to make it convincing to his coworkers, he makes it something so dangerous that no sane person would send a family member there just to keep them out of jail. However, there's also a secret other plan to get Sherlock out somehow. In the smoking scene, Mycroft works out that Sherlock still hates Magnussen and probably hasn't changed his plans, even though he wouldn't admit that to Mycroft. So he tells him about the mission and also tells him that he really doesn't want him to die. Mycroft isn't really in on the laptop thing but he knows something is going on and he deliberately doesn't stop it. 

silverblaze wrote:

Here's how you can also connect those dots: Mycroft know that going after Magnussen will very likely get Sherlock in deep trouble, maybe with the law, or maybe with the blackmailer himself. So he comes up with this job in Poland, and to make it convincing to his coworkers, he makes it something so dangerous that no sane person would send a family member there just to keep them out of jail. However, there's also a secret other plan to get Sherlock out somehow. In the smoking scene, Mycroft works out that Sherlock still hates Magnussen and probably hasn't changed his plans, even though he wouldn't admit that to Mycroft. So he tells him about the mission and also tells him that he really doesn't want him to die. Mycroft isn't really in on the laptop thing but he knows something is going on and he deliberately doesn't stop it. 

Now that sounds good to me.

(A map of Poland? Where? When?)

So Mycroft was preparing that mission in advance because he knew or guessed that Sherlock would get in big, big trouble with Magnussen and/or the law and would need a "way out"?

silverblaze wrote:

At the end, he says 'I hope you have learned your lesson'.

I stumble over that line every time, too. At first I thought it was just Mycroft being his usual snide self.Then it became the most important evidence, for me, that Mycroft is in on the "Moriarty returns" illusion or even engineered it himself for the sole purpose of making that plane turn around and land again. And he didn't set the illusion off earlier precisely because he wanted to teach Sherlock a lesson (having to say goodbye to John in that heart-breaking way and all that), and not make it easy for him (the bastard). But I never thought that the "lesson" might have started much earlier than that.

Can we even go so far as to assume that Mycroft knew all the way that the Appledore archives were inexistant and wanted  Sherlock to kill Magnussen?
 

Last edited by La Jolie (August 31, 2014 1:21 pm)

The laptop does feel like a setup.  After all, Mycroft doesn't even normally spend Christmas at the Holmes household, does he?  But the helicopter scene seems completely genuine.  I don't think he expected Sherlock to kill Magnusson at all.  Which suggests that he didn't know about the vaults (or he'd have followed Sherlock's line of thinking). 

I don't really understand Mycroft warning Sherlock off.  For a start, Sherlock stops Mycroft going into the bedroom, so doesn't want him to find Janine (the clue that it's Magnusson he's after), but then tells Mycroft outright that he's going after Magnusson (where Janine could possibly hear).  Mycroft says he's protecting Magnusson, but I think he also knows that Magnusson could manipulate him through Sherlock (Sherlock thinks Magnusson is already manipulating Mycroft).   So  Mycroft maybe doesn't want Sherlock putting himself in the line of fire (it's a complete gift to Magnusson, that will have repercussions for both of them). 

However, I could also see Mycroft using Sherlock to get to Magnusson, but not telling Sherlock.  He also knows that warning Sherlock off won't have any effect.