I think it's a good analysis, but it misses a couple of things.  Scenario 7 puts Mary in a more powerful position than Scenario 2 because she's actually shot Sherlock and he knows what she's capable of.  Just before she shoots him it's clear that he doesn't believe she would go that far, and he doesn't feel he's at risk from her.   That means that she doesn't have any bargaining power.  She can't threaten him.   But after the shooting, he's scared of her, and more likely to keep quiet (she would think).  It's also quick.  It does turn out that she underestimates Sherlock (but then she underestimates John too). 

I think it's ambiguous, and I do wonder if they deliberately wanted to leave it open for the next series.  I could see them going either way with it (and I really hope they do go somewhere with it, rather than leaving it unexplained). 

He offerred to help with Magnussen, not with keeping her secret from John.   And she does have a bit of a strange worldview, doesn't she?   You've got remember what sort of background she's come from (from what little we know of it).  Threatening rather than negotiating probably makes more sense to her.  

Liberty wrote:

He offerred to help with Magnussen, not with keeping her secret from John.   And she does have a bit of a strange worldview, doesn't she?   You've got remember what sort of background she's come from (from what little we know of it).  Threatening rather than negotiating probably makes more sense to her.  

Hmm. Yes I’ll have to agree with you that Sherlock’s offer to help Mary may seem to her to be only limited to dealing with CAM (and it probably didn’t even occur to him at that time that she’d want her secret hidden from John forever). And so you think see felt the need to physically injure him to prove that she’d follow through with her threats if Sherlock didn’t keep quiet. But from my analyses I could only conclude that Mary went for the safest route and killed Sherlock to protect her secrets. She resorted to threaten him ONLY when he miraculously survived and was in hospital constantly being monitored for her to take the risk of killing him. Then the second time we see her resort to threatening him it’s because Sherlock made sure the police would know if Mary killed him. The most bizarre thing is, why didn’t Mary threaten Sherlock to keep the truth from John in CAM’s office? If threatening Sherlock to keep things quiet was Mary’s original intent then shouldn’t the conversation in CAM’s office reflect that? Something like this?

Sherlock: Mary, whatever he’s got on you, let me help.
Mary: *slightly panicking* Sherlock. You can’t tell John. Tell me you’re not gonna tell him.
Sherlock: … No Mary. You know I can’t do that. And you don’t have to either. You know John. Maybe he’ll be furious at first but eventually he will understand.  Trust me, he will help you! (he’s thinking of how he was ‘understood and forgiven’ in TEH *eyeroll*)
Mary: No, Sherlock. It would break him and I would lose him forever. So understand, if you even breathe a word of this to him I swear I will kill you!
Sherlock: No, Mrs Watson. You won’t.
Mary: *shoots him in the shoulder/ leg* You don’t know me. *Knocks him out and CAM and makes a run for it after calling the ambulance*

 
Instead the way the scene was portrayed it looked like Mary knew Sherlock would never agree to keep things from John no matter what and so she didn’t even try and just went for the kill.

Sherlock: Mary, whatever he’s got on you, let me help.
Mary: Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you.
Sherlock: No, Mrs Watson. You won’t. *starts to come towards her*
Mary: *Shoots him in the heart/liver* I’m sorry Sherlock. I truly am. *knocks out CAM and makes a run for it*

 
Also please consider this: if Mary really intended to shoot Sherlock just to prove that she wasn’t kidding around and not actually kill him why did Sherlock had to do all the hard work to ensure he’d live to see another day? We even see him realizing that he may actually be a goner when thinking the balance of probability said he was basically murdered (MP!Mycroft). Then analyzing the situation he concluded that he must fall backwards or he was “certainly going to die” from the gunshot wound (MP!Molly). After that he frantically searched from his memories for something to calm him down to prevent getting into shock, the “next thing that [was] going to kill [him]”. It is absolutely unthinkable that Mary shot Sherlock in a place he’d most certainly die and called the ambulance hoping that it’ll reach in time while Sherlock fends off death utilizing the precious three seconds left of consciousness doing all the right things in time (like collapsing in a certain way and keep himself from going into shock). What makes sense though is that she was assured shooting Sherlock in the heart/ liver would ensure his death from blood loss eventually and would only take a miracle for him to recover. And sure enough what do we see? Sherlock did fail to prevent going into shock and when he was brought into the hospital even the doctors gave up on him. Just when he was about to pass away he realized that John was in danger from ‘that wife’ which jumpstarted his heart and quite miraculously brought him back. I think Mary didn’t shoot Sherlock in the head because when he’d arrive John would know he was beyond help and may decide to chase after the killer instead of giving her the distraction she needs to make a clean getaway.
 
Wow, looks like I’m rambling away. Anyways, there’s one more thing I have to say about the CAM Tower scene. There is one thing Mary does which makes many people feel indicates she never intended to kill Sherlock.
 
Mary: *Shoots him in the heart/liver* I’m sorry Sherlock. I truly am.
 
That line seemed really odd to me even after watching HLV all the way through for the first time. Because if she felt really bad to hurt him in order to convince him to keep quiet, she’d show remorse again later in one way or another - which she doesn’t like AT ALL. But if she isn’t remorseful then why apologize in the first place? Then when I was trying to see things from Mary’s perspective and concluded that she could only have meant to kill Sherlock it hit me. She does mean she’s sorry, just not in the way people think. This apology is more like “it was nothing personal”. You know it’s like she’s sorry that Sherlock had to unwittingly stumble upon her secret and lose his life in the process. And she doesn’t show any remorse later because she felt that circumstances forced her hand and she had to do what was best for her.
 
Well that’s all I can come up with about the CAM tower scene for now. Maybe Mary wasn’t the best thing that could’ve happened to John but to me she is one of the great things that happened in series 3. She has very limited screen time but her presence is felt throughout the series and you could literally talk about her for hours and hours. I never imagined Moffits would integrate the Mary character this way! Anyways, at one time I’d like to share with you all how I feel the story of HLV was told in a way to portray Mary in a bad light despite suggesting that John and Sherlock got her off the hook.

Last edited by tykobrian (February 16, 2015 7:41 pm)

I think the fact that Sherlock virtually dies is a huge plot hole, if it turns out Mary really did mean it to be surgery.   But my point was more about the analysis that was posted a few posts back - the writer couldn't see why Mary might want to shoot Sherlock rather than asking him for help.   I agree with you that it looks like she didn't believe Sherlock would keep her secret from John (if she'd really believed that then she would have gone to him in the first place, I think - he would have been a great ally to have).   She couldn't just threaten him in Magnussen's office, rather than later, because it didn't work - she tried to threaten him and he didn't believe her.  

tykobrian wrote:

Wow, looks like I’m rambling away. Anyways, there’s one more thing I have to say about the CAM Tower scene. There is one thing Mary does which makes many people feel indicates she never intended to kill Sherlock.
 
Mary: *Shoots him in the heart/liver* I’m sorry Sherlock. I truly am.
 
That line seemed really odd to me even after watching HLV all the way through for the first time. Because if she felt really bad to hurt him in order to convince him to keep quiet, she’d show remorse again later in one way or another - which she doesn’t like AT ALL. But if she isn’t remorseful then why apologize in the first place? Then when I was trying to see things from Mary’s perspective and concluded that she could only have meant to kill Sherlock it hit me. She does mean she’s sorry, just not in the way people think. This apology is more like “it was nothing personal”. You know it’s like she’s sorry that Sherlock had to unwittingly stumble upon her secret and lose his life in the process. And she doesn’t show any remorse later because she felt that circumstances forced her hand and she had to do what was best for her.

I like your rambling, very insightful. Especially this interpretation of the “apology”.
 
I think there might not be too much of a difference for Mary in scenario 2 and 7, indeed it is more or less a win/win situation, or would be, if she had not underestimated Sherlock. In her head it might be one scenario all together. She shoots him in a potentially fatal fashion: Either Sherlock dies slowly - and John will never know; or Sherlock survives, but will stay quiet to safe his own life - and John will never know. Leave it to Sherlock to do neither.
 
Where I think Mary did judge Sherlock correctly is that there was ever a scenario where Sherlock would have not told John without the shooting. We know that in the end even the shooting could keep him could from doing that, but there would have been a higher chance if Sherlock would not be Sherlock. I don’t think a short conversation in CAM’s office and a relatively minor injury could have convinced him to stay quiet. So Mary could only hope to keep the truth from John if she could convince Sherlock that his death was worth his silence.
 
 
BTW, I was just watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPOTGibC3eI for the I’m not quite sure how manyest time. 8:48 - 8:56 had me laughing - and feeling slightly guilty at the same time for some reason.
 

I have nothing to add. 

I gave it some thought and would add something after all: John does not hear her threat as only Mary, Magnussen and Sherlock are present. Which fits with the theory that Sherlock sells his surgery version to lull Mary into a sense of security and at the same time make John believe she did not intend to kill him.

By the way: I think it is always quite important to remember what a character knows and what not as it can explain a lot of things (e.g. that John never knows for sure that Sherlock and Janine did not have sex, or what Sherlock endured in Serbia, or how badly John suffered during those years, etc.).

Last edited by SusiGo (February 18, 2015 8:16 am)

I don't think Mary ever planned to kill Sherlock. If she did, it would make more sense to shot him in the head. No chance of surviving when done right. 

I also think a big motivating factor for Sherlock to reunite John and Mary at 221B was to get the "domestic" over and done with so that they could go back to focus on Magnussen. Even seconds before collapsing himself, when John is still in shock and anger, he tells him that "Magnussen is the only thing that matters now". 

Magnussen is the only criminal Sherlock is shown to hate, and he has now also made this perosnal. I think this is Sherlock being Sherlock, getting all that sentiment stuff out of the way so that they could get back to the case.

SusiGo wrote:

If she never planned to kill Sherlock, why does she say it? The interesting thing with the Sherlock villains is that they usually tell the truth. 

If she intended to kill him, why not shoot him in the head and remove all possibility of him surviving? 

Like I mentioned a few posts back I think Mary didn’t shoot Sherlock in the head because when he’d arrive John would know he was beyond help and may decide to chase after the killer instead of giving her the distraction she needs to make a clean getaway.

That too. Really , if the writers wanted to have Mary as a villain, they still wouldn´t write her shooting Sherlock in the head - the show would be over after that.