Sherlock Holmes wrote:

P.S. Great news. Can't wait for her tragic on screen death.

Evil, evil person.

Thanks Besley, that's really great.

Tinks wrote:

I hope they don't kill her off now - that would be too much tragedy, imo.
I'd rather - if she's eventually written out - have it that John is keeping her close until the baby is born and  that he does know what was on the stick.
I thought Sherlock giving his full name at the end was significant too, just can't work out how.

Actually, I had been hoping that the landing gear on Sherlock's plane had been sabotaged so when it returned it crash landed on Mary, leaving everyone else miraculously unscathed. Sadly this is not to be, but I'm sure Moftiss have something up their sleeves 
 

If the memory stick is symbolic of Mary's past then I think it is bound to return.
Mary ( supposedly on the run, keeping a low profile) can no longer hide from her past with SH/JW becoming so famous.
Also it's important for Johns character development that he learns he can't keep hiding / refusing to face the truth. Pretty sure they will make him learn that/get slapped with Mary's past.

The more I think about this, the more disappointed I'll be if we really have seen the last of the stick, because although there were some great moments in HLV, underneath these moments was a plot which on scrutiny, doesn't add up.
Here's another problem I have with it (and I could be back with many more) - within minutes of meeting Sherlock, Mycroff knew everything about John.
Are we to believe he didn't dig into Mary's background once she became close to Sherlock?
Sherlock was off his game in season 3, but Mycroft wasn't.
And I've a big problem with John accepting what Mary did to Sherlock...it would just make more sense if he was keeping her around till his child is born, but his words to her were so heartfelt that he really does seem to have swept it all under the carpet,

Tinks wrote:

The more I think about this, the more disappointed I'll be if we really have seen the last of the stick, because although there were some great moments in HLV, underneath these moments was a plot which on scrutiny, doesn't add up.
Here's another problem I have with it (and I could be back with many more) - within minutes of meeting Sherlock, Mycroff knew everything about John.
Are we to believe he didn't dig into Mary's background once she became close to Sherlock?
Sherlock was off his game in season 3, but Mycroft wasn't.
And I've a big problem with John accepting what Mary did to Sherlock...it would just make more sense if he was keeping her around till his child is born, but his words to her were so heartfelt that he really does seem to have swept it all under the carpet,

I think many of us have a big problem with John accepting what Mary did to Sherlock but I don't think the game is over; I'm pretty sure that Mycroft was playing a waiting game himself.  About the only sense I can make of John is 'it's the baby, stoopid'; I haven't a clue what Mofftiss are going to do with that but it will be fascinating to see how they extricate themselves 
 

Unless he did know about Mary and allowed her to be used as a way into CAM...

Swanpride wrote:

I don't think that Mycroft even knows about Mary. If he did, he would never need to ask why Sherlock hates Magnusson so much. Mary's new identity must be very well done, otherwise Mycroft would have made sure to get rid of her the moment she came close to John. With the information, he would also have been able to figure out that she was the one who shot Sherlock.
We always have the idea that Mycroft is omnipotent, but the truth is, that even he can't be everywhere, and if one of his people misses something, he would miss it too.

Well, I rather feel that your reasoning is predicated on the assumption that Mary is the reason why Sherlock finds CAM stomach turning; it isn't. Sherlock has a client, Lady Smallwood, suffering at the hands of CAM, and is well aware of the pernicious influence he wields on a global scale. He explains this at some length to John, who is too busy freaking out over Janine to actually pay him any attention, but even John notices that something is amiss with a guy who has just peed in the fireplace at Baker St.

Mary's new identity is clearly not very good, since CAM knows about it; I doubt that Mycroft cared much about her and John whilst Sherlock was undercover, doing exceedingly dangerous work. There was a high risk of his brother losing his life; in the end Mycroft has to go into the field, which he abhors, to haul him back to London to deal with an underground terrorist problem.

And as long as John was punching Sherlock whenever he saw him Mycroft still wouldn't care; there was no link and, whilst Mycroft loves his brother, he doesn't love John. If John insisted on entangling himself with somebody with a track record of killing people for money then Mycroft would not intervene; Mycroft doesn't do the damsel in distress thing. And getting Sherlock back into harness would be helped by the fact that that at some point John would calm down, and since he and Sherlock have a track record of successfully solving cases together, which is a net benefit, there is still no reason to break up the happy home. Mycroft undoubtedly regards preventing someone blowing up the Houses of Parliament as being rather more important than sorting out John's love life.

Mycroft's considered policy of benign neglect comes apart when Mary shoots Sherlock; I doubt anyone would anticipate that. I suspect that Mycroft subscribes to the view that revenge is a dish best served cold, and whilst Mary's death wouldn't trouble him he would have reservations about the fact that she is pregnant. But Mary was never important; CAM wanted Mycroft, and Mary was just the means to that end. And Mycroft is much too intelligent not to grasp that fact 


 

Thank you...I think!

I confess this is similar to how I felt in SIB.
Why the hell didn't Mycroft just tell Sherlock stuff and he hadn't known Irene was involved with Moriarty, anymore than Sherlock did!
I do understand how CAM could have had his uses for Mycroft.

silverblaze wrote:

Willow wrote:

Mycroft's considered policy of benign neglect comes apart when Mary shoots Sherlock; I doubt anyone would anticipate that. I suspect that Mycroft subscribes to the view that revenge is a dish best served cold, and whilst Mary's death wouldn't trouble him he would have reservations about the fact that she is pregnant. But Mary was never important; CAM wanted Mycroft, and Mary was just the means to that end. And Mycroft is much too intelligent not to grasp that fact  

That assumes that Mycroft knew that Mary shot Sherlock and that Mary was Sherlock's client. I would be very surprised if Sherlock had told Mycroft that, he's protecting Mary, telling Mycroft would probably be counterproductive. At the very least he's gonna work out who she is (if he hasn't done so already), at the very worst he'd have her 'disappear'. I don't think Sherlock would have told him about Lady Smallwood either, that would be a bit of a breach in client confidentiality.

Therefore, Mycroft doesn't connect Lady Smallwood's husband suicide to CAM and he doesn't connect Mary to CAM. All he sees is that his little brother is somehow in a fight against a master blackmailer, because he hates him or whatever, and it jeopardises his own position. No wonder he's so pissed off at Sherlock. 

About Mary's importance, you're right, I don't know what I was thinking, of course Mycroft realises that Mary might potentially become important to him, hence the argument at the wedding. Him knowing her background in advance would surely give a new meaning to that conversation. Interestingly, the writers said that the Redbeard reference was not as much to the dog that was put down, but to the fact that their parents had made Sherlock believe he went to some fairy tale land. Maybe Mycroft referred to the wedding as a fairy tale, things are not as they seem.

What I don't understand then is why Mycroft doesn't simply tell Sherlock. Mycroft gains nothing by keeping it a secret, he doesn't care about John and Mary, why doesn't he get rid of her then? 
 

No, it doesn't. Sherlock was acting on behalf of Lady Smallwood, who was his client. Mary only came into the picture when she shot him, which I think Mycroft did not anticipate. I certainly don't think he told Mycroft about either Lady Smallwood or Mary, but it is blindingly obvious that Mycroft did not spend the months whilst Sherlock was in hospital blandly going about his business, completely ignoring the fact that someone had come very close to murdering his brother.

He knows that Sherlock is protecting someone, which is not terribly hard since even John managed to work that out, and by a process of elimination it is most likely to be Mary. There are very few people that Sherlock would protect, and I really cannot see John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade or Molly shooting him; by default that leaves Mary, who is John's wife. John's wife would, in Mycroft's mind, explain Sherlock being prepared to protect her; not her as a person but her as the loved one of Sherlock's dearest friend who had been emotionally devastated by Sherlock's apparent death. So even if his people had failed on their due diligence and not spotted her flimsy only 5 years history well in advance of the wedding, which seems extremely improbable, he would certainly have known within a few hours of Sherlock developing a case of selective amnesia about who shot him.

Mycroft is well aware that Sherlock feels guilty about not realising how screwed up John was; this is why he keeps warning Sherlock that love is a disadvantage, notwithstanding the fact that Mycroft clearly loves his brother and his parents.

You ask why Mycroft doesn't get rid of her, and the simple answer is that Mycroft isn't Mary; he doesn't just kill people because they are in his way. There is a real problem if you assume that Mary's behaviour is normal behaviour; it isn't.

Mycroft knows that his brother was shot in CAMs office; you really don't need to be a genius to grasp that CAM is connected with the shooting, and since CAM's MO is blackmail, using information to extract not only money but power, control over governments around the world, it is also blindingly obvious that Mycroft would be a very desirable asset if CAM could control him. Expecting Mycroft not to recognise that fact is completely illogical; he's not exactly a modest man who undervalues himself. And there is singularly little point in him telling Sherlock that Mary shot him; Sherlock knows that already