krissylou wrote:

So we are learning some interesting things about Mrs. Hudson's background and I have a theory.

We learned in ASiP that Mrs. Hudson owes Sherlock a favor because when her husband was sentenced to death in Florida Sherlock was able to help out -- ensuring the execution.

In Series 3 we learned that he ran a drug cartel but Mrs. Hudson "just did the typing."

I do believe that the technical legal term for "just doing the typing" is "conspiracy."

I.e., Mrs. Hudson was in a whole lot of hot water herself.  And there are plenty of people (often women) in prison who were involved in Very Very Bad Things in a very tangential way but can be on the hook for much more because they were involved in "conspiracy" -- but then because their personal involvement was so small they don't know enough to turn evidence against someone else, and that is generally how you strike a plea bargain so they can end up with what seem to be extremely disproportionate sentences when you look at what they actually did.

My theory is this is the situation that Mrs. Hudson found herself in.  She will be grateful to Sherlock forever, not only because he assured Frank Hudson's execution but also he kept her out of many many years in a Florida prison herself.  He found the critical evidence that she was able to trade for a plea bargain that let her off with probation.

Gosh! That's great fun. I agree that conspiracy would be a very, very obvious charge and given the 'War on Drugs' it could be very tricky trying to stay out of jail. I think that is a great explanation for her obvious affection for him, even when he's being irritating as only Sherlock knows how, and if she only managed to get off the hook with his assistance in Florida then it gives added flavouring to her managing to outwit the CIA on Sherlock's behalf in SiB.

Sherlock is very loyal to her in turn; his straight faced response to Lestrade asking him how many times the CIA guy had managed to fall out of the window is one of my favourite moments

'It's all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count'
 

 

I think we were supposed to believe she got involved with, and married Frank Hudson before realizing what he was up to. She says her attraction to him was physical and she found out bad things about him later...

But of course, CAM could always twist the story...