I agree, nakahara. They could have resolved the doubts and chose not to. And I must say, I can live with the third explanation even if it does not make sense in some points. But I cannot accept the surgery/saving his life explanation. And I think I am not alone in feeling like that. 

La Jolie wrote:

Zatoichi, I love the images you conjure up - first it was Sherlock doing Parkour (which so stuck in my head that I'm currently writing a fanfic based  on that idea), now it's Sherlock zooming around on a broomstick and Mary being a death eater.  

Cool, can I read it when you´re finished? 

La Jolie wrote:

All these "mistakes" are made in order to advance the plot or inject some drama or both. Just because they don't make sense realistically doesn't mean there is a deeper meaning behind this. Is the (legally inaccurate and therefore unresolved) CIA agent incident from ASIB a big, big hidden plot point that will rise up again in S4 to haunt Sherlock? Is he in league with Mary? Will he be the show's next great antagonist? Or can we forget about him and be sure that man will never show his face again, having served his narrative and dramatic purpose?

There is no definite answer, is there? But we will have to entertain the possibility, at least, that we might be overinterpreting if we assume that there is a deeper meaning behind that incident.

And the shooting/surgery/flatlining scene is no different. It is medically inaccurate and therefore unresolved, but that doesn't automatically mean that there's a deeper meaning behind that one, either.
 

I still think the whole Mary-conundrum doesn´t compare to the CIA-agent, because it being medically inaccurate is not the only thing that´s bothering. Her whole behaviour is inconsistent, her continued threats, her complete lack of any emotion when it´s not about herself, her lack of remorse - Sherlock begged on his knees for forgiveness after hurting John´s feelings after all. It just doesn´t fit the backstory we get presented, the story of a woman with a heart of gold who was forced to do something really bad to her good friend whom she wanted to preserve.. maybe they just wanted to keep the mystery until the very end, but in hindsight it really sticks out like a sore thumb (to steal nakahara´s very fitting expression ).
 

Last edited by Zatoichi (September 11, 2014 5:39 pm)

nakahara wrote:

The details of the story must not neccessarily be consistent with real life - but they must be consistent with the story itself.

Exactly. That's what I call the 'inner logic' in films, books, tv shows... it all has to make sense within the realm of the show. Pretty obvious example: Mycroft can't be Sherlock's brother in one episode and his stepbrother in the next one - unless of course there is a big secret or something like that involved. But I'm sure you know what I mean. 
 

SusiGo wrote:

Not sure if we had this and it does not refer to the latest posts but in a way to the topic of the thread. I find it quite interesting and it helps explain especially Molly's behaviour in HLV:

http://ivyblossom.tumblr.com/post/77913988394/what-do-you-make-of-sherlocks-random-segue-to-mollys

To be fair to Molly, I do like to think there's some concern there.  I like the character outside of this incident, and I'd hate to think that she hits him because he has rejected her.  (And I don't completely agree with the parallel with John.  John can have what he wants, but has chosen to stay away since the wedding, and then comes back for the Magnusson case.  Sherlock didn't reject him).   However, I think the author is right that that's part of it (and I agree that she's still infatuated with Sherlock - even the sub-Sherlock Tom showed that she was just trying unsuccessfully to find a replacement).  It's also entirely unjustified.  Sherlock has asked her to help, but has never asked for adoration, and I think he's rather sweet to her in S3.   It's an awful thing to do to him. 
 

Zatoichi wrote:

Liberty wrote:

Yes, and I am happy with it, as long as it's later revealed that Mary meant to kill Sherlock.   That would be consistent with the rest (Sherlock survived due to a tiny chance of a rare happening that she couldn't have predicted).  After all, she says that if he takes a step she will "kill" him (not "shoot", which would have been the obvious thing to say).

Exactly. My theory is that she aimed for a lethal shot that would still keep John preoccupied with worrying over his dying friend long enough for her to climb down the building, get home, hide her assassin equipment, catch her breath and put on her loving-wife-face before he returns home full of grief and thirst for vengeance. If he had found Sherlock dead sure he would have instantly started to look for the killer, which would have meant great danger for her. Maybe she called the ambulance because she knew that without one Sherlock would have died within ten minutes and time was crucial. For me this explanation would be much more in tune with her behaviour and choice of words during the shooting and afterwards.

I like your theory about the chest shot.   The only inconsistency for me has been Mary avoiding a head shot (especially when we're shown her taking a head shot when Sherlock talks about it, and Sherlock kills with a head shot at the end).  You're right - Mary didn't know how long she would have before John arrived and if Sherlock was dying rather than dead, it would delay him.  Especially considering that he's a doctor. 

I think Magnusson called the ambulance.  He had good reason to: he needed Sherlock alive as Mycroft's pressure point.  There's no reason at all to think that it was Mary who called the ambulance.   Why would there be?  Sherlock didn't see her do it (it's shown as in his imagination, isn't it?  He's unconscious).   Magnusson didn't say who'd called it, but he was busy keeping information to himself for further use. 

It's all consistent with Mary meaning to kill, and with just about everything Sherlock says about her actions being a lie.  So for my own piece of mind, I'm going to go with that explanation.
 

I think/hope that we're supposed to think it's possible for HLV, but we're going to be shown it's a lie on S4.    It seems as if it has been carefully set up so that nothing confirms Sherlock's story.  (There was only lack of the head shot - I like your explanation for that.  I was thinking that it was sentiment, and that Mary cares enough not to want to shoot his brain.  But it's the only fact in favour of Sherlock's story).    I think this is going to be another case of Sherlock knowing something we don't.   I hope.

I'm still bothered that Sherlock is OK with going off and leaving John with Mary, but it could well be that he doesn't think she's a danger to John.  (And it helped me to think that he doesn't come back to save John from her generally, but only because he thinks John is walking into a room where she's armed and dangerous). 

The "five minutes" I thought was something he'd heard from John in the hospital.  (John would have known that he spent five minutes downstairs looking after the casualties, and it's the kind of thing he might have mentioned just because he'd have have been kicking himself for not going up sooner).  Magnusson needed Sherlock alive and Mary didn't, so I think Magnusson called the ambulance.  It's possibly slightly odd that John didn't ask if an ambulance had been called (Magnusson could have said yes, without revealing who called it).   There was urgency, though, so I could believe that he called one himself without engaging Magnusson in conversation.

Of course, another explanation is that there was only John's call and the paramedics got there quickly.  Sherlock's "eight minutes" is an average, or possibly even completely made up for the sake of the story.  But as Magnusson had an interest in keeping Sherlock alive, I think he called it.

I like your point about negotiating his silence.   I don't think that was the plan at all.  She's rushing to the hospital to comfort John after Sherlock has died without regaining consciousness - that's the plan.  The other thing about negotiating his silence is that it would have been better done in Magnusson's office while she had the gun in her hand.   Allowing him to wake up in hospital, unsupervised by her, was extremely risky, and in fact, he almost gives her away by saying her name.  There was no point at all in buying time if it meant that she would be exposed at that hospital.   And of course, Sherlock is claiming that his almost-death was an accident.  That Mary had expected him to be less seriously injured and so to wake up earlier and in better condition, before she could get to him and "negotiate".   Why would she plan that? 

I really like your thoughts. 

Zatoichi wrote:

La Jolie wrote:

Zatoichi, I love the images you conjure up - first it was Sherlock doing Parkour (which so stuck in my head that I'm currently writing a fanfic based  on that idea) ... 

Cool, can I read it when you´re finished? 

Here you go:
http://archiveofourown.org/works/2289809/chapters/5034410

Don't blame me if it's not the genre / pairing (or rather non-pairing) / format you usually like to read. The Parkour thing really is just the starting point, so if you're not interested in the rest, just stop reading at the point when they've reached the living room.



Susi, thank you for posting the link to IvyBlossom's meta on Molly's violence. I agree with Liberty  though that Molly's and John's situations or rather relationships with Sherlock don't compare. I think that Molly's engagement being off (and Sherlock, of course, however unwittingly and indirectly, being the cause of it) explains the extent of her violence but not the fact that she gets violent at all. There's always a fine line between "oh, look, interesting how far this character will go when driven" and "oh, this is totally out of character". We see what we like to see in a character, but that doesn't mean that the writers will always share our personal interpretations of just how far a character will go.

To me, Molly's violence looks less like a rejected/frustrated lover to me than like a truly deeply worried older sister. She CARES, big time. She's playing Mycroft's part in that scene, more than anything.

As a doctor and a pathologist, she knows what drugs do to people's brains, not only short-term, but long-term, too. That's what she is concerned with. What she says to him is not "How dare you do this to me" but "How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts that you were born with", which is all about him and not about her. And then only as a second thought, she continues, "How dare you betray the love of your friends", very deliberately "friends", and "friends" in the plural.

Yes, she's still infatuated with him, of course she is, but that's not all there is to their relationship. Ever since the Fall and the part she played in it, she has joined the ranks of those privileged few who make up Sherlock's family and who keep him right, and she has joined those ranks in her own right, not because he needs a groupie. To me, that gives her certain rights. Not maybe to hit him around the face, but certainly to care about him and to tell him of it.

Also, I think that Sherlock's reaction to Molly's violence doesn't compare to that to John's violence. In HLV, he lets it happen because it's part of a bigger plan - he wants the world to believe that he's a junkie and if that means letting his friends believe it, too, and them making him suffer for it, the end justifies the means for him (as usual). Molly's violent reaction, and his letting it happen, greatly strengthens the tale he's trying to make people believe in. He would have greatly weakened his own case if he had tried to stop her or defend himself.

In TEH with John, however, suffering violence from his best friend is not part of a greater plan at all. It's not the means to an end, it just happens. And I therefore would definitely say that John's violence (and Sherlock's passivity in the face of it) is a good deal more disturbing than Molly's in HLV.
 

Last edited by La Jolie (September 14, 2014 10:06 pm)

La Jolie wrote:

Also, I think that Sherlock's reaction to Molly's violence doesn't compare to that to John's violence. In HLV, he lets it happen because it's part of a bigger plan - he wants the world to believe that he's a junkie and if that means letting his friends believe it, too, and them making him suffer for it, the end justifies the means for him (as usual). Molly's violent reaction, and his letting it happen, greatly strengthens the tale he's trying to make people believe in. He would have greatly weakened his own case if he had tried to stop her or defend himself.

In TEH with John, however, suffering violence from his best friend is not part of a greater plan at all. It's not the means to an end, it just happens. And I therefore would definitely say that John's violence (and Sherlock's passivity in the face of it) is a good deal more disturbing than Molly's in HLV.
 

I don't think he does mean to let his friends believe he's a junkie.  I think he had the whole thing sorted out without involving them.  He doesn't tell them about going undercover, and the phone call about it making news seems to have nothing to do with John and Molly.   He was just working, doing his own thing, and John happened to find him because he was looking for Isaac, I think.  Sherlock immediately lets him know that he's on a case and undercover ("Well, I'm not NOW"").   It's John who insists on testing (not sure why, as Sherlock doesn't deny taking drugs, and John and Molly don't seem to do anything helpful for him after the positive result).  I'm not sure if Molly knows he's on a case, but he repeats that he is after she hits him. (And we find out that he is on a case, and that both of them have misjudged him.  Yes, it's a bit of a risky thing to do for a case, but it wouldn't be the first time - and actually the point of creating the drug scenario is to detract from other possible pressure points, such as John).  It's frustrating that both John and Molly get angry without trying to understand.  Sherlock isn't hiding anything from them.  They just seem to have made up their own versions of the story.  And as usual, there is no apology when they find out they are wrong.

John's violence in TEH definitely feels worse. I do find it disturbing and I don't get that feeling with Molly.  I suppose Sherlock is passive both times, but with John he's conciliatory and with Molly he's defiant.  But I think John's violence is more understandable - he has been bereaved in a horrible way, with all the associated guilt and regret, he has a bit of a short fuse anyway, and I can see that he would be experiencing extreme emotions in that scene.   Molly is more detached, and has less excuse.  That's why it's worse for her to do it.  Also a full force blow across the face like that can do unexpected damage - to ears, eyes, mouth, facial bones, etc. - which Molly would know, but goes ahead anyway.  Although, women slapping men's faces is a staple of entertainment, so maybe I'm looking too deeply into it. 

I haven't read the entire thread, but this is my take on that scene:

Violence is never (or seldom) the right thing to do, but I think it is very understandable here. Sherlock is a great, charming and fantastic man - but he is also a complete arsehole. John has never been anything but supportive, and has gotten so much crap back it's a wonder he is still there.

To then pay that loyalty back with letting John grieve for two years is inexcuable. There is no reason why Mycroft couldn't have payed John a visit and explained it to him. 

So I have no trouble with that scene, Sherlock has been deserving a beating ever since ASiP, in my opinion. And his emotional blackmail towards John in the tube at the end of TEH is just as bad, I think. Probably worse. 

I hope I don't come across as not liking Sherlock. I do, he is absolutely awesome, one of the best characters on tv I've ever seen. The fact that he is an arse doesn't make me like him any less, but he IS. And I think it's good that he is finally called out on it. He lives in a bubble where everything evolves around him, and he needed that wake-up call. 

Sherlock won't hesitate to emotional blackmail, manipulation and throdding all over John's feelings if he feels it is required to satisify his own selfish need. John won't hesitate to attack Sherlock if he deems it appropriate, and if he is angry enough. They have a slightly dysfunctional relationship, which I think comes form the fact that they both have rather huge emotional issues to deal with.

Last edited by Vhanja (December 12, 2014 9:01 am)