Well, as I understood it, he made an effort to like her from the beginning for John's sake. Which is the reason he couldn't read her, and her other side slipped past his radar. Sentiment got the better of him and indeed made his deductional abilities weaker.

Last edited by Vhanja (February 20, 2015 10:23 am)

Yes, he was indeed. Which leads us back to the question what the show gives us to catch up with this
almost immediate, lasting and never shattering bond, not even shattered by shooting and further threatening. The only thing could be:" well, he likes her and that's about all we need to know."
And another point: has anyone else the feeling that both Sherlock and John never truly came over the trauma of TRF? For the whole season? So where is the " talking round?".

Last edited by mrshouse (February 20, 2015 11:42 am)

mrshouse wrote:

And another point: has anyone else the feeling that both Sherlock and John never truly came over the trauma of TRF? For the whole season? So where is the " talking round?".

I think we do see some of that, at least we see Mary try. When Mary asks John in the shaving scene "And then you'll go and see him again?", I think this can be interpreted as her attempt to make John go to see Sherlock again - even if she might not be all that successful. Although, we see him go to 221B the same day, right? But then he ends up in the bonfire.
I don't expect Mary to do any magic here though. The fact that the relationship between Sherlock and John never seems to be as 'lighthearted' as in S1/2 is something between Sherlock and John. 

 

Last edited by SolarSystem (February 20, 2015 12:11 pm)

SusiGo wrote:

I still think that the words "That wife! John Watson is definitely in danger" do not leave much space for doubt about who is the danger. 
 

And remembering that everything and everyone in Sherlock's mind palace is an extension of himself, how does he get from thinking Mary is a danger to John to totally forgiving her?  Myself, I don't see it in anything that is presented on screen.

In my eyes, Sherlock and Mary actually can´t stand each other and are only shamming their good relationship for the sake of John. She is horrified that she has a detective hanging around her while he is disgusted with her as with all John´s previous girlfriends, but cannot alienate her openly because the thin thread that connects him with John would break then. And so they play theatre around each other. Their good behaviour towards each other after Mary shot Sherlock is therefore not surprising at all - it´s only one more theatre performance of many that preceded it. Honestly, that hug on the tarmac paired with a kiss was the most insencere and staged up thing in Sherlock ever. In comparison with two heartfelt kisses Sherlock gave to Molly it´s very grating in its fakeness.

And if you think about it, the very first acts of Sherlock and Mary towards each other were the acts of agression: he put the napkin into her water-glass to rub off his fake moustache, she didn´t hesiate and stabbed him with a remark: "Do you know what you have caused?" althrough she was currently lying in the very same manner to John (the case of pot calling kettle black).

Concerning the sudden distance between Sherlock and John: well, the third character was wedged between them, so this was kind of inevitable.

Sherlock thinks John is in danger from Mary at that point where Mary has shot him and he's apparently dying.  He hasn't had time to work out anything about Mary yet.   What he knows is that she has (apparently) tried to kill him and might be about to kill John if he walks into the room at that point.

I think it's later that he puts everything together, in hospital.  There's Mary's threat, the fact that Magnussen is alive, etc.   Once he's worked something out, I think he believes that he's in danger, not John.   He seems to believe John is relatively safe with Mary (he almost goes off and leaves them alone together at at the end, with no warning for John).

For me it boils down to the problem many fans have with this episode if taken at face value: John staying in a relationship with and Sherlock apparently forgiving and accepting a woman who swore to kill Sherlock, threatened him several times, has been an assassin and has never shown any remorse for her doings. Who is or has been a danger to Sherlock and by extension to John. 

I have never had a problem with Sherlock forgiving Mary. I think it would be much easier for Sherlock forgiving Mary for being shot than it it for John forgiving Mary for lying to him about her past. This is where Sherlock's master of logic and reason, and lack of focus on "sentiment", comes into it's full strength, I think. 

Sherlock has himself done a lot of things people would consider bad as long as he thinks it's necessary for his cause. Just minutes before being shot, he fake-proposed to his fake-girlfriend to get to CAM. And when Irene tricked him, drugged him and beat him up, that only managed to intrigue him.

So if there is someone who could easily forgive Mary for shooting him, it's Sherlock. As soon as he understood why, and understood that it was not because he was targetted as an enemy, but something she thought she had to do to protect herself.

And I see Mary and Sherlock doing the same when John is hurt and angry at one of them - they both push him towards the other one. After the reunion, Mary kept pushing John towards Sherlock. After the Mary reveal, Sherlock kept pushing John towards Mary.

Based on that, I think Sherlock has forgiven Mary and that the two of them honestly like each other. If they didn't, it would be too easy for any of them to fuel John's anger and hurt against the other instead of actually making an effort towards reconciliation.

SusiGo wrote:

I think we have to agree to disagree in this regard. I simply cannot accept Sherlock having to atone for everything he does, to say sorry for things that were not even his fault over and over again, while Mary goes scot-free. 
Of course there ist the argument of the horrible months of insecurity she possibly endured between the 221B scene and Christmas but the thing is that we never see this. While we see Sherlock suffering throughout series 3. 
I do not deny that this is what the writers may have wanted. It is just that it neither convinces nor satisfies me as a viewer. 

I see what you mean. I think this has to do with Sherlok and John being the main characters of the show, not John and Mary. In the wedding between John and Mary, we see more or less nothing of John and Mary. But we see a lot about Sherlock and John. So when there is conflict between John and Mary, we willl see less than when there is a conflict between Sherlock and John. 

That's what I think might be the reason for it.

nakahara wrote:

Some people pointed out, that if John indeed forgiven Mary, it will have a far reaching implications - namely that he would be forced to stick with her from now on and never leave her, no matter what. Because if he left her now for some reason (like unfaithfullness, child not being his, her past or some of her lies), he would look utterly selfish - since none of those reasons are graver than shooting of his best friend which he has forgiven easily, making an issue of reason that is less grave would be an awful move from his part.

I agree and I think Mary would remain a part of a story from now on.

No, I don't agree with that line of thought. Him forgiving her for this does not mean he has to stay with her no matter what. Not at all. No one but John has the right to decide what reason is good enough for him to leave her. (And it wasn't shooting Sherlock that was the big issue, as I see it. It was her lying to him).