BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Mary

SusiGo · April 3, 2015 8:39 pm

Which does not really make sense. Except of course she knew that Magnussen's knowledge was only stored in his mind. Then she would have done the same thing Sherlock did later.

RavenMorganLeigh · April 3, 2015 8:51 pm

SusiGo wrote:
Which does not really make sense. Except of course she knew that Magnussen's knowledge was only stored in his mind. Then she would have done the same thing Sherlock did later.

Yep, I agree-- the scene makes me think AGRA was looking for the files; that's why she was menacing Magnussen. If she knew Magnussen's "files" were only accessible via his "mind palace", she would have shot him on the spot; and probably not even been there to shoot Sherlock, having already made her escape.

Liberty · April 3, 2015 9:03 pm

In the deleted scene, Magnussen says that Mary was there to kill him.

SusiGo · April 3, 2015 9:04 pm

So did she know about his mind palace?

Vhanja · April 3, 2015 9:05 pm

I think the scene itself argues that she wasn't there to kill him. She's a trained assassin who has just broken into a building. If she were there to kill him, she would've done it quickly and effeciently so that she could leave as soon as possible. It makes no sense for her to stand around for several seconds while Magnussen pleaded for his life.

Liberty · April 3, 2015 9:06 pm

Quite possibly she didn't know about the mind palace - but knew that he couldn't act against her if she killed him. (In reality, there would have been no safe way to get any "files" from him without being sure of copies). I think she despised him and was making him suffer a bit first.

(If she'd known about the mind palace, you'd think she'd let Sherlock know when he took on her "case", wouldn't you? Unless she deliberately didn't tell him because she thought that Sherlock wouldn't go into it planning to kill Magnussen).

Last edited by Liberty (April 3, 2015 9:23 pm)

RavenMorganLeigh · April 3, 2015 9:06 pm

SusiGo wrote:
So did she know about his mind palace?

If she did, well-- she's an idiot. :-) She could have solved the problem right then and there, if she did.

Liberty · April 3, 2015 9:16 pm

Well, she didn't expect Sherlock and John to arrive, and once she knew John was there she decided not to kill Magnussen (apparently), knowing that he'd want to keep her secret. But yes, all the problems might have been solved if she'd only got a shot in a minute earlier!

Magnussen doesn't seem to be bargaining about any files when Sherlock comes in. He seems to be trying to persuade her not to kill him. Which would fit with what he says to Sherlock later, and what Vhanja pointed out from Sherlock Uncovered (which I've seen, but didn't remember!).

Last edited by Liberty (April 3, 2015 9:24 pm)

Lola Red · April 3, 2015 10:04 pm

I don’t think she knew abut the mind palace. If she did it would have been a question of go in, shoot him, go out. But Sherlock finds them in conversation. I think was trying to get any copies of what he had on her (possibly the USB stick she gave John later) and the exact location of the originals, so she could destroy them later, and only then kill him. An assassin would not let someone live longer than necessary without good reason; it just increases the chances of getting caught.

SusiGo · April 4, 2015 5:40 am

So all this would mean that Amanda for some reason was wrong about Mary? Which would not surprise me because she said some things about her character that did not work for me (cool BAMF! parents with guns, etc.).

Vhanja · April 4, 2015 8:08 am

Disagreeing with what Amanda has said about Mary doesn't automatically make her wrong.

Liberty · April 4, 2015 8:18 am

One thing that points me towards Mary not wanting to kill Magnussen is that if Janine had told Mary that Magnussen wouldn't be there (as she'd told Sherlock). But we don't know if that's the case - Janine could have told just Sherlock, or she could have been feeding them different stories. (I've even wondered if Magnussen engineered it so that they would all arrive at the same time, but I think that's probably a bit far-fetched, and too dangerous for Magnussen).

She wasn't acting as an assassin in the usual sense (i.e. working for somebody. Although who knows?). She had her own personal reasons for wanting him dead, and it looks like she wanted to confront him. Magnessen does seem to be pleading for his life rather than trying to negotiate over the "files".

(from Arianne de Vere)
MAGNUSSEN: What-what-what would your husband think, eh?
He ... your lovely husband, upright, honourable .... so English. What-what would he say to you now?
(Standing in front of him, someone dressed all in black and wearing black gloves pulls back the pistol and silencer they are pointing at Magnussen and cocks the gun before pointing the business end at him again. He cowers, whimpering and momentarily lapsing into Danish.)[/size]
MAGNUSSEN: Nej, nej! [No, no!]
(Sherlock slowly pushes the door open.)
MAGNUSSEN (tearfully, tremulously): You’re-you’re doing this to protect him from the truth ... but is this protection he would want?

It looks as if she's about to shoot him to "protect John from the truth". In the deleted scene, Magnussen confirms that she had come to kill him, and both he and Sherlock know that something stopped her:

MAGNUSSEN: Having shot you, the woman you know as Mary Watson left without killing me.
... which is odd, because that was the reason she came.

I know it's a deleted scene and was left out, so we can't quite count it, but in the discussion we felt it was left out for reasons other than that one. Amanda could well be right.

Then Sherlock believes that Mary had come to kill Magnussen:

SHERLOCK: ... Magnussen knows your secret, which is why you were going to kill him

... and when John cottons on, so does he:

MARY: The stuff Magnussen has on me, I would go to prison for the rest of my life.
JOHN: So you were just gonna kill him.

... and Mary confirms it:

MARY: People like Magnussen should be killed. That’s why there are people like me.

Everybody has jumped to the conclusion that Mary was planning to kill Magnussen, and Mary confirms it rather than denies it. Which does make sense - Magnussen had signaled that he was prepared to work against her, and he'd still have that power whether or not he gave up any "files" (he'd have backups, but also he'd have the information himself - he could go to the police or tell John if he wanted to at any time. Mary would only be "safe" when he was dead).

Then there's the little bit from the commentary, said when Mary seems to be about to kill Magnussen:

Steven: “It must be said here: let’s hear it for Mary Morstan. Mary figures out the only thing you can do with Magnussen at this point – just kill him, which Sherlock is gonna take another hour to get to! ‘

... which confirms (I think) that Mary would have killed Magnussen if Sherlock hadn't arrived, and inadvertently saved his life.

Vhanja · April 4, 2015 8:21 am

Good points, Liberty. It does seem that there is more in favor of Mary being there to kill him.

Liberty · April 4, 2015 8:21 am

Yes, I think so, especially if Amanda has confirmed it.

(The quotes above are from http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/ (my bold). For some reason I can't edit it to add the link!)

Last edited by Liberty (April 4, 2015 8:23 am)

Lola Red · April 4, 2015 8:37 am

SusiGo wrote:
So all this would mean that Amanda for some reason was wrong about Mary? Which would not surprise me because she said some things about her character that did not work for me (cool BAMF! parents with guns, etc.).

Not necessarily. Most of what people wrote here still works without contradicting what Amanda said, the points currently under discussion being
1) Mary came to the office and was not planning to leave it while CAM was still alive
2) Mary called the ambulance
That being said. The actors on this show are not given a complete set of information. We know that Amanda never knew what Mary’s secret was while she was filming the first two episodes. She said that had she known she would have played her differently (I dare say the same would be true for Benedict if he had known about Redbeard while filming THoB). So while what Amanda said tells us a lot of how she portrayed the character, it does not mean that everything she thinks she knows about her character is true (I’m not sure if the back-story Benedict had for Sherlock is the same as the one that gets partly revealed in the show). She just knows what she portrayed at any given time, what is retrofitted by the writers so serve the story later (not to speak of what is retrofitted by the fans to serve the most diverse theories) is nothing she has control over.

REReader · April 7, 2015 4:06 pm

Heh--that reminds me of one of my favorite acting stories, from Casablance. They were filming before the script was finished, so Ingrid Bergman kept asking which man she was actually in love with, so she's know how to play it, and they kept telling her they didn't know yet, play it down the middle.

SusiGo · April 7, 2015 6:30 pm

What a nice story. I re-watched the film recently and found my memories confirmed - she loves Rick more. The whole romantic conflict centres on Ilsa and Rick, and you can see it in Bergman's face every single moment. She may not have known from the script with whom she would stay in the end but she clearly shows which man she loves in a romantic way.

REReader · April 7, 2015 10:37 pm

Oh, I think that's true--I think she loved them both, but differently, and I think she loved Rick more romantically.

They were actually going to film her final scene twice, once each way, and then they liked it so much the way it went the first time that they never filmed it the other way.

SusiGo · April 11, 2015 8:20 pm

I just had a look at the HLV commentary and found this interesting quote by Steven (when John burns the flash drive in the fireplace):

Steven: “But also it’s a fun thing, isn’t it, because I think this whole sequence is being rather wonderful, but the truth is, structurally it allows you to get past the fact that Mary has shot Sherlock and been revealed to be a villain and now is gonna be forgiven, in a relatively short space of time! And you sort of buy it. Curiously, I think if we did that in a linear way, you’d think that not enough time has passed.”

What I find interesting is a) that Steven explicitly calls Mary a villain, and b) the quite vague wording "you sort of buy it." There is for once the qualifying "sort of" and if I am not mistaken "to buy something" may also mean to believe something that is not necessarily true.
He seems to realise that at least some people will continue to have their doubts.

Last edited by SusiGo (April 11, 2015 8:24 pm)

Liberty · April 11, 2015 9:07 pm

Perhaps, but I don't think he says "sort of" in that way - I think he's saying that if they'd shown the scenes sequentially, people wouldn't buy it. But because of the switching back and forth (I presume that's what he's talking about) between Christmas and the confrontation, people do. I don't know if that's true or not - I don't think everybody does buy it (that John is forgiving Mary).