nakahara wrote:

Liberty wrote:

But if you look at the cases in the news of "medical" serial killers, it actually seems to sometimes take quite a while to catch them, and quite a while to even notice that people are being murdered.  And that's when the murderers are people who are known to have the means and the opportunity.  

 

Medical killers had it easier than Mary, don´t you think? They were already knowledgable about the daily regime in hospital /medical facility they worked in and they were mostly a part of the staff there (nurses, doctors), so nobody was finding it strange if they injected something into patient´s body. Mary doesn´t have such a advantage.

Liberty wrote:

Catching a visitor committing a single concealed murder would be much harder, I'm sure.  There are loads of people working in hospitals, cleaners, porters, etc., and loads of visitors.  

Loads of people who can see you from the hall when you are trying to hurt a patient.... and as I pointed above, there´s a high possibility of Mycroft´s camera being hidden somewhere.

Liberty wrote:

It obviously wasn't even a problem for Mary to be alone with Sherlock as she manages to do it early on (she wouldn't have been threatening him if John or other people were there).  If they really want us to believe that Mary wanted to kill him in hospital but couldn't - well, I just don't buy it.   

I know where you are coming from, still, I don´t think Mary could kill Sherlock in the moment when she threatened him. She probably promised John to look out over Sherlock for a while - something happens to him now and she is the first one who would be implied as a cause of his death....
 

I'm agreeing with Nakahara here,  I think there was too much of a chance of being caught for Mary to risk it. 

Swanpride wrote:

How? Everybody trusted her and she is a trained killer and a trainer nurse. It should be no problem whatsoever to inject something into Sherlock or manipulate the equipment to ensure that he would collapse later when she isn't in the room anymore. She had hours to prepare for that because Sherlock would hardly be awake immediatly after operation.

I don´t think she had that much time to prepare. In my opinion she came to the hospital in belief that Sherlock is dead an after she found out that he´s alive, she didn´t leave untill she threatened him. She couldn´t allow to leave out of fear that Sherlock regaines consciousness in between and uncovers her secret in front of John.

Which means, she din´t have some poison ready at hand, when she threatened Sherlock. Althrough she was a nurse and they were in a hospital, the poisons of that kind were not cosily prepared somewhere on the table for her. And screwing Sherlock´s equipment so that he would die after she left the hospital was harder than it looks + it was too uncertain if Sherlock would indeed die. Mary´s assault of Magnussen was well prepared, still, it was royally screwed up by stupid chance (or a deliberate set-up by Janine?). To risk another such chance would be stupid on Mary´s part.
 

Admittedly it would be easy to kill Sherlock in hospital   , but how on earth would she get away with it?Surely she didn't manage to get in and out of such a busy and highly observed place without being seen or caught on camera, not to mention that again John also would be a suspect and likely close by. I don't think anyone has suggested Mary had any intention of attempting to kill Sherlock there anyway.
The contention was Mary shot Sherlock to prevent him telling John about her double life etc.But that is not even mentioned until after Sherlock survives.Sherlock says her problem was 'the witness' to her crime.
Indicating she shot Sherlock to cover the crime and escape the scene..... if Mary thought Sherlock knew it was-not tell John- the hospital threat visit would not have been necessary at all.?
Actually in many ways the hospital threat isn't needed at all .Sherlock doesn't need to be told..don't tell my husband I shot you or that I was going to kill Magnussen...thats kinda lol isnt it?
Which makes the whole scene superfluous anyway.
So why did they include it.

Well, a camera would probably only capture Mary´s moves, not her voice anyway. 
And she moved as if she was soothing Sherlock in her "thret" scene - at least it could look like that through the camera.

But why a camera but no bug?  And if they're wanting us to believe in a camera that Mary knows is there, but no bug, then why not be more explcit?

Yes, as I said, it's possible that a suspicious cause of death could be found later if they decided to do an autopsy, but it's certainly not a given (Mary's a killing expert and might know a way that wouldn't be detected).   And at that point, there's nothing to make Mary a suspect as neither Sherlock or Magnussen have told anyone.  In a hospital, there are loads of potential suspects - people working there, people coming in and out.   Oddly, it's the safest place.

The only thing that makes me think that Mary might have been trying to kill him is Sherlock's urgency in setting up the meeting.   But I think that Mary would have killed him even before then if she planned to do it regardless - no point in waiting and increasing the risk that he would tell.  And crucially, I think, she would have shot him in the head in the first place if she'd meant to kill him. 

(For me, the big flaw is that Sherlock flatlined - it's just a bit too close to death for comfort.  That's the bit that needs more explanation in my eyes, not secret cameras, etc.).

Swanpride wrote:

Well, a surgery shot can go wrong....I simply assumed that it did. Just a milimeter to close to an important blood vessel. Sherlock was bleeding out, right? A shot in the liver has usually a very high survival rate. And it is practically the only part of the body which can recover completely.

Yes, I think you're right, but for me, it would have worked much better if he hadn't been so close to death.   He survived only by a tiny chance.   And we're not really given a proper explanation about why that happened.  (In the commentary, Steven Moffat says that he wishes he'd made more of Mary's aim not being 100% perfect - she hit the coin off centre.   But that's not in the final version, and the liver isn't mentioned).   There's something that just really irks me about it, storywise (and also casts some doubt, I think).  It would have been so much neater if he'd just had the blood loss (which could still have led to the mind palace scene), but not the flatlining.   

Otherwise it comes across as a clue that Mary really did mean to kill him.  But it seems that Sherlock doesn't deduce that, and if he doesn't deduce it then surely we're not supposed to.  And of course it doesn't fit very well with Mary trying to kill him either (because she didn't shoot him in the head, or try to kill him in hospital, and she called an ambulance).   It's a weak point in the story for me.   I suppose it adds to the drama, but at a cost.

Liberty wrote:

Yes, I think you're right, but for me, it would have worked much better if he hadn't been so close to death.   He survived only by a tiny chance.   And we're not really given a proper explanation about why that happened.  (In the commentary, Steven Moffat says that he wishes he'd made more of Mary's aim not being 100% perfect - she hit the coin off centre.   But that's not in the final version, and the liver isn't mentioned).   There's something that just really irks me about it, storywise (and also casts some doubt, I think).  It would have been so much neater if he'd just had the blood loss (which could still have led to the mind palace scene), but not the flatlining. 

But it makes perfect sense if you presume Mary really intended to shoot Sherlock dead.

Liberty wrote:

Otherwise it comes across as a clue that Mary really did mean to kill him.  

That´s precisely why I think she intended to murder him. Other things - like who called an ambulance, if there was a hidden camera, the motivation of Sherlock saying that Mary saved him etc. - we only can presume through our headcanons. But this is the fact that we can undoubtedly see on screen - and it really points to the conclusion you just cited.

What would interest me is Mycroft´s role in all this. Sherlock´s words at Lenister Gardens about Mary stealing an identity from a stillborn child can only come from Mycroft. So it seems Mycroft already knows about Mary being a killer of his brother. Yet he is totally oblivious towards her and doesn´t say a word to her during Christmas. Weird...
 

I agree that Sherlock almost dying fits with Mary trying to kill him: and I thought that's what we were meant to think.   But then other things don't fit.   If it's a clue, it's far too obvious a clue for Sherlock to miss, isn't it?   He must have factored that in to his deduction.   (To be honest, I had been hoping that it was a clue, because I find it really difficult to skim over.   But the more I think about it, the less I think it is.  I do think there's still a chance of it being explored more in S4, but I don't think it's in any way a given.  The explanation of the fall in TEH seemed kind of superficial and mechanical - the main questions that I had were left unanswered.   I have a feeling it will be the same in S4 - there's plenty of scope to make Mary a villain still, but I think the details of the shooting will be glossed over either way.  My feeling about it is that the writing is often very clever, but sometimes less clever and more emotional, and I think this was the case here - emotional impact rather than clever, neat detective stuff).

I don't see why Sherlock couldn't find out about Mary's background, though?  He would just need a phone with internet access.  I'm not saying Mycroft wasn't involved (kind of hard to believe that he somehow knew nothing throughout the episode), but I don't understand why Sherlock couldn't get the information himself - he's a detective, after all, and that would be a very simple job for him.
 

Something else to consider-- we have this idea that Sherlock is never wrong-- so his "deduction" (out right lie) that Mary "saved his life" must be true. But Sherlock (whom I suspect is suffering from PTSD) makes mistake after mistake after mistake all through s3. We Don't Know whether Sherlock is making an assumption about Mary saving his life because he doesn't want to hurt John, or whether it's to make himself less of a threat to Mary (so she won't kill him to death, this time) or-- whether he just can't beleive that someone he called friend would really try to kill him.

I agree, Mattlocked. The moment when she makes him pick up the coin always makes my hair stand on end.
In HLV I do not find one single moment in which I get the impression that she likes Sherlock, is compassionate or regretful towards him. This is also why the moment at the airport when they are hugging feels completely false to me. It has no connection to the rest of the episode, always provided that Sherlock is being honest.