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

mrshouse · July 14, 2015 9:28 pm

@Susi, stressed by the red coat. Deliberate costume choice, I think.

Last edited by mrshouse (July 14, 2015 9:28 pm)

SusiGo · July 14, 2015 9:33 pm

@Mattlocked: For me the sequence has been, is, and will remain one of the highlights of the show.

@mrshouse: Yes, he does not react well to red, it seems.

Liberty · July 14, 2015 9:59 pm

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:
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.

Oh, he does sometimes get things wrong (for instance, Harry's sex, or Magnussen's vaults). But this is kind of different - the almost dying is not something that he could have missed. In fact, until he's able to make his deductions he does believe that Mary is trying to kill him. He has the information that Mary threatened to kill him, that she shot him and that he almost died: he hasn't been "tricked" by a usually male name, lack of information, or deliberate misdirection (the "letters", etc.). However, it seems that he's deduced something that's incompatible with what he initially believed.

The flatlining doesn't work well for me, but also ... and I've changed my mind a little on this ... a continued double bluff doesn't work well either - it's too much backwards and forwards if it turns out Mary did try to kill Sherlock after all. I think it could work well if it was revealed in an episode in the same season, but to wait until after the special doesn't sit well. I'm hoping that there will be some references to HLV and Mary's past in S4: I think that hasn't been explored at all and it's got to be important (surely?) one way or another (whether she ends up as redeemed or an archvillain). But I don't know if it would work well to go back to the shooting again, and the showdown at 221B again and cover that deduction and that territory again from a different angle.. So although I was hoping for more of an explanation, I'm not sure it's going to happen. (I'm happy to be proved wrong!).

Kittyhawk · July 15, 2015 11:47 am

How does Mary make Sherlock pick up the coin? He could have just as well let it lie where it was - the hole was big enough for him to see while standing up. (And I'm sure the camera could have zoomed in for us to see...)

Regarding Mary getting her identy from a gravestone: I'm really surprised that that trick is still supposed to work (I suspect in reality it wouldn't) as it's one of the oldest in the book: The Jacal used it when setting out to murder President Charles de Gaulle as described by Frederick Forsyth in The Day of the Jacal. As the book is a very good description on how to plan an assassination, Sherlock might even have read it... (and done the corresponding research upon suspecting Mary).

However, I also think Mycroft would/should have had Mary checked out, right from the start, as a matter of principle (just to know who his little brother's best friend gets enganged/married to). So I would think that Mycroft didn't find anything about Mary that worried him. Meaning either Mary is not as bad as many people seem to think - or she is so darn good that she can fool Mycroft (in which case I want to marry her!)

By the way, if Mary had wanted to kill Sherlock, she could have easily done it in Leinster Gardens. Of course, she would have shot John instead, but she didn't know that. I don't see how the projection of Mary's face on the façade would have been a problem - Mary could have found and disappeared the projector long before the police arrived. If the police would ever have arrived, given that Leinster Gardens was the least-known of Sherlock's hideouts.

If Sherlock seriously thought Mary had any intention of killing him, then having John sit at the end of this hallway is a gamble with John's life that beats the drugging in Baskerville and the Underground scene by a good length...

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 11:58 am

Swanpride wrote:
There is something I noticed about the exchange between Mary and Sherlock...she says that she swears that she will KILL him. Not SHOT him, kill him. And then Sherlock says that she wont. And he is right. She shots him, but she doesn't try to kill him. And at no point in the episode Sherlock changes this opinion. Even in his dream sequence, Moriaty only says that John is in danger but NOT that he is in danger from Mary herself. And during the scene in the Empty Hearse, Mary doesn't even raise her weapon before Sherlock practically invites her to do so.

What the episode actually does is making it seem as if Mary tried to kill Sherlock while leaving a lot of clues that this was not her intention at all.

Well, I would think that the threat to kill someone is much stronger than saying you are going to shoot someone. Because if I am not mistaken "shooting someone" can mean either to shoot someone dead or to injure someone. Killing, however, is quite unambiguous.

As for the mind palace sequence:
"You’re almost certainly going to die, so we need to focus."
"What was directly behind you when you were murdered?"
"It’s the next thing that’s going to kill you."
"They’re putting me down too, now."
"... Sherlock is dying."

They are doing their best to drive home the idea that Sherlock is convinced that he has been murdered and is going to die. This is not about injury but about death. And he must be quite clear in his head, though, since his thinking helps him to survive.

mrshouse · July 15, 2015 12:22 pm

Susi, I agree.
Somehow, I don't know if that thought makes sense, but if I differ between the word shooting and killing the actual shooting makes even less sense....
It only needs Sherlock's face when the bullet hits him to see, that he is taken completely by surprise with the developement and Mary pulling off her action. And in this moment he hasn't fully processed if he is just injured or killed.

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 1:06 pm

Always provided that Mycroft's are not tied in some way.

mrshouse · July 15, 2015 1:26 pm

Oh, I love Mycroft, but I'm perfectly alright with the thought that he doesn't know everything. No trouble in accepting that. But that he never wondered who shot his little baby brother makes no sense whatsoever. This is also one of the things I find a bit not good about HLV, it's for the sake of making Mary's story work, as almost the whole episode has to bow to that logic.
And as to Mary finishing Sherlock, we have often discussed that Sherlock is the main protagonist whereas Mary is a side character, and noone can even be sure if she is a protagonist or an antagonist from what we know for sure. So she cannot for heaven and all angels finish him, as the show would be over. But they could not get closer to finish him. And I think Susi mentioned a couple of examples, where the wording Sherlock chooses in his deepest head that he considers himself very well murdered, killed. Not accidentally injured with lethal outcome.
And a last point: Inner Moriarty very well makes a connection of John being in danger from Mary. "That wife!"

Last edited by mrshouse (July 15, 2015 1:27 pm)

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 3:03 pm

This is not a fact but an interpretation. I would bet that a lot of people associate these words with Mary being a cause of danger to John.

I do not believe that Mycroft would support the concept of surgery shots. At least not where his brother is concerned whose loss would break his heart.

Last edited by SusiGo (July 15, 2015 3:05 pm)

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 4:39 pm

I do not think this is a dream, it is Sherlock's mind palace or subconscious.

And it is simple logic: Person A gets shot by Person B. Person A thinks he has been murdered/is going to die. Therefore he associates Person B with being killed.

As for the "That wife!" comment: We should observe not just what is said but how it is said. Andrew Scott is an excellent actor and able to express sarcasm, contempt, or whatever you want to call this emotion. IMO there is no way in which his way of saying it can be interpreted as worry, compassion, or fear for John's AND Mary's wellbeing.

mrshouse · July 15, 2015 4:54 pm

Wow..
I think we have been already at this point arguing that Sherlock doesn't in fact die... Sorry, but I said this show brings him as close as possible to die without ending the show.
If we seriously argue that he didn't die I'm done for today...

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 4:58 pm

The thing is that we see Mary shooting him and threatening him repeatedly and him dying by a hair's breadth but we get the explanations that more or less redeem her only via Sherlock. We do not see her calling the ambulance, we are only told by him. We get no comment on the "surgery" shot, only his word. Therefore the impression of what I see with my own eyes is simply stronger.

tonnaree · July 15, 2015 5:09 pm

SusiGo wrote:
The thing is that we see Mary shooting him and threatening him repeatedly and him dying by a hair's breadth but we get the explanations that more or less redeem her only via Sherlock. We do not see her calling the ambulance, we are only told by him. We get no comment on the "surgery" shot, only his word. Therefore the impression of what I see with my own eyes is simply stronger.

We also know that Sherlock will not hesitate to twist words or out right lie in order to manipulate people/solve a case.

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 5:21 pm

Yes. Or in order to save his friends from being killed (TRF).

mrshouse · July 15, 2015 5:25 pm

Best example that he lies if necessary. And we cried our eyes out!

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 5:27 pm

This is very OT, just this: I still think his tears are honest. He knows that he has to give up everything. And if you compare his tears on the roof with the occasions when he fakes them, they look completely different.

mrshouse · July 15, 2015 5:32 pm

That's true. For example the scene in TGG when he fakes being a friend of the dead man in the Janus car. That is played out very differently.
And what about his face when he says "Because you chose her"? It didn't need to be that hurt, surely?

SusiGo · July 15, 2015 5:40 pm

Terrible moment. Every time I watch it.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 15, 2015 5:49 pm

Agreed.

RavenMorganLeigh · July 15, 2015 8:12 pm

I don't understand what Moriarty FORCING Sherlock to jump off St. Bart's by putting snipers on Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade and John-- what does that have to do with Mary's very clear intention of killing Sherlock?

It's like in order to defend Mary, we default to this "Well, Sherlock's a monster, so he's much worse than Mary! Mary's practically a saint compared to Sherlock,"-- stance. And it doesn't work. Sherlock jumped to save people--- and Mary shot Sherlock so she could keep lying to John.

I found myself wondering---and this is a serious question: do most people who have a very Pro-Mary stance have a dislike of Sherlock to begin with? I really am just curious. I'd love to have honest answers on this...

I also wonder about people's feelings about John? Don't we care that he's married to a woman he doesn't even know? You want to talk about betrayal-- why is this okay? Even if you don't like Sherlock, what about John and his feelings, his pain? Doesn't he matter at all? Or, is Mary's dream of the suburbian house, husband and baby the only thing that's important? YIKES.

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (July 15, 2015 8:14 pm)