This is another scene I wish we had gotten in series 3, one between Donovan and Sherlock. Unfortunately, Vinette Robinson was off filming in America and wasn't available for this series. That actually fits in with my head canon, that Donovan is no longer a police officer and has left London.

I can't see her apologizing to Sherlock for her role in the Fall, not outright. I see it more as them meeting up again, him snidely saying "Sally," and her calling him Sherlock rather than freak.

There are a couple of really good metas about Donovan and her reasons for disliking Sherlock that, it's much more to do with his lack of professionalism and mucking about crime scenes than her being jealous of him. Here's the main one, it links to the others:

In Defense of Sally Donovan

Mary

I don't know if it's all jealousy (although I'm sure there's some there).  I think she genuinely believes Sherlock is dangerous (and does have some reason to believe that).  TRF confirms for her that he's dangerous.   Even after he's exonorated, she only knows that he didn't set up those crimes ... she still can't be sure that he won't do it one day. 

So I don't know: maybe she goes back to feeling the same way about him as she did in Series 1.  Or maybe, getting it wrong changes her view of him altogether?   I'm not sure exactly how much she would know about what happened and why he did it.  If she doesn't know his reasons for faking his suicide, then she might still think he's dangerous. 

We really haven't seen enough of Sally Donovan in season 3 (shame, I really liked both her character and her narrative function, because if noone would ever stand up to him, Sherlock would just steam-roll through his cases and that would get boring...) anyway where was I?

Well, yes, we haven't really seen much of her lately, but in that short pre-credit episode in TSOT, I got the impression that she wasn't angry at her boss for leaving her at the crucial moment because she was worried that it would go wrong or that she couldn't handle it - they all seemed very confident, marching towards that arrest as if it was a sure thing. She rather seemed angry at Greg for throwing away an opportunity to be in the limelight and really enjoy a great professional triumph. So she wasn't worried about herself in that scene, she was worried about the reputation of the force in general (or her unit, at least) and Greg in particular.

She certainly still doesn't like Greg shaving for Sherlock Holmes, as John would put it. Whether that is now due solely to her respect for Greg (who's certainly an above-average, very able police officer himself, even without Sherlock's help) or whether it is (also) due to a continued dislike of Sherlock's person is hard to tell. We certainly don't hear her making any snide comments about him any more, but then we only have a total of maybe 60 seconds of screentime to go on...

I think even if she had all the information, all the truth about Moriarty and the faked suicide, she'd still be entitled to 1. find Sherlock creepy and disquieting in so many ways and 2. be annoyed at his highly irregular way of "interfering" with the regular force's work (and with Greg allowing him to) simply because it is irregular.

But as someone else on this board has pointed out before (sorry, can't remember who and where) she's sort of hit a dead end by now unless either her attitude towards Sherlock or his towards her (or both) change dramatically. There was an arc in their relationship over the course of seasons 1 & 2, culminating in TRF (I loved the way they picked up all these little things from ASIP in TRF, like John and Sally's first ever conversation about Sherlock), but by the end of TRF DS Donovan had reached the end of her narrative usefulness. I can't think where they might be going with her now. I just feel that it would be as much of a shame if she were to quietly drop out of the picture now as it would be to have her join the faceless ranks of Sherlock's already too numerous loyal admirers.

I would love to see her and Sherlock come face to face one more time after TRF. If it's already happened offscreen, it's a shame we never saw it. But then the makers of this series are not afraid of flashbacks and flash-forwards, so we still may. Other than that - fanfic, anyone?

Last edited by La Jolie (August 10, 2014 6:35 pm)

besleybean wrote:

What do you mean it happened off screen?

Just that maybe Sherlock and Sally Donovan did come face to face again some time during the timeline of series 3, just that it was an occasion or a context that was unrelated to the storyline of either of the three episodes, so it wasn't filmed.

Maybe Sherlock worked on some more Scotland Yard cases with Greg between TEH and TSOT and met Sally again that way?

OK, dragging this up again.

I've written it myself.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10655393/1/Heading-for-a-Fall

Enjoy!

Thank you, Carl, I'm really glad you enjoyed it.

And thank you for finding it funny - I wasn't quite sure whether there could be anything funny about a man in a long dark coat stalking an overworked, stressed out woman whose mother is dying of cancer. I'm glad it worked for you.

Last edited by La Jolie (August 31, 2014 8:32 pm)