Looking Closer at How The Abominable Bride Foreshadowed and Can Be Used to Chronologically Decode Series 4:
In series 2, Sherlock’s fatal mistake wasn’t taking the fall, it was not telling John about it. Instead of letting him in, Sherlock pushed him further and further away for John’s safety, because he thought the two of them would never be able to be together while Moriarty was alive. And after Sherlock heard John absently confess his love for him at Battersea in ASIB he knew he had to do everything he could to destroy Moriarty. Sherlock learns his lesson in TAB after being haunted by his mistake and nearly destroying his relationship with John… at the waterfall scene, Sherlock decides he has to let John in to finally defeat his ghost. This solidifies Sherlock’s emotional journey through series 4 –– and even with John telling a false account of how Mary died and us not being able to see the unfiltered John and Sherlock, we can see how his decisions have changed behind the true events of series 4.
In the opening act of TAB, Sherlock says the following right before he begins the investigation into Emelia Ricoletti, “The stage is set, the curtain rises. We are ready to begin.” This is, in part, a reference to Sherlock imagining the investigation to begin with; prior to this line, he’s already been warned about Moriarty’s return and imagines John and Mary very unhappy in their marriage together, while also letting his own insecurities and internal biases slip into the narrative he’s constructed. He’s setting the stage for what comes next. John and Mary are busy arguing about John always being away from her. Mary even snides about how John doesn’t do anything in their investigations, when John is the key to saving Sherlock by the end of the episode. In HLV, Sherlock lied for Mary and made up an account of his own death where Mary called emergency services (when it was actually Magnussen) and shot him in a non-lethal way (again, he died) in order to urge John to forgive her so she wouldn’t hurt them. Mary was still too dangerous and in Sherlock’s mind, possibly Moriarty’s spy, so Sherlock needed to get her back into a false sense of security before he and John could make their next move against her and her agenda. In reality, John has not actually forgiven Mary, and he clearly tried to read the flash drive.
In TAB though, Sherlock is imagining a John that has on the surface, actually done what Sherlock urged him to do for his own safety, but Sherlock still knows their marriage can’t last. Later in the episode, Sherlock’s investigation into Mrs. Ricoletti will lead to Mary heading to a showdown seemingly putting her in danger and leave Sherlock partially responsible (and John mad, because Sherlock is insecure about his John actually caring for Mary, which he doesn’t). In TAB, Mary also shares elements with Sir Eustace –– the man who couldn’t escape his past and was killed, causing Sherlock to break a vow. In his dream, as Sherlock is recollecting the past and trying to estimate the future, Sherlock knows that Mary’s past is going to come back to haunt them. The question is merely when, and if it has to do with harming him and John (subconsciously, Sherlock has already made the connection between Mary and Moriarty).
In TRF, Sherlock texts Moriarty, “Come and play. Bart’s hospital roof. SH” and puts on his emotionless mask in order to get John to leave so he can fake his own death. In this confrontation, Moriarty also fakes his own death with his body never being recovered. In TST, Sherlock texts Mary the following right before the showdown with Vivian Norbury, “The curtain rises. The last act. It’s not over. SH”, similar to what Sherlock said in TAB. Sherlock also texts John, saying, “London Aquarium. Come immediately.” Sherlock also said that specific curtain phrase in TGG –– when he received the bomb threat from a woman being held hostage in relation to Moriarty’s game, indicated by the pair of shoes left under their flat from Sherlock’s first ever investigation. When John asks what he means, Sherlock says, “I’ve been expecting this for some time.” In series 4, that line being echoed again is meant to instill two things; that what’s about to happen at the aquarium is setting the stage for something, and that Mary is once again linked to Moriarty’s great game.
In TST and throughout series 4, John is sharing a false account of what precipitated and followed Mary’s murder. John in HLV says he’s chosen his words very carefully when he tells Mary, “The problems of the past are your business. The problems of your future are my privilege,” leaving a double meaning in his vague threat. John isn’t an idiot, and he hasn’t actually forgive Mary or wants to be with her. When Magnussen brings up how Mary is responsible for “so many dead people,” he simply looks resigned, because he already has an idea. And when Sherlock shoots Magnussen to assure Mary’s cover and thus John’s safety, John thinks he’s done it for Mary, “Give my love to Mary. Tell her she’s safe now,” because he thinks both of them are sociopaths and have feelings for each other –– something that goes completely unaddressed on a surface level in series 4. Despite this, John lets his own insecurities about the perfect relationship he imagines Mary and Sherlock having slip out (as well as Janine and Irene Adler). As the author, John exists in every detail and characterization of series 4. But he still has to clean up the story as much as possible.
John as the author is covering up his complicity in Mary’s disappearance. In TST after the two of them receive the texts, they sitcom argue over which one of them is going to go and who’s going to watch the baby. In this narration of events, John is practically pushing Mary out the door; he doesn’t think or care about the danger it involves, he doesn’t insist on both of them waiting together until they can leave (“You know that’s not going to happen”, putting the blame on her impatience), and he doesn’t even ask Sherlock what exactly the two of them are running into. He says to Mary, “If there’s more to this case, you need to see it.” This appears to be a reference to the case of the six thatchers, but what John is really talking about here is Mary becoming a client in HLV –– this is about her, and her past causing her the problems of her future. But in this version of events, John doesn’t seem so eager to share them as his privilege, instead not caring about the risk (a sharp contrast to Sherlock imagining John being angry at him in TAB), conveniently arriving after the death has already happened, late because of a conversation that only Mary (and possibly Molly, by proxy) could attest to having. In TAB, Sherlock says sometimes to solve an old case (Moriarty), one must investigate another. In TST, in order solve an old case (Moriarty’s return), he must investigate a new one (Mary).
Sherlock’s text to John in TST is a 180 degree turn from his letting John walk out the door in TRF, because they were working on taking Mary down together. Sherlock is communicating with John this time about the threat left in Moriarty’s absence. When you look at both the texts he sent to Mary and John, Mary’s is vague in a threatening way, while he’s explicitly contacting John for help. That’s because Sherlock is letting John in this time. But because Mary (and Moriarty, as much as he’s in denial about it) are both still around, Sherlock can’t tell John how he feels. While the two of them are coordinating, like John first suggested back in TRF to no avail, John is still in the dark about other things, and so are we, at least about the context literal plot events. But those texts are conveniently ambiguous if there were ever to be an investigation into Mary’s murder, no one else can attest to John and Mary receiving the texts together, and an aquarium would be a public place to confront Mary, even if she’s a crack shot. There was a confrontation at the aquarium, but it wasn’t between Mary and John’s self-insert writer character. It was between John and Mary.
Vivian Norbury was an invented fall man. Sherlock was an alibi by goading the villain of the week into murdering Mary. John is lying about what happened. These are all things we can surmise from looking at how the stage was constructed; but what we can also specifically tell about the true events of series 4 is that the confrontation at the aquarium was a set up, and a direct followthrough of the lesson Sherlock learned to trust John in TAB. We can also tell that John followed through on his own promise to Mary; but because Mary and Moriarty are still out there, they still haunt John and Sherlock, Mary still stands guard over their silence at the end of TFP. Unlike in Sherlock’s dream, John was not able to avoid Samarra in his story. Similar to Moriarty faking his death to destroy John and Sherlock’s relationship, Mary faked her own to do something similar, both of them lulling the two into a false sense of security –– because if she were really gone, John and Sherlock would become who they really are. But instead, it doesn’t matter.
In TAB, Sherlock says he will have to go very deep into “myself” or rather, through his dream, in order to solve the old case of Moriarty. In series 4, in order to solve the case of Moriarty’s return and Mary, John filtered out what really happened from the public, putting himself in a crisis. In order to uncover the true events, we have to venture deep inside of John through his story.
See also: The Unfinished Act of Series 4, 10 Revealing Things From The Six ThatchersThat Haunt You Late At Night, 10 Revealing Things From The Lying Detective That Haunt You Late At Night, and 10 Revealing Things From The Final Problem That Haunt You Late At Night. (#gif warning #seizure warning)
Bonus: What more is there to say at this point? [Full text below the cut]