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@philliphooper
Hi. This is yet another Sherlock blog, EST. 2016-2020.
You're welcome to visit my side-blog-turned-main @otherniftystuff for completely unrelated content.
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On the 7% chance that you're actually here for Sherlock content, here's my tea:
At this point I doubt the BBC will ever produce a 5th series, let alone one with canon Johnlock.
However, diving into TJLC with y'all was a blast. The sleuthing and memes were top tier. Thanks for the memories.
you’re not haunted by bbc sherlock
you miss it
booty shorts that say “perfectly sound analysis but i was hoping you’d go deeper” on the ass
*missing the charging port on my phone* don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it
my two favourite things about this
everyone knows what this is
the scene was an adaptation of a scene from the original novel where instead of a charging port on a phone, it’s a winding key in a pocketwatch. I like to imagine people having this exact same kind of thought when they missed the watch keyhole 100 years ago
Martin Freeman’s got lots of wonderful quirks and talents, many of which are on display in the film. But his most remarkable quality as an actor is to be able, with absolute clarity, to convey that he’s thinking two things at the same time. And you know as an audience what they are. And I wasn’t the only one on the set to say to himself later: “I wish I could act like that.” He has a palette of subtlety. And I thought, this is a new sort of acting that I’ve never seen before. — Sir Ian McKellen, The Hobbit Behind The Scenes
Martin Freeman in BBC Sherlock | [insp.]
Okay does anyone else in the fandom see old set photos like this, ones that you've never happened to see before, and go a little nuts?
Like what if this is actually s5 content and someone on tumblr is leaking photos quiet as hell just waiting for us to notice and you start to analyze the wrinkles in their faces and consider the details in the wardrobe and what if they kept everything in mint condition to rehash particular scenes look at Martins face are those 2014 eyebags or 2021 eyebags wha-
And finally you do a reverse image search and find that they were indeed 2014 eyebags, and you can chill tf out.
It’s very late and that underappreciated moment in asip when John comments on all the rubbish in the flat and Sherlock starts throwing stuff in boxes in an alarmed fashion like ‘Don’t go I can clean the thing I can clean 3 thing’ is corroding me
im at a point in my life where looking at this makes me tear up
agree. completely under-appreciated and john doesn’t even realise. this isn’t sherlock. everyone who’s met him says he’s a sociopath, he doesn’t care about people, he doesn’t care to… and yet this dashing army doctor walks through the door and tells him he lives like trash and suddenly he’s running around moving papers and stabbing letters and looking flustered… all because he cares what john thinks, like RIGHT away
John: Damn bitch, you live like this?
Sherlock: 🙃 pls don’t leave me
Aight that last reply got me
Love the combination of Sherlock’s elegant way to sit and John’s manspread
OH MY GOD THERE'S AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
The painting on to the right at the top. Definitely a pachyderm. God dammit bless you Arwel Wyn Jones.
AND this is the part where they're just sitting in the dark, handcuffed together, for who knows how long, before Kitty Riley gets home.
.....Because Sherlock Holmes doesn't know how to get out of handcuffs? Sure, Jan. You just broke into an apartment we all know you can get out of handcuffs if you wanted to
Sherlock’s Choice
Steven Moffat has a fondness for making his characters make a choice. If the ‘I love you’ trailer really truly (god help us all) shows something like Sherlock needing to choose between killing John or Mycroft, whether it’s symbolic or MP or real…either way we should remember that Sherlock’s choice between John and Mycroft has been a thing since ASiP. In fact, it defines the beginning and ending of Sherlock’s character arc, so it’s no surprise that we’re possibly getting a scenario like this around the time of the climax of the story (the climax being johnlock). Here are just a couple of really nice examples…
Sherlock’s choice was foreshadowed in TSoT in this scene:
Did you ever notice that this line makes zero sense? Sherlock says “vatican cameos”, Mary asks what that means, and John replies completely nonsensically:
“Battle stations. Someone’s going to die.”
What battle stations? Huh? Where? Stations?? When Sherlock says “Vatican cameos” in ASiB, it essentially means duck/take cover. So why doesn’t it mean “duck” in this case? I think it still does, just not on the surface level.
Battle stations in this context means that John and Mycroft take their positions at either side of Sherlock, like two corners of a boxing rink. John and Mycroft compete for Sherlock’s heart, and this battle is between them. Already in this episode we have mention of “into battle” which makes reference to matters of the heart, not actual crime solving.
This is not to do with the Mayfly man. John in the gif above is not fidgeting nervously and adjusting his suit because he’s worried about Sholto, he’s (subtextually) steeling himself for Sherlock’s decision - Sherlock will choose, and the loser will die.
Sherlock chooses. As Sherlock says “not you, not you”, he casts off Mycroft’s influence and chooses John, with Mycroft’s spooky obituary-like image splitting and fading away, and a kind-of love confession that is as explicit as we were going to get in the third series. It was to hold us over until the next time Sherlock chooses, possibly in a more textual way. Sherlock’s confession at the moment he makes his choice might be upgraded next time from “It’s always you” to “I love you”.
When Sherlock chooses John over Mycroft, he chooses love over isolation.
Mycroft represents the beginning of Sherlock’s character arc because the show begins with Sherlock’s broken heart, and his intent to remain alone mostly because Mycroft has taught him that alone protects him. He wants to be the cold machine that his brother has been successful at becoming, but of course John’s presence in his life leads him down a path of discovering that the “alone protects me” approach is in fact killing him, and that John’s love is the only thing that will save his life.
Sherlock might discover which path is the one he needs to take, but the story will still be sure to give us a scenario where Sherlock actually needs to make this choice in a super high stakes situation. I know that many people see this potential choice situation as simply a heart wrenching plot device that any two characters could potentially be thrown into. But it’s going to be John or Mycroft for a very good reason, which is that these two characters represents Sherlock’s two paths he might choose, one that leads to love, the other in the opposite direction - loneliness and ultimately (metaphorical) death. Which is why I wrote 30K words in a three-part meta over here about how John versus Mycroft is the hidden premise of the show, and how Mycroft represents the opposing force on Sherlock’s heart, leading him away from John’s love, not towards it.
Also in that meta is why, of John and Mycroft, neither can live while the other survives. It’s a game, with one move, and one survivor.
THE GOOD BOTTLE or THE BAD BOTTLE - SHERLOCK’S CHOICE
The conversation between Sherlock and the cabbie in ASiP tells us what Sherlock’s choice is:
Sherlock: Okay, two bottles. Explain. Cabbie: There’s a good bottle and a bad bottle. You take the pill from the good bottle, you live. You take the pill from the bad bottle, you die. Sherlock: And you know which is which? Cabbie: Course I know. Sherlock: But I don’t. Cabbie: Wouldn’t be a game if you knew. You’re the one who chooses. Sherlock: Why should I? I’ve got nothing to go on. What’s in it for me? Cabbie: I aven’t told you the best bit yet. Whatever bottle you choose, I take the pill from the other one, and then together, we take our medicine. I won’t cheat. It’s your choice. I’ll take whatever pill you don’t. Sherlock: This is what you did to the rest of them; you gave them a choice. Cabbie: And now I’m giving you one. You take your time. Get yourself together. I want your best game. Sherlock: It’s not a game, it’s chance. Cabbie: It’s not chance Mr. Holmes. It’s chess. It’s a game of chess. With one move, and one survivor.
Sherlock has to choose life or death in ASiP, but he doesn’t know which is which. As he says, he has no way of knowing. The subtext of this is the fact that choice is an illusion when we are brainwashed and coerced into believing that something that’s bad for us is actually good for us and vice versa, leading us astray and making it impossible to see the chance at love when it’s staring us in the face. Misinformation has blinded Sherlock to the truth and this is why Sherlock doesn’t know which pill is the good pill, and therefore possibly why we will get a similar situation in S4 where Sherlock can’t decide which person he will leave standing. He doesn’t know which pill to choose.
It’s not a game anymore.
Before John came into his life, Sherlock didn’t have choice. He just had Mycroft to emulate to try and protect himself from harm. There was only Mycroft around to convince him that caring was not an advantage. But the subtext shows us in ASiP that Sherlock was suicidal before he met John, so Mycroft’s influence was not working. Instead, being alone was killing him.
So before John, there was only a bad pill. But then John walks into Sherlock’s life and suddenly Sherlock has another choice. John is the good pill. Fate stepped in and offered Sherlock a choice other than death. And as the cabbie says, THIS, this is the move…
That cute little pill bottle that the cabbie pushes towards Sherlock?? It’s John. Sherlock is handed just one chance, a chance to escape death, so long as he chooses correctly. Two pills; Mycroft’s way, or John’s way. Isolation or love. Sherlock rejecting Mycroft’s influence and accepting John’s offer of love is the climax/end point of his character arc. In ASiP he chose the wrong pill, but by TSoT he had gotten it right. Once he chose poorly, the other time he chose wisely. Which will Sherlock choose in S4? Will it be real or MP or nightmare? Are we all going to die? Either way, read up here in this meta by @heimishtheidealhusband about why TAB told us that Mycroft’s death is synonymous with johnlock becomming canon. That is, we’ve already been told that Sherlock will choose John, and Mycroft will die. I always hoped it would be a metaphorical death. I’m going to keep on hoping. Tags under cut.
Seguir leyendo
“a path of discovering that the “alone protects me” approach is in fact killing him, and that John’s love is the only thing that will save his life.” Wow and this sentence and realisation just killed me, ouch my heart, poor Sherlock
ooh, good one to re read! i feel sure i have seen a meta from after s4 aired, analysing the “i love you” scene in TFP, about the screen acting as a mirror so that when sherlock re focused his gaze on john’s reflection, THAT was when he said “i love you” with the different intonation. (meanwhile he would not have been looking at mycroft’s reflection, in a scene that was very “john vs mycroft”.
“Maybe he already has…”
Did Mofftiss just subtly imply Johnlock because
“Like John, I would poison him. A mixture of chemicals and compounds, he’d never even know. He once missed a whole wednesday.”
Moftiss interviews that make you want to scream,
when john is clever sherlock be like
I just think about this post a lot.
Who brings a knife to a gunfight?
I’ve a seen few people throw around the idea of Chekhov’s gun in reference to S4 (I think the first was @finalproblem) but I don’t think anyone has put this in one place yet, so here we go. Full disclosure: I’m a supporter of alibi theory (linking @inevitably-johnlocked‘s tag for this, because there’s a lot there).
We are first shown Sherlock’s knife in A Study in Pink, when Sherlock stabs his mail to the mantel. This is basically the first thing we see happen at 221B.
This knife remained on the mantel until the Watson Domestic in His Last Vow, when we saw it standing between John and Mary. @just-sort-of-happened noticed this years ago.
Next, we see a Victorian version of the knife in The Abominable Bride, when John and Sherlock arrive at the beginning of the episode, and John is narrating. He explains that there are truths that he can’t tell us.
“Over the many years it has been my privilege to record the exploits of my remarkable friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes, it has sometimes been difficult to choose which of his many cases to set before my readers. Some are still too sensitive to recount.”
On that familiar theme, “Some are still too sensitive to recount”, we focus on the knife.
[During S4 setlock, Sherlockology posted a picture of the knife stabbing the deerstalker into the mantel. A problem that remains to be solved? I’m not keen on its reappearance in The Lying Detective, so I hope so. But I digress.]
In The Six Thatchers, the first thing that happens in 221B is again Sherlock plunging the knife into the mail on the mantel. But this time, it’s a new knife. (Yeah, it was in the setlock photo above, too.)
What happened to the old knife? Like Chekhov’s gun, it was sitting there all this time, quietly waiting to be used, and now it has been replaced.
The dominant theory about Mary’s death appears to be that it didn’t occur in the way that we were shown, but we all seem to agree that she was shot. We keep seeing that smoking gun, as a dream or in memory (check out @somedrunkpirate‘s gun meta if you haven’t).
Then why is the knife missing? And why does a missing knife sound familiar? In John’s The Six Thatchers blog post, a man kills his lover, and then hides the murder weapon, a knife, in a bust of Margaret Thatcher. John and Sherlock catch the killer, but the story still nags at Sherlock.
Sherlock has now had five years (since A Scandal in Belgravia) to figure out how to do that. One way or another, the knife has to have been involved in Mary’s death, such that it had to be disposed of, and I think that means that Mary’s death probably occurred at 221B.
But who was wielding the knife, who did they stab, and how does the gun factor in? Did Mary threaten Sherlock with the knife, prompting John to shoot her? Was Mary even shot at all? Her body was cremated, so maybe she was stabbed. Maybe the gun is a red herring, after all.
Now that we’re dealing with multiple weapons, this really is beginning to sound like a game of Cluedo.
Thoughts?
Tagging people under the cut.
Lees verder
@devoursjohnlock
This is an amazing meta! The tie in with the six thatchers is a clever catch! Your point about that Sherlock had 5 years to think about how he would hide a weapon is great. It could be the missing knife, or maybe the knife is a stand in for the gun in our The Six Thatchers, where the main murder weapon seems to be a gun. There are theories that John shot someone (Mary) with the Walther and Sherlock hid it somewhere clever. For us, he seems to have hidden in in a story… One with enough truths that we will swallow the lie.
Subtextually the knife represents Sherlocks frustration and resort to emotion (aggression/anger) when he can’t solve something logically. As told by lovely Hudders. Is the missing knife a hint to us that he understands what is going on now? (or that emotional reactions could solve the problem too and he stabs Moriarty to death, I personally would be fine with that)
Besides, I agree with the Clue thing. As Clue the Movie says: It’s not a game anymore.
Keep reading
oh, then there is this interesting one about the knife on the mantel. Which makes me wonder, if EMP starts after the “watsons domestic”, what exactly went on at 221B after Sherlock was carried back to hospital by the paramedics? I would not have thought it entirely safe to leave John and Mary alone together, for all Sherlock’s efforts to defuse the situation. John was certainly glaring daggers at Mary.
This is really intriguing, @devoursjohnlock. The fact that the morgue scene has Sherlock accusing Smith of having a ‘knife’ which he is actually wielding is something, yes? And the fact that the knife is what he ‘uses’ to keep things in place that he can’t solve. So many cases at the beginning of t6t he states he’ll need to get a ‘new’ knife soon if it keeps up. All the ‘advertising’ on the blog.
@gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @221bloodnun @mrskolesouniverse
Thanks for tagging @monikakrasnorada . Really an intersesting theory @devoursjohnlock . What first comes to mind when I hear ‘knife, stabbing, wife’ is Barry Berwick from Minsk. Sherlock went there by plane …. into the East …. and Berwick is also called 'Bezza’ … which sounds a lot like 'Shezza’. Don’t know it this is helpful though. :))))
I think barry berwick may have something to tell us, but whether about what did happen, or what could have… those mirror characters can be unreliable narrators! I was just reading about him, one of @dechtires big metas, which might be the one i got interrupted before i finished, so i might not have rb it yet. @dechtires “sherlock meta” tag is worth spending time on.
@sarahthecoat @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @monikakrasnorada @inevitably-johnlocked @artfulkindoforder
Wow, this is an oldie. This was the first meta I wrote, between TLD and TFP, and my approach to these things has changed a lot since then. I was working with an assertion that had been thrown around a lot: that the mantle knife presented in that Sherlockology image (with the Starbucks cup) was new, and I didn’t question it at the time. When I saw this going around again this morning, I did question it, so went back for a closer look.
It looks to me like the knife used in S4 is the same knife that was used in ASIP the pilot, and HLV. As of HLV, one thing does change.
In the pilot, we get this:
According to Sherlockology, the knife is a Leatherman Charge AL multi-tool; I have a similar one (though mine’s much prettier), and I can tell you it will happily stab a DVD or just about anything else to a mantle, if you need a knife to do that. I’ve circled the blade Sherlock used for the mail below. The primary blade in this knife is the only one that’s not serrated, so we know Sherlock only uses that blade. The blade also has a loop close to the handle that makes it easy to identify.
That shot from the pilot is clear enough to recognize that the stabbing direction is what you’d expect: the blade is inward, toward Sherlock’s body. Picture it: it’s unnatural to stab any knife straight down with the blade outward, right?
This is what makes the mantle knife look different as of the Watson Domestic in HLV. From then on, the blade is facing outward; Sherlock would have to have plunged the knife into the mantle with the blade facing away from his body.
That’s weirder in TST, where there’s so much mail on the mantle, and he concentrates so hard on stabbing through it. Why wouldn’t he hold the knife in the more intuitive direction, especially if he’s conscious of doing it? Like I said, these knifes are pretty damn sharp, but it still seems weird to me.
But I’m pretty sure it’s the same knife. A good reminder for us all to check our facts.
Reblobbing for the amendments. Wrt the theory that Mary might have been shot at 221b, I’m thinking of that clapboard from the production of tld and the eyes and gun emerging from the door of 221b to shoot a John Watson esque figure–do all murders come back to the flat?
John Watson doesn’t give a fuck about meeting the most dangerous man in an empty warehouse.
(John Watson doesn’t give a fuck series)
I appreciate how John speaks to Mycroft here. He does not explain nor does he want explanations. He responds very simply, and in a way brutally, to shut down and end each one of Mycroft’s comments. Then he takes charge and ends it.
I spent so much time being dazzled by Benedict it took me a while to genuinely appreciate the deeply interior work done by Martin.
I will always love Ben the most, but this show just wouldn’t be the same without Martin as his partner. His reactions are brilliant. I’m so impressed at how far he’s come in acting since The Office.
This scene is the main reason I’m so glad they scrapped the original pilot episode.
It’s great 1) because at first you assume Mycroft is Moriarty (if you have any familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes stories); and 2) Martin established John as tough and brave with a subtlety and simplicity that is easy to overlook.
John Watson makes this series for me. He makes it. I love everyone on this show, everyone, I do, but this version of John Watson, not just loyal and fascinated, but conflicted and struggling, constantly hungry for something he doesn’t want to long for, trying so hard to be normal and failing, a desperate beam of sunshine on the inside and tough, quiet, no-nonsense on the outside, he makes it. He’s this careful balance between the semblance of ordinary with this burning inferno of extraordinary inside him.
Never underestimate John Watson.
His character shows the most courage, I think, of anyone on the show (and that’s saying a lot given the courage it takes to be Molly or Sherlock or even Mrs. Hudson). But we’re introduced to him when everything he’s devoted his adult life to has been suddenly taken from him: the man he loved and his physical health and his mental stability and his career and his home. His sister is no longer someone he can talk to or trust–lost in substance abuse, having rejected her wife, who he cared about. His parents aren’t in the picture, his friends have moved on in life without him, his new flat is truly awful.
And here he is trying so hard. Fighting against using that gun on himself, going to therapy, attempting the blog even though he hates it–why? What does he have to hope for? He makes the effort to be nice to Mike, who he didn’t even know that well, when it’s obviously draining and awkward for him; he feels like no one would want to live with him, but still takes the risk of meeting a stranger on Mike’s say-so; and within hours he has the courage to respond to Sherlock with humor and interest and trust, to Mycroft with strength, and to Jefferson Hope with a bullet.
The man’s made of steel.
I’ve said this plenty of times, but one of the things I admire the most about John is that he is one of the very few people who’s ego wasn’t bruised by Sherlock’s deductions and he was able to see him for how brilliant he is.
I love John and Martins acting here or at all. He is just great. All the comments above couldn’t describe it better.
This John is the number one reason why this is (still!) my all time favorite TV show. In a lifetime of consuming Sherlock Holmes adaptations and pastiches, this is the first time that Watson was every bit as interesting as Holmes. He has so much depth, so many layers, hidden behind that quiet exterior.
Not a bumbling sidekick, not an everyman or an audience surrogate, but a complex, extraordinary man who is, really, the only logical companion to the great detective.
Another proof that these two are always looking at each other even when they aren't.
Because how else do you throw and catch a pen like this?
Obvious.
Where you lead, I will follow
I’ve just realised how similar this exchange is to the famous “interview” scene in “The Imprtance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde, in which Lady Bracknell tells Jack Worthing (the love interest of Gwendolen Fairfax) to sit down, to which he replies “I prefer standing”. This is interesting as Mycroft is said to have played Lady Bracknell at school, going by the final problem, directly addressing this similarity… and considering how Lady Bracknell is interviewing Jack for marriage to her daughter here… 👀👀👀👀👀 we may be expecting a happy announcement by the end of the series…
