I have an exam today, so this’ll be quick, but just... no worries, guys. No worries. I’ve obviously not had time to do a full subtextual analysis of mirrors and symbols and everything, but honestly... I don’t think the Johnlock plot is buried deep enough for that to be strictly necessary anymore. This is literally the top layer of this episode:
Sherlock returns from his 4-minute exile high as a kite, but he’s also drunk on a mixture of extreme joy and extreme sorrow. He’s joyful that he’s back and alive and with John, but he’s also heartbroken that John has chosen to be a husband and a father and fulfill his duties to his family. During the next weeks, Sherlock busies himself with cases as he always does when he’s actually hurting so much that he can’t stand being fully present in his own life. He fiddles constantly with his phone/heart, but it’s neither fulfilling the purpose of distracting him nor fulfilling the purpose of helping him track down Moriarty. He’s completely passionless and it shows in the fact that he’s lost his edge, he doesn’t seem enthusiastic when solving cases at all anymore. Sherlock, though, is adamant that he is going to protect the life John seems to want to lead, even though John’s choice breaks his heart.
Meanwhile, John is feeling absolutely miserable in his family. He obviously loves his daughter, but being a father and a husband is simply unfulfilling for him in every way. He misses Sherlock, who spends a lot of time away from him because he can’t stand seeing John with his family, and he literally cannot stand being around Mary. As a result of all this frustration and bottled up emotion, John considers cheating on Mary with the first woman to show any interest in him and accepts her phone number, sending her a text. Notice how Mary and Rosie aren’t enough to make him throw away the phone number. That night, though, he receives a text from Sherlock (it’s quite obvious from the facts that the two texting know each other well, that they haven’t seen each other for a long time and that Sherlock texts “Miss you”, paralleling “Miss me?” from TAB) and decides then and there that he isn’t going to start an affair.
This cheating bit seems to worry a lot of people, but it really, really shouldn’t. First of all, it shows that John is human too and a fully fleshed out character with complex problems. Second of all, can it get much more Johnlock than this? John is so miserable with Mary that he’s willing to start an affair with a random woman he randomly meets in a bus. The image of his own wife and child on his phone isn’t enough to make him forget about it, but one text from Sherlock on his phone is enough for him to break it off before it even starts (on the grounds that he is “not free” and not on the grounds that he is “married”, indicating that he’s thinking of Sherlock here, not Mary). Moftiss could not make it any clearer that the one John loves is Sherlock, not Mary. I mean, think about it. He is willing to cheat on his wife and the mother of his child, but he is unwilling to “cheat” on Sherlock, whom he isn’t even in a relationship with. Seriously. That’s the show. Right there, that’s actually what we saw last night.
It also means that when John sees the woman from the bus while on the plane, he is not fantasizing, he’s feeling guilty. Remember that he’s on this plane with both Mary and Sherlock. And it means that what John is trying to tell Mary in the later parts of the episode is that he isn’t actually a good husband because he has always been in love with Sherlock, not because he considered cheating on Mary for, like, one day.
Then comes the actual case and I’m just going to put this out there: Moriarty is alive. He has been closely monitoring everything, waiting for the right moment to start the final act of his grand plan to burn the heart out of Sherlock and make him into the perfect boyfriend. This is all Moriarty’s doing and this is how he has been planning to burn the heart out of Sherlock all along.
We already know that Moriarty’s main sphere of influence is Eastern Europe and we already know that Moriarty has control over people in the British government. We are also told that AGRA worked/works for whomever pays the most money. So is it really so difficult to believe that Moriarty was the one arranging the hostage situation? That Moriarty was the one ordering Lady Smallwood to send in AGRA? That Moriarty was the one ordering/inspiring/helping Norbury to give it all up? That Moriarty was the one ordering his Georgian helpers to capture Ajay and deliberately let him believe that Mary had betrayed him? Is it really so difficult to believe that Moriarty would willfully create a situation in which he had an assassin running from her past on hand to send into John’s life, but also another assassin on hand to kill her whenever he desired and without it being possible to trace it all back to him? The answer is no. No, it really isn’t difficult to believe that.
So let me propose the following: Moriarty has created a situation in which both Mary and Ajay are his pawns, Mary knowingly and Ajay unknowingly. Mary knows that her mission is to separate Sherlock and John and make John distance himself from Sherlock forever. We can see throughout the episode (and the entire last season) that she is working on this. She’s deliberately planting the idea in John’s mind that the one Sherlock really loves and cares about and needs to be his partner both romantically and when solving crimes is her and not John. And Sherlock, who’s desperate to ensure that John gets the life he seems to want, is playing right into her hand by trying to mend the relationship between them for John’s sake.
Additionally, I think Mary knows the end game. So I think she knows that she’s meant to “sacrifice” herself for Sherlock in the end, meaning that she will die a martyr and thus forever be between John and Sherlock, and she accepts this mission.
At some point, Moriarty decides that it’s time for the last stage of his grand plan and he orders his Georgian helpers to let Ajay go. I mean, the timing of this is way too purposeful for it to be a coincidence. As predicted, Sherlock is willing to give his all to protect Mary/John’s family. And as predicted, Mary doesn’t give two fucks about him and goes off on her own. Mary has now entered the final phase of her mission, showering John with heartwarming letters, praise and loving admiration. She’s never, ever done this before. She knows the game is almost up and she has to ensure that she plays her part convincingly. If she really meant any of this, she would always have acted like this. But she hasn’t.
It turns out that Mary was the one to give Sherlock the clue he needs to solve the case. Surprise. Not.
Then Mary dies just as she was supposed to do. You can even see her glancing up at Sherlock during the conversation and moving closer/more in front of him when she goes to “attack” Norbury and is called back. She knows, guys. She knows what’ll happen. It’s not chance, it’s chess. Also, she doesn’t really hold back her hatred for Sherlock unless John happens to be around, so her legitimately sacrificing herself for Sherlock and thus redeeming herself makes no sense character-wise. Like… she would totally be happy to get rid of her rival without having to do any of it herself if she wanted to be with John, I’m telling you.
Finally, Mary makes the most manipulative death speech committed to television yet. It can basically be summed up as 1) John, you are the most amazing human being ever, I’m so happy we met, never change, I love you forever AKA massive guilt trip, 2) Sherlock, I really do care about you, do you care about me as well AKA planting even more suspicion in John’s mind and 3) Sherlock, it’s alright you didn’t save me, I think we’re even now AKA massive blame game.
Also, no. Willfully shooting someone fatally so only a miracle saved them and being ready to take a bullet to save someone but then being prevented from doing so by that someone jumping in front of you to take it themselves is not the fricking same thing, Mary! It doesn’t make Sherlock guilty of your death as you were guilty of his almost-death. Stop manipulating them. Stop.
While this conclusion, that Mary has not in fact redeemed herself but only carried out Moriarty’s orders in order to separate John and Sherlock, is mostly based on logic, there’s also indirect evidence quite visible in the episode itself. In the first plane scene, Mary is sat in the seat closest to the aisle, there’s an empty seat in the middle and a man sitting by the window. In the second plane scene, Mary is sat closest to the aisle, there’s an empty seat in the middle and John is sitting by the window. These two scenes are completely parallels. In the first plane scene, Mary is annoying the hell out of the man and he very obviously just wants for her to leave him alone, an exact parallel to how Mary and John’s relationship is portrayed throughout the entire series, but especially in this episode. Then, Mary fakes feeling ill in order to gain sympathy and it works brilliantly. So we can assume she’s doing the same to John at the end.
For the record, it can also suggest that Mary is faking her death, which could also help explain why she would be willing to go through with it. This means she might return later to finally be revealed as the villain that she is so John and Sherlock can move on with their lives together with absolutely 0 problems, just like how Irene was safe in the end so she didn’t weigh on Sherlock’s mind.
The result is exactly what Moriarty has planned all along. John is devastated. Not because he loved her. He doesn’t cry or go to visit his therapist, which we saw him do after Sherlock’s “death”. Instead, he growls despairingly. This is because he isn’t feeling grief at her death. He’s feeling guilt. Guilt that he wasn’t a good husband for her, or a good father for Rosie for that matter. Guilt that he couldn’t go through with this life but always kept wanting Sherlock instead. Guilt that things didn’t work out the way they should have. This moment brings up all the guilt that has always been in John for loving Sherlock and for not being able to commit to an “ordinary” life as a devoted husband, loving father and professional doctor. That is why he takes it out on Sherlock. He knows deep down that it’s not Sherlock’s fault that Mary died, that it’s not Sherlock’s fault that John loves him more than he ever could possibly love Mary. He feels it’s all his fault because he loves Sherlock and he can’t deal with that. So he snaps.
Consider what the situation must look like from John’s perspective. He chose Mary even after Sherlock came back because he felt that that would be safer for him. But he couldn’t do what was expected of him. He couldn’t make Mary happy, he couldn’t stop loving someone else, he couldn’t be invested in their shared life. He might not have actually cheated on her, but she never had his heart and now she’s sacrificed herself to save the one John truly loves. And to top it all off, it seems as if John cannot even be with Sherlock now because Sherlock always loved Mary and not him. So Mary’s sacrifice has all been for nothing. No wonder he’s suffocated by guilt. No wonder he lashes out at Sherlock for indirectly, albeit unwillingly, causing this by being so perfect that John couldn’t help but love him. No wonder his immediate reaction is to withdraw from Sherlock, to declare that he no longer wants Sherlock in his life. When John accuses Sherlock of making a vow he couldn’t keep, who do you really think he’s talking about here? By God, this is painful.
It also works the other way. The heart is now being burned out of Sherlock. Moriarty has successfully carried out his master plan. So I think it’s very reasonable to assume that Moriarty will come back in TLD to try to claim his big prize. I also think it’s very reasonable to assume that the estrangement between John and Sherlock will culminate in TLD. It’ll be horrible. But it also means that everything is ready for The Final Problem. It means that everything is now positioned so the big moment, where Moriarty is defeated and Sherlock and John can finally finally be happy together simultaneously, is just around the corner. Have faith. We’re all going to die watching TLD, but it’ll be okay, because Sherlock and John will end up together in another city, far away from Death.
