Hi! Thank you for being here for all of our crazy Johnlock questions and fic recs! ❤️❤️ I've read some of the best stories ever that were your recommendations! 😊
Anyway, I have a really dumb question that I haven't really thought about before and though I maybe you would know the answer or can point me towards a meta or another author who might have an explanation, if there even is one lol!
What is the scene with John and Mary supposed to mean, when he says he's taking Mary and leaving and then he corrects himself and says Mary is taking him? Is it just to show how she was in charge of John? Or something mundane like it's because John can't drive lol? I don't know why I started thinking about it, but now I'm kind of fixated on it 🤦🏼♀️.
Thanks for any insight!!
Hi Nonny!
Never a dumb question here! That's the best part of this community, because I'm not always going to have the answer but someone else usually does, hahahh!
Okay, so MY PERSONAL INTERPRETATION of it is that I believe this is one of the only modern scenes in TAB that is part of the mind palace fever dream, as I believe that it's about Sherlock realizing his love for John; just the sudden abruptness of it being the only modern scene off of the Tarmac (if I remember correctly; I used to watch this episode ENDLESSLY, I LOVED writing meta about it) makes me think that Sherlock is trying to still work through Some Things™ (that meta linked talks a bit more about my interpretation of the Graveyard Scene as a whole and I hope you'll read it!).
That said, because I feel it's Not Real™, I am interpreting it as Sherlock realizing how much control over John's life Mary actually has, how trapped John is, and how Sherlock himself feels bitter about Mary being the asshole she is and rubbing it in Sherlock's face CONSTANTLY that John is hers (seriously, ALL of Season 3 is just Mary being a petty poop and parade-marching John around Sherlock every chance she gets to advertise that she "won" John. John is nothing but a trophy to her). He's jealous and petty in his own way, and we see all through TAB that Mary, in his mind, is painted as deeply unpleasant and a nuisance that Sherlock tolerates for John's sake.
So yeah, for me it's nothing more than Sherlock, in his mind, actually REALLY doesn't like Mary at all, which is why S4 is such a friggin' U-turn for me because they absolutely despised each other before S4.
If anyone has any additional thoughts, please let us know!
Remember how S4 was all about John just forgetting how to be a doctor??
Well it started in TAB
SIR EUSTACE: Somnambulism.
WATSON: I beg your pardon?
SIR EUSTACE: I sleepwalk, that’s all. It’s a common enough condition. I thought you were a doctor. The whole thing was a bad dream.
Sherlock doesn't want John to be the doctor (doctor=attraction to women/ soldier=attraction to men). In TEH, Sherlock tells John in the train car that he is a soldier, not just a doctor. In TSOT, he says "All girls like a soldier" (poor Sherly). TAB starts off with John as a soldier and we never really see John working as a doctor in the episode. There is one part where John reminds Sherlock "which one of us is a soldier and which one is a drug addict" to which Sherlock replies "You are not a soldier, you are a doctor" implying that Sherlock believes John is "not there yet".
Culverton kept shoving the "Are you really a doctor?" thing in John's face and everyone generally seemed to agree in S4 that John has just lost touch with his profession, including John himself. Hints to me that it's all in Sherlock's head cos we were told in TAB, but did we listen?
Hi! I was re watching Sherlock’s abominable bride and I was wondering why Dr Hooper was so “rude” to Watson...? Do you have any insights on that? By the way I love Molly ;)
Ooh yass, I love getting a thought provoking ask! Thanks for sending this. 😊 and I love Molly too! Love that gal to pieces! ❤️
So I too rewatched TAB morgue scene just to refresh my memory a bit, and especially after rewatching that (and thinking of some other important pieces of info from the episode) I think I can pretty clearly see what’s going on with Molly here.
First and foremost, I think we have the bigger picture of the crime. Ultimately (in this AU of Sherlock’s head at least, which is still not my fave concept but whatever lol) this is Molly Hooper who is part of an organized bunch of women doing everything in their power to pull off this incredibly elaborate and large-scale revenge plot. They need the tale of Emilia Ricoletti to be told just so. The moment when Dr Hooper makes the snide remark “isn’t he observant now that Daddy’s gone” was right after Watson states that Emilia had clear signs of TB and that should be checked out even though her cause of death was a bullet to the head. That piece of info ends up being super important when finding meaning behind this elaborate crime. Because of course it turns out that Emilia knew she would die soon anyway so wanted to accomplish something big with her death. Naturally, Dr Hooper wouldn’t want anyone sniffing around and figuring out anything beyond the information she was giving out.
And here’s the other thing. Molly was part of this band of women, this group who looked out for each other and even avenged each other in pretty extreme ways. And who else turns out to be among them? The Watson’s maid! And good grief is John ever a Sexist Jerk Face in that episode lol. He’s dismissive of his own brilliant and more than capable wife, but he also treats the maid like a worthless nobody. You best believe that every bit of John’s bad behavior, both toward the maid and his wife, has made it back to that group of women. Molly likely knows exactly how John treats the women around him, and she would have no patience for that kind of idiocy.
Especially after thinking about it a bit more deeply, Dr Hooper went so easy on John Watson in that episode, it’s not even funny. He should be awfully grateful that he was able to walk away with one snide remark. And maybe even grateful that he could walk away at all. 😆 👰🏻
I’m sure I’m not the first to point this out, but watching TAB, this stuck out to me soooo much:
WATSON: But these enemies: how are we to defeat them if you won’t tell us about them?
MYCROFT HOLMES: We don’t defeat them. We must certainly lose to them.
WATSON: Why?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Because they are right, and we are wrong.
[ ... ]
HOLMES (to Mycroft): And you’ve solved it already, I assume?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Only in my head. I need you for the, er ... (he grimaces) ... legwork.
WATSON: Why not just tell us your solution?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Where would be the sport in that? Will you do it, Sherlock? I can promise you a superior distraction.
My mind warped it into Mark Gatiss versus the Johnlock fans.
WATSON: But these Johnlock fans: how are we to defeat them if you won’t tell us about them?
MYCROFT HOLMES: We don’t defeat them. We must certainly lose to them.
WATSON: Why?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Because they are right, and we are wrong. (Hell yes we are)
[ ... ]
HOLMES (to Mycroft): And you’ve solved it already, I assume?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Only in my head. I need you for the, er ... (he grimaces) ... legwork. (Yeah it’s in the plans, but you two are gonna have to suffer through the stories to get there)
WATSON: Why not just tell us if Johnlock is endgame?
MYCROFT HOLMES: Where would be the fun in that? Will you do it, Sherlock? I can promise you John Watson on a silver platter.
Sherlock: You said your life turned on one word
Faith: Yes. The name of the person my father wanted to kill.
- The Lying Detective
In Poetry or Truth II: Brecht and The Great Game @toxicsemicolon explains how S4 is “not real life for John and Sherlock. [The episodes] are the clumsy travesties of the wonderful incidents of which John was once the faithful recorder” A conclusion that comes straight from “Studies of Sherlock Holmes”, an essay written by Ronald A. Knox.
Known as “the Cornerstone of Sherlockian Literature”, Ronald A. Knox’s essay started The Great Sherlockian Game. Moffat and Gatiss not only agree with it but clearly take from it to write their series. Give the essay a read. Is short, witty and really fun.
In said essay, among other works, he quoted two books written by Gaston Leroux: “The Mystery of the Yellow Room” and “The Perfume of the Lady in Black”. Previously discussed by @green-violin-bow in this post, these books address one of the most sherlockian subjects: The locked room mysteries. If these titles sound somehow familiar, there’s a reason for that:
So I went and read both books. A locked up room mystery in each one, with Joseph Rouletabille as the smart journalist solving the cases no one could ever, and his faithful friend, the narrator in both books, a lawyer called M. Sainclair. The Holmes/Watson dynamic is obvious from the start. Worth mentioning at this point, as John Watson can be seen as a self insert of Arthur Conan Doyle, Rouletabille is clearly a self insert of Gaston Leroux.
‘The Perfume of the Lady in Black’ takes place inside a dark fort by the sea, where people run from one place to another and the bad guy plays with everyone’s perceptions. He is presumed dead, but everyone suspects he’s actually alive and has taken the identity of one of the guests staying in the fort.
Moffat and Gatiss went to great lengths to reference the books, at the opening of The Abominable Bride:
A lady in black. And the actual dialogue:
- Her perfume?
If these concrete examples are not enough to link these books to BBC Sherlock, we can see their intent for S4 in Knox’ opinion on the books:
“Leaves a whole unexplained problem” and “Long and cumbrous”. That is certainly accurate for both books (and for The Final Problem). And,
Calling Gaston Leroux “a bungler” for drawing on the “long lost relative” cliché is like our exact reaction when we learned about Eurus Holmes.
All of this is like a damn arrow pointing at those books.
The parallels between The Final Problem and this book are really obvious. The case itself is of no importance, but it does have an interesting subplot.
Disaster to you, Watson.
The subplot is what makes the books relevant for us:
- Joseph Rouletabille, the investigator/journalist, is known to be an orphan. His true identity (who is he related to) is hidden from all the secondary characters but not from the main ones and the readers. We learn at the start of the second book (most of the readers actually can deduce so at the end of the first book), that Rouletabille is actually the son of the main villain and his victim, the Lady in Black.
- Such a fact changes his life, brings him both great joy (he finally finds his mother, the woman with the exquisite perfume) and deep anguish (he’s the son of a vicious and cunning criminal as well) and influences his actions from the moment he finds out and on. The subject of his true identity becomes the real drama of the story.
- Gaston Leroux, the books’ writer, places himself in a explicit way in ‘The Perfume of the Lady in Black’. He “meets” Rouletabille as a child; and nine years later, as Editor in Chief of Le Matin, Leroux offers him a job as a journalist.
- The author also adresses Rouletabille’s identity crisis subtextually right from the start. In the first book ‘The Mystery of the Yellow Room’. Rouletabille narrates how the unnamed ‘Editor in Chief’ (a.k.a. Gaston Leroux) asked him what his name was:
“- Joseph Josephin.
-That’s not a name. But since you will not be required to sign what you write, it is of no consequence.”
And so Joseph leaves behind his orphan’s last name and takes Rouletabille, a nickname his coworkers had for him, as his own. (Rouletabille means ‘roulette ball’)
Have you ever read a line more meta? A writer dismissing his own self insert as an author, denying him a real name and starting an identity crisis for his character right from the beginning…
At first readers can relate this Rouletabille character to Sherlock. Yes, he certainly behaves like an absolute nightmare and has great powers of deduction. But Rouletabille is first and foremost a journalist, a writer; and his dilemma as an orphan reminds us of the remarkable lack of information there is about John Watson’s family.
So the drama is centered around the writer’s name, the one that doesn’t make it into the published articles (therefore unknown to many), the name that “is not a name”. Who is the author in S4? John Hamish Watson. What name is being obliterated by the author himself? What name is not mentioned at all in season 4?
Hamish.
We learned about John’s middle name in ASIB, and during TSOT was not only discussed but became the key to that episode’s case. Magnussen knows John’s full name in HLV, and in TAB we saw a variation of Hamish in posters promoting a THEATER PLAY.
In TAB, the posters are not featured clearly during the episode, but they’re located in one of the scenes with more meta meaning. The Street scene.
Fortunately we saw them displayed in full during setlock. Those posters are clues for S4, waiting to be decoded. Just to give you a preview, Smith is mentioned, lots of Johns, grand illusions, wax figures, and “To Conclude, at 10 pm, With A Grand Display of FIREWORKS”
So we have a poster promoting a play, in a scene retelling the actual facts. A play within a play (within a play), where an ideal man, all smiles, is just part of an act. A fabrication. Brecht would be proud.
Hamish can be the most queer coded word in BBC Sherlock. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please read immediately these metas and also this one by @heimishtheidealhusband. They are a must to understand the importance of John Watson’s middle name.
The name is so loaded with symbolism and subtext it may be the most important word in the show. Hamish is the key to John’s mystery. And yet, we don’t hear or see the word ‘Hamish’ anywhere in S4. Not once. We just get a hint of the name in a scene where is clear we’re looking at a twisted version of the show.
He goes as far as to have people say is not his writing, is not HIS name the one behind the blog, on the episode with the most evil version of himself. (Please notice how Culverton Smith’s face is behind Nurse Cornish)
What interest could John have in hiding his name if we all know it? If the characters know it? After all there’s ASIB and TSOT where Hamish was mentioned to exhaustion. Even in HLV Magnussen knows his full name. It’s because in s4 we’re in a world where text is at subtext’s service; is not his actual name he’s hiding. Is what IT MEANS.
As heimishtheidealhusband said, Hamish is a symbol of John’s queer identity. This is why we almost don’t recognize him in s4. He’s hiding his true identity from everyone.
Is just one word, so full of meaning, a word he worked hard to conceal from everyone and only let it show when he married a woman.
One word that could turn his world upside down.
One. Word.
Where in S4 can we find a mystery around one word? A name?
Sherlock: You said your life turned on one word.
Faith a.k.a. John’s most blatant stand-in in S4: Yes. The name of the person MY FATHER WANTED TO KILL.
Hamish is the part of John his father wanted to kill. This is the origin of his internalized homophobia and self loathing, which has lead him to suicidal thoughts. This.
Hi library angel! I have a question regarding TAB. I was wondering whether it's been discussed why in Sherlock's fever dream, Hooper thinks that Holmes is Watson's daddy?
Hey Nonny!
AHHHHHH I KNOW that there was something back in the day, be damned if I could find it now...
But here's my interpretation:
We have to remember that everything in the Victorian era happening is in Sherlock's head, so this is his interpretation of how Molly is towards John.
Now, one could speculate it's because Sherlock wants to be John's Daddy, but the way Hooper says it is sarcastic and condescending, meaning Sherlock actually has picked up the underlying hostility John and Molly have with each other due to their mutual jealousy of each other having Sherlock's attention.
I think the actual truth is, especially with Watson immediately "deducing" that Hooper is a woman but Holmes apparently didn't, is that Sherlock wants John to be HIS daddy, LOL. The way John stands up for himself and essentially eviscerates Hooper for talking down to him, "asserting his dominance" is John, in Sherlock's mind, showing Hooper who the "daddy" actually is.
Hey hope life is great:) -- Just wanted you to get a break from you normal kahoodling to see, what is your favorite episode and why. :)
Hey Nonny!!
Aww this is so sweet, thank you!!!
Ah, definitely have to say TAB, followed by TSo3. I just really love Sherlock in both episodes, and I love how deep into his character we got. And I spent a LOT of my meta-time here in the fandom studying and writing about both of those episodes, so they have a soft spot in my heart. TAB just was such a fascinating episode to study, because I loved delving into the subtext of it all. And TSo3 was just... pining Sherlock the whole ep. I just am sad they never gave us a satisfactory conclusion, is all.
