Slithytove

I love Sherlock's response, in HLV, when John says "But it's Christmas!". He grins happily and says, "I feel the same." but looks disappointed then and adds,, "Oh, you mean it's actually Christmas.". Trust Sherlock to be joyful about danger but indifferent to the festive season!

Re. The key code......Having sussed out that Jim was tapping out the binary code during the visit to 221b, Sherlock thinks he can use it to alter all the faked computer records which document Richard Brooks's existence. I think...... And, as Arcadia says, Jim seems to see in Sherlock a darkness like his own, which makes him realise that Sherlock, unlike Mycroft, could break him. I think...,

I'm still happy overall with the show, despite the irritating aspects! It would be remarkable for any show to run for several seasons and not have some unsatisfactory developments, unless it was one of those which repeats the same formula over and over again. I don't want Sherlock to become predictable, even if it annoys the hell out of me at times. The balance of power between John & Sherlock does seem to have shifted a bit since the latter's return. Maybe it's because he is no longer the centre of John's world, or because of lingering anger about the Fall, or maybe John just tends to take for granted now the brilliance that used to amaze him. As T.o.b.y. says, there is still the "WTF?" reactionbut this is more to do with Sherlock's unexpected behaviour, such as dating Janine, than a response to Sherlock's genius. I would like to see a return to something more like the Watson-Holmes pattern and I think it could be done without making John look dim. If I knew someone as brilliant and unpredictable as Sherlock, I think I would still be dumbstruck by his deductions, however long I had known him, and I don't see why modern, edgy John can't still be impressed.

So, is the general consensus that John is no longer in awe of Sherlock and no longer finds his deductions amazing? If so, I find that a bit sad. There are other people - clients, etc - to be dazzled, of course, but Sherlock seemed to bask so happily in John's admiration. I always found the original Watson's humble respect for Holmes's genius to be rather touching.

I think the reason behind the dislike and lack of forgiveness for Mary stems simply from the shooting of Sherlock. Irene didn't shoot him, not did Jim or CAM, and none of them are wed to John Watson! The rift in the fandom is sad. I agree that some (not on this forum) seem so anxious to prove they are not crazy enough to threaten Amanda Abbingdon that they've gone too far in the opposite direction and become aggressive to anyone who doesn't love her character. A bit silly, really. Frankly. I was surprised after HLV that most fans seemed to support Mary. I thought everyone would hate her for the shooting, and te revelation of her past as a killer would confirm it. That's not arrogance, i.e. everyone should agree with me. It's just what I expected, and maybe I was basing it on real life judgements. I don't think that, in reality, we would be having this argument. Very few people would sympathise with someone who shot their friend simply because he saw too much, and very few forgive professional killers.....But this is the glorious world of fiction and we are free to indulge ourselves. I enjoy Jim's absurd, over-the-top villainy but in real life he would terrify and appall me. Now, for S4..... Presumably "the other one" will appear, or why mention him/her? I expect Mary to have a tragic past, to excuse her career choice, and maybe die heroically to redeem herself. I also fear there will be too many sightings of Baby Watson. If they try to persuade us that Jim is ok after shooting himself in the head, I 'll give up on them completely regarding medical matters. However, I would be happy with Jim, or his brother, as the Big Bad. There are so many stories left. Have we had any themes yet from the Solitary Cyclist or the Adventures of a Cardboard Box? Elementary tackled the latter and made it ridiculous, but I'm sure Moftiss could do better.

Hmm, a lot of food for thought here, after reading these recent comments..... I should start by saying that, despite my rage over Mary and my wish to shake John until he sees sense, I thoroughly enjoyed HLV - in fact, it is very close to TSoT as my favourite episode of the series. I know a lot of people didn't like the mind palace sequence but I loved it. It's one of my favourite parts of the entire show. Poor baby Sherlock, I feel for him so much. I'm another of those folk who can't switch off and suspend belief entirely. However much I'm enjoying an episode, my mind is going, "How could you not know you're bleeding to death, just because you were stabbed through your belt?", "How could anyone think you were reading data through your Google glasses when they know you store none of your information on computers?" or "Surgery? Really? You really think a bullet there wouldn't guarantee a life-threatening injury?"......I can't help it. I've got admit that I feel perfectly happy about judging fictional characters. (And also pretty happy about giving my opinion, in public, about the loveliness of Benedict Cumberbatch. He's hardly likely to read it and, if he did, he surely wouldn't be upset by a comment to the effect that he is unusually beautiful). If we're honest, I think that most of us would also judge a real-life person who had a history of killing people, and anyone who shot a witness who saw them threatening another man's life. I believe in tolerance and live-and-let-live but it doesn't make you a bad person to have a negative opinion of murderers, whether real or fictional. Caya mentioned Johnlockers and I admit to being one, but I don't think it plays a major role in forming an opinion about Mary. Yes, I want to see John back in Baker Street and maybe a little bit of that is due to Johnlock, but I liked Mary in the first two episodes, particularly the way she understood that John & Sherlock needed each other. In fact, the effect of Mary on Johnlock has been greatly exaggerated. It has not "sunk the ship.". For instance, a surprising amount - maybe the majority - of fanfic writers who include Mary in their stories are in favour of her, but both pro- and anti-Marys have taken a robust approach to her presence, from imagining polyamorous relationships to happily killing her off. Whatever the writers's attitudes to Mary, there seems to be a general consensus that she does not get in the way of Sherlock's love for John and vice versa. As for people saying nasty things to Amanda.....Well, some people are morons and can't distinguish fact from fiction. Such idiots should not affect the way one responds to a character. You can dislike a fictional person without being contaminated by the stupidity of people who confuse the character with the actor. Similarly, it's ridiculous to make people feel bad about liking or disliking a person who, after all, is only the product of someone's imagination. I've noticed several writers practically apologising for writing fanfic where Mary is a baddie. (Maybe pro-Mary writers do the same, and I just haven't noticed it.). People shouldn't have to feel this way. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. As the Duke of Wellington said, "Publish and be damned!"

Oh, I don't know. Sherlock serves the country in his own way, and even Mycroft admits that by now: England needs him. And since he claims, though jokingly, that he'd be lost without his blogger, we might reason England needs John Watson, too. There might be some distance, yeah, but ultimately, they'll run off with coat and gun on some ludicrous adventure, because that is what the story is about. So not to worry, I'd say. And personally, I think whatever John does between episodes when we're not looking on is up to him, so to speak. He's welcome to a happy family life taking his daughter to play group or going to marriage counseling with his wife of unknown identity or whatever. Just as long as I'm not forced to watch all of it... No, I'd be happy for John if it was implied he was happy, and I'll be fondly sad for Sherlock that he's lonely, but on the other hand, that is what Sherlock Holmes is supposed to be. If the writers want to really irritate me, they'll marry Sherlock off to Janine or worse. The thing is, I've always wanted Mary to appear and see how things would change then. Because, come on, Sherlock was outrageous towards John during the first two series. Don't get me wrong, I love Sherlock, but really. Taking someone for granted doesn't even begin to describe it. If Mary had never shown up, the wedding speech would never have happened, I am sure of that. She serves a huge purpose for the central dynamic, which even I am forced to admit at this point is turning out to be a big fat glaring love story, albeit, I still firmly believe, a platonic brotherly one. I don't think it made much difference in the original stories whether Watson lived at Baker St or with his wife. He talks about not having seen Holmes for months, but when they're together on a case, it's just like before and Holmes is just as irritating and demanding and glorious as ever, although I do think the original figure was always more considerate towards Watson, even caring, in his own way. Still, I might as well admit my favorite moment is the end of "The Empty House" plus the beginning of "The Norwood Builder", where the duo is back together and 221b and apparently for good, although it later turns that last bit wasn't to be. So, I'd be just as glad as anybody if John moved back, but I'm also very willing to accept an indefinite continuation of the dynamic as it was in series 3, because at least it is interesting and believable and John is happy. And I can't help but like Mary. I think we can cheerfully agree to disagree about Mary. You like Mary and I liked her too, right up to the moment that she shot Sherlock. Now she could dedicate the rest of her life to caring for orphaned kittens and I'd still be praying for her comeuppance. I suppose it's a bit mean of me to want to deny John a happy married life, but I do have my reasons. One is that the central relationship between John and Sherlock - whether you see it as friendship, platonic love or the most passionate Johnlock - is the heart and soul of the story, and a third party weakens it. It would have been the same if Sherlock had suddenly set up home with Victor Trevor, for instance, and left John out in the cold. (Though I would like Victor to turn up now and redress the balance a bit, so Sherlock isn't stuck with being the rather sad third wheel in the Watsons's relationship.) To be honest, I liked the outrageous way Sherlock treated John when they were flatmates. It was a big part of the show's fun. Maybe we did see only snippets of domestic life in Baker Street, in both the original and modern incarnations, but they were important snippets. They added detail and texture to the shared existence of these men. I must also confess that another reason why I don't want the continuing saga of the Watsons's marriage in S4 is that I don't want to see John living in domestic bliss with Sherlock's killer. It isn't the only issue - I'm hoping we don't get loads of Baby Watson either, though the poor thing is an innocent - but I'll admit it is a factor. It just seems so wrong.

I agree, John would probably have killed Sherlock if he shot Mary because she was an inconvenience. So, isn't it reasonable to expect him to feel the same rage and revulsion towards Mary for shooting Sherlock? Of course, he loved Mary but some things can destroy love. Finding out that your spouse shot your dearest friend in cold blood and killed/nearly, nearly killed him seems a very probable deal-breaker to me. As for the baby....Leaving aside the fact that risking your life in the service of your country and doing it for the thrill of the chase are very different things, there is also the matter of the mother. Mary is at risk of arrest and life imprisonment or death in revenge for her crimes. If John is killed or very severely disabled during his adventures, who will bring up Baby Watson if her mother is imprisoned or killed? As a responsible man, John surely would be worried by that question. Anyway, he had already begun to draw away from Sherlock after his marriage, so they would surely become more distanced when the baby arrives. Personally, I think that glimpses of the Watsons playing Happy Families would be even more irritating than parentlock, and would further weaken the central dynamic between the two main characters. We saw very little indeed of Watson's marriage in the original ACD stories, which was a good thing, but I think that the strongest stories were those where Holmes and Watson were flatmates and we saw them at ease in each other's company, in the midst of domestic life, as well as during their adventures together. What I'm saying, I suppose, is bring John Watson home to Baker Street.....

I've always assumed that Mary's family will turn out to be the motive for her career choice (Kill Bill territory indeed), to make her seem less heartless. If it turns out that she slaughtered them herself, I'll be surprised - though not as surprised as John, who seems to think he can turn a blind eye to the problems of her past. I'm sorry, Carol, it is probably me who makes your fingers itch to type, as I keep harping on about John losing his moral bearings. It just disappoints me that he chose to know nothing about Mary's past, instead of having the courage to face the truth, and that he could forgive her for coming so close to destroying Sherlock. (I suppose we can never know for certain whether he was dead or just very, very nearly dead. The meta by cookieswillcrumble seems to refute the one by Wellingtongoose, so I guess you pay your money and take your pick.) To me, it seems that a man of John's character wouldn't care about excuses, even if made by Sherlock himself. He would be appalled that Mary had shot a defenceless witness, even if it was a complete stranger. The fact that it was his best friend would just make it worse. Would he forgive Sherlock if the situation was reversed and Mary was an innocent bystander shot by Sherlock just because she got in the way? I hope not, and he shouldn't forgive Mary either. I'm hoping the pregnancy will be fake but I doubt it because I'm not sure that anyone in a relationship could keep up the pretence, particularly if married to a doctor. Even if they were apart before Xmas, they are clearly reconciled now. I can't see how they will deal with the baby in S4. If it is John, Mary and Baby, how can John risk his life running around London with Sherlock? If Mary dies, parentlock will be funny for one episode and then irritating (particularly for pedantic people like me, who will think "But who is minding the baby?" whenever they go off on an adventure.). I seriously doubt that the baby will die, because Moffatt is a writer who likes to tug on the heartstrings without breaking them. Dr Who shows this even more clearly than Sherlock. The best solution (unless it is a fake pregnancy) might be for Mary to take the baby and disappear. (Not the best solution for John, of course, but for the show.). However, it seems possible that Mary will have to die heroically to redeem herself, so she wouldn't be able to run off with the baby. I don't think I've ever guessed a Sherlock plot development correctly, so no doubt they will come up with something totally unexpected.

Benedict and his mum at the Chelsea Flower Show - a lovely little bit of television. (Though I couldn't help thinking his hat was a bit too small for him.)

I watch Elementary but I don't know why....It isn't as bad as the Guy Ritchie films (action hero Sherlock Holmes, for God's sake!) but it is pretty awful. Johnny Lee Miller is the only bearable thing in the whole series, and I suppose I watch it because I do think he is a talented actor. Lucy Liu is a beautiful woman but couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. Aidan Quinn and the rest of his team could have come from any run-of-the-mill cop show. Moriarty's identity is absurd. And what have they done to Mycroft and Lestrade? Made both of them unrecognisable. Particularly the latter, who seems to have become a publicity-hungry buffoon. If I remember ACD's tales correctly, Holmes was frequently condescending, bordering on rude, to Lestrade but considered him the best that the Yard had to offer. Rather like Sherlock's attitude to modern Lestrade. In neither case was Lestrade an oaf, as he was in Elementary. Then there are the plots, which make Sherlock's storylines seem almost plausible ( even THoB!) by comparison. If you have seen the episode with the ears, you will know what I mean. My younger daughter is a big fan of JLM, and has never appreciated Benedict's loveliness, but has to admit that Elementary is cringe-worthy. As she says, JLM and Benedict are probably friends, having worked on together on stage, and the former must surely be embarrassed when they compare Sherlock and Elementary. Particularly the storylines - the one about the drones was bad but the episode of the ears was so silly that we all burst out laughing when the solution was revealed. And yet we keep watching. Maybe it's because JLM is interesting in an abrupt, twitchy sort of way. I can't think of him, though, as Sherlock Holmes. I think I would like the show a lot better if it was just about a clever, highly-strung ex-addict-turned-detective but had nothing to do with Holmes. Then I wouldn't find myself muttering, "What? That's Moriarty? Never!" or "Why has Mycroft's character become completely unrecognisable?" I'd be interested to see their take on Mary Morstan, though, who would presumably be a man, as Joan Watson is apparently straight.

I assume that they were supposed to have worked on him for longer than we saw. After all, if you flatline, I don't think they just go, "Oh, you're dead.". So presumably they did try to resuscitate him and we just saw them at the point where they gave up and stepped away. Now, if Mary really had performed surgery on him with a bullet, to destroy a tumour, that would be impressive.....

Regarding the matter of Sherlock's death.......It rather depends on how you define death. According to the very informative medical meta on archiveofourown.org by cookieswillcrumble, the fact that the surgical team have stepped away from Sherlock after he flatlines means that they have called it, i.e. ceased attempts to resuscitate him and noted his time of death. What follows is, of course, little short of a miracle. Obviously he wasn't brain dead, otherwise he could not have come back . However, when it is said of people "he was dead for three minutes", or whatever, before they have been revived (by emergency procedures, not by worrying about John Watson!), those people were clearly not brain dead either. I would say that, in the eyes of his surgical team, Sherlock was dead and could not be resuscitated, which is why they had started to move away from him. Without the John-induced miracle, he would have been brain dead within minutes. So, yes, it is a very fine line but I think it is undeniable that Mary's bullet did a lot more than incapacitate him. To all intents and purposes, it killed him and he would have stayed dead if not for a rather unlikely act of will.

I agree wholeheartedly that there is no justification for shooting someone unless you do so in defence and, even then, the intent should be to incapacitate rather than kill. As an assassin, Mary would be more than capable of aiming for the knee, for instance, and had no reason for aiming for the abdomen unless she meant to cause massive harm - unless, in fact, she meant to kill. And, of course, he does die in surgery, and possibly again on the floor of 221b. The "surgery" explanation irritates me so much that I will feel seriously short-changed if they don't tackle the subject in S4. It seems too far-fetched for Sherlock to really believe. I just hope he doesn't. As Zain points out, Mary's behaviour in the empty house doesn't square with the idea that she didn't mean to kill him, and Sherlock's projection of her image doesn't suggest he trusts her not to take another shot. Regarding Mary as a dragon-slayer.....I suspect that that will be used to justify her previous killings. However, it can never justify her shooting an innocent, unarmed bystander - not to mention a friend. I don't care if she has an heroic past and dedicates her future to a life of saintly self-sacrifice. She shot Sherlock without pity or remorse, for her own selfish reasons, and that makes her unforgivable. (And that is what I wanted John to tell her, too!)

I liked Mary much more than I had anticipated, in the first two episodes, but now she has no redeeming features, as far as I am concerned. For a start, she's a professional murderer, though I suspect we are going to get a sob story in S4 which will attempt to justify her reasons for becoming a killer. (My money is on something tragic involving her family.). That would be hard enough to swallow and still see her as warmhearted, but she damned herself forever when she shot Sherlock. No hesitation about killing an unarmed, non-threatening friend who trusts you. No noble motive, only self-preservation. No remorse, just continued threats. She really is horrible! Now, I like messed-up characters a lot. I like quite of lot of villains, including dear old mad-as-a-duck Jim. I could stomach Mary if we weren't expected to buy a ridiculous attempt to explain away her actions and to keep seeing her as someone we - and John - should still love. Let her be the next Big Bad and that's fine. Tell us that John Watson neither knows or cares about the harm she has caused, and that is all wrong - in my eyes anyway. I also dislike the parallels drawn between Mary and Sherlock. Yes, they are both intelligent liars who can be ruthless at times. However, their ethics seem very different to me. Sherlock lies to John because he is putting himself in a very dangerous situation for a good cause, i.e. destroying Jim's criminal network. Mary lies to John because she wants him, which means he has to believe in her false identity. She also lies to hide the fact that she shot his best friend. Sherlock shoots an enemy to protect his friends - Mary shoots a friend to protect herself. Sherlock weeps after committing murder, Mary never shows any real remorse. Sherlock accepts his punishment. Everything Mary does is to avoid retribution. It seems to me that their differences are far greater than their similarities.

Highest number for favourite? So..... 4. Fighting back to life. 3. Rooftop. 2. Speech. 1. Pool.

There are so many wonderful lines from all three series, it is difficult to choose favourites.....I do like Mycroft's: "You are in Buckingham Palace, the very heart of the British nation. Sherlock Holmes, put your trousers on!" Sherlock himself probably gets the best lines, though Benedict's delivery obviously enhances them. Lines such as "Brilliant! Yes! Four serial suicides and now a note! It's Christmas!" or "And contrast is, after all, God's own plan to enhance the beauty of his creation - or it would be, If God were not a ludicrous fantasy designed to provide a career opportunity for the family idiot." Followed by a shot of the vicar, looking startled.

That happens sometimes. I think maybe the Post button bounces. You can just Hide the extra one (there's a button to the left of the Quote buttons). Thanks. I did wonder if the Hide button would get rid of it....

I don't know if someone who committed murder for the CIA would ever stand trial, though I don't think that, in legal terms, they would be immune from prosecution. I suppose it would depend on the identity of their victims and who found out. However, if Mary has done freelance work, there would be no intelligence agency to shield her from retribution for those killings, so she would indeed be at risk of life imprisonment. I think we have to believe that Mary has a violent past, otherwise she would have no reason to fear that John would stop loving her if he knew the details.

I've seen Rupert Graves in loads of things but had no problem accepting him as Lestrade. In fact, his portrait of the character is so sympathetic that I find I can't endure Sean Pertwee's portrayal of Lestrade, as vain and incompetent, in Elementary. I was also puzzling over the identity of the hit man in Fargo until I realised it was Chandler's insane room-mate! One of my favourite characters in Friends.

Sorry, don't know why that posted twice!

I can't really understand why either of the Holmes brothers would have been ignorant of Mary's past. After all, not only are they geniuses, but a large part of their brilliance lies in their ability to deduce all there is to know about people from the smallest of details. So Sherlock can deduce a person's career from their tie or their thumb, Mycroft knows John's attitude to danger by the lack of tremor in his hand, but neither of them notice anything alarming about a former professional killer whose past is entirely fake? Are they pretending, just biding their time? Or are they really off their game? I know Sherlock make mistakes sometimes and I like that - it makes him more human - but would he really be so unobservant about a new and important figure in his own life? Particularly as he has recently been working undercover in dangerous circumstances, where being hyper-vigilant about everyone he met must surely have been a key to his survival. As for Mycroft, he seems to be almost godlike, i.e. an all-seeing, all-knowing entity who anticipates everything and is never taken by surprise. Did he really not know that a former assassin with experience of working for the CIA, as well as freelance murders, was marrying his brother's closest friend? Has he really failed to work out the identity of Sherlock's assailant? If so, he isn't as clever or as well-informed as we have been led to believe.

Unlike TRF apparently, the action against CAM can't be a set-up unless there is some explanation for the talk in the garden. If both brothers knew what was planned, and each knew the other knew, then the conversation makes no sense, given that only the two of them are present. However, I am willing to believe that Mycroft knew what Sherlock was planning - up to a point anyway, though he obviously didn't anticipate the shooting of CAM. ( Presumably because he hadn't worked Mary's role in the story - why hadn't he worked it out?). Given Mycroft's intelligence, his resources and his powers of deduction, it isn't hard to believe that he usually knows what his little brother is up to. If he knew what Sherlock intended but he played along, I.e. leaving the laptop lying around, implying he had drunk the punch, etc, then I can only see two possible reasons:- 1)He didn't want to be involved because of the political implications and/or potential damage to his career, particularly if things went wrong. Even if they went smoothly, presumably he would still have to explain to his superiors why he left a laptop full of sensitive material on his mum's kitchen table. 2) He knew it was vital that he wasn't involved, in case things went wrong and he had to get Sherlock out of trouble. (Which he did, to some degree. At least he saved him from prison and gave him an option which allowed him a chance, however slim.). He would not be able to speak on Sherlock's behalf if he was personally implicated in the plot. I think either reasons are plausible, though option 1 is rather colder and more self-serving than option 2.

I'm afraid I can think of lots of things Janine would have liked them to do "just once", but evidently I have a much dirtier mind than the rest of you.... Maybe the reason Sherlock and Janine didn't have sex, apparently, was because the writers wanted to keep the possibility that Sherlock is asexual. Or gay.

There is some highly improbable speculation that "the other one" could be played by Tom Hiddlestone. I could live with that! A fine actor....and cute too.