Slithytove

I've loved Sherlock Holmes as a character ever since I read the ACD books in the school library. My God, that's fifty years ago... I've read a lot of Holmes stories by other writers (most of them bad) since the original went out of copyright, and seen films of varying quality, but I thought an attempt to modernise the tales would be pretty awful.....I couldn't have been more wrong. As for when I was hooked......Well, the wink after "and the address is 221b Baker Street" was pretty effective! And, for the record, I think Mr Cumberbatch is very beautiful in all his roles, and particularly as himself. Not to mention that amazing voice....

She was clearly looking for Sherlock, and went hunting for him. She obviously took her gun with her. However, if Mary had taken the gun for the express purpose of killing Sherlock for good this time, then why didn't she just fire away as soon as she saw the figure in the chair? (That mere thought gives me the willies!) I realize that a lot of people think of guns strictly as evil things, but they can also be used for self defense, so maybe that's why Mary took hers -- after all, Sherlock is far bigger and stronger than she is. Since she didn't go in shooting (thank heaven!), then perhaps she actually was looking to negotiate, or reason with Sherlock, or something along those lines.I would think she'd take her gun with her for the same reason John would (and he may have had it on him, folks, we don't know) --- she didn't know what she'd be walking into and she wanted to be prepared for anything. She probably had it on her when they rescued John from the bonfire, too. John probably had his when they went to investigate the elephant in the room. People who carry guns, carry guns, it's not necessarily a signal of intent. Maybe that's the same reason she had the thumb drive? She was, like a good girl scout trying to be prepared for anything? John goes armed when he knows he will be up against a dangerous enemy. Sherlock never threatens Mary with violence, or even capture. The situations are not comparable. If you shoot someone and nearly kill them, and they apparently run and hide from you, and then you track them down with a gun, I think it would be hard to convince a jury that it wasn't done "with malice aforethought."

Sherlock is bigger and stronger than Mary but she is a professional killer, presumably able to dispatch people who are physically stronger than herself. Furthermore, he has just suffered an extremely serious injury and should be in a hospital bed. It's doubtful she would need a gun if she met him in that condition. In reality, of course, there is no way that a victim of such a major trauma would be scrambling out of a window and running around London (let alone moving furniture!). Another hefty suspension of disbelief required.....

Very true. It is highly unbelievable that Mary had that thing for a long while and carried it around with her always. Which is why I don't believe that (I simply refuse to). Mary had the stick with her when she was going to what she thought would be a meeting between her and Sherlock, where she would negotiate his silence on her behalf. She'd need something to convince him, and just in case her gun wasn't enough, she may have thought it a good idea to show him evidence for any background story she'd choose to tell him, having good reason to believe that he might not take her word for it, and also that he would demand more information on her before he made a choice. As to where she got the data from, the more recently she acquired it and the shorter she had it in her possession without destroying it, the better, sense-wise. So my best guess is still that she stole it from Magnussen the night she broke in. I have zero proof for any of this, but it's a good enough explanation for me, and it works as well as any other... But did she really think she was going for a meeting with Sherlock, where she would need negotiating tools such as the flash drive? As far as as she knew, Sherlock did not know she would be able to find him when she went hunting for him. From her point of view, he had fled into hiding and she was going after him with a gun. It was Sherlock who turned their meeting into a negotiation. Regarding John's apparent refusal to know the truth about her past before he forgives her.....Well, he manages to forgive her for shooting Sherlock, who is supposedly the other person he most loves in the entire world, so presumably forgiving her for killing people he never met wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

The idea of Moriarty as a figment of Holmes's imagination features strongly in "The Last Sherlock Holmes Story" by the crime writer Michael Dibdin. It is the only Holmes pastiche which I have ever detested, and I believe that quite a few other readers feel the same. It's possible that Jim represents Sherlock's dark side in the Mind Palace sequence but he is the one whom Sherlock ultimately seeks out when struggling to survive, and it is his words which prompt the detective to fight back when he dies on the operating table. So, are we saying that it is Sherlock's dark side which motivates him to survive against all odds? Or does Jim represent something else, something a bit more complex?

Taken at face value, the flash drive is a ridiculous plot device - "I'm a professional killer and here is all the evidence against me, which I've collected together in this handy little device.". So, some other ideas.... Maybe the flash drive was a test. If John destroys it unread, he has forgiven her and she's safe. If he reads it - or tries to, as we don't know there is anything on it - he wants to know about her past, therefore she isn't safe, therefore she'll have to kill him. Just an idea... Maybe the flash drive John throws in the fire isn't the real one. Maybe John, or more likely Sherlock (or Mycroft!), has got it hidden safely until it is needed. Serve her right for being daft enough to keep evidence which incriminates her. Maybe Sherlock did read the drive, even if John didn't. Maybe, as has been suggested, he doesn't find the material objectionable (though Mary thought John would) and thus he continues to support her relationship with John and still tries to protect her. Or, maybe, he is appalled by her past but, as part of a cunning plan, hides his knowledge from her at this point, as he is still waiting to make his move. Again, how dumb can you be, holding evidence against yourself and then showing it to other people?

Yes, but he was friendly towards her long before he knew they shared any common ground. (If, indeed, they do - to me, their motivation and their actions seem very different.). She did offer to talk John into accepting Sherlock's behaviour but Sarah did her bit too in TBB, and didn't even complain when Sherlock crashed their date, but he was barely civil to her and made it clear that he wanted her to leave. He was reassuring towards her after she was nearly killed, but that hardly amounts to a declaration of friendship. I'm hoping it will turn out that Sherlock had a secret motive for getting close to Mary, which would also explain why he seems to have made no effort to deduce the truth about her, but I'm not holding my breath....

I hesitate to point out the obvious, but there is the Johnlock explanation of Sherlock's evident unhappiness in TSOT. Maybe Sherlock is upset because he is in love with John and is losing him to someone else. In that case, liking or disliking the bride would be irrelevant - the loss would be the same. Obviously Sherlock is not the type of man who would make a big declaration of love, particularly if he was uncertain that it would be reciprocated, so he might react by putting on a brave face and throwing himself into the wedding plans as a way of overcompensating. Well, it's never going to be canon but the writers have given us enough teasers - the stag night, for a start, but there are a number of other hints too - to allow us to make this interpretation if we want to. I must admit I've always assumed Sherlock was gay, right back to ACD's original stories, so I can easily see him being very upset when the object of his affections gets married. John, on the other hand.....Bisexual, maybe, It's still hard to understand why Sherlock is so amiable towards Mary from the beginning. Admittedly she seemed sweet in the first two episodes, but when has that ever worked with Sherlock? Sarah, for instance, was patient and helpful in TBB and he was horribly rude to her. He manages to ruin all John's attempts at relationships but then Mary comes along and he's putty in her hands, even after she shoots him. Why? What makes her different, in his eyes, to Sarah or any of John's other girlfriends?

You have to ask yourself -who has the ability to put Moriarty on every tv screen in the country? Mycroft, no doubt, but I'll be disappointed if it's him, unless it's for a stronger reason than bringing his brother home. Mycroft is a pillar of the British government. I can accept that he would use his influence to keep Sherlock out of prison, but would he set up something which would alarm his colleagues such as Lady Smallwood, creating a non-existent crisis to rescue Sherlock? He seems to be the perfect civil servant, wholly dedicated to his work. Would he jeopardise everything he had built up, by creating a fake threat for personal reasons? Seems improbable (though credibility doesn't seem to bother the writers!) Jim himself could do it, as he seems to have almost magical abilities to do whatever he wants. On the other hand, we did see him blow his own brains out, so it might be difficult to explain how he survived. Jim's identical twin.....A cliche, but possible. I don't see how people such as Sally, Mrs H or Wiggins would have the skill or opportunity to interrupt the broadcasts. I would like it to be Anderson, in his new role as Sherlock's fan, but don't see how he could have done it. I'm trying to distract myself with this puzzle today, as my elder daughter has just been to the US embassy in London and the family have been granted their visas . I'm glad for them to have such a great opportunity, but for myself and my husband there are many, many tears......Wisconsin is so far away.

Sherlock's loathing of CAM is never really explained but it certainly seems to be a factor in his murder, judging by the expression on Sherlock's face. He has told John that CAM repels him more than the serial killers he has dealt with, and he offers Mycroft an explanation of his hatred on the grounds that CAM uses people's differences against them, but it still isn't clear why CAM tops the league table of villains. Is he, for instance, more repellent than Jim Moriarty who terrorises and then blows up a blind old lady and her neighbours, or kidnaps and poisons two young children? To me, it appears that Sherlock is gripped by a very powerful emotion when he shoots CAM, even though he is ostensibly committing the crime to save Mary. I wonder if we will ever know if there was a personal reason why Sherlock hated CAM so much. Judging by the number of issues throughout the series remaining unresolved, I very much doubt it. Of course, it would be typical of Moftiss to tell us in the next episode that the killing of CAM had been planned by Sherlock & Mycroft all along.....

I agree with T.o.b.y that Sherlock is more inclined to romanticism than John. John is the realistic, pragmatic one - he could hardly be anything else, being a doctor and a soldier. Sherlock is the larger-than-life, imaginative and impulsive drama queen in the ultra-romantic, swirly black coat! He may consider himself devoted to cold, hard logic but his deductions actually rely heavily on an ability to think creatively, and he is clearly brimming with emotions, even if those emotions are frequently anger and impatience......It tends to be Sherlock, rather than John, who lets his feelings overwhelm him, and they eventually drive him to commit a terrible deed, i.e. the killing of a human being. Romanticism isn't always benevolent.

If I understand you correctly, though, a warning shot is an intentional miss. I assume that police here do that as well -- fire their gun into the air to get the perp's attention. I was more wondering about what you said here, whether John should have shot to merely injure the cabbie. Thanks, Jess -- I thought I'd heard that somewhere. So apparently they either miss intentionally (a warning shot) or they shoot to kill (though of course they don't always succeed). I think that (here in the US, at least) the idea of intentionally "shooting to incapacitate" is pretty much limited to television (largely because it is so tricky to pull off) -- which is the point I was trying to make, back there a few pages. The only time I recall Mary saying she could go to prison was in reference to what was on the AGRA flash drive, and I don't believe that had anything to do with Magnussen. But I think you're absolutely right about what he said at Appledore! If we're believing Magnussen. I heartily agree as regards real-world death. But that doesn't mean I can't laugh when a cartoon character gets smashed flat. Nor does it mean that I can't laugh myself silly over an incredible blood-bath on Fargo. (Perhaps the key word in both cases is "incredible" -- as in "can't be taken seriously.") By the way, I would recommend that you NOT watch Fargo -- apparently just not your kinda show! (Alex didn't like it either.) I agree, they're surely going somewhere with that. Mrs. Holmes's book (in "Last Vow") had a similar title (but not identical) to the title of Professor Moriarty's book (in "The Final Problem"). So maybe that's meant to imply that she is similar (but not identical) to him? I'm no expert on firearms or police procedure but I share Zain's discomfort about armed police. I think I've only seen them once in the UK, when we were at an airport and there were a couple of officers there with machine guns. I didn't feel very happy in their presence. ( Also, of course, there were alarms bells going off in my head about why they needed to be there!) The police here aren't normally armed - which makes me wonder why Lestrade had a gun in THoB - but officers trained in the use of firearms can be called to an incident when needed. I was always under the impression that they did not go for a kill shot unless necessary, but I could be wrong. I do remember a big investigation, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, when it was alleged that the Royal Ulster Constabulary were operating on a "shoot to kill" policy. I thought Mary said CAM had enough on her to send her to prison for life. I don't remember her saying it re. the A.G.R.A. flash drive. Again, I could be wrong. Given that we don't knew whether CAM was a liar or not, I don't think we can pick and choose what to believe. If he was telling the truth about being willing and able to contact people who hated Mary because of her past, why should he be lying when he said she'd been a very bad girl? One statement is as likely to be true, or false, as the other. Your suggestion that Mummy Holmes is similar to Moriarty is intriguing. What similarities could they be implying? We already know she is a mathematical genius, so it can't be that. Are they saying she is a psychopath? The head of a vast criminal network? A capricious maniac with a death wish? Actually, even though I'm kidding, I almost wish she did reveal a dark side. As an older woman myself, I'd like to see a mature female character who isn't just fluffy and mumsy. Mrs Hudson is great but we don't need another sweet old lady - I would love Mummy to really "turn monstrous" when she finds out who shot her boy.

I agree absolutely - if Sherlock shot Mary under those circumstances, it would be a wicked and unforgivable deed and I don't think John could, or should, forgive him. It isn't about personalities and whether or not you like Mary or Sherlock or whatever....It is simply the fact that anyone - anyone at all - shooting an unarmed innocent witness is totally in the wrong. As wrong as Moriarty killing all those people in TGG. The difference is that we are not expected to see him as anything other than a thoroughly bad man, regardless of how entertaining he might be. To be honest, I don't see adoration in the Mary-Sherlock relationship. It isn't obvious why he takes to her in such a big way. Yes, she is intelligent and friendly - up to the moment she shot him! - but so was Sarah in T BB and look how rude he was to her. I can think of a couple of explanations.... Maybe Mycroft told him of Mary's real identity prior to their first meeting in the restaurant, and his subsequent behaviour was all part of a Cunning Plan. This is my preferred explanation, but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe Sherlock realised he couldn't sabotage this relationship, as he had done with John's previous girlfriends. He had been away too long, the relationship was well established and John was still nursing some residual anger towards him. So he swallowed his jealousy by over-identifying with Mary and making himself a part of their relationship. At times, he seems to have cast himself in the role of Mary's Best Friend Forever. Even after she nearly kills him, he is still determined that the Watsons's marriage will work. He is almost like a child horrified by the threat of his parents's divorce, even though Mum and Dad know their relationship is dead in the water. Maybe there is a bond between Sherlock and Mary but, after HLV, I am not sure it is a very healthy one.

That sounds entirely plausible, and it's a very interesting character concept, isn't it. It takes the "reluctant hero" one step further. Of course, it poses the question of why. *Sigh*, I do wish I didn't get started on these thoughts right when I have to hurry to get to work... Why, indeed. You could build a pretty strong case for an argument that Sherlock has a streak of self- hatred. Not only does he identify as a sociopath, but he neglects himself physically - a frequent lack of food and sleep - and damages himself with drugs. He is also reckless of his own safety at times. I don't know that he has a death wish but he certainly seems to punish himself a lot. I've always felt that Sherlock suffered from low self-esteem beneath all the showing off, and I can only think of his childhood as a reason - evidently pretty isolated at times and growing up under the shadow of his brother. He seems have internalised Mycroft's opinions to a great degree - i.e. you're not as clever as me, don't get involved, don't feel - and it isn't surprising that Mycroft shows up in his Mind Palace in TSoT and HLV. Nor is it surprising that Mycroft's voice in Sherlock's head is helpful but also critical and very bossy. On the face of it, Mycroft does seem a likely source of Sherlock's low self-image. On the other hand, we know nothing of the other dynamics within the family when he was growing up. Are Mummy and Daddy Holmes as sweet and ordinary as they seem? What was their influence over their gifted and strange little boys?

That's interesting - personally, I don't get the impression of a dark side to Sherlock (or, at least, no darker than that possessed by everyone.). I see him as a man who believes, or wants to believe, in his own darkness and that, to me, is a more subtle and intriguing premise. Sherlock proclaims himself a sociopath and tries to live up to it and yet he constantly disproves his own theory by putting other people's well being above his own. This is most obvious, of course, where John is concerned. The more I think of it, the more S3 seems to be a three act play about sacrifice. In TEH, Sherlock is willing to sacrifice his body to save John, literally running into a fire without a thought for his own safety. In TSoT, it is his heart, which breaks as he stands aside to allow John unencumbered happiness with his wife and child. (He even says they won't need him when they have the baby.). In HLV, he sacrifices his soul - or, less romantically, his freedom - when he kills CAM to protect John by protecting Mary. I really don't see Sherlock as a killer. He took down Moriarty's network, but couldn't he have done that by using his brilliant mind to discover the criminals, expose their crimes and bring them to justice? We don't know that he assassinated them as well. Judging by his tears after shooting CAM, it seems unlikely. He looks like a man who has gone into shock after committing a terrible and irrevocable act, motivated by love and a peculiar sense of honour - he did make a vow to protect the Watsons and he keeps it by doing something which appals him. Of course, S4 will probably disprove everything by turning him into an absolute psychopath....

Yes, but wouldn't it have been terribly difficult to do so in a way that isn't too romantic? Besides, the people in Sherlock's mind palace don't seem to be representatives of their actual live counterparts so much as different aspects of his own personality, who take on different voices. The mind palace scene is basically Sherlock talking to himself, I think. I like the Moriarty solution. First of all, because it's another way of the series coming full circle. In series 1, it was Moriarty who made Sherlock see that he did have a heart, by using John, by putting John in danger, and then in His Last Vow, of course it is Sherlock's "inner Moriarty" who taunts him with "John Watson is in danger". Besides, for some reason, it seems to be the villains' job in this series to tell the characters (mostly Sherlock) the truth about themselves. So it's appropriate, from my point of view, that Moriarty gets to point out how Sherlock is failing his vow and that yes, he does have a reason to live. Speaking of a reason to live: Wasn't that "the final problem", anyway? Staying alive - what for? So of course it has to be Moriarty who brings this up again! And by the way. Isn't it dark and sad and interesting that Sherlock didn't fight for his life for it's own sake? He's not all too fond of living, it seems. One of my favorite "send a shiver down my spine" moments in the entire series is when, in The Hounds of Baskerville, Sherlock immediately associates "Liberty In" with "Liberty in death" and calls this "the only true freedom". He has a death wish for sure. And who could be better to personify that than Moriarty? It would be quite in character with the original Mr Holmes. He claimed that he would die gladly, if he could take Moriarty with him. I always had the impression that Mr Holmes, sooner than live to lose his mental faculties in old age, would gladly be killed on some adventure, provided his exit made a big enough smash and bang and drama. Unfortunately, there were always people and countries who needed him and dragons to be slain... Well, it kind of makes sense, though. With that kind of background, you don't exactly expect yourself to become anybody's friend, let alone best man, I guess. I love that bit where Sherlock is asked to be best man. I think it's the moment he realizes that John truly has forgiven him for The Fall and that is mostly why he is so stunned. I suspect that if you would have asked Sherlock before he jumped off that roof "who is John Watson's best friend?", he'd have said "me, of course" (if he wouldn't have laughed the question to scorn). I'd guess that the writers could manage to hit whatever note they chose but, if it was romantic, would that matter? I don't think you could get a more heightened example of romanticism than the gothic image of Jim Moriarty in a straitjacket, chained up in some sort of pit. Or did you mean romantic in an erotic sense? Again, would it matter? They've hardly avoided playful hints along those lines already, so I can't see that it would be so terrible if the Mind Palace scene had featured John in a way which had the Johnlock shippers going "Well, of course...." and everyone else seeing it as an illustration of the powerful bond between Sherlock & John. Ironically, given that he prides himself on his rationality and cold logic, Holmes has always been a romantic character - a knight errant facing unimaginable evil in defence of the innocence In his current incarnation, he's positively Byronic, all dark curls and flowing black coat. (Not that I'm complaining, you undrstand. ) I agree that giving the lines to Jim works well, though his role in the Mind Palace isn't without paradox. It is easy to forget that the characters are all representations of Sherlock's own mental processes, so it is his subconscious which is telling him that he feels pain and heartache but need not fear these feelings. So he has unconsciously chosen an imaginary version of Jim, a genuine psychopath, to tell himself that he does have feelings - i.e. not a sociopath - but he can control them. Strange..... As for Jim's warning that John is in danger......Why does Sherlock think that? Surely he doesn't think Mary would harm John after shooting him? In fact, John would have been safer if Sherlock died and Mary could play the grieving friend, comforting John for his loss. If Sherlock fought his way back to life, he could expose her and maybe put John in danger if he reacted badly to the news. How would Sherlock being alive help to keep John out of danger? Wouldn't it put him in greater danger? Or was Jim referring to something else - something we don't yet know?

My theory for why John was not in that mind palace scene is that it was for a dramatic reason. Since the thought that "John is in danger" is the turning point at which Sherlock decides he'll focus all his energy and willpower not on minimizing pain or blood loss or mental trauma, but on simply coming back to life and keeping true to his vow to "be there", no matter what, the writer had to keep John out of the scene until that turning point was reached. Phew, what an awful sentence. I bet I'd be kicked out of any writing class for that. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, if John had been around sooner, the dramatic momentum (is that an actual expression? whatever) of the scene would have been weakened. I think you're right that John's absence is probably to heighten the drama, as he is the catalyst for Sherlock's (improbable) return to life. It is interesting, though, that the writers chose to present it that way. They could have featured John and still kept the dramatic turning point. For instance, he could have appeared in the final Mind Palace scene, in distress and calling for Sherlock's help, or he could have been a distant, receding figure drawing Sherlock back towards life. That's just off the top of my head, of course, and I am sure the writers could have come up with a very dramatic way of featuring John as a catalyst in Sherlock's imagination. However, they chose not to and, instead, gave the lines to Jim - why? I agree that Moriarty represents something in Sherlock's psyche which he has tried to lock up and bury deep within himself. It could indeed be his own dark side, or it could be his fears and nightmares which he will not acknowledge. We know Sherlock is brave but he is only human - he must have weaknesses and things which frighten him, and perhaps Jim represents these things. Maybe that is why Jim gets to deliver the warning about John, because losing John is Sherlock's greatest unacknowledged fear. Just an idea....

Given that John is the most important person in Sherlock's life - a point established by CAM but also by Sherlock's assumption, in TRF, that John is the target of Jim's threat - his absence from the Mind Palace scene is strange and presumably significant. For instance, Molly and Anderson both have forensic knowledge but John was an army doctor and therefore very familiar with gunshot wounds, so why doesn't Sherlock imagine him as the advisor on how to survive such an injury? As Sherlock's closest and most trusted friend, you would expect him to occupy that role, particularly after the way Sherlock went on in TSoT about "John Watson will save your life." I would also have expected him, rather than the dog, to appear as a source of calm and reassurance. However, the person who wrote the meta, to which I referred, did suggest a couple of reasons for John's absence. She said that, if he found a kind and welcoming John in his Mind Palace, Sherlock might want to stay there rather than return to reality to fight for his life. If, on the other hand, he found an angry John - a John who would scold him and/or punch him - he might feel he had no good reason to return to a real life where his best friend was furious with him. These are good points, I think, though it is also possible that Sherlock can't find comfort in a relationship which has been fundamentally altered, thereby causing him pain and a sense of loss. Of course, he lost Redbeard too, but maybe he remembers the dog as an uncomplicated source of love and companionship, unlike the complexity of a relationship with another human being. As Zain points out, John's absence could be due to the fact that Sherlock has a subconscious fear that, if it comes to a choice between himself and Mary, John will not choose him. That is a sad fear but, given that Mary is John's wife, not an irrational one. John does, of course, have a role in the Mind Palace scene, i.e. as the spur which prompts Sherlock to fight his way back to life. This emphasises that John is indeed Sherlock's pressure point, his "damsel in distress", as CAM puts it. However, I don't think this really explains why he does not appear as a helper when Sherlock is dying. Are the writers saying that other people in Sherlock's life - Molly, Anderson, Mycroft and even Jim - represent sources of strength which Sherlock draws upon in extremis, whereas John is his Achilles heel, his pressure point? And why is it Jim, who is surely playing the Devil's advocate, who points this out?

Isn't Redbeard, basically, a forerunner of John - in other words, someone Sherlock loved and lost? That, presumably, was what Mycroft was implying when he spoke to Sherlock at the wedding. Sherlock loved the dog and his heart was broken when it was put down. Similarly, he loved John (platonically, at least) and was hurting because he was losing that love too. As for the mind palace scene, it was pointed out in a meta on archiveofourown.org - sorry, can't remember the author - that the corridor Sherlock runs down in his mind palace is extremely similar to the one John runs down in ASiP, searching for Sherlock. In his mind palace, when he is dying, Sherlock desperately searches for John to save him but finds a previous lost love, i.e. his childhood pet. (And, I would guess, his only friend when growing up.). I think Redbeard works as a symbol of Sherlock's love and trust for John, and his fear of losing him. Therefore it would make sense that CAM had noted the significance of the dog, as it would have been young Sherlock's pressure point in the same way that John is his adult pressure point. Losing Redbeard was, in a way, a rehearsal for the real thing, loving and trusting John and feeling the pain of loss - an emotion which Mycroft guards against, by keeping everyone at a distance. Can't imagine he had an adored dog when he was child....

Thanks - but I think you express yourself very clearly.

To revert back to an earlier point, I don't think there is anything particularly unusual about spending a long time in hospital after a gunshot wound. A shot like that, to the body, would cause massive trauma - blood loss shock, organ damage.....And, if and when you recovered from that, you would be at considerable risk of infection. Apart from wound infection, such as developing a fistula, you might develop pneumonia, which can keep you in hospital for weeks. (Last year, I had two relatives develop pneumonia after being hospitalised after suffering accidents, and in both cases the pneumonia was more dangerous than the original injury.). Fractures caused by gunshot wounds can also be slow to heal, I believe, and it was surely possible that Mary's bullet fractured a rib. Now, if you take all those factors and imagine a patient daft enough to get out of his hospital bed and chase around London only a few days after sustaining the original injury, and it wouldn't be difficult to imagine he had a long and difficult recovery with numerous complications. I can imagine that Sherlock is his own worst enemy when it comes to rest and recuperation.

I've never really understood Mary in that scene. So, what, if he'd stayed where he was she wouldn't have shot him? But... where would have been the big difference in that situation versus if he came towards her? Either way, he'd have discovered her secret and she'd be in danger of John finding out through Sherlock... To elaborate on my take on this -- she thinks he's attempting to take her gun away from her (and I think she's right about that), so her first priority is to convince him not to do that. That's why she warns him off. Maybe she figures that once he backs down, then they can discuss what to do next, like two mature adults (they've worked well together before, after all). But he seems to be seeing her as Little Mary Watson, and assumes that if he just uses his Soothing Voice on her, she'll hand over the gun. (After all, it worked on Henry Knight.) So he calls her bluff -- but she's not bluffing. You may be right -- there's no proof to the contrary. But I like my take better, not only because it fits well with what we actually see, but also because it allows me to like the episode better than I would otherwise. I don't agree at all, I am afraid, about Little Mary Watson. I think he doesn't believe she will shoot him because she is a good person. That is his mistake. We don't know if he intended to disarm her. It would be the right thing to do, if you were brave enough - to take the weapon and prevent a murder. We know Sherlock is extremely brave but we don't actually know what he planned to do. However, even if he did disarm her, he would remain a danger to her safety. He could still have her arrested. He could still tell John. He could ask CAM what hold he had over her, and thus learn enough about her to send her to prison for life. Would an assassin risk all that against a little chat with Sherlock? We know she is ruthless - she shoots him without a second thought - and she would not have survived long as a killer if she had a talk with eyewitnesses like mature adults and then let them go. No, I think Sherlock was doomed as soon as soon as he walked into the room. From Mary's perspective, shooting him was the safest, albeit most brutal, option.

Maybe. But that's not what she said at the time (from Ariane DeVere's transcript): SHERLOCK: Mary, whatever he’s got on you, let me help. (He shifts his weight onto one foot, preparing to step towards her.) MARY (in a somewhat exasperated voice): Oh, Sherlock, if you take one more step I swear I will kill you. SHERLOCK (shaking his head with a small smile on his face): No, Mrs Watson. (She stares at him, her mouth opening a little.) SHERLOCK (gently): You won’t. (He starts to lifts his foot off the floor. Immediately she pulls the trigger....) My interpretation is that she shot him because he was interfering with her mission (whatever it was) by attempting to take her gun away from her. (Still not a great excuse, I'll admit, but I believe it jibes better with the dialog and the action.) I think Sherlock thought he could sweet-talk her because he underestimated Mary, didn't take her seriously -- which may be one reason he doesn't seem to hold a grudge later, because he realizes that she might not have shot him if he had taken her seriously. Yes, her excuse "It would break him and I would lose him forever" and the threat "There is nothing I would not do to stop that happening" come later, when she has had time to think about it. At the time, Sherlock is just an impediment - he might get in the way of her mission to intimidate and/or kill CAM and he would definitely be an eyewitness. So he has to go. The I-love-John-so-much-that-I-have-to-shoot-you explanation comes later. As you say, it is not what she says at the time, when Sherlock is an obstacle in her path and a danger to her. Personally, I consider her threat to shoot him if he comes closer to be meaningless. Even if he doesn't move an inch, she isn't going to let him get out of that room unscathed. He is a witness. He could get her arrested, or tell John, or both. Of course, she won't let him disarm her but she also won't let him reveal the truth. From her point of view, Sherlock was going to be shot, from the moment he walked into that room. He was an eyewitness, and a professional killer doesn't let a witness escape.

When did Sherlock get the chance to study Mary's case so thoroughly? He was hospitalised after the shooting, and by the time he met her in the empty house he had come up with the "surgery" excuse and was effectively telling John to forgive her - because it was his own fault for liking dangerous people! - and to trust her. Unless Mycroft turned up at the hospital with Mary's file, how could Sherlock have enough data to form the opinion that she was trustworthy? He seems to have based this opinion on his deduction that she called the ambulance, but he doesn't even know that that is true.....and calling for help for the victim, if you are the perpetrator, hardly amounts to a noble deed. And then maybe he read the A.G.R.A. information.....maybe. And maybe it has information which helps to justify her past killings (though Mary herself thinks it will have the opposite effect.). Will it also have information that will justify the gunning down of an unarmed witness? That, for me, is something which can never be excused, even if her past turns out to be a series of completely understandable killings (!). There is no justification for her attack on an innocent bystander (which was Sherlock's role, in this instance.). She did it because learning the truth about would destroy John? She knows that Sherlock's "suicide" nearly destroyed him. How would he cope if Sherlock died again, for real this time? And what would it do to him if he ever found out that his wife was the murderer?

T.o.b.y., the instances of Holmes letting a murderer go free which you quoted are the ones I was thinking of. I've got a feeling that there may be another one, or maybe more, but I'm not sure. It's nearly fifty years since I read some of those stories, though I've certainly seen plenty of dramatisations. I'm inlined to call it pity rather than empathy. Being a blackmail victim or avenging the death of a beloved girlfriend is so far outside Holmes's life experience that it must be hard for him to empathise ( even though he believes he does.). But whether it is pity or empathy, neither apply in Mary's case. He has no reason to feel for an murderer who is prepared to gun down an innocent eyewitness. (Okay, maybe after he shoots CAM, he can empathise, but until then....) He works for the Yard, for God's sake, and expects them to trust him. Why should they, when he aids and abets a murderer just because he loves her husband? S3 was, of course, centred around Sherlock's growing realisation that, to quote John Donne, "no man is an island" and that he is a human being who loves and needs to be loved. (In contrast with Mycroft, who has no-one and insists that he needs no-one). His tragedy is that the person whose love he wants and needs most of all has never seemed less aware of Sherlock's feelings and less willing to show him that he is loved. (With the obvious exception of the hug at the wedding but weddings are emotionally charged events, particularly one's own!). Maybe this is because our POV is mainly Sherlock's. Maybe S4 will be more from John's POV and his behaviour will make more emotional sense....because a lot of it seemed off-kilter to me. I loved the gradual exploration of Sherlock's heart and soul but I think we lost something of John in the process. Given that we have just had three episodes showing us the hard lessons Sherlock has to learn about emotions, it is nicely ironic that the series ends with Sherlock claiming that he can kill because he is a high functioning sociopath. No sociopath cares so little for their own well being that they would risk being shot by armed police or going to prison for life, all for the sake of a friend. That is why I'm inclined to see Mary as the psychopath, as she puts her own freedom above her friend's life, her husband's happiness (how much would he grieve if he lost Sherlock again, for real this time?) and even her unborn child (breaking & entering to commit murder being a rather risky business....)