Episode 3.2, "The Sign of Three"

[Carol the Dabbler]

... Perhaps he was wary that if he got too close to her, he'd become emotionally attached and that would get in the way of his plan to use her for the purpose of breaking into Magnussen's office....

 

I agree.  Rather than being asexual, I suspect that Sherlock deliberately avoids sex, so it won't cloud his judgement.  (And I believe that's supported by canon as well.)

 

Edited May 1, 2014 by Carol the Dabbler
Actually read the post that I was responding to.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

Or maybe he was afraid that he might become emotionally attached.  Rather than being asexual, I suspect that Sherlock deliberately avoids sex, so it won't cloud his judgement.  (And I believe that's supported by canon as well.)

 

 

  I think Watson alludes to Holmes has to remain cold and detached to be able to function to the best of his ability. To let himself become emotionally invested clouds his judgement....as we see very clearly happening in "ASoT" and more pointedly in "HLV".

[T.o.b.y]

Yeah, well, that's what I meant. Did I write something else? Oh dear... Anyway, I agree.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I apologize if I double posted you, T.o.b.y.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Yeah, well, that's what I meant. Did I write something else? Oh dear... Anyway, I agree.

 

 

Sorry, T.o.b.y -- you did indeed say that very thing.  One of these days, I'll learn to read!  (But for now, I've just edited my original post.)

[T.o.b.y]

What does "double post" mean? Anyway, it's okay, really, I sometimes don't make myself as clear as I could wish. Maybe it's because I talk to myself a lot and of course I know what I mean... Must. Improve. Communication. Skills.

 

Anyway, Janine. I don't think a line would have been overstepped if it had been implied that her short lived relationship with our favorite detective went all the way, but they could have simply kept silent on that point. I wonder why it was important enough to the writers to add a line making it clear that they did not, in fact, have sex (well, it's not a hundred percent clear - nothing ever is on Sherlock. "Just once" could theoretically refer to something else, but I can't think of anything that's likely.) Ooops, this is Last Vow, right? And I'm in the thread for The Wedding! Oh. Well, I love that wedding so much. So very, very much.

 

Speaking of Sherlock and sex (a strange combination of topics if you ask me), I think in The Sign of Three, when Janine said it was too bad he was "whatever you are", she meant "gay". But when she says "I know what kind of man you are" in His Last Vow, my impression is that she has realized it's more complicated than that.

[Arcadia]

 I wonder why it was important enough to the writers to add a line making it clear that they did not, in fact, have sex (well, it's not a hundred percent clear - nothing ever is on Sherlock. "Just once" could theoretically refer to something else, but I can't think of anything that's likely.)

I thought it was because Sherlock looked scuzzy enough pretending to be in love with Janine -- simply to get to her boss -- he would have been even more of a bastard if he'd slept with her too.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

I don't know....in this society where there are tons of songs about "one night stands" and sit coms  and day time soaps that have plot lines surrounding one night stands....I doubt it would have been all that shocking. Of course, Janine was being led to believe that there was a chance a wedding....still.....even engagements can fall through.

[Carol the Dabbler]

When Fox said "double post" she meant that the two of you had posted at nearly the same time, so that you duplicated each other's meaning, or contradicted it, or something awkward like that.  I've heard that called other things too (none of which occur to me just at the moment).

 

Maybe the writers made it (fairly) clear that Sherlock hadn't had actual sex with Janine, in order to keep the mystique alive -- is he or isn't her?  Does he or doesn't he?  True, they could have left it ambiguous, but they'd already included so many hints implying that he HAD -- that they needed to contradict that impression in order to keep things uncertain.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Now my next question could be "why is that such a big deal?", but I'll refrain, because I like to ponder things like that which have little bearing on the plot but a lot on somebody's characterization myself. And besides, anything concerning Sherlock is a big deal...

[Arcadia]

I don't know....in this society where there are tons of songs about "one night stands" and sit coms  and day time soaps that have plot lines surrounding one night stands....I doubt it would have been all that shocking. Of course, Janine was being led to believe that there was a chance a wedding....still.....even engagements can fall through.

Shocking, no. But even in sitcoms and soaps, it's still not a nice thing to use people the way Sherlock was using Janine. So in his own funny way, maybe he was being chivalrous; he'd lead her on, but not use her sexually.

 

Or, what Carol said....

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

So in his own funny way, maybe he was being chivalrous; he'd lead her on, but not use her sexually.

 

  Yeah, that does make a lot of sense.....seeing how Sherlock is "Old World"  a true gentleman as he was in canon making sure that the Milverton's maid that he was using also had a rival suitor would be able to step in and champion her cause once Holmes bowed out.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Now my next question could be "why is that such a big deal?", but I'll refrain, because I like to ponder things like that which have little bearing on the plot but a lot on somebody's characterization myself. And besides, anything concerning Sherlock is a big deal...

 

 

I wonder if they made it look like Sherlock and Janine were "closer" than they actually were just so we could enjoy John's reaction.  And having done that, they then felt obliged to back off a bit, because -- for whatever reason -- they didn't want to leave us with that impression.  (For one thing, it wouldn't be canon -- but I think someone has already said that.)

 

[Arcadia]

If ever there was a case of John Watson representing the audience, surely that scene had to be it! I'll bet his reaction was repeating itself in TV rooms around the world...... 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

It truly was a priceless moment.

[T.o.b.y]

If ever there was a case of John Watson representing the audience, surely that scene had to be it! I'll bet his reaction was repeating itself in TV rooms around the world...... 

 

Oh yes. I felt just the same, even though I as good as knew what was really going on, because the Milverton story is one of my favorites and I was sure they wouldn't leave the case of the housemaid and the fake engagement out of it.

 

By the way, isn't it nice how that is kind of foreshadowed in The Sign of Three by the case of the Mayfly man, romancing his way along Sholto's staff?

 

[Arcadia]

OMG, I didn't even think of that. But of course!

[Slithytove]

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.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Right.  Or simply chooses not to do that sort of thing.

 

[T.o.b.y]

The Sign of Three is really a curious episode. Until I saw it, I could sort of "sell" Sherlock to people as simply a crime show / detective series. But this wasn't quite what I saw there (it was never quite what I saw, but the difference was never as big). I'd be hard pressed to fit it into a genre. Soap? Sitcom? Crime fiction? Romance? A bit of everything, I guess, and yet more and not quite any of it.

 

The cases are a bit odd. I am sure that The Sign of Three will not be remembered for its murders. Yet they don't seem to be chosen at random just to fill up Sherlock's speech, either. They're more like illustrations to what is going on Sherlock's life and brain and heart, I suppose. For example, there's this whole theme of Sherlock entering the world of love affairs and dating in the wake of John's marriage. In "real life", there's Janine and Sherlock flirting (?) with her and at the same time finding other partners for her, and in the mind palace, there's Sherlock choosing girls from a crowd and asking them all sorts of questions you'd usually expect to find on a dating site, followed by naked Irene. All for a case, of course. As always.

 

Then there's Sholto. I really don't know what to make of him. He seems straight off the pages of Doyle, but doesn't seem to fit with the Sherlock crowd. He's rather blatantly compared with Sherlock: in the beginning, we see them both dress for the wedding as if going "into battle", they are highly unsociable and looked up to by John as "commanding officers" who have both had their reputations ruined. Later, Sholto even mentions directly how they are alike. Now, why the writers would choose to create a "Sherlock" mirror (or whatever you call that kind of figure) and then almost kill him at John's wedding is a little beyond me, but somehow, I think being fatally stabbed without noticing it and then realizing you'd bleed to death if you took off your constraining "armor" that keeps you straight and stiff and formal and forbidding sounds like something Sherlock-ish. Somehow. I don't know, I'm not good at subtext. But I like to wonder and make sense of things, even if that sense wasn't in any way intentional.

[Arcadia]

I sorta wondered about the Sholto connnection too, as I didn't really see it until Sholto said what he did. Then I tried to figure out in what way he and Sherlock were supposed to be alike, but we really know so little about Sholto that it's hard to say. Was it for contrast? Sholto's closed himself off from people, and Sherlock seems to be opening himself up to people? Or maybe it's to show that Sherlock has learned that what you do, no matter how much it makes sense to you, can hurt other people? Or just an attempt to compare Sherlock to a noble warrior? Dunno, whatever the point was it didn't come across that well.

 

We could call it a tear-jerker, I suppose ... Srsly, I'm happy with the generic "drama".

[T.o.b.y]

I'm falling in love with this episode more and more. I just watched it again for an embarrassingly high time and it struck me that not only does Major Sholto's case have a lot to do with Sherlock, but the Mayfly Man also foreshadows several elements of His Last Vow:

 

- A killer assuming a dead person's identity for the purpose of (romantic) social interaction with people: A.G.R.A, also known as Mary Watson née Morstan

- A man getting close to women in order to get to their boss: Sherlock with Janine and Magnussen

 

Then of course there's this whole discussion between Sherlock and Major Sholto about "the right time to die" - or not, which is very important in the next episode as well.

 

And then there's the connection between Sholto and the Mayfly Man: the latter makes an attempt to end the former's life, but the victim survives because it's not the right time to die because of John. And what happens in His Last Vow? Mary nearly kills Sherlock but he won't give up on his life because of John being in danger.

 

God, I love this show. You can watch it again and again and keep noticing things and finding food for wonderment.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Speaking of wonderment, I wonder whether Moftiss noticed all that?  It could be intentional foreshadowing, or it could simply be that there's so much detail in both episodes that some of it's bound to overlap (especially if you watch them often enough!).

 

[Arcadia]

This show really does bear up well under multiple viewings, tho. I didn't even care that  much for TSo3 the first time I saw it. By the 3rd viewing it was just about my favorite.

[Carol the Dabbler]

This show really does bear up well under multiple viewings, tho. I didn't even care that  much for TSo3 the first time I saw it. By the 3rd viewing it was just about my favorite.

 

 

Overall favorite, or Series 3 favorite?