Episode 3.2, "The Sign of Three"

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Well at least one poster here thought he might have been high....he probably appeared to be more then a little manic, I imagine.

[Arcadia]

I believe Tom thought he was high too. "Pissed," actually, if I recall.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Does "pissed" mean just normally drunk....or something more along the lines of drug use? Either one or both?

[Carol the Dabbler]

According to my Oxford dictionary, it means simply "drunk" -- but dictionaries are necessarily a bit behind actual usage, so I'll gladly defer to any actual speakers of British English.

 

[Arcadia]

Drunk, and sometimes I've seen "high" used to mean drunk. Who knows what Tom thought it meant.

[Pamela]

And here I thought Tom meant "ticked off."

[sherlockandjohn]

That's what I thought, too, Pamela Well, the other makes more sense, I suppose. Sherlock didn't exactly seem angry at that point. Drunk probably looked more likely from Tom's perspective.

[sfmpco]

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but when Sherlock reads the telegrams, one of them says - "Oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM.  Wish your family could have seen this."  CAM - Charles Augustus Magnussen.  Seriously.  Look how Mary reacts to it.  THIS is the first clue that she knows her double life has been found out - which leads to her confrontation with CAM in "His Last Vow."  Did anyone catch that?  Or did everyone already catch that and I'm way behind the times?

[Arcadia]

Well,  I  for one never noticed until someone else pointed it out, but yeah, I think it's been mentioned a time or two somewhere around here. Good catch!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hello, sfmpco -- welcome to Sherlock Forum!    Congratulations on jumping right in with your first post!

 

As Arcadia says, that's been mentioned, but I certainly can't fault you for not wading through 27 pages of prior posts to find out!  Please don't worry about such things, we repeat each other (and ourselves!) all the time.  So when in doubt, just go ahead and post, OK? 

 

[sfmpco]

Well I think it begs the question of whether or not Mary's friendship with her maid of honor was genuine or if she used her to get to CAM.  Because how else did she get past security to CAM's offices? 

[sherlockandjohn]

That is a really good question, and something I didn't pick up on at first. In His Last Vow, Sherlock says something like this to Mary: "You used her (Janine) to get to Magnussen."

To which Mary replies, "Oh, you can talk!"

[Caya]

Hello sfmpco and welcome to the forums!

 

How Mary reached CAM is still unclear, I think, though her burglary casual dress style makes me doubt she took the lift, like John and Sherlock did.

[sfmpco]

It's becoming more clear to me that I have to keep going back and watching the episodes to find the threads of clues that I have completely missed the first time around.  And for Mary to use Janine as a Maid of Honor would mean that it wasn't something that happened overnight because you wouldn't ask a casual acquaintance to be a MoH.  CAM would certainly have wanted to know all about all the people surrounding his people.  Who are they and what are they up to?  

 

Which then begs the question of surely Sherlock would have known already who was working in CAM's offices, so why didn't he pick up on this very odd coincidence that CAM's top assistant just happened to be Mary's MoH?  That he should be able to get so close to someone he despises so easily should have got him thinking.  

[Caya]

Exellent point, sfmpco . It all comes back again to "what do we say about coincidences?" I guess - Sherlock should take that one to heart in S4 .

[sfmpco]

I have only been watching SHERLOCK for 2-3 weeks, but I am so so so so addicted to it.  Haven't had this happen for a looooooooooooong time with any TV show.  I have seen all the episodes at least 2X and just love pouring over them.  So brilliantly written.  So witty.  Love the direction, love the editing, love the music.  I don't know why I never heard of this show before now.  Very late coming into the phenomenon, but very glad I'm up to date.  I'm sure everything has been discussed to the minutia.  Hopefully I can add something new and thought-provoking.  Can't wait to see how things develop in S4.

[sfmpco]

And I should also point out that if Mary is trying to get to CAM through Janine, she should have tried to dissuade John from having Sherlock as his best man or not had Janine there at all.  So in a sense, she got careless in bringing Janine to the wedding knowing that Sherlock can't shut down the constant flow of information he filters...unless her bringing Janine along was a ploy to get Sherlock more involved.

 

Was Mary already in the room and saw Sherlock being buzzed up before she knocked Janine out?  She had to have been right there due to the quickness with which Sherlock arrived.  She has had the gun on CAM for a bit (probably threatening him) before Sherlock arrived, and after she shoots Sherlock and knocks CAM out, she makes a clean getaway - and not through the front door.  After the shot was fired, surely John would have run in straightaway.  Yet there was a five-minute gap between when Mary called for an ambulance and when John called for an ambulance.  So why did she only knock CAM out and not just shoot him after she shot Sherlock?

 

She didn't believe there was anything Sherlock could do to help her.  She didn't want him interfering in her desperate mission.  But she didn't complete it.   Perhaps shooting Sherlock was enough to pull her out of that downward spiral and pistol whipping CAM was out of frustration and anger over Sherlock's appearance and what she had to do.  But why she felt he couldn't help her and that she had to resort to such a drastic measure... i don't know.

 

Glad I found a place to think these things out.

[Arcadia]

It's becoming more clear to me that I have to keep going back and watching the episodes to find the threads of clues that I have completely missed the first time around. And for Mary to use Janine as a Maid of Honor would mean that it wasn't something that happened overnight because you wouldn't ask a casual acquaintance to be a MoH. CAM would certainly have wanted to know all about all the people surrounding his people. Who are they and what are they up to?

 

Which then begs the question of surely Sherlock would have known already who was working in CAM's offices, so why didn't he pick up on this very odd coincidence that CAM's top assistant just happened to be Mary's MoH? That he should be able to get so close to someone he despises so easily should have got him thinking.

Well, now you've got ME thinking .... if Mary got close to Janine just so she could get to CAM, why would she have her as the maid of honor? You'd think she'd choose someone she was genuinely close to. Altho I suppose the friendship could be real even if Mary had an agenda, but that would be a coincidence, which as we all know rarely happens....

 

And I should also point out that if Mary is trying to get to CAM through Janine, she should have tried to dissuade John from having Sherlock as his best man or not had Janine there at all. So in a sense, she got careless in bringing Janine to the wedding knowing that Sherlock can't shut down the constant flow of information he filters...unless her bringing Janine along was a ploy to get Sherlock more involved.

For a second there you had me wondering that too! Then I realized that Mary couldn't have known, at the time of the wedding, that one day Sherlock would be going after CAM. So that's just another "rare" coincidence, I guess. Maybe the universe was on vacation when the wedding was being planned.

 

Was Mary already in the room and saw Sherlock being buzzed up before she knocked Janine out? She had to have been right there due to the quickness with which Sherlock arrived. She has had the gun on CAM for a bit (probably threatening him) before Sherlock arrived, and after she shoots Sherlock and knocks CAM out, she makes a clean getaway - and not through the front door. After the shot was fired, surely John would have run in straightaway. Yet there was a five-minute gap between when Mary called for an ambulance and when John called for an ambulance. So why did she only knock CAM out and not just shoot him after she shot Sherlock?

All good questions!!! And most of my attempts at answers seem to rely on - ahem - coincidence....

Presumably she DIDN'T know Sherlock was there; for one thing, she didn't know if John was with him. If so, then she must have knocked Janine out a moment after Janine ended the intercom call with Sherlock. (And it may have been a slow elevator....)

 

I don't think John heard the shot. She had a silencer. My guess is, he just took a few minutes to make sure Janine would be okay, then followed Sherlock.

 

And she didn't shoot CAM, because she had a witness -- and she didn't trust Sherlock to keep her secret. If she'd really wanted to accomplish her goal, she should have killed both of them. But as I recall, sentiment interfered ... she couldn't bring herself to kill her husband's best friend. So she wounds Sherlock to shut him up for awhile, clobbers CAM to shut HIM up for awhile (or maybe, as you say, just out of frustration) and scampers.

 

She didn't believe there was anything Sherlock could do to help her. She didn't want him interfering in her desperate mission. But she didn't complete it. Perhaps shooting Sherlock was enough to pull her out of that downward spiral and pistol whipping CAM was out of frustration and anger over Sherlock's appearance and what she had to do. But why she felt he couldn't help her and that she had to resort to such a drastic measure... i don't know.

Yes, one of the great mysteries! Why wait til that moment to go after CAM? She didn't know Sherlock was "on the case", so she didn't do it to keep Sherlock from finding out something about her. Maybe CAM started putting pressure on her after the honeymoon? 'Tis a puzzlement.

 

And why did she think she had to shoot Sherlock? My own take is that she didn't trust him to keep her secret from John. And she was right about that .... the first chance he got, he DID tell John. So her actions were all for nothing in the end, and only served to put Sherlock in the position of doing her "job" for her.

 

Glad you found a place to think these things out too!

[Pamela]

She also didn't shoot Magnussen because she didn't want to implicate John.  I think.

[sfmpco]

She also didn't shoot Magnussen because she didn't want to implicate John.  I think.

 

But how would her shooting CAM have implicated John IF Sherlock had never come on them?  And if John had a gun on him, the ballistics wouldn't have matched anyhow so John would have been off the hook.  Thank goodness it wasn't John that came across her and CAM and that she would have had to make a choice to shoot John or CAM.  I don't think she could have ever shot John.  Sherlock was a little more disposable, but she didn't shoot to kill.

 

Of course Sherlock rips the bandaid off her old festering past  when he tricks her into confessing in front of John.  He needs everything out in the open because despite her past, he cares about her because she is married to the one person he has truly befriended.  When he says at the end "Give my love to Mary" it was such a statement of transformation... not only because he had obviously totally forgiven her but that he had bonded enough with Mary and John that he could even voice an expression of love or even admit love.  This is character growth.  Touching.

[Caya]

But how would her shooting CAM have implicated John IF Sherlock had never come on them?  And if John had a gun on him, the ballistics wouldn't have matched anyhow so John would have been off the hook. 

 

He still was at a place he very much wasn't supposed to be. It would've meant a lot of questioning at the very least, and the police may have searched the Watson home, which could've produced interesting results (say, if they'd impounded whatever data storage that A.G.R.A. data was currently stored on).

 

Sherlock was a little more disposable, but she didn't shoot to kill.

 

This is a very hotly debated topic (yeah, even now, months after Vow aired ) so if you want to throw yourself into that discussion let me welcome you to the thread for that episode.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Very late coming into the phenomenon, but very glad I'm up to date.  I'm sure everything has been discussed to the minutia.  Hopefully I can add something new and thought-provoking.  Can't wait to see how things develop in S4.

 

First of all: welcome. And if I may say so, do not worry about repeating stuff that has been already said. If I limited my posts to only what is new and thought-provoking, there'd be a lot less of them. And it's always very nice to get a fresh perspective. Glad you found the series and glad to read that it hits other people that hard, too - makes me feel less of a weirdo.

 

And I should also point out that if Mary is trying to get to CAM through Janine, she should have tried to dissuade John from having Sherlock as his best man or not had Janine there at all.  So in a sense, she got careless in bringing Janine to the wedding knowing that Sherlock can't shut down the constant flow of information he filters...unless her bringing Janine along was a ploy to get Sherlock more involved.

 

Well, my theory is that Mary underestimates Sherlock and does not take hims seriously enough. Somebody else around here, on the other hand, has a theory involving a bag or rocks and how they might compare to the lady's intelligence...

 

 

But how would her shooting CAM have implicated John IF Sherlock had never come on them?  And if John had a gun on him, the ballistics wouldn't have matched anyhow so John would have been off the hook.  Thank goodness it wasn't John that came across her and CAM and that she would have had to make a choice to shoot John or CAM.  I don't think she could have ever shot John.

 

 

Oh my god, what a horrible scenario! Glad they didn't go there, at least. Hm, if John had shown up, there would have been no point in shooting Magnussen, because the idea behind that was to prevent John from finding out about her past. So I guess she'd have shot neither in that case. Maybe herself.

 

If Sherlock had never showed up, she would have shot Magnussen, I guess. (If she didn't manage to frighten him into silence - I still think killing wasn't her first intention, or else she'd have done it before the victim even saw her - I think she tried to negotiate with Magnussen and had shooting him in mind as plan B  )

 

As it is, I think the reason why she left Magnussen alive after she shot Sherlock is that there was a very good chance he'd keep silent, because now he really had something on her. And that would make him think she was in his hands and therefore harmless. It's kind of like the logic behind Sherlock taking drugs, I guess. Also, when she saw Sherlock, she knew John was in the building. If Magnussen was killed, his security staff would get involved, call the police, etc. John would be found to have been in the building at the time, to have broken in, even. He could get in trouble just for that. Serious trouble. If Magnussen survived, he'd be most likely to hush the matter up and give her time.

[Carol the Dabbler]

It occurs to me that Mary may not have actually initiated her acquaintance with Janine (any more than Sherlock initiated his) -- CAM may have pointed Janine in Mary's direction (perhaps without letting Janine realize it) in order to gather more information on Mary.  Then Mary eventually used their friendship to her advantage.

 

For one thing, Mary seems genuinely shocked to hear from CAM at the wedding, so maybe she doesn't yet know that Janine works for him (Janine could very well be pretty secretive about her job).

 

[Arcadia]

True, John was surprised to learn Janine worked at CAM's, so maybe Mary was too...? Wow, Mary really has a way with her friends, doesn't she? Brains Janine, shoots Sherlock ...

 

So far, we've called into question just about everything Sherlock deduced about Mary after the shooting. No wonder she didn't take him seriously....

[Carol the Dabbler]

So far, we've called into question just about everything Sherlock deduced about Mary after the shooting. No wonder she didn't take him seriously....

 

Hey, it's not like the man is supposed to be Sherlock Holmes or anything -- oh, wait a minute ....