Episode 3.3, "His Last Vow"

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Sherlock's father says something to Mary that I find a bit intriguing. Mary says "My god, your the sane one." Daddy Holmes looks at her and says "Aren't you?"  and we all know by this time that she is not.

[T.o.b.y]

 

I do still have a hard time reconsiling the Holmes parent's normality in my brain with Mycroft and Sherlock being so emotionally distant and seemingly (Sherlock more than Mycroft) scarred.

 

Who knows what went on in that family behind the scenes... A genius mother who gave up her career to look after two difficult boys while her husband did - what exactly? And they "never do" Christmas usually, according to Mycroft. Maybe they are just trying to become "normal" as they grow old?

 

And who know how "sane" Father Holmes really is. Mary looked pretty wholesome until the second half of His Last Vow...

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

And who know how "sane" Father Holmes really is. Mary looked pretty wholesome until the second half of His Last Vow...

 

  Yup, exactly the point I was trying to make.

[wildwoodflower]

I, for one, won't be able to trust Mary again, she's an assassin and even though pregnant - looks after number one. Is she faking her love for John? Or does she see him as someone to stay with for the time for some type of protection?

 

Uh, why would she need protection if she's an assassin and clearly able to take care of herself. Why would she fake her love for him. She could just leave and probably be much safer.

[Sherlock_luvr]

 

 

I do still have a hard time reconsiling the Holmes parent's normality in my brain with Mycroft and Sherlock being so emotionally distant and seemingly (Sherlock more than Mycroft) scarred.

 

Who knows what went on in that family behind the scenes... A genius mother who gave up her career to look after two difficult boys while her husband did - what exactly? And they "never do" Christmas usually, according to Mycroft. Maybe they are just trying to become "normal" as they grow old?

 

And who know how "sane" Father Holmes really is. Mary looked pretty wholesome until the second half of His Last Vow...

 

Oh if we could get a scene with Mummy or Daddy losing their $h*t when they find out Mary shot their boy, I'd be so happy.

[Zain]

 

I, for one, won't be able to trust Mary again, she's an assassin and even though pregnant - looks after number one. Is she faking her love for John? Or does she see him as someone to stay with for the time for some type of protection?

 

Uh, why would she need protection if she's an assassin and clearly able to take care of herself. Why would she fake her love for him. She could just leave and probably be much safer.

 

 

 

No, I fear her love is not fake.

 

Mary's lack of empathy (but not the cognitive function for empathy, it's more like she is aware but not willed to empathize), bold behavior, and lack of consideration for others (Sherlock, Janine, baby, ...) could be interpreted as an attempt to screen psychopathy. Maybe to contrast Sherlock's very human, and very not sociopathic personality. (theme of season three)

 

The kind of love Mary shows is more like obsession. She doesn't feel genuine empathy. Her actions are fueled by, as many (and I) stated before, selfish love. Neglecting philosophical approaches like "love is always selfish", I think psychopathy explains it rather well. For me, that is.

Mary is very self-righteous. Her thoughts are preoccupied with how the revelations will affect her life and her feelings. There's no true room for empathy for John. She is aware that it could break him, but that's where it stops. She is able to grasp the concept of empathy but she is unable or unwilling to consider his feelings further than it concerns her. It's the consequence to her that comes to her mind, "he'll leave her", not the consequence for John, "he'll be crushed and just as hurt as when Sherlock was dead.".

I think it's a bit prosaic but the term "toxical attachment" fits best with psychopathic love. 

[shadragon]

Series 3 Ep 3 - His Last Vow

First, I'm a huge fan of the show. Up until Series 3 Ep. 2, I was completely happy with the series. Professional quality actors, excellent scripts, funny, intelligent, and decent twists. There were ups and downs, but nothing that turned me off. His Last Vow turned me off on several levels.

Hate to be in the minority, but I felt this show was the worse one to date for multiple reasons. For those of you who remember Monty Python, I was expecting Graham Chapman to come out dressed as a Brigadier saying "Stop this, it's getting silly."

OK, biggest issue (Without spoiling the show for those who haven't seen it) Where does the video of Watson being burned under the Guy Fawkes bonfire come from?

Watson / Sherlock are shown watching the video at Appledore so it isn't just in Magnusson's head. If we assume what Magnusson says to be true in the episode, Magnusson has no physical or digital files supposedly, everything is in his mind palace, so where does this video come from?

Second, Magnusson is supposedly a newspaper man and uses his paper to reveal secrets. Okay, given the point above, if he prints something in his paper to reveal a secret and gets sued for libel and / or slander, where is the proof protecting himself? No one has ever called his bluff?

Third,

why does Mary not shoot Magnusson? She went there to do just  that and had him on his knees. Shooting Sherlock accomplishes nothing. If she's afraid Magnusson will reveal her secret, and he knows who she is, then why walk away knowing her face will be all over his newspaper the following morning? And why isn't it???  Killers kill, and if she's such a master assassin, this is completely out of character. Also, how does she get through fourteen layers of security and up a private lift?  

Fourth, the ending.

It should have ended with Sherlock on the plane flying away. The last few minutes with Moriarty's face should have been the start of Series 4 Ep 1. The writers spolied their own suspense.

 

I liked the rebooted character of Moriarty, but bringing him back is a huge mistake. Likeable actor or not, any further interaction between Sherlock and Moriarty will be variations on the same theme, and repetitive. True, the images of him shown were crude animations based on a static image and could have been done by anyone, but bringing Moriarty back  isn't the way to go. Where is Moriarty's father? When John was under the Guy Fawkes fire, I thought it was Moriarty senior at the end of that show. Go that route instead of bringing junior back. 

Fifth, drug use. The reboot of the series was done magnificently well. I thought the replacement of Victorian hard drugs with cigarettes in Series 1 Ep 1 was masterful.  Now, he's on heroin all of a sudden with no negative connotations at all? That's just irresponsible in this day and age.

 

Sixth, a third Holmes brother is alluded to... In nine shows the writers have burned through about half of the available AC Doyle source material. Most of it in cut away gags (The Geek Interpreter, The Speckled Blonde, The Aluminum Crutch, etc). At that rate, it's unsurprising that they need to introduce new characters to create new stories.

 

Overall, the story was rushed in places with contradictions that conflict with earlier shows. I'm getting the sense the writers are twisting twists rather than putting time into developing a coherent story arc. In trying to be clever, they're losing the essence of what made the show good to begin with. Coming soon, Mrs. Hudson's past revealed as a former member of a Royal Marine anti-terror squad.

 

There's a lot more good than bad overall, but this episode showed cracks appearing in the show. I hope they can fix them. 

[Caya]

Hello shadragon and welcome to the forum! What a first post, wow .

 

I actually lent my blu-rays to a friend yesterday and told him, "If I were you, I'd really stop after the second episode." (of course he won't, but then he can't blame me for what I made him watch). So you're not alone at all in your worry where this show is headed.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Hi shadragon! Welcome to the Forum! See you jumped in with a great post.

 

  Yeah, "His Last Vow" is quite a shock fest. I got the feeling that they ended the Season that way because at the time there was no Season Four planed. There was no knowing. at the time, how long it might be before there would be another episode so I suppose they wanted to end on a positive note and not another "Oh no! Sherlock disappears....again?"

[Sherlock_luvr]

Put my comments in RED since I haven't figured out how to do it another way:)

 

Series 3 Ep 3 - His Last Vow

OK, biggest issue (Without spoiling the show for those who haven't seen it) Where does the video of Watson being burned under the Guy Fawkes bonfire come from?

Watson / Sherlock are shown watching the video at Appledore so it isn't just in Magnusson's head. If we assume what Magnusson says to be true in the episode, Magnusson has no physical or digital files supposedly, everything is in his mind palace, so where does this video come from?

 

 

Magnussen says when they're in Appledore that he had people there ready to pull Watson out if Sherlock didn't get there in time. Easy to believe one of them filmed it.

Second, Magnusson is supposedly a newspaper man and uses his paper to reveal secrets. Okay, given the point above, if he prints something in his paper to reveal a secret and gets sued for libel and / or slander, where is the proof protecting himself? No one has ever called his bluff?

 

 

Ah, but his point of all of this is that once the knowledge is out there, a trust is broken. You can't forget something that you've heard even if it ends up being unable to be proven true. The doubt is still there.

 

Third,

why does Mary not shoot Magnusson? She went there to do just  that and had him on his knees. Shooting Sherlock accomplishes nothing. If she's afraid Magnusson will reveal her secret, and he knows who she is, then why walk away knowing her face will be all over his newspaper the following morning? And why isn't it???  Killers kill, and if she's such a master assassin, this is completely out of character. Also, how does she get through fourteen layers of security and up a private lift?  

 

 

This is explained by Sherlock I believe. If she'd killed Sherlock and Magnussen, John would have been blamed/charged.

Fourth, the ending.

It should have ended with Sherlock on the plane flying away. The last few minutes with Moriarty's face should have been the start of Series 4 Ep 1. The writers spolied their own suspense.

 

Just personal preference, this one.

 

I'd have actually preferred to see Sherlock on the plane flying away with Moriarty's face at the end. And not seeing the plane return. So perhaps leave fans with the sinking feeling that Mycroft has just sent his brother off to die and London will have to handle Moriarty on his own.

 

 

Fifth, drug use. The reboot of the series was done magnificently well. I thought the replacement of Victorian hard drugs with cigarettes in Series 1 Ep 1 was masterful.  Now, he's on heroin all of a sudden with no negative connotations at all? That's just irresponsible in this day and age.

 

 

Yet all signs since the beginning of the show point to his using drugs in the past. Remember the 'drugs bust' in an earlier episode? All the clues are there. Sherlock isn't the most responsible of men.

 

 

Sixth, a third Holmes brother is alluded to... In nine shows the writers have burned through about half of the available AC Doyle source material. Most of it in cut away gags (The Geek Interpreter, The Speckled Blonde, The Aluminum Crutch, etc). At that rate, it's unsurprising that they need to introduce new characters to create new stories.

 

I'm hoping they do start to veer away from the original source material. They'll eventually run out but I don't think that needs to be the end of the series if they do. They've created their own believable Sherlock Holmes world in modern day and are only limited by their imaginations in where it could go once all the original source material is exhausted.

 

Look at Elementary. Terrible show that it is.

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Welcome to Sherlock Forum, shadragon!  As has already been said, you're not the only one who's a bit nervous at this point.  I'm not ready to give up on the show -- yet -- but I am definitely concerned that my favorite show of all time may be heading off in a direction that won't interest me at all.

 

 

Put my comments in RED since I haven't figured out how to do it another way:)  OK, then mine are in GREEN!

 

OK, biggest issue (Without spoiling the show for those who haven't seen it)

 

You needn't worry about spoilers in this thread, shadragon -- we're safely tucked away in the Series 3 area.

 

Where does the video of Watson being burned under the Guy Fawkes bonfire come from? Watson / Sherlock are shown watching the video at Appledore so it isn't just in Magnusson's head.  ... Magnusson has no physical or digital files supposedly, everything is in his mind palace....

 

Magnussen says when they're in Appledore that he had people there ready to pull Watson out if Sherlock didn't get there in time. Easy to believe one of them filmed it.  Also, Magnussen does tell Sherlock that he occasionally sends for physical materials, even though the great bulk of his "inventory" is mental.

Second, Magnusson is supposedly a newspaper man ... if he prints something in his paper to reveal a secret and gets sued for libel and / or slander, where is the proof protecting himself?

 

... once the knowledge is out there, a trust is broken. You can't forget something that you've heard even if it ends up being unable to be proven true. The doubt is still there.  Also, freedom of the press is apparently respected in the UK, which is how the tabloids are able to get away with a lot of what they print.

 

It should have ended with Sherlock on the plane flying away. The last few minutes with Moriarty's face should have been the start of Series 4 Ep 1. The writers spolied their own suspense.

 

I'd have actually preferred to see Sherlock on the plane flying away with Moriarty's face at the end. .... So perhaps leave fans with the sinking feeling that Mycroft has just sent his brother off to die and London will have to handle Moriarty on his own.  Yup, that would be a cliffhanger -- with or without dragging that dead guy into it.  I suspect they're just wanting to get us all worked up -- and who knows, it may work. 

I thought the replacement of Victorian hard drugs with cigarettes in Series 1 Ep 1 was masterful.  Now, he's on heroin all of a sudden ....?

 

Remember the 'drugs bust' in an earlier episode?  And the "danger night" scare in "Scandal"?  (I don't think it was cigarettes they were looking for in his sock drawer.)

 

 

[SolitaryCyclist]

Wow!!  Saw this Sunday night and loved every minute!  I fall firmly in the 'Mary is a victim' catagory; a victim of Magnusson, victim of her past, a victim of her love for John, and a victim of her terrible decision to shoot Sherlock. 

 

On Mary:   I suspect that most have something in their past that they would rather not share with their most beloved mate.  It isn't necessarly lying to keep it to oneself.  Also not out of the realm of possibility that someone with a dark past would want to change that; experience an epiphany, try to change the course their life had taken to something better.  Why not Mary?  And what if she truly feels that the truth of her past would be the death of her relationship with John?   In the first two episodes it seems clear to me that Mary loves John deeply, and given this would protect their relationship at any cost.

 

All this may have run through her mind in the instant that she is confronted with the man that could reveal all to John, and while she has a gun in her hand.    She came to kill Magnusson because he was blackmailing her...she killed Sherlock because he could also reveal her past, and it was, as she saw it, the only alternative at the time that would buy her time and not implicate John in the proceedings.  What an awful tangle to be confronted with!  A terrible decision with terrible repurcussions, but I pity her instead of hating her.

 

That John would forgive her, and not even read the A.G.R.A thumbdrive, speaks to me of a gift of trust that he gives Mary.  That her past self is not important to him, that her present self is.  That she is Mary Morstan Watson to him, and that is more than enough.

 

I love this love story.  I loved that John seemed more a person than an appendage of Sherlock's.  And of course I loved Sherlock, especially as he clawed his way from death to life.  

[Slithytove]

/>/>

Wow!! Saw this Sunday night and loved every minute! I fall firmly in the 'Mary is a victim' catagory; a victim of Magnusson, victim of her past, a victim of her love for John, and a victim of her terrible decision to shoot Sherlock.

 

On Mary: I suspect that most have something in their past that they would rather not share with their most beloved mate. It isn't necessarly lying to keep it to oneself. Also not out of the realm of possibility that someone with a dark past would want to change that; experience an epiphany, try to change the course their life had taken to something better. Why not Mary? And what if she truly feels that the truth of her past would be the death of her relationship with John? In the first two episodes it seems clear to me that Mary loves John deeply, and given this would protect their relationship at any cost.

 

All this may have run through her mind in the instant that she is confronted with the man that could reveal all to John, and while she has a gun in her hand. She came to kill Magnusson because he was blackmailing her...she killed Sherlock because he could also reveal her past, and it was, as she saw it, the only alternative at the time that would buy her time and not implicate John in the proceedings. What an awful tangle to be confronted with! A terrible decision with terrible repurcussions, but I pity her instead of hating her.

 

That John would forgive her, and not even read the A.G.R.A thumbdrive, speaks to me of a gift of trust that he gives Mary. That her past self is not important to him, that her present self is. That she is Mary Morstan Watson to him, and that is more than enough.

 

I love this love story. I loved that John seemed more a person than an appendage of Sherlock's. And of course I loved Sherlock, especially as he clawed his way from death to life.

I don't hate Mary but I think she is a psychopath, and I almost hate John for refusing to face up to what she has done. (Well, not really.....it would take quite a lot to make anyone hate John.)

 

It is true that many people have pasts they want to hide from their current partner, but "I was a hired killer" must be a pretty unusual one. If John had decided not to ask questions and to turn a blind eye to a confession, for instance, that she had had a lot of previous lovers, that would be consistent with what we know of him as a good, understanding man. Deciding to ignore the past murders she committed makes him seem, at best, idiotic and, at worst, selfish and callous. Does he really value his marriage higher than the question of whether his wife is good or evil? How could he not care who she killed and why? Maybe there were many innocents amongst her victims. She doesn't care about collateral damage, as she demonstrated when she shot Sherlock.

 

She shot Sherlock....She was going to murder CAM to keep herself out of prison and she murdered Sherlock because he was a witness, and because he would realise that she had secrets she was hiding from John. I don't see how that can be justified in any way. It would be a cruel and merciless thing to do, particularly to someone who trusted you and thought you were his friend. (It would also prove that you hadn't really given up your former violent self - you were preparing to shoot one man and you did shoot another, and in both cases the motive was to silence them.) Having no empathy, being able to be friendly and then to switch it off at will is the sign of a psychopath. Then she is able to switch her friendliness back on, spending Xmas with his parents, waving him off at the airport, etc, as if she hadn't caused him a terrible injury which nearly destroyed him. Creepy.

 

When Sherlock survived, she tracked him down with a gun and made it plain that she would do anything - I.e. kill him - to prevent John learning the truth. Being prepared to kill anyone who gets in the way of your relationship - that's not love, it is insanity. Makes you wonder what she would do if John ever decided to break up with her. Imprison him? Hurt him until he changed his mind? Kill him before he could walk away? Sherlock knows, on some level, that John is in danger from Mary - the imaginary Moriarty in his Mind Palace told him the unpalatable truth.

 

I did think that HLV was riveting - it is one of those stories that shakes you and is hard to let go - but I hope John comes to his senses in the next episode.

[SolitaryCyclist]

Actually, I think Mary was going to kill Magnusson because he could tell John ( and also, because she knew it was him that put John in the fire), not because she might go to jail.  And I guess I believe in the redemptive power of love.  Consider; John was/is a soldier and has killed in his career.  We speculate that Mary's victims were innocent...we know no more than John does about that, and that is nothing. 

 

 

[Zain]

I think you are overly romanticizing Mary. No offense.

 

Imo, Slithytove has got some very strong arguments (which doesn't come at a surprise, somehow we often agree ).

I won't go into that but there's one thing I cannot let go without adding my thoughts to it.

 

Mary is no victim. I am no fan of Magnussen's but he did not harm her yet when she assaulted him. He did not invent false truths about her. The only thing he has got on her is the truth. The inconvenient truth whose consequences she is running from. Mary tries to get away with her crimes by committing more crimes. That is not the behavior of a victim. She is by no means a victim of the circumstances. And no remorseful assassin turned nurse.

 

She also does not do regret. I don't really see where you are reading this into. Maybe I overlooked something but in all of 30 pages nobody ever brought this up as a true argument (and we've been orbiting around the Mary issue for that long), so I daresay it didn't pass me by. I agree, however. If she at least showed remorse, regret, the will to make it up to John and Sherlock, then it would be easier to get over her betrayel. I fear I am too jaded by this point to implement that into my head canon when her behavior speaks for itself...

 

The real reason why I feel the need to respond to you, SolitaryCyclist, is your comment on trust.

You say that it is a proof of trust that John throws away the thumbdrive.

From personal experience I'd say it's exactly the opposite.

When you have been wronged by someone very close you do not simply say "water under the bridge". You have to work through it. And it has to be a conscious decision, otherwise it will not lead to anything. Trust cannot be rebuilt by a simple gesture, no matter what romcoms might teach us. Been there, done it. That's one of the reasons why I don't buy the end. A dear friend of mine once stole a considerable amount of money from my family. You do not work through issues like that by ignoring the details. You do not force forgiveness onto someone that does not desire it. And it is unlikely that you will hug that person when you make the decision to give it a go instead of walking away. Forgiveness is not romantic. It is hard, it means you have to face aspects about other people and yourself you do not want to face. You do, by no means, discard it with "water under the bridge."

That stands all besides the fact that stealing money is way inferior a crime to what Mary did.

 

I know it sounds romantic and nice but consider yourself in that place.

You find out that your partner married you under a false name and false pretenses. And when your best friend finds out, your partner tries to kill them because you are not allowed to find out. Ever. You could decide to leave, and why would it be fair to give you the chance to decide what you want to do and how you want to react? When that friend survives, your partner hunts them down with a gun. When that friend collapses due to the wound your partner inflicted, your partner does not try to help that friend, nor does your partner feel remorse or apologizes. I mean, why would they? Due to that friend, you found out. Which wasn't your right... was it? I mean, without that friend, you could have been manipulated to live in blissful ignorance until death do you apart. 

 

Forgive me, the sheer arrogance someone has got to have to think this the right course of action sickens me. It's why I have a hard time adjusting to the end of HLV.

 

Maybe I am a horrible person, I don't know. But if my partner did that, this would be a hard limit. Something I could not forgive. There was another person harmed. Someone other than me. Maybe the lying is forgivable. Maybe I could forgive to be manipulated from the very beginning in that relationship. Maybe. But the last thing, that's  "Parade's End".

[Carol the Dabbler]

You seem to have good reasons for your opinions, Zain, and you have expressed them well.  I agree with you on the trust issue -- I am on record as wondering why John didn't minimally ask Mary to help him understand "why?".

 

But there's one point where I think you've misremembered what happened -- Mary didn't shoot Sherlock when he guessed that Magnussen had been blackmailing her, she shot him when he threatened to take the gun away from her (and like Major Sholto, she had "a lifetime of unfortunate reflexes").  Admittedly, "when" isn't necessarily the same as "why," but that may be all we have to go on.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Wow, this discussion is getting so interesting that I just "have" to jump in, even though I really don't have time right now...

 

About Mary. Oh, Mary. Would you have thought that they could create a woman even more controversial than Irene Adler? Wow.

 

I think one of the problems we have in understanding her and the other characters' behavior is that "Sherlock" is not a realistic story about realistic people. A lot of the characters are highly fantastical, as are the cases and the "action" parts. The original stories were like that, too. But in this adaptation, the characters are played so well, they act so naturally, so lifelike, that they feel totally real and we start to measure them by real-life standards, whereas they "live" in a totally different world with different rules.

 

Of course, if all this had happened "among us", Mary would be seriously messed up and John "forgiving" her by simply ignoring her past and throwing the evidence in the fire would mean their marriage, which never existed legally anyway, was doomed.

But in the world of Sherlock (who, himself, is an impossibility, really), Mary is just another "extraordinary" being, no better and no worse than Sherlock and John themselves. She isn't supposed to have murdered "innocent" people, I think; she says there are people like her because people like Magnussen should be killed - an opinion which, in the end, Sherlock seems to share. Mary is just another "dragon slayer", probably, and as such, fits right in what Amanda Abbington I think called "a nice little dysfunctional family". She does love John and he loves her and his behavior at the end is supposed to be noble and magnanimous (even if I don't like it).

[Slithytove]

The reason she gives for going after CAM is that he holds enough information on her to send her to jail for life. If she had a better reason, surely she would have offered it to John in mitigation.

 

It doesn't really matter whether she shoots Sherlock because he realises she is being blackmailed or because he is going to disarm her. Shooting an unarmed man who is not threatening you, either because he might discover your secrets or because he is going to stop you killing someone else, is the act of a cold blooded killer. It isn't a reflex action, either. She doesn't fire without thinking, an automatic reflex. She says she will do it and then she does it.

 

We don't know who Mary killed in the past, or why. CAM says she did jobs for the CIA, so that begs the question of whether you believe that all CIA-ordered killings can be justified. Even if you believe that it is okay to kill bad people instead of bringing them to trial - Mary & Sherlock both believe this regarding CAM, though her motives are selfish and his are not - history suggests that many of the murders carried out by the world's security organisations were politically-motivated rather than morally justifiable. However, even if every CIA job could be excused and did not harm any innocent bystanders, she also worked freelance. People who hire freelance killers are seldom nice. They tend to be terrorists, organised crime, etc. John needs to know this information but he wants to pretend it never happened.

 

That's not love, any more than it is love to keep someone by lying to them and killing anyone who finds out. Of course, Sherlock is a drama, not real life. In reality, John wouldn't be hugging Mrs Psychopath, he would be running for the hills.

 

Do we really believe a professional killer would store all the evidence against her on a flash drive? What would be the point? It would be a silly, reckless thing to do. It's more likely that it was a test. She told John that he would stop loving her if he read it. He didn't read it, thus proving, in Mary's mind, that he loved her. If he had read it, she would think he didn't love her. What would have happened to him if he failed the test? A bullet through the head?

 

Just speculation, but it seems likely to me.

[sherlockandjohn]

Hi shadragon! Welcome to the Forum! See you jumped in with a great post.

 

  Yeah, "His Last Vow" is quite a shock fest. I got the feeling that they ended the Season that way because at the time there was no Season Four planed. There was no knowing. at the time, how long it might be before there would be another episode so I suppose they wanted to end on a positive note and not another "Oh no! Sherlock disappears....again?"

 

That would have been sad! I'm glad they brought Sherlock back; though I wish they'd done it more dramatically. It just seemed ridiculous that Sherlock is immediately exonerated, just because the government needs him.

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

Well, it was supposed to be a suicide mission, Sherlock dead in six months and, in Sherlock's words: "Mycroft is never wrong". Yeah, right. Anyway, nothing was said about a full pardon as yet, only that "England needs Sherlock Holmes" which, indeed, it does. Always and forever.

[SolitaryCyclist]

Zain and Slythytove, we will have to agree to disagree.  Maybe Mary has had the misfortune of reading "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" or "Les Misérables"  No matter how much a person may wish to change their past, trusting others to forgive that past has had unfortunate consequenses, at least for Tess and Jean ValJean.    Mary is not Tess, or Jean, but the issue of trust is comparable, at least to me.  And like I said, I believe in the redemptive power of love.  Perhaps John's love for Mary is the epiphany in her life.

 

And even without a gun, Sherlock is never harmless!

[Slithytove]

Don't you think it would have been a really depressing ending, if Sherlock had just flown off to his death? Or his possible death, depending on whether the show was re-commissioned or not.

 

The first series ended with a stand-off, the second with a mystery. I wanted them to end this one with a bang, not a whimper, and they did. Of course, I know that a lot of people don't want Jim to come back (I do!) but at least we are all saying "What? Moriarty? Wasn't he dead?" rather than, "Oh, how sad."

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

 

And even without a gun, Sherlock is never harmless!

 

  Truer words were never spoken, Beth. Sherlock has said that he is a dangerous man to be around, especially to his enemies.

[Slithytove]

/>

Zain and Slythytove, we will have to agree to disagree. Maybe Mary has had the misfortune of reading "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" or "Les Misérables" No matter how much a person may wish to change their past, trusting others to forgive that past has had unfortunate consequenses, at least for Tess and Jean ValJean. Mary is not Tess, or Jean, but the issue of trust is comparable, at least to me. And like I said, I believe in the redemptive power of love. Perhaps John's love for Mary is the epiphany in her life.

 

And even without a gun, Sherlock is never harmless!

Well, love is a wonderful thing, of course. I don't know whether I would want to redeem a muderer by loving them, particularly if they went on killing other people I loved, but that is evidently the choice John makes. I'm a bit disappointed in him, really. He must be much more damaged than we knew - more damaged than Sherlock himself, I would say.

 

I really hope the writers don't give us the cuddly Watson family in the next series. It would be much more interesting if they go with Mary as a psychopathic killer prepared to do anything to keep the things she wants. I'd like to see a scene where John tells her he's breaking up with her and going for full custody of little Sherlockina. If she contested the decision, Sherlock would testify against her. Watson vs Watson could be interesting....

 

When you think about it, haven't the Holmes boys been very slow about Mary? Sherlock deduces that she is a liar, that she knows about skip codes - couldn't he have deduced the truth about her? Instead he does nothing, watches his best mate marry her without a word of warning and walks straight into an ongoing crime where she shoots him. Mycroft is powerful, obsessed with control and information gathering, very protective towards his brother ( to the extent of abducting and questioning his new flatmate) but he doesn't know Mary is ex-CIA, and presumably a rogue agent if she has done freelance killings.

 

Either they are both sadly off their game or there is something going on that we don't yet know!

[sherlockandjohn]

Oh, I would have been horribly sad if Sherlock had flown away. I was horribly sad! Until he turned around But the way it happened still felt deflated to me. The goodbye between Sherlock and John was so tear-jerkingly beautiful, so when Sherlock is heading back minutes later, I feel it's a bit silly. It's not bad, though. After all, I did love the goodbye scene and wouldn't have wanted to be without that, and I'm really glad Sherlock was brought back, so I guess I'm not complaining... just saying that it feels silly. But I guess that's the price to pay for good drama. Like with Mary. Her being an ex-assasin and shooting Sherlock did give us some great drama, but for me it definitely has its' price. And the humanisation of Sherlock, though wonderful, also changes the dynamic between him and John - for the better, when it comes to their friendship, but some of the humor (based on Sherlock's madness) is lost in the process.