Episode 3.3, "His Last Vow"

[Slithytove]

I really don't find John's behaviour romantic or heroic. To me, it seems self-serving and cowardly. He values his own domestic happiness over his loyalty to Sherlock, and he wants to stay with Mary but doesn't have the courage to look her past deeds in the face. Yes, I know Sherlock told him to forgive her - so what? That doesn't take away John's responsibility to choose between right and wrong. Shooting an innocent, unarmed man who offers no harm to you or anyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

I do have strong moral qualms over John's decision to know nothing of Mary's past. I understand he could do nothing to help her victims, though knowledge of who they were and why they died might help him to prevent her killing again. After all, she has hardly turned over a new leaf - when confronted with a problem, her immediate response was to kill.

 

However, even more than the practical side, John should know because the who, how and why of people's deaths are important. Motive is important. Method is important - no-one wants to die, but a cruel death is worse than a painless one. For instance, in real life, there was the assassination in London of a Russian former secret agent turned journalist, poisoned (possibly on the orders of the Russian government) with polonium. That was a dreadful, lingering way to die. Did Mary inflict that type of horrific death on anyone? If she did, does it matter? If not, why not? And who did she kill? Did she kill to save other lives? Did she shoot people in front of their children? Did she blow up people's cars and kill whole families along with her targets? All these things have happened in real life assassinations. How can John close his eyes to everything and live with her, never asking these questions?

 

The comparison to Dexter is interesting. I think both are psychopaths, or at least Dexter is at the beginning. His character seems to alter over time, as he seems to develop the ability of empathise, to some degree, which he certainly didn't have in the early episodes. His urge to kill is, of course, contained by " the code" just as Mary's was utilised by the CIA, presumably up to the point where she went freelance. I find Mary more callous, because Dexter didn't murder his innocent friends, hang out with the victim's family or generally act as if entitled to forgiveness. They are, of course, very similar in their ability to lie and to charm people, and in their total lack of remorse.

 

I can bear Mary-the- psychopath, though I wouldn't be sorry if she was killed or ran away in S4. What I can't bear is John as Mrs Psychopath's devoted husband.

 

As for A.G.R.A, do you think Mary was dim enough to keep evidence of her own guilt? I think it was a fake, a test. John passed by destroying it unread. If he had failed her test and read it...Well, we know how Mary treats people who stand in her way.

[Arcadia]

Yeh, I get that. But my thoughts weren't really about whether WE find John heroic, or delusional ... just that I think it was the creators' INTENT to make him heroic. That's one of many things that makes art so interesting ... what is the artist actually trying to say, as opposed to what I want them to say? And how do they choose to say it? But I'm an artist myself, my mind tends to work like that. But in purely practical, "real life" terms .... yeh, I get your point completely.

[T.o.b.y]

I think I agree with T.o.b.y., except that I had a slightly different take on the writer's intentions ... not that John loves Mary the way she was "supposed to be," but that he loves her (or thinks he does) simply for who she is (warm, funny, tolerant.) He decides that he knows the "real" her, and therefore her past has no relevance.

 

Oh, I totally agree, I am sure those were the writers' intentions. They just don't work on me. For once, I find it a bit too hard to suspend my disbelief here.

[T.o.b.y]

I can bear Mary-the- psychopath, though I wouldn't be sorry if she was killed or ran away in S4. What I can't bear is John as Mrs Psychopath's devoted husband.

 

As for A.G.R.A, do you think Mary was dim enough to keep evidence of her own guilt? I think it was a fake, a test. John passed by destroying it unread. If he had failed her test and read it...Well, we know how Mary treats people who stand in her way.

 

I don't think John as Mrs Psychopath's devoted husband is any worse than John as Mr Sociopath's devoted friend... As Mary said, it's what he likes (and John seemed as little thrilled about finding he does like that as some of you lovely people around here were). Of course, we don't know yet, because we've hardly met the "real" Mary, but I suspect she is no better and no worse than Sherlock himself, morally speaking. I doubt she was a born killer, my guess is that she "made herself" just like Sherlock did; developed unusual emotional and mental patterns to be able to do her job. But I have no evidence whatsoever for that. Because, again, they didn't feed us any. Series 4, now, please!

 

If Mary had that flash drive for years, she really would be pretty dumb. My theory is she just prepared it for Sherlock before she went to meet him at the empty house, because she thought he'd be more likely to do as she asks, keep his mouth shut towards John, if he knew what the secret was.

 

 

[Slithytove]

You really think that Mary and Sherlock are morally the same? That is interesting. Even though we know Mary murdered people for a living but, as far as we know, Sherlock killed one person in an act of desperation, to protect someone else? As John did, in ASiP. So do you think Mary and John are on the same moral footing?

 

To me, Mary and Sherlock are nothing alike. Sherlock kids himself that he is a sociopath but he evidently feels empathy and does things which are against his own interests, for the sake of others. Certainly he can be selfish, arrogant and sometimes cruel, but he does have emotions - we have glimpsed them throughout S3 - and acts on them even when they are self-destructive. Shooting CAM is a prime example. Other people - John and Mary - benefit from this act. Sherlock doesn't. As far as he knows, he is going to prison for life, which would effectively be a death sentence - if he did not provoke his fellow inmates into killing him, he would surely kill himself because he would never cope with years of boredom. Instead, Mycroft hands him a different death sentence. Sherlock has knowingly sacrificed his life to help someone else. Hardly the action of a psychopath.

 

Mary, on the other hand, acts entirely for herself. She intends to shoot CAM, and does shoot Sherlock, to keep herself out of jail and because she wants to hold onto John. She tells Sherlock that she will do anything - a clear threat that she will make sure he dies next time - to avoid losing John. Her love for John is selfish - she lies constantly and tricks him into a phoney marriage based on a lie, she is willing to murder his dearest friend to keep him, and she never seems to consider that, if she really loved him, she should get out of his life. Sherlock accepts the consequences of his actions, even though he knows it will mean never seeing John again. Mary tries - and succeeds - to avoid all responsibility. As characters, I think their morality is very different.

 

Regarding the flash drive - if she wanted John or Sherlock to know about her past, couldn't she just tell them? A lot safer than actually creating evidence against herself. And someone who did not hesitate to shoot a friend is hardly too sensitive to be able to talk about her previous crimes.

[Slithytove]

Yeh, I get that. But my thoughts weren't really about whether WE find John heroic, or delusional ... just that I think it was the creators' INTENT to make him heroic. That's one of many things that makes art so interesting ... what is the artist actually trying to say, as opposed to what I want them to say? And how do they choose to say it? But I'm an artist myself, my mind tends to work like that. But in purely practical, "real life" terms .... yeh, I get your point completely.

Interesting. I am a writer and I am curious about any discrepancies between a creator's intention and the "finished product."

 

Writing, like all art forms, is a collaboration between artist and audience. The reader or, in this case, viewer brings their own experience, interpretation, morality, expectations, etc to the work and good writing allows for this. I am also aware that we have gone far beyond authorial intent in our discussions here.

 

However, it is always the writer's task to convey their intended effect. If I had written a scene which I intended to be read as romantic and heroic, and a sizeable proportion of my audience went, "That's not loving and brave, it's selfish and distasteful", I would know something had gone wrong somewhere. As a writer it is always my fault, not the reader's, if I fail to get my message across. I would know I made an error of judgement in my plotting, characterisation, dialogue, or whatever.

 

If, on the other hand, the writers of Sherlock's intended effect was ambiguity (and controversy?), they have succeeded, haven't they? Maybe they decided to lob a moral hand grenade at us and sit back to watch whilst it exploded.

[Carol the Dabbler]

... we don't know yet, because we've hardly met the "real" Mary, but I suspect she is no better and no worse than Sherlock himself, morally speaking. I doubt she was a born killer, my guess is that she "made herself" just like Sherlock did; developed unusual emotional and mental patterns to be able to do her job. But I have no evidence whatsoever for that. Because, again, they didn't feed us any. Series 4, now, please!

Be very careful what you wish for -- Steven Moffat may be listening! But you're absolutely right, we know hardly anything about Mary's past so far, unless we choose to believe Magnussen's implications and Sherlock's inferences.

 

If Mary had that flash drive for years, she really would be pretty dumb. My theory is she just prepared it for Sherlock before she went to meet him at the empty house, because she thought he'd be more likely to do as she asks, keep his mouth shut towards John, if he knew what the secret was.

Ooh, interesting idea! So you think maybe she wants to be absolutely certain that Sherlock will read it -- so, using reverse psychology, she gives it to John, knowing that Sherlock will then sneak a peek at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, dear loyal John heeds the fear in her voice and refrains from reading it. Sounds bizarre, but I do believe it would be pretty foolproof, knowing those two men.

 

Even though we know Mary murdered people for a living but, as far as we know, Sherlock killed one person in an act of desperation, to protect someone else?

I'm neither disputing nor agreeing with the rest of what you said, but I would like to point out a couple of assumptions here.

 

1. "Mary murdered people for a living." We don't know who she may have killed, or why. All we have is Magnussen's innuendos and Sherlock's inferences. And while those apparently frightened Mary, for all we know, what actually frightened her was the part about her false identity. It seems likely that she did kill people as part of her job, but equating that with "murder" assumes more facts than we currently have.

 

2. "As far as we know, Sherlock killed one person." While it's true that we could not actually name anyone else he's killed, I personally suspect that he used some seriously extra-legal means to "dismantle" Moriarty's network over the past two years.

[Carol the Dabbler]

If ... the writers of Sherlock's intended effect was ambiguity (and controversy?), they have succeeded, haven't they? Maybe they decided to lob a moral hand grenade at us and sit back to watch whilst it exploded.

That is one point where you and I can agree wholeheartedly! 

 

[Zain]

 

 

As a writer it is always my fault, not the reader's, if I fail to get my message across. I would know I made an error of judgement in my plotting, characterisation, dialogue, or whatever.

If, on the other hand, the writers of Sherlock's intended effect was ambiguity (and controversy?), they have succeeded, haven't they? Maybe they decided to lob a moral hand grenade at us and sit back to watch whilst it exploded.

 

 

Seems like a solid theory. If I am not mistaken, Moffat said in an interview that they intended for HLV to be like an explosion after the somewhat sappy reunion and wedding. If you can't do another cliffhanger, then you have to create some controversy. If that's what they wanted to achieve, they definitely succeeded.

 

Concerning writer intention:

Maybe I am reading too much into it, but are you by chance a supporter of reader-response criticism?

I agree that an author/writer sets the direction and the pace but often people arrive at different destinations due to their experiences. I don't know if it's really the writer's fault. I don't consider it possible to make every reader reach the same destination. In this episode's case, though, it feels like a bomb hit the path. People are scatter all over. It is so blatantly controversial it must be intentional...

[T.o.b.y]

You really think that Mary and Sherlock are morally the same? That is interesting. Even though we know Mary murdered people for a living but, as far as we know, Sherlock killed one person in an act of desperation, to protect someone else? As John did, in ASiP. So do you think Mary and John are on the same moral footing?

 

I suspect they might be, but I have no proof whatsoever. It's just a gut feeling, and probably wishful thinking too - slowly but surely, after many revisits of the new episodes on my recently acquired DVDs, I have fallen quite a bit in love with dear Mary, or whatever her name is. John's affection for her is catching. And in The Empty Hearse, I think it is made pretty clear that Mary saved John from the depths of despair after The Reichenbach Fall - she can't be all that bad, can she, if she did him so much good?

[T.o.b.y]

Ooh, interesting idea! So you think maybe she wants to be absolutely certain that Sherlock will read it -- so, using reverse psychology, she gives it to John, knowing that Sherlock will then sneak a peek at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, dear loyal John heeds the fear in her voice and refrains from reading it. Sounds bizarre, but I do believe it would be pretty foolproof, knowing those two men.

 

 

No, that's not quite my totally unfounded theory on the flash drive. That one goes like this: Mary somehow acquired documents that prove a lot about her past life; what past identities she's had, what employers, what ("wet") jobs she did. Since it is hardly likely she collected these herself for fun, I suppose she stole them from people who would otherwise have used them against her. My best bet here is she got them from Magnussen himself. He admitted he sometimes sends out for actual files and he might have needed them to convince families of her former victims that this lovely nurse was really the killer they owed their grief. Besides, if she stole them from him on the night she also broke in to kill him, she would not have had them long enough to destroy them before realizing they might come in handy.

 

After she finds out that Sherlock has indeed survived the shot, her first goal is to convince him to keep silent about her. She plans to meet him alone and give him the information she has on herself, knowing that if she simply told him about her past life, he might not believe her after his recent experiences. The idea is that once Sherlock knows "the worst" about her (and that it's not as bad as he might have thought), he will feel he has the situation under control and agree not to tell John. Mary couldn't know that Sherlock would, quite uncharacteristically, take John into his confidence fairly early and bring him along for the meeting.

 

As I said, this is of course nothing more than wild speculation, but it makes sense to me and until the show tells me different, I'll stick with it as part of what I believe people call "headcanon".

[Caya]

Be very careful what you wish for -- Steven Moffat may be listening! But you're absolutely right, we know hardly anything about Mary's past so far, unless we choose to believe Magnussen's implications and Sherlock's inferences.

2. "As far as we know, Sherlock killed one person." While it's true that we could not actually name anyone else he's killed, I personally suspect that he used some seriously extra-legal means to "dismantle" Moriarty's network over the past two years.

 

Don't think so. Moftiss were careful to show us, in Many Happy Returns, that he always worked with the system. Whether he infiltrated that monastery, fed intormation to that policeman or managed to get a seat on that jury. Would've been a lot easier just to kill them for sure, but that evidently isn't how he rolls.

 

[Janie]

 

 

 

 

No, that's not quite my totally unfounded theory on the flash drive. That one goes like this: Mary somehow acquired documents that prove a lot about her past life; what past identities she's had, what employers, what ("wet") jobs she did. Since it is hardly likely she collected these herself for fun, I suppose she stole them from people who would otherwise have used them against her. My best bet here is she got them from Magnussen himself. He admitted he sometimes sends out for actual files and he might have needed them to convince families of her former victims that this lovely nurse was really the killer they owed their grief. Besides, if she stole them from him on the night she also broke in to kill him, she would not have had them long enough to destroy them before realizing they might come in handy.

 

 

 

 

I don't think she had enough time to steal the documents when she was at Magnussen's flat. Or you think she already had them while she was aiming the gun at him?

 

I think she didn't want to kill him because she would have done it right away and wouldn't have needed to threaten him. In my opinion she wanted the documents but didn't get them because Sherlock interrupted her. But I have absolutely no idea how she got them. 

[T.o.b.y]

 

I think she didn't want to kill him because she would have done it right away and wouldn't have needed to threaten him. In my opinion she wanted the documents but didn't get them because Sherlock interrupted her. But I have absolutely no idea how she got them. 

 

Took them off his person after she knocked him out?

 

Gosh, that's actually a very good point nobody has made yet, as far as I know: Mary probably didn't even intend to kill Magnussen, did she! She was only threatening him with the gun because she wanted something from him! If she'd gone there to kill, he would probably never have known what hit him...

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Moftiss were careful to show us, in Many Happy Returns, that he always worked with the system. Whether he infiltrated that monastery, fed intormation to that policeman or managed to get a seat on that jury. Would've been a lot easier just to kill them for sure, but that evidently isn't how he rolls.

 

I forgot about "Happy Returns," and even when I watched it, I didn't necessarily connect those cases with Moriarty's network -- so you may well be right.

 

However, that connection was never made explicit, there were surely more network-related cases than that, and nothing at all was said in the three "official" episodes (other than something vague about a Baron), so I consider the matter to be still open for interpretation.  For one thing, Sherlock was clearly working undercover when we first saw him in "Hearse," and while that doesn't prove that he killed anyone, it's certainly not working within the system.

 

[Caya]

But why else would he've been to the Himalayas, if not for dismantling Moriarty's network? Sherlock doesn't strike me as the type to fancy a bit of a hiking holiday after all that stress with faking his own death .

[Carol the Dabbler]

No, of course not.  But one drug smuggler hardly seems an adequate reason for him to travel that far.  I assume she was just "the tip of the iceberg," the part that Anderson happened to notice, and that there was actually far more going on over there.

 

[Arcadia]

 

If, on the other hand, the writers of Sherlock's intended effect was ambiguity (and controversy?), they have succeeded, haven't they? Maybe they decided to lob a moral hand grenade at us and sit back to watch whilst it exploded.

 

Oh, absolutely!

[T.o.b.y]

Well, they need to give their fans something to think about so they'll stay interested in the series during the year-long waits for more episodes, don't they.

[Arcadia]

 

Writing, like all art forms, is a collaboration between artist and audience. The reader or, in this case, viewer brings their own experience, interpretation, morality, expectations, etc to the work and good writing allows for this. ...

However, it is always the writer's task to convey their intended effect. If I had written a scene which I intended to be read as romantic and heroic, and a sizeable proportion of my audience went, "That's not loving and brave, it's selfish and distasteful", I would know something had gone wrong somewhere. As a writer it is always my fault, not the reader's, if I fail to get my message across. I would know I made an error of judgement in my plotting, characterisation, dialogue, or whatever.

 

Hm. I'll have to think about that some more, but I don't think I wholeheartedly believe that. Some people have such a strongly held world view that they are quite incapable of seeing thru someone else's eyes. Is it my fault as an artist/writer if they miss the point because they have not learned how to see (or don't want to see)? I agree it's the communicator's job to communicate, but it's also the listener's job to listen. Whether your audience agrees with you or not is another matter, but on some level I think they have an obligation to at least try to see what you are saying. Does this make sense? And boy, have I wandered far far from the topic. :-)

[T.o.b.y]

Hm. I'll have to think about that some more, but I don't think I wholeheartedly believe that. Some people have such a strongly held world view that they are quite incapable of seeing thru someone else's eyes. Is it my fault as an artist/writer if they miss the point because they have not learned how to see (or don't want to see)? I agree it's the communicator's job to communicate, but it's also the listener's job to listen. Whether your audience agrees with you or not is another matter, but on some level I think they have an obligation to at least try to see what you are saying. Does this make sense? And boy, have I wandered far far from the topic. :-)

 

Not really... and I'm always glad when somebody else does that.

 

I like to think I try pretty hard to understand what a writer wants to tell me, but then I read reviews of something I saw or read myself and realize that even professional "listeners" are hardly ever objective. (If you want an example of a fictional character who has fueled almost as spirited a discussion as we are having here about Mary, look up what critics have had to say about Jane Austen's Fanny Price).

 

I love it when authors take the trouble to explain their intentions a bit. Like when Moffat claimed in an interview that he thought Sherlock wasn't a sociopath at all and neither was he high-functioning. From the way he writes him, you wouldn't always know that, I think.

 

[Arcadia]

Yup yup yup.

[Slithytove]

 

... we don't know yet, because we've hardly met the "real" Mary, but I suspect she is no better and no worse than Sherlock himself, morally speaking. I doubt she was a born killer, my guess is that she "made herself" just like Sherlock did; developed unusual emotional and mental patterns to be able to do her job. But I have no evidence whatsoever for that. Because, again, they didn't feed us any. Series 4, now, please!

Be very careful what you wish for -- Steven Moffat may be listening! But you're absolutely right, we know hardly anything about Mary's past so far, unless we choose to believe Magnussen's implications and Sherlock's inferences.

If Mary had that flash drive for years, she really would be pretty dumb. My theory is she just prepared it for Sherlock before she went to meet him at the empty house, because she thought he'd be more likely to do as she asks, keep his mouth shut towards John, if he knew what the secret was.

Ooh, interesting idea! So you think maybe she wants to be absolutely certain that Sherlock will read it -- so, using reverse psychology, she gives it to John, knowing that Sherlock will then sneak a peek at the first opportunity. Meanwhile, dear loyal John heeds the fear in her voice and refrains from reading it. Sounds bizarre, but I do believe it would be pretty foolproof, knowing those two men.

Even though we know Mary murdered people for a living but, as far as we know, Sherlock killed one person in an act of desperation, to protect someone else?

I'm neither disputing nor agreeing with the rest of what you said, but I would like to point out a couple of assumptions here.

 

1. "Mary murdered people for a living." We don't know who she may have killed, or why. All we have is Magnussen's innuendos and Sherlock's inferences. And while those apparently frightened Mary, for all we know, what actually frightened her was the part about her false identity. It seems likely that she did kill people as part of her job, but equating that with "murder" assumes more facts than we currently have.

 

2. "As far as we know, Sherlock killed one person." While it's true that we could not actually name anyone else he's killed, I personally suspect that he used some seriously extra-legal means to "dismantle" Moriarty's network over the past two years.

Sorry, have to answer everyone separately. Haven't mastered multi-quote.

 

It is, of course, entirely possibly that CAM was lying and Mary didn't work for the CIA, though Sherlock also thought she had been an intelligence agent. It seems clear that there is something very bad in her past. She says CAM's evidence would put her in prison for life, that John wouldn't love her if he knew what she had done, that it would break him, and she is prepared to kill CAM and Sherlock to keep it secret. So I think we can assume she has killed people. If CAM was lying, maybe she didn't do it for money - maybe she is an amateur, which calls into question her motives for taking people's lives. I am inclined to think she was a professional, simply because of her skills.

 

I am trying to think of killing which is not classified as murder, and all I can come up with is casualties of war, capital punishment, and euthanasia in countries where it is legal. In the unlikely event that Mary's activities took place in one of these fields, she would not face life imprisonment. The only type of killing that would not be considered murder but would put her at risk of jail is manslaughter, and it seems highly unlikely that she killed a lot of people by accident!

 

Personally, I don't see Sherlock as an assassin. The original Holmes fought his enemies by using his brilliant mind, not by violence, and I see his modern incarnation in the same light. I agree that both versions are brave, physically strong and willing to take risks but their true weapon is their formidable intelligence. (This is why I hated the Robert Downy Jnr version - Sherlock Holmes, action hero?). As for the messy work of arresting or killing Moriarty's agents, I imagine that, as Sherlock himself would say, he "farmed it out."

[T.o.b.y]

 

...it seems highly unlikely that she killed a lot of people by accident!

 

It does indeed.

 

I agree with you that Sherlock is not an assassin. I don't think he'd kill anybody unless he absolutely had to. He didn't even try to kill Moriarty. Magnussen was a notable exception. And after learning that the files were all in Magnussen's head, there really was no other way to destroy his "archives".

[Slithytove]

 

 

 

 

As a writer it is always my fault, not the reader's, if I fail to get my message across. I would know I made an error of judgement in my plotting, characterisation, dialogue, or whatever.

If, on the other hand, the writers of Sherlock's intended effect was ambiguity (and controversy?), they have succeeded, haven't they? Maybe they decided to lob a moral hand grenade at us and sit back to watch whilst it exploded.

 

Seems like a solid theory. If I am not mistaken, Moffat said in an interview that they intended for HLV to be like an explosion after the somewhat sappy reunion and wedding. If youŶ can't do another cliffhanger, then you have to create some controversy. If that's what they wanted to achieve, they definitely succeeded.

 

Concerning writer intention:

Maybe I am reading too much into it, but are you by chance a supporter of reader-response criticism?

I agree that an author/writer sets the direction and the pace but often people arrive at different destinations due to their experiences. I don't know if it's really the writer's fault. I don't consider it possible to make every reader reach the same destination. In this episode's case, though, it feels like a bomb hit the path. People are scatter all over. It is so blatantly controversial it must be intentional...

Reader-response theory has a lot of validity, I think, though I approach the question from a writer's viewpoint. Good writing allows space for the reader's contribution. After all, we all add our own experiences, values, ideals, etc. To give a very simple example, if I have been to Paris and you haven't, the world we create inside our heads when we read a piece about that city will be very different, even though we are reading the same words. However, even if we have both been there, our reading experience will still be different because we are different.

 

Drama is more complex, in some ways, than prose because it has already been filtered through several consciousnesses, including the actors'. A change of intonation or facial expression can subtly alter meaning. Nonetheless, the viewer still brings their own input, and the argument about Mary's culpability is a good example because we are all processing the same scenes through our different value systems.

 

However, although a writer does not determine what the audience brings to or takes from the work, they need to be in control of their own material. In this case, it was suggested that the writers intended to create a romantic, heroic mood in the reconciliation scene, but there are enough of us saying the scene felt manipulative, even distasteful, to suggest that that intention was not fulfilled. If the writers really intended to create such a mood, they failed to communicate that emotion.

 

I believe, as I was taught, that as writers we are responsible for our material. We can never say, "But you misunderstood! I didn't mean that!". If the reader doesn't understand me, it is my fault because I did not communicate my intentions clearly. This applies to all aspects of the craft, including mood. If I try to write a funny piece and it makes you miserable, I have failed in my intent. It might be a great piece, you might take all sorts of meaning from it, but it was not what I was trying to say.

 

Of course, it may be that the reconciliation scene was not meant to be about romance and heroics. Maybe it was about something less easily defined - a mood of uncertainty and insecurity, perhaps? I would not be surprised if the meanings we have found in S3 are all undermined by S4. Consider TRF, for instance. We thought we were watching a man on the verge of panic, struggling with fear and sorrow, but what were we really seeing? Relief that the plan had worked? Resignation about having to go through with the rest of it? We don't even know why Sherlock is crying.

 

Moffatt is an arch-manipulator of mood, which is why I tend to mistrust his writing even though I enjoy it. Sometimes you can feel the puppet-master pulling the strings. "Laugh! Be angry! Now cry!". You can recognise this more clearly in Dr Who, which is aimed at a slightly younger audience. If we have a wide range of emotions in response to HLV, and the reconciliation scene in particular, I suspect that it was intentional.