Mycroft Holmes

[Pseudonym]

I think you lot seem to have a lot more faith in Mycroft than I do. I don't believe he was secretly cut up about it all and just hiding behind a stiff upper lip. 

It makes no sense to me at all, if someone laid a hand on one of my siblings clearly they wouldn't be welcome to keep hanging around and certainly not in the family home. And Mary is Sherlock's friend's wife, she's hardly a relative. 

Get the feeling this is going to be another agree to disagree since I never have the energy for long debates. 

[gerry]

I’m not sure it has anything to do with faith in Mycroft.  What do you expect Mycroft to do that wouldn’t alienate Sherlock since it was likely Sherlock who invited John and Mary?  He can’t arrest Mary for shooting SHerlock unless Sherlock identifies her as the shooter and Sherlock won’t do that if John wants to stay married to Mary.  Same thing if Mycroft tried to get her incarcerated for her assassin past.  You think Sherlock wouldn’t know Mycroft was responsible and if he was rude or obviously unhappy with Mary in front of their parents he’d only be drawing attention to sonmething that SHerlock obviously doesn’t care about so why should Mycroft?

[Pseudonym]

I don't think he would particularly care about making Sherlock happy if it makes him safe. And he's really not going to care whether John is happy or not. I also think a guy who has control of a prison island like Sherrinford could incarcerate someone fairly easily without worrying about the due process that the police have to deal with. If Mycroft is in SIS territory he can probably get away with doing a lot that the police can't. I think that goes into how powerful we each individually believe Mycroft actually is - another thing I'm unsure about since HLV and S4. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Good point about Sherrinford.  You'd think he didn't know about it till TFP.  But I mostly agree with Gerry -- Mycroft doesn't seem to be one to make waves unless absolutely necessary.

[Pseudonym]

That's partly what I mean about about having more faith in him. I see him as a lot colder and harder than other people seem to. No, I don't think he'd make waves. I just wouldn't have been surprised if Mary had disappeared one day, or at least had a very firm talking to (threat), to stay away from Sherlock. Be John's wife, play the part of the innocent little suburban housewife, but I'm keeping a very close eye on you and you stay away from my brother. 

But, of course, since Mary was set up as a villain and then seemingly wasn't (you won't love me if you know what I've done vs freeing an embassy, I suspect you're American vs English accent in flashback, threatening to shoot Sherlock again vs sacrificing herself for him), maybe something more interesting was planned and then they backed off thanks to all the people who like to call them misogynistic.

[Arcadia]

9 minutes ago, Pseudonym said:

That's partly what I mean about about having more faith in him. I see him as a lot colder and harder than other people seem to. No, I don't think he'd make waves. I just wouldn't have been surprised if Mary had disappeared one day, or at least had a very firm talking to (threat), to stay away from Sherlock. Be John's wife, play the part of the innocent little suburban housewife, but I'm keeping a very close eye on you and you stay away from my brother. 

If I wanted a "head canon", that's the one I'd go with ... at some point, in some way, Mycroft and Mary came to an understanding. I think Mycroft's cold enough to overlook the shooting of his brother if he thinks he's got something to gain from a relationship with Mary. 

 

Quote

But, of course, since Mary was set up as a villain and then seemingly wasn't (you won't love me if you know what I've done vs freeing an embassy, I suspect you're American vs English accent in flashback, threatening to shoot Sherlock again vs sacrificing herself for him), maybe something more interesting was planned and then they backed off thanks to all the people who like to call them misogynistic.

And I suspect this is closer to the truth ... there seems to be a lot of unused plot lines dangling around. Intentionally, one would hope, but I fear we'll never know.

[Pseudonym]

Do you think he does have something to gain?

[gerry]

1 hour ago, Pseudonym said:

I don't think he would particularly care about making Sherlock happy if it makes him safe. And he's really not going to care whether John is happy or not. 

Sherlock puts himself in dangerous situations all the time (moriarty, CAM, cabbie poison pill, narcotic drugs, etc).  How is Mary any different?  In all of those situations mycroft doesn’t try to stop Sherlock, he just monitors the situation and helps where he can because he loves his brother but is not a bleeding heart.

i agree that mycroft could incarcerate Mary but I can’t think why he would if it’s not what Sherlock wants and it wouldn’t be consistent with how mycroft deals with previous threats to Sherlock.

[Pseudonym]

Because those other people didn't pretend to be his friend and then shoot him. They had a plan for dealing with Moriarty. CAM was just creepy rather than a threat to his life. 

Even taking Sherlock out of the equation I'd think Mycroft would be a bit more concerned about Mary than he seems to be. Having a foreign (possibly, who knows at this point) rogue agent going around shooting people is something he should want to get on top of. Of course, it's possible that he is watching her closely, so much is left up to the viewers head cannon in this show anything could be going on. 

[gerry]

Yeah I don’t see what difference it makes that Mary is a friend, pretending or not, and the other threats to Sherlock. Sherlock clearly is fine with her.  Now whether you think it’s believable or not is another matter.  This is one of many reasons why I dislike Moffats writing.  It often has implausible plots or characterizations that don’t make much sense.  Don’t get me started on that scene where Sherlock tells John it makes perfect sense that he’d marry an assassin that would lie about herself.

also I think CAM was dangerous to Sherlock.  Not all danger comes in the form of physical threat.  Adler falls in the same category.  Mycroft didn’t try to prevent their interactions either.

[Arcadia]

7 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

Do you think he does have something to gain?

Well, I think he easily could. If you mean, is there evidence for that in the episodes, I'd say no; it's just my conclusion from his behavior towards Mary in TAB. There, they are allies, at least in Sherlock's mind; and on the plane, Mycroft seems largely unconcerned about her. From that I deduce that he sees a benefit in allowing her existence to continue.

 

6 hours ago, gerry said:

Yeah I don’t see what difference it makes that Mary is a friend, pretending or not, and the other threats to Sherlock. Sherlock clearly is fine with her.  Now whether you think it’s believable or not is another matter.  This is one of many reasons why I dislike Moffats writing.  It often has implausible plots or characterizations that don’t make much sense.  Don’t get me started on that scene where Sherlock tells John it makes perfect sense that he’d marry an assassin that would lie about herself.

also I think CAM was dangerous to Sherlock.  Not all danger comes in the form of physical threat.  Adler falls in the same category.  Mycroft didn’t try to prevent their interactions either.

Well, technically, Mycroft did order Sherlock to stay away from both CAM and Adler. I've always thought it was because he was afraid Sherlock would gum up the works (and he was right about that, in both cases), but it's also possible he did it to try and protect Sherlock. But essentially I agree with you; Mycroft only interferes so far; Sherlock pretty much lives the life he wants. If he wants to keep Mary as a friend, Mycroft either trusts him to make his own decisions about such things, or doesn't care what he does in that regard. Maybe both at once.

[Janyss]

Very stimulative questions about Mycroft, how and why he looks after Sherlock's life...I didn't read it all, so sorry if I repeat Something or if I am irrelevant...

I'd say Sherlock always ranks first in Mycroft's worrying. Big brother is interested in other people only if they can help him about Sherlock, and I don't think he develops specific feelings or interests for John, Mary... When Sherlock is supposed to be dead, he doesn't keep contact with John, underlining that the idea of doing so is ridiculous. Well does he know about Mary and her past at the moment of the wedding? The talk on the phone with Sherlock suggests that he does, but the fact that he doesn't come to the wedding indicates that he wants his brother and the couple to live their own lives (even if he doesn't believe it possible, that's why to my mind he insists on "don't get involved" to Sherlock). Then in HLV, does he know that Mary shot Sherlock? I'm not sure...Then in T6T, he underlines that people like Mary can't have a normal life and are sentenced to death at some point. I have the feeling that Mycroft's choices are based upon a realistic -may be fatalistic- point of view, while Sherlock always tries to get out of the dreadful alternatives of reality. That's the main difference between them.

[Arcadia]

I agree. Sherlock accuses John of being the "romantic," but when it comes to fighting fate, he's pretty much the romantic himself.

[Hikari]

12 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

I think you lot seem to have a lot more faith in Mycroft than I do. I don't believe he was secretly cut up about it all and just hiding behind a stiff upper lip. 

It makes no sense to me at all, if someone laid a hand on one of my siblings clearly they wouldn't be welcome to keep hanging around and certainly not in the family home. And Mary is Sherlock's friend's wife, she's hardly a relative. 

Get the feeling this is going to be another agree to disagree since I never have the energy for long debates. 

Mary is Sherlock's BFF's wife, which is why I said she is 'family by extension' . . if Mycroft didn't believe that in S3, he is schooled in S4 by Sherlock.

SH:  John stays.

M: This is a family matter!

SH:  That's *why* he stays.

Whether Mycroft likes it or not, Sherl regards her as an honorary sister-in-law.  That's what I meant.   Anyway, where better to keep one's eyes on Mary, MI:6 Most Watched, than right across the table?  Mummy Holmes is the one providing the hospitality and even the British Government/Mummy's Favorite does not contend against Mummy.  I think Mycroft Holmes is only truly cowed by one person in the world--his mother.  And semi-cowed by two other strong mature women:  Her Majesty the Queen and Lady Alicia Smallwood.  Both of these ladies have the same chilly autocratic features of his maternal unit.

Mycroft is a spook . . one might say, the Head Spook, and those people don't flinch quite so much at the prospect or actuality of beatings or bullets.  They are trained to withstand torture, as well as dish it out.  So folks who excel in that shadow world are a cut removed from the rest of us in their ability to detach from messy emotions (like compassion) and get the unpleasant jobs done.  Since Mary excelled at black ops to such a degree that her true identity and skills were a complete surprise to both the Holmes boys--the two best minds in Britain if not the universe--Mary Got Game at an exceptionally high level.  Perhaps Mycroft's tolerance stems out of a professional admiration for her level of skill.  If Mary weren't pregnant, to be followed shortly by 'new mum' and then 'dead', Big M. might have recruited her for the British side.

It is very complex, being an eldest sib, to Sherlock Holmes of all people, while managing the British government at the same time.  Mycroft is not soft and cuddly nor approachable nor emotionally demonstrative.  I believe he has emotions--strong ones--but like his younger brother, has learned to keep a tight lid on them.  If Sherlock has a tight lid on his 'human' side, Big Bruh has his buried in a concrete bunker suitable for housing a nuclear reactor.  The Holmes' boys' tendencies in this regard are quite nearly superhuman, or extra-human . .but then, neither of them is or ever has been, real, and so they are like comic superheroes in a way.  No mere mortal, not even Stephen Hawking, could converse like a native in a brand new foreign language in two hours.  Sherl and Myc are fun characters for that reason--the outrageous feats they can accomplish--but we can't really expect them to behave in any (dramatized) situation the way a real person would.  Nobody would actually deign to share one's Christmas table with an international criminal who nearly assassinated their brother/child.  But as the ultimate in dysfunctional family Christmases, it made for some entertaining TV.  Owing to getting shot, Sherl seems to have stirred some maternal favoritism at last, however temporary.  Mummy Holmes overrode Myc's objections to Sherl bringing his would-be killer and a homeless meth cooker to Christmas dinner.  John brought his revolver and spent the rest of Christmas Day watching Sherl shoot a man in the head in cold blood, so that sure was a memorable holiday.

I'm sorry you don't like Mycroft more; I think he's both poignant and hilarious.  Much of that is down to his interpreter; Myc wouldn't be so appealing with another actor, possibly. I think because Mark writes Mycroft, he intrinsically knows how to make him both infuriating and loveable in his prickly way.  The canonical Mycroft only appears, incredibly, twice, in all of the stories, so Mofftiss have had the luxury of time to draw a much more multilayered sibling relationship.  What stands out about the Canon Mycroft is that Sherlock wholeheartedly admires his elder brother and openly acknowledges him to Watson as the superior brain.  This is not said peevishly, either, but matter-of-factly.  Mofftiss have chosen to make this basically harmonious and mutually agreeable relationship into much more a recognizably modern contentious sibling-rivalry.  It's amusing, but the effect is to make Sherlock appear extremely childish and petulant in most of his dealings with his big brother.  For a man entering into middle age, it's a bit overplayed, and Mycroft comes out the worse for it since Sherl is the star of our little party.  I can take issue with many of the 'updates' which Mofftiss opted to make, but updated Mycroft was a big bonus for me.  That plus making the 'little rat-faced' Inspector Lestrade into Rupert Graves!

[J.P.]

Okay, is it possible that Mycroft didn't get to know who shot Sherlock? The only 3 people knowing this wer CAM, Sherlock and John, and I bet Mary was good enough to avoid Big Bro's cameras.

As for Mark in the role - well, he was able to play the most despicable character in London Spy and still make him tragically human.

[Hikari]

10 minutes ago, J.P. said:

Okay, is it possible that Mycroft didn't get to know who shot Sherlock? The only 3 people knowing this wer CAM, Sherlock and John, and I bet Mary was good enough to avoid Big Bro's cameras.

As for Mark in the role - well, he was able to play the most despicable character in London Spy and still make him tragically human.

Mycroft would not have known the very instant it happened, but I think that in the course of the night or next several days he would have made it his sole priority and marshaled all the forces at his disposal, to find out who was responsible for putting his little bro in the ICU with a gunshot to the chest.  Sherlock almost died on the table, so Big M. wouldn't have rested until he learned the culprit.  Every single CCTV camera in Britain is at his command, not to mention all the other resources.  I think certainly by Christmas dinner, which is some many weeks later, judging by the advancement of Mary's baby bump,  Big M must know.  It would be negative to his reputation if a CIA trained killer at one remove from  his little brother could slip under the radar after such a blatant act.  By the Christmas scene, enough time has passed that everyone around John and Mary knows that something is not right between them.  Even Mummy knows and she hadn't even met Mary before the day.   A happily expectant father solicitous of his still-new bride does not leave her alone all day in another room in a strange house because he can't bear to be in her company.  Mycroft may not be good at squishy expressions of sentiment or know what a newlywed couple is 'supposed' to feel, but his antennae would be up for something amiss between the Watsons, if he didn't already know the why. 

To Watson's credit, he is concerned for Mary when Billy drugs his pregnant wife.  That is the doctor speaking . . he makes that nice little speech about Mary's past being her business and her future being his privilege, but there's no joy in his face when he says it.  Resignation, more like, of a guy who realizes that he is pretty well saddled to this woman he thought was his salvation for life because she's pregnant and he's a man of honor who stands by his word.  But he's not in love with her any more.  The Big Why would certainly be on Myc's mind.  Except maybe when he's in Christmas-induced agony, chased by a horse tranquilizer.

[gerry]

4 hours ago, Arcadia said:

Well, technically, Mycroft did order Sherlock to stay away from both CAM and Adler. 

I haven’t seen the episodes in a really long time but when did Mycroft order Sherlock to stay away from Adler and CAM?  He knew Sherlock was going to be interacting with Adler when they sent him on the mission to get the photos at Buckingham Palace and I don’t remember Mycroft later saying the opposite.

[Arcadia]

1 hour ago, gerry said:

I haven’t seen the episodes in a really long time but when did Mycroft order Sherlock to stay away from Adler and CAM?  He knew Sherlock was going to be interacting with Adler when they sent him on the mission to get the photos at Buckingham Palace and I don’t remember Mycroft later saying the opposite.

In Scandal, the morning after Irene drugs Sherlock, and after Mycroft gets the phone call about Bond Air:

MYCROFT: Irene Adler is no longer any concern of yours. From now on you will stay out of this.
SHERLOCK: Oh, will I?
MYCROFT: Yes, Sherlock, you will.

In HLV, after Sherlock gets home from the drug den and tells Mycroft he's going after Magnussen:

MYCROFT: Magnussen is not your business.
SHERLOCK: Oh, you mean he’s yours.
MYCROFT: You may consider him under my protection.

I guess that last one's more like a threat than an order.
 

[gerry]

Thanks I didn’t remember either scene but I still don’t think Mycroft did anything of substance to really prevent Sherlock from doing anything..  Both of those lines are like your parents telling you’re too young to drink but expect you to find a way to do anyway with your friends.  Mycroft probably even knew Sherlock wouldn’t listen to him because when does he ever?

[Janyss]

6 hours ago, J.P. said:

Okay, is it possible that Mycroft didn't get to know who shot Sherlock? The only 3 people knowing this wer CAM, Sherlock and John, and I bet Mary was good enough to avoid Big Bro's cameras.

As for Mark in the role - well, he was able to play the most despicable character in London Spy and still make him tragically human.

Agree on both points. Remember that Sherlock was very close to Mary and CAM in the room of the shooting, and until the last minute he believed the woman assaulting at CAM was lady Smallwood. So we an assume Mary could make herself kind of invisible to the surveillance cameras.

About the way MG portrays Mycroft in HLV, TAB and all the épisodes of S4...well, you viewer go through all emotions: you hate him for the way he talks to Sherlock, for the way he acts towards people trying to help, and the very minute after you want to hug him -I guess J.P. will tell me to "get in line" at this point :)- when Sherlock shouts back at him or when he doesn't know how to deal with baby brother anymore (oh, the last scene in the plane whne he collects the pieces of the list -cry-).

And, well, about CAM, I'd say Mycroft only reminds Sherlock of the fact that fighting with the tycoon means going on a field in which good and evil are not that clearly defined. Again a highlight to the main gap between the two brothers.

[Boton]

12 hours ago, gerry said:

Thanks I didn’t remember either scene but I still don’t think Mycroft did anything of substance to really prevent Sherlock from doing anything..  Both of those lines are like your parents telling you’re too young to drink but expect you to find a way to do anyway with your friends.  Mycroft probably even knew Sherlock wouldn’t listen to him because when does he ever?

I agree.  I'd go so far as to say that, at least with CAM, Mycroft probably wanted Sherlock to get involved, because he knew Sherlock could do things outside the law that Mycroft himself could not. I think Mycroft relies pretty heavily on "freelancers" (including Mary, although I know he said in TST that they had stopped using freelance help). He has become adept at keeping his own hands clean, maybe justifiably.  If he is seen as analogous with the British Government, then any actions he takes might implicate the PM or the entire government.  However, he can disavow a freelancer, and, in the case of his brother, he may just trust Sherlock enough to think that Sherlock can get the job done. 

Regarding the Mary discussion above, I haven't read it all, but there are some very interesting points about why he continues to trust her.  I think I'm leaning toward the idea that there were plot lines that were scrapped for a hurried redemption arc in preparation for bringing the show to a halt or at least to a long pause.

[Arcadia]

21 hours ago, Janyss said:

Very stimulative questions about Mycroft, how and why he looks after Sherlock's life...I didn't read it all, so sorry if I repeat Something or if I am irrelevant...

I'd say Sherlock always ranks first in Mycroft's worrying. Big brother is interested in other people only if they can help him about Sherlock, and I don't think he develops specific feelings or interests for John, Mary...

I've sometimes wondered whether Mycroft worries about Sherlock because he's afraid harm will come to him ("your loss would break my heart") or whether it's because he's afraid Sherlock will turn to the dark side ("Did it never occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?"). Especially after series 4, I'm led to wonder if he was afraid Sherlock might become like Eurus -- except I don't believe the writers had Eurus in mind at all when they first came up with the rivalry between the brothers. But it could make sense.

20 hours ago, Hikari said:

I can take issue with many of the 'updates' which Mofftiss opted to make, but updated Mycroft was a big bonus for me.  That plus making the 'little rat-faced' Inspector Lestrade into Rupert Graves!

Amen!  

20 hours ago, J.P. said:

Okay, is it possible that Mycroft didn't get to know who shot Sherlock? The only 3 people knowing this were CAM, Sherlock and John, and I bet Mary was good enough to avoid Big Bro's cameras.

Sure, it's possible, but is it likely? Mycroft knows everything! And even Lestrade knows  ... or at least knows that Mary had a past, because Sherlock blurted it out to him shortly before John blurted out that Sherlock was the one who killed CAM.  I think even Lestrade could put two and two together at that point.

Still, Mycroft not knowing is probably the simplest explanation .... maybe? I can't believe he wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to find out, if he didn't know. That's why the best explanation for me is that he simply bought Sherlock's explanation that she wasn't a threat. Or at least, honored Sherlock's wish that Mary suffer no consequences for her actions. Maybe that's why Sherlock had very few favors left in T6T.

 

20 hours ago, Hikari said:

To Watson's credit, he is concerned for Mary when Billy drugs his pregnant wife.  That is the doctor speaking . . he makes that nice little speech about Mary's past being her business and her future being his privilege, but there's no joy in his face when he says it.  Resignation, more like, of a guy who realizes that he is pretty well saddled to this woman he thought was his salvation for life because she's pregnant and he's a man of honor who stands by his word.  But he's not in love with her any more.

Oh, here I have to disagree ... I think John accepts Mary back into his life for the same reason he accepted Sherlock back into his life ... he simply loves them. Against all reason or rhyme, in spite of the horrendous hurt they've both caused him ... he loves them, and thinks he's better off with them than without them. (The cynic in me at this point goes "No wonder John needs a psychiatrist..." )

[Carol the Dabbler]

With friends like that, who needs enemies, eh?

An alternative reason for why Mycroft seems to hold no grudge against Mary:  What if Sherlock told Mycroft that she was the one who shot him, but claimed that it was largely his own fault -- "She warned me not to take another step or she'd shoot -- but I was still seeing her as John's sweet little wife, so I didn't take her seriously."  I think Mycroft would find that perfectly logical.  (And I think that's more or less the way I interpret Sherlock's attitude toward her.)

[Hikari]

17 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

I've sometimes wondered whether Mycroft worries about Sherlock because he's afraid harm will come to him ("your loss would break my heart") or whether it's because he's afraid Sherlock will turn to the dark side ("Did it never occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?"). Especially after series 4, I'm led to wonder if he was afraid Sherlock might become like Eurus -- except I don't believe the writers had Eurus in mind at all when they first came up with the rivalry between the brothers. But it could make sense.

Amen!  

Sure, it's possible, but is it likely? Mycroft knows everything! And even Lestrade knows  ... or at least knows that Mary had a past, because Sherlock blurted it out to him shortly before John blurted out that Sherlock was the one who killed CAM.  I think even Lestrade could put two and two together at that point.

Still, Mycroft not knowing is probably the simplest explanation .... maybe? I can't believe he wouldn't have moved heaven and earth to find out, if he didn't know. That's why the best explanation for me is that he simply bought Sherlock's explanation that she wasn't a threat. Or at least, honored Sherlock's wish that Mary suffer no consequences for her actions. Maybe that's why Sherlock had very few favors left in T6T.

 

Oh, here I have to disagree ... I think John accepts Mary back into his life for the same reason he accepted Sherlock back into his life ... he simply loves them. Against all reason or rhyme, in spite of the horrendous hurt they've both caused him ... he loves them, and thinks he's better off with them than without them. (The cynic in me at this point goes "No wonder John needs a psychiatrist..." )

I think John still cares about Mary at that point, but he's past the first flush of idealistic romantic love for her.  He knows what she's capable of, and how very wrong he was about her. 

She was not, after all, the sweet nurse/receptionist he met at work, given that it seems probable in hindsight that Mary purposely cultivated Janine as a contact and faked a best friendship relationship with her that led to her being the maid of honor at the wedding. (Unbeknownst to each other, Mary and Sherlock were both using Janine for precisely the same reason--insider access to CAM)--because it can't be a complete accident that out of all the girls in London, Mary's best gal pal *just happens to be* CAM's personal assistant.  Somebody has suggested the intriguing theory that Janine was a mole for CAM, and it was actually she who ingratiated herself with Mary and then Sherlock, not the other way 'round.  I actually like this theory very much.  It sounds like something CAM would do.  He is as brilliant, perhaps more so, than Sherlock Holmes, and both men are in the game of information-gathering, just from opposite sides.  Also, Janine seemed like kind of a man-crazy dumb bunny at first, but I think we saw the real J. in the hospital, confronting SH about his many lies.  She was cool and collected . . very rational.  If she were a man-crazy dumb bunny for real she'd have been a lot more unhinged at SH's betrayal. 

What are the chances, really, that the woman calling herself Mary Morstan, CIA-trained wet ops specialist on the run from her past and inhabiting an entirely constructed identity would, entirely by coincidence, wind up working in the same small clinic as John Watson, well-known compatriot and confidante of Sherlock Holmes, the tragically deceased consulting detective?   The longer one spends with Sherlock Holmes, the less tends to believe in coincidences.

All couples weather storms and learn ugly truths about each other that morphs the first blush of infatuation and Eros into something that's been tested and matured.  The passage of time alone will do that, and shared experiences that are positive as well as negative.  But for the Watsons, this process was massively accelerated.  By the Christmas scene, they've only been a couple for maybe a year?  Sherlock was absent for two years, but in Watson's truncated proposal, he said "I know it hasn't been long".  Maybe he'd only known her for six months.  He wouldn't have been ready for a new relationship after SH's 'death' for a good while.  So perhaps a little more than a year after they met, John's just learned one of the more devastating pieces of information about his beloved that anyone could dream up, and he's processing that along with the angst about imminently becoming a family.  I suppose that speech he makes marks the moment that he has decided to put the past behind them and forgive her . .  but his love for her will be forever changed from what it was by what she has done.  He is genuinely torn up when she dies . .  but how much of that grief is mourning for the death of the love and life he *thought* he was going to have with her--and the knowledge that his daughter has been deprived of her mother?  It's interesting that Moffat decided to introduce a baby into this.  I can't help wondering--if there was no Rosie in the picture, if Mary had not been pregnant when he discovered the truth about her, would he have stayed married?  The baby ups the stakes.  If John had been free to leave, would he have? 

 

[Arcadia]

Those are all good points, but I think John was free to leave at any time. And did for a while, apparently. And his speech to Mary wasn't about his obligations to their unborn child, but about her past being none of his business. (Not sure I agree with you there, John, but hey.) And I don't think his flirtation with Elizabeth had anything to do with how he felt about Mary; it was about him, the way he is.

But that's all me and my gauzy romanticism, I think the scripts are (deliberately) porous enough to filter a variety of interpretations. I do agree, though, that love turned out not to be all the hazy warm glow that John Watson, romantic that he is, may have thought it was going to be. It's much more complicated than that, and I like that this little heroic fantasy adventure show of Moftiss' took at crack at showing that. For me, at least, that's one of the things that elevates it above most television; it's complicated!