Mary Morstan

[T.o.b.y]

"We didn’t want to introduce [Mary Watson] and then just shoot her. It’s awful when you do that. We wanted to introduce her and against everybody’s expectations successfully make her part of the team. Not make you resent her, not make you think she’s an interruption or the nagging wife—actually make you think, she’s really cool, I like her, it’s almost better with the three of them. And then having got her there, [we had to] take her away again. Also, this is not an element that’s in the original story but it is in our version: it is her legacy that they then live, it’s her saying, this is who you have to be, you have to go and consciously be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Sherlock Holmes will now wear the silly hat because Mary liked it. It just felt right. You’re always aware that people worry, and I can absolutely see why, about what they call “fridging,” which is where a female character serves no other function than to motivate the male characters. But Mary served many, many more functions than that within our show. She changed and illuminated the path of the show. So I felt we were safe from that. Although we never will be safe from that accusation since they call it fridging even when it doesn’t abide by those rules! You can’t have a rule that says you can’t kill female characters. You just can’t, that’s madness. But you should have a rule that says the death of a female character cannot simply be a device. It has to be an event in its own right. It has to be something important and personal."

— Steven Moffat on Mary’s death in series 4

 

Ooh boy. I saw this because I followed a link J.P. posted in another thread, then followed another link from there, etc etc. It's interesting, provided the quote is genuine, which I think it is because I read an abbreviated version of if elsewhere, too.

 

Do you all think Moffat achieved what he says here he wanted with Mary?

 

Because frankly, I don't. First of all, plenty of fans did resent her. The writers (and many other fans) tend to brush those off as just disappointed John / Sherlock shippers, but my impression is there's a lot more to it than that. I for one, even though I like her in many scenes and think Ms Abbington did a fantastic job with the role, resent her because she overshadows Sherlock even more than Mycroft does and she is so overpowered that it doesn't really make sense to have her as a secondary character and two men whose skill set, even combined, is inferior to hers, as the heroes. She would work quite well as a protagonist in an action / spy / agent series called "The AGRA files", but as support on Sherlock? She's just out of place. She is a huge interruption and she changes the whole character, tone and scale of the show in a way that finally leads to Eurus and her crazy murder maze.

 

And I didn't like it better with the three of them. I liked it better with just the two of them and Mrs Hudson, Molly and Lestrade in the back seat and couldn't wait for things to go back there.

 

Because Mary didn't work in the way that they thought she would and because she wasn't in fact universally popular, she also does not work well as the patron saint of Baker St, imo. I've read many times that people would have preferred the ending without her narration and I see why.

 

As for her death scene, I don't care whether her main function is to provide motivation for Sherlock and John or not, the show is called Sherlock, it's about Sherlock and all other characters exist mainly in relation to him regardless of their gender, that's fine with me. I am not complaining about "fridging", all I have to complain about with Mary's death is that it is by far the most cheesy, chliché-riddled scene of an otherwise way more sophisticated show and doesn't have one tenth the emotional impact that by rights it should have. It just made me cringe.

 

I guess they wanted to be "feminist" with Mary, but honestly, the fact that she's playing second fiddle to the "Baker Street Boys" when she herself is from a whole other league does not exactly send a feminist message... And I still argue that in the end, she died because they thought they knew better than her.

[bedelia1984]

 

....

 

Do you all think Moffat achieved what he says here he wanted with Mary?

 

Because frankly, I don't. First of all, plenty of fans did resent her. The writers (and many other fans) tend to brush those off as just disappointed John / Sherlock shippers, but my impression is there's a lot more to it than that. I for one, even though I like her in many scenes and think Ms Abbington did a fantastic job with the role, resent her because she overshadows Sherlock even more than Mycroft does and she is so overpowered that it doesn't really make sense to have her as a secondary character and two men whose skill set, even combined, is inferior to hers, as the heroes. She would work quite well as a protagonist in an action / spy / agent series called "The AGRA files", but as support on Sherlock? She's just out of place. She is a huge interruption and she changes the whole character, tone and scale of the show in a way that finally leads to Eurus and her crazy murder maze.

 

And I didn't like it better with the three of them. I liked it better with just the two of them and Mrs Hudson, Molly and Lestrade in the back seat and couldn't wait for things to go back there.

 

Because Mary didn't work in the way that they thought she would and because she wasn't in fact universally popular, she also does not work well as the patron saint of Baker St, imo. I've read many times that people would have preferred the ending without her narration and I see why.

 

...

 

 

Totally agree with pretty much all of what you say here T.o.b.y

 

I think one of the things Moffat didn't realise was how transparent their efforts to make Mary 'part of the team' were, (to the extent that it started to grate on the wider audience, not just Johnlock fans) and how much they over-stretched with the AGRA side of things. It often surprises me about the writers, how they don't seem conscious of what the best things about what they had created were- the original combination of characters was note-perfect, and they could certainly have added Mary to the mix, but they unbalanced things when they made her role so huge in T6T.

 

And I also thought the death scene was pretty bad. As an extra, I don't think they did too well with what Mary meant to John, in the whole. John has a great character moment in TLD, where we revisit his feelings for Mary after he's been texting E, but so much of the Mary storyline has him playing the part (once again) of the betrayed and deceived partner, and has him mired in a lingering dissatisfaction, when it would have been nice to see Martin Freeman stretched a bit more, and I would really have liked to see John happy for a bit longer, and a bit less reactive, as we had already had him deal with Sherlock's deception in TEH. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

... even though I like her in many scenes and think Ms Abbington did a fantastic job with the role, resent her because she overshadows Sherlock even more than Mycroft does and she is so overpowered that it doesn't really make sense to have her as a secondary character and two men whose skill set, even combined, is inferior to hers, as the heroes. She would work quite well as a protagonist in an action / spy / agent series called "The AGRA files", but as support on Sherlock? She's just out of place.

 

You know, that's an excellent point.  It was like watching a crossover episode, where they had brought in the lead character from another show (albeit a show that I had never seen).  That sort of thing is bound to disorient the audience, which is one thing I feel it's a huge mistake to do.  Don't distract 'em, don't confuse 'em.  It ruins their suspension of disbelief, and there goes your show.

 

Because Mary didn't work in the way that they thought she would and because she wasn't in fact universally popular, she also does not work well as the patron saint of Baker St, imo. I've read many times that people would have preferred the ending without her narration and I see why.

 

 Well, I like most of what she said well enough, but she wasn't necessarily the one to be saying it.  On the other hand, who else could have said it?  Some anonymous narrator?  Bleh.  If she gives the impression that she made them what they are, that's mostly nonsense, of course.  But I take most of that as mere affection, which is a perfectly natural attitude for her to have.  Maybe we could think of her as Mary of Baker Street, Sherlock and John's patron saint.

 

And I still argue that in the end, she died because they thought they knew better than her.

 

Why argue that?  That's like arguing that the sun comes up in the east.  Even Sherlock admitted it, at least to Mrs. Hudson ("If you ever think I’m becoming a bit full of myself, cocky or over-confident would you just say the word ‘Norbury’ to me, would you?").

 

It often surprises me about the writers, how they don't seem conscious of what the best things about what they had created were- the original combination of characters was note-perfect, and they could certainly have added Mary to the mix, but they unbalanced things when they made her role so huge in T6T.

 

Her role in T6T just about had to be large, because of what they'd made of her in HLV.  Leave out HLV, and she could have stayed around a lot longer and been a good secondary character.

[gerry]

Well, I like most of what she said well enough, but she wasn't necessarily the one to be saying it. On the other hand, who else could have said it? Some anonymous narrator? Bleh.

Couldn't Mrs. Hudson? Was a narrator even necessary?

[J.P.]

I think a narrator was needed for this kind of ending, because it ends the perspective from a show you are participating in (at least you should) into a kind of fairytale "they lived happily ever after and had many adventures - you know where to find the stories" - building a bridge between this show and canon.

Mr Hudson was also my first thought on the question - I think it could work, but maybe they wanted someone who's not so much a part of the canon. Maybe even Molly could do, if Moftiss didn't treat her so badly in TFP.

[Van Buren Supernova]

Actually I'd vote for no narrator.

With music it could tell much more stories in better way.

I have just seen some great work on that in other series, using music only as narration but visually telling so much stories with the characters and their situations. Done right, it's much more effective and powerful. The one I saw managed to touch every nerves.

 

And, aren't we supposed to be smart audience anyway?

Imho, we don't need that exposition.

[T.o.b.y]

I would have liked John to narrate the ending. He would have used very different words, of course, but because he is the original narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories and we were introduced to the series from his perspective, I think it would have worked very well.

 

Mary frequently makes me feel angry, but often angry on her behalf. Her presence did to a degree ruin my favorite show for me (as far as Sherlock can be ruined in my eyes, which is not very much; I still bloody love the whole series and would rather watch my least favorite episodes of it than most other things), but what really makes me mad at times is how her character is in and of itself pretty awesome and nobody really did her justice.

 

I wish someone would have thought of her independently of Sherlock and given Amanda Abbington the lead role in a separate series about a government agent gone rogue, working "free-lance" as part of a team, being the sole survivor (or so she thinks) of a mission gone wrong, trying to begin a new life as a nurse, marrying a very decent but old-fashioned army doctor with PTSD who doesn't know her past and can't accept her full identity, becoming a mother fairly late in life and then facing the choice of staying with her family and putting them in danger from the ghosts of her past or running off and accepting that she just can't ever live a normal life.

 

It could have been an amazing, award-winning show and I would have probably liked it. But it would have been nothing like Sherlock, much grimmer, more realistic, less fun and adventure.

 

Mary deserves her own universe and she would need it to be properly recognized. If you want to be "feminist", it's not enough to just toss a few kick-ass gals into your work and give yourself a pat on the back. I was quite happy with and felt represented enough by Molly, Mrs Hudson and, yes, Sally Donovan too. I thought they were doing just fine on the girl front before.

[bedelia1984]

 

It often surprises me about the writers, how they don't seem conscious of what the best things about what they had created were- the original combination of characters was note-perfect, and they could certainly have added Mary to the mix, but they unbalanced things when they made her role so huge in T6T.

 

Her role in T6T just about had to be large, because of what they'd made of her in HLV.  Leave out HLV, and she could have stayed around a lot longer and been a good secondary character.

 

 

I can't help feeling like it made as much sense if not more, for Mary to just go on the run and not be seen again, or be seen very little. It would have been very hard on John, but it wouldn't be totally unexpected given the obvious cracks in their marriage. In my perfect version of that story, John suspects Sherlock or Mycroft in helping her disappear and that creates the tension between Sherlock and John in TLD. I suppose I'm just disappointed that they went the most obvious route with the whole thing in killing her off as they did. They could have at least left it ambiguous whether she was truly dead or not.

 

For me, Mary as narrator was a little bit too much, in the same way as her 'managing' Sherlock and John was a bit too much- I don't really like the idea of her as the one who 'knows best' for the boys- in a way it makes her too 'perfect' and less human, too idealised and not in keeping with the established flaws in her character. It reminds me a bit of the book 'Gone Girl' where the main character talks about being the 'cool girl'- the one who magically suits, with no effort, whatever the guys would most like her to be.

[J.P.]

Well, apparently Mofftiss' female characters tend to go out of control. :P Or maybe that's just their actresses.

Yes, Mary could have had a whole series for her own. Or at least a full time movie.

[J.P.]

 

I would have liked John to narrate the ending. He would have used very different words, of course, but because he is the original narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories and we were introduced to the series from his perspective, I think it would have worked very well.

But then you would stay in the shows reality, and I think they wanted us to leave it.

[Arcadia]

 

"We didn’t want to introduce [Mary Watson] and then just shoot her. It’s awful when you do that. We wanted to introduce her and against everybody’s expectations successfully make her part of the team. Not make you resent her, not make you think she’s an interruption or the nagging wife—actually make you think, she’s really cool, I like her, it’s almost better with the three of them. And then having got her there, [we had to] take her away again. Also, this is not an element that’s in the original story but it is in our version: it is her legacy that they then live, it’s her saying, this is who you have to be, you have to go and consciously be Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Sherlock Holmes will now wear the silly hat because Mary liked it. It just felt right. You’re always aware that people worry, and I can absolutely see why, about what they call “fridging,” which is where a female character serves no other function than to motivate the male characters. But Mary served many, many more functions than that within our show. She changed and illuminated the path of the show. So I felt we were safe from that. Although we never will be safe from that accusation since they call it fridging even when it doesn’t abide by those rules! You can’t have a rule that says you can’t kill female characters. You just can’t, that’s madness. But you should have a rule that says the death of a female character cannot simply be a device. It has to be an event in its own right. It has to be something important and personal."

— Steven Moffat on Mary’s death in series 4

 

Ooh boy. I saw this because I followed a link J.P. posted in another thread, then followed another link from there, etc etc. It's interesting, provided the quote is genuine, which I think it is because I read an abbreviated version of if elsewhere, too.

 

Do you all think Moffat achieved what he says here he wanted with Mary?

 

Heck no. I feel like they did exactly what they said they "couldn't" do ... they introduced her, then just shot her. I would have liked it a lot better if they'd just kept her around in the background for a long while and leaked little details about her here and there, like they do with Sherlock. I didn't feel like she interfered with the John/Sherlock dynamic; at least, not in a way that mattered. So John didn't live at Baker Street anymore; big deal. The boys were still together in most of T6T. They still quibbled, and laughed together (well, John giggled, and Sherlock sounded amused ) and had each other's backs, and they even managed a cute scene of Sherlock interacting, as only he could, with the baby, and getting a rattle in his face for his pains.

 

And because they took her away so quickly, I don't see how "the legend" can possibly be her legacy. She wasn't around long enough to be any kind of influence, imo.

 

I thought her background as an assassin was ridiculous, and what I think would have "honored" her would have been if they had made an attempt to make her story more plausible. Either that, or if she had turned out to be more traditionally heroic. As it is, given how they did portray her past, and given what happened to CAM, and given his statement above; I am left with the very distasteful impression that Moffat thinks assassination is an honorable pastime. Ugh.

 

I do agree with one thing Moffat said ... he's going to get accused of misogyny no matter what he does, because that's what people do. His mistake, imo, was trying too hard to prove them wrong.

 

 

And I also thought the death scene was pretty bad. As an extra, I don't think they did too well with what Mary meant to John, in the whole. John has a great character moment in TLD, where we revisit his feelings for Mary after he's been texting E, but so much of the Mary storyline has him playing the part (once again) of the betrayed and deceived partner, and has him mired in a lingering dissatisfaction, when it would have been nice to see Martin Freeman stretched a bit more, and I would really have liked to see John happy for a bit longer, and a bit less reactive, as we had already had him deal with Sherlock's deception in TEH. 

 

That's a really good point, I hadn't really thought of that ... and look at how many people seem to think the marriage was in trouble. I don't, but I would like to have seen John have a longer period of contentment. Now THAT would have honored Mary, if we had been allowed to see all the positive effects she had on John's life. But they were in too much of a rush to kill her off.

 

 

[Mary's] role in T6T just about had to be large, because of what they'd made of her in HLV.  Leave out HLV, and she could have stayed around a lot longer and been a good secondary character.

 

I think that's true even with HLV, and in fact that's sort of what I expected them to do with her. I think the only reason she needed a large role in T6T was because they were trying to make her death "matter." Which it does, imo, but not in the way Moffat appears to have wanted.

[Arcadia]

Found this on one of my forays into Tumblr (really, it's only one site, I don't dare tread further afield ) and I have no idea if all the little linky thingies are going to work ... but I thought this was an interesting discussion about Mary, which I more or less agree with. So here we go...

• •  

• mybrainrots:

  vulgarweed:

  thedragonaunt:

  mary-molly-sarah-and-ellie:

  ivyblossom:

  If Mary had had a plan to shoot Sherlock, or felt like he was in the way or some sort of problem in her life, you’d think she would have a) shot him sooner, b ) arranged it deliberately and more tidily, and c) pulled the trigger in the end without a warning. 

  I don’t think Mary shoots Sherlock because it’s part of her grand plan. She shoots him because he’s found her when she meant for him to keep John occupied and out of her way. She tells him not to come any closer or she’ll kill him, and instead of taking that threat seriously, Sherlock steps closer to her. 

  Prior to that moment, it doesn’t seem like Sherlock is any kind of problem to Mary. She didn’t recognize him when she first met him, so presumably he wasn’t really on her radar, other than as stories John has told her. She uses Sherlock to get John out of her hair, and it seems that she needed that as much as John did. I think she does genuinely like Sherlock.

  Sherlock overestimates his ability to deduce people, and underestimates what Mary is capable of.

  Mary does what she feels she must, no matter who she ends up shooting. Even when it’s a friend.

  ^^^^^This!

  Totally.

  Yup. And I do think she sincerely regretted it and tried to do better - when she did the runner in T6T she was trying to lead danger AWAY from her family, which I think in her mind definitely included Sherlock at that point. The tragedy of that episode was that his attempts to protect her wound up leading indirectly to her death - she’d probably be still alive if they’d just let her go and take care of business in her own way.

  Totally agreed. Mary even says she doesn’t want John and Sherlock “hanging off her gun arm” in the letter she writes John when she leaves. I think she was trying to do better and not have someone she cared about accidentally fall into the line of fire again. Where she failed both times was in trusting her family with the truth until it was too late. Sort of a foreshadowing theme, as we find out later that Mycroft has made that same mistake with Eurus…

  (via solrosan)

  Source: ivyblossom

[Arcadia]

I'll be,  it worked!

I think that second to last sentence is supposed to read "Where she failed both times was in NOT trusting her family with the truth until it was too late." (Otherwise it makes neither grammatical nor logical sense....) And I like that thinking ... that her "failure" was in taking too long to trust, and being too determined to handle everything by herself ... which is the kind of "failure" often attributed to men. No idea if that's supposed to mean anything, I just find it an interesting thought.

 

[T.o.b.y]

I don't even see it as failure. I think Sherlock and John should have let Mary handle things her way, she would probably have stayed alive. 

Of course it was wrong to marry John without telling him at least something about her past and her true identity but his reaction when he did find out kind of proves that he wouldn't have handled that information too well in any case. 

I do not feel particularly fond of Mary but I don't like how the guys treat her, either in His Last Vow or The Six Thatchers. It's understandable that they don't trust her word but I think they should have had more faith in her abilities after what they had seen of her. 

[Hikari]

12 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

I don't even see it as failure. I think Sherlock and John should have let Mary handle things her way, she would probably have stayed alive. 

Of course it was wrong to marry John without telling him at least something about her past and her true identity but his reaction when he did find out kind of proves that he wouldn't have handled that information too well in any case. 

I do not feel particularly fond of Mary but I don't like how the guys treat her, either in His Last Vow or The Six Thatchers. It's understandable that they don't trust her word but I think they should have had more faith in her abilities after what they had seen of her. 

I repost some of my thoughts about Mary that were originally over on the ASiB thread . . we got a bit off-topic over there.

Mofftiss made a real hash of Mary after a charming introduction of her in TEH.  "His Final Vow" won the Emmy for Best Screenplay that year,  which was unfortunate, because it only lent credence to the notion that what Moffat did to Mary in that episode was A Good Idea.  A clue: No.

What really struck me, which I mention in my comment below is, how empty the lip service is to John's supposed heart-touching forgiveness of her during the Christmas scene of HLV.  He throws the AGRA drive in the fire and tells her her past is a closed book.  Then, with the very next episode (after the interlude of TAB), we're right back with AGRA as a flashback--John didn't want to know about her activities in those days but Moffat was determined to give them to us anyway--and John and Mary are obviously estranged.  Where is the love he professed to still have for her?  With the birth of their daughter they should be happier, but John acts like he hates her, pretty much.  (cf. real-life events bleeding into work, possibly.)

***************

Mary has a starring role in 'The Sign of Four'--the second Holmes-Watson story, and after that, she is barely mentioned or referenced at all, since her presence was by definition a hindrance to the 'Lads Bashing About Having Adventures', which was the entire reason the stories existed.  Despite Mary's notable absence from the stories, coupled with vague references to Watson having at least one, possibly two, other wives besides her, a sort of Cult of Mary has sprung up amongst Sherlockians, who have filled in the very spotty, vague references to John's marriage to her into an epic love story for the ages.  In head-cannon, at least, Mary Morstan was the love of John Watson's life and no other woman he met, even the one he married after she died, could hold a candle to her.  Mary is a popular pastiche subject, as writers attempt to fill in some of what they imagine the Watsons' happy domestic life would have been like.  All that Conan Doyle really gives us is that they got married, some time later (undefined), she died, and 8 years after resuming Baker Street, Watson married again.  It is tradition to say that John lost Mary sometime during the period when he also thought Sherlock Holmes was dead, just to make him all the more pitiful.  The Watsons' marriage chronologically speaking could not have lasted more than 5 years and was probably somewhat less

For all Conan Doyle intended, the Watsons could have had the rather distant, perfunctory, estranged union depicted in T6T.  Even briefer that the one Conan Doyle gave us.  It is probably my romanticized notions of Canon Watson's Eternal Flame of Love for Mary that made the TV version feel so strained and loveless, but not altogether.  After crafting the touching scene of John's Christmas Forgiveness of Mary in HLV--''The problems of your past are your business; the problems of your future are my privilege"--John's actual forgiveness toward his wife at the top of the next episode seems quite non-existent.  The anger and estrangement are palpable, and not to be confused merely with the postpartum exhaustion of two new parents.  The energy of the final season was very bad from the get-go . . which makes John's subsequent, supposedly grief-fueled breakdown and vicious kicking of Sherlock over the next 2 episodes ring very hollow.  John's scripted lines and actions were saying one thing, but the subtext of his demeanor was saying something more like, 'I'm relieved that b**** is gone."  It felt so . . . wrong, and I was very uncomfortable with that entire season.

Of course, then we found out after the series had aired that whatever John and Mary were supposed to be going through or feeling toward each other, Martin and Amanda had severed their relationship of 16 years right before cameras rolled on the new season.  I think it put a bad ju-ju over the entire thing, really.  Now it's come to light that *he* was the one who ended it, and she cried every day for at least six months.  No wonder Mary looked so haggard and sad . . it worked for the character, but then came the irony of having to play consoling Ghost Mary to a grieving John . . when her real-life ex-partner wasn't feeling anything like grief where she was concerned.  So kudos to Amanda Abbington, but what a nasty way for both our couples, the real and the fictional to end what should have been a triumphant run on the show.

 

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[Arcadia]

23 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

I don't even see it as failure. I think Sherlock and John should have let Mary handle things her way, she would probably have stayed alive. 

Oh, I agree with that last part, and I think that's one of the main points of T6T ... if the boys hadn't been so determined to protect her, she would have survived. I think a significant point was when Ajay said something like "I'm a professional, the police are amateurs" ... implying that maybe Mary thinks the same way.

Quote

 

Of course it was wrong to marry John without telling him at least something about her past and her true identity but his reaction when he did find out kind of proves that he wouldn't have handled that information too well in any case. 

I do not feel particularly fond of Mary but I don't like how the guys treat her, either in His Last Vow or The Six Thatchers. It's understandable that they don't trust her word but I think they should have had more faith in her abilities after what they had seen of her.

 

And that's the "failure" part; I do think she had an obligation to be truthful with the man she wanted to marry. The fact that John wouldn't have taken it well (she assumed) is no excuse for not telling him, imo ... if you choose assassination as your career, you have to live with the consequences, it seems to me. Even if it means driving people away.

Instead, she did the same thing to the boys that they did to her ... assumed they couldn't handle the situation. No calm discussion of the alternatives and how to carry on during her absence; nope, just assumes she's the only one who knows anything and disappears. It's high-handed. Rather like Sherlock, now that I think of it. At least Mary actually left a note.  

At any rate, it seems to me one of the themes of the whole show is that John is right; friends protect people. People need people. A point which Sherlock learns but Mary never does ... maybe? Hard to tell about Mary, she wasn't around long enough for us to find out much about what she thought.

[Arcadia]

15 hours ago, Hikari said:

What really struck me, which I mention in my comment below is, how empty the lip service is to John's supposed heart-touching forgiveness of her during the Christmas scene of HLV.  He throws the AGRA drive in the fire and tells her her past is a closed book.  Then, with the very next episode (after the interlude of TAB), we're right back with AGRA as a flashback--John didn't want to know about her activities in those days but Moffat was determined to give them to us anyway--and John and Mary are obviously estranged.  Where is the love he professed to still have for her?  With the birth of their daughter they should be happier, but John acts like he hates her, pretty much.  (cf. real-life events bleeding into work, possibly.)

***************

For all Conan Doyle intended, the Watsons could have had the rather distant, perfunctory, estranged union depicted in T6T.  Even briefer that the one Conan Doyle gave us.  It is probably my romanticized notions of Canon Watson's Eternal Flame of Love for Mary that made the TV version feel so strained and loveless, but not altogether.  After crafting the touching scene of John's Christmas Forgiveness of Mary in HLV--''The problems of your past are your business; the problems of your future are my privilege"--John's actual forgiveness toward his wife at the top of the next episode seems quite non-existent.  The anger and estrangement are palpable, and not to be confused merely with the postpartum exhaustion of two new parents.  The energy of the final season was very bad from the get-go . . which makes John's subsequent, supposedly grief-fueled breakdown and vicious kicking of Sherlock over the next 2 episodes ring very hollow.  John's scripted lines and actions were saying one thing, but the subtext of his demeanor was saying something more like, 'I'm relieved that b**** is gone."  It felt so . . . wrong, and I was very uncomfortable with that entire season.

Interesting. I agree that the energy of S4 was off (except in episode 2) but I felt it from the whole cast. I get the vibe they knew it was the last hurrah before they even started filming. 

I don't sense any hatred towards Mary from John, though. Anger's always just bubbling under John's surface; the difference in S4 is, when it erupts, it's no longer played for laughs. I think that's a nice twist to slip the audience, actually. "You think John's cute when he's angry? Well, think again, audience dear." But hatred? Nah. Boredom, maybe. Selfishness. But not hate. Even when he's kicking Sherlock, I don't sense hate. Just rage and a deep (and rather justified) sense of betrayal. Although that sense of betrayal can be rather closely linked to hate, I suppose.

Estrangement? Hmm. In the way I understand the word, I don't really see that either. I see a marriage under stress, but I don't get the sense they're not committed to it and each other. John's interest in Eurus didn't seem particularly intense, just ... selfish. Not a word we normally associate with John, I agree. Hence his own disappointment in himself, I would say.

It's true that S4 went to a lot of trouble to represent John as NOT being the paragon of virtue he seemed to be in S1. His character goes on a journey throughout the series too, just in the wrong direction. His softening influence rubs off on Sherlock, but Sherlock's razor sharp edges do a lot of damage to John. Not what most fans would have chosen for John's character, I suspect, but it's an interesting choice artistically speaking.

[Carol the Dabbler]

12 hours ago, Arcadia said:

It's true that S4 went to a lot of trouble to represent John as NOT being the paragon of virtue he seemed to be in S1. His character goes on a journey throughout the series too, just in the wrong direction. His softening influence rubs off on Sherlock, but Sherlock's razor sharp edges do a lot of damage to John. Not what most fans would have chosen for John's character, I suspect, but it's an interesting choice artistically speaking.

Well then, phooey on artistry, I say! 

 

[Arcadia]

Hey! 

Seriously, it's not a choice I would have made, but then I'm not a fan of gritty and realistic ... I prefer my heroes to remain paragons of virtue. But since that's considered trite these days, I've had to adapt. And yes, that's sarcasm.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

I think one thing that attracted me to the show in the first place was that it wasn't gritty and realistic.  Sherlock used to be a show that I could relax and enjoy.  Series 4, not so much, and likewise HLV.

[Arcadia]

Yep. Although I think we're both using the definition of "realistic" rather loosely.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm using "realistic" here in the pejorative sense.  As in, if I wanted to see that kinda stuff, I'd watch the news. I don't consider it entertaining.

[Arcadia]

Same here. See enough realism going on around me every day, rather get away from it than repeat it.

[Hikari]

On ‎4‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 8:43 AM, Arcadia said:

I don't sense any hatred towards Mary from John, though. Anger's always just bubbling under John's surface; the difference in S4 is, when it erupts, it's no longer played for laughs. I think that's a nice twist to slip the audience, actually. "You think John's cute when he's angry? Well, think again, audience dear." But hatred? Nah. Boredom, maybe. Selfishness. But not hate. Even when he's kicking Sherlock, I don't sense hate. Just rage and a deep (and rather justified) sense of betrayal. Although that sense of betrayal can be rather closely linked to hate, I suppose.

Perhaps 'hate' is too strong a word to use for a 'constant' emotion--John's palette of emotions is rather more complex than that--but maybe you'd agree that at least some of the time, 'hate' is apt, if fleeting. Can rage & betrayal co-exist without hate, at least in doses?  As the entire genre of psychological fiction & the majority of real-life murders too, or the genre of 'stalker killer' fiction wouldn't exist--love and hate are separated by a fine line sometimes.  People are far more likely to hate someone they once loved deeply, after a profound sense of betrayal, then they are apt to have those very strong feelings of animosity toward a complete stranger or someone they barely know.  A betrayal by a loved one is a profound breach of trust that wounds a person in his soul . . and we know how deeply John has been betrayed by the two people he loved most in the world.  Sherlock's actions had a higher purpose, and so though Watson feels betrayed by them . . it's not on the same level as what he went through with Mary.  John's rage toward Sherl is at least in part displaced rage against his wife.

There was a lot riding on that Mary death scene and it was anticlimactic to say the least.

[T.o.b.y]

I think Mary and John's relationship is best described as troubled. I find it very interesting. John never came across as a paragon of virtue to me, so I don't feel particularly disappointed in him. 

I think Mary is the love of his life but love is never easy on this show so... I don't agree with the asassin bit and I wish her death scene had been a little less cheesy but otherwise, I am quite okay with how her story went. I just wish she had merely run away and the boys had never found her. Not dramatic enough I suppose.