a study in pink, and the mirror moment;
This was intended as a form of introduction for the S2 meta, but after several rewrites of it it simply didn't seem to fit, so I'm putting it up now, perhaps as a prologue. See, ASiP remains my favourite episode pretty much on par with TRF, and I find the echoes between both of these episodes to be fascinating, but upon closer reflection ASiP itself is full of mirrors, and it's constructed around twin mirror moments, when either John or Sherlock look inside one another and see themselves - the episode is divided cleanly, some structures and themes echoing each other from both sides of it, and this, I think, sets up the basis for Sherlock and John's relationship as it is depicted throughout both seasons.
So! Have some meta!
It's rather interesting that Sherlock & John are in a state of constant disequilibrium for most of the episode, for 98% of the episode, probably, until the moment when John looks at him through a set of double windows, of mirrors, sees Sherlock's figure cutting into his own reflection, and decides to kill a man he's never met to save the life of a man he's only barely met.
The majority of the episode is spent by John in trying to figure Sherlock out, trying to puzzle him out, trying to understand what this man is made of, why he's left his riding crop in the mortuary, how he knew that John's sister was an alcoholic and that John was an army doctor and that John was shot in Afghanistan, how he knew that the pink case would be abandoned in a skip near the crime scene, how he knew that Jennifer Wilson was that clever, how he knew that running after a serial killer would solve the problem of John's psychosomatic limp. He tries constantly; tries to determine him through definitions, through This guy, a junkie?, through his meeting with Mycroft in the warehouse and his absolute loyalty in a man he doesn't know at all, but tries to, and wants to.
So Sherlock leads, and John follows - when they run Sherlock is always ahead, and John is following just behind; Sherlock leaves him and John finds his way back to him; Sherlock is always smarter, always faster, and John is steadfast and sure, finding him again and again, elucidating clues the way Sherlock elucidates human behaviour. John is trying to keep up. John is trying to get on the same level as the madman he's agreed to live with. John is intrigued by the high-functioning sociopath, or the man who tries to pass himself off as such; but he's also intrigued by the Sherlock who looks surprised when he's praised, Sherlock who looks as though he craves sentiment even as he claims to detest it, Sherlock who smiles at him when John asks if he's got a significant other and then says he's married to his work.
So John is looking for Sherlock, metaphorically and literally, physically: he's hunting him throughout the abandoned school, opening doors, finding deserted classrooms - because John isn't a detective, and is unable to deduce, the way Sherlock probably would have, which building was the right one, and which path, which staircase, which corridor, he was supposed to follow. John gets it wrong, gets separated from Sherlock by two sets of windows; and then he creates a shortcut. Which is John all over: he does away with all the cleverness of Sherlock's brain, and cuts to the chase in one clean break.
When John shoots the cabbie, he's watching Sherlock through a window, watching Sherlock's dark coat and high cheekbones and tall silhouette fully in the middle of his own reflection, his own heart, the same way that eighteen months from now he will watch his own reflected image over Sherlock's name on Sherlock's headstone. When he, essentially, saves Sherlock from his own stupidity - which is irony, because of course Hope played Sherlock and played him well, and Sherlock is losing, betting his own life on the line when John knows what it's like to lose someone on the field, to have someone killed in front of him - when he shoots the cabbie, he sets a new balance between them. He saves Sherlock from himself (which, itself, is a metaphor for possibly the entire show, all the way up until TRF, at which point the metaphor splits apart, because John will believe, following what he thinks is Sherlock's suicide, that in the end he wasn't enough, wasn't able to protect Sherlock not only from Moriarty but also from himself, which, right, is breaking my stupid fucking heart) and, in so doing, he puts himself back on the same step as Sherlock. He resets their relationship; he creates an equilibrium.
That's the mirror moment. That's John's mirror moment: watching himself and watching Sherlock at the same time, watching himself and seeing another man inserted inside of him: he's seeing a man he's barely met and then he's seeing himself around him, their lives interlocked, and finding that - with all his trust issues - he will kill to keep him.
So the mirroring themes that run through ASiP are cleanly divided around before the gunshot and after the gunshot; it's the echoing conversations of
John
Why didn't I think of that?
Sherlock
Because you're an idiot.
and;
Sherlock
Why would I do that?
John
'Cause you're an idiot.
which, if anything, prove that they're both really fucking stupid. It's the shift in dynamics when Lestrade is added to their conversations; before the gunshot Sherlock and Lestrade were an unit, if a slightly reluctant one: they understood each other better than did Sherlock and John, who were still grappling with each other then, and John was the outsider, the one who witnessed but did not take part. After the gunshot Lestrade becomes the outsider, the intruder. It's the mirror reflections that Sherlock and John become of each other, because Sherlock may be an ex-junkie but John is still a junkie, for danger, for gunpowder, for Sherlock, all the way, all the way for Sherlock; John has trust issues and Sherlock has never been shown cause to trust anyone before, and here they are given into trusting each other literally to the death; Sherlock is a self-diagnosed sociopath and was about to ingest a pill that would in all likelihood have killed him, but John's the one who's just shot a man in cold blood and smiles pleasantly afterwards, giggling at a crime scene of his own making; overall they're both completely insane.
And it's Sherlock's twin deductions regarding John: before John kills for him it's I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan, it's facts, details about John's life, anecdata, maybe, but it's not the core of him, it's not what he sees after John's killed for him, which is that's a crack shot you're looking for but not just a marksman, a fighter; his hands couldn't have shaken at all, and then he stops, he fucking stops. John is standing right there by the line of the police, just there on the edge of risk, and that's not knowledge, it's not deduction, it's gut feeling, it's the sudden absolute conviction that the innocuous man with the oatmeal jumper and the tired lines on his face has just shot an illegal gun to save his life without the slightest care for consequences.
Just, god, the first time I saw this it wasn't in the show at all, it was entirely out of context, it was - I think, in the first vid I ever saw, before I even watched the episode because I did it all in the wrong order, I confess - but the first time I ever saw this I was confused, because this was the classic falling in love moment in any romantic movie, the classic moment when one person looks at another and sees something they hadn't seen before, sees something about the other person but also something about themselves, and understands themselves better, suddenly.
So tell me this isn't Sherlock Holmes falling. Tell me this isn't Sherlock Holmes falling in love.
Because that's his mirror moment: he sees someone else, and sees himself in them. Sherlock Holmes is all brain and no heart at all, except when he is, except when he's a consulting detective who lies to the police to protect a killer, which is a paradox. Love and death are always closely linked, symbolically, and John Watson loved Sherlock Holmes so fiercely, barely twenty-four hours into knowing him, that he killed a man to keep him alive - and Sherlock Holmes loves John Watson enough that he renounces on what he claims makes him who he is.
If there's anything my S2 meta is telling me, it's that Sherlock is always looking for a mirror, for a name, for an identity - in Irene, in Henry, in Franklin and his monsters, in Moriarty - but that it's always, always John who can show him the right way, show him himself as he is. ASiP is already setting up the background for this, because it's, at heart, I think, not so much the story of a first meeting than the story of two men trying and failing to see each other right - until they do, and at this point they're both too far gone to ever want to let go of one another.
And it, it doesn't have to be romantic love; it doesn't have to be the kind of love that goes with snogging on the couch; but it is the kind of love that causes two men who have nothing in common beyond a mutual liking for intelligent corpses to spend the rest of their lives together, to adore each other even after they're old and grey. Because they will; they will. They have. That's the thing. We already know how this is going to go. We already know how this ends.
So! Have some meta!
It's rather interesting that Sherlock & John are in a state of constant disequilibrium for most of the episode, for 98% of the episode, probably, until the moment when John looks at him through a set of double windows, of mirrors, sees Sherlock's figure cutting into his own reflection, and decides to kill a man he's never met to save the life of a man he's only barely met.
The majority of the episode is spent by John in trying to figure Sherlock out, trying to puzzle him out, trying to understand what this man is made of, why he's left his riding crop in the mortuary, how he knew that John's sister was an alcoholic and that John was an army doctor and that John was shot in Afghanistan, how he knew that the pink case would be abandoned in a skip near the crime scene, how he knew that Jennifer Wilson was that clever, how he knew that running after a serial killer would solve the problem of John's psychosomatic limp. He tries constantly; tries to determine him through definitions, through This guy, a junkie?, through his meeting with Mycroft in the warehouse and his absolute loyalty in a man he doesn't know at all, but tries to, and wants to.
So Sherlock leads, and John follows - when they run Sherlock is always ahead, and John is following just behind; Sherlock leaves him and John finds his way back to him; Sherlock is always smarter, always faster, and John is steadfast and sure, finding him again and again, elucidating clues the way Sherlock elucidates human behaviour. John is trying to keep up. John is trying to get on the same level as the madman he's agreed to live with. John is intrigued by the high-functioning sociopath, or the man who tries to pass himself off as such; but he's also intrigued by the Sherlock who looks surprised when he's praised, Sherlock who looks as though he craves sentiment even as he claims to detest it, Sherlock who smiles at him when John asks if he's got a significant other and then says he's married to his work.
So John is looking for Sherlock, metaphorically and literally, physically: he's hunting him throughout the abandoned school, opening doors, finding deserted classrooms - because John isn't a detective, and is unable to deduce, the way Sherlock probably would have, which building was the right one, and which path, which staircase, which corridor, he was supposed to follow. John gets it wrong, gets separated from Sherlock by two sets of windows; and then he creates a shortcut. Which is John all over: he does away with all the cleverness of Sherlock's brain, and cuts to the chase in one clean break.
When John shoots the cabbie, he's watching Sherlock through a window, watching Sherlock's dark coat and high cheekbones and tall silhouette fully in the middle of his own reflection, his own heart, the same way that eighteen months from now he will watch his own reflected image over Sherlock's name on Sherlock's headstone. When he, essentially, saves Sherlock from his own stupidity - which is irony, because of course Hope played Sherlock and played him well, and Sherlock is losing, betting his own life on the line when John knows what it's like to lose someone on the field, to have someone killed in front of him - when he shoots the cabbie, he sets a new balance between them. He saves Sherlock from himself (which, itself, is a metaphor for possibly the entire show, all the way up until TRF, at which point the metaphor splits apart, because John will believe, following what he thinks is Sherlock's suicide, that in the end he wasn't enough, wasn't able to protect Sherlock not only from Moriarty but also from himself, which, right, is breaking my stupid fucking heart) and, in so doing, he puts himself back on the same step as Sherlock. He resets their relationship; he creates an equilibrium.
That's the mirror moment. That's John's mirror moment: watching himself and watching Sherlock at the same time, watching himself and seeing another man inserted inside of him: he's seeing a man he's barely met and then he's seeing himself around him, their lives interlocked, and finding that - with all his trust issues - he will kill to keep him.
So the mirroring themes that run through ASiP are cleanly divided around before the gunshot and after the gunshot; it's the echoing conversations of
John
Why didn't I think of that?
Sherlock
Because you're an idiot.
and;
Sherlock
Why would I do that?
John
'Cause you're an idiot.
which, if anything, prove that they're both really fucking stupid. It's the shift in dynamics when Lestrade is added to their conversations; before the gunshot Sherlock and Lestrade were an unit, if a slightly reluctant one: they understood each other better than did Sherlock and John, who were still grappling with each other then, and John was the outsider, the one who witnessed but did not take part. After the gunshot Lestrade becomes the outsider, the intruder. It's the mirror reflections that Sherlock and John become of each other, because Sherlock may be an ex-junkie but John is still a junkie, for danger, for gunpowder, for Sherlock, all the way, all the way for Sherlock; John has trust issues and Sherlock has never been shown cause to trust anyone before, and here they are given into trusting each other literally to the death; Sherlock is a self-diagnosed sociopath and was about to ingest a pill that would in all likelihood have killed him, but John's the one who's just shot a man in cold blood and smiles pleasantly afterwards, giggling at a crime scene of his own making; overall they're both completely insane.
And it's Sherlock's twin deductions regarding John: before John kills for him it's I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan, it's facts, details about John's life, anecdata, maybe, but it's not the core of him, it's not what he sees after John's killed for him, which is that's a crack shot you're looking for but not just a marksman, a fighter; his hands couldn't have shaken at all, and then he stops, he fucking stops. John is standing right there by the line of the police, just there on the edge of risk, and that's not knowledge, it's not deduction, it's gut feeling, it's the sudden absolute conviction that the innocuous man with the oatmeal jumper and the tired lines on his face has just shot an illegal gun to save his life without the slightest care for consequences.
Just, god, the first time I saw this it wasn't in the show at all, it was entirely out of context, it was - I think, in the first vid I ever saw, before I even watched the episode because I did it all in the wrong order, I confess - but the first time I ever saw this I was confused, because this was the classic falling in love moment in any romantic movie, the classic moment when one person looks at another and sees something they hadn't seen before, sees something about the other person but also something about themselves, and understands themselves better, suddenly.
So tell me this isn't Sherlock Holmes falling. Tell me this isn't Sherlock Holmes falling in love.
Because that's his mirror moment: he sees someone else, and sees himself in them. Sherlock Holmes is all brain and no heart at all, except when he is, except when he's a consulting detective who lies to the police to protect a killer, which is a paradox. Love and death are always closely linked, symbolically, and John Watson loved Sherlock Holmes so fiercely, barely twenty-four hours into knowing him, that he killed a man to keep him alive - and Sherlock Holmes loves John Watson enough that he renounces on what he claims makes him who he is.
If there's anything my S2 meta is telling me, it's that Sherlock is always looking for a mirror, for a name, for an identity - in Irene, in Henry, in Franklin and his monsters, in Moriarty - but that it's always, always John who can show him the right way, show him himself as he is. ASiP is already setting up the background for this, because it's, at heart, I think, not so much the story of a first meeting than the story of two men trying and failing to see each other right - until they do, and at this point they're both too far gone to ever want to let go of one another.
And it, it doesn't have to be romantic love; it doesn't have to be the kind of love that goes with snogging on the couch; but it is the kind of love that causes two men who have nothing in common beyond a mutual liking for intelligent corpses to spend the rest of their lives together, to adore each other even after they're old and grey. Because they will; they will. They have. That's the thing. We already know how this is going to go. We already know how this ends.