PICSPAM REACTION/RECAP: Sherlock Series 3 Episode 3 (Part 1 of 8)
[Why this is so incredibly late and how much Real Life sucks.]
(So Real Life time and attention suck ate me in a huge way just as I started watching this episode. I've been watching it a tiny bit at a time ever since, in increments of a few minutes or less per night of watching, all while avoiding 99% of the internet and fandom spaces so I wouldn't get too spoiled before finishing. This process has literally taken over three-quarters of a year. This horribly long and wordy and rambly thing is the result.)
WARNING: CONTAINS IMAGES AND DETAILS OF THE SHERLOCK SERIES 3 FINAL EPISODE. If you have not watched Sherlock Series 3's finale yet (and if you haven't by now I'd be incredibly shocked), this post is CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
CONTAINS: random live-bloggish babble, recapping, profanity, episode details and spoilers, pointless comments, snark, SO MUCH meta, speculation, profanity, capslock, overuse of the word 'awesome', ACD references of dubious validity, un-spoiler-cut ACD based speculation regarding developing story/character arcs/future events, profanity, excessive parenthetical asides, possibly divisive interpretations of character actions and intentions, constant burbling about the universal nature of Holmeses and Watsons, brief references to other fandoms, positivity, and squee. Also profanity. Like whoa. Also between the EIGHT sections there are 1000-odd not terribly great screencaps so beware your bandwidth.
HUGE Spoilers for this episode encountered just prior to when I began watching, and theories based on the HUGE spoilers.
Sigh. So what did I see the day I started watching this episode?
Mary shoots Sherlock.
*headdesk*
Well. Great. But then this is what I get for being ill and RL being a rancid duck fart and everything conspiring to make me take so much longer than the usual ages long I take to watch episodes. And even though I do avoid every fandom space and all the news feeds and whatnot until after watching an episode, some random site I needed to visit today the day I started watching this episode [Jan 28th O.o] for entirely un-Sherlock-related reasons (a report relating to an international tax issue on a UK news site) had a one-line all-caps blurb in a sidebar linking to an article about the show, and the sidebar blurb gave away that bit in particular.
And unless it's a minor incident of shooting - which it probably isn't, all things considered - it's probably a grand reveal close to the end of the episode and the whole episode will be leading up to that. So.
GGGGGNNNNRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! *kicks Lestrade's tires* X[
Right. Well. Obviously she's under coercion or something. Mary's awesome. I trust Mary. I want to trust Mary. Because she's awesome. And I do trust the show-runners not to mess with canon too much, but... not much is known about Mary in canon, where she was basically a character in one novel and then mentioned occasionally off-hand, and then died before "Empty House". So....
*hard swallow*
Well, it could be... Hm. [Extended theoretical babbling relating to the above spoiler, cut for the disinterested.]
Heh. It could be a "The Dying Detective" scenario or variant. (*gets sidetracked scribbling out a bit of fanfic*) Maybe Mary's only helping Sherlock with his verisimilitude by 'shooting' him (or possibly, if Mary is actually some kind of assassin (which would be kind of badass) and trying to escape either the assassin life or a contract she took on to kill Sherlock but has discovered she can't now that she's part of Team Awesome Trio etc, this could be a stunt to prove contract fulfillment, so Sherlock and Mycroft or whoever can trap her handler (The Fire-Watcher maybe? O.o), and get her out of that life *ponders*), and John will throttle the pair of them for doing this to him again and faking Sherlock's death while leaving John out of the loop so he can be realistically distraught again. But he'll get through it. Because Watson.
Or it could be for some reason Mary really is secretly evil, in which case, provided that becomes very clearly demonstrated, I will reluctantly apologize to the bits of my brain I bludgeoned with a shovel in the Sign of the Three reaction post to make them stop telling me Mary was a possible killer/evil puppetmaster. Which is kind of blowing my mind right now. Maybe there was some kind of foreshadowing going on I picked up on if that turns out to be the case. Which it won't be, because Mary's awesome. Aaaaarg. *headdesk*
Since... well. Since I'm not typically in the practice of outright denying what gets confirmed in canon, hypothetically, if it's concretely revealed that Mary has shot Sherlock specifically for "actually killing him" kind of reasons, it would follow that:
Though to be fair, that last one will apply to nearly all theories and situations involving Mary shooting Sherlock for any reason. *preemptively wraps John in fuzzy blankets and makes him tea, so he's well stocked up when he has to go out ass-kicking later*
Anyway. Regardless, because I now know this particular event is taking place in the episode (throwing my series three finale speculation out the window (which is a really good thing O.o), since the hospital bag in the credits will be Sherlock's), there's going to be a lot of second-guessing based on knowing that's coming, maybe some things glossed past and not analyzed as closely as they might have been, and a lot less jumping around shrieking insanely when it actually happens. I mean of course there'll still be jumping around shrieking insanely, just not as much as there might have been. Darn it. :-/
Also, second spoiler seen in passing in a non-Sherlock-fandom area (UK news sites have no concept of "spoiler" do they?): there is a scene at the end (post-credits?) that implies Moriarty's not dead. Which I thought at one point in TRF might be the case (blood bag and squib, blank in the gun, which still would have messed him up a bit firing it into his mouth, but not necessarily lethally), but it really throws a wrench into the as-yet not fully confirmed "How Sherlock Did It" machinations of the series opener. That should be interesting. *steeplefingers*
All of which confirms why there was apparently a little bit of 'internet go boom' right after this aired, or so I've heard. Not as much as after Reichenbach Fall aired I think, but that's a different thing entirely. (A Reichenboom. Heh. Sounds like a unit of measurement. Number of online fansplosions in the 24 hour period following an episode's release or something)
So! Let's see what they've got for us. I suspect it's going to really hurt. (At least Moffat and Gatiss can't end two series' in a row with Sherlock 'dying', right? John would kill them. Jump right off the dailies and throttle them in the screening room. *nods*)
Live-Bloggish Picspam Reaction/Recap for Sherlock Series 3 Episode 3
PART ONE- "His Last Vow" (OH MY GOD, FROM THE WEDDING, OH CRAP YOU GUYS, SO MUCH IMPENDING DOOM D-:)
[Post-watching note of warning: I try to keep these reactions squeeful and upbeat but in this one I am particularly nasty toward the primary antagonist in this episode, but he's supposed to be an irredeemably hateable douchebag, so... *shrug* Otherwise, this recap/reaction post is intended to be positive and squeeful. If that's something you may have issues with, then this post is probably not for you. :-)]
-"Charles Augustus-" OMFG "-Maunsen." ...Who? *rewinds* The woman says something like 'Magusen'. My sound is muddy and neither is coming through clear, and the speed of talking and his accent isn't coming through clearly at all. Neither sound like Milverton at all, but SERIOUSLY, CHARLES AUGUSTUS. They wouldn't throw those names together and not mean it. It's Milverton with a different last name. *thumps on things* AUGUSTUS B. C. IN THE LAST ONE WASN'T A RED HERRING, HE WAS FORESHADOWING (and probably intended to be subliminal, but I, uh, liminalized him, hee. And Augustus B.C. Augustus "Before Charles"? XD). Oh. And. Those glasses. HE'S THE FIRE-WATCHER TOO! RIGHT??? \o/
(I think that's probably a record for zero to capslocking in a recap for me. 7 seconds in? *nods*)
-*still puzzling over sound* Magnuson? *shrug* Not helping that everyone's blurry right now and I can't read faces for cues. It'll turn up in print somewhere soon in the episode. This guy isn't just a random pre-title NPC.
-"How would you describe your influence over the Prime Minister?" O.O Our Milverton-analog, he doesn't aim low.
-"The British Prime Minister?" A good point. Lots of countries have a Prime Minister. Including mine. ....give me a minute to stop giggling about that idea. Okay, good now.
-"Any of the British Prime Ministers you have known." *checks list* Could be all the way back to Thatcher? EEEEEEK. Okay. Why is Mycroft not all over this guy like a disease? O.O
-Also, HI CAPTAIN ADELAIDE BROOKE HEADING THE TRIBUNAL THINGY!! *waves like a freak* I mean of course it's just the same actress, but somewhere in the fanon-verse, crossover fix-it fic for Waters of Mars is spontaneously appearing.
-"I never had the slightest influence over any of them. Why would I?" This Milverton-analog is excellently creepy. Just the slow, calm voice. (All I know about Milverton is something about blackmail, and Sherlock got fake-engaged to his maid to break the case. I've deliberately not been looking at that story or even the wiki page linked above since ABC Augustus turned up, since stories written a hundred years ago are now possible spoiler-minefields XD) *bounces*
-YEAH HE'S THE FIRE-WATCHER. THOSE GLASSES.
Why would Alt!Milverton here be watching Sherlock pull John from a fire? I don't know if I'm right in this guy being the one behind the train-bomb in some way, or whether he was just trying to let it develop into a full threat that would push that legislation through before stopping it, but he definitely put John in the fire to clue in Sherlock about the bomb-train plan. And he'd have known Sherlock and John were looking into the 'underground plan'... because Sherlock just had passive watchers reporting on key figures and wasn't directly involved in person until after the bonfire... hunh. Maybe Alt!Milverton has ears in Mycroft's office? And Mycroft and Sherlock have no idea this guy is operating out in the world? Holy crap. O.o
-I know it's the wrong show's reaction post for tie reports, but this guy's tie is having waaaaaay to much fun in relation to the apparent gravity of the situation. I think he's been bought or influenced by Alt!Milverton in some way, or has no idea how grave the situation really is. I mean seriously, look at that damn tie. That's not an on-the-job srs tribunal bzns tie, that a kid's birthday party tie, more often found accompanied by a fright wig, a red nose and big flappy shoes than pinstripes.
-Heh. 'Newspaper proprietor', 'foreign national' and the general tone of the statement being made here... Hehe. Are they equating Alt!Milverton to Rupert Murdoch? Because that's hilarious. XD
-No way. He's got Sherlock-vision! (Those glasses didn't look equipped for Google-glass-like functions.) XD
(What exactly constitutes "normal" for porn preferences?)
-Or maybe they do have some kind of access to a database. That bend in the display follows a lensing shape... Hunh. In other news, Alt!Milverton is not above using anything at all to bend people to do what he wants.
-"Lady Elizabeth Smallwood", incredibly squeaky clean, pressure point former commander of Mars Base One, 45 years from now, ancestor of Adelaide Brooks, future commander of Mars Base One temporal anomaly "*searching...*" Heee.
-I SUDDENLY HAVE A BURNING NEED TO SEE WHAT REPORT HE SEES ON SHERLOCK. With that little red line at the bottom reading PRESSURE POINT: >JOHN WATSON. In, like, 24 point bold text. *flails*
-Hi there, Fire-Watcher/Alt!Milverton. *peers at glasses* Okay, I can see how the little extendy-bits from the anchor points of the arms and bridge could be like, retina-projection displays or something. Entirely reasonable. Google's probably got plans for stuff like that to be available in the next five years, though they'll have to figure out a way to make it obvious the technology is there observing, rather than our Alt!Milverton who would have the opposite priority. *peers at edge of screencap* and the bulkier bits of hardware could be housed in that oddly prominent watch, and there'd be either a wireless connection or a physical connection up the sleeve to a mag-connector behind his ear. Wireless more likely. *nods and handwaves*
-"I have an excellent memory." Yeah, but it's on an external drive. Which I think might be its downfall. *ponders*
-Ha. License plates: I thought at first it said ICAN, but it's "ICAM", like eye-camera. Not at all subtle, is he. Goes right along with the bizarrely interesting gates. And house. Alt!Milverton likes things eye-catching and non-traditional. Except perhaps the moat. Not terribly traditional in form, but a moat's a moat. O.o
-*snerks and points at question mark sign-like pattern on lower foyer* He's also The Riddler, it seems.
-The hell? Joust figurine??
-Much as the place is pretty and shiny and all, if I was obscenely rich it would not take this long and this circuitous a route to walk to any particular room in my house. It would also not have any major areas solely accessible by spiral stairs because I have moved furniture far too often to think of spiral staircases as a practical idea. Though, to be fair, maybe this is his evening constitutional. Manipulate the world, drive home, do a lap or two of the house, including all the stairs. *nods*
-I will also say at this point that if a running gun-fight ever took place in this house, the attackers would in fact be screwed on several levels. literally and figuratively. *points at reflective surfaces, babbles about angles of fire and cover* Not like that's going to happen. He's not a shooting sort of villain, he's a 'steal your best friend and stick him in a bonfire' sort of villain, which are often far more interesting. Unless you're the protagonists, in which case they are an endless pain in the butt.
-And of course a library is an absolute necessity. Lens flares and all. Though this isn't a library, is it? It's the vaguely circus-themed storage room from the end of "Empty Hearse".
-Yep! We're heeeeere. And Alt!Milverton actually uses a Rolodex? O.o
-Hey, that shadow in the background moved! He's got a household staff, yeah, one of them opened the door for him, but do they come down to his room of secrets too? Cleaning is one thing, but does he have loyal enough people that he trusts them (or trusts his hold over them) not to disrupt his filing system? Does he have researchers? Are the glasses an active link to a room of private analysts who look people up as he sees them? All kinds of avenues to find weak points there. *bounces*
-Hm. That many physical files, he's got to have suborned people with access to personnel records, etc. Building the files for him, compiling data, arranging it, curating it, access and storage. Despite the new tech of the glasses, he's old school, and very worrisome.
-Gaaaaaaah *shudders* WHY IS THAT SO CREEPY?
-He delivers his... erm. Influencing in person too. Risky, overconfident, and scary because he really doesn't think he has a thing to worry about, does he?
-"Please don't do that." GAAAAAAAH. So many levels of wrong. Just that, that, sudden imposition of physical contact on her as she's speaking. Gaaaaaah!
-"She was fifteen." Oops. Yeah, that's a definite angle of influence. :-/
-"She looked delicious." GYAYAYAAHAHAAHGHAGAHAAHAHAHAHAAA *shudders and cringes* THIS GUY IS SO CREEPY. O.O
-Leaving aside the EXTREME CREEPY for a second. "We have photographs too?" Hmmm. Does 'we' refer to his underlings and his own power structure, or is he part of something larger yet? *taps fingers together*
-Also "Facts are for history books, I work in news." Oh yes. There's some definite poking of the press going on with the Alt!Milverton character here. I quite like it, and it suits the blackmailer role well for an update. *nods*
-"The whole world is wet to my touch." GYAHHHHH *spasms of revulsion* OH GOD, I NEED TO GO SHOWER OR SOMETHING AUGH!
-AND NOW NON-CONSENSUAL WRIST-SNIFFING, GYAHGYAHGYAHAHAHAH.
-"This is blackmail." Just a bit, yeah. Because even if it was a genuine mistake and no coercion was involved and it was stopped as soon as her age was known and it's all long over, that won't matter if it gets written up in a tabloid and exposed to the court of public opinion. Also, he's got the actual letters and photos. How??? If you have awkward documents that could be used against you, even if they seem reasonable in the end explanation, keep close track of them or destroy them. THIS IS WHY SHREDDERS WERE INVENTED. Also fire, nature's shredder. Just saying. *nods*
-"Of course it isn't blackmail. This is... ownership." I literally cannot transcribe the noise I just made. Holy crap. This Alt!Milverton is going to be one hell of a creepy adversary. O.o
-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! DDDDDDD-:
-"It never tastes like it smells, does it?" OKAY ALREADY, I AM FREAKED OUT BY ALT!MILVERTON. EVEN MORE THAN WHEN HE WAS JUST A SET OF EYES WATCHING SHERLOCK PULL JOHN OUT OF A FIRE OVER AND OVER. Oh. Oh oh oh. Does he have some kind of similar 'ownership' over Mary? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT ABOUT CERTAIN FUTURE EVENTS I HAVE BEEN SPOILED FOR, WOULDN'T IT?
-(*MASSIVE GROOVE SKIP* Okay. Okay. Rewind. I am going to do something here I have never done in a reaction/recap post before, and delete the large section of reacting and theorizing I just did which was based on a line that I had VERY BADLY misheard. I'd normally leave in my mishearing and laugh it off afterward when I figured out I was wrong, but in this case, no. A very strong content warning would have been required on this post if it was left in, and since it was all done in error it's unnecessary to leave any of it in. So. I misheard a line, and about a thousand words of shocked and horrific and very dark side-tracking theory has been deleted. Also, I am sourcing a different recording of the episode as I type, because sound that muddy should never ever happen. Reflecting on this though, it seems that I will evidently follow any dark road this show appears to be taking without ever once questioning the show's apparent direction or intent even slightly, until a logistical element makes me question my own perceptions first. I don't know of many other shows or novel series' that I could say the same for. O.o)
-"Lady Smallwood's bill is on me." So much for not having contact outside the tribunal then. More blackmail fodder. I'm wondering what sort of place this is, if the *handwave* butler guy just stood there and watched Alt!Milverton lick Lady Smallwood, and didn't even blink. Maybe Alt!Milverton 'owns' this place too. Or owns the butler guy. *shudders*
-"Magnuson." (Probably spelling it wrong, still haven't seen it written out) Is she venting, or has he got her compact wired to transmit to him now? That level of invasion seems so mild now in comparison to face-licking. D-:
-"There isn't a man or woman in England capable of stopping that disgusting creature-" Oh good she's having a thought of a plan of action. Or at least I hope she is and isn't just realizing her driver's probably under his influence as well?
-"Where we going, Ma'am?"/"Baker Street." YAY CAPTAIN ADELAIDE! I mean, not like it's a surprise or anything that she's getting Sherlock on the case, but YAY! \o/
-TITLES! Helicopters and guns and all kinds of things in those titles we haven't seen yet on the show. As well as the IV bag and the wallpaper-stroking. And a sad/resigned/contemplative-looking John. O.o
-Soooo, since I take so much time watching this show and got to the opening titles at a ridiculous hour of the night an opportune time to stop for the evening, I did. At work the next day (that being today at the moment, and last week [several weeks seven months ago (my god)] by the time this posts, probably) while doing mind-numbing data entry which included several businesses with names based on their respective owner's initials, my brain wandered, and I started thinking about people with initials that spell things and fictional dead people noted in Sign of Three called Augustus and their alphabetical initials. And Charles Augustus Magnuson's initials. Those initials being C.A.M. Or Cam. THE SAME 'CAM' WHO SENT THE TELEGRAM TO MARY AT THE WEDDING??? And in the middle of my office during a work day, I had a kind of deduction stall-out/fandom cascade/psychotic episode moment [which I am going to put behind a spoiler cut because it is a HUGE wall of text and capslocking] which went something like:. Taking that telegram message as not being from some random Camille or Cameron from school, but being from C.A.M. (who would be so overconfident in his invulnerability as to just leave the dots out of his initials to make a fake name, of course he would, HIS LICENSE PLATE SAYS "ICAM".), Mary is not working against Sherlock and John, not by choice. Mary is trapped. If she was involved at all in that bit with Sholto, it was something she wasn't to interfere with and at most had to pass intel about BECAUSE SHOLTO AND MEDIA DEMONIZING HIM AND THAT'S WHAT CAM DOES, SO SHOLTO TOLD CAM TO SHOVE IT, MAYBE? OMG and Mary couldn't be seen to be acting to stop it because CAM was watching in person or by proxy and DOOM and things would happen and the telegram was a message to keep Mary in line (listen to that message with Alt!Milverton in mind as the sender, that's absolutely creepy), but she could encourage Sherlock to fix it and that LOOK AS SHE CAME IN THE ROOM WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHER not just because she knows he's the photographer BUT SHE KNOWS HE'S NOT THE PHOTOGRAPHER BECAUSE MAYBE 'CAM' PROBABLY HAD HER 'REPLACE' HER ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHER WITH HIM and that might have been a moment of maybe-he-knows-and-will-out-me trappedness but gah! And AND maybe John in the fire was a message to MARY to stay in line and then CAM saw Sherlock and saw that big flashing red PRESSURE POINT: >>>JOHN WATSON explode everywhere all over everything with or without his glasses in flaming billion point font and DEVELOPED PLANS and probably already had plans because the whole media mogul thing and Sherlock's disgrace/death/redemption/resurrection cycle played out in papers and media he owned didn't it and he would have been allllll over that and just OMG! (and that 'use pressure points against people' is a bit like the Cabbie, isn't it, talking people to death with their weak points (or at least I think that's what was really going on there) and the cabbie wore glasses too and what if it's all connected somehow and alt!Milverton had some kind of co-op deal with Moriarty and omg) just *HANDWAVING ALL OVER* but GETTING BACK TO THE TELEGRAM NOW, (OH MY GOD HE CALLED HER "POPPET" which takes on a whole different meaning in that context DDD-:) and "wish your family could have seen this" there's something about her family she's hidden, or maybe there's something about the way they died, or maybe they aren't dead and she's hiding from them which sometimes happens too (which would explain why Sherlock's read on her in 3.01 got Only Child (which the stupid parts of my brain forgot about when they were doubting Mary in the 3.02 recap post, stupid, stupid brain) when it turns out she's an orphan with no evident family which she'd likely still have if her parents died later in her life or if she had gotten adopted, and if she was raised in children's homes and foster care it's very unlikely she'd read as an only child since she'd be in group settings with other kids all the time (hm I wonder if Sherlock's aware of that dichotomy or just thinks that was something he got wrong?)), and for very good reasons. Don't know. That wasn't a grief ambush there, or not entirely, that was being trapped and threatened and a bit scared (and I just looked back at that scene and GOD DAMN IT, AMANDA ABBINGTON IS FUCKING AMAZING BECAUSE IT'S ALL THERE IN HER FACE, HER FACE FALLS WHEN SHE HEARS 'CAM', NOT THE BIT ABOUT HER FAMILY) and not being able to let on to anyone who cares for her what's really going on. REGARDLESS. MARY IS NOT EVIL OR WHATEVER AT ALL!!! \o/ I mean, not that I wouldn't WATCH THE LIVING HELL out of Amanda Abbington playing a cold-hearted, ruthless deep cover assassin out to be evil everywhere because HOT DAMN WOULD SHE ROCK THE CRAP OUT OF THAT TOO, but Mary's not doing this willingly, she's being 'owned' by Alt!Milverton *ALL THE SHUDDERING EVER*, and needs help to escape from that and can't even hint at asking John or Sherlock and I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE THRILLED TO FIGURE OUT A CHARACTER I REALLY REALLY LIKE IS SECRETLY IN HORRENDOUS SQUICKY PERIL AND CAN'T EVEN ASK FOR HELP IN MY LIFE. I SAT AT MY DESK JUST NOW STARING AT A RANDOM SPREADSHEET WITH AN EXPRESSION SOMETHING LIKE, FFF, I DUNNO, LIKE I WAS LOOKING INTO A VAULT OF SHINY THINGS I THOUGHT MIGHT BE LOST FOREVER AND MAKING LITTLE "WALLACE FROM WALLACE-AND-GROMIT CONFRONTED BY EXCELLENT CHEESE" MOTIONS WITH MY HANDS OVER THE KEYBOARD, WITH MY FEET DANCING THE HAPPY DANCE OF HAPPY UNDER THE DESK. AND I MAY NEVER STOP CAPSLOCKING BECAUSE OH GOD YES, MARY IS NOT BETRAYING TEAM AWESOME, BUT HAS HEART AND SOUL CRUSHING REASONS FOR DOING WHAT SHE'S GONNA DO AND IS ONLY DOING IT BECAUSE SHE CAN'T SEE ANY WAY OUT OF IT (AND SHERLOCK AND JOHN NEED TO SEE THAT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE AND HELP HER FIGURE OUT A WAY OF ESCAPING IT AND STOPPING ALT!MILVERTON). I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE TO MARY MORSTAN-WATSON FOR EVER THINKING SHE WAS EVIL, AND THAT MARY-DOUBTING PATCH OF MY BRAIN IS GETTING ANOTHER COMPLETE AND PERMANENT MASHING WITH THE SHUT-UP SHOVEL BECAUSE MARY IS DEFINITELY A 100% PART OF THE TEAM AWESOME TRIO ALONG WITH SHERLOCK AND JOHN AND EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE BECAUSE NOTHING BEATS TEAM GODDAMN AWESOME. \o/ (*ignores that monolithic impending canon-influenced OW for right now*)
-*catches breath* Hot damn.
-SO. If anyone ever asks why I love this show, *points above* that's one reason why. Sudden epiphanies of plot or character that cause me (in the middle of an otherwise horrible day for so many reasons) to need to break out into flailing, fill most of a pad of sticky notes with point-form scribbling, and have subsequent outbursts of chair-dancing in the office for the rest of the day. Doesn't matter how bad Mary's action will look in the show at first, or how painful it's going to be watching what John and Sherlock will struggle against thinking before they figure it all out, MARY IS NOT A BAD GUY! \o/
-In summary; SOMEONE NEEDS TO THWART THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ALT!MILVERTON PRONTO. And/or burn down his vaguely circus-themed warehouse of secrets (and/or get the secrets that the authorities should know about to them in the case of ongoing or unsolved crimes of any sort) and turn him over to his victims. Because HE IS ENTIRELY MADE OF FOUL AND WRONG AND NOPE FOREVER and seriously, there are nicer demons on Supernatural. *bibbles about soul-ownership and free will and things*
-(I'll obviously be needing lots of Mary icons too. Note to self.)
-And now, back to watching the show. FEELING MUCH BETTER ABOUT CERTAIN FUTURE STORY EVENTS NOW (and SO much worse about other ones) but it will still be SO hard to watch, because they won't know how imperiled Mary is to be doing the things she's going to be made to do, they'll only see what she's doing, gaaaaaah. D-:
-EEEEEEK. O.O
-Oh my god. Afghanistan nightmares. I mean, he's probably been having them on and off all along, it just seems like such a long time because we haven't seen him having them.
-AND NOW THE DREAMS HAVE SHERLOCK IN THEM ohmygod. I think fandom as a whole called something like this after TRF, but *flails* for actually seeing it.
-"The game is on." *demented spanish rooster noises*
-*whimpers at the title* Because vows and being there for them and Mary and everything, oh my god.
-Not Sherlock at the door, of course, though that would have been kind of freaky. I do love when characters have lives and things outside of the adventures we see in shows. Neighbours with family crises who are friendly enough with them to feel able to show up on their doorstep at god awful in the morning crying. (And Mary continues to be awesome.)
-"Your husband."/"Son." John's a little out of step but he did just wake up and was hoping for an entirely different mop of curly hair to be lurking on their doorstep. Aw, they have a doorstep. *draws hearts*
-"He's the drugs one, yeah?"/"Yeah. Nicely put, John." *laughs to the point of wheezing* I mean it's horrible for poor Kate (and her frankly fantastic hair) here to have it put bluntly, but it's the difference in the way of looking at problems. Consoling versus finding a solution. Both valid responses, sometimes one method is far more useful than the other, and it's not always the one you think.
-"Is it Sherlock Holmes you want because I've not seen him in ages."/"A month." Ohhhh. And that would be why John's having the dreams and is a bit extra put out it wasn't Sherlock at the door this morning. I mean, before Reichenbach, Sherlock probably disappeared on cases for a month and no one thought anything of it. After that and the big return and the vowing and the fact that there's still the unknown person who tried to blow up a train and set John on fire and probably arranged a stabbing for Sholto and all, a disappearance with no word has got to spike some serious anxieties. Also a bit of pissed-off-ness and feeling like he's being avoided, the more run-of-the-mill stresses of not seeing your best friend for a month.
-"Who's Sherlock Holmes?"/"See? That does happen." Heeheehee.
-"Where is he?"/"It's a house, it's a dump, it's practically falling down-"/"No, the address. Where, exactly?" Ah hahaaa. Because John Watson woke up this morning with a powerful need to go kick some ass, so why the hell not go wade into a random crack-house and pull out Kate's kid? Hopefully he calls the police first? Maybe? Also, really hopefully he doesn't find Sherlock there (although unless there are things we don't know about Kate's kid, this little ass-kicking excursion has to be more than just that, but I've got a bad case of the dark and dreadfuls still lingering after that mishearing earlier. If he is, hopefully he's just gathering evidence or something. Or needs rescuing. *is nervous*)
-"Seriously?" Mary is awesomely sensible. Also, welcome to the Watson neighbourhood! Three stories above-ground and a basement, center of a sort of ...I don't know architecture. Modernish-looking short row-housey thing with flowers and flower baskets, aw. Different color of end unit and slightly different stone fence in front might imply the end unit had a bad thing happen to it and it was rebuilt, so maybe not too too modern then. *peers at car* ...Audi? Don't know if it's Mary's though.
-Ahahaha. And John just remote-opened the door locks, which means that it is Mary's car, and since she's still in her dressing-gown, somewhere between Baskerville and now, John Watson has learned to drive, even if Martin Freeman hasn't. Wonder who taught him? And who else tried? There's fic in that. ;-)
-"Being neighbourly."/"Since when?"/"Since now." Firstly, love the lamp, I want that lamp in the parking lot of my building, secondly, they could set up a chessboard out of the handy 'never need to mow' tile front yard, and three, I am feeling mightily paranoid about that cab approaching.
(Of course I'm wrong about the cab. Not everything is out to mess with the Watsons. Unless there was someone in that cab who would have stopped if the Watsons weren't out front to see... *ponders*)
-"Why are you being so... *circle-wavy lemon-facey motions*?" Hee!
-"There is nothing the matter with me! ...Imagine I said that without shouting." That was some pretty mild shouting.
-"You can't come, you're pregnant!"/"You can't go, I'm pregnant." Hee! Also, she's in her dressing gown, and should probably put on more practical clothing before engaging in freelance baddassery by assisting her husband in taking apart a crack den, all pregnancy aside.
-Car (which we didn't actually see John drive, hee!), some kind of black late model Audi hatchback, like maybe an '06-'07 5-door A3? *notes license plate* Also *eyes billboard* That 'IS' is way too prominent not to be significant. Hm. "Free information is the power to change." HMMMMMM.
-I was going to have an intelligent comment here regarding the whereabouts of John's gun, but I'm far too amused by John stuffing a tire-iron down the leg of his jeans. Also, I think we have the same belt.
-"Because there are loads of smack-heads in there and one of them might need help with a tire." *SNEEEERK* That's the problem when BAMFs don't have a regular outlet for badassery, it comes out as extra snark. So not that much of a problem at all really.
-"It's a tiny bit sexy."/"Yeah I know." *snickers forever* They're so adorable.
-"'Scuse me." And he just barges in. Dude. XD
-"Isaac Whitney, have you seen him?" I'm having kind of a strange flailing reaction to John going out and being a badass on his own impetus. It's bizarrely cool, and of course John's a badass in and of himself, not just when Sherlock needs him to be.
-Although, occasionally, badass danger junkies do some foolhardy things that could get them killed by regular junkies too.
-"I'm asking you if you've seen Isaac Whitney and now you're showing me a knife. Is it a clue?" HEEEEEEE!
-"Go. Or I'll cut ya."/"Ooo, not from there." And quite often badass can convert to smartass with no loss of *handwave* energy, momentum, thing. Law of Conservation of (Something)Assery. You just have to watch you don't convert either to dumbass, because that one gets you killed slightly more often than the others. *nods*
-"Lemmee help." Speaking of which....
-"Okay, you asked for it." AND THEN NINJA!JOHN BUSTS THE HELL OUT. OH MY GOD.
Ho yus. You'd think John had spent a large part of the Hiatus, ooo, I dunno, stabbing giant spiders in the face or punching up alien robots in pub toilets in Hertfordshire or something. (Hee! Great to see them using Martin Freeman's fight training in Sherlock! \o/) I think that's going to be a very highly rewatched five seconds of the episode for me.
-"Are you concentrating yet?" I know I am! \o/
-"Is it supposed to feel squishy?" XD
-"Yeah, it's a sprain. I'm a doctor, I know how to sprain people." *crazy octopus flailing everywhere* BAMF DR JOHN YES *head-laptop* BWAHAHAHAHAH!
-"Mental, you are."/"Nope, just used to a better class of criminal." WIN. And that is what happens when a hero-level character in an RPG is confronted by a level 1 thug. Way below the campaign challenge rating. *nods*
-Okay, I was thinking this might all be fine and just an excuse to see how awesome John is in and of himself, but then the frigging music played in The Hounds of Baskerville comes on the soundtrack and now I want to hide because doom is coming. It was never going to all be fine.
-"Where am I?"/"Arse-end of the universe with the scum of the Earth." Was that a Hitchhiker's reference? It's been a while. Also, I get that Isaac is off his head on drugs right now, but I have a really bad feeling that this particular bender wasn't his idea and that this is a trap for John, particularly since Isaac recognized him by name, meaning they do know each other from the neighbourhood quite well, and certain people's glasses might have decided that John Watson's pressure point was putting himself in danger to rescue people, and all this has been arranged to trap John so that Sherlock will show up from wherever he's disappeared off to for the past month. Or Sherlock's in the room right now. Or it's all arranged so as to make Mary disappear. Or I should just hit play and let the doom happen, shouldn't I?
-Oh shit. Yep. *headdesk* Sherlock, be prepared to get yelled at, like a lot. And then fifty times as much if it turns out you aren't here working a case, or spending some quality time with your homeless network or otherwise in some way not actually high as a frigging kite, but instead dropped off the drugs wagon and have spent most of the past month (while John has been irritated and worried) shooting up. All the frigging yelling ever.
-"Oh. Hello, John. Didn't expect to see you here." Ahahahaahah. John's face. And so begins the yelling. Or fuming. Or glaring, or other displays of monumental Watsonian disappointment.
-"Come for me too?" Ahahahah. Doom. Such doom.
-"Where's John?"/"They're having a fight." Oh you bet they are. One so bad that the kid who's stoned to the point of immobility got out of the building to get away from it. Surprised John can't be heard from the car, actually.
-"I'm on a case!" Yep. It's some reason (or excuse) at least. Also a little surprised they didn't come out and roll down the stairs in a ball of cartoon flying fists, but John has a bit better control over himself than that. Also, it's not a cartoon.
-"One month, that's all it took. One." Ow.
-I don't know why I find this little crack-house backdoor urban jungle gym so interesting, but *gestures at screen in levels-and-shot-composition ways* yeah.
-"I'm undercover!"/"No you're not!"/"Well I'm not now!" HAHAHAHA. John actually seems to be finding this all hilarious too, judging by the grin, though that could just be relief Sherlock's not dead, so John can kill him. *nods*
-"In! Both of you! Quickly!" Yay, Mary! Combination den-mother and getaway driver. Also awesome.
-"Can I come, I think I've got a broken arm." Pfffft! *headshake*
-"Just get in. It's a sprain!" AHAHAHAH. Okay, this whole section is on more than one kind of crack.
-"Shezzer?"/"I was undercover."/"Seriously, Shezzer though?" PFFFT!!!!
-"I'm calling Molly."/"Why?"/"Because Sherlock Holmes needs to pee in a jar." I'm pretty sure it'll turn up clean, and I'm pretty sure John is too or he wouldn't be having so much fun with it, so I'm just gonna sit here and laugh my head off for a bit, okay?
-That was probably the most light-hearted "John finds a missing Sherlock in a crack den" scenario I've seen. The end there is practically "Mum and Dad Watson pick up Sherlock and his scallawag pals from the ice cream shop." So much adorable between this and all of Sign of Three. Which means that the inverse size of the ow impending is even more monolithic than ever... eeeek.
Continued in...
| PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR
PART FIVE | PART SIX | PART SEVEN | PART EIGHT
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR RUMOURS OR REFERENCES TO ANY INFORMATION FOR OR ABOUT FUTURE EPISODES OR SERIES' OF SHERLOCK)
(So Real Life time and attention suck ate me in a huge way just as I started watching this episode. I've been watching it a tiny bit at a time ever since, in increments of a few minutes or less per night of watching, all while avoiding 99% of the internet and fandom spaces so I wouldn't get too spoiled before finishing. This process has literally taken over three-quarters of a year. This horribly long and wordy and rambly thing is the result.)
WARNING: CONTAINS IMAGES AND DETAILS OF THE SHERLOCK SERIES 3 FINAL EPISODE. If you have not watched Sherlock Series 3's finale yet (and if you haven't by now I'd be incredibly shocked), this post is CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
CONTAINS: random live-bloggish babble, recapping, profanity, episode details and spoilers, pointless comments, snark, SO MUCH meta, speculation, profanity, capslock, overuse of the word 'awesome', ACD references of dubious validity, un-spoiler-cut ACD based speculation regarding developing story/character arcs/future events, profanity, excessive parenthetical asides, possibly divisive interpretations of character actions and intentions, constant burbling about the universal nature of Holmeses and Watsons, brief references to other fandoms, positivity, and squee. Also profanity. Like whoa. Also between the EIGHT sections there are 1000-odd not terribly great screencaps so beware your bandwidth.
HUGE Spoilers for this episode encountered just prior to when I began watching, and theories based on the HUGE spoilers.
Sigh. So what did I see the day I started watching this episode?
Mary shoots Sherlock.
*headdesk*
Well. Great. But then this is what I get for being ill and RL being a rancid duck fart and everything conspiring to make me take so much longer than the usual ages long I take to watch episodes. And even though I do avoid every fandom space and all the news feeds and whatnot until after watching an episode, some random site I needed to visit today the day I started watching this episode [Jan 28th O.o] for entirely un-Sherlock-related reasons (a report relating to an international tax issue on a UK news site) had a one-line all-caps blurb in a sidebar linking to an article about the show, and the sidebar blurb gave away that bit in particular.
And unless it's a minor incident of shooting - which it probably isn't, all things considered - it's probably a grand reveal close to the end of the episode and the whole episode will be leading up to that. So.
GGGGGNNNNRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! *kicks Lestrade's tires* X[
Right. Well. Obviously she's under coercion or something. Mary's awesome. I trust Mary. I want to trust Mary. Because she's awesome. And I do trust the show-runners not to mess with canon too much, but... not much is known about Mary in canon, where she was basically a character in one novel and then mentioned occasionally off-hand, and then died before "Empty House". So....
*hard swallow*
Well, it could be... Hm. [Extended theoretical babbling relating to the above spoiler, cut for the disinterested.]
Heh. It could be a "The Dying Detective" scenario or variant. (*gets sidetracked scribbling out a bit of fanfic*) Maybe Mary's only helping Sherlock with his verisimilitude by 'shooting' him (or possibly, if Mary is actually some kind of assassin (which would be kind of badass) and trying to escape either the assassin life or a contract she took on to kill Sherlock but has discovered she can't now that she's part of Team Awesome Trio etc, this could be a stunt to prove contract fulfillment, so Sherlock and Mycroft or whoever can trap her handler (The Fire-Watcher maybe? O.o), and get her out of that life *ponders*), and John will throttle the pair of them for doing this to him again and faking Sherlock's death while leaving John out of the loop so he can be realistically distraught again. But he'll get through it. Because Watson.
Or it could be for some reason Mary really is secretly evil, in which case, provided that becomes very clearly demonstrated, I will reluctantly apologize to the bits of my brain I bludgeoned with a shovel in the Sign of the Three reaction post to make them stop telling me Mary was a possible killer/evil puppetmaster. Which is kind of blowing my mind right now. Maybe there was some kind of foreshadowing going on I picked up on if that turns out to be the case. Which it won't be, because Mary's awesome. Aaaaarg. *headdesk*
Since... well. Since I'm not typically in the practice of outright denying what gets confirmed in canon, hypothetically, if it's concretely revealed that Mary has shot Sherlock specifically for "actually killing him" kind of reasons, it would follow that:
- She probably does have some kind of issue with Sholto, or is otherwise with John for the purpose of using him to gain access to something or someone. Possibly Sherlock.
- She never was pregnant. She faked having the symptoms around Sherlock so he would deduce it and reveal it to John, because John believes Sherlock, and she can fake a pregnancy test result simply enough.
- If Janine or David or Cam or any of Mary's friends from the wedding turn up, they could be in on whatever Mary's involved in, particularly Janine, because I liked Janine and expressed hope she turns up again and that is apparently a sure-fire curse on characters in shows I like to become dead or evil or both. (As a side note, if Mary does turn out to be a deep-cover assassin, then if John's dry-mouthed cousin who got seated near the bogs at the reception turns up dead, we'll know who to look at first)
- ...I'm not sure if shooting Sherlock connects to the Fire-Watcher, because he seemed more interested in watching Sherlock dance than watching him die. But it might. Given that this is the series 3 finale and we haven't heard from the Fire-Watcher again yet (unless there's something I've missed in "Sign of Three" or he's Hypothetical!Assassin!Mary's handler) he's got to be a big part of this episode.
- John Watson is going to be utterly destroyed by all of this.
Though to be fair, that last one will apply to nearly all theories and situations involving Mary shooting Sherlock for any reason. *preemptively wraps John in fuzzy blankets and makes him tea, so he's well stocked up when he has to go out ass-kicking later*
Anyway. Regardless, because I now know this particular event is taking place in the episode (throwing my series three finale speculation out the window (which is a really good thing O.o), since the hospital bag in the credits will be Sherlock's), there's going to be a lot of second-guessing based on knowing that's coming, maybe some things glossed past and not analyzed as closely as they might have been, and a lot less jumping around shrieking insanely when it actually happens. I mean of course there'll still be jumping around shrieking insanely, just not as much as there might have been. Darn it. :-/
Also, second spoiler seen in passing in a non-Sherlock-fandom area (UK news sites have no concept of "spoiler" do they?): there is a scene at the end (post-credits?) that implies Moriarty's not dead. Which I thought at one point in TRF might be the case (blood bag and squib, blank in the gun, which still would have messed him up a bit firing it into his mouth, but not necessarily lethally), but it really throws a wrench into the as-yet not fully confirmed "How Sherlock Did It" machinations of the series opener. That should be interesting. *steeplefingers*
All of which confirms why there was apparently a little bit of 'internet go boom' right after this aired, or so I've heard. Not as much as after Reichenbach Fall aired I think, but that's a different thing entirely. (A Reichenboom. Heh. Sounds like a unit of measurement. Number of online fansplosions in the 24 hour period following an episode's release or something)
So! Let's see what they've got for us. I suspect it's going to really hurt. (At least Moffat and Gatiss can't end two series' in a row with Sherlock 'dying', right? John would kill them. Jump right off the dailies and throttle them in the screening room. *nods*)
Live-Bloggish Picspam Reaction/Recap for Sherlock Series 3 Episode 3
PART ONE- "His Last Vow" (OH MY GOD, FROM THE WEDDING, OH CRAP YOU GUYS, SO MUCH IMPENDING DOOM D-:)
[Post-watching note of warning: I try to keep these reactions squeeful and upbeat but in this one I am particularly nasty toward the primary antagonist in this episode, but he's supposed to be an irredeemably hateable douchebag, so... *shrug* Otherwise, this recap/reaction post is intended to be positive and squeeful. If that's something you may have issues with, then this post is probably not for you. :-)]
-"Charles Augustus-" OMFG "-Maunsen." ...Who? *rewinds* The woman says something like 'Magusen'. My sound is muddy and neither is coming through clear, and the speed of talking and his accent isn't coming through clearly at all. Neither sound like Milverton at all, but SERIOUSLY, CHARLES AUGUSTUS. They wouldn't throw those names together and not mean it. It's Milverton with a different last name. *thumps on things* AUGUSTUS B. C. IN THE LAST ONE WASN'T A RED HERRING, HE WAS FORESHADOWING (and probably intended to be subliminal, but I, uh, liminalized him, hee. And Augustus B.C. Augustus "Before Charles"? XD). Oh. And. Those glasses. HE'S THE FIRE-WATCHER TOO! RIGHT??? \o/
(I think that's probably a record for zero to capslocking in a recap for me. 7 seconds in? *nods*)
-*still puzzling over sound* Magnuson? *shrug* Not helping that everyone's blurry right now and I can't read faces for cues. It'll turn up in print somewhere soon in the episode. This guy isn't just a random pre-title NPC.
-"How would you describe your influence over the Prime Minister?" O.O Our Milverton-analog, he doesn't aim low.
-"The British Prime Minister?" A good point. Lots of countries have a Prime Minister. Including mine. ....give me a minute to stop giggling about that idea. Okay, good now.
-"Any of the British Prime Ministers you have known." *checks list* Could be all the way back to Thatcher? EEEEEEK. Okay. Why is Mycroft not all over this guy like a disease? O.O
-Also, HI CAPTAIN ADELAIDE BROOKE HEADING THE TRIBUNAL THINGY!! *waves like a freak* I mean of course it's just the same actress, but somewhere in the fanon-verse, crossover fix-it fic for Waters of Mars is spontaneously appearing.
-"I never had the slightest influence over any of them. Why would I?" This Milverton-analog is excellently creepy. Just the slow, calm voice. (All I know about Milverton is something about blackmail, and Sherlock got fake-engaged to his maid to break the case. I've deliberately not been looking at that story or even the wiki page linked above since ABC Augustus turned up, since stories written a hundred years ago are now possible spoiler-minefields XD) *bounces*
-YEAH HE'S THE FIRE-WATCHER. THOSE GLASSES.
Why would Alt!Milverton here be watching Sherlock pull John from a fire? I don't know if I'm right in this guy being the one behind the train-bomb in some way, or whether he was just trying to let it develop into a full threat that would push that legislation through before stopping it, but he definitely put John in the fire to clue in Sherlock about the bomb-train plan. And he'd have known Sherlock and John were looking into the 'underground plan'... because Sherlock just had passive watchers reporting on key figures and wasn't directly involved in person until after the bonfire... hunh. Maybe Alt!Milverton has ears in Mycroft's office? And Mycroft and Sherlock have no idea this guy is operating out in the world? Holy crap. O.o
-I know it's the wrong show's reaction post for tie reports, but this guy's tie is having waaaaaay to much fun in relation to the apparent gravity of the situation. I think he's been bought or influenced by Alt!Milverton in some way, or has no idea how grave the situation really is. I mean seriously, look at that damn tie. That's not an on-the-job srs tribunal bzns tie, that a kid's birthday party tie, more often found accompanied by a fright wig, a red nose and big flappy shoes than pinstripes.
-Heh. 'Newspaper proprietor', 'foreign national' and the general tone of the statement being made here... Hehe. Are they equating Alt!Milverton to Rupert Murdoch? Because that's hilarious. XD
-No way. He's got Sherlock-vision! (Those glasses didn't look equipped for Google-glass-like functions.) XD
(What exactly constitutes "normal" for porn preferences?)
-Or maybe they do have some kind of access to a database. That bend in the display follows a lensing shape... Hunh. In other news, Alt!Milverton is not above using anything at all to bend people to do what he wants.
-"Lady Elizabeth Smallwood", incredibly squeaky clean, pressure point former commander of Mars Base One, 45 years from now, ancestor of Adelaide Brooks, future commander of Mars Base One temporal anomaly "*searching...*" Heee.
-I SUDDENLY HAVE A BURNING NEED TO SEE WHAT REPORT HE SEES ON SHERLOCK. With that little red line at the bottom reading PRESSURE POINT: >JOHN WATSON. In, like, 24 point bold text. *flails*
-Hi there, Fire-Watcher/Alt!Milverton. *peers at glasses* Okay, I can see how the little extendy-bits from the anchor points of the arms and bridge could be like, retina-projection displays or something. Entirely reasonable. Google's probably got plans for stuff like that to be available in the next five years, though they'll have to figure out a way to make it obvious the technology is there observing, rather than our Alt!Milverton who would have the opposite priority. *peers at edge of screencap* and the bulkier bits of hardware could be housed in that oddly prominent watch, and there'd be either a wireless connection or a physical connection up the sleeve to a mag-connector behind his ear. Wireless more likely. *nods and handwaves*
-"I have an excellent memory." Yeah, but it's on an external drive. Which I think might be its downfall. *ponders*
-Ha. License plates: I thought at first it said ICAN, but it's "ICAM", like eye-camera. Not at all subtle, is he. Goes right along with the bizarrely interesting gates. And house. Alt!Milverton likes things eye-catching and non-traditional. Except perhaps the moat. Not terribly traditional in form, but a moat's a moat. O.o
-*snerks and points at question mark sign-like pattern on lower foyer* He's also The Riddler, it seems.
-The hell? Joust figurine??
-Much as the place is pretty and shiny and all, if I was obscenely rich it would not take this long and this circuitous a route to walk to any particular room in my house. It would also not have any major areas solely accessible by spiral stairs because I have moved furniture far too often to think of spiral staircases as a practical idea. Though, to be fair, maybe this is his evening constitutional. Manipulate the world, drive home, do a lap or two of the house, including all the stairs. *nods*
-I will also say at this point that if a running gun-fight ever took place in this house, the attackers would in fact be screwed on several levels. literally and figuratively. *points at reflective surfaces, babbles about angles of fire and cover* Not like that's going to happen. He's not a shooting sort of villain, he's a 'steal your best friend and stick him in a bonfire' sort of villain, which are often far more interesting. Unless you're the protagonists, in which case they are an endless pain in the butt.
-And of course a library is an absolute necessity. Lens flares and all. Though this isn't a library, is it? It's the vaguely circus-themed storage room from the end of "Empty Hearse".
-Yep! We're heeeeere. And Alt!Milverton actually uses a Rolodex? O.o
-Hey, that shadow in the background moved! He's got a household staff, yeah, one of them opened the door for him, but do they come down to his room of secrets too? Cleaning is one thing, but does he have loyal enough people that he trusts them (or trusts his hold over them) not to disrupt his filing system? Does he have researchers? Are the glasses an active link to a room of private analysts who look people up as he sees them? All kinds of avenues to find weak points there. *bounces*
-Hm. That many physical files, he's got to have suborned people with access to personnel records, etc. Building the files for him, compiling data, arranging it, curating it, access and storage. Despite the new tech of the glasses, he's old school, and very worrisome.
-Gaaaaaaah *shudders* WHY IS THAT SO CREEPY?
-He delivers his... erm. Influencing in person too. Risky, overconfident, and scary because he really doesn't think he has a thing to worry about, does he?
-"Please don't do that." GAAAAAAAH. So many levels of wrong. Just that, that, sudden imposition of physical contact on her as she's speaking. Gaaaaaah!
-"She was fifteen." Oops. Yeah, that's a definite angle of influence. :-/
-"She looked delicious." GYAYAYAAHAHAAHGHAGAHAAHAHAHAHAAA *shudders and cringes* THIS GUY IS SO CREEPY. O.O
-Leaving aside the EXTREME CREEPY for a second. "We have photographs too?" Hmmm. Does 'we' refer to his underlings and his own power structure, or is he part of something larger yet? *taps fingers together*
-Also "Facts are for history books, I work in news." Oh yes. There's some definite poking of the press going on with the Alt!Milverton character here. I quite like it, and it suits the blackmailer role well for an update. *nods*
-"The whole world is wet to my touch." GYAHHHHH *spasms of revulsion* OH GOD, I NEED TO GO SHOWER OR SOMETHING AUGH!
-AND NOW NON-CONSENSUAL WRIST-SNIFFING, GYAHGYAHGYAHAHAHAH.
-"This is blackmail." Just a bit, yeah. Because even if it was a genuine mistake and no coercion was involved and it was stopped as soon as her age was known and it's all long over, that won't matter if it gets written up in a tabloid and exposed to the court of public opinion. Also, he's got the actual letters and photos. How??? If you have awkward documents that could be used against you, even if they seem reasonable in the end explanation, keep close track of them or destroy them. THIS IS WHY SHREDDERS WERE INVENTED. Also fire, nature's shredder. Just saying. *nods*
-"Of course it isn't blackmail. This is... ownership." I literally cannot transcribe the noise I just made. Holy crap. This Alt!Milverton is going to be one hell of a creepy adversary. O.o
-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! DDDDDDD-:
-"It never tastes like it smells, does it?" OKAY ALREADY, I AM FREAKED OUT BY ALT!MILVERTON. EVEN MORE THAN WHEN HE WAS JUST A SET OF EYES WATCHING SHERLOCK PULL JOHN OUT OF A FIRE OVER AND OVER. Oh. Oh oh oh. Does he have some kind of similar 'ownership' over Mary? THAT WOULD EXPLAIN A LOT ABOUT CERTAIN FUTURE EVENTS I HAVE BEEN SPOILED FOR, WOULDN'T IT?
-(*MASSIVE GROOVE SKIP* Okay. Okay. Rewind. I am going to do something here I have never done in a reaction/recap post before, and delete the large section of reacting and theorizing I just did which was based on a line that I had VERY BADLY misheard. I'd normally leave in my mishearing and laugh it off afterward when I figured out I was wrong, but in this case, no. A very strong content warning would have been required on this post if it was left in, and since it was all done in error it's unnecessary to leave any of it in. So. I misheard a line, and about a thousand words of shocked and horrific and very dark side-tracking theory has been deleted. Also, I am sourcing a different recording of the episode as I type, because sound that muddy should never ever happen. Reflecting on this though, it seems that I will evidently follow any dark road this show appears to be taking without ever once questioning the show's apparent direction or intent even slightly, until a logistical element makes me question my own perceptions first. I don't know of many other shows or novel series' that I could say the same for. O.o)
-"Lady Smallwood's bill is on me." So much for not having contact outside the tribunal then. More blackmail fodder. I'm wondering what sort of place this is, if the *handwave* butler guy just stood there and watched Alt!Milverton lick Lady Smallwood, and didn't even blink. Maybe Alt!Milverton 'owns' this place too. Or owns the butler guy. *shudders*
-"Magnuson." (Probably spelling it wrong, still haven't seen it written out) Is she venting, or has he got her compact wired to transmit to him now? That level of invasion seems so mild now in comparison to face-licking. D-:
-"There isn't a man or woman in England capable of stopping that disgusting creature-" Oh good she's having a thought of a plan of action. Or at least I hope she is and isn't just realizing her driver's probably under his influence as well?
-"Where we going, Ma'am?"/"Baker Street." YAY CAPTAIN ADELAIDE! I mean, not like it's a surprise or anything that she's getting Sherlock on the case, but YAY! \o/
-TITLES! Helicopters and guns and all kinds of things in those titles we haven't seen yet on the show. As well as the IV bag and the wallpaper-stroking. And a sad/resigned/contemplative-looking John. O.o
-Soooo, since I take so much time watching this show and got to the opening titles at a ridiculous hour of the night an opportune time to stop for the evening, I did. At work the next day (that being today at the moment, and last week [several weeks seven months ago (my god)] by the time this posts, probably) while doing mind-numbing data entry which included several businesses with names based on their respective owner's initials, my brain wandered, and I started thinking about people with initials that spell things and fictional dead people noted in Sign of Three called Augustus and their alphabetical initials. And Charles Augustus Magnuson's initials. Those initials being C.A.M. Or Cam. THE SAME 'CAM' WHO SENT THE TELEGRAM TO MARY AT THE WEDDING??? And in the middle of my office during a work day, I had a kind of deduction stall-out/fandom cascade/psychotic episode moment [which I am going to put behind a spoiler cut because it is a HUGE wall of text and capslocking] which went something like:. Taking that telegram message as not being from some random Camille or Cameron from school, but being from C.A.M. (who would be so overconfident in his invulnerability as to just leave the dots out of his initials to make a fake name, of course he would, HIS LICENSE PLATE SAYS "ICAM".), Mary is not working against Sherlock and John, not by choice. Mary is trapped. If she was involved at all in that bit with Sholto, it was something she wasn't to interfere with and at most had to pass intel about BECAUSE SHOLTO AND MEDIA DEMONIZING HIM AND THAT'S WHAT CAM DOES, SO SHOLTO TOLD CAM TO SHOVE IT, MAYBE? OMG and Mary couldn't be seen to be acting to stop it because CAM was watching in person or by proxy and DOOM and things would happen and the telegram was a message to keep Mary in line (listen to that message with Alt!Milverton in mind as the sender, that's absolutely creepy), but she could encourage Sherlock to fix it and that LOOK AS SHE CAME IN THE ROOM WITH THE PHOTOGRAPHER not just because she knows he's the photographer BUT SHE KNOWS HE'S NOT THE PHOTOGRAPHER BECAUSE MAYBE 'CAM' PROBABLY HAD HER 'REPLACE' HER ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHER WITH HIM and that might have been a moment of maybe-he-knows-and-will-out-me trappedness but gah! And AND maybe John in the fire was a message to MARY to stay in line and then CAM saw Sherlock and saw that big flashing red PRESSURE POINT: >>>JOHN WATSON explode everywhere all over everything with or without his glasses in flaming billion point font and DEVELOPED PLANS and probably already had plans because the whole media mogul thing and Sherlock's disgrace/death/redemption/resurrection cycle played out in papers and media he owned didn't it and he would have been allllll over that and just OMG! (and that 'use pressure points against people' is a bit like the Cabbie, isn't it, talking people to death with their weak points (or at least I think that's what was really going on there) and the cabbie wore glasses too and what if it's all connected somehow and alt!Milverton had some kind of co-op deal with Moriarty and omg) just *HANDWAVING ALL OVER* but GETTING BACK TO THE TELEGRAM NOW, (OH MY GOD HE CALLED HER "POPPET" which takes on a whole different meaning in that context DDD-:) and "wish your family could have seen this" there's something about her family she's hidden, or maybe there's something about the way they died, or maybe they aren't dead and she's hiding from them which sometimes happens too (which would explain why Sherlock's read on her in 3.01 got Only Child (which the stupid parts of my brain forgot about when they were doubting Mary in the 3.02 recap post, stupid, stupid brain) when it turns out she's an orphan with no evident family which she'd likely still have if her parents died later in her life or if she had gotten adopted, and if she was raised in children's homes and foster care it's very unlikely she'd read as an only child since she'd be in group settings with other kids all the time (hm I wonder if Sherlock's aware of that dichotomy or just thinks that was something he got wrong?)), and for very good reasons. Don't know. That wasn't a grief ambush there, or not entirely, that was being trapped and threatened and a bit scared (and I just looked back at that scene and GOD DAMN IT, AMANDA ABBINGTON IS FUCKING AMAZING BECAUSE IT'S ALL THERE IN HER FACE, HER FACE FALLS WHEN SHE HEARS 'CAM', NOT THE BIT ABOUT HER FAMILY) and not being able to let on to anyone who cares for her what's really going on. REGARDLESS. MARY IS NOT EVIL OR WHATEVER AT ALL!!! \o/ I mean, not that I wouldn't WATCH THE LIVING HELL out of Amanda Abbington playing a cold-hearted, ruthless deep cover assassin out to be evil everywhere because HOT DAMN WOULD SHE ROCK THE CRAP OUT OF THAT TOO, but Mary's not doing this willingly, she's being 'owned' by Alt!Milverton *ALL THE SHUDDERING EVER*, and needs help to escape from that and can't even hint at asking John or Sherlock and I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE THRILLED TO FIGURE OUT A CHARACTER I REALLY REALLY LIKE IS SECRETLY IN HORRENDOUS SQUICKY PERIL AND CAN'T EVEN ASK FOR HELP IN MY LIFE. I SAT AT MY DESK JUST NOW STARING AT A RANDOM SPREADSHEET WITH AN EXPRESSION SOMETHING LIKE, FFF, I DUNNO, LIKE I WAS LOOKING INTO A VAULT OF SHINY THINGS I THOUGHT MIGHT BE LOST FOREVER AND MAKING LITTLE "WALLACE FROM WALLACE-AND-GROMIT CONFRONTED BY EXCELLENT CHEESE" MOTIONS WITH MY HANDS OVER THE KEYBOARD, WITH MY FEET DANCING THE HAPPY DANCE OF HAPPY UNDER THE DESK. AND I MAY NEVER STOP CAPSLOCKING BECAUSE OH GOD YES, MARY IS NOT BETRAYING TEAM AWESOME, BUT HAS HEART AND SOUL CRUSHING REASONS FOR DOING WHAT SHE'S GONNA DO AND IS ONLY DOING IT BECAUSE SHE CAN'T SEE ANY WAY OUT OF IT (AND SHERLOCK AND JOHN NEED TO SEE THAT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE AND HELP HER FIGURE OUT A WAY OF ESCAPING IT AND STOPPING ALT!MILVERTON). I SINCERELY APOLOGIZE TO MARY MORSTAN-WATSON FOR EVER THINKING SHE WAS EVIL, AND THAT MARY-DOUBTING PATCH OF MY BRAIN IS GETTING ANOTHER COMPLETE AND PERMANENT MASHING WITH THE SHUT-UP SHOVEL BECAUSE MARY IS DEFINITELY A 100% PART OF THE TEAM AWESOME TRIO ALONG WITH SHERLOCK AND JOHN AND EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE BECAUSE NOTHING BEATS TEAM GODDAMN AWESOME. \o/ (*ignores that monolithic impending canon-influenced OW for right now*)
-*catches breath* Hot damn.
-SO. If anyone ever asks why I love this show, *points above* that's one reason why. Sudden epiphanies of plot or character that cause me (in the middle of an otherwise horrible day for so many reasons) to need to break out into flailing, fill most of a pad of sticky notes with point-form scribbling, and have subsequent outbursts of chair-dancing in the office for the rest of the day. Doesn't matter how bad Mary's action will look in the show at first, or how painful it's going to be watching what John and Sherlock will struggle against thinking before they figure it all out, MARY IS NOT A BAD GUY! \o/
-In summary; SOMEONE NEEDS TO THWART THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ALT!MILVERTON PRONTO. And/or burn down his vaguely circus-themed warehouse of secrets (and/or get the secrets that the authorities should know about to them in the case of ongoing or unsolved crimes of any sort) and turn him over to his victims. Because HE IS ENTIRELY MADE OF FOUL AND WRONG AND NOPE FOREVER and seriously, there are nicer demons on Supernatural. *bibbles about soul-ownership and free will and things*
-(I'll obviously be needing lots of Mary icons too. Note to self.)
-And now, back to watching the show. FEELING MUCH BETTER ABOUT CERTAIN FUTURE STORY EVENTS NOW (and SO much worse about other ones) but it will still be SO hard to watch, because they won't know how imperiled Mary is to be doing the things she's going to be made to do, they'll only see what she's doing, gaaaaaah. D-:
-EEEEEEK. O.O
-Oh my god. Afghanistan nightmares. I mean, he's probably been having them on and off all along, it just seems like such a long time because we haven't seen him having them.
-AND NOW THE DREAMS HAVE SHERLOCK IN THEM ohmygod. I think fandom as a whole called something like this after TRF, but *flails* for actually seeing it.
-"The game is on." *demented spanish rooster noises*
-*whimpers at the title* Because vows and being there for them and Mary and everything, oh my god.
-Not Sherlock at the door, of course, though that would have been kind of freaky. I do love when characters have lives and things outside of the adventures we see in shows. Neighbours with family crises who are friendly enough with them to feel able to show up on their doorstep at god awful in the morning crying. (And Mary continues to be awesome.)
-"Your husband."/"Son." John's a little out of step but he did just wake up and was hoping for an entirely different mop of curly hair to be lurking on their doorstep. Aw, they have a doorstep. *draws hearts*
-"He's the drugs one, yeah?"/"Yeah. Nicely put, John." *laughs to the point of wheezing* I mean it's horrible for poor Kate (and her frankly fantastic hair) here to have it put bluntly, but it's the difference in the way of looking at problems. Consoling versus finding a solution. Both valid responses, sometimes one method is far more useful than the other, and it's not always the one you think.
-"Is it Sherlock Holmes you want because I've not seen him in ages."/"A month." Ohhhh. And that would be why John's having the dreams and is a bit extra put out it wasn't Sherlock at the door this morning. I mean, before Reichenbach, Sherlock probably disappeared on cases for a month and no one thought anything of it. After that and the big return and the vowing and the fact that there's still the unknown person who tried to blow up a train and set John on fire and probably arranged a stabbing for Sholto and all, a disappearance with no word has got to spike some serious anxieties. Also a bit of pissed-off-ness and feeling like he's being avoided, the more run-of-the-mill stresses of not seeing your best friend for a month.
-"Who's Sherlock Holmes?"/"See? That does happen." Heeheehee.
-"Where is he?"/"It's a house, it's a dump, it's practically falling down-"/"No, the address. Where, exactly?" Ah hahaaa. Because John Watson woke up this morning with a powerful need to go kick some ass, so why the hell not go wade into a random crack-house and pull out Kate's kid? Hopefully he calls the police first? Maybe? Also, really hopefully he doesn't find Sherlock there (although unless there are things we don't know about Kate's kid, this little ass-kicking excursion has to be more than just that, but I've got a bad case of the dark and dreadfuls still lingering after that mishearing earlier. If he is, hopefully he's just gathering evidence or something. Or needs rescuing. *is nervous*)
-"Seriously?" Mary is awesomely sensible. Also, welcome to the Watson neighbourhood! Three stories above-ground and a basement, center of a sort of ...I don't know architecture. Modernish-looking short row-housey thing with flowers and flower baskets, aw. Different color of end unit and slightly different stone fence in front might imply the end unit had a bad thing happen to it and it was rebuilt, so maybe not too too modern then. *peers at car* ...Audi? Don't know if it's Mary's though.
-Ahahaha. And John just remote-opened the door locks, which means that it is Mary's car, and since she's still in her dressing-gown, somewhere between Baskerville and now, John Watson has learned to drive, even if Martin Freeman hasn't. Wonder who taught him? And who else tried? There's fic in that. ;-)
-"Being neighbourly."/"Since when?"/"Since now." Firstly, love the lamp, I want that lamp in the parking lot of my building, secondly, they could set up a chessboard out of the handy 'never need to mow' tile front yard, and three, I am feeling mightily paranoid about that cab approaching.
(Of course I'm wrong about the cab. Not everything is out to mess with the Watsons. Unless there was someone in that cab who would have stopped if the Watsons weren't out front to see... *ponders*)
-"Why are you being so... *circle-wavy lemon-facey motions*?" Hee!
-"There is nothing the matter with me! ...Imagine I said that without shouting." That was some pretty mild shouting.
-"You can't come, you're pregnant!"/"You can't go, I'm pregnant." Hee! Also, she's in her dressing gown, and should probably put on more practical clothing before engaging in freelance baddassery by assisting her husband in taking apart a crack den, all pregnancy aside.
-Car (which we didn't actually see John drive, hee!), some kind of black late model Audi hatchback, like maybe an '06-'07 5-door A3? *notes license plate* Also *eyes billboard* That 'IS' is way too prominent not to be significant. Hm. "Free information is the power to change." HMMMMMM.
-I was going to have an intelligent comment here regarding the whereabouts of John's gun, but I'm far too amused by John stuffing a tire-iron down the leg of his jeans. Also, I think we have the same belt.
-"Because there are loads of smack-heads in there and one of them might need help with a tire." *SNEEEERK* That's the problem when BAMFs don't have a regular outlet for badassery, it comes out as extra snark. So not that much of a problem at all really.
-"It's a tiny bit sexy."/"Yeah I know." *snickers forever* They're so adorable.
-"'Scuse me." And he just barges in. Dude. XD
-"Isaac Whitney, have you seen him?" I'm having kind of a strange flailing reaction to John going out and being a badass on his own impetus. It's bizarrely cool, and of course John's a badass in and of himself, not just when Sherlock needs him to be.
-Although, occasionally, badass danger junkies do some foolhardy things that could get them killed by regular junkies too.
-"I'm asking you if you've seen Isaac Whitney and now you're showing me a knife. Is it a clue?" HEEEEEEE!
-"Go. Or I'll cut ya."/"Ooo, not from there." And quite often badass can convert to smartass with no loss of *handwave* energy, momentum, thing. Law of Conservation of (Something)Assery. You just have to watch you don't convert either to dumbass, because that one gets you killed slightly more often than the others. *nods*
-"Lemmee help." Speaking of which....
-"Okay, you asked for it." AND THEN NINJA!JOHN BUSTS THE HELL OUT. OH MY GOD.
Ho yus. You'd think John had spent a large part of the Hiatus, ooo, I dunno, stabbing giant spiders in the face or punching up alien robots in pub toilets in Hertfordshire or something. (Hee! Great to see them using Martin Freeman's fight training in Sherlock! \o/) I think that's going to be a very highly rewatched five seconds of the episode for me.
-"Are you concentrating yet?" I know I am! \o/
-"Is it supposed to feel squishy?" XD
-"Yeah, it's a sprain. I'm a doctor, I know how to sprain people." *crazy octopus flailing everywhere* BAMF DR JOHN YES *head-laptop* BWAHAHAHAHAH!
-"Mental, you are."/"Nope, just used to a better class of criminal." WIN. And that is what happens when a hero-level character in an RPG is confronted by a level 1 thug. Way below the campaign challenge rating. *nods*
-Okay, I was thinking this might all be fine and just an excuse to see how awesome John is in and of himself, but then the frigging music played in The Hounds of Baskerville comes on the soundtrack and now I want to hide because doom is coming. It was never going to all be fine.
-"Where am I?"/"Arse-end of the universe with the scum of the Earth." Was that a Hitchhiker's reference? It's been a while. Also, I get that Isaac is off his head on drugs right now, but I have a really bad feeling that this particular bender wasn't his idea and that this is a trap for John, particularly since Isaac recognized him by name, meaning they do know each other from the neighbourhood quite well, and certain people's glasses might have decided that John Watson's pressure point was putting himself in danger to rescue people, and all this has been arranged to trap John so that Sherlock will show up from wherever he's disappeared off to for the past month. Or Sherlock's in the room right now. Or it's all arranged so as to make Mary disappear. Or I should just hit play and let the doom happen, shouldn't I?
-Oh shit. Yep. *headdesk* Sherlock, be prepared to get yelled at, like a lot. And then fifty times as much if it turns out you aren't here working a case, or spending some quality time with your homeless network or otherwise in some way not actually high as a frigging kite, but instead dropped off the drugs wagon and have spent most of the past month (while John has been irritated and worried) shooting up. All the frigging yelling ever.
-"Oh. Hello, John. Didn't expect to see you here." Ahahahaahah. John's face. And so begins the yelling. Or fuming. Or glaring, or other displays of monumental Watsonian disappointment.
-"Come for me too?" Ahahahah. Doom. Such doom.
-"Where's John?"/"They're having a fight." Oh you bet they are. One so bad that the kid who's stoned to the point of immobility got out of the building to get away from it. Surprised John can't be heard from the car, actually.
-"I'm on a case!" Yep. It's some reason (or excuse) at least. Also a little surprised they didn't come out and roll down the stairs in a ball of cartoon flying fists, but John has a bit better control over himself than that. Also, it's not a cartoon.
-"One month, that's all it took. One." Ow.
-I don't know why I find this little crack-house backdoor urban jungle gym so interesting, but *gestures at screen in levels-and-shot-composition ways* yeah.
-"I'm undercover!"/"No you're not!"/"Well I'm not now!" HAHAHAHA. John actually seems to be finding this all hilarious too, judging by the grin, though that could just be relief Sherlock's not dead, so John can kill him. *nods*
-"In! Both of you! Quickly!" Yay, Mary! Combination den-mother and getaway driver. Also awesome.
-"Can I come, I think I've got a broken arm." Pfffft! *headshake*
-"Just get in. It's a sprain!" AHAHAHAH. Okay, this whole section is on more than one kind of crack.
-"Shezzer?"/"I was undercover."/"Seriously, Shezzer though?" PFFFT!!!!
-"I'm calling Molly."/"Why?"/"Because Sherlock Holmes needs to pee in a jar." I'm pretty sure it'll turn up clean, and I'm pretty sure John is too or he wouldn't be having so much fun with it, so I'm just gonna sit here and laugh my head off for a bit, okay?
-That was probably the most light-hearted "John finds a missing Sherlock in a crack den" scenario I've seen. The end there is practically "Mum and Dad Watson pick up Sherlock and his scallawag pals from the ice cream shop." So much adorable between this and all of Sign of Three. Which means that the inverse size of the ow impending is even more monolithic than ever... eeeek.
Continued in...
| PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR
PART FIVE | PART SIX | PART SEVEN | PART EIGHT
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR RUMOURS OR REFERENCES TO ANY INFORMATION FOR OR ABOUT FUTURE EPISODES OR SERIES' OF SHERLOCK)