PICSPAM REACTION/RECAP: Sherlock Series 3 Episode 3 (Part 6 of 8)
WARNING: CONTAINS IMAGES AND DETAILS OF THE SHERLOCK SERIES 3 FINAL EPISODE. If you have not watched Sherlock Series 3's finale yet, this post is CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Live-Bloggish Picspam Reaction/Recap for Sherlock Series 3 Episode 3
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX - "His Last Vow"
-Yep. Had to get 'Sherlock disguised as a beggar' in there. This is either him or someone from his network as a lookout, because at that time of night, walk-by traffic wouldn't be high enough to panhandle, and it'd be more important to find a doss for the night. I'd think, anyway. Also Leinster Gardens and Leinster Terrace, shot at the actual location. Right in front of Hotel Henry VIII (unless I'm off) which seems a very nice place to recover from a gunshot wound if you can afford it (though this is most likely another of Sherlock's "Saved the owner's prize peke from a dognapper"-type deals for Sherlock). Also right next door to Zorba's Greek Kebab Taverna, in case there's a throttling emergency requiring a kebab shop. (And since it has the worst restaurant reviews I have ever seen, I'd advise only going there for throttling emergencies. O.o)
-"Spare any change, love?" Aahahaha! I know that voice! WIGGINS! And Mary should know it too, if I recognize it from hearing it in that part of the episode which I watched an embarrassing number of months ago and it's only been a few (really distracting) days for her. Which could make this suddenly a very awkward sort of sentry duty for Bill Wiggins, because of course that's why he's out here. On guard for 'Shezzer', because he's Wiggins. *canon reference fistpump and glee*
-"Oh, come on, love, don't be like all the rest." It's either a full moon again (except it's not because it was a waxing crescent/nearly-half moon transition shot just a second ago), or there's a giant floodlight somewhere up the street, or I misjudged the time of day badly from the previous angle shot. That is an awful lot of light. Anyway, before I got distracted by the lighting, my first inclination was to say 'silly Wiggins' for talking a second time and twigging Mary's memory of his voice, but. BUT. If he's out there to... hm. If Sherlock has figured out that despite appearances it was never Mary's intent to kill him (and he should have, really, considering how easily she could have managed in the hospital, especially as she works as a nurse and would know how to fudge it so it looked like post-op complications or something, I mean, heck, Janine probably came closer to killing Sherlock in hospital when she shut down his morphine to teach him a lesson about being a manipulative jerk, so if an untrained random person can diddle with a patient's morphine pump that easily, Mary finding a way to kill Sherlock if she'd really intended to would be a breeze, but instead she just warned him off telling John), if he's figured that out, he could just want the chance to talk to Mary alone and unmonitored to get her side of her Magnuson story, and what can be done about it. Or at the very least, let her know he knows she's not intending to kill him, so she won't do a runner. Or to make sure her intentions toward John are honourable and non-threatening, though he should be aware of that too given she's doing all this to keep her past from hurting John. Heh. Could it be a belated 'shovel talk' coming from Sherlock for Mary? Anyway, Wiggins has been made, deliberately or otherwise.
-What? Oh there's no way she didn't recognize his voice. Unless maybe she's too focused on her mission of finding Sherlock, which doesn't make sense either if she's some kind of stealth ninja operative that can get through Magnuson's security without a blip, she'd have to be more aware of incongruous/familiar elements of her surroundings than less. Could be she's pretending not to have recognized him so he maybe doesn't realize it, and so she can head on by now she knows where Sherlock is staying and ninja in to see what the heck he thinks he's doing leaving hospital while recovering? Hm. Okay. *handwave*
-"Rule one of looking for Sherlock Holmes: He finds you." Heee! Yay Wiggins! There to facilitate a meeting. (And also maybe move some furniture earlier?)
-"You're working for Sherlock now."/"Keeps me off the streets, dunnit?"/"Well... No." Heeeee. Probably keeps him from having to be bouncer at a crack house, though. There are many levels to 'on the streets' after all.
-"Can't you see me?" *squints* three rooms with lights on, no shadows and Sherlock's not enough of a fool to backlight himself like that under the circumstances, even if he does know Mary wasn't trying to kill him. The balcony over the entrance is a bit conspicuous due to the Whoville trees, but the next one has them too so that's a repeating feature. Top window one in from the outside has an open curtain, and an arguably simple escape route of out the window, stand on ledge, grab window frame, grab roof edge, up and over, though like many things Sherlock's done tonight, not advisable to be done with a recent bullet wound. Still, feasible in terms of Sherlock who routinely runs around jumping rooftops, though it'd be really stupid for him to do so right now.
And, another shot of building, another visual parallel with Mary and John's house and 221B. See?
Angle, ratio of walk/street to building facing, very nearly (or very shortly if Mary moves toward the middle after I unpause) same positioning of characters. Not sure what it may mean, but there might just be some meta in that.
-"The lie of Leinster Gardens hidden in plain sight." Hm. Well for a start, there's not much in the way of gardens. And the road changes names right there. Or it could be he let Anderson follow him here so that only someone desperate enough to go to Anderson and the Empty Hearsers and without the resources of Mycroft Holmes to access cameras, etc would get that info from them, try to track Sherlock here, get contacted by Wiggins or whoever was available of the homeless network regarding whatever the tracker was tracking Sherlock down about while he's actually miles away. Like maybe Baker Street, down in 221C or up in John's room. Or he's up in the room with the Whoville trees and the lit window because despite him actually nearly dying of her shooting him, he's that sure he doesn't need to fear her genuinely trying to kill him.
-"The houses, Mary. Look at the houses." I... am not going back to Google Maps, because I will lose hours trying to figure this out, and that's silly... eh. *takes a quick Pegman tour on Google Maps* Other than no actual 'garden' Gardens, there are a ton of hotels on that road, and I don't see anything offhand he'd be talking about. But then again, I'm not a badass ninja assassin/operative type, either.
-I have to say it, Sherlock's voice giving calm directions over Bluetooth is giving me serious flashbacks to The Night Jar. Which is awesome.
-"How did you know I'd come here?"/"I knew you'd talk to the people no one else would bother with." AWWW. I think. Aww-ish at the very least.
-"I planted the information for you to find." Yep! Though not just her, if Anderson stalked him one night at some undefined point in the past before Sherlock had been shot or had any doubts about Mary, it had to be a general setup for anyone either so thorough or so desperate to ask the Empty Hearsers for info on Sherlock's boltholes. Or a setup in case something went wrong and he had to disappear suddenly from everyone but wanted there to be a way a thorough person could find him and let the others know he was all right and not disappeared for another two years. Or he wanted to hide where only Anderson would know where to find him. Which despite the revaluation that Sherlock has a head-Anderson is a liiiiiittle boggling. O.o
-Okay, Mary's seen it... *squints at oddly uniform windows* Oh, hey. Is this one of those fake townhouse fronts made to cover some industrial stuff, pipes or underground access, on the street? *actually reads the article linked* HAHAHA. "In the 1860s, a tube line passing through Paddington and Bayswater was constructed and incidentally ran its path directly under 23 and 24 Leinster Terrace. The two five-story houses had to be demolished in order to dig through the tunnels but once the finished tunnel was covered, it was decided that the houses wouldn’t be rebuilt … entirely that is." Not only is it one of those, IT'S A REAL ONE OF THOSE THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS. *twirls* AWESOME! And very low rent!
-"Twenty three and twenty four Leinster Gardens. The Empty Houses." *pauses* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgh! Empty Houses! *headdesk* *canon reference fistpump* *headdeskheaddeskheaddesk* ARG!! It's even worse because I should have seen that coming but didn't. XD
-*goes back to Google Maps* Well crap, it's even right there. It just looks like a gap between buildings from above, and the facade is just a line so it looks like a part of the sidewalk or something. THAT IS SO COOL!
-"Remind you of anyone, Mary?" Well if you're going to push the obvious metaphor, why not push it all the way. *facepalm*
-BWAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHHAH. Okay. Now that's just silly. Although if he's got all that set up, he'd have had to draft a bunch of people into getting a slide projector and get a slide made of just Mary's face from the Mayfly Man photos in a very short amount of time, so he could also have drafted them into relocating John's chair etc. which would be slightly more sensible of him. *handwaves* Also, Sherlock Holmes, Drama Queen. *nods*
-"Sorry. I never could resist a touch of drama." Altogether now: "No shit, Sherlock!" XD
-"I won it in a card game with the Clarence House-" Cannonball? Cannibal? Counterbore? Sound went muddy. He's also either got a room in the place across the way, or the projector's on that balcony and is pretty good because it isn't distorting a smidgin.
-I have the sudden feeling, what with the phone call John wasn't quite ready to pick up earlier, that maybe John's in there too.
-"Nearly cost me my kidneys but fortunately I had a straight flush." Ah, cannibal then.
-This show and its shadows, seriously.
-"Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972." You know, I really didn't until right now think that Mary Morstan might be an assumed name. Which is damned silly of me. Then again I think part of me is still thinking of her as some kind of creche-raised assassin trained from birth.
-Love this shot. The visual metaphor of Mary being caught and trapped under a row of spotlights which Sherlock analyses her past. Her options are rapidly fading to none that don't involve complete honesty and revealing what she's been hiding from John and the world. Literal tunnel-vison.
-"Common enough technique known to the kinds of people who could recognize a skip code on sight." ...preeeetty sure that category is quite a bit broader than Sherlock is making it out to be. I mean, we did skip codes, phone codes, substitution ciphers, cryptograms, etc in Girl Guides when I was 10.
-Yeah, that was an interesting look he gave her there... has he been looking into her history all along then and just sitting on it until it became a possible danger to John?
-"How good a shot are you?" HA! Ha ha ha! YEAH. EXACTLY. Far too good to miss any of the many instantly lethal shots she could have taken and hit the one spot that gave him the best chance of surviving while still appearing lethal to Magnuson. HA. Yes. I'll just be over in the corner being smug for a little while.
-"If I die here, my body will be found in a building with your face projected on the front of it. Even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with that." HAHAHAHAHA. I just laughed so hard my spine went pop. XD Also, I really don't think Sherlock is actually sitting at the end of that hall. Something about the quality of his voice. We're still hearing it through the bluetooth, and she should be hearing it in the room as well at that distance, and since we are viewing her perspective, that should be coming through in the audio. Maybe. Hm.
-Oh lovely. If slightly toonish.
-Frigging shadows. Also, I knew it wasn't him down the end of the hall. And now she's literally trapped as well as visually in that hall.
-"May I see?" Mary's little odd glance at the figure at the end of the hall there, pft. Mary's not having a very good night. Or she's subliminally sabotaging herself so she can stop lying and move on, whatever direction that might be.
-Nice "bending over with an abdominal wound" noises, in case him standing up in his coat made anyone forget he'd been shot a few days ago.
-"And yet over a distance of six feet, you failed to make a kill shot. Enough to hospitalise me, not enough to kill me." EXACTLY! EXACTLY! SEE!? MARY'S NOT EVIL! SHE'S JUST IN A FUCKED UP SITUATION AND TRYING TO UNFUCK IT in, well, admittedly painful and counter-productive ways, BUT SHE'S NOT EVIL! SHE WASN'T TRYING TO KILL SHERLOCK THEN, AND WON'T BE TRYING TO KILL HIM AGAIN! I mean, I figured as much but it's nice to have it stated. GO TEAM AWESOME!! \o/
-"That wasn't a miss, that was surgery." *rolling in insufferable glee*
(Gosh, Mary is so unbelievably pretty. Just look at that face. Happy at her wedding, or watching Sherlock find a way to understand the truth of who she is and hoping maybe in the tiniest fragment of the beginnings of hope that her truth won't break John or anyone else she cares about, she's heartbreakingly pretty.)
-"I'll take the case." *makes a noise like a startled gerbil*
-"What case?"/"Yours." MUST. FLAIL. NOW. *FLAAAAAAAAAAAIL*
-"Why didn't you come to me in the first place?" Oh his voice there. Oh.
-"Because John can't ever know that I lied to him." *facepalm* He's sitting in the shadows down the end of the hall, isn't he? If so, Mary's ops-senses are really shot, not to recognise the difference between a not-Sherlock dummy and a not-Sherlock living person. I thought that shoulder-slope looked familiar.
-"It would break him and I would lose him forever and Sherlock, I will never let that happen." I'm pretty sure Mary's underestimating John's capacity to cope with people he loves telling him giant whopping lies and breaking him a bit, yes, but not forever. Obvious and primary case in point, Sherlock coming back from the dead. John's probably going to be pissed off about the shooting, and whatever the lying was hiding, but he'll get through it, I think, and no one is losing him forever. Hey, and just in case, there's a handy kebab shop nearby in case John needs to throttle someone, or since I really don't see John as the kind of guy to throttle his pregnant wife except in serious self-defense, maybe just punch a tube of donair meat or something. Of course all this is moot because John's right there and already knows everything. Of course. I mean just look at Sherlock's face after Mary says that and he starts to turn away.
-"There is nothing in this world I will not do to stop that happening." Aaaand Sherlock's slow step and turn back has handily taken him to something that looks like an electrical panel. So he can turn on the lights at the end of the hall over the 'dummy' and reveal it's been John all along. Right?
-"Sorry. Not that obvious a trick." Right.
OH GOD, MARY'S FACE FALLING, AND THAT LITTLE SHUDDER AS SHE REALISES, OH MY GOD. (AND BETWEEN THAT FIRST CAP AND THE SECOND, HER FACE LITERALLY GOT A SHADE PALER. AMANDA ABBINGTON CAN EVEN ACT WITH HER FRIGGING CAPILLARIES.) *flaaaaaail*
Oh god. ALL THE FACES ARE KILLING ME NOW. (Although there is a small giggle because of John's hair being made oddly floofy to mimic Sherlock's silhouette) John's perspective on all of this though. Sherlock's hint about Mary, the phone call and whatever he said to John, and then John sitting there in the dark, only hearing Mary's half of that bluetooth conversation and seeing that gun come out and just staying so still. Oh my god. I have no words, only flails. *flaaaail*
-HEEEE!
OH HELLO CCTV CAMERA BEHIND JOHN. GUESS WHO ELSE COULD ALSO HAVE BEEN WATCHING THAT WHOLE THING. O.O
-Mary's face, you guys. Mary's faaaace.
-John unpopping his collar. I feel bad laughing so hard when John's face is so sad and resigned to deal with the nightmare situation in front of him, but seriously that unpopping was a little epic. XD
-And again, the visual and actual trapping of Mary by that hallway. Any options she had are gone. It's face this and deal with it time. Or, realistically she could shove out past Sherlock (since he's injured and really shouldn't even be doing much standing for extended periods, let alone prevent someone fleeing, as a strong wind could probably knock him down right now) and disappear forever. Except she doesn't want to lose John. The only way she's got to accomplish that now is the truth.
Also that last one with them facing off down the hall is giving me 'gunfight at dawn' vibes, though in actuality it's so much more complicated and hurty than that.
-Oh god. And all that bit Sherlock was saying in the hall about the shooting accuracy and the shot being like surgery, that was aimed at John too, listening at the other end of the hall. And Sherlock, again, tries to make sure his friends' (admittedly more fucked up than originally thought) marriage and lives carry on to the best of his ability, and he's there for them. All of them. Like he said he'd be. Even after one of them shot him. TLDR: *FLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL*
-House. Strains of 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing.' ...What? Is this a Holmes' family Christmas? Random. O.o
-"It's been Christmas Day for at least a week now, how can it only be two o'clock? I'm in agony." *FLAIL* CHRISTMAS CRACKERS! THE POSSIBILITY OF THE HOLMES BOYS IN SILLY PAPER HATS ON SCREEN IS REAL!!! \o/
-Okay, I thought he was still alive at the start of the episode. When is this happening? (Also, holy shit, Magnuson's blackmail drove Captain Adelaide's spouse to kill himself? DDDD-:)
-"Mikey, is this your laptop?" *makes strangled noises* Mikey. Mikey. MIKEY. *bursts out laughing*
-Though I suppose if you're going to use anyone's laptop as a cutting board or a cutting board support, Mycroft's would be the wiser option since it's probably one of those field-use rated ones that can handle water, impact, electrical surges, and small EMP bursts, and if it does get destroyed the supplier will have it back as a 'failed in the field' warranty claim and the next generation of official-issue laptops will have been improved to withstand potato juice and use as a cutting board. *nods*
-"We are here because Sherlock is home from hospital and we are all very happy." Okay, some time frame there. Unless this is a Christmas in July thing or some kind of odd 'adults playing their child selves' flashback of a time when wee!Sherlock got out of hospital for something other than being shot (and Mycroft's comments about the fate of the free world depending on his laptop doesn't necessarily mean it's the Now, because let's face it, Mycroft is the sort who would have always claimed the fate of the free world depended on his laptop/home computer/pocket calculator/fractions homework/Pong console/teddy bear "Archibald McFuzzbottom the Second"/etc).
-"Am I happy too? I haven't checked." *giggles over everything*
-"Behave, Mike!"/"Mycroft is the name you gave me, if you could possibly struggle all the way to the end?" Heeeeee!
-"Mrs Holmes." WIGGINS! OH, Sherlock brought Wiggins home for a family holiday thing and I can't even explain why I'm flailing so hard at that and making distressed gerbil noises. Just. Family, and *makes gestures like grabbing a giant soap bubble* inviting 'orphaned' friends who have nowhere else to go to come share a family thing, whether that's blood-family or heart-family. Just. Yeah. Christmas. *beams*
-"I'm his protege, Mrs Holmes. When he dies I get all his stuff and his job."/"Nope." *snerk* Even if that was the full case, it's really not what you should say to your host about her son. Little disturbing, considering his recent shooting.
(Wiggins does kind of place it though. This is the second time this season they've had a big tense moment they've cut away to a seemingly random scene from later on. We'll have to see how random this ends up being.)
-"If he does get murdered or something."/"Probably stop talking now." HEEE! The social aspect's going to need a bit of work for Wiggins.
-"Someone's put a bullet in my boy. If I ever find out who I shall turn absolutely monstrous." Oh dear. That would be something to see.
-(I do kind of wonder about Mycroft's 'line-dancing in Oklahoma' comment earlier though. Was that some form of brotherly code, or was he just trolling the Empty Hearsers with misinformation so anyone seeking out the Holmes parents to use against Mycroft and Sherlock would find that tidbit on a Hearser blog and set off searching the country bars and dance-halls of Oklahoma?)
-"This one's for Mary. I'll be back in a minute." HE BROUGHT JOHN AND MARY TOO??? And is he counting down to Mummy finding out Mary shot him and everyone's basically fine with it (since I don't think he'd bring Mary without John, so Mary and John are together which means they reached some kind of understanding or acceptance earlier that we'll be getting back to at some point) or is he counting down to something else?
-In a Christmas outfit under a plaid blanket in front of the fire with a book, not looking at all like her entire world's been destroyed, so I'd say that bodes well.
-*sighs wistfully at the Holmes family living room full of Christmas*
-"Did you write this?"/"Oh that silly old thing, you mustn't read that. Mathematics'd seem terribly fatuous now!" *gleeeeee*
-*flails all over the Holmes family*
*squints into background* There's wee!someone in a snow-suit in one of those photos. XD
-"I'm something of a moron, myself, but she's... unbelievably hot." Heeee! And Mummy Holmes was a published genius mathematician before she focused on raising a family. I'd imagine she had a stunning amount of focus to turn to the task. Aw. And Mr Holmes is sort of her Watson then. Awwwww.
-See? That is not the face of someone whose world was shattered in a hallway. Everything's going to be fine. Where's John though?
-"You're the sane one, aren't you?"/"Aren't you?" Hehe. Well. Considering their mutual penchant for incredible marksmanship and reasonably justifiable violence, it's a bit of a toss-up. Or will be if Mary's come clean and they've found a way to deal or cope with the ramifications of everything.
-JOHN! HI JOHN! HI JOHN! Oh god I was worried there for a second. Oh wow, John and Mary and everyone at the Holmes family home for Christmas, I just- *FLAAAAIL* Gah!
-"I'll just go and see if I can help with... something or another." *smishes the adorable Mr Holmes*
-There are some anxious-making faces and music going on in here. Though really, she did lie to him about her life and shoot Sherlock, rather than tell him and trust he wouldn't freak out and leave and also allow him to, if not help her get out of this jam she was in, then at least just to know it was something she was dealing with and to be there for her and ready to duck or kick ass as requested. There's not going to be any throttling in kebab shops or fake-out train bombs, but there's probably going to be some lingering ow, no matter what the details are of how things shook out.
-"Those two, are they all right?"/"Well, you know, they've had their ups and downs." You could say that, yeah. Also I still have this under-bubbling glee that the Holmes parents are being played by Benedict's parents and just, little scenes like this where it's just him and his dad in a quiet social moment make me smile on several levels.
-"Baker Street. Now." *nods* Side-stepping the need for an immediate response to the situation from either of them, giving them both a chance to regain their bearings and process the situation so they can react with some brain as well as heart. Surprisingly astute. And, significantly, not keeping Mary trapped into facing this, giving her some space to make her own choice about how to deal with this. Run or face it. Also, Sherlock's probably about ready to fall down by now and he has to turn off the projector on the balcony before the neighbours complain.
-Oh her face.
-And John's look toward her and look away before he walks past. Too much to deal with right now, can't say anything that won't be horribly painful for everyone involved, so just say nothing for now and deal with it with a more level head later, or at least deal with it in a more secured environment. Because seriously, this is a HUGE thing to cope with, surgical shooting or not. Needs time. *nods*
-And it looks like it's just the two of them back at 221b. Hopefully when they got Sherlock in a cab they did the sensible thing and dropped him off back at hospital. Also because while a referee for the discussion John and Mary need to have might be wise, it's a discussion they need to work out between themselves. And Sherlock might not be the best referee right now, what with having been shot and all.
-And Mrs Hudson's still there, probably because John lit out like he was on fire at Sherlock's call and she's been pottering around waiting for news, not sure what to do with herself in the meantime. I know the feeling.
-John's surprised face is adorable.
-Whups, they did bring him home after all. And left him to follow them up the stairs after. Which really speaks to how in their own heads they are right now with this. They both work in the medical field and very much know Sherlock's been shot and had surgery recently. At the very least, one of them should have been behind him going up the stairs in case of trouble.
-"Get me some morphine from your kitchen I've run out." Hee. Morphine isn't exactly 'herbal' is it.
-"I don't have any morphine!"/"Then what exactly is the point of you!" Oh don't mind him Mrs Hudson, he's just in excruciating pain and being a grumpy bear. *pats Sherlock*
-"The Watsons are about to have a domestic." Yeah, just a bit. *finds a fuzzy blanket to hide under*
-"Is everyone I've ever met a psychopath?" Ooo, bit of a two-for-one domestic there.
-Why is Sherlock's face making me laugh so hard? I think it's the "Is he rolling his eyes, or is he thinking about everyone John's ever met and assessing their relative psychopathy?" factor.
-"...Yes." That would be option two then. XD
-"Good that we've settled that."/"SHUT UP!" *giggles, but a bit nervously*
-Ow. Many words and faces of ow happening now.
-"What have I ever done, my whole life to deserve you?" Owwwwwwwww. *curls up under blanket*
-"Everything." Eep. Um. Probably not helping right now Sherlock.
-"Sherlock, I've told you, shut up." *still hiding under blanket, not really whimpering. Much.*
-"Everything you've ever done is what you did." I realise he's got a point he's making here, or at the very least giving John a secondary target to vent at, but still, eep. *hiding under blankets*
-"Sherlock, one more word, you will not need morphine." Oooo dear. And the face. That face. John Watson at the end of his tether, the comfortable world he was only just getting used to is shattered, again. He gets that hint of a smirk when he's going into dangerous mode. Only this time he's doing it at his best friends. Oooooh dear. *huddles up in blanket and rocks back and forth*
-"You were a doctor who went to war. You’re a man who couldn’t stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie." Sherlock deconstructing John Watson. I'm torn between "Sherlock's gotten better at this speech-giving business" and "Sherlock's been reading the meta. And possibly the fanfic." But in a good way! A good way that hurts like burning. Particularly because it's all true and on some level John knows it. John lives in a kind of chaotic stability. His biggest comfort is danger and his biggest threat is the mundanity of normal life. Sherlock really does have a point there. Mary suits John. Also, being a ninja assassin would help any spouse of a Watson cope with the life John leads hanging around with Sherlock. And also, possibly deal with the Mary Watson curse from canon? *crosses fingers* Lying, shooting Sherlock, all that aside, I still really like Mary and want her to stay a very long time. Team Awesome. Which means this next bit of dealing with the lying and the shooting is going to hurt even worse.
-(And I suppose in a way, Sherlock giving all of John's other romantic interests a hard time is his sideways way of being kind (like him telling Molly that 'Jim from I.T.' was gay). He figured John would become bored and have to break up with the people he was dating and in his mind, Sherlock was saving John and them the time and effort of working on a relationship that would never work out. Of course that's not Sherlock's place to decide for any of the people involved, but is a Sherlock-y way of... caring? Maybe. Dunno. *shrug* And Mary didn't get the same treatment because she'd already been with John past the boredom point and kept giving off 'I'm a secret badass' vibes Sherlock was picking up on, so he didn't even start that whole business with her. ...not sure where I was going with that, but anyway.)
-"Your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high. That's me by the way. Hello." *snerrrrrrk* Oh, he's looking rough. They'd better get this dealt with quick and get Sherlock back to hospital or at least get him sat on the sofa so he won't go falling down the stairs if he collapses.
-"Even the landlady used to run a drug cartel."/"It was my husband's cartel, I was just typing!" Hehehehehehe. XD
-"And exotic dancing."/"Sherlock Holmes, if you've been YouTubing-" *waves hands in air while laughing*
-"Is it truly such a surprise that the woman you fall in love with conforms to that pattern?" Nope. And compared to the off-page "oh while you were dead I got married to that woman we solved that case for once, but then she died" that ACD gave the original Mary, she's not doing so bad at being a more fully developed character. If a little randomly assassiny, but whatever. *handwaves*
(I am wondering how they managed to get this combination of angles between Mary and John in the mirror in this shot though. Is John standing on the sofa?)
-"But she wasn't supposed to be like that." People rarely are what anyone assumes they are supposed to be. But not many of them are lying about secretly being an assassin. That I will grant. (John's croaky broken voice, oh.)
-"Because you chose her." Oh John Watson's face is going to kill me stone dead one of these days.
-*winces at the kicking things and moves on*
-"John, listen. Be calm and answer me." There's something so intrinsically bizarre-seeming about Sherlock being the voice of calm rationality for John.
-"What is she?" *hides under blankets at John's first two responses, even though it's now summer and 30 celcius in my apartment* I mean, yeah he's angry and for good reason, and it's something they need to work through, but... *hides*
-"Sit." Hehe. She's a client. Right? That chair is in client position. And 'being a client' would be a way to give some emotional distancing so John and Sherlock can get her story, find out why she's doing what she's done which is what needs to happen, and right now John's not seeing things objectively and needs something to provide that emotional distance from the situation or things will get very much uglier than they are right now, and this is about my limit of this sort of situation happening between characters I love. Issues. Moving on.
-"Then we decide if we want you or not." Ouuuuuch. I mean, I can see and understand the anger and hurt he's feeling here, but. I really think Mary's okay, just trying to deal with a shitty situation in a rather blazingly ineffective way so I guess I see her side too and it's all made of hurt right now and I just want Team Awesome back and happy and kicking ass together and... Yeah, I'm not leaving my blanket fort anytime soon.
-Added bonus, it gets Sherlock to sit the hell down before he falls down. Sure there's no morphine and everyone's very busy being hurt and angry with each other, but could someone get Sherlock some paracetamol at least? Or some scotch?
-And then I had to stop and flail for a moment, because even in pain, and badly injured he's helping them thread their (admittedly more literal than most) emotional minefield because he's still keeping that vow he made them. *flail*
-I really hope Mrs. Hudson or someone had a chance to clean that grate or that fire is going to smell pretty. :-P
-Oh, wait, we're back at the Holmes' house for Christmas, and the fire will be just fine.
-"Oh, are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas." Ouch. Well, really, an instant 'everything's fine' would be a little unrealistic for the situation. Still. Ow.
-Oh, hello, what's this now? Agra? Isn't that where the Taj Mahal is? Or ooo, there's dots, it's an acronym. Mary's real initials? Or real initials followed by "RA"? Or is she an operative of the, I dunno, Ancient Greek Republican Army?
-"Months of silence and we're gonna do this, now?" Okay, bit of a time stamp for duration and timelines etc. Nice to have that. Also a reasonable amount of time to get past any lingering issues, maybe?
-Yeah, Sherlock needs some kind of painkillers and a bed right quick there.
-*is distracted from the introduction of the plot device by the detail of the table-top* Ooooo. I'd say I want it, but no flat surface in my place goes a day without being covered in papers and books etc, so a nifty detailed table-top would be a waste here. Hm. Looks like A.G. is initials and RA isn't? Anne Gardner, Roving Assassin? Registered Assassin? Nope, that would still have dots. Maybe Mary is the Egyptian sun god Ra in hiding? *ponders*
-"My initials." John's face does a thing.
-"Everything about who I was is on there. If you love me, don't read it in front of me." *winces* Not the best time for that sort of statement, maybe.
-"Because you won't love me when you've finished. And I don't want to see that happen." *winces for different reasons*
-I like that as an element of trust, though. This is all the intel she's been trying to hide from him in an easy format he can access at any time, putting everything she's been trying to control and edit of her life in his hands, because she knows it's going to take a hell of a lot to rebuild what they had, and the only way to do it is to trust John with her secrets fully. I do wonder why she was packing that around, unless maybe she got it off Magnuson, but he doesn't use computers... hm. Could be? And then she'd keep it with her at all times because really, if you have a small, portable, easily lost or stolen thingy with all your secrets on it, wouldn't you want to know where it is at all times? Or maybe she assembled it at some point when she was determined to lay the truth out between her and John, but then couldn't do it, and couldn't destroy it either, and so kept it with her for security. Or she's just a data pack rat like me and along with summaries of every mission or assassination she's done, the jump drive also includes all her essays and research projects from school and uni because she couldn't bring herself to delete any of it. *nods*
-"How much do you know already?" Because she can give everything she was to John to peruse at his discretion, but the rest of the world, even Sherlock, is still on a need-to-know basis. *nods*
-"By your skill-set you are or were an intelligence agent." Okay, yeah, serious moment and all but it just paused like this. Cross between a turtle and blowing an invisible sad trombone. Definitely a man in need of medication.
-Foreign agent, on the run, had to disappear, *nod nod* which makes Magnuson's threat that much more serious, because the more people who know who and where she is, the greater the chance whatever she's running from can find her and hurt her and her loved ones. Even bigger risk she's taking then, giving John that stick with her entire life on it (literally), and all she's worried about with him is that he won't love her when he knows who she was. Not that he'll endanger her cover or put them all at risk, just that he won't love her. There's something in that that's very telling about both characters.
-"I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him." POOR JANINE. I hope she finds some kind of genuine relationship of some description out in her cottage in Sussex. Also, seriously, Watsons, you both have some medical experience, and you've got your best friend with the recent surgery and the dumbass hospital escape sitting there with no painkillers and probably popping a stitch or two. Can you not take like a five minute break, put some tea on, round up any analgesics and anti-inflammatories there are in the flat, dose up Sherlock to any extent at all, and then continue with the intense life-story grilling about just how messed up everything is? No? Yeah, okay fine, it'd weaken the tension to break the scene, BUT REALLY, GET THE MAN SOME DRUGS SOON PLEASE? AND A HOSPITAL
-"You can talk." And then a brief exchange of smirky-sort-of faces that give me a much needed hint of hope that things might be weirdly okay, except John seems to have started growling... O.o
-"Look at you two. You should've got married." Ooooof. Ooo. Ow. Because he's still not over the lying Sherlock did yet either, and now his world is upset from what he thinks it is again. Generally, yes, it's in the past, but this has got John stirred up and all the emotional gumbo comes right up to the surface to go blorp. This is gonna take a while to deal with (like maybe until Christmas? Like maybe he hasn't looked at the stick yet, but he's going to toss the thing in the Holmes' fireplace and gum up their chimney with plastic and electronic residue? Maybe?)
-"The stuff Magnuson has on me, I would go to prison for the rest of my life." Hate to say it, but could be worse.
-"So you were just gonna kill him." And face.
-"People like Magnuson should be killed, that's why there are people like me." Yeah, but then there's that whole dead-man-switch info-bomb situation, which people like Mary would know about, and if she were on a sanctioned covert op, would wait until the analysts and techs of MI6 (the ones in the office buildings where they go work in a little room downtown all day and can never say anything about what they do) are ready to land on and counter that event before you go in, guns a-blazing.
-"That's what you were, an assassin. How could I have not seen that."/"You did see that." This seems oddly like progress but... I can see that being the one worst thing Mary could be for John, what with him and his 'strong moral principle' and killing only to save a life, him seeing an assassin as a person who kills for money. Though I truly doubt Mary's former life is that simple. *still hiding under blanket*
-Sherlock looks almost anxious? Worried. Between the lack of painkillers and watching two of his best friends try to find a way to get past this huge sudden tear in their lives, it looks a bit like Sherlock in the first episode this series. Seeing the home in his head and not sure how to fix it so it's back to what it was, and that bit of longing for something he's not sure can ever be what it was before. Maybe.
-"And you married me. Because he's right. It's what you like." *nods* John Watson, adrenaline junkie. With John it's more overt than most previous Watsons, but he doesn't gamble with money like the others are known to, so his gambling takes a different form.
-Seriously, guys, can we get Sherlock a paracetamol or something before we launch into the more in-depth exposition for Mary's Case? We've come down a bit from condition red on defusing the unexploded John (I think. And he does have good reason for being very angry, with the lying and the shooting his best friend, but raging out wasn't going to help in the long run, as it rarely does.) An aspirin? Tea??
-"Why would you help me?" You mean aside from that whole vow to always be there for the three of you he gave you at your wedding? (*flail*)
-"Because you saved my life."/"S- sorry what?" I think maybe John was a bit distracted during all the 'surgical shooting' talk in the false house. Admittedly, he had just gotten concrete proof his wife had shot his best friend, and miscellaneous other revelations, and had a perfect right to be distracted. Also, he has this face.
It's an amazing face.
Continued in...
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR RUMOURS OR REFERENCES TO ANY INFORMATION FOR OR ABOUT FUTURE EPISODES OR SERIES' OF SHERLOCK)
Live-Bloggish Picspam Reaction/Recap for Sherlock Series 3 Episode 3
PART ONE
PART TWO
PART THREE
PART FOUR
PART FIVE
PART SIX - "His Last Vow"
-Yep. Had to get 'Sherlock disguised as a beggar' in there. This is either him or someone from his network as a lookout, because at that time of night, walk-by traffic wouldn't be high enough to panhandle, and it'd be more important to find a doss for the night. I'd think, anyway. Also Leinster Gardens and Leinster Terrace, shot at the actual location. Right in front of Hotel Henry VIII (unless I'm off) which seems a very nice place to recover from a gunshot wound if you can afford it (though this is most likely another of Sherlock's "Saved the owner's prize peke from a dognapper"-type deals for Sherlock). Also right next door to Zorba's Greek Kebab Taverna, in case there's a throttling emergency requiring a kebab shop. (And since it has the worst restaurant reviews I have ever seen, I'd advise only going there for throttling emergencies. O.o)
-"Spare any change, love?" Aahahaha! I know that voice! WIGGINS! And Mary should know it too, if I recognize it from hearing it in that part of the episode which I watched an embarrassing number of months ago and it's only been a few (really distracting) days for her. Which could make this suddenly a very awkward sort of sentry duty for Bill Wiggins, because of course that's why he's out here. On guard for 'Shezzer', because he's Wiggins. *canon reference fistpump and glee*
-"Oh, come on, love, don't be like all the rest." It's either a full moon again (except it's not because it was a waxing crescent/nearly-half moon transition shot just a second ago), or there's a giant floodlight somewhere up the street, or I misjudged the time of day badly from the previous angle shot. That is an awful lot of light. Anyway, before I got distracted by the lighting, my first inclination was to say 'silly Wiggins' for talking a second time and twigging Mary's memory of his voice, but. BUT. If he's out there to... hm. If Sherlock has figured out that despite appearances it was never Mary's intent to kill him (and he should have, really, considering how easily she could have managed in the hospital, especially as she works as a nurse and would know how to fudge it so it looked like post-op complications or something, I mean, heck, Janine probably came closer to killing Sherlock in hospital when she shut down his morphine to teach him a lesson about being a manipulative jerk, so if an untrained random person can diddle with a patient's morphine pump that easily, Mary finding a way to kill Sherlock if she'd really intended to would be a breeze, but instead she just warned him off telling John), if he's figured that out, he could just want the chance to talk to Mary alone and unmonitored to get her side of her Magnuson story, and what can be done about it. Or at the very least, let her know he knows she's not intending to kill him, so she won't do a runner. Or to make sure her intentions toward John are honourable and non-threatening, though he should be aware of that too given she's doing all this to keep her past from hurting John. Heh. Could it be a belated 'shovel talk' coming from Sherlock for Mary? Anyway, Wiggins has been made, deliberately or otherwise.
-What? Oh there's no way she didn't recognize his voice. Unless maybe she's too focused on her mission of finding Sherlock, which doesn't make sense either if she's some kind of stealth ninja operative that can get through Magnuson's security without a blip, she'd have to be more aware of incongruous/familiar elements of her surroundings than less. Could be she's pretending not to have recognized him so he maybe doesn't realize it, and so she can head on by now she knows where Sherlock is staying and ninja in to see what the heck he thinks he's doing leaving hospital while recovering? Hm. Okay. *handwave*
-"Rule one of looking for Sherlock Holmes: He finds you." Heee! Yay Wiggins! There to facilitate a meeting. (And also maybe move some furniture earlier?)
-"You're working for Sherlock now."/"Keeps me off the streets, dunnit?"/"Well... No." Heeeee. Probably keeps him from having to be bouncer at a crack house, though. There are many levels to 'on the streets' after all.
-"Can't you see me?" *squints* three rooms with lights on, no shadows and Sherlock's not enough of a fool to backlight himself like that under the circumstances, even if he does know Mary wasn't trying to kill him. The balcony over the entrance is a bit conspicuous due to the Whoville trees, but the next one has them too so that's a repeating feature. Top window one in from the outside has an open curtain, and an arguably simple escape route of out the window, stand on ledge, grab window frame, grab roof edge, up and over, though like many things Sherlock's done tonight, not advisable to be done with a recent bullet wound. Still, feasible in terms of Sherlock who routinely runs around jumping rooftops, though it'd be really stupid for him to do so right now.
And, another shot of building, another visual parallel with Mary and John's house and 221B. See?
Angle, ratio of walk/street to building facing, very nearly (or very shortly if Mary moves toward the middle after I unpause) same positioning of characters. Not sure what it may mean, but there might just be some meta in that.
-"The lie of Leinster Gardens hidden in plain sight." Hm. Well for a start, there's not much in the way of gardens. And the road changes names right there. Or it could be he let Anderson follow him here so that only someone desperate enough to go to Anderson and the Empty Hearsers and without the resources of Mycroft Holmes to access cameras, etc would get that info from them, try to track Sherlock here, get contacted by Wiggins or whoever was available of the homeless network regarding whatever the tracker was tracking Sherlock down about while he's actually miles away. Like maybe Baker Street, down in 221C or up in John's room. Or he's up in the room with the Whoville trees and the lit window because despite him actually nearly dying of her shooting him, he's that sure he doesn't need to fear her genuinely trying to kill him.
-"The houses, Mary. Look at the houses." I... am not going back to Google Maps, because I will lose hours trying to figure this out, and that's silly... eh. *takes a quick Pegman tour on Google Maps* Other than no actual 'garden' Gardens, there are a ton of hotels on that road, and I don't see anything offhand he'd be talking about. But then again, I'm not a badass ninja assassin/operative type, either.
-I have to say it, Sherlock's voice giving calm directions over Bluetooth is giving me serious flashbacks to The Night Jar. Which is awesome.
-"How did you know I'd come here?"/"I knew you'd talk to the people no one else would bother with." AWWW. I think. Aww-ish at the very least.
-"I planted the information for you to find." Yep! Though not just her, if Anderson stalked him one night at some undefined point in the past before Sherlock had been shot or had any doubts about Mary, it had to be a general setup for anyone either so thorough or so desperate to ask the Empty Hearsers for info on Sherlock's boltholes. Or a setup in case something went wrong and he had to disappear suddenly from everyone but wanted there to be a way a thorough person could find him and let the others know he was all right and not disappeared for another two years. Or he wanted to hide where only Anderson would know where to find him. Which despite the revaluation that Sherlock has a head-Anderson is a liiiiiittle boggling. O.o
-Okay, Mary's seen it... *squints at oddly uniform windows* Oh, hey. Is this one of those fake townhouse fronts made to cover some industrial stuff, pipes or underground access, on the street? *actually reads the article linked* HAHAHA. "In the 1860s, a tube line passing through Paddington and Bayswater was constructed and incidentally ran its path directly under 23 and 24 Leinster Terrace. The two five-story houses had to be demolished in order to dig through the tunnels but once the finished tunnel was covered, it was decided that the houses wouldn’t be rebuilt … entirely that is." Not only is it one of those, IT'S A REAL ONE OF THOSE THAT ACTUALLY EXISTS. *twirls* AWESOME! And very low rent!
-"Twenty three and twenty four Leinster Gardens. The Empty Houses." *pauses* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgh! Empty Houses! *headdesk* *canon reference fistpump* *headdeskheaddeskheaddesk* ARG!! It's even worse because I should have seen that coming but didn't. XD
-*goes back to Google Maps* Well crap, it's even right there. It just looks like a gap between buildings from above, and the facade is just a line so it looks like a part of the sidewalk or something. THAT IS SO COOL!
-"Remind you of anyone, Mary?" Well if you're going to push the obvious metaphor, why not push it all the way. *facepalm*
-BWAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHHAH. Okay. Now that's just silly. Although if he's got all that set up, he'd have had to draft a bunch of people into getting a slide projector and get a slide made of just Mary's face from the Mayfly Man photos in a very short amount of time, so he could also have drafted them into relocating John's chair etc. which would be slightly more sensible of him. *handwaves* Also, Sherlock Holmes, Drama Queen. *nods*
-"Sorry. I never could resist a touch of drama." Altogether now: "No shit, Sherlock!" XD
-"I won it in a card game with the Clarence House-" Cannonball? Cannibal? Counterbore? Sound went muddy. He's also either got a room in the place across the way, or the projector's on that balcony and is pretty good because it isn't distorting a smidgin.
-I have the sudden feeling, what with the phone call John wasn't quite ready to pick up earlier, that maybe John's in there too.
-"Nearly cost me my kidneys but fortunately I had a straight flush." Ah, cannibal then.
-This show and its shadows, seriously.
-"Mary Morstan was stillborn in October 1972." You know, I really didn't until right now think that Mary Morstan might be an assumed name. Which is damned silly of me. Then again I think part of me is still thinking of her as some kind of creche-raised assassin trained from birth.
-Love this shot. The visual metaphor of Mary being caught and trapped under a row of spotlights which Sherlock analyses her past. Her options are rapidly fading to none that don't involve complete honesty and revealing what she's been hiding from John and the world. Literal tunnel-vison.
-"Common enough technique known to the kinds of people who could recognize a skip code on sight." ...preeeetty sure that category is quite a bit broader than Sherlock is making it out to be. I mean, we did skip codes, phone codes, substitution ciphers, cryptograms, etc in Girl Guides when I was 10.
-Yeah, that was an interesting look he gave her there... has he been looking into her history all along then and just sitting on it until it became a possible danger to John?
-"How good a shot are you?" HA! Ha ha ha! YEAH. EXACTLY. Far too good to miss any of the many instantly lethal shots she could have taken and hit the one spot that gave him the best chance of surviving while still appearing lethal to Magnuson. HA. Yes. I'll just be over in the corner being smug for a little while.
-"If I die here, my body will be found in a building with your face projected on the front of it. Even Scotland Yard could get somewhere with that." HAHAHAHAHA. I just laughed so hard my spine went pop. XD Also, I really don't think Sherlock is actually sitting at the end of that hall. Something about the quality of his voice. We're still hearing it through the bluetooth, and she should be hearing it in the room as well at that distance, and since we are viewing her perspective, that should be coming through in the audio. Maybe. Hm.
-Oh lovely. If slightly toonish.
-Frigging shadows. Also, I knew it wasn't him down the end of the hall. And now she's literally trapped as well as visually in that hall.
-"May I see?" Mary's little odd glance at the figure at the end of the hall there, pft. Mary's not having a very good night. Or she's subliminally sabotaging herself so she can stop lying and move on, whatever direction that might be.
-Nice "bending over with an abdominal wound" noises, in case him standing up in his coat made anyone forget he'd been shot a few days ago.
-"And yet over a distance of six feet, you failed to make a kill shot. Enough to hospitalise me, not enough to kill me." EXACTLY! EXACTLY! SEE!? MARY'S NOT EVIL! SHE'S JUST IN A FUCKED UP SITUATION AND TRYING TO UNFUCK IT in, well, admittedly painful and counter-productive ways, BUT SHE'S NOT EVIL! SHE WASN'T TRYING TO KILL SHERLOCK THEN, AND WON'T BE TRYING TO KILL HIM AGAIN! I mean, I figured as much but it's nice to have it stated. GO TEAM AWESOME!! \o/
-"That wasn't a miss, that was surgery." *rolling in insufferable glee*
(Gosh, Mary is so unbelievably pretty. Just look at that face. Happy at her wedding, or watching Sherlock find a way to understand the truth of who she is and hoping maybe in the tiniest fragment of the beginnings of hope that her truth won't break John or anyone else she cares about, she's heartbreakingly pretty.)
-"I'll take the case." *makes a noise like a startled gerbil*
-"What case?"/"Yours." MUST. FLAIL. NOW. *FLAAAAAAAAAAAIL*
-"Why didn't you come to me in the first place?" Oh his voice there. Oh.
-"Because John can't ever know that I lied to him." *facepalm* He's sitting in the shadows down the end of the hall, isn't he? If so, Mary's ops-senses are really shot, not to recognise the difference between a not-Sherlock dummy and a not-Sherlock living person. I thought that shoulder-slope looked familiar.
-"It would break him and I would lose him forever and Sherlock, I will never let that happen." I'm pretty sure Mary's underestimating John's capacity to cope with people he loves telling him giant whopping lies and breaking him a bit, yes, but not forever. Obvious and primary case in point, Sherlock coming back from the dead. John's probably going to be pissed off about the shooting, and whatever the lying was hiding, but he'll get through it, I think, and no one is losing him forever. Hey, and just in case, there's a handy kebab shop nearby in case John needs to throttle someone, or since I really don't see John as the kind of guy to throttle his pregnant wife except in serious self-defense, maybe just punch a tube of donair meat or something. Of course all this is moot because John's right there and already knows everything. Of course. I mean just look at Sherlock's face after Mary says that and he starts to turn away.
-"There is nothing in this world I will not do to stop that happening." Aaaand Sherlock's slow step and turn back has handily taken him to something that looks like an electrical panel. So he can turn on the lights at the end of the hall over the 'dummy' and reveal it's been John all along. Right?
-"Sorry. Not that obvious a trick." Right.
OH GOD, MARY'S FACE FALLING, AND THAT LITTLE SHUDDER AS SHE REALISES, OH MY GOD. (AND BETWEEN THAT FIRST CAP AND THE SECOND, HER FACE LITERALLY GOT A SHADE PALER. AMANDA ABBINGTON CAN EVEN ACT WITH HER FRIGGING CAPILLARIES.) *flaaaaaail*
Oh god. ALL THE FACES ARE KILLING ME NOW. (Although there is a small giggle because of John's hair being made oddly floofy to mimic Sherlock's silhouette) John's perspective on all of this though. Sherlock's hint about Mary, the phone call and whatever he said to John, and then John sitting there in the dark, only hearing Mary's half of that bluetooth conversation and seeing that gun come out and just staying so still. Oh my god. I have no words, only flails. *flaaaail*
-HEEEE!
OH HELLO CCTV CAMERA BEHIND JOHN. GUESS WHO ELSE COULD ALSO HAVE BEEN WATCHING THAT WHOLE THING. O.O
-Mary's face, you guys. Mary's faaaace.
-John unpopping his collar. I feel bad laughing so hard when John's face is so sad and resigned to deal with the nightmare situation in front of him, but seriously that unpopping was a little epic. XD
-And again, the visual and actual trapping of Mary by that hallway. Any options she had are gone. It's face this and deal with it time. Or, realistically she could shove out past Sherlock (since he's injured and really shouldn't even be doing much standing for extended periods, let alone prevent someone fleeing, as a strong wind could probably knock him down right now) and disappear forever. Except she doesn't want to lose John. The only way she's got to accomplish that now is the truth.
Also that last one with them facing off down the hall is giving me 'gunfight at dawn' vibes, though in actuality it's so much more complicated and hurty than that.
-Oh god. And all that bit Sherlock was saying in the hall about the shooting accuracy and the shot being like surgery, that was aimed at John too, listening at the other end of the hall. And Sherlock, again, tries to make sure his friends' (admittedly more fucked up than originally thought) marriage and lives carry on to the best of his ability, and he's there for them. All of them. Like he said he'd be. Even after one of them shot him. TLDR: *FLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL*
-House. Strains of 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing.' ...What? Is this a Holmes' family Christmas? Random. O.o
-"It's been Christmas Day for at least a week now, how can it only be two o'clock? I'm in agony." *FLAIL* CHRISTMAS CRACKERS! THE POSSIBILITY OF THE HOLMES BOYS IN SILLY PAPER HATS ON SCREEN IS REAL!!! \o/
-Okay, I thought he was still alive at the start of the episode. When is this happening? (Also, holy shit, Magnuson's blackmail drove Captain Adelaide's spouse to kill himself? DDDD-:)
-"Mikey, is this your laptop?" *makes strangled noises* Mikey. Mikey. MIKEY. *bursts out laughing*
-Though I suppose if you're going to use anyone's laptop as a cutting board or a cutting board support, Mycroft's would be the wiser option since it's probably one of those field-use rated ones that can handle water, impact, electrical surges, and small EMP bursts, and if it does get destroyed the supplier will have it back as a 'failed in the field' warranty claim and the next generation of official-issue laptops will have been improved to withstand potato juice and use as a cutting board. *nods*
-"We are here because Sherlock is home from hospital and we are all very happy." Okay, some time frame there. Unless this is a Christmas in July thing or some kind of odd 'adults playing their child selves' flashback of a time when wee!Sherlock got out of hospital for something other than being shot (and Mycroft's comments about the fate of the free world depending on his laptop doesn't necessarily mean it's the Now, because let's face it, Mycroft is the sort who would have always claimed the fate of the free world depended on his laptop/home computer/pocket calculator/fractions homework/Pong console/teddy bear "Archibald McFuzzbottom the Second"/etc).
-"Am I happy too? I haven't checked." *giggles over everything*
-"Behave, Mike!"/"Mycroft is the name you gave me, if you could possibly struggle all the way to the end?" Heeeeee!
-"Mrs Holmes." WIGGINS! OH, Sherlock brought Wiggins home for a family holiday thing and I can't even explain why I'm flailing so hard at that and making distressed gerbil noises. Just. Family, and *makes gestures like grabbing a giant soap bubble* inviting 'orphaned' friends who have nowhere else to go to come share a family thing, whether that's blood-family or heart-family. Just. Yeah. Christmas. *beams*
-"I'm his protege, Mrs Holmes. When he dies I get all his stuff and his job."/"Nope." *snerk* Even if that was the full case, it's really not what you should say to your host about her son. Little disturbing, considering his recent shooting.
(Wiggins does kind of place it though. This is the second time this season they've had a big tense moment they've cut away to a seemingly random scene from later on. We'll have to see how random this ends up being.)
-"If he does get murdered or something."/"Probably stop talking now." HEEE! The social aspect's going to need a bit of work for Wiggins.
-"Someone's put a bullet in my boy. If I ever find out who I shall turn absolutely monstrous." Oh dear. That would be something to see.
-(I do kind of wonder about Mycroft's 'line-dancing in Oklahoma' comment earlier though. Was that some form of brotherly code, or was he just trolling the Empty Hearsers with misinformation so anyone seeking out the Holmes parents to use against Mycroft and Sherlock would find that tidbit on a Hearser blog and set off searching the country bars and dance-halls of Oklahoma?)
-"This one's for Mary. I'll be back in a minute." HE BROUGHT JOHN AND MARY TOO??? And is he counting down to Mummy finding out Mary shot him and everyone's basically fine with it (since I don't think he'd bring Mary without John, so Mary and John are together which means they reached some kind of understanding or acceptance earlier that we'll be getting back to at some point) or is he counting down to something else?
-In a Christmas outfit under a plaid blanket in front of the fire with a book, not looking at all like her entire world's been destroyed, so I'd say that bodes well.
-*sighs wistfully at the Holmes family living room full of Christmas*
-"Did you write this?"/"Oh that silly old thing, you mustn't read that. Mathematics'd seem terribly fatuous now!" *gleeeeee*
-*flails all over the Holmes family*
*squints into background* There's wee!someone in a snow-suit in one of those photos. XD
-"I'm something of a moron, myself, but she's... unbelievably hot." Heeee! And Mummy Holmes was a published genius mathematician before she focused on raising a family. I'd imagine she had a stunning amount of focus to turn to the task. Aw. And Mr Holmes is sort of her Watson then. Awwwww.
-See? That is not the face of someone whose world was shattered in a hallway. Everything's going to be fine. Where's John though?
-"You're the sane one, aren't you?"/"Aren't you?" Hehe. Well. Considering their mutual penchant for incredible marksmanship and reasonably justifiable violence, it's a bit of a toss-up. Or will be if Mary's come clean and they've found a way to deal or cope with the ramifications of everything.
-JOHN! HI JOHN! HI JOHN! Oh god I was worried there for a second. Oh wow, John and Mary and everyone at the Holmes family home for Christmas, I just- *FLAAAAIL* Gah!
-"I'll just go and see if I can help with... something or another." *smishes the adorable Mr Holmes*
-There are some anxious-making faces and music going on in here. Though really, she did lie to him about her life and shoot Sherlock, rather than tell him and trust he wouldn't freak out and leave and also allow him to, if not help her get out of this jam she was in, then at least just to know it was something she was dealing with and to be there for her and ready to duck or kick ass as requested. There's not going to be any throttling in kebab shops or fake-out train bombs, but there's probably going to be some lingering ow, no matter what the details are of how things shook out.
-"Those two, are they all right?"/"Well, you know, they've had their ups and downs." You could say that, yeah. Also I still have this under-bubbling glee that the Holmes parents are being played by Benedict's parents and just, little scenes like this where it's just him and his dad in a quiet social moment make me smile on several levels.
-"Baker Street. Now." *nods* Side-stepping the need for an immediate response to the situation from either of them, giving them both a chance to regain their bearings and process the situation so they can react with some brain as well as heart. Surprisingly astute. And, significantly, not keeping Mary trapped into facing this, giving her some space to make her own choice about how to deal with this. Run or face it. Also, Sherlock's probably about ready to fall down by now and he has to turn off the projector on the balcony before the neighbours complain.
-Oh her face.
-And John's look toward her and look away before he walks past. Too much to deal with right now, can't say anything that won't be horribly painful for everyone involved, so just say nothing for now and deal with it with a more level head later, or at least deal with it in a more secured environment. Because seriously, this is a HUGE thing to cope with, surgical shooting or not. Needs time. *nods*
-And it looks like it's just the two of them back at 221b. Hopefully when they got Sherlock in a cab they did the sensible thing and dropped him off back at hospital. Also because while a referee for the discussion John and Mary need to have might be wise, it's a discussion they need to work out between themselves. And Sherlock might not be the best referee right now, what with having been shot and all.
-And Mrs Hudson's still there, probably because John lit out like he was on fire at Sherlock's call and she's been pottering around waiting for news, not sure what to do with herself in the meantime. I know the feeling.
-John's surprised face is adorable.
-Whups, they did bring him home after all. And left him to follow them up the stairs after. Which really speaks to how in their own heads they are right now with this. They both work in the medical field and very much know Sherlock's been shot and had surgery recently. At the very least, one of them should have been behind him going up the stairs in case of trouble.
-"Get me some morphine from your kitchen I've run out." Hee. Morphine isn't exactly 'herbal' is it.
-"I don't have any morphine!"/"Then what exactly is the point of you!" Oh don't mind him Mrs Hudson, he's just in excruciating pain and being a grumpy bear. *pats Sherlock*
-"The Watsons are about to have a domestic." Yeah, just a bit. *finds a fuzzy blanket to hide under*
-"Is everyone I've ever met a psychopath?" Ooo, bit of a two-for-one domestic there.
-Why is Sherlock's face making me laugh so hard? I think it's the "Is he rolling his eyes, or is he thinking about everyone John's ever met and assessing their relative psychopathy?" factor.
-"...Yes." That would be option two then. XD
-"Good that we've settled that."/"SHUT UP!" *giggles, but a bit nervously*
-Ow. Many words and faces of ow happening now.
-"What have I ever done, my whole life to deserve you?" Owwwwwwwww. *curls up under blanket*
-"Everything." Eep. Um. Probably not helping right now Sherlock.
-"Sherlock, I've told you, shut up." *still hiding under blanket, not really whimpering. Much.*
-"Everything you've ever done is what you did." I realise he's got a point he's making here, or at the very least giving John a secondary target to vent at, but still, eep. *hiding under blankets*
-"Sherlock, one more word, you will not need morphine." Oooo dear. And the face. That face. John Watson at the end of his tether, the comfortable world he was only just getting used to is shattered, again. He gets that hint of a smirk when he's going into dangerous mode. Only this time he's doing it at his best friends. Oooooh dear. *huddles up in blanket and rocks back and forth*
-"You were a doctor who went to war. You’re a man who couldn’t stay in the suburbs for more than a month without storming a crack den and beating up a junkie." Sherlock deconstructing John Watson. I'm torn between "Sherlock's gotten better at this speech-giving business" and "Sherlock's been reading the meta. And possibly the fanfic." But in a good way! A good way that hurts like burning. Particularly because it's all true and on some level John knows it. John lives in a kind of chaotic stability. His biggest comfort is danger and his biggest threat is the mundanity of normal life. Sherlock really does have a point there. Mary suits John. Also, being a ninja assassin would help any spouse of a Watson cope with the life John leads hanging around with Sherlock. And also, possibly deal with the Mary Watson curse from canon? *crosses fingers* Lying, shooting Sherlock, all that aside, I still really like Mary and want her to stay a very long time. Team Awesome. Which means this next bit of dealing with the lying and the shooting is going to hurt even worse.
-(And I suppose in a way, Sherlock giving all of John's other romantic interests a hard time is his sideways way of being kind (like him telling Molly that 'Jim from I.T.' was gay). He figured John would become bored and have to break up with the people he was dating and in his mind, Sherlock was saving John and them the time and effort of working on a relationship that would never work out. Of course that's not Sherlock's place to decide for any of the people involved, but is a Sherlock-y way of... caring? Maybe. Dunno. *shrug* And Mary didn't get the same treatment because she'd already been with John past the boredom point and kept giving off 'I'm a secret badass' vibes Sherlock was picking up on, so he didn't even start that whole business with her. ...not sure where I was going with that, but anyway.)
-"Your best friend is a sociopath who solves crimes as an alternative to getting high. That's me by the way. Hello." *snerrrrrrk* Oh, he's looking rough. They'd better get this dealt with quick and get Sherlock back to hospital or at least get him sat on the sofa so he won't go falling down the stairs if he collapses.
-"Even the landlady used to run a drug cartel."/"It was my husband's cartel, I was just typing!" Hehehehehehe. XD
-"And exotic dancing."/"Sherlock Holmes, if you've been YouTubing-" *waves hands in air while laughing*
-"Is it truly such a surprise that the woman you fall in love with conforms to that pattern?" Nope. And compared to the off-page "oh while you were dead I got married to that woman we solved that case for once, but then she died" that ACD gave the original Mary, she's not doing so bad at being a more fully developed character. If a little randomly assassiny, but whatever. *handwaves*
(I am wondering how they managed to get this combination of angles between Mary and John in the mirror in this shot though. Is John standing on the sofa?)
-"But she wasn't supposed to be like that." People rarely are what anyone assumes they are supposed to be. But not many of them are lying about secretly being an assassin. That I will grant. (John's croaky broken voice, oh.)
-"Because you chose her." Oh John Watson's face is going to kill me stone dead one of these days.
-*winces at the kicking things and moves on*
-"John, listen. Be calm and answer me." There's something so intrinsically bizarre-seeming about Sherlock being the voice of calm rationality for John.
-"What is she?" *hides under blankets at John's first two responses, even though it's now summer and 30 celcius in my apartment* I mean, yeah he's angry and for good reason, and it's something they need to work through, but... *hides*
-"Sit." Hehe. She's a client. Right? That chair is in client position. And 'being a client' would be a way to give some emotional distancing so John and Sherlock can get her story, find out why she's doing what she's done which is what needs to happen, and right now John's not seeing things objectively and needs something to provide that emotional distance from the situation or things will get very much uglier than they are right now, and this is about my limit of this sort of situation happening between characters I love. Issues. Moving on.
-"Then we decide if we want you or not." Ouuuuuch. I mean, I can see and understand the anger and hurt he's feeling here, but. I really think Mary's okay, just trying to deal with a shitty situation in a rather blazingly ineffective way so I guess I see her side too and it's all made of hurt right now and I just want Team Awesome back and happy and kicking ass together and... Yeah, I'm not leaving my blanket fort anytime soon.
-Added bonus, it gets Sherlock to sit the hell down before he falls down. Sure there's no morphine and everyone's very busy being hurt and angry with each other, but could someone get Sherlock some paracetamol at least? Or some scotch?
-And then I had to stop and flail for a moment, because even in pain, and badly injured he's helping them thread their (admittedly more literal than most) emotional minefield because he's still keeping that vow he made them. *flail*
-I really hope Mrs. Hudson or someone had a chance to clean that grate or that fire is going to smell pretty. :-P
-Oh, wait, we're back at the Holmes' house for Christmas, and the fire will be just fine.
-"Oh, are we doing conversation today? It really is Christmas." Ouch. Well, really, an instant 'everything's fine' would be a little unrealistic for the situation. Still. Ow.
-Oh, hello, what's this now? Agra? Isn't that where the Taj Mahal is? Or ooo, there's dots, it's an acronym. Mary's real initials? Or real initials followed by "RA"? Or is she an operative of the, I dunno, Ancient Greek Republican Army?
-"Months of silence and we're gonna do this, now?" Okay, bit of a time stamp for duration and timelines etc. Nice to have that. Also a reasonable amount of time to get past any lingering issues, maybe?
-Yeah, Sherlock needs some kind of painkillers and a bed right quick there.
-*is distracted from the introduction of the plot device by the detail of the table-top* Ooooo. I'd say I want it, but no flat surface in my place goes a day without being covered in papers and books etc, so a nifty detailed table-top would be a waste here. Hm. Looks like A.G. is initials and RA isn't? Anne Gardner, Roving Assassin? Registered Assassin? Nope, that would still have dots. Maybe Mary is the Egyptian sun god Ra in hiding? *ponders*
-"My initials." John's face does a thing.
-"Everything about who I was is on there. If you love me, don't read it in front of me." *winces* Not the best time for that sort of statement, maybe.
-"Because you won't love me when you've finished. And I don't want to see that happen." *winces for different reasons*
-I like that as an element of trust, though. This is all the intel she's been trying to hide from him in an easy format he can access at any time, putting everything she's been trying to control and edit of her life in his hands, because she knows it's going to take a hell of a lot to rebuild what they had, and the only way to do it is to trust John with her secrets fully. I do wonder why she was packing that around, unless maybe she got it off Magnuson, but he doesn't use computers... hm. Could be? And then she'd keep it with her at all times because really, if you have a small, portable, easily lost or stolen thingy with all your secrets on it, wouldn't you want to know where it is at all times? Or maybe she assembled it at some point when she was determined to lay the truth out between her and John, but then couldn't do it, and couldn't destroy it either, and so kept it with her for security. Or she's just a data pack rat like me and along with summaries of every mission or assassination she's done, the jump drive also includes all her essays and research projects from school and uni because she couldn't bring herself to delete any of it. *nods*
-"How much do you know already?" Because she can give everything she was to John to peruse at his discretion, but the rest of the world, even Sherlock, is still on a need-to-know basis. *nods*
-"By your skill-set you are or were an intelligence agent." Okay, yeah, serious moment and all but it just paused like this. Cross between a turtle and blowing an invisible sad trombone. Definitely a man in need of medication.
-Foreign agent, on the run, had to disappear, *nod nod* which makes Magnuson's threat that much more serious, because the more people who know who and where she is, the greater the chance whatever she's running from can find her and hurt her and her loved ones. Even bigger risk she's taking then, giving John that stick with her entire life on it (literally), and all she's worried about with him is that he won't love her when he knows who she was. Not that he'll endanger her cover or put them all at risk, just that he won't love her. There's something in that that's very telling about both characters.
-"I assume you befriended Janine in order to get close to him." POOR JANINE. I hope she finds some kind of genuine relationship of some description out in her cottage in Sussex. Also, seriously, Watsons, you both have some medical experience, and you've got your best friend with the recent surgery and the dumbass hospital escape sitting there with no painkillers and probably popping a stitch or two. Can you not take like a five minute break, put some tea on, round up any analgesics and anti-inflammatories there are in the flat, dose up Sherlock to any extent at all, and then continue with the intense life-story grilling about just how messed up everything is? No? Yeah, okay fine, it'd weaken the tension to break the scene, BUT REALLY, GET THE MAN SOME DRUGS SOON PLEASE? AND A HOSPITAL
-"You can talk." And then a brief exchange of smirky-sort-of faces that give me a much needed hint of hope that things might be weirdly okay, except John seems to have started growling... O.o
-"Look at you two. You should've got married." Ooooof. Ooo. Ow. Because he's still not over the lying Sherlock did yet either, and now his world is upset from what he thinks it is again. Generally, yes, it's in the past, but this has got John stirred up and all the emotional gumbo comes right up to the surface to go blorp. This is gonna take a while to deal with (like maybe until Christmas? Like maybe he hasn't looked at the stick yet, but he's going to toss the thing in the Holmes' fireplace and gum up their chimney with plastic and electronic residue? Maybe?)
-"The stuff Magnuson has on me, I would go to prison for the rest of my life." Hate to say it, but could be worse.
-"So you were just gonna kill him." And face.
-"People like Magnuson should be killed, that's why there are people like me." Yeah, but then there's that whole dead-man-switch info-bomb situation, which people like Mary would know about, and if she were on a sanctioned covert op, would wait until the analysts and techs of MI6 (the ones in the office buildings where they go work in a little room downtown all day and can never say anything about what they do) are ready to land on and counter that event before you go in, guns a-blazing.
-"That's what you were, an assassin. How could I have not seen that."/"You did see that." This seems oddly like progress but... I can see that being the one worst thing Mary could be for John, what with him and his 'strong moral principle' and killing only to save a life, him seeing an assassin as a person who kills for money. Though I truly doubt Mary's former life is that simple. *still hiding under blanket*
-Sherlock looks almost anxious? Worried. Between the lack of painkillers and watching two of his best friends try to find a way to get past this huge sudden tear in their lives, it looks a bit like Sherlock in the first episode this series. Seeing the home in his head and not sure how to fix it so it's back to what it was, and that bit of longing for something he's not sure can ever be what it was before. Maybe.
-"And you married me. Because he's right. It's what you like." *nods* John Watson, adrenaline junkie. With John it's more overt than most previous Watsons, but he doesn't gamble with money like the others are known to, so his gambling takes a different form.
-Seriously, guys, can we get Sherlock a paracetamol or something before we launch into the more in-depth exposition for Mary's Case? We've come down a bit from condition red on defusing the unexploded John (I think. And he does have good reason for being very angry, with the lying and the shooting his best friend, but raging out wasn't going to help in the long run, as it rarely does.) An aspirin? Tea??
-"Why would you help me?" You mean aside from that whole vow to always be there for the three of you he gave you at your wedding? (*flail*)
-"Because you saved my life."/"S- sorry what?" I think maybe John was a bit distracted during all the 'surgical shooting' talk in the false house. Admittedly, he had just gotten concrete proof his wife had shot his best friend, and miscellaneous other revelations, and had a perfect right to be distracted. Also, he has this face.
It's an amazing face.
Continued in...
PART SEVEN
PART EIGHT
(PLEASE, NO SPOILERS OR RUMOURS OR REFERENCES TO ANY INFORMATION FOR OR ABOUT FUTURE EPISODES OR SERIES' OF SHERLOCK)