HLV: They lied.
Dec. 16th, 2018 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marsdaydreamJohnlock & Mary in HLV, behind the cut. Also a fair amount of negativity. If it isn’t your thing, I apologise. I know a lot of people feel very positive about this episode, which is wonderful. Room for all sorts of opinions, and I’m truly glad people enjoyed it.
So they told us Moriarty wasn’t coming back? They lied.
And they also told us not to worry, that Mary wasn’t going to come between John and Sherlock? They lied.
The entire season was about Sherlock adjusting to having Mary in John’s life, and in the end Sherlock ends up sacrificing his life for her twice. He literally dies twice in this episode, once by Mary’s hand, and once because he vowed to protect her and is sent away to certain death. Sherlock is motivated here only by his love for John, and yet Mary is the factor in the equation that kills him.
We had two seasons to learn why John loved Sherlock, and vice versa. Two seasons to learn why they’re perfectly matched. We had very little time to learn why either of them love Mary. And yet we are invited to take it on faith that she’s worth it, that despite her truly vast deception and God knows what in her past, that she is worthy of both John and Sherlock’s love and sacrifice. Maybe she is? But I don’t have enough information to say. And that leaves everything on really shaky ground, which for me really toppled the chain reaction of self-sacrifice in this episode, all made on Mary’s behalf.
Massive disappointments in this ep, for me, were the constantly missed opportunities to reaffirm John and Sherlock’s bond. Sherlock was shot, and flatlined, and it felt to me as if we barely got to see John react. The original CAM story has some of the very best ACD “two of us against the world” moments in the entire ACD canon, and they weren’t translated here. We instead get an episode about Sherlock’s repeated, massive sacrifices for John, his love for John that brings him back from death’s door, and we don’t get the same from John in return. It felt sickeningly like a one-way street, right down to the final handshake.
No, at the beginning of the episode we learn they haven’t seen each other for a month. Sherlock has moved John’s chair out of the room. If that isn’t a metaphor for what’s happened to their relationship because of Mary, I don’t know what is.
I have loved Holmes & Watson since childhood because I believe their friendship and love for each other is deep and equal, something that transcends labels. In ACD canon, Mary was not a factor. She was Watson’s wife, but Holmes was Watson’s soulmate. And the character development here is asking us to rewrite that: John loves Mary most, but Sherlock loves John most. Literally spelled out, on screen, in “pressure points” but also in actions.
The writers allowed us to see so much of Sherlock’s brain in these episodes, his deepest motivations, which is amazing, except it’s at the cost of knowing what’s going on with John. Apparently we can’t have both, can we? In this episode, more than any other, it felt like John Watson was an idea rather than a person.
Honestly, we need to hear from John on some of this, or it just doesn’t hang together logically. We need to know why John made some of these decisions, why he chose Mary even after everything she did, after she SHOT SHERLOCK, and even if his answer is “we’re having hella great sex,” I need to hear it from John. And I think this is a storytelling issue, not an acting issue, because damned if Martin Freeman wasn’t fucking brilliant in this episode.
So much could have been explored, so much between John and Mary… and it wasn’t. It felt like a lot of the actual thought and follow-through regarding the emotional arc was thrown out in favor of drama and suspense in this episode.
Lesson learned: Never trust a word the writers say. John and Sherlock’s relationship is entirely different with Mary in the mix, and not only is it different, it’s upsettingly so. Amanda did a brilliant job with the character, and I really adored her performance, but my primary wish for S4 is to have Mary out of the picture.
2,512 notes
So they told us Moriarty wasn’t coming back? They lied.
And they also told us not to worry, that Mary wasn’t going to come between John and Sherlock? They lied.
The entire season was about Sherlock adjusting to having Mary in John’s life, and in the end Sherlock ends up sacrificing his life for her twice. He literally dies twice in this episode, once by Mary’s hand, and once because he vowed to protect her and is sent away to certain death. Sherlock is motivated here only by his love for John, and yet Mary is the factor in the equation that kills him.
We had two seasons to learn why John loved Sherlock, and vice versa. Two seasons to learn why they’re perfectly matched. We had very little time to learn why either of them love Mary. And yet we are invited to take it on faith that she’s worth it, that despite her truly vast deception and God knows what in her past, that she is worthy of both John and Sherlock’s love and sacrifice. Maybe she is? But I don’t have enough information to say. And that leaves everything on really shaky ground, which for me really toppled the chain reaction of self-sacrifice in this episode, all made on Mary’s behalf.
Massive disappointments in this ep, for me, were the constantly missed opportunities to reaffirm John and Sherlock’s bond. Sherlock was shot, and flatlined, and it felt to me as if we barely got to see John react. The original CAM story has some of the very best ACD “two of us against the world” moments in the entire ACD canon, and they weren’t translated here. We instead get an episode about Sherlock’s repeated, massive sacrifices for John, his love for John that brings him back from death’s door, and we don’t get the same from John in return. It felt sickeningly like a one-way street, right down to the final handshake.
No, at the beginning of the episode we learn they haven’t seen each other for a month. Sherlock has moved John’s chair out of the room. If that isn’t a metaphor for what’s happened to their relationship because of Mary, I don’t know what is.
I have loved Holmes & Watson since childhood because I believe their friendship and love for each other is deep and equal, something that transcends labels. In ACD canon, Mary was not a factor. She was Watson’s wife, but Holmes was Watson’s soulmate. And the character development here is asking us to rewrite that: John loves Mary most, but Sherlock loves John most. Literally spelled out, on screen, in “pressure points” but also in actions.
The writers allowed us to see so much of Sherlock’s brain in these episodes, his deepest motivations, which is amazing, except it’s at the cost of knowing what’s going on with John. Apparently we can’t have both, can we? In this episode, more than any other, it felt like John Watson was an idea rather than a person.
Honestly, we need to hear from John on some of this, or it just doesn’t hang together logically. We need to know why John made some of these decisions, why he chose Mary even after everything she did, after she SHOT SHERLOCK, and even if his answer is “we’re having hella great sex,” I need to hear it from John. And I think this is a storytelling issue, not an acting issue, because damned if Martin Freeman wasn’t fucking brilliant in this episode.
So much could have been explored, so much between John and Mary… and it wasn’t. It felt like a lot of the actual thought and follow-through regarding the emotional arc was thrown out in favor of drama and suspense in this episode.
Lesson learned: Never trust a word the writers say. John and Sherlock’s relationship is entirely different with Mary in the mix, and not only is it different, it’s upsettingly so. Amanda did a brilliant job with the character, and I really adored her performance, but my primary wish for S4 is to have Mary out of the picture.
2,512 notes
