Spinning Plates and The Wrong Thumb (‘Sherlock’ meta)

So, this is the new meta I’ve been teasing you all with. (Took me long enough, I know, I know…) 

I also know that, by now, the ‘Sherlock’ fandom has its own established interpretation of what the phrase, “The place was spinning” in s4ep1 (TST) means, but I’d like to offer an alternative, EMP-inspired idea here:

Keep in mind that I’m convinced that by s4 Sherlock is actually unconscious and lying in a hospital (as per EMP theory).

So, what is that one magical “place” in a hospital that is literally spinning?

Yes. A CT scanner!

Could it be that, in TST, Sherlock has just worked out that he is lying in a CT scanner, being scanned?

Look at this strange exchange between John and Sherlock again:

So, here’s the thing: Mofftiss love themselves a good pun. So forget about ‘spinning plates’ being a commonly used idiom in the English language. Don’t even think about some circus acrobat literally spinning dinner plates made of fine china on many a thin pole.

Think of different plates. Yes, those kinds of plates. Classic X-Ray machines still have them: screening/imaging plates.

Let’s not get too technical about the details here because I suspect Mofftiss aren’t either. (This is TV medicine land, not actual real-life medicine land, okay.:D) 

Suffice it to say that John usually acts as a metaphor for Sherlock’s heart, ie Sherlock’s emotional inner voice. In other words, Sherlock (who is unconscious, remember!) essentially tells himself, in his mind, here that “spinning plates” is not an option: He ponders the question of what the doctors that are treating him might be doing to him and comes to the conclusion that they can’t possibly be forcing him through one X-Ray after another (“spinning plates”) because that’s unsustainable to say the least, if not downright unhealthy.

It’s at this point that (unconscious) Sherlock has an epiphany about the whole situation that he finds himself in. It is appropriately illustrated by the face he makes at that very moment in TST:

I think this moment is about Sherlock finally working out that they’re not just (classically) X-Raying him, they have put him in a CT scanner:

That’s it. It’s the whole place that is spinning around him.

A CT scanner is literally an X-Ray machine that spins around you ultra-ultra-fast.

I think this is what that weird “spinning plates” vs. “spinning place” conversation might be all about.

This is particularly interesting because, as a fandom, we have all speculated that once the second episode of s4 (TLD) comes around, Sherlock’s brain is going to be scanned by an MRI machine (the whole screwy skull picture thing, remember! We’ve talked about it A LOT. Just one such example: here x. But there’s loads more. And I would like to add that the whole skull picture=MRI machine metaphor was obviously in no way my discovery. A lot of people talked about this back in 2017.).

So, anyway…MRI machines are indeed used to scan the brain (as would fit the skull picture metaphor in TLD).

But, but! …(And this new discovery I am claiming for myself.:-)) A CT scanner would be more appropriate for other organs, such as the heart for example!

And in the first episode of s4 (TST) we are still very much talking about the heart. It’s the heart problem first, the brain problem comes later.

So, it’s not illogical to assume that Sherlock was FIRST put into a CT scanner (in TST) to scan his heart and THEN into an MRI machine (in TLD) to scan his brain.

This would also fit the sequence of events I have discovered and described earlier: Sherlock has a heart AND a brain problem (not just literally, but also metaphorically and on a meta level as the iconic 120+ year-old Sherlock Holmes figure. I had analysed this whole situation in my meta ‘Why Sherlock has a heart AND a brain problem’ here: x ).

To be more precise it’s his heart problem that CAUSES his brain problem:

Literally speaking: his heart starts throwing blood clots and one of them hits the brain. 

Metaphorically speaking: The iconic Sherlock Holmes character’s heart (gay identity) isn’t healthy because he has to suppress it, this hasn’t been healthy for more than a century already, which is now impacting his brain (intellectual abilities/work persona, aka brain) too.

The ‘heart problem’ is congenital (we’ve talked about this), as is alluded to in TLD: ie, Sherlock Holmes was originally conceived in the Victorian era as a repressed gay character. The brain problem is NOT congenital; it is directly CAUSED by the heart problem (ie, Sherlock’s big gay heartbreak leads to his brain being affected, as well, and eventually to his being on the brink of death as an iconic character).

Anyway…So, this idea I just had about the whole “spinning plates”- “the place was spinning” conversation is that it’s a coded way of telling us that Sherlock is trying to work out what exactly it is that the doctors at the hospital are doing to him. (“Are they simply X-Raying me again and again and again? No, hang on…That can’t be right…Ah, got it! I’m inside a CT scanner, aren’t I?”)

And look, in TST, immediately after his “spinning place” (CT scanner) epiphany we get the whole rambling passage about heart medication, and the words ‘The Cardiac Arrest’ flash across the screen:

What I think happened here is that Sherlock suffered a heart attack WHILE BEING INSIDE THE CT SCANNER!

This would be a massively dangerous situation. It is only appropriate that, over the next couple of moments on screen, you get this sense of hurry, this rush to get somewhere: John and Sherlock quickly coming up the stairs…

…then John, Sherlock and Mary speeding away in a car.

I’ve speculated about these two scenes before in my meta ‘Was Sherlock put on a heart assist system?’ (here: x). I wrote: 

(Remember this is TV medicine land, not actual, real-life medicine land, yeah?)

In my ‘heart assistant’ meta, which I’ve quoted above (x), I had even speculated that the camera flashing a couple of times brightly at the end of this sequence (as Rosie’s picture is being taken) is actually Sherlock’s heart being defibrillated:

Now let’s get to my new idea from above: 

Sherlock has a heart attack INSIDE the CT SCANNER. And the rush as John and Sherlock run up the stairs and then speed away in the car with Mary THAT’S PEOPLE SCRAMBLING TO PULL SHERLOCK OUT OF THE CT SCANNER AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

Sherlock is unconscious in that CT scanner, and someone has just noticed that he is having some sort of heart episode whilst being scanned, and now they are frantically pulling him out of there to get him to a defibrillator as quickly as possible.

Remember that I already pointed out in my ‘Jellyfish’ meta (here: x) that the conversation about jellyfish that John and Sherlock are having as they climb up the stairs is fascinating in this context. (Jellyfish don’t only look and pump like hearts, actually researchers are currently actively considering the idea of building artificial hearts that work like a pumping jellyfish as a possible solution for patients with heart failure.)

In other words, John and Sherlock saying “You can’t arrest a jellyfish” at that precise moment, as they hurry up the stairs, isn’t a coincidence. If the jellyfish is a metaphor for a heart, then talking about one being, ahem, ‘arrested’ (hint, hint!) is highly, highly suspicious at a point in the story where I suspect Sherlock is being pulled out of a CT scanner after a heart attack. Jellyfish=Heart. Got it?

After all, the conversation about the potential *cough* ‘arrest’ or not of the jellyfish is happening right after the words ‘The Cardiac Arrest’ have flashed across the screen, ie, right after this probably happened to Sherlock inside the CT scanner.

Then come the camera flashes, which I had already interpreted as a defibrillator (see above). And Sherlock is probably saved (for now). But his heart now only works with the help of an assistance system (for this, again, see here: x), hence the phone assistant’s voice. (I would like to refer you to my meta about ‘Sherlock being put on a medical balloon pump’, as well, see here: x. That’s why there’s a balloon in a later scene, that’s literally replacing John, aka, Sherlock’s heart.)

So, now we’ve established the sequence of events: 

CT scan > Sherlock has a heart attack inside the CT scanner > he is quickly being pulled out of the CT scanner (he is literally trying to hang on to his heart as he goes into v-fib…That’s the whole frantically-glued-to-his-phone-in-the-car scene.) > they pull him out of the scanner, get a crash cart over there > he is being shocked by a defibrillator >he is saved >heart assist system, balloon pump. 

>>>And then, LATER ON, in TLD, they discover that his brain was hit by a blood clot, as we have already established…

BTW, we are then (much later, in TLD) expressly told by Mycroft that: “We keep losing visual. Mostly we are tracking his phone.”

They are tracking his, ahem, ‘phone’ (=heart)!

They can’t get a clear visual of him wandering about London. (=The lack of a clear visual is probably a coded reference to them scanning his brain with an MRI machine by TLD, aka, the results of his brain scans aren’t conclusive. Is he already brain dead? Is he still alive? It’s not clear, at that point.) But despite this lack of a clear visual on the brain front, they keep monitoring his ‘phone’ (=heart) in TLD.  (I had written a whole meta about this, called ‘Mostly we are tracking his phone’, see here: x.)

Are you with me so far? Okay.

Well, now listen up, chaps and chapesses: This next idea here is completely wild, alright? An idea I haven’t seen anyone discuss before; it’s SO absurd.:P But still, I think it might be worth exploring, even if it’s just for fun:

A couple of moments before the heart attack happens inside the CT scanner (so that’s BEFORE the whole “spinning plates”-”the place was spinning” exchange)…a few moments before that, Sherlock literally tells us something about a wrong thumb:

That’s a moment I found weird ever since I first watched the episode back in 2017 because, if I recall correctly, in the ACD story ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’ (ENGR) there’s nothing about the thumb BEING WRONG. So this newly added element to the story seemed like such a deliberate choice by Mofftiss, right? Like they were rubbing our noses in something which we couldn’t yet possibly understand: Why would Sherlock say something about the thumb being wrong exactly?

Well, here goes my (frankly) quite crazy and absolutely absurd idea:

People who are at an acute risk of suffering a heart attack often DO have a “wrong thumb”!

Yes, you’ve heard that right. 

It can be detected by means of a very easy thumb-palm test, in which you try to flex and extend your thumb across your palm. If your thumb extends all the way across and sticks out on the other side at a weird angle, then you should see a cardiologist ASAP.

This is because in people with heart issues the joints go all lax, the connective tissue losing the necessary density and strength throughout the entire body.

(Please do google pictures of this condition at your own discretion. I’m not going to provide you with any links and/or pics. Trying to be mindful of people with a low disgust threshold here.)

Anyway: From what I understand, not all people who are about to have a heart attack have this “wrong thumb”, but all people who have a “wrong thumb” are at a very much heightened risk of suffering a cardiac episode in the near future.

So, Sherlock saying, “Come back. It’s the wrong thumb,” could be something that is actually going on outside of his coma/unconscious spell/EMP or whatever.

It’s possible that the whole reason for Sherlock being put into a CT scanner in the first place is that *cough* ‘somebody’ notices that Sherlock’s thumb can be bent all across his palm in an unnatural way, ie, that his thumb is all ‘wrong’.

And who do we think might be that ‘somebody’ be?

Who might be holding Sherlock’s hand as Sherlock is lying there unconscious?

Bingo.

John loves those hands, make no mistake!

He spends a lot of time staring at them, in any case. Or thirsting…as you young people like to say nowadays.;)

So, John holding an unconscious Sherlock’s hand in the hospital, flexing his fingers lightly and discovering that there’s something wrong with Sherlock’s thumb is at least not inconceivable, right?

Something is not okay. Something about Sherlock’s thumb is wrong. “Hey, come back. He might be about to have a heart attack.”

So, this might be John trying to convince a doctor at the hospital that, no, Sherlock isn’t just some junkie who’s going to ‘sleep it off’. Come back! There’s something seriously wrong with him. Look! His thumb. He needs a CT scan and soon. Something might be going on with his heart. 

How about your heart? Did I break it already by giving you the mental image of John holding an unconscious Sherlock’s hand? Sorry, not sorry. That’s how I roll.:P

Anyway…So, that’s my crazy and absurd idea about the ‘wrong’ thumb.

There might actually be TWO things happening almost simultaneously here: 

On the one hand (in reality) John is currently working out that Sherlock’s thumb means that Sherlock’s heart could give out any minute. On the other hand, a few moments later (in Sherlock’s EMP) Sherlock is trying to work out, “Where am I? Are they classically X-Raying me?…Ah, I’ve got it. I’m in the spinning tube thingy. It’s a CT scanner.”

That seems to be the sequence of events at that point.

Also, if, IF I’m right and (a very much worried) John is there all the way, even making discoveries such as the ‘wrong’ thumb and insisting to help the other doctors while Sherlock is unconscious, then it’s shouldn’t come as a surprise that at some point in TLD his credentials as a doctor are being questioned, right? 

He doesn’t work at that particular hospital. He keeps getting in the way, insisting on treatments, arguing with the other doctors, correcting them…Doctors don’t like that sort of thing. 

So, John (in TLD) being asked “Are you even a real doctor?” is probably something that is really happening outside of Sherlock’s EMP. (But I’m reasonably sure I’m not the first one to make that discovery. Others have probably pointed that out way before me.)

There’s also the fact that almost the whole episode of TLD is a tragedy being played out in a hospital room that John can’t seem to get into legally anymore, except for literally breaking in! That’s highly, highly significant, people. John might have been banished from Sherlock’s hospital room for interfering one time too many.

And then in TFP we get Sherlock’s infamous line that John is family and thus should be allowed to stay. (Others have obviously speculated about this ages ago. So, that’s not my idea, at all. Just mentioning it for completeness sake.)

The crazy and absurd idea about the wrong thumb, though, that one I’m happy to claim.:D

One last point (and yes, I know, I’m working my way through this scene back to front):

Almost at the very beginning of this whole weird sequence in TST Sherlock is talking about tattoos and lymph nodes:

Keep in mind that we have established a long time ago that the limbless torso is a metaphor for Sherlock himself. (Metaphorically, Sherlock is every cut-off head on the show (see here:x). And he is most certainly the dismembered country squire in TAB, too.)

So, when there’s literally speculation going on about a ‘limbless body’ having tattoos or not, that’s Sherlock we’re metaphorically talking about, right?

But what about the tattoo question is interesting here?

Well, I said above that the “spinning place” probably represents a CT scanner (in TST), and we’ve all established years ago that the screwy skull picture in TLD means he will also be put into an MRI machine later on.

So, what do you think is a radiologist going to ask John and/or Mycroft about this unconscious patient? Not exactly whether Sherlock could be pregnant, right?:D 

But…?

Exactly!

“We will have to do a CT scan first, then an MRI. Has the patient got any tattoos?”

It’s even possible that the radiologist explains to them that, “Tattoos can give wrong results when we examine the lymph nodes in a CT scan because tattoo ink tends to migrate to the lymph nodes.”

There you go.

So, I’m inclined to cautiously conclude that the whole talk about tattoos and lymph nodes is again evidence for a CT-scanner-first-and-then-MRI-machine-later scenario. It’s evidence for a conversation with a radiologist. Well, and you know now what I think happens after Sherlock has been put inside that CT scanner…

—————————————————

So, what do you think about my CT scanner idea?

Keep in mind that the ramifications of this idea are massive for the meta level of interpretation when we talk about this show:

Sherlock Holmes isn’t just our Sherlock from the BBC show, after all; he’s also a 120+year-old iconic character, that has existed since Arthur Conan Doyle came up with him and has since transcended this original creation over the course of countless adaptations for the big screen, small screen, stage, radio, etc.

It’s this iconic character that Mofftiss have put into a CT scanner here. THEY ARE X-RAYING HIM!

And they’re not just X-Raying some random body part of his: They are X-Raying his heart inside that CT scanner.

MOFFTISS ARE X-RAYING THE GAY HEART OF THE ICONIC SHERLOCK HOLMES CHARACTER.

Now, think about that for a while.

Metaphorically, it would make sense for it to have been John who insisted on the CT scan of the heart in the first place…whether for some thumb-related reason or otherwise…but I guess I just love the idea of John holding Sherlock’s hand…Again…

On a meta level, Mofftiss scanning the iconic Sherlock Holmes’s gay heart would make all the sense in the world. Them discovering that something is very, very wrong there (heart attack!) WHILE THEY ARE SCANNING HIM and that Sherlock is at risk of dying, of ceasing to exist as this iconic character also makes sense.

They have discovered that the suppression of his gay heart (congenital, ie, from the Victorian era onwards) is massively dangerous to Sherlock Holmes as a character. It now threatens not just his emotional health, but also his brain/intellectual work. It threatens the essence of his very existence.

And they are the ones who have to save this iconic Sherlock Holmes character now!

They have to! (And we all know what that entails…)

——————————

I hope you liked this meta. (My tumblr hiatus was pretty long; so I hope it was worth the wait.:)) 

If you want to read more of my metas, you can either search my (unfortunately incomplete) Meta Master Post: HERE. 

Or you can look through my (complete) Sherlock meta tag and read all my metas in descending order: HERE.

I’ve also started to upload all my metas to my AO3, but it’s slow-going so far. I have collected all my EMP metas ( ‘Why Sherlock is in a coma’) on AO3: HERE.

(All screencaps in this meta were taken from: kissedthemgoodbye.net)

Tagging a few people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @kettykika78

@possiblyimbiassed @therealsaintscully @sherlockshadow @monikakrasnorada @dinner–starving @the-7-percent-solution @loudest-subtext-in-tv @fellshish​ @loveismyrevolution​ @88thparallel​ @debussy-reverie​

@spenglernot​ @thepersianslipper​​

oh, i love it! i especially love this multi level reading, which ties together the (at times bizarro nonsensical seeming) surface level, the johnlock metaphorical level, and the whole character history meta level. wow! the meta level is the real bones of the show, but of course there has to be something on the surface in order for it to be a tv show and not just an obscure lit crit essay that hardly anyone would know about let alone read.

couple things leapt out at me.

that screen cap in the “spinning plates” scene, sherlock’s aha moment, he’s centered in frame, in front of a window, backlit. so there’s an (oblique, filtered) element of the projector light effect that has also been extensively discussed, and most recently someone–i’m sorry i didn’t make a note of who, i rb it sort of recently–suggested that lights pointed directly into the camera, at the audience, are to illuminate US, not just the crime scene. (that bus they jumped in front of in TRF, also screencapped above, is another)

John getting banished from sherlock’s hospital room and having to break in, gosh that is not even a metaphor for the problems gay couples had (or still have) pre marriage equality! ouch.

and the natural progression from the heart scan to the brain scan, is depicted on screen in TFP with all those brain mri images in the sherrinford control room! i apologize if i just anticipated your chapter two of this meta!

now off to refresh my memory of the linked metas, and @possiblyimbiassed ’s whiskey tango xray one about the brain scans.

Thank you, @sarahthecoat. And sorry for taking so long to reply. (BTW, I’m planning to go through all the lovely reblogs you people all wrote step by step. Sorry, it might take me a few days, guys. But I should get to them all over the Christmas hols.)

“that screen cap in the “spinning plates” scene, sherlock’s aha moment, he’s centered in frame, in front of a window, backlit.“

Yesss. That is one very interesting screenshot.

“John getting banished from sherlock’s hospital room and having to break in, gosh that is not even a metaphor for the problems gay couples had (or still have) pre marriage equality! ouch.“

Indeed!

“and the natural progression from the heart scan to the brain scan, is depicted on screen in TFP with all those brain mri images in the sherrinford control room! i apologize if i just anticipated your chapter two of this meta!“

I hadn’t planned to write a second part, actually. This is a standalone.:) In any case, the brain mri images in the Sherrinford control room have all been covered by other people long before me. Doesn’t make sense for me to go there, as well.

“i especially love this multi level reading, which ties together the (at times bizarro nonsensical seeming) surface level, the johnlock metaphorical level, and the whole character history meta level.“

Yes, I’m so glad you noticed that. Because I am more and more convinced that this is actually how we’re supposed to interpret the whole show: We have to do more than just understand all the metaphors, we have to make sure they are all interconnected and all work towards one meaning on a level that encompasses the whole show and actually even surpasses it, touching upon the meta level.

yes, the multi level reading, that sqeares with "if you're not reading the subtext then hell mend you" and also somewhat personally gratifyingly, with my own "both and" meta reader approach.

Spinning Plates and The Wrong Thumb (‘Sherlock’ meta)

So, this is the new meta I’ve been teasing you all with. (Took me long enough, I know, I know…) 

I also know that, by now, the ‘Sherlock’ fandom has its own established interpretation of what the phrase, “The place was spinning” in s4ep1 (TST) means, but I’d like to offer an alternative, EMP-inspired idea here:

Keep in mind that I’m convinced that by s4 Sherlock is actually unconscious and lying in a hospital (as per EMP theory).

So, what is that one magical “place” in a hospital that is literally spinning?

Yes. A CT scanner!

Could it be that, in TST, Sherlock has just worked out that he is lying in a CT scanner, being scanned?

Look at this strange exchange between John and Sherlock again:

So, here’s the thing: Mofftiss love themselves a good pun. So forget about ‘spinning plates’ being a commonly used idiom in the English language. Don’t even think about some circus acrobat literally spinning dinner plates made of fine china on many a thin pole.

Think of different plates. Yes, those kinds of plates. Classic X-Ray machines still have them: screening/imaging plates.

Let’s not get too technical about the details here because I suspect Mofftiss aren’t either. (This is TV medicine land, not actual real-life medicine land, okay.:D) 

Suffice it to say that John usually acts as a metaphor for Sherlock’s heart, ie Sherlock’s emotional inner voice. In other words, Sherlock (who is unconscious, remember!) essentially tells himself, in his mind, here that “spinning plates” is not an option: He ponders the question of what the doctors that are treating him might be doing to him and comes to the conclusion that they can’t possibly be forcing him through one X-Ray after another (“spinning plates”) because that’s unsustainable to say the least, if not downright unhealthy.

It’s at this point that (unconscious) Sherlock has an epiphany about the whole situation that he finds himself in. It is appropriately illustrated by the face he makes at that very moment in TST:

I think this moment is about Sherlock finally working out that they’re not just (classically) X-Raying him, they have put him in a CT scanner:

That’s it. It’s the whole place that is spinning around him.

A CT scanner is literally an X-Ray machine that spins around you ultra-ultra-fast.

I think this is what that weird “spinning plates” vs. “spinning place” conversation might be all about.

This is particularly interesting because, as a fandom, we have all speculated that once the second episode of s4 (TLD) comes around, Sherlock’s brain is going to be scanned by an MRI machine (the whole screwy skull picture thing, remember! We’ve talked about it A LOT. Just one such example: here x. But there’s loads more. And I would like to add that the whole skull picture=MRI machine metaphor was obviously in no way my discovery. A lot of people talked about this back in 2017.).

So, anyway…MRI machines are indeed used to scan the brain (as would fit the skull picture metaphor in TLD).

But, but! …(And this new discovery I am claiming for myself.:-)) A CT scanner would be more appropriate for other organs, such as the heart for example!

And in the first episode of s4 (TST) we are still very much talking about the heart. It’s the heart problem first, the brain problem comes later.

So, it’s not illogical to assume that Sherlock was FIRST put into a CT scanner (in TST) to scan his heart and THEN into an MRI machine (in TLD) to scan his brain.

This would also fit the sequence of events I have discovered and described earlier: Sherlock has a heart AND a brain problem (not just literally, but also metaphorically and on a meta level as the iconic 120+ year-old Sherlock Holmes figure. I had analysed this whole situation in my meta ‘Why Sherlock has a heart AND a brain problem’ here: x ).

To be more precise it’s his heart problem that CAUSES his brain problem:

Literally speaking: his heart starts throwing blood clots and one of them hits the brain. 

Metaphorically speaking: The iconic Sherlock Holmes character’s heart (gay identity) isn’t healthy because he has to suppress it, this hasn’t been healthy for more than a century already, which is now impacting his brain (intellectual abilities/work persona, aka brain) too.

The ‘heart problem’ is congenital (we’ve talked about this), as is alluded to in TLD: ie, Sherlock Holmes was originally conceived in the Victorian era as a repressed gay character. The brain problem is NOT congenital; it is directly CAUSED by the heart problem (ie, Sherlock’s big gay heartbreak leads to his brain being affected, as well, and eventually to his being on the brink of death as an iconic character).

Anyway…So, this idea I just had about the whole “spinning plates”- “the place was spinning” conversation is that it’s a coded way of telling us that Sherlock is trying to work out what exactly it is that the doctors at the hospital are doing to him. (“Are they simply X-Raying me again and again and again? No, hang on…That can’t be right…Ah, got it! I’m inside a CT scanner, aren’t I?”)

And look, in TST, immediately after his “spinning place” (CT scanner) epiphany we get the whole rambling passage about heart medication, and the words ‘The Cardiac Arrest’ flash across the screen:

What I think happened here is that Sherlock suffered a heart attack WHILE BEING INSIDE THE CT SCANNER!

This would be a massively dangerous situation. It is only appropriate that, over the next couple of moments on screen, you get this sense of hurry, this rush to get somewhere: John and Sherlock quickly coming up the stairs…

…then John, Sherlock and Mary speeding away in a car.

I’ve speculated about these two scenes before in my meta ‘Was Sherlock put on a heart assist system?’ (here: x). I wrote: 

(Remember this is TV medicine land, not actual, real-life medicine land, yeah?)

In my ‘heart assistant’ meta, which I’ve quoted above (x), I had even speculated that the camera flashing a couple of times brightly at the end of this sequence (as Rosie’s picture is being taken) is actually Sherlock’s heart being defibrillated:

Now let’s get to my new idea from above: 

Sherlock has a heart attack INSIDE the CT SCANNER. And the rush as John and Sherlock run up the stairs and then speed away in the car with Mary THAT’S PEOPLE SCRAMBLING TO PULL SHERLOCK OUT OF THE CT SCANNER AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

Sherlock is unconscious in that CT scanner, and someone has just noticed that he is having some sort of heart episode whilst being scanned, and now they are frantically pulling him out of there to get him to a defibrillator as quickly as possible.

Remember that I already pointed out in my ‘Jellyfish’ meta (here: x) that the conversation about jellyfish that John and Sherlock are having as they climb up the stairs is fascinating in this context. (Jellyfish don’t only look and pump like hearts, actually researchers are currently actively considering the idea of building artificial hearts that work like a pumping jellyfish as a possible solution for patients with heart failure.)

In other words, John and Sherlock saying “You can’t arrest a jellyfish” at that precise moment, as they hurry up the stairs, isn’t a coincidence. If the jellyfish is a metaphor for a heart, then talking about one being, ahem, ‘arrested’ (hint, hint!) is highly, highly suspicious at a point in the story where I suspect Sherlock is being pulled out of a CT scanner after a heart attack. Jellyfish=Heart. Got it?

After all, the conversation about the potential *cough* ‘arrest’ or not of the jellyfish is happening right after the words ‘The Cardiac Arrest’ have flashed across the screen, ie, right after this probably happened to Sherlock inside the CT scanner.

Then come the camera flashes, which I had already interpreted as a defibrillator (see above). And Sherlock is probably saved (for now). But his heart now only works with the help of an assistance system (for this, again, see here: x), hence the phone assistant’s voice. (I would like to refer you to my meta about ‘Sherlock being put on a medical balloon pump’, as well, see here: x. That’s why there’s a balloon in a later scene, that’s literally replacing John, aka, Sherlock’s heart.)

So, now we’ve established the sequence of events: 

CT scan > Sherlock has a heart attack inside the CT scanner > he is quickly being pulled out of the CT scanner (he is literally trying to hang on to his heart as he goes into v-fib…That’s the whole frantically-glued-to-his-phone-in-the-car scene.) > they pull him out of the scanner, get a crash cart over there > he is being shocked by a defibrillator >he is saved >heart assist system, balloon pump. 

>>>And then, LATER ON, in TLD, they discover that his brain was hit by a blood clot, as we have already established…

BTW, we are then (much later, in TLD) expressly told by Mycroft that: “We keep losing visual. Mostly we are tracking his phone.”

They are tracking his, ahem, ‘phone’ (=heart)!

They can’t get a clear visual of him wandering about London. (=The lack of a clear visual is probably a coded reference to them scanning his brain with an MRI machine by TLD, aka, the results of his brain scans aren’t conclusive. Is he already brain dead? Is he still alive? It’s not clear, at that point.) But despite this lack of a clear visual on the brain front, they keep monitoring his ‘phone’ (=heart) in TLD.  (I had written a whole meta about this, called ‘Mostly we are tracking his phone’, see here: x.)

Are you with me so far? Okay.

Well, now listen up, chaps and chapesses: This next idea here is completely wild, alright? An idea I haven’t seen anyone discuss before; it’s SO absurd.:P But still, I think it might be worth exploring, even if it’s just for fun:

A couple of moments before the heart attack happens inside the CT scanner (so that’s BEFORE the whole “spinning plates”-”the place was spinning” exchange)…a few moments before that, Sherlock literally tells us something about a wrong thumb:

That’s a moment I found weird ever since I first watched the episode back in 2017 because, if I recall correctly, in the ACD story ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’ (ENGR) there’s nothing about the thumb BEING WRONG. So this newly added element to the story seemed like such a deliberate choice by Mofftiss, right? Like they were rubbing our noses in something which we couldn’t yet possibly understand: Why would Sherlock say something about the thumb being wrong exactly?

Well, here goes my (frankly) quite crazy and absolutely absurd idea:

People who are at an acute risk of suffering a heart attack often DO have a “wrong thumb”!

Yes, you’ve heard that right. 

It can be detected by means of a very easy thumb-palm test, in which you try to flex and extend your thumb across your palm. If your thumb extends all the way across and sticks out on the other side at a weird angle, then you should see a cardiologist ASAP.

This is because in people with heart issues the joints go all lax, the connective tissue losing the necessary density and strength throughout the entire body.

(Please do google pictures of this condition at your own discretion. I’m not going to provide you with any links and/or pics. Trying to be mindful of people with a low disgust threshold here.)

Anyway: From what I understand, not all people who are about to have a heart attack have this “wrong thumb”, but all people who have a “wrong thumb” are at a very much heightened risk of suffering a cardiac episode in the near future.

So, Sherlock saying, “Come back. It’s the wrong thumb,” could be something that is actually going on outside of his coma/unconscious spell/EMP or whatever.

It’s possible that the whole reason for Sherlock being put into a CT scanner in the first place is that *cough* ‘somebody’ notices that Sherlock’s thumb can be bent all across his palm in an unnatural way, ie, that his thumb is all ‘wrong’.

And who do we think might be that ‘somebody’ be?

Who might be holding Sherlock’s hand as Sherlock is lying there unconscious?

Bingo.

John loves those hands, make no mistake!

He spends a lot of time staring at them, in any case. Or thirsting…as you young people like to say nowadays.;)

So, John holding an unconscious Sherlock’s hand in the hospital, flexing his fingers lightly and discovering that there’s something wrong with Sherlock’s thumb is at least not inconceivable, right?

Something is not okay. Something about Sherlock’s thumb is wrong. “Hey, come back. He might be about to have a heart attack.”

So, this might be John trying to convince a doctor at the hospital that, no, Sherlock isn’t just some junkie who’s going to ‘sleep it off’. Come back! There’s something seriously wrong with him. Look! His thumb. He needs a CT scan and soon. Something might be going on with his heart. 

How about your heart? Did I break it already by giving you the mental image of John holding an unconscious Sherlock’s hand? Sorry, not sorry. That’s how I roll.:P

Anyway…So, that’s my crazy and absurd idea about the ‘wrong’ thumb.

There might actually be TWO things happening almost simultaneously here: 

On the one hand (in reality) John is currently working out that Sherlock’s thumb means that Sherlock’s heart could give out any minute. On the other hand, a few moments later (in Sherlock’s EMP) Sherlock is trying to work out, “Where am I? Are they classically X-Raying me?…Ah, I’ve got it. I’m in the spinning tube thingy. It’s a CT scanner.”

That seems to be the sequence of events at that point.

Also, if, IF I’m right and (a very much worried) John is there all the way, even making discoveries such as the ‘wrong’ thumb and insisting to help the other doctors while Sherlock is unconscious, then it’s shouldn’t come as a surprise that at some point in TLD his credentials as a doctor are being questioned, right? 

He doesn’t work at that particular hospital. He keeps getting in the way, insisting on treatments, arguing with the other doctors, correcting them…Doctors don’t like that sort of thing. 

So, John (in TLD) being asked “Are you even a real doctor?” is probably something that is really happening outside of Sherlock’s EMP. (But I’m reasonably sure I’m not the first one to make that discovery. Others have probably pointed that out way before me.)

There’s also the fact that almost the whole episode of TLD is a tragedy being played out in a hospital room that John can’t seem to get into legally anymore, except for literally breaking in! That’s highly, highly significant, people. John might have been banished from Sherlock’s hospital room for interfering one time too many.

And then in TFP we get Sherlock’s infamous line that John is family and thus should be allowed to stay. (Others have obviously speculated about this ages ago. So, that’s not my idea, at all. Just mentioning it for completeness sake.)

The crazy and absurd idea about the wrong thumb, though, that one I’m happy to claim.:D

One last point (and yes, I know, I’m working my way through this scene back to front):

Almost at the very beginning of this whole weird sequence in TST Sherlock is talking about tattoos and lymph nodes:

Keep in mind that we have established a long time ago that the limbless torso is a metaphor for Sherlock himself. (Metaphorically, Sherlock is every cut-off head on the show (see here:x). And he is most certainly the dismembered country squire in TAB, too.)

So, when there’s literally speculation going on about a ‘limbless body’ having tattoos or not, that’s Sherlock we’re metaphorically talking about, right?

But what about the tattoo question is interesting here?

Well, I said above that the “spinning place” probably represents a CT scanner (in TST), and we’ve all established years ago that the screwy skull picture in TLD means he will also be put into an MRI machine later on.

So, what do you think is a radiologist going to ask John and/or Mycroft about this unconscious patient? Not exactly whether Sherlock could be pregnant, right?:D 

But…?

Exactly!

“We will have to do a CT scan first, then an MRI. Has the patient got any tattoos?”

It’s even possible that the radiologist explains to them that, “Tattoos can give wrong results when we examine the lymph nodes in a CT scan because tattoo ink tends to migrate to the lymph nodes.”

There you go.

So, I’m inclined to cautiously conclude that the whole talk about tattoos and lymph nodes is again evidence for a CT-scanner-first-and-then-MRI-machine-later scenario. It’s evidence for a conversation with a radiologist. Well, and you know now what I think happens after Sherlock has been put inside that CT scanner…

—————————————————

So, what do you think about my CT scanner idea?

Keep in mind that the ramifications of this idea are massive for the meta level of interpretation when we talk about this show:

Sherlock Holmes isn’t just our Sherlock from the BBC show, after all; he’s also a 120+year-old iconic character, that has existed since Arthur Conan Doyle came up with him and has since transcended this original creation over the course of countless adaptations for the big screen, small screen, stage, radio, etc.

It’s this iconic character that Mofftiss have put into a CT scanner here. THEY ARE X-RAYING HIM!

And they’re not just X-Raying some random body part of his: They are X-Raying his heart inside that CT scanner.

MOFFTISS ARE X-RAYING THE GAY HEART OF THE ICONIC SHERLOCK HOLMES CHARACTER.

Now, think about that for a while.

Metaphorically, it would make sense for it to have been John who insisted on the CT scan of the heart in the first place…whether for some thumb-related reason or otherwise…but I guess I just love the idea of John holding Sherlock’s hand…Again…

On a meta level, Mofftiss scanning the iconic Sherlock Holmes’s gay heart would make all the sense in the world. Them discovering that something is very, very wrong there (heart attack!) WHILE THEY ARE SCANNING HIM and that Sherlock is at risk of dying, of ceasing to exist as this iconic character also makes sense.

They have discovered that the suppression of his gay heart (congenital, ie, from the Victorian era onwards) is massively dangerous to Sherlock Holmes as a character. It now threatens not just his emotional health, but also his brain/intellectual work. It threatens the essence of his very existence.

And they are the ones who have to save this iconic Sherlock Holmes character now!

They have to! (And we all know what that entails…)

——————————

I hope you liked this meta. (My tumblr hiatus was pretty long; so I hope it was worth the wait.:)) 

If you want to read more of my metas, you can either search my (unfortunately incomplete) Meta Master Post: HERE. 

Or you can look through my (complete) Sherlock meta tag and read all my metas in descending order: HERE.

I’ve also started to upload all my metas to my AO3, but it’s slow-going so far. I have collected all my EMP metas ( ‘Why Sherlock is in a coma’) on AO3: HERE.

(All screencaps in this meta were taken from: kissedthemgoodbye.net)

Tagging a few people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @kettykika78

@possiblyimbiassed @therealsaintscully @sherlockshadow @monikakrasnorada @dinner–starving @the-7-percent-solution @loudest-subtext-in-tv @fellshish​ @loveismyrevolution​ @88thparallel​ @debussy-reverie​

@spenglernot​ @thepersianslipper​​

oh, i love it! i especially love this multi level reading, which ties together the (at times bizarro nonsensical seeming) surface level, the johnlock metaphorical level, and the whole character history meta level. wow! the meta level is the real bones of the show, but of course there has to be something on the surface in order for it to be a tv show and not just an obscure lit crit essay that hardly anyone would know about let alone read.

couple things leapt out at me.

that screen cap in the “spinning plates” scene, sherlock’s aha moment, he’s centered in frame, in front of a window, backlit. so there’s an (oblique, filtered) element of the projector light effect that has also been extensively discussed, and most recently someone–i’m sorry i didn’t make a note of who, i rb it sort of recently–suggested that lights pointed directly into the camera, at the audience, are to illuminate US, not just the crime scene. (that bus they jumped in front of in TRF, also screencapped above, is another)

John getting banished from sherlock’s hospital room and having to break in, gosh that is not even a metaphor for the problems gay couples had (or still have) pre marriage equality! ouch.

and the natural progression from the heart scan to the brain scan, is depicted on screen in TFP with all those brain mri images in the sherrinford control room! i apologize if i just anticipated your chapter two of this meta!

now off to refresh my memory of the linked metas, and @possiblyimbiassed ’s whiskey tango xray one about the brain scans.

Must chime in with @sarahthecoat here, of course: I so love these ideas! To read a new @sagestreet meta really made my day, and this one makes sense on so many levels. So much evidence to back it up, in fact. And don’t forget the impossible ’coincidence’, also in TST, that the number on Mary’s fake ID card happened to be identical to the patent number of a heart monitor. :) If these heart metaphors hidden behind clever references to ACD canon (jellyfish = a pumping heart subjected to arrest = LION and a severed thumb = a sign of heart failure because it’s wrong = EGNR) are truly intended, then yes; Mofftiss’ brilliance is indeed outstanding. So, if you’re right @sagestreet, the CAT scan nearly killed him (probably because it was a cat and not a dog :-))).

But they still do need to save this character, right? Because as TFP ended, Sherlock and John were caught in an eternal loop, for ever discussing the cases at 221 B or running here and there. And it’s ”always 1895”. But that’s not canon. In canon (LAST) they ended up driving away to London in a car together, presumably towards a waiting hotel room (after finishing a good day’s work, and with the bad guy tied to the back of their car). Sounds more like the end of a wedding to me. :-D We never saw that scene with John and Mary, did we? So with Sherlock and John, this car scene still remains to be seen. Maybe driving away in an Aston Martin? ;-)

Speaking of that other wedding, that’s were I still believe Sherlock’s worst emotional heartbreak occurred. And after that he might have proceeded to destroy his heart physically as well, with an OD of cocain and maybe some other drugs. So if this is true, and the CAT scan also got his heart, this was actually the third time Sherlock’s heart was ready to give up in this story. The first time being in HLV when Mary showed up sending a bullet through his chest. The second time also in HLV, after having lied to John about Mary saving his life. And now the CAT scan in TST. But all three times he was ’resurrected’ by medical staff who had to restart his heart. Apparently in this show, miracles do happen. I’ll stop rambling, my head is spinning now. :) Thanks for another amazing meta, @sagestreet!

@raggedyblue @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat

Spinning Plates and The Wrong Thumb (‘Sherlock’ meta)

So, this is the new meta I’ve been teasing you all with. (Took me long enough, I know, I know…) 

I also know that, by now, the ‘Sherlock’ fandom has its own established interpretation of what the phrase, “The place was spinning” in s4ep1 (TST) means, but I’d like to offer an alternative, EMP-inspired idea here:

Keep in mind that I’m convinced that by s4 Sherlock is actually unconscious and lying in a hospital (as per EMP theory).

So, what is that one magical “place” in a hospital that is literally spinning?

Yes. A CT scanner!

Could it be that, in TST, Sherlock has just worked out that he is lying in a CT scanner, being scanned?

Look at this strange exchange between John and Sherlock again:

So, here’s the thing: Mofftiss love themselves a good pun. So forget about ‘spinning plates’ being a commonly used idiom in the English language. Don’t even think about some circus acrobat literally spinning dinner plates made of fine china on many a thin pole.

Think of different plates. Yes, those kinds of plates. Classic X-Ray machines still have them: screening/imaging plates.

Let’s not get too technical about the details here because I suspect Mofftiss aren’t either. (This is TV medicine land, not actual real-life medicine land, okay.:D) 

Suffice it to say that John usually acts as a metaphor for Sherlock’s heart, ie Sherlock’s emotional inner voice. In other words, Sherlock (who is unconscious, remember!) essentially tells himself, in his mind, here that “spinning plates” is not an option: He ponders the question of what the doctors that are treating him might be doing to him and comes to the conclusion that they can’t possibly be forcing him through one X-Ray after another (“spinning plates”) because that’s unsustainable to say the least, if not downright unhealthy.

It’s at this point that (unconscious) Sherlock has an epiphany about the whole situation that he finds himself in. It is appropriately illustrated by the face he makes at that very moment in TST:

I think this moment is about Sherlock finally working out that they’re not just (classically) X-Raying him, they have put him in a CT scanner:

That’s it. It’s the whole place that is spinning around him.

A CT scanner is literally an X-Ray machine that spins around you ultra-ultra-fast.

I think this is what that weird “spinning plates” vs. “spinning place” conversation might be all about.

This is particularly interesting because, as a fandom, we have all speculated that once the second episode of s4 (TLD) comes around, Sherlock’s brain is going to be scanned by an MRI machine (the whole screwy skull picture thing, remember! We’ve talked about it A LOT. Just one such example: here x. But there’s loads more. And I would like to add that the whole skull picture=MRI machine metaphor was obviously in no way my discovery. A lot of people talked about this back in 2017.).

So, anyway…MRI machines are indeed used to scan the brain (as would fit the skull picture metaphor in TLD).

But, but! …(And this new discovery I am claiming for myself.:-)) A CT scanner would be more appropriate for other organs, such as the heart for example!

And in the first episode of s4 (TST) we are still very much talking about the heart. It’s the heart problem first, the brain problem comes later.

So, it’s not illogical to assume that Sherlock was FIRST put into a CT scanner (in TST) to scan his heart and THEN into an MRI machine (in TLD) to scan his brain.

This would also fit the sequence of events I have discovered and described earlier: Sherlock has a heart AND a brain problem (not just literally, but also metaphorically and on a meta level as the iconic 120+ year-old Sherlock Holmes figure. I had analysed this whole situation in my meta ‘Why Sherlock has a heart AND a brain problem’ here: x ).

To be more precise it’s his heart problem that CAUSES his brain problem:

Literally speaking: his heart starts throwing blood clots and one of them hits the brain. 

Metaphorically speaking: The iconic Sherlock Holmes character’s heart (gay identity) isn’t healthy because he has to suppress it, this hasn’t been healthy for more than a century already, which is now impacting his brain (intellectual abilities/work persona, aka brain) too.

The ‘heart problem’ is congenital (we’ve talked about this), as is alluded to in TLD: ie, Sherlock Holmes was originally conceived in the Victorian era as a repressed gay character. The brain problem is NOT congenital; it is directly CAUSED by the heart problem (ie, Sherlock’s big gay heartbreak leads to his brain being affected, as well, and eventually to his being on the brink of death as an iconic character).

Anyway…So, this idea I just had about the whole “spinning plates”- “the place was spinning” conversation is that it’s a coded way of telling us that Sherlock is trying to work out what exactly it is that the doctors at the hospital are doing to him. (“Are they simply X-Raying me again and again and again? No, hang on…That can’t be right…Ah, got it! I’m inside a CT scanner, aren’t I?”)

And look, in TST, immediately after his “spinning place” (CT scanner) epiphany we get the whole rambling passage about heart medication, and the words ‘The Cardiac Arrest’ flash across the screen:

What I think happened here is that Sherlock suffered a heart attack WHILE BEING INSIDE THE CT SCANNER!

This would be a massively dangerous situation. It is only appropriate that, over the next couple of moments on screen, you get this sense of hurry, this rush to get somewhere: John and Sherlock quickly coming up the stairs…

…then John, Sherlock and Mary speeding away in a car.

I’ve speculated about these two scenes before in my meta ‘Was Sherlock put on a heart assist system?’ (here: x). I wrote: 

(Remember this is TV medicine land, not actual, real-life medicine land, yeah?)

In my 'heart assistant’ meta, which I’ve quoted above (x), I had even speculated that the camera flashing a couple of times brightly at the end of this sequence (as Rosie’s picture is being taken) is actually Sherlock’s heart being defibrillated:

Now let’s get to my new idea from above: 

Sherlock has a heart attack INSIDE the CT SCANNER. And the rush as John and Sherlock run up the stairs and then speed away in the car with Mary THAT’S PEOPLE SCRAMBLING TO PULL SHERLOCK OUT OF THE CT SCANNER AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

Sherlock is unconscious in that CT scanner, and someone has just noticed that he is having some sort of heart episode whilst being scanned, and now they are frantically pulling him out of there to get him to a defibrillator as quickly as possible.

Remember that I already pointed out in my ‘Jellyfish’ meta (here: x) that the conversation about jellyfish that John and Sherlock are having as they climb up the stairs is fascinating in this context. (Jellyfish don’t only look and pump like hearts, actually researchers are currently actively considering the idea of building artificial hearts that work like a pumping jellyfish as a possible solution for patients with heart failure.)

In other words, John and Sherlock saying “You can’t arrest a jellyfish” at that precise moment, as they hurry up the stairs, isn’t a coincidence. If the jellyfish is a metaphor for a heart, then talking about one being, ahem, ‘arrested’ (hint, hint!) is highly, highly suspicious at a point in the story where I suspect Sherlock is being pulled out of a CT scanner after a heart attack. Jellyfish=Heart. Got it?

After all, the conversation about the potential *cough* ‘arrest’ or not of the jellyfish is happening right after the words ‘The Cardiac Arrest’ have flashed across the screen, ie, right after this probably happened to Sherlock inside the CT scanner.

Then come the camera flashes, which I had already interpreted as a defibrillator (see above). And Sherlock is probably saved (for now). But his heart now only works with the help of an assistance system (for this, again, see here: x), hence the phone assistant’s voice. (I would like to refer you to my meta about ‘Sherlock being put on a medical balloon pump’, as well, see here: x. That’s why there’s a balloon in a later scene, that’s literally replacing John, aka, Sherlock’s heart.)

So, now we’ve established the sequence of events: 

CT scan > Sherlock has a heart attack inside the CT scanner > he is quickly being pulled out of the CT scanner (he is literally trying to hang on to his heart as he goes into v-fib…That’s the whole frantically-glued-to-his-phone-in-the-car scene.) > they pull him out of the scanner, get a crash cart over there > he is being shocked by a defibrillator >he is saved >heart assist system, balloon pump. 

>>>And then, LATER ON, in TLD, they discover that his brain was hit by a blood clot, as we have already established…

BTW, we are then (much later, in TLD) expressly told by Mycroft that: “We keep losing visual. Mostly we are tracking his phone.”

They are tracking his, ahem, ‘phone’ (=heart)!

They can’t get a clear visual of him wandering about London. (=The lack of a clear visual is probably a coded reference to them scanning his brain with an MRI machine by TLD, aka, the results of his brain scans aren’t conclusive. Is he already brain dead? Is he still alive? It’s not clear, at that point.) But despite this lack of a clear visual on the brain front, they keep monitoring his ‘phone’ (=heart) in TLD.  (I had written a whole meta about this, called ‘Mostly we are tracking his phone’, see here: x.)

Are you with me so far? Okay.

Well, now listen up, chaps and chapesses: This next idea here is completely wild, alright? An idea I haven’t seen anyone discuss before; it’s SO absurd.:P But still, I think it might be worth exploring, even if it’s just for fun:

A couple of moments before the heart attack happens inside the CT scanner (so that’s BEFORE the whole “spinning plates”-”the place was spinning” exchange)…a few moments before that, Sherlock literally tells us something about a wrong thumb:

That’s a moment I found weird ever since I first watched the episode back in 2017 because, if I recall correctly, in the ACD story ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’ (ENGR) there’s nothing about the thumb BEING WRONG. So this newly added element to the story seemed like such a deliberate choice by Mofftiss, right? Like they were rubbing our noses in something which we couldn’t yet possibly understand: Why would Sherlock say something about the thumb being wrong exactly?

Well, here goes my (frankly) quite crazy and absolutely absurd idea:

People who are at an acute risk of suffering a heart attack often DO have a “wrong thumb”!

Yes, you’ve heard that right. 

It can be detected by means of a very easy thumb-palm test, in which you try to flex and extend your thumb across your palm. If your thumb extends all the way across and sticks out on the other side at a weird angle, then you should see a cardiologist ASAP.

This is because in people with heart issues the joints go all lax, the connective tissue losing the necessary density and strength throughout the entire body.

(Please do google pictures of this condition at your own discretion. I’m not going to provide you with any links and/or pics. Trying to be mindful of people with a low disgust threshold here.)

Anyway: From what I understand, not all people who are about to have a heart attack have this “wrong thumb”, but all people who have a “wrong thumb” are at a very much heightened risk of suffering a cardiac episode in the near future.

So, Sherlock saying, “Come back. It’s the wrong thumb,” could be something that is actually going on outside of his coma/unconscious spell/EMP or whatever.

It’s possible that the whole reason for Sherlock being put into a CT scanner in the first place is that *cough* ‘somebody’ notices that Sherlock’s thumb can be bent all across his palm in an unnatural way, ie, that his thumb is all ‘wrong’.

And who do we think might be that ‘somebody’ be?

Who might be holding Sherlock’s hand as Sherlock is lying there unconscious?

Bingo.

John loves those hands, make no mistake!

He spends a lot of time staring at them, in any case. Or thirsting…as you young people like to say nowadays.;)

So, John holding an unconscious Sherlock’s hand in the hospital, flexing his fingers lightly and discovering that there’s something wrong with Sherlock’s thumb is at least not inconceivable, right?

Something is not okay. Something about Sherlock’s thumb is wrong. “Hey, come back. He might be about to have a heart attack.”

So, this might be John trying to convince a doctor at the hospital that, no, Sherlock isn’t just some junkie who’s going to ‘sleep it off’. Come back! There’s something seriously wrong with him. Look! His thumb. He needs a CT scan and soon. Something might be going on with his heart. 

How about your heart? Did I break it already by giving you the mental image of John holding an unconscious Sherlock’s hand? Sorry, not sorry. That’s how I roll.:P

Anyway…So, that’s my crazy and absurd idea about the ‘wrong’ thumb.

There might actually be TWO things happening almost simultaneously here: 

On the one hand (in reality) John is currently working out that Sherlock’s thumb means that Sherlock’s heart could give out any minute. On the other hand, a few moments later (in Sherlock’s EMP) Sherlock is trying to work out, “Where am I? Are they classically X-Raying me?…Ah, I’ve got it. I’m in the spinning tube thingy. It’s a CT scanner.”

That seems to be the sequence of events at that point.

Also, if, IF I’m right and (a very much worried) John is there all the way, even making discoveries such as the ‘wrong’ thumb and insisting to help the other doctors while Sherlock is unconscious, then it’s shouldn’t come as a surprise that at some point in TLD his credentials as a doctor are being questioned, right? 

He doesn’t work at that particular hospital. He keeps getting in the way, insisting on treatments, arguing with the other doctors, correcting them…Doctors don’t like that sort of thing. 

So, John (in TLD) being asked “Are you even a real doctor?” is probably something that is really happening outside of Sherlock’s EMP. (But I’m reasonably sure I’m not the first one to make that discovery. Others have probably pointed that out way before me.)

There’s also the fact that almost the whole episode of TLD is a tragedy being played out in a hospital room that John can’t seem to get into legally anymore, except for literally breaking in! That’s highly, highly significant, people. John might have been banished from Sherlock’s hospital room for interfering one time too many.

And then in TFP we get Sherlock’s infamous line that John is family and thus should be allowed to stay. (Others have obviously speculated about this ages ago. So, that’s not my idea, at all. Just mentioning it for completeness sake.)

The crazy and absurd idea about the wrong thumb, though, that one I’m happy to claim.:D

One last point (and yes, I know, I’m working my way through this scene back to front):

Almost at the very beginning of this whole weird sequence in TST Sherlock is talking about tattoos and lymph nodes:

Keep in mind that we have established a long time ago that the limbless torso is a metaphor for Sherlock himself. (Metaphorically, Sherlock is every cut-off head on the show (see here:x). And he is most certainly the dismembered country squire in TAB, too.)

So, when there’s literally speculation going on about a ‘limbless body’ having tattoos or not, that’s Sherlock we’re metaphorically talking about, right?

But what about the tattoo question is interesting here?

Well, I said above that the “spinning place” probably represents a CT scanner (in TST), and we’ve all established years ago that the screwy skull picture in TLD means he will also be put into an MRI machine later on.

So, what do you think is a radiologist going to ask John and/or Mycroft about this unconscious patient? Not exactly whether Sherlock could be pregnant, right?:D 

But…?

Exactly!

“We will have to do a CT scan first, then an MRI. Has the patient got any tattoos?”

It’s even possible that the radiologist explains to them that, “Tattoos can give wrong results when we examine the lymph nodes in a CT scan because tattoo ink tends to migrate to the lymph nodes.”

There you go.

So, I’m inclined to cautiously conclude that the whole talk about tattoos and lymph nodes is again evidence for a CT-scanner-first-and-then-MRI-machine-later scenario. It’s evidence for a conversation with a radiologist. Well, and you know now what I think happens after Sherlock has been put inside that CT scanner…

—————————————————

So, what do you think about my CT scanner idea?

Keep in mind that the ramifications of this idea are massive for the meta level of interpretation when we talk about this show:

Sherlock Holmes isn’t just our Sherlock from the BBC show, after all; he’s also a 120+year-old iconic character, that has existed since Arthur Conan Doyle came up with him and has since transcended this original creation over the course of countless adaptations for the big screen, small screen, stage, radio, etc.

It’s this iconic character that Mofftiss have put into a CT scanner here. THEY ARE X-RAYING HIM!

And they’re not just X-Raying some random body part of his: They are X-Raying his heart inside that CT scanner.

MOFFTISS ARE X-RAYING THE GAY HEART OF THE ICONIC SHERLOCK HOLMES CHARACTER.

Now, think about that for a while.

Metaphorically, it would make sense for it to have been John who insisted on the CT scan of the heart in the first place…whether for some thumb-related reason or otherwise…but I guess I just love the idea of John holding Sherlock’s hand…Again…

On a meta level, Mofftiss scanning the iconic Sherlock Holmes’s gay heart would make all the sense in the world. Them discovering that something is very, very wrong there (heart attack!) WHILE THEY ARE SCANNING HIM and that Sherlock is at risk of dying, of ceasing to exist as this iconic character also makes sense.

They have discovered that the suppression of his gay heart (congenital, ie, from the Victorian era onwards) is massively dangerous to Sherlock Holmes as a character. It now threatens not just his emotional health, but also his brain/intellectual work. It threatens the essence of his very existence.

And they are the ones who have to save this iconic Sherlock Holmes character now!

They have to! (And we all know what that entails…)

——————————

I hope you liked this meta. (My tumblr hiatus was pretty long; so I hope it was worth the wait.:)) 

If you want to read more of my metas, you can either search my (unfortunately incomplete) Meta Master Post: HERE. 

Or you can look through my (complete) Sherlock meta tag and read all my metas in descending order: HERE.

I’ve also started to upload all my metas to my AO3, but it’s slow-going so far. I have collected all my EMP metas ( ‘Why Sherlock is in a coma’) on AO3: HERE.

(All screencaps in this meta were taken from: kissedthemgoodbye.net)

Tagging a few people who might be interested:

@raggedyblue @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @kettykika78

@possiblyimbiassed @therealsaintscully @sherlockshadow @monikakrasnorada @dinner–starving @the-7-percent-solution @loudest-subtext-in-tv @fellshish​ @loveismyrevolution​ @88thparallel​ @debussy-reverie​

@spenglernot​ @thepersianslipper​​

oh, i love it! i especially love this multi level reading, which ties together the (at times bizarro nonsensical seeming) surface level, the johnlock metaphorical level, and the whole character history meta level. wow! the meta level is the real bones of the show, but of course there has to be something on the surface in order for it to be a tv show and not just an obscure lit crit essay that hardly anyone would know about let alone read.

couple things leapt out at me.

that screen cap in the "spinning plates" scene, sherlock's aha moment, he's centered in frame, in front of a window, backlit. so there's an (oblique, filtered) element of the projector light effect that has also been extensively discussed, and most recently someone--i'm sorry i didn't make a note of who, i rb it sort of recently--suggested that lights pointed directly into the camera, at the audience, are to illuminate US, not just the crime scene. (that bus they jumped in front of in TRF, also screencapped above, is another)

John getting banished from sherlock's hospital room and having to break in, gosh that is not even a metaphor for the problems gay couples had (or still have) pre marriage equality! ouch.

and the natural progression from the heart scan to the brain scan, is depicted on screen in TFP with all those brain mri images in the sherrinford control room! i apologize if i just anticipated your chapter two of this meta!

now off to refresh my memory of the linked metas, and @possiblyimbiassed 's whiskey tango xray one about the brain scans.

“You can’t arrest a jellyfish!” (Sherlock)

I know there are several other really cool theories on the meaning of the jellyfish theme in TST. I just thought I would like to try my hand at an alternative explanation, so here goes…

Something which I have never seen anyone mention before (please correct me if I’m wrong, but I genuinely think this has never been brought up by anyone before) is the fact that jellyfish could someday be used as a model for artificial hearts and researchers are already working on that.

If you don’t believe me, look at this: This guy here (x) had this fantastic idea AT AN AQUARIUM of all places. Ahem…

…this fantastic idea to model artificial hearts after jellyfish.

So, is it a coincidence that Sherlock and John talk about jellyfish a few seconds after the words “The Cardiac Arrest” flash across our screens? 

I mean, consider this: If Sherlock is indeed in a coma, as I and many others have proposed again and again, if s4 is completely in his head, then this could be really, really significant: Sherlock can probably hear what people around him at the hospital are saying. He can hear them discuss medical concepts (I have talked about this before here: x). 

If “The Cardiac Arrest” refers to his (Sherlock’s) cardiac arrest, then some doctor discussing artificial hearts whilst standing right next to Sherlock’s hospital bed in the coma ward would make all the sense in the world.

Also, look at the wording here: “You can’t arrest a jellyfish.” 

I know that, on a detective show, we have the inclination to interpret words like “arrest” to mean something like “to be send to jail”, but what if that’s not what “arrest” means? 

What if it’s word play? Mofftiss like themselves a good pun. And the words “The Cardiac Arrest” can be seen flashing across the screen just a few seconds prior to the jellyfish comment.

What if the word “arrest” in “You can’t arrest a jellyfish” is not about putting someone in jail? What if it means “to stop” something? Something like a heart. A cardiac ARREST is when the heart stops, which a lot of us have speculated means Sherlock’s heart stopped at some point (in reality, outside of his coma dream). 

Well, and the advantage of an, ahem, “jellyfish” (=artificial heart) is that it can’t just be stopped like that. It won’t just give out. It keeps beating. “You can’t arrest a jellyfish!” = “An artificial heart doesn’t just stop on you.”

Have we ever considered that? The repeated use of the word “arrest” over that short period of time seriously seems to point in that direction.

And remember: We have already established that not long after that, Sherlock is on some sort of heart assist system (see my meta on this here: x) because his phone (=heart) speaks with the voice of on assistant.

We have also established that Sherlock was probably put on a balloon pump because John (=Sherlock’s heart) was replaced with a balloon (see my meta on this here: x).

Aaaand there’s also the evidence of ‘Doctor Who’ s10, in which Bill (=a major Sherlock!mirror Moffat just wrote in there to eff with us:P) is put on a rather bulky type of artificial heart, see here:

So, why wouldn’t we assume that the mention of the jellyfish following so soon after the words “The Cardiac Arrest” refers to exactly that: an artifical heart. And why wouldn’t we assume that the repeated use of the word “arrest” means the exact same thing in both instances?

And now go and read (x) about that brilliant guy who came up with the ‘jellyfish’-type of artificial heart at an aquarium of all places.:D

Note: I know there are at least two very cool other explanations for the jellyfish theme in TST: one by the lovely @ebaeschnbliah on ‘Aequoria Victoria’ and another one by the great @devoursjohnlock on how the jellyfish theme ties back to ACD!canon in “The Lion’s Mane”. I just wanted to bring up an alternative explanation, which might be worth considering, as well.

All screencaps taken from: kissedthemgoodbye.net

This is my corner on AO3 where I scream about Sherlock being in a coma: Here.

Tags: @ebaeschnbliah @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat @sherlockshadow

@raggedyblue @gosherlocked @monikakrasnorada​

interesting! i didn’t know that connection between artificial heart and jellyfish. also the “cardiac arrest” line reminded me of moriarty’s threat at the pool, about “i can stop john watson, stop his heart”

Nice one, @sagestreet ! I bet this connection is not a total coincidence, even in case Mofftiss weren’t familiar with this particular research. Even in themselves, these jellyfish look like pumping hearts, and the water imagery (= emotions = matters of the heart) is all over the place. I think there are too many hints in S4 that can be referring to a heart condition for it all to be pure chance, and the appearance of the word ”arrest” in two consecutive scenes seems to fit perfectly among these. But this could still, at the same time, be a canon reference to The Lion’s Mane (X).

As explained in this excellent meta by @devoursjohnlock (X) the species of jellyfish are not the same; in LION the ’culprit’ is the stinging Lion’s Mane jellyfish Cyanea capillata (X) while this one from the London aquarium in TST looks like the far more harmless Moon jelly, Aurelia aurita (X). There’s plenty of the latter in the waters close to where I live and I also saw it at an aquarium some years ago (sorry for the photo quality):

But the jellyfish John and Sherlock wanted to ”arrest” earlier in the episode may not have been this species, but something more sinister.

The thing with the canon ref is, however, that the reason why the victim died from his jelly stings in LION was said to be because he had a ”weak heart”. ACD seems to have somewhat exaggerated the effect of the Lion’s Mane jelly’s sting in LION for dramatic effect, but he explicitly lets Holmes tell us that Fitzroy McPherson’s ”…life had been crippled by heart trouble following rheumatic fever.” He even goes into detail while quoting a description of the jelly sting’s effects from a book:

“The local pain was, as he explains, the least part of the exquisite torment.

But at the ’heart’ of the story in LION is a (supposed) triangle drama: the love relationship between the victim, his rival and a woman. I suspect this heart metaphor was present already in canon. So if Sherlock is dying from ’heart failure’ in S4, what could we suppose was the basic reason for his condition? ;-)

@ebaeschnbliah @raggedyblue @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked

@possiblyimbiassed @ebaeschnbliah @sagestreet @sarahthecoat

Great thoughts! I loved reading about the “jellyfish heart”. The connection between “arrest a jellyfish” and “cardiac arrest” is striking once you think about it. And it is interesting how Moriarty talks about stopping John as if he were a puppet (which in a way he is because Moriarty uses him this way) but also a machine. Which, btw, is interesting compared to his later “You machine” accusation to Sherlock but this is for another time.

And yes, the heart metaphor is omnipresent, right? And no one can deny that there is a triangle drama in Sherlock, be it real or metaphorical.

Thanks for this very interesting research @sagestreet. There’s definitely a ‘heart condition’ at the centre of that story. :)))  Regarding the former jellyfish posts you mentioned, both are from @devoursjohnlock  (Predator and prey & The other Lion’s mane). And here & here are some more jellyfish, I found on a quick look. A jellyfish is also mentioned in The Hounds of Baskerville by Dr Stapleton (thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts). It’s a gene from that creature which is responsible for the glowing rabbit ‘Bluebell’:

Among other connections between THOB and S4, I menioned Aequoria Victoria in my old post The Return of Baskerville. :)

@sarahthecoat  @possiblyimbiassed  @raggedyblue  @gosherlocked 

rb for more discussion