The Owl (‘Sherlock’)
Jesus! How did I not see this before?!
I’ve just seen this brilliant post by @johnlockiseternal flit across my dash, in which @johnlockiseternal points out how the little owl in Ella’s (the therapist’s) odd office in s4 is a reference to the ‘Night Owl’ text exchange between John and the bus lady.
Well, I took a look at that owl and nearly fell out of my chair.
That bird looks so much like all those little owls Hieronymus Bosch loved to include in his paintings:
And we all know that Bosch’s paintings are basically dream(!)scapes. They are nightmares. They are nightmarish visions of hell and demons and God only knows what. They were the horror (!) stories of their time. His paintings are pretty much what s4 is like, aren’t they?
And we know the set designers know their art history, don’t we? They put a very famous bust in Ella’s office right at the start of the show in ASiP (as I pointed out here).
They cut the head off of a beautiful Canova statue and turned it into a bust, which they put in Magnussen’s ‘Mind Palace’ in s3 (as I pointed out here). The statue, by the way, is a sculpture of the Muse of Dancing, which pretty much confirms the theory that it was put there to represent Sherlock, the man who loves ‘dancing’.
And last but not least, never forget how they put the statue of a gay God between Sherlock and John in TBB (here).
These guys know their art history very well. They know what they’re doing.
And I find it extremely hard to imagine that anyone could put an owl like that on Ella’s sideboard, without realising that it looks exactly like Bosch’s famously nightmarish creatures.
So, if you’ve always thought that office with its curtain-like odd walls was weird as hell, well…then here’s another hint that what we’re seeing is not real (dare I say it?) EMP!
Gosh, my head hurts. They’re fucking me up with this. Please guys tell me I’m not seeing things. (Maybe I just need to go to bed. I haven’t had more than 4-5 hours of sleep a night in two weeks.)
More of my meta about the statues and paintings used on ‘Sherlock’: HERE.
All screencaps were taken from here.
What a discovery, @sagestreet!!! Personally, I don’t need anymore ‘evidence’ that EMP is at play, but I sure do love that we keep finding more and more things to support it. Hard to imagine anyone can look at all of this and still doubt. Thank you so much!!!
Nicely spotted, @sagestreet !! And I do love your meta about the statues. As for EMP, well, I really fail to see any other reasonable explanation of S4; it’s nightmarish and it happens inside Sherlock’s head.
Since there are so many of us that believe in different ‘start’ times for EMP (I’m still sold on the point where Mary shot Sherlock) maybe we should go back and look for these types of tells in episodes previous? @sagestreet @possiblyimbiassed @ebaeschnbliah @sherlockshadow @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @mrskolesouniverse @kateis-cakeis
wow.