A drop of blood on the doctor’s bust …
Toby the bloodhound follows the scent of a blood drop, found on the smashed Thatcher bust of Dr Barnicot.
TBC below the cut ….
@ebaeschnbliah not a 100% sure about this, but maybe the a-ve is supposed to be read separately as in a and -ve. -ve could be an abbreviation for negative energy in a exothermic reaction which would fit the hydrogen and/or theme of explosives as h=enthalpy ? Sorry I didn‘t pay a lot of attention at my thermodynamics class, but I found two separate pages where the -ve was used to describe the negative energy in exothermic reactions (x) (x).
Edit: It could also be about blood types: group A -ve being the negative rhesus factor (x) (x). Makes more sense tbh, especially considering Mary’s pregnancy.
And the structural formulae look like threads around a globe don’t they? And blood=information but also blood=life lives right?
Thank you @lukessense for this interesting addition. A blood type description makes indeed a lot of sense. The globe-like structure reminds me also very much of a certain decoration object, Irene has on her table in ASIB. (X)
I‘m very intrigued by the blood type description in this context, especially considering that Toby looses the trail.
About the crystal/globe-like object: also looks a bit like a flame to me? And also reminds me of the single apple on CAMs desk. Just freely associating here…but yes the general direction or overarching theme seems clear.
@lukessense It will turn out that it is Ajay’s blood on the doctor’s bust.
SHERLOCK: “Then our suspect must have cut themselves breaking the bust.”
And this is a piece of dialogue that immediately reminds me once more of Irene Adler in ASIB, when she admires Sherlock’s cheekbones: “Look at those cheekbones. I could cut myself slapping that face. Would you like me to try?”
The masks that crumble and fall in TST are Sherlock’s masks. And when Sherlock looks at the doctor’s smashed bust in the plastic bag, the audience sees that mask literally crumbling down his face. This could indicate that the ‘bust smasher’ belongs (metaphorically) to the same ‘group’/’family’ as Irene Adler does … the ‘H-Group’.
Like Irene, Ajay is closely linked to Jim as well … by the dialogue, the torture scenes, his desire for revenge, the confrontation beside a pool, the joint fall into blue water, the sign of the Ypsilon that represents the YOU. And right from the start of the episode, it is Jim whom Sherlock expects to be involved in the theft of the Black Pearl and the smashing of the plaster busts.
Jim on his part is linked to John … by the secret middle name Hamish (scottish form of James/Jim) but also by the dialogue: “It’s always YOU. John Watson, you keep me right.”
Sherlock is the one who smashes the last bust, who drops the final facade with his own hand. Viewing Mary as Sherlock’s facade, as part of himself, it makes sense that she sacrifices her own life, when Vivian Norbury pulls the trigger to shoot Sherlock … at the end of an episode, that revolves around broken masks,
Vivian … who occupies a minor position in the governemt, but always wanted to be a field agent, has a rather sweet tooth, frequently enjoys a glass of wine, is cleverer than most and outsmarted them all … appears to be a mirror for Mycroft. Mycroft (the brain, logic and reason), who tries in an last attempt to ‘override’ Sherlock’s desire to connect with his burried emotions again, to break all the masks that present him as the cold, reasoning thinking machine. A Janus-faced brain … full of desire but also full of fear. If one wants too much, one might have less. “John or James Watson? Saint or Sinner? James or John? The more is Less?”
H … for Hamish or Hydrogen, AMO or AMMO … both could be true in each case, because all of it is quite explosive ….
A different kind of smashing, but some thoughts I was having today crystallised around this post - all of these smashes are important, and tie Ajay as you’ve pointed out into everything that’s going on. I’ve written a bit about them being like the walls in his mind he needs to break down (final one is the ludicrous fake wall from TFP) but I was thinking about a more literal smashing in TAB that we could possible link in - the idea of the glass house? I’m p sure we’re all aware this is a Victorian euphemism at this stage, but glass is something that is pretty smashable and is normally used as a metaphor for female empowerment, which is tied into queer empowerment throughout TAB. Glass ceiling/glass house? And don’t forget the smash sound effect that they hear whilst in the house…
oh, this is getting interesting! i like the idea of norbury as a mycroft mirror!
Wow, yes - interesting! I think that’s an excellent chain of inferences @ebaeschnbliah, @lukessense and @thewatsonbeekeepers: Blood type -> cut -> bust -> cheekbones -> smashing of facades, walls and glass. And also Ajay -> Ypsilon -> YOU -> James -> Hamish -> John. There’s a lot of smashing in both TAB and S4, that’s for sure. I had never thought of Vivian Norbury as a mirror for Mycroft (=brain) but that seems to make a lot of sense @ebaeschnbliah. It also reminds me of @sagestreet‘s meta about Vivian representing what John might become if he keeps up the straight facade; his “dystopian choice” (X). And, connecting it to canon in that meta, that means that “If Watson chooses his heterosexual side, then Holmes takes drugs”. And John will choose his hetero side if Sherlock keeps denying his own emotions. So the facade needs to be smashed and broken; Mary needs to take the bullet and Mycroft’s influence over Sherlock needs to be beaten back.
yes! also i can’t help seeing those molecule diagrams as bubbles. it’s just a goofy thing, i wonder how intentional. probably not super important!
@sarahthecoat for me they look like little globes which would fit the loose thread in the world (TST). But as @ebaeschnbliah mentioned, there are other objects on the show that look similar and bubbles…make me think of balloons as well.
@possiblyimbiassed yes everything seems to be thoroughly connected on this show, a whole web of connection with one loose thread. Norbury as a mirror for John, yes she does seem to have some similarities with him, but many mirrors on the show mirror several people right? And in the end everything seems to lead back to Sherlock and his love for John. At the center there is always Moriarty, Sherlock’s sexuality which also lies ‚hidden’ within John. So for me this blood-connection is again a proof for that. The blood-trail that Toby is following belongs to Ajay but the characteristics don‘t exactly match him do they? Whiskey, the dichotomy of caffeine and the relevance of blood type read more like John to me, because he‘s the one standing between coffee and tea (at least his representation on the show as Sherlock‘s love interest/mirror does). Of course other characters also drink whiskey and even Sherlock is confronted with the choice ‚coffee or tea?‘ on TLD, but this choice is not one that‘s actually concerning Sherlock alone but him in connection with John (with the facade Mary gone choosing coffee would’ve been another mechanism of repression but Sherlock chooses tea). So the blood leads to Ajay -> Moriarty -> John, yet again. And even if we look at the blood from a different point and read it as something connecting Mary, Rosie and John, it would make sense. Mary and Rosie are very present as Toby follows the trail and we know that Mary considered Ajay as a part of her family (a.g.r.a). And Ajay only cut himself and left the blood-trail because he smashed the Thatcher-bust, a symbol that’s actively connected to Mary via a transitioning shot in TST. So we‘ve got another connection to this villainous web, even though it‘s only villainous, because the brain (and metatextually ACD via Dr. Watson) created it that way. Seems like Sherlock tries to decipher all the connections of this spider web but the big problem is the loose thread that endangers the stability of the web, especially if a certain wind arrives that might blow the whole web away?
And there’s Toby as well. Toby is a bloodhound …. a hound. As such, Toby can also be counted as part of the ‘H-Group’. First he isn’t moving. But once he finally starts to move, Toby becomes quite fast. And although he loses the trail in the end … a drop in a puddle, a tree in a wood, a single note in a bookcase, one information inside a mind palace … Sherlock still finds his way to Ajay at the pool.
JOHN: You just like this dog, don’t you? SHERLOCK: Well, I like you.
And right from the start, the hound is connected to both characters … Jim and John. In ASIP the barking of a dog arouses John from his Afghanistan nightmare and announces the pink lady’s case, which is sponsored by Jim, who is chained to a wall, with an iron collar round his neck, in a padded cell deep inside Sherlock’s mind palace in HLV. Something wants to break free … tearing down facades, walls and even elephant glass ….
a drop of blood in a puddle, or a pebble on a beach.
and they are #confirmed, Following a Dog, which is #confirmed, equated to Sherlock Liking John.