an escalation towards the most complete nonsense …

@ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat

@raggedyblue: Indeed. With Mary, only the explanation is (surgery) is idiotic whereas the shot itself is plausible - shooting Sherlock in the chest to win time while John cares for him instead of shooting him in the head and killing him at once. From there it progresses towards the absurd. 

Which might be explained by the original version of EMP theory in which the shot would be real whereas Sherlock’s surgery explanation would already take place in his mind palace. 

@ebaeschnbliah, @possiblyimbiassed, @sarahthecoat

Yes I agree @gosherlocked; simply pulling the trigger at a couple of meters’ distance and hitting Sherlock in the chest must be much easier than doing what John did in ASiP. And yes; unlike an immediate kill shot, that would stop John from going after her, while he would tend to Sherlock and call the ambulance. Certainly plausible, the shooting as such.

But how did ‘Mary’ get into CAM’s high security (13 levels of it) flat at the top of the building (32 stores) in the first place? Knocking down both Janine and the body guard, at the same time it took for John and Sherlock to go up with the lift (45 seconds)?

And how could Sherlock feel such life-threatening, excrutiating pain (and heart break!) from this gun shot, when he had only 3 seconds of consciousness left?

To me this already seems absurd, but by TFP the nonsense is multiplied to the power of ten ;).

@ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue

The Jeff Hope case of ASIP contains already a good deal of absurdity as well. A serial killer with that kind of a fake gun? It’s a cigarette lighter, not even made to imitate a real gun. (And in PILOT the killer hasn’t a gun at all.)

But the most absurd thing I ever heard a serial killer on TV say is this:

Hope is talking about the school where he takes Sherlock to kill him. But how on earth can a building where cleaners are in - going from room to room - be a ‘nice quiet spot for a murder’???? The very first time watching that scene, I thought: “What!?! Is that guy completely insane?” 

And Hope doesn’t just go in to kill quickly. On the contrary, Hope likes to talk to his victims, enjoyes the situation, gives them a choice and plays his little chess game with the identical pills. He seems to have all the time in the world. Doesn’t he worry that one of those cleaners might come in and spot them? He wouldn’t even be able to stop them with his fake gun. The light in the room is turned on …. even if the room has already been cleaned, wouldn’t any cleaner who sees it, come back to turn it off again?

And don’t start me on that same scene in the PILOT (here) because it is easily ten times more absurd than ASIP. :)

@raggedyblue @gosherlocked @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat @sherlockshadow

Oh interesting. @ebaeschnbliah

I never paid attention to that line of dialogue. “Cleaner” is also slang.

According to Wikipedia, “A cleaner may destroy or remove incriminating evidence at the scene of a crime. A popular figure in crime fiction, a cleaner may also be a contract killer who commits murder to “clean up” a situation.”

Is Sherlock his own cleaner? Staging his own murder scene to look like self-defense, suicide, surgery? Is he also the contract killer? Who does he work for? Internalized homophobia…

Wow, that’s a very interesting addition @sherlockshadow  Thank you. Who does Sherlock work for?  Hm … what if it’s for his own misleading brain? And he has to work out, by tryal and error, which one is the right way to go?

@gosherlocked @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat

Really interesting…We have always deduced that Sherlock had built his mind palace on the model of the Kerr institute because it was one of the places closely connected to his meeting with John. But following the idea that we are in EMP from the beginning and that nothing that we see is totally real is it possible that “simply” we are inside a metaphorical building, and  the cleaners who are? maybe those who keep it free from emotions, like little antibodies? Hope, a name that suggests good wishes, if only he were not a terminally ill, that has a sponsor that we will learn to know well, that homosexuality that is still locked up is just homophobia, has dragged there Sherlock, in this place maked aseptic by the cleaners and he challenged him to take his life … but a sudden shot like love at first sight saved him.

@gosherlocked  @sherlockshadow @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat

today, tumblr put a notif in my activity tab for this post from 6? years ago! NOSTALGIA for the EMP gang. (other readings are available)

A hyperlinked post about important resources

@tjlcarchives - self-explanatory

the official released scripts

a beginner's guide to tjlc by @inevitably-johnlocked

tjlc explained video series by the fantastic @victorianpining

Sherlock meta Good Drive folder by @artfulkindoforder

Sherlock : new semester Good Drive folder by @sarahthecoat

Baker Street wiki

ACD Canon Timeline

EMP masterpost by  @monikakrasnorada

the archived blogs

The Wizard of Oz and tjlc - more thoughts

Edited to add in a link to this meta  by @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest which inspired these thoughts - v wonderful eye for detail in these parallels and would definitely recommend reading it before this!

Entirely indebted to @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​, whose post made me think about this - I have no idea how recent this post is, because the time stamp says 2016 but it contains details from s4, which suggests a tumblr fuckup! But my 2c based off this -

I’m a big EMPer. And - as I mention in every meta I write, not just because it’s a hyperfixation but because it’s super important to tjlc - I’m a huge David Lynch fan. David Lynch is the guy who defined the dream-movie genre, who made it more than The Wizard of Oz and turned it into the most self-referential meta psychological thriller possible - and won huge critical plaudits for it. (Incidentally, except from Tarantino - his response to imo Lynch’s most underappreciated film, Fire Walk With Me, is hilarious. Look it up. But anyway.) Lynch is obsessed with The Wizard of Oz, and has stated it’s his favourite movie, and even went so far as to remake it as a very loosely adapted thriller in Wild at Heart. My meta on TAB (x) talks about how indebted Mofftiss are to David Lynch, and how making a dream based piece of media is basically impossible without using him as a reference point. Like a fool, I forgot Lynch’s own biggest reference point - The Wizard of Oz.

@bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​ makes a lot of excellent parallels, but I want to pull on them in the light of EMP theory! The biggest one is that Eurus is Dorothy - red shoes, pigtails, blue and white dress. This is also, crucially, something Lynch does with his characters who are meant to parallel Dorothy - see Dorothy Vallens in Blue Velvet and her red shoes, for example.

Only the most iconic costume in the history of film. Anyway. Red shoes are also seen on the girl on the plane, although her costume is stripes, so not a perfect link - we do know, however, that they are the same person. Parallels with flying the plane and flying the house - lovely. Parallels with the name of the east wind - obviously this is derived from ACD canon, but it’s nevertheless lovely. However, where I want to jump in now is the plot of TWoO, because this is really important.

Everybody knows that Dorothy has a dog (making child!Eurus playing with Redbeard even more striking in resemblance) - but what is really important in TWoO is that her dog is going to die. That’s the reason she runs away from home, which is what leads to her getting knocked unconscious and having this mad dream. @sagestreet​ has pointed out exactly why dogs are connected with homosexuality, and I’ve elaborated in my EMP series on the idea that Sherlock realises he needs to wake up because John is suicidal without him. This ties in beyond well. Incidentally, the bit about TWoO that never works for me is that when Dorothy wakes up, Toto is still destined for death. Everybody just conveniently ignores it. What Sherlock has right - if we’re right (we may never tell, but I assure you guys that the series 5 I dreamed the other night was fantastic. is that reality shifting?*) - is that the dream can actually make a difference to the situation, because the dream is the difference between life and death. Think of If I Stay. Or something like that.

Okay. But here’s the deal. TWoO is all about home. When Dorothy is asked what she has learned from her dream (the knowledge that she needs to wake up), Dorothy says:

If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.

If I may say, that is a terrible mantra. And I love that film. But anyway. (MGM movies are a hyperfixation - come and talk to me about them.) Mofftiss know that this is a fucked up end to a fantastic film, not least because it leaves Toto dying. In queer terms, this is a terrible end to the movie - queer film icon John Waters famously said:

So Mofftiss, with Gatiss being the good queer writer that he is, don’t take the backyard literally. Just a Dorothy’s heart’s desire was literally to be home on the farm, and that’s where she finds the impetus to wake up, what does Sherlock need to do to wake up?

I’m incapable of finding images on the web (my metas are so sparse in comparison to everyone else!) but it’s literally in his backyard, as he pushes down the fake wall to get into the garden where the answers are. And this time, home is much more complicated - the ancestry that is built up in Musgrave hall, which is metaphorically connected to the history of Sherlock Holmes as a character, is pushed down just like a wall in Sherlock’s mind, instead helping him to find an internal home, a unity with Eurus, the other part of himself. That’s the necessary home here, not the home-as-absolute-normality that TWoO seems to espouse, which is inevitably exclusive of queerness. And then we get that literal scene of Eurus waking up inside her bedroom from this nightmare scenario she has invented.

The original post also points out comparisons between John and the scarecrow and Sherlock and the tin man, but I think it’s more helpful to understand the theme linking the three friends of Dorothy (no pun intended ;) ). The idea here is that all of them are convinced that they lack something because of the way they are made, but of course they learn throughout the dream that they have it intrinsically. As I’ve mentioned above, Dorothy is where that logic falls down - it also doesn’t work as nicely thematically with the lion, because lions are not supposed to be cowardly - scarecrows, on the other hand, are supposed to be brainless, and tin men are supposed to lack hearts. The idea that you can go beyond the role assigned to you and still find the love you’re not allowed to have - that is peak EMP theory. Nothing better. And the fact that it ties back into the original dream movie - !!

I genuinely haven’t given this a huge amount of thought - these are cursory thoughts. I want to go and watch Wild at Heart and get back with more thoughts, because I’m pretty sure there will be a lot more parallels on overlaying TWoO onto a much darker story.

Anyway! @sagestreet​ @sarahthecoat​ @lukessense​ @therealsaintscully​ @possiblyimbiassed​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @raggedyblue​ @helloliriels​ if you’re interested!

@thewatsonbeekeepers as I’m not that familiar with TWoO I had to read up on the plot and interpretations of the story. First of all I read that “In the trio’s moaning and blubbing as they prepare to sneak into the witch’s castle, you can see a foreshadowing of Westley, Inigo and Fezzik invading Humperdinck’s castle in The Princess Bride.” (x), so I’m gonna tag @lillysliterature as they are pretty familiar with TPB.

One of the most common interpretations of the movie seems to be a political one, saying that TWoO is criticizing political authority in the 1930s:

Furthermore it says:

Another article says that: 

So the reason why Dorothy returns to her seemingly dull home in Kansas might have been a political message claiming that the industrialized world of the big cities might be fake one and staying at home, in the countryside would be the better choice. 

As interesting as those interpretations are, your point @thewatsonbeekeepers was, of course, a different one. As the second article says the message of TWoO seems to be one of personal empowerment. That the things you’re searching for (e.g. the Tin Woodman wanting a heart) might already be in your possession. I totally agree that this is a message we could apply to Sherlock himself, who used to live under the impression that he didn’t have a heart (TGG) and that he needed John to keep him right (TSoT) when all this time his emotions were just locked away and forgotten (Eurus in TFP). Furthermore a criticism of authority can be found as well on Sherlock when we look at one of the final scenes of TFP: Mummy Holmes confronting Mycroft with his decision to lock away Eurus and lying about her death. That Mycroft is supposed to be read as an authority figure is obvious by his position in the government and the comparison of him and the Queen (ASiB). Mycroft is most likely a metaphor for Sherlock’s logical mind, but he is also representing the government, which used to ciminalize homosexuality in the UK. Whereas I’m not saying that Mycroft is supposed to be read as a stand-in for those values, I do believe that he is acting as a stand-in for the author who had to hide Sherlock’s sexuality because of the government (and society). So a criticism of authority on BBC Sherlock seems likely. 

About the dog: What happens to Dorothy’s dog Toto at the end of the movie? Does it still have to die?

Whereas the dog-parallel is somewhat interesting, I find it way more interesting to compare Dorothy’s dream/fairytale-world to BBC Sherlock:

In TWoO is turns out that the fairtytale-like dreamworld of Dorothy is not as glittering as it seems to be. The Wizard turns out to be no magician after all and Dorothy’s company also can’t be read as simplified roles as they seem to be in the beginning. As you put it @thewatsonbeekeepers: “The idea that you can go beyond the role assigned to you and still find the love you’re not allowed to have”. The role assigned to you seems to be a very important statement concerning BBC Sherlock. 

The way I understand the show Mofftiss are trying to criticize oversimplified portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and ACD canon. On top of that they are trying to uncover mechanisms used in ACD canon that created distance between the character Sherlock Holmes and the readers. One of those mechanisms is the narrator Dr. Watson for example, another one is the usage of subtext within the cases. Where it seems like the cases are just about fighting criminals in a way, the stories turn out to be far more complex than that. Seemingly bad people turn out to be good, stories that doesn’t seem to revolve around Holmes and Watson can very well interpreted as stories about them after all if you pay attention etc. etc. So when a story seems to be a fairytale about good vs. evil, hero vs. villain, that fairytale might actually be far away from the truth. Dorothy seems to realize in TWoO that the simplified and assigned roles inside of her fairytale-world are not realistic and that characters are more complex than that. This is a message Sherlock learns at the end of TFP as well:

Only fairytales (or simplified stories) have basic assigned roles such as good and evil:

I’m not saying that Mofftiss are criticizing ACD canon for being simplified, I’m saying that ACD had to write canon the way it was written, cryptic, distanced and full of subtext and that both following adaptions and the perception of the readers/audience turned the stories of Sherlock Holmes into stories about hero vs. villain, cold-hearted detective and good-hearted sidekick etc.

So if Child!Eurus is supposed to be read as an allusion to Dorothy from TWoO, I would interpret it as, yet again, a critique of fairytales the audience doesn’t properly reflect. I keep saying this but whenever we see a TV screen, a TV distortion, the usage of media etc. on BBC Sherlock we should pay attention to what’s being said and who is saying it. It might turn out that the media are only conveying a cover-story that Mofftiss want us to uncover :).

 @sarahthecoat​ @therealsaintscully​ @possiblyimbiassed​ @ebaeschnbliah​ @raggedyblue​ @helloliriels​ @bug-catcher-in-viridian-forest​

Very interesting thoughts, @thewatsonbeekeepers and @lukessense - thanks for tagging me! :) I’m not that familiar with the actual plotline of TWoO either, but the fact that Toto the dog was to be put down seems rather telling to me. Does anyone know why he was to be put down?

@possiblyimbiassed I think Toto bit Dorothy‘s aunt and as it seems the dog doesn’t get put down after Dorothy‘s return. I definitely see the resemblance in the dog-storyline and know where you’re going with your thoughts @thewatsonbeekeepers. This is merely a stream of consciousness but for me Redbeard is a stand-in for Sherlock Holmes‘ homosexual attraction in ACD canon that could never be out in the open. We got botht the story about Victor Trevor and, of course, Watson, but both relationships were only hinted at. Sherlock Holmes was never allowed to show actual open emotions towards both men. They were hinted at, partially very obviously, but the doyle estate for example always denied this. Eurus threw Redbeard/Victor into the well of emotions because she wasn‘t acknowledged by Sherlock and Victor, Victor even wore an eye patch so he couldn’t see properly. But Eurus wasn’t locked away because she threw Victor in the well of emotions, but because she set fire to the house and targeted Sherlock. The danger of reciprocal love killed Victor and locked Eurus away. And the reason Victor and John are interchangeable here is because Sherlock Holmes‘ love for Watson in ACD canon was never openly acknowledged either. Without the dog (Victor Trevor‘s dog from ACD canon) Victor and Sherlock would’ve never been in contact, so BBC Sherlock is portraying via metaphors how the eradication of the dog is both an eradication of the storyline of Victor Trevor and Sherlock Holmes‘ homosexuality. There is also the connection between Redbeard and the hound of course. Sherlock’s homosexuality was hidden because of institutionalized homophobia which turned the childhood dog (homosexuality in ACD canon) into the hound. We learned in THoB that it was the fog that turned the dog into the hound, the hound never existed. Same goes for the man who is directly connected to the hound: Moriarty. When Sherlock is saving Eurus from her flight alone above everybody else he is automatically saving John Watson. This time it seems like Sherlock is finally ready to openly acknowledge his feelings and desires and leave this narrative of good vs. bad. @thewatsonbeekeepers you could definitely interpret Toto the dog‘s survival as the (hopefully coming) survival of John Watson outside of EMP. I‘m not interpreting BBC Sherlock the way you do but I understand your reasoning. Redbeard as a stand-in for Sherlock’s acknowledged homosexuality (homosexuality without fear) connected to a person from ACD canon (Victor or Watson or young Sherlock=canon Sherlock himself) and the way you interpret it @thewatsonbeekeepers, John Watson outside of EMP.

For me Sherlock is growing out of this narrative of subtext so maybe Redbeard is supposed to be connected to the past (ACD canon) but not the future? The dog turned out to be a boy from the past anyway, that‘s why I‘m suggesting this.

Thanks for clarification @lukessense! My pet theory regarding the dog is that Redbeard was actually Victor’s dog that Sherlock loved very much, and that he was put down (by Victor’s parents) because at one point he bit Sherlock by mistake, just like in canon’s The Gloria Scott. I’m glad Toto wasn’t put down after all in Wizard of Oz, though, because that makes for a new story with a better solution between John and Sherlock. :)

@possiblyimbiassed​ yes there are definitely several interpretations of Redbeard possible :). 

I just find it interesting, that dogs are connected to John several times on the show, same goes for the hound and Moriarty. And Redbeard seems to represent several people at the same time. The skull which represents Billy, John, skull painting (= ACD, ACD canon); the well that connects Carl Powers and Charlie Welsborough and then Victor Trevor of course, who wore an eye-patch as a child and therefore couldn’t see properly. Redbeard seems to be a stand-in for either characters from ACD canon or people on the show that represent Sherlock as a child/youth (=Sherlock in ACD canon). For me all those characters are summarized under the metaphor of Redbeard and the child Victor Trevor who was partly blind (=he couldn’t properly see because the real meaning was hidden behind the subtext). The dogs name is RED BEARD after all. As soon as the metaphor was lifted off though, the eye-patch gone, Victor died in the well of emotions. But this time, Sherlock is a grown-up (grown out of the subtext of ACD canon), he’s able to save John from the well, not only by saving Eurus from her lonely journey on the plane, but by getting emotional context (= the childhood-trauma = the “trauma of the canon” = the need for subtext in canon). We see a direct confrontation of John with the skull:

And therefore a direct confrontation of John Watson (who is not the John Watson but a mirror for Sherlock, Sherlock’s idea of a romantic love-interest shaped by the “trauma of the canon” in a way) with the subtext of ACD canon.

For me everything that revolves around Sherlock’s childhood is a metaphor for ACD canon. Not just Eurus and Victor for example, but Sherlock’s family as well. I don’t read them as his actual family. But I do find it possible that we learn more about the modern-day Sherlock’s childhood/youth in S5 as we do have the Thatcher-connection and both Carl Powers and Charlie Welsborough as characters that were confronted with modern-day homophobia. And maybe Sherlock really did know a Victor Trevor who owned a dog, why not :). I just think that this particular dog named Redbeard is a metaphor that Sherlock grew out of. Mofftiss make a point of stripping the layers of ACD canon with their renarration of the original cases. 

@thewatsonbeekeepers​

I love all this - especially the point about Mofftiss trying to deal with the one-dimensional nature of canon, because I think you’re right, @lukessense - ACD canon is normally fantastic, although limited by what had to be - but I think as well as the queerness problem, they’re also trying to deal with the archetypal Holmes and Watson which have been passed down through film and tv who have become increasingly detached from Sherlock Holmes in canon, which is why in S1 we get the incredibly hyperbolic closed off detective, who is completely changed by even s3, let alone TAB and S4. So there’s definitely a legacy being dealt with here that sits nicely with scarecrow/tin man.

Just re Toto - he’s to be put down for biting Miss Gulch (who is the witch in Dorothy’s dream), but the weird thing about the film is that when Dorothy wakes up everyone has seemingly forgotten that Toto is supposed to be put down and the film sort of expects the audience to? Like it is never mentioned again. (To be fair, we only get about 90 seconds of film when Dorothy wakes up.) So weirdly ambiguous there, even though you’re definitely supposed to think everything is better. But yeah - even though I don’t adore the coming home message, it’s very clearly metaphorically aligned with the scarecrow, tin man and lion finding what is inside of them, and in that sense works nicely as an external manifestation of that I suppose.

Also - this sounds so silly but I had genuinely never thought of “beard” as hidden inside Redbeard before, but of course that’s what the word is doing!!

@lukessense @possiblyimbiassed

@thewatsonbeekeepers what’s also interesting is the color RED in Redbeard, compared to Sherlock=YELLOWbeard. @ebaeschnbliah wrote about colors here and the possibility that red could represent the (logical) mind whereas yellow could represent love. On top of that do I connect the color red to “villainous” facades on the show, fire and blood which all tie neatly with the red=logical mind-connection (because a logical mind afraid of emotions and love might create facades to protect. They turn out to be ambiguous though). Furthermore do I want to point out that they changed Victor’s dog from being a bull terrier in ACD canon to being an IRISH RED Setter. I find that interesting to say the least :). Oh and a Setter is a hunting dog as far as I know…reminds me of the deerstalker.

@possiblyimbiassed

meta from 2021 that i was glad to find and re read today. revisited @thewatsonbeekeepers #tjlc tag and read the discussions in the notes. there's more!

just like… a waterfall or something… you know…

tfp shooting script

Almost like he’s stuck in a lower level of his mind palace than in TAB… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

hmm!

always good to see @sagestreet ! looks like i have my evening mapped out for me in all those links! i do prefer the idea that the morgue scene is about CPR rather than what it looks like on the surface.

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​​

Emp Medical Division version is always fascinating! and to linke John’s obsession with Sherlock’s hands to the diagnosis is…incredibly romantic. I continue to believe valid (I don’t want to be presumptuous) my intuition that the medical problem here is given more by endocarditis than by a general malfunction of the heart. An inflamed (in love) heart  for 137 years and not treated = recognized can only bring great damage.

(x)…. infective endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner tissue of the heart (a heart inflamed sounds very much like a heart in love, voilà, the metaphorically level returning in a blink of  an eye, or in a heartbeat …). It is usually caused by an infection, common bacteria (oh John Watson!) that attack the heart. This usually doesn’t happen, the immune system normally recognizes and defends the organ from infectious agents, even if they reach the heart they don’t stick. However, there are specific conditions that interfere whit this system and can lead to infection. These are conditions that have made the heart weak and somewhat damaged. Among these conditions, there are diseases or birth defects (and here we return to the Holmes’s congenital condition and quoted by Wiggins), the use of intravenous drugs (hem ...) or surgical procedures (if Mary has ever fired ). Basically the interaction between predisposing factors in the host and the inability of the immune system to eradicate the infectious agent from the endocardium, makes the patient susceptible to infection. So it takes a suitable situation and a failure of defenses at the same time (emotions can not always be rejected). When the ideal situation occurs, infectious agents can be organized by forming masses at the infection site, whether it is a heart valve or other heart structures. There is a risk that these cellular masses will act similarly to blood clots, blocking blood supply to the organs and causing heart failure or triggering a ictus. If not treated, bacterial endocarditis can also induce: Heart failure; Valve dysfunction; Heart abscesses; Extension of infection (abscess formation in other parts of the body, such as brain, kidney, spleen or liver); (TLD symptomatology) Systemic embolies. Ictus (and here we come back to the brain).

@sagestreet @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @kettykika78

@possiblyimbiassed

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.

babe wake up, new sherlock content dropped 🕵‍♂️

Description: “It’s now up to you to enter into the diabolical mind of Moriarty and take down the Napoleon of crime from the inside. Step inside a digital reality and get ready to travel through his memories of classic moments from the hit BBC show.”  (X)

Solve a case inside a mind ... now that’s really interesting. :)

hmm, yes!

My first Sherlock meta since 2016 is now live!!Shoutout to @garkgatiss, whose work on 5 act structure was foundational to this piece. Enjoy!! 💀

this reminds me of the huge list of horror movies i remember seeing, shortly after s4 aired. @just-sort-of-happened either wrote or reblogged it i think. not being a horror fan, i had not seen a single one, so no wonder i had needed to knit during the episode. but knowing that gatiss IS a horror fan, it makes sense he would do that.

Different EMP starting points

So, since I’m currently in the process of uploading all my EMP metas to AO3 (here), it just occurred to me that we might need a summary post of all the different proposed EMP starting points. So here goes:

If I remember correctly, the three founders of EMP theory, @monikakrasnorada, @the-7-percent-solution and @gosherlocked originally proposed (in 2016) that Sherlock’s EMP (extended mind palace) starts at the moment Mary shot Sherlock in HLV.

Then there were a lot of people in the fandom who had all sorts of earlier or later EMP starting point ideas (e.g., Sherlock actually jumped off the roof in TRF, Sherlock OD’d on the plane at the end of HLV, Sherlock only slips into his EMP sometime during s4, etc.)

@ebaeschnbliah and a couple of others were proposing very, very early EMP scenarios (i.e. everything we see right from the start of ASiP is already happening in Sherlock’s mind). And @ebaeschnbliah and a few other fans are also playing around with PILOT!verse (i.e. the unaired Pilot is real; the show is not. Or: Sherlock actually slips into his EMP at some point during the Pilot).

In 2017 @possiblyimbiassed had a completely different idea: EMP starts in the gap between TSoT and HLV as Sherlock OD’s off-screen after the wedding at home in his 221b flat. Everything we see at the start of HLV is already EMP.

Shortly after that @possiblyimbiassed re-worked that theory under the influence of an idea that @raggedyblue had come up with. @raggedyblue had proposed that, while Sherlock indeed OD’s (probably in the gap between TSoT and HLV), what we’re seeing on the entire show right from the start (!) is actually not what really happened, what we are seeing is instead Sherlock re-imagining his entire friendship with John right from the start in his mind due to the fact that he read John’s (not entirely factual) blog right before putting that needle in his arm. (This theory that @raggedyblue originally put forward and @possiblyimbiassed has worked out in intricate detail is something I refer to as the raggedypossibly-theory.;))

As for myself: I am not that creative, so I haven’t really come up with EMP starting points of my own. :D While I like all EMP starting points and think they’re all fun to play with, I mostly go back and forth between two ideas:

1. TRF: I.e. Sherlock actually jumped off that hospital roof at the end of TRF. 

2. @possiblyimbiassed’s original theory from 2017 was right, and Sherlock OD’d after the wedding. Everything we see at the beginning of HLV is already EMP.

Both theories aren’t originally mine (obviously), but this argument in favour of them is something that just occurred to me:

Both scenarios have one big advantage over all other EMP starting points, the advantage of being closely tied to ACD’s canon!Holmes stories!

1) There was actually a Reichenbach moment in ACD!canon, after which Holmes’ disappeared for years hiding from both the public eye and Watson. 2) And the fact that Holmes’ gay heartbreak and sorrow find their expression in his drug use is canonical in SIGN and also massively hinted at in the film TPLoSH (Mofftiss’s favourite film).

So, that’s what those two theories have got going for them: Their deep foundation in ACD!canon.

Mostly, I believe in theory 1, though. (I mean, theory 2 has its merits, what with Holmes’s canonical drug use, but it has the drawback of putting the starting point into an off-screen gap between TSoT and HLV.)

Theory 1 is the simplest, really: Sherlock jumped. 

There’s a reason why we never got an actual explanation of how Sherlock supposedly ‘tricked’ everyone at the end of TRF and how the jump worked out well for him. (Hint: It didn’t.) 

There’s a reason why the last episode of s4, which, on a meta level, pushed us into the same void as the original readers of the ACD!stories after the Reichenbach Fall, is called ‘The Final Problem’ linking it back to TRF (which in canon was actually called ‘The Final Problem’). 

There’s a reason why Mycroft’s weird bunker office starts to appear in TEH, etc., etc., etc. …

Sherlock actually jumping and everything being in his head starting with TEH would explain all of that. 

It would tie the whole EMP idea to the ACD!stories, and it might even have the advantage of making Mary a figment of Sherlock’s imagination, some nurse he hears (in his coma), a nurse coming into Sherlock’s hospital room and flirting with John. Obviously comatose, jealous Sherlock has to turn her into a great villain after that.:D

So, yeah, theory 1 has a lot of things going for it.

But, as I said, theory 2 (OD in the gap between TSoT and HLV) is also very close to my heart, for various reasons (Holmes’ drug use in SIGN, his symptoms fitting a cocaine overdose, as I pointed out at the end of this thread here: x).

In short, I keep bouncing back and forth between these two theories, basically.

So, this is it. My EMP summary post. Feel free to add more EMP starting points of your own in the comments, if you like.:)

P.S. And then there are obviously those of us who believe that all EMP starting points are true because it’s an ‘Inception’ style dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream scenario, which Mofftiss have, after all, hinted at in both the Sherlocky ‘Doctor Who’ episode ‘Last Christmas’ and the massively Sherlocky show ‘Dracula’…This has been proposed by many different people over time, I believe.

Tagging: @sarahthecoat @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed @sherlockshadow @monikakrasnorada @fellshish

no sherlock meta list is complete without @garkgatiss series on poetry or truth, and five act structure. by itself, five act structure is the best explanation for why s4 is like that, whether you like EMP/coma/dream theory, blog/alibi theory, or just a metaphorical reading.

and now, no meta list is complete without the new tjlc explained videos (well, and the old ones too, especially the "decoding" ones, "what it means", and the new ones. Especially if you find s4 an unsatisfying "ending", because on no textual or subtextual level is it an end of the story. Say what they like, they can leave it incomplete, like Granada (sad), or they can finish it, but it's not finished.

also there's loads of links to s4 meta in The New Semester folder, apologies for not updating it more frequently. see my pinned post.

EMP / EDT masterpost

This is a master post collection of original thoughts and related ideas concerning the theory of Extended Mind Palace (EMP) and Extended Dream Theory (EDT) in BBC Sherlock.*

The term “EMP” was coined early in January 2016 in a discussion just after the airing of The Abominable Bride between @the-7-percent-solution, @gosherlocked and myself. This discussion entailed trying to understand / decipher which “present day” scenes in TAB were real which then snowballed into the possibility that perhaps more of His Last Vow might have taken place in mind palace as well. So, a theory was born!

The Birth of Extended Mind Palace Theory

Contributors and their post links under the cut.

*to be edited and added to as new insights develop

Keep reading

the original!

frankly i'm at the point where i'm less attached to any one fan theory than i am to the hope that if or when they come out with anything new, they just be clear about what they ARE doing. unless leaving us guessing IS what they are doing, in which case, i already know they are asshats. i guess at that point i go back to granada and ACD in peace?

Rachel Talalay and the Case of the Missing Transitions

Some times experiments don’t work out. Sometime big projects include mistakes and it takes a lot of compromises to satisfy the real goal. So was the case with The Six Thatchers.

To a room of ~100 people, Rachel Talalay explained something of the complicated backstory to the first episode of Series 4 and shared with us a little of the amazing footage that had to be left on the cutting room floor.

In Mark Gatiss’s initial script, the story was going to be told with a complicated chronology. The story was supposed to start somewhere in the middle, with flashbacks inserted into scenes. This show has played with chronology before, but this plan was more ambitions and experimental than previous episodes. In the spirit of Sherlock’s cinematographic ingenuity, Talalay decided to demarcate these flashbacks with fantastic transitions in and out of the scenes into which they were inlayed.  

The filming proceeded with this non-chronological order of scenes, but when the material was assembled in a temp edit, it became apparent that the narrative didn’t really work. Talalay had her doubts about how it came together, and Moffat and Gatiss made the call to change the sequence to the straight forward chronology we saw broadcast. Talalay took pains to explain that the switch was necessary for the sake of the story and that no one was at fault for how the experiment failed. They took a risk together and these things don’t always pan out.

The choice to reorder was the right one, but it was also a very difficult compromise for two reasons. First it changed the purpose of many scenes, and with no time to reshoot they had to work out new criteria to determine the best takes to make a cohesive narrative from what they had. Second, it meant abandoning these amazing transitions that were in and of themselves creative and technical acheivements that each took days to prepare and shoot.

It was these transitions that Talalay shared with us at Sherlocked USA 2018. They will never be released, so here are my descriptions of the transitions she shared. Some of them involve scenes that weren’t part of the final edit at all. I’ve done the best I can to describe what I can remember from seeing these only twice.

1. In and Out of Cars This seems to be on the way to the first case with Greg, on the way to the WELSBOROUGH HOUSE. John, Sherlock, and Greg are in a taxi in the middle of the day. Greg says “So how long has it been then” and John replies “Three months.” Sherlock rises from his right-forward facing seat and steps out of the passenger door into day light. The camera approaches his back until we only see the coat. Camera recedes and it is night. Sherlock steps back into the right passenger seat while typing in his mobile and Mary is wheezing in labour. The camera pivots to also catch John at the steering wheel, as seen in the show. There is another transition back to the original taxi shot and John repeats “About three months.”

2. Walking through Doorways: As Greg, Sherlock, and John approach the door to the Welsborough House, Greg says “…We thought we’d never see you again.” Sherlock replies “You weren’t the only ones.” As Sherlock steps through the doorway, he pass into the room where he and Mycroft are interrogated by Sir Edwin and Lady Smallwood. He sits down and takes off his coat. The scene that followed was the one used to open The Six Thatchers.

At then end of this scene, Sherlock says “Because I love it.” and walks out the door and back into the WELSBOROUGH HOUSE.

3. To and From the Christening: John is looking at bus shelter and a bus goes by and reveals that he is wearing church clothes at the Christening for Rosie. John says to Sherlock something along the lines of “You could come visit Rosie” and Sherlock replies “The conversation would be a bit onesided.”

Another shot of Sherlock approaching the camera down the aisle, framed by the arches of the church. I’m not sure if this transitioned to another scene.

4. Through the Mirror: In the sceen where Mary finds Sherlock in the Moroccan hotel, the shot begins with her standing by the table looking accusing and Sherlock sitting on the floor crossed-legged. Sherlock gets up and walks towards a mirror by a curtain in the back of the room. In the curtain we see a reflection of Mycroft’s underground office. Sherlock walks past the mirror into the scene where Mycroft begins by reciting the wikipedia article for “Agra”

When that scene ends, Sherlock rises from his seat and walks back to the mirror to pass back into the Moroccan hotel room and sits down on the floor again to pick up the conversation with Mary.

5. Lastly, one of the magical transitions that were kept was Ajay remembering his torture and then falling back onto the carpet. Apparently the sequence was initially filmed as a single shot, with four sets lined up side by side. Like wow.

I can’t attest that these are perfect descriptions of what was in these shots, and I know I’m missing some details. If anyone else remembers other things, please add them in.

Talalay had every reason to be proud of these transitions. They were breath taking (my descriptions do not do them justice!) and the audience gasped and clapped through the three minutes of footage that she shared. I am so sorry they had to make the compromise of removing these. I understand that it was deemed necessary, and Talalay was very clear that she agreed with the decision to change the order of the scenes, but it is a tragedy that we lost these beautiful tricky transitions.

So….aesthetics aside (although these do in fact, sound STUNNING), I feel like there’s some extra information about the episode to be gained from this, and from the *changes* they made from these to the ones they decided to keep. 🧐🧐🧐

Oh god. These transitions

I FUCKING LOVE THIS FUCKING PROGRAMME OKAY I’M DELIRIOUS HELP ME

@garkgatiss @devoursjohnlock @watsonshoneybee

You’re not alone @green-violin-bow​! The symmetry of the transitions themselves is interesting to me. The interrogation and the office scene (both involving Mycroft) are apparently Sherlock’s memories. The birth and christening (both involving Mary) are apparently John’s memories.

But, as you say, we lose some of our faith in the narrative when we learn that they’re memories at all, and even more when we realize that they’ve decided to hide this from us.

This puts all our past speculation about the ability to “delete memory” to the test, doesn’t it?

rb for discussion. This and another recent discussion also reminded me of The Singing Detective, i might need to watch that again. I would not be at all surprised if that was also part of the Giant Lego Set of Canon being played with. I don’t remember specific transitions at the moment, but i bet there are some that would be interesting to anyone who watched these clips.

Wow. So, am I right that characters are walking/moving from scene to scene which is the basis for the transition? Because that would have been very suggestive of Inception. On the whole, it would have been so much clearer to us that our emp theories were on the right track and much less devastating in the days after January 1st. I’m really sad for them that they had to experience that setback but also proud that they were so ambitious. Did Rachel talk about Mark’s reaction? I wonder if he was the most disappointed of all. So happy for you lucky few who got to see this.

This is fascinating! Just a few unrelated points:

The strength of these transitions is also their weakness. On the one hand, they make it more obvious that something’s up–unreliable narrator, a character’s memories, etc.–whatever it is, weird transitions emphasize that we shouldn’t trust what we’re seeing.

Unfortunately, for a series that already left most viewers weirded out, crazy transitions don’t really help them understand what’s going on. As some other people pointed out, these transitions don’t necessarily link the most related scenes, so they confuse the viewer rather than add a consistent message beyond “something’s not right.”

On a side note: At least we finally get closure on some of those missing scenes that we were wondering about in the Lost Special days. It seems like several of them were just cut when the episode was reorganized.

It also sounds like these transitions were very much in Talalay’s style for TST–heavy on visual effects, but lax on making the effects contribute to the storytelling–and much as I admire her in general, I’m glad it was toned down afterwards.

tl;dr: the transitions emphasize that we shouldn’t trust what we’re seeing, but since they don’t give us a consistent alternative message, it’s probably a good thing that they were cut.

@fffinnagain​ @green-violin-bow @devoursjohnlock @tjlcisthenewsexy

rb for soe/housmania and other discussion. good to see the op on my dash again ang get to review the notes.

Way Too Deep (TAB rewatch)

Going back to The Abominable Bride? What is this madness?

Do not fear, I won't even dwell on the hidden meanings of the whole parallel reality set in 1895. Instead, this will be the beginning of my modest attempt (read: slightly disfunctional coping method) at making some sort of sense out of S4. I could read all the meta, and agree with it even, but at the end of the day I just have to take the raw data and digest it on my own.

Why start from TAB? If I recall correctly, it wasn't originally conceived as a bridge between the two seasons – and yet, it has such a peculiar structure that I can't justify it being just a coincidence. If you will, I'll look at the frame rather than the picture.

TL; DR: what if Sherlock overdosed on the tarmac plane... and never came back?

So, let's begin well into the third act (1 hour or so into the episode):

Sherlock wakes up on the plane and the narrative trick gets exposed: the Victorian adventures were a creation of Sherlock's drug-fueled mind.

Sherlock's usage is not exactly news to us - hello, heartbroken Shezza in a crack den - but this time it feels different. It's not just escapism or the siren's call of addiction; he doesn't look high, not even to John Watson MD, which by the way has already seen him under the effect. This is the very intentional treading the fine line between sanity and delirium, between life and death:

...all for the sake of "solving a case" or, should we put it in plain words, going deep and deeper into his own mind.

Strap yourselves in, 'cause we're going for a ride. From this moment on, we'll bounce back and forth between reality and hallucination, the two separated by a boundary so unstable that we won't even see it.

Notice how heavily drugged-Sherlock sounds fairly coherent so far – and yet, when Mycroft speaks:

...his mind palace fabrication unexpectedly bleeds into reality:

What did spur this abrupt transition? What is Sherlock's worst enemy? Himself, his addiction or... Moriarty, though a figment of his imagination, trapped in his mind palace?

Victorian Sherlock goes on with his investigation, which ends with the crypt scene. Sudden plot twist: under the bride's veil there's not Mrs. Carmichael, but... Moriarty again.

Cue another transition to a hospital room, which looks just a bit surreal. What's up with the red blanket and the carpeted floor? Why is Sherlock just lying there in his suit?

Doesn't look very much like an overdose intervention... because it isn't. This is not reality.

In fact, Sherlock goes on all jolly to unbury Emelia's corpse (let me be pedant: just like a recent overdose patient should do), and we're given a couple lines that reinforce how much of a pressing matter all this is to him:

Sherlock and Lestrade dig, Mycroft supervises (lazy sod, eheh), until the casket is unearthed – pay attention to what Mycroft says here:

And yes, immediately after Moriarty is mentioned, another turn into surreality takes place; the skeleton moves on its own, a spectral voice calls, and Sherlock is back to his mind palace.

"Still not awake" - what a peculiar choice of words. The line between reality and hallucination is feeble because it's not there; the plane, the hospital, the cemetery? All fabrications of his own mind.

Look, even Moriarty must be tired of beating around the bush, 'cause he doesn't talk in riddles anymore. He just lays it out:

So, not only Sherlock has gone deep into his mind palace, he never got out of it and he literally can't.

John coming to the rescue must represent Sherlock finally waking up... or does it?

In fact, Sherlock jumps and falls deeper down and while we're told he always survives the fall, we're never told about the landing. We're circling back to what Moriarty said.

At this point, is Sherlock waking up on the plane again even real? Do overdosed people just wake up like that, and go on with their day like nothing's happened?

Furthermore, if Sherlock really woke up on the plane, this should be where the episode ends.

Why, instead, go back again to 1895?

Where is this happening? What's the "Atlantic" (or Niagara, or Reichenbach) we should be able to infer?

The structure of TAB – the back and forth between past and present, fiction and reality - reminded me of this zen koan:

As you may know, a koan is a paradox: for instance, you can't be both man and butterfly, but at the same time you can't be definitively sure about one or the other. This is where we're left at the end of the episode – hanging on the doubt that what we've seen so far has been imagination disguised as reality: Sherlock can't be both in present time (having woken up on the plane) and in the Victorian setting we've just seen.

So we should infer that he is still stuck in his mind palace, and his hallucination is not only about the 1895 timeline, but comprises all the scenes set in present time, too -"It was simply my conjecture of what a future world might look like"; also, he might have overindulged with his drugs, to the point of never coming back to consciousness.

Notice how the overdosing incident will never be mentioned again, which makes sense if we assume that it's a point stuck in time with no foreseeable resolution – an idea which is supported by Mycroft's notebook, in the form of the Minkowski Metric we can see there:

All this, in the perspective of interpreting S4, makes for an interesting premise... but we'll look into it another time.

_____

Dialogue transcript source: Ariane DeVere

loved re reading this, makes me want to watch TAB again! love the reminder of moriarty's line, "i am your weakness". there's that writing discussion, about character arc, where the character's perceived weakness becomes the needed strength after the transformation (and integration) of the adventure.

if drugs represent the "chemistry of love" then "overdose" represents falling head over heels?