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…

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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…)

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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