[M-Theory] Skeletons, fires and the question of John and Mary’s relationship in The Empty Hearse (“why would anyone bother?”)
tl:dr what if the ‘Jack the Ripper’ case in The Empty Hearse was a hint about Mary’s past that Sherlock, distracted and upset from his homecoming, simply missed?
A FEW DISCLAIMERS: I’m not a native English speaker and this wasn’t betad, so excuse the less-than-perfect English. Additionally, this is my first ever piece of meta so excuse the amateurism. Lastly, this may have been picked up before by other meta writers and if so - I’m not aware of it, as I’m quite new to this fandom.
As I was rewatching The Empty Hearse last night, researching for my newest fic, the Jack the Ripper scene/case stood out to me yet again. This is the first time I’ve watched the episode with such attention since reading @loudest-subtext-in-tv M-Theory in full, and since then I’ve been watching the episodes far more critically.
This case/scene always stood out as very strange to me. It’s the first official case Sherlock accepts with NSY immediately after his return, while he’s supposed to beworking to stop a devastating terrorist plot.
My funny little theory is that this case is actually subtext/hint/metaphor for fans who are questioning Mary’s background and the motivation behind her attachment to John. More importantly, to those who wonder how Sherlock could have possibly missed out on the hints that Mary was not who she said was.
The case, such as it is, would not even be a ‘1’ in Sherlock’s eyes, but as others have said before, the cases featured in episodes are supposed to say something about the show - subtext, essentially. And one of the biggest suggestions in M-Theory is that Mary was planted as John’s partner by Moriarty for a number of reasons: in the short run, to be able to get a sense about Sherlock and his status (is he actually dead? is he communicating with John?) and in the long run, to ‘burn Sherlock’s heart’ by having him find out hat John had moved on.
My rewatch last night suddenly made the scene seem a bit different than before. Let me guide you through it (transcription with credits to Ariane DeVere):
Sherlock and Molly (a John mirror and a de-facto replacement of John in this episode) are shown into a crypt that houses a skeleton. This is a NSY case, since Lestarde is the one bringing them into the crypt.
LESTRADE: This one’s got us all baffled.
SHERLOCK: Mmm. I don’t doubt it.
This skeleton is the same ‘skeleton mystery’ that Sherlock was reading about earlier in the episode. The skeleton is surrounded by an empty carafe and wine glass on one side and a syringe on another. I read that some fans seem to think the skeleton is wearing Sherlock’s clothes (which made me laugh as I remembered this scene from The X-Files).
Now, let’s start with the obvious. We have a skeleton in a discussion about Mary’s secret past life. Mary literally has skeletons in her closet, skeletons that Sherlock has to pick up on in order to question who and what she is. In a way, if this is supposed to be subtext, it’s fairly on the nose.
Sherlock begins deducing immediately using his sense of smell, represented by writing on the screen:
So in my reading of this, Sherlock sniffs for and maybe expects ‘old-timey’ smells - pine, spruce, cedar. @loudest-subtext-in-tv, in a post that no longer exists, pointed out that this is a hint to Sherlock’s state of mind - he spruced up for meeting John, and was instead met violence and rejection, leaving him pining. Hmmm. Instead what he actually smells are new mothballs and fire damage.
The new mothballs smell seems to be his first hint that something is off - a skeleton in this stage of decay should indicate a long period of time in this condition, but instead that new mothballs suggest that the timing is off.
Let’s not ignore the ‘fire damage’ smell as well. Something was burning. Is it Sherlock’s heart?
(Sherlock gets out his phone and holds it up high to try and get a signal.)
MOLLY: You’re on to something, aren’t you?
(John’s voice sounds in his head and the words he speaks appear in Sherlock’s mind.
Sherlock senses that something is off, that it doesn’t add up, but something stops him.
It’s John berating voice, telling him off in a way that’s very similar to the night of their reunion.
What a weird exchange for two Londoners in a crypt, wouldn’t you say? We’re being called out about the trains. Here’s what LSiT writes about trains in this episode:
We then get a lot of trains and tunnels imagery, which carries both sexual connotations, and the idea of twists and turns and paths intersecting at various places. If this is meant to be a visual metaphor for Moriarty’s plot and the involvement of Mary, Mycroft, and Magnussen, it certainly works. We got train track imagery two episodes in a row during John and Sherlock’s investigations in the The Blind Banker and The Great Game, after all, both of which revolved around Mycroft’s involvement with Moriarty. It visually suggests the idea of connections.
John’s breathing of Sherlock in his mind continues throughout the scene.
MOLLY: Male, forty to fifty.
(She looks round at Sherlock.)
MOLLY: Ooh, sorry, did you want to be …?
SHERLOCK: Er, no, please. Be my guest.
(John’s voice sounds in his mind again.)
JOHN (voiceover): You jealous?
(His second word appears simultaneously in front of Sherlock’s mind’s eye.)
SHERLOCK (angrily, through gritted teeth): Shut up!
Sherlock is distracted by none other than John accusing him of being jealous when Molly (John?) approaches the skeleton and asks if he wants to inspect it - to look into it, to see what mysteries it’s hiding.
MOLLY: Doesn’t make sense.
(Sherlock gently blows away the dust around the hand and continues blowing towards the edge of the table.)
MOLLY: This skeleton – it’s … it can’t be any more than …
SHERLOCK and MOLLY (simultaneously): … six months old.
This six months hint, I think, was the thing that made me think of this scene in the context of John and Mary’s relationship. I think by this point it’s agreed upon in fanlore that John and Mary have known each other and/or dated for six months when Sherlock returns. John is probably already living in Mary’s flat in October, about a month before Sherlock comes back - so much so that Lestrade comes over there to give him the DVD containing Sherlock’s video message. This, despite the fact Mary’s first comment on John’s blog is left on April (prompting Harry to ask ‘Who’s Mary?’), so that could roughly suggest the ~six months timeline is correct.
So we have Sherlock confused - we have a case of a skeleton (some secret) that’s not as old as it’s supposed to be (Mary’s identity as Mary Morstan) and something significant happened to it around six months ago.
Sherlock pulls out a book from the drawer in the table -
And, after being berated by John inside his head yet again, Sherlock explains:
The-the-the corpse is-is six months old; it’s dressed in a shoddy Victorian outfit from a museum. It’s been displayed on a dummy for many years in a case facing south-east judging from the fading of the fabric. It was sold off in a fire-damage sale … (he gets out his phone and shows the screen to Greg) … a week ago.
LESTRADE: So the whole thing was a fake.
(He turns and heads out of the room.)
LESTRADE: Looked so promising.
SHERLOCK (already out of sight): Facile.
So here we have a few more things that points in the direction of hints we’ll hear and see again S3 and M-Theory: a shoddy victorian outfit, like Mary in TAB, a dummy, like in His Last Vow, and of course the fire, burning and even ripping Sherlock’s heart out (Mary shooting Sherlock in the heart).
Would this be Moriarty, playing a game of clue with Sherlock, telling him ‘this is how I’m going to burn your heart’? By planting a dummy, displayed for many years, on a corpse that’s six months old?
Lestrade, who - let’s remember - opened this scene by telling Sherlock ‘this one’s got us all baffled’, announces it was all a fake, having looked so promising. Is Lestrade mirroring Mrs. Hudson’s words earlier in the episode? Surprised that John had moved on and was somewhat baffled by John and Mary’s relationship?
Also, a note about Jack the Ripper and Moriarty from Baker Street wikia: “Due to the very nature of [the Jack the Ripper] case, it has proven to be very popular to pit [Sherlock] against one of history’s most infamous killers. The sheer amount of times these two have clashed through various media rivals that of Sherlock and Moriarty.”
And then Molly, John’s mirror, wonders out loud:
MOLLY: Why would someone go to all that trouble?
SHERLOCK (offscreen): Why indeed, John?
Dear Molly here is actually asking the right question - why would anyone go through all that trouble?
Sherlock, distracted and confused and even somewhat disappointed seems to be missing out on the clue entirely, even when Molly raises this very obvious question herself. Is it Sherlock’s fear of upsetting John further that prevents him from looking more deeply into this?
Is this Moftiss’ explanation for how Sherlock missed out on such a huge clue, as it was standing right in front of his eyes?
Of course, later in the episode we discover that sometime during this scene Sherlock figured out who actually placed that skeleton there - it was Anderson, in what others note as an attempt to convince Sherlock to come out of his hiding after his return.
Anderson represents the show’s fans in this episode, and when Sherlock berates Anderson for wasting NSY’s time by staging a fake crime scene it almost seems as if Moftiss are berating the fans for asking stupid questions about Mary and her relationship with John.
In a way, they sort of rule out this entire post - it was Anderson, not Moriarty. But let’s not forget that according to M-Theory (and in general) Moriarty works via proxy. It was Anderson and Donovan who fell for Moriarty’s trap of suspicion in TRF. How difficult would it be for Moriarty to push Anderson to do something like setting up a fake crime scene?
Also let’s not forget that while Anderson is ridiculed in TEH, he’s the one who knows where to find Sherlock in HLV (either because Sherlock wants him to find him in his bolthole, or because Moftiss are saying the fans are right and are on track).
