this isn't mine but-
idk I'm just mind blown
Good Heavens! Poor Sherlock. It like a moment of sober hit him. Like oh yea..... You're getting married. 😭😭😭😭
mmhmm, mirroring! (also it's implied that they were touching, or very nearly)
Surely it means something when John shows up to therapy… before we know anything else about him… and the shot is dominated by a closet.
In fact, what is it that’s getting between him and Ella?
More fucking closets. This show.
Whenever I watch this scene all I can think about is how those black things - whatever they are - look like TV screens and how this room is circular (like Eurus‘ cell for example).
I love you, brilliant people @thewatsonbeekeepers @lukessense
Ooh… tying in with @lillysliterature’s idea about always being watched, and the cameras in the first suicide… voyeurism from day 1. One of my big vibes with Sherlock, especially as we move into the later series, is that it’s a tv show that is really preoccupied with the mammoth task of representing Sherlock Holmes (in particular re queerness) and therefore preoccupied with itself as a form of tv. So checking out the tv screen mirrored with the closets - well, that’s the celluloid closet for you, right, which they spend so much bloody time investigating, pulled up in one image?!
Yes @thewatsonbeekeepers! The feeling I get from this is that through our TV-screens we’re following the whereabouts of a closeted man and the lengths to which he’s ready to go to keep avoiding to have to confront his innermost need: how to get together with Sherlock. This is the Mayfly Man with his crutch and then all his ’girlfriends’, his abominable, fake marriage and everything that escalates from there. :)
yes!
I’ve seen a lot of meta revolving around the stag night and Sherlock’s drunk episode in the Mayfly man’s flat. The summary of most of the analysis is Sherlock is discovering his own sexuality at that moment, trying to see what he’s interested in. But I disagree. Instead, that scene is about Sherlock attempting to understand John’s sexuality - and coming up short.
The Mayfly Man is a subtextual mirror for John throughout this episode, just like Tessa is a mirror for Sherlock. Since they are going to inspect the Mayfly Man’s flat, we can deduce that the characters are going to invade John’s psyche. This is why the camera shows John’s mouth for the start of the next scene (the morning they’re in jail) - not just his mouth, though… the camera zooms out FROM his mouth, as if the last scene took place inside him.
This flat has a skull in it just like 221b does. 221b is easily connected to John’s heart since Mrs Hudson is a subtextual mirror for John’s heart throughout every episode. Sherlock examines the room asking “Wood?” “Egg?” while bathing in the blue and pink lighting. He’s not sure who John is sexually interested in. “Men? Women? I gotta whip this out, get on all fours, bend over and see for myself…. aw fuck, I just made a mess everywhere. Fuck. Well, this is how i react, but how does John? Fuck. I screwed this up, I compromised the integrity of this delicate situation. Now I’ll never know. When i get home I’ll do more research - I’ll start with that Sholto fellow. I hate not knowing.”
As the discussion about TLD here (x) got a bit confusing, I decided to start a new post about it to get a clearer overview again. This is just a brainstorming-post where anybody is free to join the discussion to make some sense of the episode.
So it’s been established in the discussion mentioned above that the hospital wing featured in TLD was opened by Culverton Smith on 20/07/2014 (x). This is the day before John writes up the Mayfly Man-case on his blog (x), the case that is clearly about him dating a row of women only to stab Sherlock in the back with it, as @possiblyimbiassed established here (x). As we are under the impression that Sherlock is constructing the narrative of the show inside of his head, this means that Sherlock built the hospital wing dedicated to Culverton Smith the day before John wrote up the Mayfly Man-case.
Furthermore @possiblyimbiassed pointed out that Sherlock planned to get a confession out of Culverton three weeks ago (x), the amount of time between the Mayfly Man-case and Sherlock’s blog post about John’s wedding (x).
Let’s take a look at TLD again with this information in hand (I’m not gonna dive into every tiny little bit of this episode, because that would be too much for my early morning-rant here; and this is not spell-checked or anything, I’m just writing my thoughts down):
Edit: It’s neither morning anymore nor is this post in any way short. Oh well…
this makes sense, on the whole. that the subtext of TLD is generally consistent with the subtext of TSOT definitely reinforces it.
i love the insight that "faith" as played by "eurus" is a projection of sherlock's own mind/emotions, that's why she's such a strong john mirror. and throwing her gun in the river is a kind of "if only" moment for him. a little bit like how sherlock rewrote their meet-cute in TAB.
i also couldn't help noticing that the screencap of john with nurse cornish over one shoulder and "mary" over the other, reminds mexof the framing in TFP when sherlock has john over one shoulder and mycroft over the other. Also how in tis image, all three of them are dressed very similarly, wearing a dark blue jacket with a v neck over a white shirt. nurse cornish's white lanyard stands in for that v neck shape in her case. so that makes me wonder if they are representing something about john's inner conflict?
In Part III of this meta series I came up with a rather horrible hypothesis: What if Sherlock and John actually did get intimate on the stag night, but none of them wanted to admit this fact - perhaps not even to themselves - for different reasons? Which was what ultimately broke Sherlock’s heart and made him OD after the wedding? This is a rather speculative idea of course; it could definitely be very wrong, and I don’t actually wish it to be true. But this is still what I see, and it would explain certain things in the show, so I might as well try to provide evidence and explain what makes me jump on this train of thoughts.
In Part III I tried to point out the distinct, symbolic resemblance between the Mayfly Man’s ‘crime scene’ and 221B. This, together with John showing up in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen the following morning, makes me think John and Sherlock never actually left Baker Street after the stag night. And their leaving 221B is not confirmed by John’s blog. So if they never left 221B, what did actually happen?
Permit me a bit of more analysis and shameless speculation (if you’re already bored, you can just skip this part, because it’s long and maybe tedious :) ).
I have no idea wether this has been pointed out before, but there is one time John is talking about an alibi on his blog (x) where he makes a point of Mrs. Hudson never providing an alibi for him, because she would be terrible at it. Isn‘t that exactly what she is doing here? Providing a terrible alibi for what happened at the stag night by bringing in an alleged client in the middle of the night (on plot-level)? Hmm major foreshadowing? @possiblyimbiassed
Thanks @lukessense for that observation! Yes - now that you said it - I think that might pretty much be what Mrs Hudson was doing: providing the ‘criminals’ with a (sort of) alibi. I don’t think John needs an alibi for killing Mary (as in ‘John’s alibi theory’, if I understand it correctly), because I don’t think John nor Sherlock did that. I can’t find any evidence in-show for this, and I frankly don’t even believe she’s dead. What they might have done, however, is the ‘crime’ of a sexual encounter between two men. @sarahthecoat pointed out earlier in this thread that Mrs Hudson offers John his ‘favorite’ breakfast involving two sausages. ;) Also, of course (on John’s part), there’s the ‘crime’ of cheating on Mary. Maybe that’s why Sherlock is so ambivalent about Mary in HLV and S4? Guilty conscience but suspecting at the same time that she’s not to be trusted?
oh that’s right, it’s mrs hudson who finds them passed out on the stairs together after a shorter pub crawl than she expected, and mrs hudson who brings “tessa” up to the flat. i am beginning to doubt the flesh and blood existence of “tessa” quite strongly. it strikes me that she is a kind of double mirror too, dark hair like sherlock, who identifies so strongly with her story, and a nurse like “mary”. But Also, a nurse like john called sherlock while they were saving Bainbridge’s life! (john has already been identified with the serial dater mayfly man) Sounds like both sherlock and “mary” aren’t sure where they stand in john’s consideration, or at least, “tessa”, as sherlock’s projection, wonders. the whole idea of hiring a falling down drunk private detective in the middle of the night to investigate a man she had a single date with is preposterous, but remember “let’s have dinner” in ASIB meant propositioning sex, so yeah, this is probably about a single encounter that sherlock thought would have meant more. yikes.
@possiblyimbiassed yes I‘m thinking the same thing about Johns alibi. If we continue on plot-level in S5 it would make somewhat sense that John actually killed Mary as the subtext would still be the more important layer. But to me S5 finally needs to be about the actual text so everybody can understand the message of the show. And yes I do think that Sherlock feels guilty, especially about „killing“ Mary until John forgives him in TLD. But since Mary reappears as our voice-over in TFP we still couldn’t get rid of her (yet).
And yes @sarahthecoat you‘re totally right. The nurse is not just a stand-in for Mary but an actual mirror for Sherlock as her story not only mirrors ASiP on a more superficial subtextual level but the actual stag night as well. This is actually pretty brilliant. She talks about her dinner with a ghost who turned out to be the mayfly man meaning Sherlock had sex with the serial-dating John who ghostet him (in a way) afterwards and broke his heart (stabbed him with a meat dagger and on top of that we have the shooting Mary in HLV). And to take this even further we have Sherlock who tries to become anyone in TLD, while actually fearing that, to get a confession out of Culverton, which kind of fails since the confession is forced and only recorded via the cane (metaphor for John retiring the cane because of Sherlock -> physical proof of their love). We never get to hear it out loud. And moreover, the whole rescue operation was initiated by Mary anyway so the confession could never be real, the one night stand could never turn into something more because Mary was still there. In a way. Poor Sherlock, he not only blames himself for Marys „death“ but got his heart broken as well. He tried to get a confession out of John, but it could‘ve never been a real one as long as Mary was still in the way and it only remained a one night stand.
Culverton built his hospital on the 20/07/2014 (x), the Mayfly Man-case was written up on the 21st (x). Guess we know what that means. @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat
hmmm!
Wow - that’s brilliant @lukessense! I’m not sure I know exactly what it means, of course, but I can always guess, reading it through the goggles of this meta. :) Culverton’s hospital is called St. Caedwella’s Hospital.
According to Ariane DeVere, St. Caedwella is the patron saint of (repentant) serial killers (X). If the hospital was funded in 2014, by the way, this means the timeline in TLD must be warped. Because Nurse Cornish says she’s been working in that hospital for seven years, which means until 2021 - that year has not even happened yet. :) (and Saheed the pathologist says he’s been there for four years, which would also be after TLD aired in 2017).
Anyway, that’s the supposed date when Culverton the Mayfly Man serial dater killer funded a place to ‘make people into things’. If Culverton is a John mirror, I have a feeling that the hospital wing with the morgue is actually a whole wing of Sherlock’s Mind Palace entirely dedicated to John:
Which would seem logical to me; John is a doctor after all (even if Culverton questions his authenticity and professionalism - maybe Sherlock’s subconscious wants to blame John for not noticing that anything was wrong with him, Sherlock, for a long time?). And he’s trained at Barts hospital. Hospitals might be venues for at least some of John’s ‘conquests’ - ‘Three Continents Watson’. Everything is about John - always. ;) Inside Sherlock’s brain it probably also makes sense that this MP hospital wing with the Mayfly Man in it was funded the night of the stag do - the night before John wrote up the Mayfly Man case where he pretends that nothing happened between them. If killing is a metaphor for making people fall in love with you, here’s a whole part of a hospital full of John’s metaphorical ‘victims’. Maybe that’s also why John - subtextually - reacts strongly when Culverton makes a dead body ‘talk’? He doesn’t want them to start talking about him, does he? ;)
wow, yikes.
In Part III of this meta series I came up with a rather horrible hypothesis: What if Sherlock and John actually did get intimate on the stag night, but none of them wanted to admit this fact - perhaps not even to themselves - for different reasons? Which was what ultimately broke Sherlock’s heart and made him OD after the wedding? This is a rather speculative idea of course; it could definitely be very wrong, and I don’t actually wish it to be true. But this is still what I see, and it would explain certain things in the show, so I might as well try to provide evidence and explain what makes me jump on this train of thoughts.
In Part III I tried to point out the distinct, symbolic resemblance between the Mayfly Man’s ‘crime scene’ and 221B. This, together with John showing up in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen the following morning, makes me think John and Sherlock never actually left Baker Street after the stag night. And their leaving 221B is not confirmed by John’s blog. So if they never left 221B, what did actually happen?
Permit me a bit of more analysis and shameless speculation (if you’re already bored, you can just skip this part, because it’s long and maybe tedious :) ).
I have no idea wether this has been pointed out before, but there is one time John is talking about an alibi on his blog (x) where he makes a point of Mrs. Hudson never providing an alibi for him, because she would be terrible at it. Isn‘t that exactly what she is doing here? Providing a terrible alibi for what happened at the stag night by bringing in an alleged client in the middle of the night (on plot-level)? Hmm major foreshadowing? @possiblyimbiassed
Thanks @lukessense for that observation! Yes - now that you said it - I think that might pretty much be what Mrs Hudson was doing: providing the ‘criminals’ with a (sort of) alibi. I don’t think John needs an alibi for killing Mary (as in ‘John’s alibi theory’, if I understand it correctly), because I don’t think John nor Sherlock did that. I can’t find any evidence in-show for this, and I frankly don’t even believe she’s dead. What they might have done, however, is the ‘crime’ of a sexual encounter between two men. @sarahthecoat pointed out earlier in this thread that Mrs Hudson offers John his ‘favorite’ breakfast involving two sausages. ;) Also, of course (on John’s part), there’s the ‘crime’ of cheating on Mary. Maybe that’s why Sherlock is so ambivalent about Mary in HLV and S4? Guilty conscience but suspecting at the same time that she’s not to be trusted?
oh that’s right, it’s mrs hudson who finds them passed out on the stairs together after a shorter pub crawl than she expected, and mrs hudson who brings “tessa” up to the flat. i am beginning to doubt the flesh and blood existence of “tessa” quite strongly. it strikes me that she is a kind of double mirror too, dark hair like sherlock, who identifies so strongly with her story, and a nurse like “mary”. But Also, a nurse like john called sherlock while they were saving Bainbridge’s life! (john has already been identified with the serial dater mayfly man) Sounds like both sherlock and “mary” aren’t sure where they stand in john’s consideration, or at least, “tessa”, as sherlock’s projection, wonders. the whole idea of hiring a falling down drunk private detective in the middle of the night to investigate a man she had a single date with is preposterous, but remember “let’s have dinner” in ASIB meant propositioning sex, so yeah, this is probably about a single encounter that sherlock thought would have meant more. yikes.
@possiblyimbiassed yes I‘m thinking the same thing about Johns alibi. If we continue on plot-level in S5 it would make somewhat sense that John actually killed Mary as the subtext would still be the more important layer. But to me S5 finally needs to be about the actual text so everybody can understand the message of the show. And yes I do think that Sherlock feels guilty, especially about „killing“ Mary until John forgives him in TLD. But since Mary reappears as our voice-over in TFP we still couldn’t get rid of her (yet).
And yes @sarahthecoat you‘re totally right. The nurse is not just a stand-in for Mary but an actual mirror for Sherlock as her story not only mirrors ASiP on a more superficial subtextual level but the actual stag night as well. This is actually pretty brilliant. She talks about her dinner with a ghost who turned out to be the mayfly man meaning Sherlock had sex with the serial-dating John who ghostet him (in a way) afterwards and broke his heart (stabbed him with a meat dagger and on top of that we have the shooting Mary in HLV). And to take this even further we have Sherlock who tries to become anyone in TLD, while actually fearing that, to get a confession out of Culverton, which kind of fails since the confession is forced and only recorded via the cane (metaphor for John retiring the cane because of Sherlock -> physical proof of their love). We never get to hear it out loud. And moreover, the whole rescue operation was initiated by Mary anyway so the confession could never be real, the one night stand could never turn into something more because Mary was still there. In a way. Poor Sherlock, he not only blames himself for Marys „death“ but got his heart broken as well. He tried to get a confession out of John, but it could‘ve never been a real one as long as Mary was still in the way and it only remained a one night stand.
Culverton built his hospital on the 20/07/2014 (x), the Mayfly Man-case was written up on the 21st (x). Guess we know what that means. @possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat
hmmm!
In Part III of this meta series I came up with a rather horrible hypothesis: What if Sherlock and John actually did get intimate on the stag night, but none of them wanted to admit this fact - perhaps not even to themselves - for different reasons? Which was what ultimately broke Sherlock’s heart and made him OD after the wedding? This is a rather speculative idea of course; it could definitely be very wrong, and I don’t actually wish it to be true. But this is still what I see, and it would explain certain things in the show, so I might as well try to provide evidence and explain what makes me jump on this train of thoughts.
In Part III I tried to point out the distinct, symbolic resemblance between the Mayfly Man’s ‘crime scene’ and 221B. This, together with John showing up in Mrs Hudson’s kitchen the following morning, makes me think John and Sherlock never actually left Baker Street after the stag night. And their leaving 221B is not confirmed by John’s blog. So if they never left 221B, what did actually happen?
Permit me a bit of more analysis and shameless speculation (if you’re already bored, you can just skip this part, because it’s long and maybe tedious :) ).
I have no idea wether this has been pointed out before, but there is one time John is talking about an alibi on his blog (x) where he makes a point of Mrs. Hudson never providing an alibi for him, because she would be terrible at it. Isn‘t that exactly what she is doing here? Providing a terrible alibi for what happened at the stag night by bringing in an alleged client in the middle of the night (on plot-level)? Hmm major foreshadowing? @possiblyimbiassed
Thanks @lukessense for that observation! Yes - now that you said it - I think that might pretty much be what Mrs Hudson was doing: providing the ‘criminals’ with a (sort of) alibi. I don’t think John needs an alibi for killing Mary (as in ‘John’s alibi theory’, if I understand it correctly), because I don’t think John nor Sherlock did that. I can’t find any evidence in-show for this, and I frankly don’t even believe she’s dead. What they might have done, however, is the ‘crime’ of a sexual encounter between two men. @sarahthecoat pointed out earlier in this thread that Mrs Hudson offers John his ‘favorite’ breakfast involving two sausages. ;) Also, of course (on John’s part), there’s the ‘crime’ of cheating on Mary. Maybe that’s why Sherlock is so ambivalent about Mary in HLV and S4? Guilty conscience but suspecting at the same time that she’s not to be trusted?
oh that's right, it's mrs hudson who finds them passed out on the stairs together after a shorter pub crawl than she expected, and mrs hudson who brings "tessa" up to the flat. i am beginning to doubt the flesh and blood existence of "tessa" quite strongly. it strikes me that she is a kind of double mirror too, dark hair like sherlock, who identifies so strongly with her story, and a nurse like "mary". But Also, a nurse like john called sherlock while they were saving Bainbridge's life! (john has already been identified with the serial dater mayfly man) Sounds like both sherlock and "mary" aren't sure where they stand in john's consideration, or at least, "tessa", as sherlock's projection, wonders. the whole idea of hiring a falling down drunk private detective in the middle of the night to investigate a man she had a single date with is preposterous, but remember "let's have dinner" in ASIB meant propositioning sex, so yeah, this is probably about a single encounter that sherlock thought would have meant more. yikes.
I’m sure I’m far from the first one to suggest this; I know a lot of people have discussed it years ago, but it hit me so hard now while re-watching the stag night scenes in TSoT, that I just can’t get it out of my mind: This is not some random apartment of a dead man; the crime scene of the Mayfly Man is actually 221B! If you like, this can be seen as Part III of my earlier meta series called “John’s wedding is a crime scene and Sherlock is the victim”. You can find the first two parts here (1) and here (2).
You don’t believe me? OK, let’s do a crime scene investigation à la Sherlock and sample the different clues here:
Hmm, well, I do see a wallpaper with a pattern of large flowers on it…
…and I also do see a leather sofa with Sherlock on it:
Yes - nice, isn’t it? John really seems to appreciate it. ;) But this meta is going to hurt, so if you’re not up for it, please don’t read further.
Very good @possiblyimbiassed!
between what does not make much sense reading the blog and thinking about the Show is why after a first appointment, pleasant but not conclusive, the nurse should know where is the man’s apartment.
She explicitly says she came out with a ghost, literally someone who is already dead. According to the landlord a week ago (4 years). But dying means falling in love. And it’s something that happened to more than one woman. John “Three Continents” Watson has gone from a girl to an another not being able to make a commitment because he is already dead / in love. Sherlock can see what the man / John has done, but he can’t understand why. Perhaps he can’t understand how a straight and moral man like John can be so frivolous at the same time. Until at the wedding he meets Sholto, in all respects a man. Not you, not you, not you, tells to every single woman. Because finally the concept of man enters in the messy equation that is John’s love life. And along with this, the realization of what could have been, every damn time and especially if a nurse had not entered their lives.
The coincidence that a crime happens to a wedding in which Sherlock Holmes participates is remarkable and improbable (even if yes, one should be wary of coincidences and never discard the impossible, I know), but above all it is strange that, present a woman with a turbulent past and threatening, the crime is about John Watson’s past.
Regarding the possibility of the feasibility of the murder I can’t say much about the technician. But I’ve already seen it in another show, which obviously is not scientifically indicative. A woman hit with a sharp knife in her side, feels an indistinct pain, but continues to walk, sit down, smile and eventually die. All this in an episode of Vera in which Alistair Petrie appears …. mhhh.
John and Sherlock are stuck in a deadlock, they’re in the same prison. Together. We have already seen Sherlock in the same cell (in adjoining cells, but at some point the impression is that they are the same) with Moriarty, homophobia / homosexual desire. Now Sherlock is realizing that John is stuck in the same cell (closet) with him.
However, I am not entirely convinced that the stag night was something more. It’s possible that all the clues you found ( @possiblyimbiassed damn brilliant, I’m speechless) can refer to something that could have happened if the nurse had not arrived. Sherlock’s awareness of what he has / lost, because John has always been in love with him. Unrequited love hurts, but requited but not realized love destroys us by its nonsense.
I was thinking, giving a completely metaphorical reading of the stag nigth, maybe we could go even deeper. It is said to be “drunk on love”. A metaphor perhaps more widespread because it is older than that between drugs and love. It’s always about chemistry. And the stag night took place, explicitly, retracing the places of the crimes they have solved, retracing their dates, their history together, the stag.es of their falling in love. Finally the story how the two are falled in love
yes!
I’m sure I’m far from the first one to suggest this; I know a lot of people have discussed it years ago, but it hit me so hard now while re-watching the stag night scenes in TSoT, that I just can’t get it out of my mind: This is not some random apartment of a dead man; the crime scene of the Mayfly Man is actually 221B! If you like, this can be seen as Part III of my earlier meta series called “John’s wedding is a crime scene and Sherlock is the victim”. You can find the first two parts here (1) and here (2).
You don’t believe me? OK, let’s do a crime scene investigation à la Sherlock and sample the different clues here:
Hmm, well, I do see a wallpaper with a pattern of large flowers on it…
…and I also do see a leather sofa with Sherlock on it:
Yes - nice, isn’t it? John really seems to appreciate it. ;) But this meta is going to hurt, so if you’re not up for it, please don’t read further.
ouch, indeed! I am 100% on board for metaphorical/unreliable narrator readings of s3, since it makes as little "sense" as s4 on the surface. This works, i hate it and love it, but it works. Ouch. That one night stand thing is exactly why we DIDN'T want them to fall into bed on stag night, precisely because of this. Ouch.
What also strikes me, alongside further validation of @just-sort-of-happened 's meta about squares and circles (you know you're onto something when it continues to be this consistent!), is that we see a pattern of LOCATION mirroring, not just character mirroring and matching-scene/story points. I seem to recall some meta from shortly after s4 aired, comparing the "therapist"s office in TLD to the CA tower office in HLV, between the reuse of the red leather rug, and the wall of windows, and various other similarities. If i were to rewatch, i might look for more set-mirroring, and consider what this tells us about significant places.
(If you’re just tuning in, this is part 8 of a 10-part meta series. Links to the other chapters can be found here.)
This meta series started when I noticed that John has had 5 girlfriends, followed by a perfume bottle. Originally, I thought this was going to be a short little ditty about Mary & Vicky. I expected that every analysis would be self contained, a pithy little observation. Instead, every time I applied subtext, expecting that to be that, five new branches sprouted out of it. And then 5 more out of each of those. And so on. Because of that, this meta series has earned the nicknames “a fractal” and “an optical illusion”. Why? Because the rabbit hole never fucking bottomed out. What started as a perfume bottle ended up covering the entire goddamned show. I could easily keep on going for what feels like an infinite number more chapters, but I made the conscious decision to stop where other meta writers have picked up the thread. And even with that we’re still at 35,000 words in this series. And I’m not saying this to be self congratulatory, my point is that the subtext IS the entire goddamned show. If you take a step back – really take a step back – to look at the amount of ground this subtextual narrative covers, it’s astonishing. There’s simply no other word for it.
Today, we’re zooming way, way out. We’re going to look at how the threads of subtext we’ve gained from the courtroom women connect to the rest of the subtextual narrative going on in BBC Sherlock, why that’s important, and what it means. Yeah, I’m going high brow for a hot minute here. I promise it’ll be worth it though.
"the plot is crack, the subtext is what makes sense" yes, times five in s4!
(If you’re just tuning in, this is part 6 of a 10-part meta series. Links to the other chapters can be found here.)
Stag night. Many, many words have been written on stag night. Mainly about how it’s the queerest thing on the fucking planet. I’m not going to go over that territory again, because if you found this meta series at all, chances are, you are very aware about the queerness of stag night. I’m going to be specifically focusing on Tessa, and what new data we get when we apply the courtroom mirroring to Tessa.
And guess what, guys? I’ve been holding out on you. Get ready to get plot-twisted.
So for this entire meta series, we’ve referred to that photographer guy and everything he does and everything he implies under the broad umbrella of “the Mayfly Man.” But it’s actually quite a bit more nuanced than that, and Tessa is our catalyst into this discussion. When we go back to stag night and listen to Tessa, we’re reminded of one thing right away: she’s not talking about the Mayfly Man. She’s never heard of the Mayfly Man. To her, the Mayfly Man doesn’t exist. She’s talking about a ghost. In fact, all of the courtroom women are talking about a ghost. Sherlock found these women on a website called “I dated a ghost.com,” remember? Who are the people who are actually impacted by the IRL literal Mayfly Man? Bainbridge and Sholto. Who never complain about a ghost. For them, the Mayfly Man is very real – he fucking stabbed them, after all. So basically, the women get a ghost – someone who appears real, but doesn’t actually exist; and the men get a mayfly – someone who just appears for one night, fucks shit up, and is very, very real. And also likes to “stab” things. Oh. Well that’s a bit of a turn up, isn’t it? But wait, there’s even more. So let’s just spell this out, and then we’ll start having some fun. Here we go!
So, maybe watch TAB again with this stuff about "ghosts" in mind... I forget, how many bars did they visit on stag night? Is that another set of five?
(If you’re just tuning in, this is part 4 of a 10-part meta series. Links to the other chapters can be found here.)
Welcome back, kids. It’s time. It’s time to talk about Major Sholto. And I hate to tell you this, but we are about to launch into some major feels. So cozy up, pour yourself a favorite beverage, and maybe open up another tab with pictures of kittens or your favorite piece of fluff just in case you need to safeword. And I know you think I’m being facetious right now, but one of my beta readers compared these oncoming feels to Reichenbach. You’ve been warned.
I’ll start off by reviewing what we know about Sholto before the moment Sherlock shifts his focus to him in the reception hall deduction sequence. The tl;dr version here is that we are getting confirmation after confirmation that Sholto and John definitely have some non-platonic history under their belts. (See what I did there? Belts?) The fandom is already well versed in a lot of these subtextual cues. But applying the direct mirroring we’re applying here – the victims of the Mayfly Man are all direct mirrors for identifiable people in John’s romantic history – we get a truly ridiculous amount of new information about what happened between John and Sholto. The fact that he shows up at all as a victim of the Mayfly Man basically confirms that yeah, John and Sholto were decidedly romantically involved. Again: all of John’s exes have direct, identifiable mirrors as the victims of the Mayfly Man. Private Bainbridge is a victim of the Mayfly Man. John has been involved with a man. It was Sholto. It’s confirmed, guys. The extent and the details are the fun part the subtext can tell us.
Then there’s the mirroring between Sholto and Sherlock. Fandom understanding of Sholto is that he is a mirror for Sherlock, and this is dead on. This is set up right at the very beginning of The Sign of Three where we see both of them getting dressed for John’s wedding, preparing for battle. Their armor is as interesting as it is telling – Sherlock is hiding behind his best man (best friend) uniform, while Sholto is hiding behind his military (honor, duty, tradition) persona. There are other cues that confirm this mirroring in a big truly ridiculous way, which I’ll be pointing out as we go along.
Just to get this out there right now because I know it can get confusing: at different points in The Sign of Three, Sholto is mirrored against both Private Bainbridge and Sherlock. I’m going to break this down as simply as I can, because the elegance is absolutely heartbreaking once you see it. The literal victims of the literal Mayfly Man (photographer) are the metaphorical victims of the metaphorical Mayfly Man (John). During the case of The Bloody Guardsman, Private Bainbridge is the victim of the literal Mayfly Man, which is metaphorically representative of John and Sholto’s romance. This case happens before the wedding. It is in the past. At the wedding itself, Sholto becomes a victim of the literal Mayfly Man. His status shifts from being a metaphorical victim to being a literal victim. Once he becomes a literal victim, this means he is now a mirror for someone else becoming a victim of John/Mayfly Man. Once he gets stabbed at the wedding, he becomes a mirror for Sherlock. In other words, in the past, Sholto was in love with John, and they were involved. But in the present, here at the wedding, Sherlock falls in love with John. Because the Mayfly Man’s interests have shifted away from Sholto (the rehearsal) and over to Sherlock (the main event).
God. Are you emotionally compromised yet? I am. And it just gets better! And by better I mean worse! Meet you on the flipside, folks.
(If you’re just tuning in, this is part 2 of a 10-part meta series. Links to the other chapters can be found here.)
Welcome back to the courtroom, everyone! Last time I laid out the “courtroom women are actually John’s romantic interests” plot line, because as fandom common knowledge dictates, John is so totally a mirror for the Mayfly Man.
Today, we’re going to start to get into the really good stuff. I know I’m about the millionth meta writer to talk about this scene, so I’ve done my best to give proper credit to my fore-writers by linking everywhere I can. Basically, I’ll focus on the new data this reading gives us, but also tie in other people’s stuff as we need it for the proper context.
First, let’s just take a moment to take stock of where we’re at, as a whole. This new interpretation of the mind palace courtroom scenes begs the audience to ask a lot of questions. Including, but not limited to:
Over the course of the meta series, I’ll be taking each of these questions on. For today, I’m going to start by walking through the interrogation scene in detail. In particular, I’m going to be focusing on the first layer of subtext: what the interrogation scene reflects about John and his sexual identity/romantic history; and Sherlock’s understanding of John, John’s sexual identity, and John’s relationship with Mary. There are more ways to look at this, and we will, but it’s just far too much to put into one post.
The main thing to notice for today as you read through is that pretty much every goddamned line in this exchange is directly referring to John, John’s sexuality, and John’s sexual identity crisis. Unless it’s talking about Mary being an assassin. But more on that later. The tl;dr version: John is queer. John is so very queer. He knows it, and the women he’s dated know it. Are you ready? Here we go!
YES.
When Sherlock and John are trying to save Sholto’s life, he says a very interesting thing: “I have…a lifetime of unfortunate reflexes.”
A reflex is ‘an action that is performed without conscious thought as a response to a stimulus’ – involuntary action or feeling, something which cannot be influenced by a conscious act of will.
Sexuality cannot be influenced by wishing it otherwise.
I’d argue that there is evidence, from the way that Sholto asks John somewhat bitterly about ‘civilian life’ and the ‘trick cyclist’…
…that Sholto is an inflexible man who does not believe in seeking counselling, who believes that emotion and trauma – anything in the realm of the mental, rather than the physical – should be dealt with by the British gentleman’s stiff-upper-lip attitude of ignoring it until it goes away (or, you know, doesn’t). (As a side note, I suspect this would go hand-in-hand with his status as a commissioned officer in the British Army, many of whom come from wealthy families through private boarding schools to Sandhurst. Having family money would explain why he does not seem to have a visible means of income in the programme, and yet can afford a large country house, constantly-rotating expensive staff etc.)
I would argue that his internalised homophobia and repression of his sexuality runs very deep. Of course the conversation with John is not unequivocal, but my instinct from the ‘trick cyclist’ conversation is that he is very repressed about his attraction to John, or to men in general.
The incident for which he was removed from the Army does not represent “a lifetime of unfortunate reflexes”. So what would, for him? Perhaps having a sexuality other than the heterosexual norm? Look at the expressions crossing John’s face as he draws back from the door, on hearing Sholto’s words:
Shock, hurt, a kind of closed, pained reflection, and vulnerability. I think Sholto’s words came like a slap in the face to John, a repudiation and vicious criticism of any kind of queer identity – and a revelation of a self-hatred that is upsetting to witness.
Of course, such is Martin Freeman’s acting talent that all these expressions take just a matter of a few seconds, so I may be wrong about all this. But I don’t see exasperation or worry here – I see hurt.
I agree, absolutely with all of this @green-violin-bow. Those few seconds we see of John here are so painful. “What about me? What was I then?” That’s a pain that you don’t get over, when someone you’ve (he’s) clearly loved, diminishes it in such a way. Trust issues, indeed.
wow, ouch.
You know, I mentioned in a recent thread how John is seen as a mirror the Mayflyman; dating various women, but hiding his true self. John transferred his own urge to cheat to the MFM’s motives. Additionally, the MFM has a secret urge to penetrate men. Here, that metaphor works as well. We see Sholto’s friends telling him that hiding away will not save him. He has already been affected by the MFM/John, and ignoring this, attempting suicide(again with the suicide theme!) would just bring him more pain.
wow, yes.
Sherlock and John assumed that the Mayfly Man, coincidentally named John, was a bored married man who was cheating, when in reality he was a man with an extremely well thought out plan to get revenge for the death of someone close to him. What does that tell us about John Watson’s actions?
well, john is an expert at hiding his extraordinary bamf pretty damn smart self behind an ordinary looking outfit.
