oh, maybe there will be soon, since rebs discussed this idea in the new/recent tjlce videos. i would be intrigued.

There’s something wrong with the TV // Coventry all over again, the wheel turns, nothing is new // Not ammo as in ammunition but amo meaning…

hmm, and versions of john's four note theme all over them too.

"Because it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing" -JM

Just a quick reminder that Lady Carmichael (a John mirror) was actually the one who killed her husband (Sir Eustace, a Mary mirror) because of his many past mistakes and wrong doings. So while she accuses Sherlock of being responsible for not keeping Sir Eustace safe it was her plan all along.

These scenes seem quite similar don’t they?

Hmm, I wonder why…

i’ve always wondered though, did she? that’s what sherlock thinks, but then moriarty is the one under the veil at the reveal. it’s one of those little snags that doesn’t quite add up and so makes me go looking for the subtext.

TAB is sherlock running scenarios in his mind theater, and TST may be as well. certainly “you promised” is something sherlock is thinking about, he made a promise to both john and “mary”, but then how does he keep it if they are going in essentially opposite directions?

metaphorically, if john=sherlock’s heart, and “mary”=sherlock’s “sociopath” facade, then he can’t possibly be true to both, ultimately. the attempt brings him face to face with his internalised homophobia (moriarty, miss me?)

apologies to @cheeloveseds if i took this in a direction you didn’t want to go!

@sarahthecoat what I find really interesting about Sir Eustace‘s wound is how it differs from the one that pierces through the show „hurting“ Sherlock (HLV), Mary (TST) and Lestrade (TFP). The wound is on the other side of the chest, it was inflicted by a dagger that comes in an interesting shape and it carries a note saying „Miss me“ with the letter „E“ standing out a bit.

Yes it is easy to see a connection between TAB and TST here but I‘m with you @sarahthecoat and say that the connection might be a bit more complex. On top of that do I see a connection back to TSoT not just with the vow but the dagger and the photographer at the crime scene as well.

right, the other significant stabbing(s) were in TSOT, although non fatal. (also, bainbridge and sholto are both double mirrors, for both sherlock and john, hmmm)

Miss me?

One Word Sherlock! That is all I would have needed. - You

Keep reading

‘Something’s fucky’ observations, HLV version

[Reminder: if you like me, but not my tjlc-related posts, you can block tag ‘johnlockendgame’ to avoid them]

This was originally posted in response to another post, but I decided to post it separately for posterity.

- Sherlock’s suspicions about Mary and Mycroft - My current reading of HLV-TAB, based on M-Theory, is that both Mycroft and Mary are double agents and are aware of each other’s actions. They have an unspoken agreement to not expose each other’s status as such. Mary, who noticed that Magnussen began harming Mycroft’s colleagues, realized that if Sherlock ever exposes Mycroft he will discover the truth about her too and/or that Mycroft is sending Sherlock towards CAM so he finds the truth about her. Either way, she doesn’t trust Mycroft and goes rogue (planning to shoot CAM but ends up shooting Sherlock), determined to defend herself, Mycroft be damned.

- Sherlock getting John’s attention in HLV (waiting in the dosshouse next to Isaac Whitney) - we see in TLD that Sherlock knows where to find John two weeks in advance. If this is an EMP situation TLD happens in his head, but I suggest that this happens in TLD because Sherlock had done it HLV. I wouldn’t find it far fetched that Sherlock, expecting John to look for some excitement, knew Isaac Whitney is a neighbour and plants himself right next to him in a dosshouse - he knew John would be there.

- Others have pointed out before that CAM is the personification of an Appointment in Samarra when he visits Sherlock he visits him at Baker Street instead of meeting up in his office. That would make CAM the grim reaper who came to collect Sherlock’s soul, but I argue that Mary is the grim reaper.

- It’s interesting that Sherlock uses Molly, Anderson and Mycroft to survive the shooting, but not John. These are people he’s supposed to be ambivelant about - why not figure out how to survive using John, whom he fully trusts?

- Sherlock actually saw John, Mary and Janine at the hospital - he may not have spoken much, but he did hear and see them. Mary wears the butterfly scarf when she threatens him at the hospital, and I believe this is why she wears the scarf in the tarmac scene (the butterflies become omnious when you notice her wearing  the black butterflies dress in T6T). It’s after Janine leaves the room that things get REALLY fucky - she may have played with his medicine, as LSiT suggested.

- I think certain situations after Mary’s shot, like the conversation with CAM in the restaurant, are happening when Sherlock is still in control of his MP; he’s running a controlled scenario at Appledore and on Christmas (the wall clock at his parents’ kitchen seems to be keeping perfect time considering), Mary’s pregnancy duration makes sense if she’s around 7-8is months pregnant on New Year’s (Sherlock would know when the baby is due). He doesn’t ‘lose his mind’  (like John wonders at his parents’ house), or if you will, a grasp on reality, until the plane takes off.

- Papa Holmes doesn’t seem to lose his glasses anymore, even when unconcious. Nice touch ;)

- AGRA is Sherlock’s invention, it’s an idea Sherlock creates and explores later in T6T when he can’t find answers in the Appledore and TAB scenarios. 

- Appledore is the Garden of Eden, the place that houses the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Appledore means ‘Apple tree’, Sherlock describes what’s inside it as ‘forbidden knowledge’ earlier in the episode, it’s white and heavenly and angelic, there are some bird of paradise looking plants there, and Sherlock is determined to go there in order to learn about good and evil and ‘make a deal with the devil’, CAM - the snake/satan. Sherlock falls from from grace after learning about the truth of Appledore and CAM’s vaults.

I was surprised by the religious imagery here - Sherlock isn’t religious, but going further in these posts I’ll point out signs of religious imagery filtering through to Sherlock.

There’s some weird ass technology at Appledore, like a disappearing TV screen CAM vanishes with a hand gesture (seriously, there’s nothing there. Give it a rewatch, gif is mine).

By the way, who’s POV is it in this video CAM is showing them? Mary’s? It’s not Sherlock’s - we can see Sherlock’s back.

Update: I’ve received comments about that screen, claiming it’s a holographic screen, but look at this gif - John watches it (the screen is there), turns around (the screen disappears), asks ‘you put me in a fire for leverage?’, CAM speaks and moves towards the screen that is no longer there and supposedly removes it again.

There are two interesting items on CAM’s table: one lonely, tempting Apple (well, it is the Garden of Eden) and Sherlock’s mirror thingy. Yes, the same one that will be heavily featured on T6T.

- CAM mentions Mary’s wet jobs for the CIA - this isn’t the last time Sherlock explicitly considers Mary has an American connection/is an American. Think about Mary with American accent after running away in T6T .

- I wonder if Sherlock telling John that the mission to Eastern Europe is six months long, as Mycroft estimates (and Mycroft is never wrong), is bleeding from ‘real life’ in which Mycroft and John discuss Sherlock’s survival chances/expectancy. If it is, perhaps that’s why the airplane takes off - Sherlock decides to go up to a higher level and explore his situation (he takes drugs, supposedly, but perhaps he actually moves from Mind Palace to Dream Manor).

- I wonder if Sherlock comes up with Rosie in his mind and symbolized it with Mary wearing a Rose brooch.

- What if ‘Miss Me’ doesn’t actually mean what we think it does, in the context of  “notice or feel the loss or absence of ”, but is actually supposed to be the opposite - did you miss me, did you fail to notice me, to connect the dots about me.

Think about who asks that question throughout S3 and S4 (arguably, all in Sherlock’s Mind Palace) - Moriarty, Mary (in her posthumous video messages) and even Mycroft in TAB (’so, did you?’).“Missing” is a contranym, after all, one word with two opposite meanings.

- “Who needs me now?” “England”, is Sherlock in his scenario exploration assuming Mycroft (=“England”) is behind bringing Sherlock back. This is being called back in TAB when Mycroft summons Mary, who tells Mrs. Hudson “England” needs her.

- The East Wind is Coming - 1) If the East Wind is indeed the end of the official ACD canon, in which Sherlock’s saying to Watson that the world is about to change, I sort of admire Moftiss for using this as the bookend, a tell, to tell us that this is where thing will stop making sense in ACD terms. From that point on, they break out of canon and arguably the story into their own ‘canon’ - the final problem of Sherlock becoming ‘human’ (I’m grossly oversimplifying it). We’re propelled immediately from the airport to Theatre of Absurd we’ll see in S4, because Sherlock is breaking the rules of the story (by shooting CAM, instead of Mary shooting CAM like in canon) - the East Wind is coming, and now we’re heading slowly into post-canon. 2) I love that I’m getting the sense that Sherlock’s brain makes John low-key threaten Mary by saying the East Wind is coming in an ominous tone. Translation: ‘Hey, wife, Sherlock is about to realize just how super gay he is for me and I for him so wrap up warm’.

Thoughts? I’m sure I’m not the first one to find some of these things, let me know if you deserve credits. Screengrabs are from here and CAM’s gifs at Appledore are mine.

some of these ideas i remember being discussed before, or variations on them, but it's always very interesting to have a fresh take on an episode. both for the "i noticed that too" bits, and the "ah, a different perspective" bits.

‘Miss me’ or ‘Miss me’?

What if ‘Miss Me’ doesn’t actually mean what we think it does, in the context of “notice or feel the loss or absence of ”, but is actually supposed to be the opposite - did you miss me, did you fail to notice me, to connect the dots about me.

Think about who asks that question throughout S3 and S4  - Moriarty, Mary (in her posthumous video messages) and even Mycroft in TAB (’so, did you?’).

“Missing” is a contranym, after all, one word with two opposite meanings.

Was this speculated about before?

tags under the cut, let me know if you’re not interested in being tagged:

Weiterlesen

@therealsaintscully   ‘Miss me’ … ‘miss you’ viewed as double meaning. Very clever! Both could be relevant, both makes sense, I think.

Just some spontaneous thoughts. And a lot of things come in pairs anyway in Sherlock BBC. :)

Wow - that seems to make quite some sense, @therealsaintscully and @ebaeschnbliah! (Of your list, @ebaeschnbliah, I particularly like the ones about burning :) ). Especially on a meta level: there are a lot of lines in this show that could be directed at the audience, as clues for us to try to be observant and connect the dots. We’re invited to play the ’Sherlockian game’.

@therealsaintscully; the presence of those three ’M’ characters (Mary, Moriarty and Mycroft) is far more prominent in this adaptation than in ACD canon, which I think is significant. They are also far more visible in the show than on John’s blog. Hence the ’miss me’ question? All in all, the showmakers have developed these three characters a great deal compared to their originals; a fact which the attentive observer shouldn’t ’miss’. We have also talked a lot about their possible metaphorical meaning, especially since some of the things they do are quite absurd plotwise on a text level (and lack confirmation on John’s blog). Maybe that’s the message? That we should look more closely at these characters and try to figure out what they might represent.

For the record, Sherlock also asks ”Did you miss me?” when he wakes up on the plane in TAB. I’d love to answer him that ”No Sherlock; we didn’t ’miss’ that we’re still inside your head, and have been from Day one”. :))

@lukessense @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @gosherlocked @tjlcisthenewsexy

hmm!!

Chapter 4 – It is always 1895 [TAB 1/1]

TAB is my favourite episode of Sherlock. It is a masterpiece that investigates queerness, the canon and the psyche all within an hour and a half. Huge amounts of work has been done on this episode, however, so I’m not going to do a line by line breakdown – that could fill a small book. A great starting point for understanding the myriad of references in TAB is Rebekah’s three part video series on the episode, of which the first instalment can be found here X. I broadly agree with this analysis; what I’m going to do here, though, is place that analysis within the framework of EMP theory. As a result, as much as it pains me, this chapter won’t give a breakdown of carnation wallpaper or glass houses or any of those quietly woven references – we’re simply going in to how it plays into EMP theory.

Before digging into the episode, I want to take a brief diversion to talk about one of my favourite films, Mulholland Drive (2001).

If you haven’t seen Mulholland Drive, I really recommend it – it’s often cited as the best film of the last 20 years, and watching it really helps to see where TAB came from and the genre it’s operating in. David Lynch is one of the only directors to do the dream-exploration-of-the-psyche well, and I maintain that a lot of the fuckiness in the fourth series draws on Lynch. However, what I actually want to point out about Mulholland Drive is the structure of it, because I think it will help us understand TAB a little better. [If you don’t want spoilers for Mulholland Drive, skip the next paragraph.]

The similarities between these two are pretty straightforward; the most common reading of Mulholland Drive is that an actress commits suicide by overdose after causing the death of her ex-girlfriend, who has left her for a man, and that the first two-thirds of the film are her dream of an alternate scenario in which her girlfriend is saved. The last third of the film zooms in and out of ‘real life’, but at the end we see a surreal version of the actual overdose which suggests that this ‘real life’, too, has just been in her psyche. Sherlock dying and recognising that this may kill John is an integral part of TAB, and the relationships have clear parallels, but what is most interesting here is the structural similarity; two-thirds of the way through TAB, give or take, we have the jolt into reality, zoom in and out of it for a while and then have a fucky scene to finish with that suggests that everything is, in fact, still in our dying protagonist’s brain. Mulholland Drive’s ending is a lot sadder than TAB’s – the fact that, unlike Sherlock, there is no sequel can lead us to assume that Diane dies – and it’s also a lot more confusing; it’s often cited as one of the most complicated films ever made even just in terms of surface level plot, before getting into anything else, and it certainly took me a huge amount of time on Google before I could approach anything like a resolution on it!

Mulholland Drive is the defining film in terms of the navigating-the-surreal-psyche subgenre, and so the structural parallels between the two are significant – and definitely point to the idea that Sherlock hasn’t woken up at the end of TAB, which is important. But we don’t need to take this parallel as evidence; there’s plenty of that in the episode itself. Let’s jump in.

Emelia as Eurus

When we first meet Eurus in TST, she calls herself E; this initialism is a link to Moriarty, but it’s also a convenient link to other ‘E’ names. Lots of people have already commented on the aural echo of ‘Eros’ in ‘Eurus’, which is undeniable; the idea that there is something sexual hidden inside her name chimes beautifully with her representation of a sexual repression. The other important character to begin with E, however, is Emelia Ricoletti. The name ‘Emelia’ doesn’t come from ACD canon, and it’s an unorthodox spelling (Amelia would be far more common), suggesting that starting with an ‘E’ is a considered choice.

When TAB aired, we were preoccupied with Emelia as a Sherlock mirror, and it’s easy to see why; the visual parallels (curly black hair, pale skin) plus the parallel faked death down to the replacement body, which Mofftiss explicitly acknowledge in the episode. However, I don’t think that this reading is complete; rather, she foreshadows the Eurus that we meet in s4. The theme of ghosts links TAB with s4 very cleanly; TAB is about Emelia, but there is also a suggestion of the ghosts of one’s past with Sir Eustace as well as Sherlock’s own claims (‘the shadows that define our every sunny day’). Compare this to s4 – ‘ghosts from the past’ appears on pretty much every promotional blurb, and the word is used several times in relation to Eurus. If Eurus is the ghost from Sherlock’s past, the repressive part of his psyche that keeps popping back, Emelia is a lovely metaphor for this; she is quite literally the ghost version of Sherlock who won’t die.

What does it mean, then, when Jim and Emelia become one and the same in the scene where Jim wears the bride’s dress? We initially read this as Jim being the foil to Sherlock, his dark side, but I think it’s more complicated than this. Sherlock’s brain is using Emelia as a means of understanding Jim, but when we watch the episode it seems that they’ve actually merged. Jim wearing the veil of the bride is a good example of this, but I also invite you to rewatch the moment when John is spooked by the bride the night that Eustace dies; the do not forget me song has an undeniable South Dublin accent.* This is quite possibly Yasmine Akram [Janine] rather than Andrew Scott, of course, but let’s not forget that these characters are resolutely similar, and hearing Jim’s accent in a genderless whisper is a pretty clear way of inflecting him into the image of the bride. In addition to this, Eustace then has ‘Miss Me?’ written on his corpse, cementing the link to Moriarty.

[*the South Dublin accent is my accent, so although we hear a half-whispered song for all of five seconds, I’m pretty certain about this]

Jim’s merging with Emelia calls to mind for me what I think might be the most important visual of all of series 4 – Eurus and Jim’s Christmas meeting, where they dance in circles with the glass between them and seem to merge into each other. I do talk about this in a later chapter, but TLDR – if Jim represents John being in danger and Eurus represents decades of repressed gay trauma, this merging is what draws the trauma to the surface just as Jim’s help is what suddenly makes Eurus a problem. It is John’s being in danger which makes Sherlock’s trauma suddenly spike and rise – he has to confront this for the first time – just like Emelia Ricoletti’s case from 1895 only needs solving for the first time now that Jim is back.

At some point I want to do a drag in Sherlock meta, because I think there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye, but Jim in a bride’s dress does draw one obvious drag parallel for me.

If you haven’t seen the music video for I Want to Break Free, it’s 3 minutes long and glorious – and also, I think, reaps dividends when seen in terms of Sherlock. You can watch it here: X

Not only is it a great video, but for British people of Mofftiss’s age, it’s culturally iconic and not something that would be forgotten when choosing that song for Jim. Queen were intending to lampoon Coronation Street, a British soap, and already on the wrong side of America for Freddie Mercury’s unapologetic queerness, found themselves under fire from the American censors. Brian May says that no matter how many times he tried to explain Coronation Street to the Americans, they just didn’t get it. This was huge controversy at the time, but the video and the controversy around it also managed to cement I Want to Break Free as Queen’s most iconic queer number – despite not even being one of Mercury’s songs. There is no way that Steven Moffat, and even more so Mark Gatiss would not have an awareness of this in choosing this song for Moriarty. Applying any visual to this song is going to invite comparisons to the video – and inflecting a sense of drag here is far from inappropriate. Moriarty has been subsumed into Eurus in Sherlock’s brain – the male and the female are fused into an androgynous and implicitly therefore all-encompassing being. I’m not necessarily comfortable with the gendered aspect of this – genderbending is something we really only see in our villains here – but given this is about queer trauma, deliberately queering its form in this way is making what we’re seeing much more explicit.

Nothing new under the sun

“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun” (Ecclesiastes)

“Read it up – you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.” (A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes)

“Hasn’t this all happened before? There’s nothing new under the sun.” (The Abominable Bride, Jim Moriarty)

This is arguably the key to spotting that TAB is a dream long before they tell us – when TAB’s case is early revealed to be a mixture between TRF (Emelia’s suicide) and TGG (the five pips), and we see the opening of ASiP repeated, we should be questioning what on earth is going on. This can also help us to recognise s4 as being EMP as well though – old motifs from the previous series keep repeating through the cases, like alarm bells ringing. Moriarty telling Sherlock that there is nothing new under the sun is his key to understanding that the Emelia case is meant to help him understand what happened to Jim, that it’s a mental allegory or mirror to help him parse it. This doesn’t go away when TAB ends! Moving into TST, one of the striking things is that cases are still repeating! The Six Thatchers appeared on John’s blog way back, before the fall – you can read it here: X. It’s about a gay love affair that ends in one participant killing the other. Take from that what you will, when John’s extramarital affection is making him suicidal and Sherlock comatose. Meanwhile, the title of The Final Problem refers to the story that was already covered in TRF and the phone situation with the girl on the plane references both ASiB and TGG, and the ending of TST is close to a rerun of HLV. It’s pretty much impossible to escape echoes of previous series in a way that is almost creepy, but we’ve already had this explained to us in TAB – none of this is real. It’s supposed to be explaining what is happening in the real world – and Mofftiss realised that this was going to be difficult to stomach, and so they included TAB as a kind of key to the rest of the EMP, which becomes much more complex.

However, if we want to go deeper we should look at where that quote comes from. I’ve given a few epigraphs to this section to show where the quote comes from – first the book of Ecclesiastes, then A Study in Scarlet. It’s one of the first things Holmes says and it is during his first deduction in Lauriston Gardens. This is where I’m going to dive pretty deep into the metatextual side of things, so bear with the weirdness.

[we’re going deeper]

Holmes’s first deduction from A Study in Scarlet shows that he’s no great innovator – he simply notices things and spots patterns from things he has seen before. This is highlighted by the fact that he even makes this claim by quoting someone before him. If our Sherlock also makes deductions based on patterns from the past, extensive dream sequences where he works through past cases as mirrors for present ones makes perfect sense and draws very cleverly on canon. However, I think his spotting of patterns goes deeper than that. Sherlock Holmes has been repressed since the publication of A Study in Scarlet, through countless adaptations in literature and film. Plenty of these adaptations as well as the original stories are referenced in the EMP, not least by going back to 1895, the year that symbolises the era in which most of these adaptations are set. (If you don’t already know it, check out the poem 221B by Vincent Starrett, one of the myriad of reasons why the year 1895 is so significant.) My feeling is that these adaptations, which have layered on top of each other in the public consciousness to cement the image of Sherlock Holmes the deductive machine [which he’s not, sorry Conan Doyle estate] come to symbolise the 100+ years of repression that Sherlock himself has to fight through to come out of the EMP as his queer self.

This is one of the reasons that the year 1895 is so important; it was the year of Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment for gross indecency, and this is clearly a preoccupation of Sherlock’s consciousness in TFP with its constant Wilde references, suggesting that his MP’s choice of 1895 wasn’t coincidental. Much was made during TAB setlock of a newspaper that said ‘Heimish The Ideal Husband’, Hamish being John’s middle name and An Ideal Husband being one of Wilde’s plays. But the Vincent Starrett poem, although nostalgic and ostensibly lovely, for tjlcers and it seems for Sherlock himself symbolises something much more troubling. Do search up the full poem, but for now let’s look at the final couplet.

Here, though the world explode, these two survive

And it is always 1895

‘Though the world explode’ is a reference to WW1, which is coming in the final Sherlock Holmes story, and which is symbolised by Eurus – in other chapters, I explain why Eurus and WW1 are united under the concept of ‘winds of change’ in this show. Sherlock and John survive the winds of change – except they don’t move with them. Instead, they stay stuck in 1895, the year of ultimate repression. 2014!Sherlock going back in his head to 1895 and repeating how he met John suggests exactly that, that nothing has changed but the superficial, and that emotionally, he is still stuck in 1895.

Others have pulled out similar references to Holmes adaptations he has to push through in TAB – look at the way he talks in sign language to Wilder, which can only be a reference to Billy Wilder, director of TPLoSH, the only queer Holmes film, and a film which was forced to speak through coding because of the Conan Doyle estate. That film is also referenced by Eurus giving Sherlock a Stradivarius, which is a gift given to him in TPLoSH in exchange for feigning heterosexuality. Eurus is coded as Sherlock’s repression, and citing a repressive moment in a queer film as her first action when she meets Sherlock is another engagement by Sherlock’s psyche with his own cinematic history. My favourite metatextual moment of this nature, however, is the final scene of TFP which sees John and Sherlock running out of a building called Rathbone Place.

Basil Rathbone is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes actors on film, and Benedict’s costume in TAB and in particular the big overcoat look are very reminiscent of Rathbone.

Others have discussed (X) how the Victorian costume and the continued use of the deerstalker in the present day are images of Sherlock’s public façade and exclusion of queerness from his identity. It’s true that pretty much every Holmes adaptation has used the deerstalker, but the strong Rathbone vibes that come from Ben’s TAB costume ties the 1895 vibe very strongly into Rathbone. To have the final scene – and hopefully exit from the EMP – tie in with Sherlock and John running out of Rathbone Place tells us that, just as Sherlock cast off the deerstalker at the end of TAB (!), he has also cast off the iconic filmic Holmes persona which has never been true to his actual identity.

Waterfall scene

The symbol of water runs through TAB as well as s4 – others have written fantastic meta on why water represents Sherlock’s subconscious (X), but I want to give a brief outline. It first appears with the word ‘deeper’ which keeps reappearing, which then reaches a climax in the waterfall scene. The idea that Sherlock could drown in the waters of his mind is something that Moriarty explicitly references, suggesting that Sherlock could be ‘buried in his own Mind Palace’. The ‘deep waters’ line keeps repeating through series 4, and I just want to give the notorious promo photo from s4 which confirms the significance of the motif.

This is purely symbolic – it never happens in the show. Water increases in significance throughout – think of Sherlock thinking he’s going mad in his mind as he is suspended over the Thames, or the utterly nonsensical placement of Sherrinford in the middle of the ocean – the deepest waters of Sherlock’s mind. Much like the repetition of cases hinting that EMP continues, the use of water is something that appears in the MP, and it sticks around from TAB onwards, a real sign that we’re going deeper and deeper. I talk about this more in the bit on TFP, but the good news is that Sherrinford is the most remote place they could find in the ocean – that’s the deepest we’re going. After that, we’re coming out (of the mind).

Shortly after TAB aired, I wrote a meta about the waterfall scene, some of which I now disagree with, but the core framework still stands – it did not, of course, bank on EMP theory. You can find it here (X), but I want to reiterate the basic framework, because it still makes a lot of sense. Jim represents the fear of John’s suicide, and Jim can only be defeated by Sherlock and John together, not one alone – and crucially, calling each other by first names, which would have been very intimate in the Victorian era. After Jim is “killed”, we have Sherlock’s fall. The concept of a fall (as in IOU a fall) has long been linked with falling in love in tjlc. Sherlock tells John that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the landing, something that Jim has been suggesting to him for a while. What is the landing, then? Well, Sherlock Holmes fell in love back in the Victorian era, symbolised by the ultra repressive 1895, and that’s where he jumps from – but he lands in the 21st century. Falling in love won’t kill him in the modern day. What I missed that time around, of course, was that despite breaking through the initial Victorian layers of repression, he still dives into more water, and when the plane lands, it still lands in his MP, just in a mental state where the punishment his psyche deals him for homosexuality is less severe. This also sets up s4 as specifically dealing with the problem of the fall – Sherlock jumps to the 21st century specifically to deal with the consequences of his romantic and sexual feelings. There’s a parallel here with Mofftiss time jumping; back when they made A Study in Twink in 2009, there was a reason they made the time jump. Having Sherlock’s psyche have that touch of self-awareness helps to illustrate why they made a similar jump, also dealing with the weight of previous adaptations.

Women

I preface this by saying how incredibly uncomfortable I find the positioning of women as the KKK in TAB. It’s a parallel which is unforgivable; frankly, invoking the KKK without interrogating the whiteness of the show or even mentioning race is unacceptable. Steven Moffat’s ability to write women has consistently been proven to be nil, but this is a new low. However, the presence of women in TAB is vital, so on we go.

TAB specifically deals with the question of those excluded from a Victorian narrative. This is specifically tied into to those who are excluded from the stories, such as Jane and Mrs. Hudson. Mrs. Hudson’s complaint is in the same scene as John telling her and Sherlock to blame the problems on the illustrator. This ties back to the deerstalker metaphor which is so prevalent in this episode; something that’s not in the stories at all, but a façade by which Holmes is universally recognised and which as previously referenced masks his queerness. Women, then, are not the only people being excluded from the narrative. When Mycroft tells us that the women have to win, he’s also talking about queer people. This is a war that we must lose.

I don’t think the importance of Molly in particular here has been mentioned before, but forgive me if I’m retreading old ground. However, Molly always has importance in Sherlock as a John mirror, and just because she is dressed as a man here doesn’t mean we should disregard this. If anything, her ridiculous moustache is as silly as John’s here! Molly, although really a member of the resistance, is able to pass in the world she moves in in 1895, but only by masking her own identity. This is exactly what happens to John in the Victorian era – as a bisexual man married to a woman, he is able to pass, but it is not his true identity. More than that, Molly is a member of the resistance, suggesting not just that John is queer but that he’s aware of it and actively looking for it to change.

I know I was joking about Molly and John’s moustaches, but putting such a silly moustache on Molly links to the silliness of John’s moustaches, which only appear when he’s engaged to a woman and in the Victorian era. He has also grown the moustache just so the illustrator will recognise him, and Molly has grown her moustache so that she will be recognised as a man. In this case, Molly is here to demonstrate the fact that John is passing, but only ever passing. Furthermore, Molly, who is normally the kindest person in the whole show, is bitter and angry throughout TAB – it’s not difficult to see then how hiding one’s identity can affect one’s mental health. I really do think that John is a lot more abrasive in TAB than he is in the rest of the show, but that’s not the whole story. Showing how repression can completely impair one’s personality also points to the suicidal impulses that are lurking just out of sight throughout TAB – this is what Sherlock is terrified of, and again his brain is warning him just what it is that is causing John this much pain and uncharacteristic distress.

This is just about the loosest sketch of TAB that could exist! But TAB meta has been so extensive that going over it seems futile, or else too grand a project within a short chapter. Certain theories are still formulating, and may appear at a later date! But what this chapter (I hope) has achieved has set up the patterns that we’re going to see play out in s4 – between the metatextuality, the waters of the mind and the role of Moriarty in the psyche, we can use TAB as a key with which to read s4. I like to think of it as a gift from Mofftiss, knowing just how cryptic s4 would be – and these are the basic clues with which to solve it.

That’s it for TAB, at least in this series – next up we’re going ever deeper, to find out exactly who is Eurus. See you then?

these are such wonderful meaty essays! I’m behind, but they’re worth taking time over.

“An Ideal Husband” is a play about a married couple who idolize each other, but each one has an indiscretion from the past that comes back to threaten the status quo. Resolution through being honest with each other and learning from past mistakes. gee, I wonder what that could possibly be applicable to?! :)

Anyone? 😈

I’m just thinking now of the double meaning of “Miss Me”. You say it when you miss someone because you haven’t seen them for a while, and this is the meaning it seems to have on the Show too. But it also means failing to see something. Sherlock Holmes homosexuality is something that most people, actively or not, lack, miss. Miss Me and Moriarty. While heterosexuality is something that is normally applied. But we are taken on a journey of discovery and acceptance, at the end of which it is heterosexuality that misses the mark. IMiss You and Mary. Or maybe it’s not a pun possible … if so … nevermind

@possiblyimbiassed @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @thepersianslipper @waitedforgarridebs

could be!

guess what all the comments say lmao

The one that blew my mind?

How did I never notice this before? Or maybe I did and forgot?

@88thparallel you just blew my mind!! 🤯🤯🤯

hmmm

HMMM!

Looking Closer at How The Abominable Bride Foreshadowed and Can Be Used to Chronologically Decode Series 4:

HMMM

OK don’t freak out or anything but Rose Mary’s baby has Magpies on the nursery wall flying away from a fucking apple tree?

Whom do we associate with magpies?

And whom do we associate with apples?

And what else do we associate with Moriarty?

And what do we say about coincidence?

this is so fucked, I just

iirc it was @fandeadgloves who found the source image for the birds here and in the orangery in TSOT, and they are swallows. I am willing to believe, however, that it's possible that a bird is a bird in this show, the way a dog is a dog regardless of breed, a phone=heart regardless of brand, etc.

“Inadmissible” (‘Sherlock’)

Moffat more or less told us, through the Culverton storyline in TLD, what’s going to happen, didn’t he?

The “inadmissible” part is particularly interesting!

(x)

Since Culverton in TLD made his ‘confession’ by Sherlock’s bedside, doesn’t that mean that John might make his (love) confession sitting by Sherlock’s bedside, too? Possibly while Sherlock is unconscious?

And afterwards everyone (the audience of this show) will treat this confession like it didn’t count (=was inadmissible). 

The audience, and ESPECIALLY those fans who weren’t too keen on a gay reading of the show to begin with, will claim that, “John didn’t mean it like that. It’s just bro-love. He just said, ‘I love you,’ because Sherlock was comatose and John felt desperate and overwhelmed by what was going on. There’s nothing gay about it. It doesn’t count as an actual love confession. This ‘love’ is just a bromance. This confession is ‘inadmissible’.” 

It’s possible that even Sherlock himself, who somehow will have heard that ‘confession’ despite being in a coma, that even Sherlock will keep telling himself that John’s confession ‘doesn’t count’ (=is inadmissible). Not for long, though…:)

But Moffat clearly told us that all of that noise and chatter by the usual suspects won’t matter. What will count is that, in the end, John won’t be able to stop himself from confessing over and over again.

That’s a nice explanation for Moffat’s choice of the word (‘inadmissible’) here, right?

This way we would, maybe, FIRST get a (subtle, half-hidden) love confession in one episode. And then get the real deal in a later episode. And in between those two, millions of viewers (including every stupid journalist ever) would explode and fall all over themselves trying to prove that that first confession was totally ‘inadmissible’, ie, didn’t point to John being in love. And then…baaam…the second one would happen.

Well, a guy can wish, can’t he?

@ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @possiblyimbiassed @raggedyblue @tjlcisthenewsexy @fellshish @88thparallel

Wonderful to hear from you again, @sagestreet  And I rally love your interpretation of ‘inadmissible’. The whole story feels extremely open, feels like something big is missing, alle the relevant mirrors point in the direction of a confession too. And after so many words ‘unspoken’ I would love to hear a lot of repetitions. The more, the better! :)))

@sherlockshadow

Thank you.:)

Aaand I’ve just remembered my own meta (x) from ages ago (*slaps self*) about Moriarty’s, “Did you miss me?” shtick.

And now I’m thinking that maybe John’s confession by Sherlock’s bedside won’t be an, “I love you.” 

Maybe it is that same, “Did you miss me?” line. (Possibly followed by a later admission of “Miss you,” etc.) 

I have argued before (in the aforementioned meta) that Moriarty’s, “Did you miss me?” is actually John’s voice speaking to a comatose Sherlock and tried to explain why it would make sense for Sherlock to imagine it’s Moriarty’s face saying this.

Maybe that, “Did you miss me?” line IS the bedside confession…I don’t know.

Oh, yes! @sagestreet  I highly agree and those ‘did you miss me’ / ‘miss you’ lines make all the sense in the world to me. They run throughout the whole story. Just like ‘I’m you’ and ‘you are me’. If Jim appears like the monstous hound from hell in THOB, there should be a simple dog hiding behind that hound … most likely RedBeard. RedBeard though is also closely connected to the well, to Eurus, to Victor and to John. RedBeard seems to be the centre point of the story. RedBeard connects all the main characters. John or James, James or John …. what if it shouldn’t be ‘or’ but ‘and’? If John represents friendship and love …  and Jim repressents sex ….. wouldn’t it be only logical that finally both characters have to melt into one as basis for a full-blown romantic and sexuell relationship? 

I don’t know either …. but I wonder …. :)

Oh yes neither saint nor sinner, because there is no sin.

And yes also for MISS ME, and “the bed side’s confession”, like a foreword for a properly love confession.

@sagestreet ​ @ebaeschnbliah

Interesting! Yes, I agree that ‘Did you miss me?’ does make sense as something John might say to a comatose Sherlock - at least if it’s said in a context that has to do with the two years when Sherlock was away pretending to be dead. As I tried to explain in my earlier answer to this post, I think John would only ‘confess’ things to Sherlock (perhaps even when the latter was comatose) that he would be able to kind of take back if needed; he would make his own confession ‘inadmissible’, in order to not risk having to come out without being absolutely sure about Sherlock’s true feelings for him. So even if it’s implying things, the question ‘Did you miss me?’ is still less compromising than openly admitting ‘I love you’. This is the little game John and Sherlock have been playing with each other for years, which is so devastating for their relationship, and I think Sherlock’s repression of emotions is at the root of it. Therefore, I believe, Sherlock is the one who will have to make a clear ‘i love you’ confession first. 

But it does seem as if Sherlock has picked up on the ‘miss me’ issue already in these scenes in HLV and TAB: 

Maybe he hears John say it with his subconscious, and turns the words around in his head into something else (like @sagestreet says in that meta)? 

@ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @gosherlocked @raggedyblue @tjlcisthenewsexy @fellshish @88thparallel @sagestreet 

wow, yeah. And @ebaeschnbliah that “melting into one” idea has been on my mind for years too. Back when tptb were saying “expect the unexpected” about s4, i thought, what hasn’t been done in fic or meta? What if john & sherlock have to team up with “mary” and jim, to defeat some uber-villain? (not mycroft, too expected, try frank hudson)(oh, and then frank hudson got teased in that hangman pic) so anyway, since we have been reading the show metaphorically, it seems to be more and more about personal integration. To the point where sometimes it feels like, not only do “mary” and jim need to be incorporated into sherlock and john, but john and sherlock are starting to feel like different aspects of one being. OR maybe i have just been down this rabbit hole for too long!

and while we’re on “miss me”, isn’t that on one of “mary"s dvds as well? So now we have all four of them connected by that phrase.

Yes, @sarahthecoat  There’s a ‘miss me’ DVD in every single episode of S4. The one in TST is addressed to Sherlock. It’s the same DVD John finds near the end of TLD. In TFP another DVD is addressed to John. 

And lets not forget Jim’s message from the S4 DVD

And of course, Jim’s insistent voice over the speakers in Sherrinford

Missing …. semms to be a main theme of the story  … 

@gosherlocked @possiblyimbiassed @raggedyblue @sagestreet @sherlockshadow

@ebaeschnbliah, @possiblyimbiassed. @sarahthecoat, @raggedyblue, @sagestreet. @sherlockshadow:

Thank you for your inspiring thoughts. And I would go even further and wonder if the “Miss me/you” phrase in all its variations could be a sort of gauge for the reality of the story told. I know there are lots of different starting points for an EMP/coma, but HLV is one of them. And HLV is also the episode when this phrase is spoken for the first time in the show, i.e. in Jim’s video message. 

Btw, when checking the transcript I discovered that “miss you” is used on one other occasion - by “E” when texting John in the night. Well then. ;) 

That’s some interesting food for thought, @sarahthecoat, @ebaeschnbliah and @gosherlocked! Makes me wonder exactly why there are at least five different characters talking about others ‘missing’ them? Something here doesn’t make sense - let’s poke it with a stick! :)  The first character who brings it up is John in HLV, but his words don’t make much sense to me:

JOHN: Hey, what happened to my chair? SHERLOCK: It was blocking my view to the kitchen. JOHN:  Well,  it’s good to be missed. SHERLOCK: Well, you were gone. I saw an opportunity. JOHN: No, you saw the kitchen.

(Sorry about lengthy additions, I’m putting this one under the cut)

Continua a leggere

@possiblyimbiassed Very interesting, that piece of the  ‘locked room mystery’ is so eloquent and I missed it. Even the repetition of murders disguised as suicides is too obvious not to be seen (once someone show it to you, so thank you). And returning to repeated scenarios, we never saw John, utter words of love, or tell Sherlock that he misses him, but we have seen John murmuring a brave speech in front of a grave. Empty. The coma is a bit like a living death, the exact opposite of an empty grave. A mirror.

@sagestreet @sherlockshadow @sarahthecoat @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked

eeee!!! YES, and agree with @possiblyimbiassed comment, sherlock appears to have heard the confession in TRF.

Question: Who posted the Did-You-Miss-Me video in HLV? I really, really want to know.

Good question @gosherlocked  Who is most interested that Sherlock doesn’t leave London … GB … that he lives? 

Very good question indeed!

I think they told us.

Sherlock holds the key to his prison in his own hands …. a rainbow above it …

@gosherlocked

oh wow, nice catch!

Miss me?

Or all the times Moriarty “comes back” in one lump post. Always the same two words- miss me?

Broadcast- miss me? + “dummy” mouth

Tied to the corpse in TAB (that he couldn’t protect)

Mary’s posthumous DVD (“thought that would get your attention”)

Faith/Eurus’ note (hidden- black light activated)

And then, strangely, teaser for s4 released by BBC (notice the inclusion of the smiley face here, but not in any of the notes?)

I have no idea what this means exactly, but there’s something, I’m sure of it. Thoughts?

@gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @88thparallel @ebaeschnbliah @inevitably-johnlocked @marcelock @fellshish

I’ve long been pondering the two possible meanings of “miss me”. 

It can, of course, mean “(did you) miss me (when I was gone)”, which is, I believe, the more accepted meaning. 

But it could also, possibly, mean “(did you) miss (noticing) me”, which I find far more interesting. 

Because then it becomes  someone we’ve possibly missed noticing. Such as; who is sending all these notes. And that’s interesting, because by eliminating Moriarty so early in the story, they’ve rather left themselves without a big bad. 

Here one might speculate on M-theory, Eurus as the orchestrator or many other things. But I’ll just point out a single thing. 

When Mycrofts men are cleaning out Baker Street, Faith’s note falls down behind a table. What a random coincidence. Left there for Sherlock to find later…

hmmmmm.