loudest-subtext-in-tv:grumpybisexual-tm:Watching TST again and noticed the interaction between...

loudest-subtext-in-tv:

grumpybisexual-tm:

Watching TST again and noticed the interaction between Sherlock and Lestrade when Sherlock is back at 221B waiting with the flash drive after fighting Ajay.

[Lestrade walks in]

Sherlock: Well?

[Lestrade shakes his head]

Lestrade: He can’t have got far. We’ll have him in a bit.

Sherlock: I very much doubt it.

Lestrade: Why?

Sherlock: Because I think he used to work with Mary.

So…who all is aware of Mary/Rosamund’s past? Does this mean that Lestrade is in on whatever the plan is?

Anyone else talking about this yet?

@quietlyprim @loudest-subtext-in-tv

Yeah, honestly, Lestrade apparently being aware of Mary’s past was weird to me.

Similarly, I can’t believe we still don’t know if Sherlock told Mycroft that Mary shot him. Either Sherlock told Mycroft and Mycroft just let it slide, which is weird (but explained by M-theory), or Sherlock didn’t tell Mycroft. If Sherlock didn’t tell Mycroft, then Mycroft either doesn’t know who shot him, which isn’t very feasible and his seeming indifference is very strange, or else he knows Mary did it and continues to do nothing (which is explained by M-theory). But why does Sherlock wait SO LONG to press Mycroft about A.G.R.A.?

If Sherlock apparently told Lestrade about Mary then probably he told Mycroft *something* at some
point. But like… why tell Lestrade? It doesn’t seem necessary. Telling Mycroft makes sense. But Lestrade? If Mary’s trying to stay hidden, telling Lestrade isn’t very useful and it’s potentially counterproductive. What’s Lestrade going to be able to do? Sherlock and Mary both are more able to protect Mary, Lestrade is bound by legalities the rest of them feel free to disregard, it’s weird ethical territory for Lestrade to protect Mary given what he knows about her, etc.

And why all the hidden stuff between Sherlock and Mycroft? Mycroft doesn’t admit he employed Mary until this episode, apparently months after the baby is born. If he’s allowed to admit that, then why doesn’t he say so when Sherlock (probably) told him that Mary shot him?

Furthermore: Why is Mary elated when John destroys the flash drive when it’s allegedly her protection? If the answer is that she truly believes the rest of A.G.R.A. is dead and she no longer needs protection, then why not destroy it herself earlier than carry around something so incriminating that contains all the things she never wants anyone to know about her?

Everything stops making sense after Sherlock gets shot.

I guess one reason I like EMP theory is it explains why nothing makes total sense, only hazy dream sense where you can’t question much; why John and Mycroft don’t seem too upset over the shooting and are weirdly forgiving of Mary; why conversations don’t happen when they’d make more sense to have happened and instead seem to arrive in response to Sherlock changing theories and trains of thought, etc.

I can’t find any other explanation so far. Drugs and dreams and M-theory alone don’t explain why Mycroft and Sherlock have such a baffling inertia to exchanging info about Mary until it’s expedient for Sherlock’s thought processes. And if it weren’t for stuff like the increasingly glowing skull showing up next to “The Cardiac Arrest” case, or Ella’s office having Sherlock’s chairs and looking totally different, I’d find the theories about Sherlock intentionally creating a false narrative more compelling.

Again: a lot of stuff just quits making sense after Mary shoots Sherlock, whereas things seemed to hold up better before that. When I was writing M-theory the whole question of why Mary wasn’t being punished for nearly killing Sherlock by either Mycroft *or* Moriarty was hard to figure out, as was the question of whether Mycroft knows Mary shot Sherlock. Then TAB just brought a whole new slew of questions: if Mycroft is employing Mary then why does he allow her to keep working for him after she almost kills his brother (Moriarty won’t let him do otherwise, maybe?), if Sherlock thinks Mary works for Mycroft then how the hell can he believe that Mary really loves John instead of believing she’s just been assigned to him by Mycroft, why does he never ask Mycroft WHY he assigned Mary to John, etc.

Instead, we get the ROSIEST picture of Mary’s past EVER. CAM made it sound like the shit Mary’s done would make you ill, yet all we hear from the show *once Sherlock thinks John is stuck with her* is that she was heroically fighting terrorists, then chose to give up her past life and be good, then was only being persued by people who want to kill her because it was a *misunderstanding.* What?

Sherlock’s knowledge of Mary and how she relates back to Mycroft and John just seems very confused and disjointed, even and especially if we’re supposed to take what we see at face value. If Sherlock thinks Mary’s life is in danger and is desperate for information, why not be very direct with Mycroft about everything? Why not MUCH earlier?

Or if the theories that Sherlock is forming some alibi for John killing Mary are correct, then why make Mary appear heroic and undeserving of death? He could have just as easily painted it like Mary provoked Norbury into shooting her because she deserved it. Or even not because she deserved it, simply because Norbury wanted her dead for knowing Norbury’s secrets. That’s the far simpler alibi. Why cover up the worst parts of Mary’s past? Why make a new mother sacrifice herself for Sherlock, which is totally implausible, instead of merely getting shot?

Why make John look worse by saying he was cheating, when that would invite some people to wonder if John had a motive to kill his own wife? Why does Sherlock make himself look so awful, and in such an unfair way that makes the story less believable? Why go to John’s therapist, instead of telling the story to MI6 or the cops? What’s John’s therapist going to be able to do about anything? Why does Ella’s set-up look fake and have Sherlock’s chairs if that’s supposed to be the one real part of the story? Wouldn’t MI6 be able to resolve everything themselves without Sherlock’s convoluted version of events? It’d be simple: a traitor killed a loose end, and they stick the traitor with a murder charge on top of everything else. John and Sherlock didn’t even need to be there in the story.

The idea that nothing makes sense because it’s all Sherlock sifting through different takes on Mary, grappling with his own pain at being betrayed by Mary, wanting to be fair to John and not letting his feelings for John get in the way of what John wants, desperately trying to believe John isn’t in danger but always coming back to that because nothing else makes sense and his subconscious knows the truth, letting his fears and insecurities alter his judgment about how people would actually react to him and different scenarios, etc, at least explains all the above. It explains how Sherlock ran the most sympathetic simulation of Mary ever and still couldn’t end up with a version of events where John truly loves her. It explains that Sherlock thought it all through and upon reflection (post-credits) couldn’t believe in the end that Mary truly liked him, either. He gave it his most sympathetic approach and still ended up with John doesn’t love Mary, and Mary can’t possibly be his friend. He can’t escape the truth in the end because his brain can only twist reality so far. Even if he can’t yet convince himself that John and Mycroft care for him as much as they do, he sees the rest of it.

If EMP theory *isn’t* what’s going on, there’s a lot more tangled explanations of how, like, Lestrade might have been told more than Mycroft, why Sherlock doesn’t find it weirder that Mycroft won’t fess up to employing Mary, why Mycroft offers only token resistance to confessing to employing Mary (why resist at all if it’s not a big deal in the end? but if it’s a dreamlike state it makes sense because the conversations turn based on Sherlock drawing new conclusions as he deliberates and tests how they’d play out), why people are so harsh on Sherlock even when it would play no role in anything, etc. What that explanation might be, I have no clue. Explaining the skull and Ella’s office seems especially difficult.

Great points here re the Johns alibi theory. You’re right that it doesn’t make sense for him to be telling this story to Ella. Also, I didn’t see how ANY of the events after Mary is shot tie into it. Like, if Mary was actually shot by John, why does Sherlock tell Hudders to remind him of Norbury, as if Norbury were a failing of Sherlock’s? Why the scene with Molly telling Sherlock John doesn’t want to see him? If John shot Mary he doesn’t have a reason to be that angry with Sherlock. Also, the DVD from Mary makes less sense in the Johns alibi theory. If Mary was killed by John why would she send a posthumous DVD to Sherlock asking him to save John? I still really like the johns alibi theory, but it has problems.

However, I also have issues with EMP. As a writer, I’m very conscious of POV in a story. If everything from Mary shooting Sherlock on is a dream Sherlock is having, then that means everything is 100% Sherlock’s POV. Like TAB!John is Sherlocks projection of John. It works in TAB but less so in T6T. While I can accept that Sherlock would imagine scenes he’s not in as part of his brain running scenarios, there are scenes in T6T that feel very OOC for Sherlock to even imagine.

Specifically: the scene where John and Mary are discussing the baby and 666. Is is a convo that is about how exhausting it is to be a new parent, so exhausting and messy they joke about the baby being satanic. This is the kind of humor only actual new parents would relate to. I can’t see this being Sherlocks projection. I can see Sherlock projecting that John would be bored and tempted to have an affair. But the bit with the flower in Jonn’s hair being why he thinks a pretty woman is looking at him and being embarrassed about that… Thats is such a real new parent kind of moment, it’s hard to imagine Sherlock would come up with that. Or the convo between John and Lestrade about the baby where Sherlock seems clueless. Or the rivalry between Hopkins and lestrade. Those just don’t feel like Sherlock POV to me. In fact those scenes are pointless in a scenario Sherlock is running in his head.

But as you point out, there are holes in all the theories at this point. Probably because we just don’t have all the facts yet. I agree with you that the entire Mycroft/Mary thing is hugely suspicious and I’ve been writing about that since HLV. Surely Mycroft would hunt down his brother’s shooter like an angry bear. Even Mummy Holmes threatened to turn monstrous. Yet Mycroft does nothing. The only thing I can figure, if it’s not EMP, is that Mary or Moriarty has something over Mycroft and he can’t act. Maybe we’ll be “retconned” past scenes where Mycroft threatens Mary or something. But right now it makes no sense.

I’m not personally 100% convinced by any theory yet, but pretty much any of them would be more welcome than Mary being redeemed.its fun to think about though!