The problem with Mary, and now John - Post TLD Thoughts

cloakstone69:

xistentialangst:

This is a meta about my thoughts on the show post TLD. I had super high hopes going into the episode, mostly resting on “John’s alibi theory” (that the portrayal of Mary’s death in T6T was a lie invented as an alibi for John, who killed Mary) and also hoping we’d get something real on the johnlock front, at least a confession or an admittance that Sherlock is gay or John is bisexual. 

I came out of TLD feeling rather gutted. While it’s a brilliant episode in its own right, and Ben and Martin were phenomenal, I was still deeply disturbed. I think 8 hours later I can start to understand why.

Let me preface this by saying that in Buddhism pain comes from failed expectation. If you expect something to be a certain way, and it fails to live up to that, then you are hurt. But the problem is not that the thing is what it is, but rather that you had unreasonable expectations. So I readily admit that, yes, I had unreasonable expectations, apparently. But some this runs quite deep to the core of the show and the core of me, and the main issue comes down to abuse.

The problem with Mary

In HLV, Mary shoots Sherlock, point blank range, for no other reason than to prevent John finding out about her double life. Sherlock literally dies (doctors give up on him in hospital) and only superhuman effort brings him back.

To me this is an unforgiveable character moment. Full stop. Any bullshit about it being “surgery” or Mary calling the ambulance is irrelevant. She shot him. He died. 

Since that point, we’ve been forced to accept this murderer’s presence in the rest of HLV (John forgives her at Christmas, she’s at the tarmac), in TAB, and, worst yet, her bubbly, manipulative yet chirpy and loving persona in T6T. I HATED that.

I tried to keep the faith by relying on various alternative theories. After TAB, many thought it was EMP (a mind palace projection of Sherlock’s) or that John had a secret plan to take Mary down. Then in T6T it appeared John really was still married, and Sherlock constantly treated Mary like a valued friend. I kept waiting for the shoe to drop, for Mary’s “real” face to be revealed, for a plan to be revealed. Instead, we get Mary leaping unrealistically in front of a bullet and making a half-assed “sorry I shot you that one time” dying statement. So then after T6T we all said “but that was all so fake! no way was it real!’  

Now we have TLD. I’m afraid there’s no way for me to come out of TLD without drawing the following conclusions:

* John really had gone back to Mary, tried to forgive her and make it work, and had loved her enough to be extremely devastated at her death. Probably he’d still had issues with their marriage (hence the girl on the bus), but he was trying to make it work.

* John did not have a secret plan to take Mary out or watch her. By now we would have seen that. That would be, in fact, inconsistent with everything we saw in TLD. John shows intense real emotion and opens up about what was going on with him and Mary. His worst secret was that he’d texted the girl on the bus, not that he was secretly working against his wife. To me, this episode puts the idea of “John’s plan” to bed for good. He had no plan.

* Mary really died the way they portrayed in T6T. This blows my mind, because it was just so unrealistic and sloppy, even contradicting the realism of Sherlock’s shooting in HLV. But apparently, we are supposed to buy it. If Sherlock or John had been in cahoots on some other version of her death (such as John shooting Mary), it would have been clear in TLD. We had John sobbing because he’d cheated on Mary, talking constantly to her ghost. If he’d KILLED Mary, yeah, pretty sure that would have come up. So she really did die that way. I suppose it’s always possible Mycroft had a plan that Sherlock and John were ignorant of, but at this point I’m done reaching for excuses.

* Sherlock also had no other plan regarding Mary either, and really had taken her back to his breast as a dear friend. Talk about self-loathing! 

I have so many problems with this. I honestly want to… quit the show in disgust?  As a writer, I can’t understand the logic behind the forgiveness of Mary. As a viewer, I was really excited to see chortlingly evil villain!Mary. Now I’m just…. honestly bewildered.

And they still keep Mary in there, constantly on screen, this goodie goodie fucking fairy godmother presence.  Ugh.

No, I don’t believe at this point in EMP. They’ve gone down way too far along character arcs and the whole Eurus path to just take all that back. That doesn’t make sense to me at all. Everything we’ve seen is, unfortunately, real. Yep. This is the actual story.

The problem with John.

So coming back to John. I’ve been the biggest John Watson fan girl forever. I love BAMF!John. And I loved how focal he was to TLD, how bad ass, and how brilliant Martin was. And, also?, John looked hot af.

BUT. … ? Like… John really forgave Mary for shooting Sherlock? John’s a doctor. He was there when Sherlock was shot. He saw the wound. And he’s OK with that? Here’s a clue writers: if you really expect us to buy John forgiving Mary, how about not making Sherlock literally die? Or how about a scene where Mary is actually sorry and actually repentant before John takes her back? No? That will ruin the suspense of the “is she isn’t she?” connundrum? I see. Well, fuck you. Because you just made everyone on the show irrational and abusive (self or otherwise).

OK. I could see that the Watson marriage wasn’t the happiest. John had reservations. He thought about cheating. I guess that’s something. I guess John wasn’t totally whitewashing Mary. And yet, he stayed with her. He loved her enough to be devastated at her death, to keep conjuring her presence all through TLD as some sainted ghost.

But wait, there’s more! No only do we have John still with Mary, but he’s emotionally cheating with the first woman who flirts with him. I can accept this as a sign that John wasn’t entirely happy with Mary.  But it also emphasized his “no homo” ness. Also, I have a hard time squaring that cheating with any kind of John Watson who is secretly in love with his best friend. No, not seeing it at this point. If there had been any of that going on in John’s head, we should have seen it in TLD, when he’s at his most open and vulnerable. For example, if he’d said to Mary’s ghost “I never loved you the way I should. I couldn’t let go of….” but we never saw that. Nothing like that. I don’t think it’s there. The writers don’t see John that way. It’s time to accept it.

And then we have exhibit #3: John beating the shit out of Sherlock in TLD. I’m not one who insists on every show being PC, but… I do have a real problem with physical abuse. I understand the John Watson character (like Martin himself) has a lot of pent up rage. I understand he’s hurting because of Mary’s death and maybe there’s still (?) anger over the Fall. BUT. To repeatedly punch and kick Sherlock until he only stops because a SERIAL KILLER thinks it’s too much… When Sherlock is sick and off his head and putting up no resistance. No. Nope, nope, nope. I’m not okay with that. I could forgive John eventually, I suppose, but I’m extremely disappointed in his character. 

Johnlock

I’ve lost a lot of faith in johnlock becoming canon. The ending of TLD was so “no homo”. We have John truly in love with Mary and then cheating with another woman. We have him urging Sherlock (seemingly honestly) to take Irene up on her offer. We have the perfect chance for Sherlock to say “for God’s sake, I’m gay”. Instead he admits that he’s only human and he texts Irene back sometimes. (to me, this implies he sometimes gives in to urges of a het variety). And we have Mycroft and Lady Smallwood on top of that.

I’m not going to make any predictions because we’ll know for sure in 1 week, but right now, I’m feeling like they’re not going there.  At this point, we have John and Sherlock (and Rosie) back together again at a new depth of emotional honesty and friendship, and that’s great. But its not the ground breaking show I thought it was.

Everyone on tumblr is posting the hug over and over like that’s something amazing. And yeah, it was nice. Honestly it was! But? To me, it’s an extremely dull consolation prize given the other problems (see above) and all the “no homo” on top of it. <shrug> That’s the way I feel right now. 

I think I’m in mourning for the show I wanted this to be.

The Final Problem

Granted, there’s one more show this season and it may turn some of this stuff around. Will they have evil!Mary reappear, having been a Moriarty agent all along? Well, if they do, they will have made a mockery of TLD and John and Sherlock’s feelings for her. So I doubt it at this point.

So. Apparently they intend to delve into Sherlock’s family history and bring Moriarty back, <shrug> Okay. But… I don’t really care? I was watching teh show for the characters and the relationships, and a lot of that has been spoiled. I’m sure it will be thrilling to casuals. As for me, I’ll wait and see.  

Thank you. This is exactly how I feel at the moment. I am greatly disappointed by this episode, and although everyone else on my dash seems to be celebrating impending Johnlock, I feel like turning around from what we just saw and going “Ha! Gotcha! They were in love this whole time!” is just…cheap. It’s sloppy. And it’s not good writing.

You, on the other hand: you are one of the best writers in fandom, and our fandom has the best writers in the whole world. WE know how to tell stories, how to delve inside characters and make them evolve. Steven and Mark….they just like making audiences react. That’s not what we are about.

Ah, @cloakstone69, that’s such an amazing thing for you to say and is a bit of a balm to my heart today. Thank you for commiserating! Let’s just hold each other and rock quietly.