D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
I can't wait for Sunday's epis...oh, right.
I swear, his eyes are not conjugated (looking at the same place) in this scene.
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Sherlock Series 3 |OT| - THE Source for Fictions Cheekbone Fetish
- Thread starter PhoncipleBone
- Start date
I swear, his eyes are not conjugated (looking at the same place) in this scene.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Just watched the episode.
Wow.
That ending.
When does season 4 start?
Wow.
More please.
Wow.
That ending.
When does season 4 start?
Wow.
More please.
The cut after the bomb served to provide the most plausible explanation for Sherlock's suicide scheme that fans have wanted for the last 2 years. That is not wasted space. And the bombs realness is irrelevent to the drama. Whether the bomb threat ended up being real doesn't matter because what John said was. As for the sequences being placed between the bomb 'exploding' and the reveal, that was done to make the viewer doubt whether the bomb had actually exploded. Most weren't fooled for very long, of course, but its purpose was to make the viewer doubt even just for that minute 'wait, wtf happened, it didn't really explode, did it?' I doubt it fooled the majority of people for more than a second at most, but there is always a few who it did. But yeah, the bombs threats realness. Imagine if the bomb was real, what would have happened? Well, they were obviously not going to kill off Sherlock and John, so they would have had their moment, then it would have been solved some other way, except more obtusely since an explanation would be necessary for why the bomb didn't work.
You complain about character drama, but what you are describing is plot drama, where the external factors that are happening are the source of tension. No, an episode that deals with the journey that John takes upon discovering that sherlock is back and forgiving him for his deception is necessary. It wouldn't have been natural for him to just come back and John be okay with it without them, the characters, going through the drama of the reprecussions of bringing back someone they loved back from the dead.
I'll give you the Sherlock making out with Moriarty as them just messing with the fanbase, but that was like a minute long. You're vastly overstating the filler quantity.
Take this with a big grain of salt, but there was an article that put Season 4 at Christmas of this year.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Anything would be better than a 2-year wait again.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not saying that explaining how Sherlock faked his death was filler, I'm saying that all the fake outs and teases were, and the sum of them last several minutes. I am saying that the placement of the final reveal is poor and the fake outs weigh down the episode and lessen the reveal's impact. It's placement is also nonsensical and interupts the climax of the drama between Sherlock and Watson.
I would disagree that fake outs don't serve a purpose to the viewer. Shaking up expectations by showing something false is a good way to catch interest. And while I agree the Moriarty make out one was filler, the first one served as an insight into how Anderson has reflected on his guilt of being responsible for Sherlock's death.
As for the placement, I think setting it where it was to delay the reveal as long as possible heightened the tension of what was happening. If the sequence was as usual, we would never have that moment where we question whether or not the bomb actually exploded or not. It was the intention anyhow. No narrative device works the same way on every person. Agree to disagree I guess.
Forgot to respond to this.
The answer to your dilemma is....basically, the 3rd episode. Yes, she is incredibly amoral in a lot of ways. The woman used to be an assassin. What do you expect? And John loves that about her. Again, the point is he is addicted to the lifestyle. He's been like that since the first episode. It's a risk he's willing to take. And it's not like he wasn't appropriately furious with her, so it wasn't handled unnaturally. He knows what she is...and he accepts her. Afterall, this is hardly any different from sherlock putting himself in danger over and over again, even when there are safer paths to choose. Think back to the empty hearse, where he has no problems with the fact that Sherlock wants to go in without bothering to call the police. Now, we find out later he did, but that's not the point. The point is that John had no problems with it. Similarly, Sherlock could have dropped the Magnussen case without repercussions once he found out how dangerous it was and brought John along for what he says himself is the most dangerous mission they ever underwent. He is being reckless with his life, so...If you're saying that Mary has no business with John because she is willing to risk John going through the pain of losing his best friend again, then you have to say the same for Sherlock.
As for the sequence, it's purpose wasn't merely to show how sherlock survives, but also an insight into his mind as to how he views the people in his life. How he feels so small in front of Mycroft, how he fears Moriarty, how he used to have a dog. This is character building.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
I find it hilarious that Anderson became a disheveled mess with a destroyed career after Sherlock's fall and Donovan seemed to not give a shit.
Auron_Kale
Member
Because Donovan's awesome like that.
Read a nice article written by Mr. Rupert Graves about Sherlock but alas, it's on the Daily Fail so you'll have to go look for it yourself if you want to read it.
PhoncipleBone
Banned
Was anyone else annoyed that we didn't get more information on the waters gang and how they did those bank break ins?
Let's pray they are saving that for a separate Lestrade adventure. 90 minutes of Greg going around and being awesome.
especially if he and that one girl (forgot her name) always walk around with the in-sync catwalk stride
There's a third option -- that there's a decent chance somebody who wasn't Sherlock and couldn't do that mind palace stuff might have died, but that somebody who could do it would live, and that Mary knew that Sherlock could do it.
Auron_Kale
Member
Was anyone else annoyed that we didn't get more information on the waters gang and how they did those bank break ins?
especially if he and that one girl (forgot her name) always walk around with the in-sync catwalk stride
See... This is why the Lestrade spinoff is needed. Because fuck it if he and Donovan don't make being a cop look fuck awesome.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
I want this. Lestrade + Donovan and Anderson would be cool.
I realize that Watson has been addicted to danger since the first episode. Him realizing it for the second or third time isn't character development, it's a rerun of what has already been established. Ditto for Sherlock feeling inferior to Mycroft and threatened by Moriarty. The dog was a fun relevation, but that is character background, not development. Also, there is a difference between Sherlock indirectly putting himself (and John) in danger and Mary doing it purposely to save her own skin.
Then why not yell "fall this way Sherlock," why even take the chance? Since she can see so deep into his mind could she not figure out he would reveal her to John anyway? Why even shoot him at all then? If you want to convince someone to hear you out, shooting them isn't even close to the second best response. The whole thing screams plot contrivance that exists only to shock the audience; this is the kind of crap Lost was constantly guilty of.
No, up until now, he hadn't realized how much his addiction was driving him. This isn't the first time it's bit him in the ass, but it's the first time it's done so hard enough to make him actually reconsider whether the whole thing is worth it. That is a new situation. Same with Mycroft, it was known that he liked to have cock fights with his brother, but not that he considered himself THAT stupid in comparison and it's to the point that he fears his brother even though Mycroft loves him. I certainly had no idea that he felt so insecure that his mental image of mycroft goes as far as haunting him. The dog is actually probably foreshadowing of some kind, since we just found out that he had a dog, not how its a pressure point on him.
As for Mary and Sherlock, you should remember Sherlock puts himself in danger for fun. When you compare self preservation to doing it because there's nothing good on TV at the moment, I'd say that Mary clearly comes out on top in terms of motivation. Besides, she's right. There was virtually nothing else she could have done that would have ended with them safe. If she shot Magnussen, an investigation would find all 3 of them involved in the murder (I'd imagine mycroft could pull some strings, but given what he does in the end, I imagine he wouldn't, and she clearly doesn't think otherwise). If she just leaves without shooting sherlock, he tells John, she's exposed and loses his love (which she prioritizes above all else). But really, motive doesn't matter. If John didn't want the risk of losing sherlock again, then he would tell sherlock that he had to stop taking dangerous cases. No, danger is an inherent part of both Mary and Sherlock's life and that's what he loves them for. If Mary wasn't the kind of person that would be willing to shoot Sherlock, John wouldn't have fallen for her in the first place.
Really? We're going here? Mary isn't that kind of genius, obviously. She's just an assassin. She knows where to shoot a person so they have the best chance of surviving, but I doubt she can give a medical instruction on how to best treat a bullet wound other than basics. Even if she did, she can't exactly stick around and explain it because John is right down there. That's also the reason why she can't bother with a conversation explaining her motives to sherlock and hoping he'll go along with them. So she shoots him and hopes he wakes up, at which point she does, then they can talk when privacy is an option. There is no guarantee it'd work, of course, but she saw it as the best way out. Besides, have you given instructions to people you've shot? They tend to be quite uncooperative. Even Sherlock had to fight to maintain his focus once shot, and that was before the shock even set it. Yelling anything at them would have just resulted in a dumbfounded stare.
And if Sherlock happened to die anyway.....oh well. Remember, the objective here is keeping John's love, above all else. If she has to kill his best friend to do it, so be it. Because this is what happens when you love an assassin, and this is what happens when you're best friend is a sociopath. The third episode is all this coming back on John and he has to decide whether he wants to put up with it or not. He decides that he does. At that point, there is no saying "She doesn't deserve him." The character is fully aware of what flaws his wife has and...well, you saw the episode. He deserves her because he choose her. That's the love story of Mr. and Mrs. Psychopath, as Magnussen put it.
Choosing to risk your own life is different than someone else choosing for you by shooting you.
Keep in mind that I was responding to someone who claimed that Mary could have known that Sherlock would go into his mind palace and figure out how to save himself. That is the context of that reply, which you are ignoring. Anyway, saying "Please don't tell John, and I'll tell you everything when there's time," is a hell of a lot more sensible and expedient than shooting him. John has always been attracted to danger yes, but to think he would love someone who could kill his best friend out of convenience is a bridge too far IMO.
Irrelevent. Sherlock isn't the one whose feelings we are considering here. It's John. Whether it is by his own volition or by the attack of someone else, Sherlock's life is being put at risk, and if the chips fall the wrong way, John will once again by traumatized by the loss of his friend. And Sherlock does it anyway. If Mary is unworthy of John for putting Sherlock's life in danger, then so is Sherlock. That its his own life does not unshackle him to the responsibilities he has to those who love him.
Oh. In that case, I agree. Up until the last episode, she didn't even know what a mind palace was. She just shot him in the place he was most likely to survive in. She had no certainty it'd work out, that much is true.
All the same, she can be sure the gun will put him down. She can't be that Sherlock will agree to her plea. Clearly, the gun is the safer option
Suppose I agree with you. John is the one who doesn't. And whose choice is it, yours, mine or his? Who are you to determine what he deserves? If he says he accepts her for what she does, what right do you have to say she doesn't? If your objection is character consistancy, what characterization do you feel has been broken? Honestly, the sheer amount of shit that he went through with sherlock and continues to do so, why would this be any different? He clearly considered it all for a very long time and made his informed decision. What more could you ask from the guy?
I think you have to accept that John is and has always been a guy whose really fucked in the head to be friends with the likes of sherlock. Which is why Mary is the perfect woman for him.
And she can't be sure he will after either, obviously, so what did the gunshot change other than the added risk of killing the friend who's loss John just spent two years recovering from? If the only risk is her uncertainty of Sherlock's reaction, she might as well just go for a kill shot. Because shooting him changes nothing other than unnecessarily risking his life.
It is, however, my choice to decide whether I find his (and her) actions believable.
Because she likes sherlock. She doesn't want him dead, she doesn't want her husband to grieve again, she just wants her secret safe, and disabling sherlock, permanently or otherwise, is the best way to do that in those circumstances. It wasn't the ideal scenerio. Sherlock wasn't suppose to be there. But he was, so she needed him to shut up until they could talk. Failing that, he needed to him to shut up period. Therefore, gunshot where he had the best chance of surviving and hope for the best.
Right. So, explain where the character was broken, given that he is perfectly willing to break the law and risk life and limb with Sherlock episodes 1, 2 and 3 of seasons 1, 2 and 3. This is their life. It's what they do. So explain how Mary risking Sherlock's death for understandable reasons is any different from any other day. John took a long time to realize that, because he thought she was suppose to be different, but she wasn't. And he wouldn't have it any other way, in the end. That's always been his character, or else he'd have told Sherlock that he can't go on the adventures anymore in the first episode of season 3.
Discotheque
Banned
i still think martin freeman gets a raw deal in all the discussion of this series in the media.
he is the more impressive actor of the two in this show imo. i hope he knocks it out of the park in that fargo tv series.
ali g movie was on tv and look what i fucking come across in the first few minutes
http://youtu.be/v_iOedgcyK0?t=3s
he is the more impressive actor of the two in this show imo. i hope he knocks it out of the park in that fargo tv series.
ali g movie was on tv and look what i fucking come across in the first few minutes
http://youtu.be/v_iOedgcyK0?t=3s
Sorry, we're going to have to just agree to disagree that shooting someone in the gut is the best course of action for delaying an important conversation where you hope to win them over at a later date.
The difference is that Sherlock and John are choosing to risk their own lives. Mary is choosing to risk someone else's life to save her own. Parse it however you like, but there is a fundamental difference there.
For you or me? Sure there's a difference. For Sherlock? No, he doesn't see shit in the same way we do. If it was John she'd have tried to talk him over, but Sherlock would understand why she shot him. He's Sherlock, he's able to see beyond the emotions. That's his thing.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how that could realistically be considered the most logical course of action from any point of view (except maybe that of a scriptwriter trying to shock the audience).
Imagine if Sherlock disagreed, when he woke up. At that point, she'd probably have killed him. Sherlock's cooperation is best case scenario only. If it were turned out that Sherlock wasn't going to play ball, then she'd kill him. This is not an unreasonable choice to make given the circumstance. The goal is John's ignorance of her past. Sherlock's cooperation is optional. Highly desirable, but optional.
You've given suggestions for what else she could have done, but I explained why they wouldn't work (or atleast why Mary regarded them, not unreasonably, as not going to work). If you have a course of action that she could be sure that Sherlock won't talk while still having a chance keeping him alive, please, I'm all ears.
Again, you are not getting the point I'm making. We're not talking about whether sherlock has the right to risk his life for whatever reason he wants, or even whether John doing the same. John doesn't care about risking his life, obviously. There is a difference between you risking yourself and someone else risking you. However, right or no, there are consequences to doing that, and in this case, it's John's emotional stability.
The thing John wants to avoid: Sherlock's death
Mary risks Sherlock's death for self preservation. Sherlock risks Sherlock's death for fun.
The motive doesn't matter. The person choosing to risk sherlock's death doesn't matter. The end result is the same: Both are risking John grieving his best friend again. If John were the kind of person who thinks danger isn't worth the risk, then Sherlock is just as guilty of disregarding that desire as Mary. John, however, doesn't. If that vindicates Sherlock, then it vindicates Mary too. Both of them risk hurting John by having sherlock die. If Sherlock can do that, then Mary can too.
Again, for me, it strains credibility that John could continue to love someone who would kill his best friend to save herself. I find it fundamentally unbelievable.
You are examining this too closely and losing perspective. Imagine you have a friend that regularly risks his life by doing dangerous sports (skydiving, mountain climbing, etc). Now imagine you have another friend that risks your first friend's life in order to save his own skin by shooting him. How likely are you to continue having the second person as a friend? How can you not see that there is a fundamental difference there?
Not save herself, but save the love that John held for her. I guess you could say that's self serving, but hey, sociopath, it's what John is obsessed about.
The analogy breaks down since the thing sherlock does is not sports, where things are regulated and risks are minimalized. He goes after literally the worlds most dangerous criminals. To equate that, what Mary does is not shoot him, but force him to climb a particularly dangerous mountain. All Mary did was force them to come close to the thing they chase after anyway.
And you keep pushing john out of the equation. That's the important part. Allow me to alter the analogy to fit the situation more: Sherlock just woke up from a coma from a mountain that damn near killed him getting up on. John is shaken and grieved and blah blah blah. Sherlock wakes up and....goes right back to climbing Mountains. Imagine if you're friend did THAT, completely disregarding the heartbreak that you just went through as a result of his adreneline addiction. I don't know about you, but I'd be furious, because there is no way I'd want to go through that again. Because they're disregarding the pain I might have to go through again. For fun.
But John isn't furious. Because this is the foundation that their friendship is based on. So, continuing the analogy, what mary does is not shoot him, but force him to climb up another dangerous mountain that almost puts him in another coma. Something that he would have risked on his own at another time anyway. Remember, sherlock just walked in on what he thought was mrs. smallwood, who could have shot him just as easily as magnussen in the murder scene, had sherlock been right. She risks John's pain, just like sherlock does on a daily basis. This time, for self preservation (well, preservation of his love for her. Same difference. I consider it a more justifiable motivation than shits and giggles at any rate).
It's just another mountain. Another risk. The only difference is the instigator, but the same thing is happening as always. And the thing that's happening is something john loves. Even John doesn't care about the shooting. He cares about the fact that she lied about having no mountain experience.
Again you are ignoring that she is still forcing him to climb the mountain. He is not choosing it of his own volition. That is a fundamental difference. Choosing to risk your own life is different than someone else choosing for you, and even as a friend of someone I would see that. Particularly when her end game, according to you, was to murder him should he chose not to go along.
Her end game was not to muder, but to preserve the love. The murder was just a worse case scenerio thing.
We've gone back and forth on this all the time and I can't say it anymore plainly: Sherlock's life is not the issue here. The fallout is. Whether he dies by his own volition or not is irrelevant. The relevant thing is that by being dead, John would suffer heavy emotional loss.
If her willingness to risk John's happiness by risking Sherlock's life is what makes her bad, then it doesn't matter if Sherlock is willingly choosing to risk his own life or not because he's doing the same damn thing, and the result would be the same: John grieving over his dead friend.
The only way you can argue otherwise is if you're saying it's impossible to exercise a right while harming others. Which you obviously can. Even if it's your right to call your mother a whore to her face as a matter of free speech, that doesn't mean it isn't wrong or hurtful to do so. The same applies here. They both know sherlock's death would run John into the ground. They both risk it anyway. They do the same thing. The argument you were making was 'If she is willing to risk John grieving over his friend, she is bad." Well, sherlock is willing to risk it. If she is unworthy, then you have to say the same thing about him, whether he has the right to do so or not.
You are arguing from the perspective of the effect Sherlock dying would have on John. In the end, regardless of whose hand Sherlock dies by, John suffers a huge lose. I get that, and I'm not denying that. But what I'm trying to explain is that fundamentally, there is a difference between befriending someone who is willing to risk their own life and loving someone who is willing to risk the life of someone else and even kill them for her own sake. The fact that the death of this someone would also emotionally devastate John is not the core of the argument, it's that there is a difference between someone who would risk murdering an innocent to save herself from heartache and someone who is cavalier with his own life. You might as well be trying to argue that there is no difference between murder and suicide.
There...isn't. Suicide is just the murder of the self. In fact, it's technically possible for someone to sue you for your own murder. No one does it for reasons I hope are obvious (it'd be funny if someone did though, especially if they get the death penalty for it), but yeah, legally, morally, it's the same. Murder as a general rule isn't just wrong because you are depriving the person you murdered from life, but because of the emotional suffering that you inflict on the surviving members. Suicide does the same thing.
But to your argument, is what Mary did morally wrong? Yeah, I'd say so. Practical, and in a situation that didn't really have any moral ways except to not be in it in the first place, but sure, immoral. Again, assassins are not very nice people in general. But John is in love with sociopaths. He understands that amorality kind of comes with the territory. If he didn't, this situation would have never have happened because he'd have kicked sherlock out a while ago. There is no breaking characterization here, which is what you were arguing. This is a totally in character thing for John to do. Because he doesn't mind the risk of death and understands that it doesn't matter who the instigator is. You say you wouldn't maintain friendship with such a person. Neither would I. Neither would I maintain a friendship with Sherlock, for that matter. But we're not in the story. John's is and his character has clearly been defined as such that would let this go.
Also, you say that Sherlock merely risks his own life, but that is not true. John especially, Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade...the entire finale of the second season is about the fact that the people who are close to sherlock are in danger because of his rivalry with Moriarty. Sherlock knows he constantly makes enemies and by default is willing to risk his friends by being a celebrity. If he'd tone it down, this wouldn't be an issue, but he's sherlock the drama queen, so...
Sherlock does not intentionally put their lives in danger, and his friends know that danger comes with befriending him. Again, this is a choice they are making, not one that he is making for them. The same thing with murder and suicide. Yes, neither is on solid ground morally, but there is a fundamental difference between choosing to end your own life and someone else choosing for you. Again, I understand what you are trying to argue, but I fundamentally disagree and I don't really see a need for us to continue to repeat the same arguments to each other in different ways.
Again, you're arguing broad morality that is not relevant to the choice John is making. Consider him an asshole for not adhering to your moral sensibilities if you must, but that does not make it bad writing. What I am arguing here are not my own views, but how John sees things(or how I believe he does anyway). And the choice you see as fundamental is an aesthetic difference at best from that view.
Though I disagree with the notion that Sherlock does not use people. I could think of other examples, but the one that stands out is the baskerville episode where John is poisoned. Sherlock secures the situation as best he can (as does mary), but John still could have killed himself out of drugged fear or something. Yet he risked it for personal gain.
Let me put it this way, if I had a friend who I knew was suicidal, I would try to get them help, but if I had a friend who I found out attempted to murder another friend, I would have them arrested. Even from an outsider's perspective there is a fundamental difference. And let me be clear, I find Mary shooting Sherlock to delay a conversation to be bad writing. I never said that John forgiving Mary for it was bad writing, just that I personally didn't find it believable for the character as I understand him if we are to assume, hypothetically, that Mary didn't believe with certainty that she wouldn't kill Sherlock. Yes, John is addicted to danger, but would he have just as easily been a sidekick to Moriarty or some other villain if they would have him simply for the thrill? Maybe Moffat is trying to say that morality plays no part, and John just wants the rush, but then why would John even hesitate in taking Mary back? Clearly morality has some weight on John's scale even if it is not the only one. I never said that Sherlock doesn't use people, he obviously does and regularly. But I don't agree that he would kill a friend simply to protect himself, even in the Baskerville episode. I think you have a far darker reading of the character than me. Even if he was extraordinarily cruel to Watson I never believed that Sherlock would have allowed him to die for his experiment.
Help? What is help? Suicide watch? That thing where they put you in a locked room and are monitored so that you cannot kill the person you are trying to kill? Being arrested does the same thing, it's just handled differently. Justice is suppose to be a process that seeks to eliminate criminal behavior, not mere punishment for it's own sake. If you are being punished, its designed (or suppose to be) to dissuade you from doing a crime in the future. Both are processes that are used to stop the future murdering of a person. Suicides just have to be handled differently since they're usually driven by depression than hate or greed.
And John gave more notice to the fact that Mary shot Sherlock than Sherlock, but only just. His point of contention is that she lied to him, not that she shot his best friend. The morality you are objecting you is not the morality John has. "Look, I get you had to shoot sherlock, but how could you LIE to me!" was his argument, not "You lied to me and SHOT MY BEST FRIEND!"
As for the shot itself, well, we discussed htat back and forth and I still have yet to hear a better answer of what she could have done. Yes, she could have tried to talk sherlock down, but that takes control of the situation entirely out of her hands and she can only hope that Sherlock sees things her way, immediately, since John was going to come up any second. If he doesn't agree, she's screwed. Why would she put herself under Sherlock's power like that, hoping it comes out okay? Assassin's don't do their jobs by hoping other people cooperate with their plans and it's ridiculous to think she would do something like that. On the other hand, she and John both love sherlock and don't want him gone. And whatever she does, she has to do it now. As far as I can see, this is the best compromise she could come up with.
But we've been at this for hours and I'm getting tired. Sherlock does love, as real life sociopaths can love, but that does not take away from the fact that he is impulsive, reckless, uses people to his own ends, and just being in his proximity is enough to paint a target on your back. Danger is a part of his life and that's what John loves about him. And that's what he loves about Mary. But there is a price to loving dangerous people and things like what Mary does is it. But hey, love is about acceptance, so John accepts her, and him, as they are. That's my final argument on the matter. Agree to disagree, because I don't think we can make each others points more clear, yet we are clearly unpersuaded.
As for John being Moriarty's side kick....yeah, he would go along with it for a while, but there are a few problems. For one, Moriarty almost never actually has a challenge, while sherlock gets challenged fairly often. It's much easier to make crime than be a crime solver, I suppose. I doubt it'd fill the danger quota like sherlock does. Second, John does appreciate sherlock's growing morality, but it was his danger that first attached him to sherlock...so I think it'd be more like John would go along with moriarty, but the moral disgust would quickly outweigh the danger thrill.
Exactly, there is a difference in motivation between suicide and murder and a difference in cause. My disagreement with your interpretation of things is how eager you are to disregard the differences. If they were the same then the optimal treatment for both would be the same, but they are not. Ignoring those differences benefits no one. Because of those differences in cause and motivation it is easier to understand why most would be willing to forgive a friend for attempting the former but not the latter.
Well, you are arguing from the viewpoint that the intended reading is that Mary shot Sherlock knowing she could very well kill him. My belief is that the writer's intended reading is that she shot him knowing she wouldn't. Sherlock's comments of it being surgery support this and, IMO, so does John's ultimate forgiveness of her. You have a darker reading of the characters than me and we've been arguing for some reason about how believeable I would find their motivations if I were to hypothetically accept your reading of that scene.
And as far as what her options were in delaying the conversation, as I've said previously and have been unconvinced otherwise, I don't see how shooting someone who you hope to win over in the future is the most logical course of action. Especially considering that her plan ultimately failed, I don't see how it is a better option than simply saying, "Don't tell John, please give me a chance to explain once we're safe." A plan which has the added benefit of not horribly wounding the best friend of the person you love most in the world and who also happens to be the person you hope to convince.
I wasn't going to respond to this, but...no, just because there are different optimal treatments doesn't mean they are different things as a whole. If you have working legs, you can walk from point A to B. If you don't, your optimal technique is a wheelchair or something. Doing things different ways doesn't mean the quest isn't the same because the mission statement is still to get from point A to B. Or better, one person has cancer, another has diabetes, but both get as much help as they need to regain their health. The experience is different, but a trip is a trip, a treatment is a treatment. The role of a traveler, a doctor, etc it's the same. A person who is suicidal and a person who is murderous are both people in need of help to prevent the killing of a person. One person is just sick in one way and another person in another.
Surgery can be botched. All Sherlock meant was that if she really wanted to kill him, she could have done it more easily by shooting him in the head. Instead, she shot an area that was not instantly lethal. This is reflected in his wording, noting what area she didn't shoot rather than the 'safe' area she did. The show is fairly realistic in regards to...well, stuff, and in reality, you have veins and important organs pretty much everywhere. There is no such thing as a safe spot to shoot a person in, where their survival was guaranteed. So, yeah, Mary gave him a chance at survival, not a guarantee.
That's best answered by the fact that the person she was talking to is sherlock. For whatever reason, the past episodes have shown she has great familiarity with Sherlock's personality type, and that allows her to know when he's bullshitting her (as the 2nd episode showed). My guess is that Sherlock isn't the first sociopath/genius that she met and knows that he how he acts. Yes, most people would be quite miffed at being shot, but not Sherlock. And, btw, this is another way that real life sociopaths act. They don't take things personally and only really care about concrete consequences. Notice how he acts when he learned of the irish girls betrayal. He didn't give a shit. He understood her motive nad understood she wasn't going to bother him again. Ergo, not a threat anymore. Ergo, no reason to be angry at her. And sociopaths also don't like losing control, so Mary putting the choice in Sherlock's hands is pretty much out of the question. Besides, her plan did work. John figured it out on his own and she unwittingly told john everything herself.
I'm sorry, but this whole quote reads like an exercise in oversimplification. You can simplify and simplify to the point where there are no differences between anything, but ultimately what is the point?
I agree that there is no safe spot to shoot a person in the real world, but we are ultimately talking about a work of fiction, where someone can fake his death for two years and take down an assassination network. I don't find the premise that someone could do "surgery" with a gun believable, but in one where someone extraordinary could, I don't find it much further a leap that they could do it without risking death.
What part of her plan worked? It certainly didn't keep John from finding out and I doubt that shooting Sherlock aided any in his process of forgiveness. She obviously wasn't monitoring Sherlock 24/7 so he couldn't talk to the police or John first either, so what did she accomplish by shooting him exactly?
People have faked their deaths and taken down terrorist networks before, especially if they have government help. Sherlock is a show that takes care to be quite explainable for the most part. Sherlock is a fantasy character, but not so much that the situations we've seen him involved in for the most part aren't explainable by internal rules. And the shooting scene went out of it's way to be realistic. Remember, Molly said "it's not like the movies". Besides, it's obvious that the risk was there, otherwise Sherlock wouldn't have needed to do everything he did to stay alive. Similarly, we have evidence that Mary did everything she could to keep sherlock alive despite shooting him, since she called the ambulance immediately after.
Sherlock didn't tell her and no one was caught as a result of the break in. That was the plan. What she did was fumble it later, when sherlock woke up and did the meeting where he got Mary to confess everything, but the plan to subdue sherlock himself and shut him up, that went off without a hitch. You could say she didn't accomplish her goal, but the actions she took had the consequences she intended.
Yeah, Molly says it's not the movies, but if you think everything that happens in Sherlock could happen in real life, we're going to have to disagree. Again I don't think that it's a much greater fictional contrivance than we've seen in the past. My issue is more with if the internal logic of a fictional world doesn't mesh.
You're ignoring that the ultimate intention of her plan was to allow her to reason with Sherlock and convince him to not let John find out. Even if I were to accept that her most logical option was to shoot Sherlock, why go to the extreme of shooting him if you aren't even going to monitor him to make sure you can speak to him before he outs you? As far as preventing her arrest, he could have just as easily have spoken to the police once he came to too, considering that he had time to inform John and set up a projector on location. So again, I ask, what did she accomplish by shooting Sherlock?
For the most part, the impossible stuff is generally left unexplained (so it might happen, but we don't know how) or explained (in which we know how). The things we've seen that are explained but blatantly impossible are quite few and far inbetween.
But she did. We hear her speaking to him. Admittedly, he can't talk back, but she got the message across and, lo and behold, he never told john anyway. True, he could have told John or the police, but how was she suppose to monitor him barring staying at his bed side all the time, which would be suspicious and impractical? Again, her plan isn't fool proof, its just the best she could do at the time, and try to talk to him as soon as she heard he was awake, which she did, but he was gone by the time. And the delay accomplished exactly what it was meant to: A delay where she hoped she could talk when reasonable. Okay, I guess that part of the plan didn't work since he left, so you got me there, but the point is that her goal wasn't unreasonable. A talk in the tower simply would not have resulted in her favor in all likelihood, so she delayed in hopes of a better opportunity in the hospital. In the end, Sherlock neither died nor talked, so she got her short term goals. She just got screwed long term.
And I don't think he informed john, since we get scenes of him piecing the stuff together without sherlock. It's more likely he went to talk to Sherlock about the whole thing than the other way around.
Well to give the most obvious example, I would say that Shelock's power of deduction approaches being a superpower. I sincerely doubt that every deduction he makes based on pure observation would be possible in the real world.
She could put up a spy cam to monitor him to avoid seeming suspicious. I mean if you are going to shoot someone to keep them from talking, why not put in the extra effort? I just don't see how she leaves that to chance. And I mean yeah, she got a delay, but to what end that couldn't have been achieved just as easily by talking to Sherlock? She knows he loves a mystery, so why is shooting him a better solution for getting a conversation with him than just saying she'll explain everything to him if he just doesn't tell the police or John?
No, the deductions (well, inductions, actually) are reasonable. Honestly, it's the supersenses that are closer to superpowers. He is somehow able to spot doghairs on a persons pant legs from across the room. But there have been people with extraordinarily keep senses, memories, and one part of autism is that you are able to absorb more information than what normal people have, inhibiting your responses. It's possible for the world to produce a sherlock, it's just a matter of winning the genetic lottery to make the right combination of extraordinary abilities. He'd probably be even less socially capable than the show sherlock is though. The sensory overload would be insane.
And where would she get a spy camera? And install it in a place sherlock holmes of all people would not notice it? And how could she respond in time in case he is doing something suspicious? And where would she watch this camera while she is going about her daily life, while living together with John?
She's an ex-assassin housewife, not a bond villain with nothing better to do.
Was anyone else annoyed that we didn't get more information on the waters gang and how they did those bank break ins?
Totally, that was really annoying. Hopefully they resolve that in the next season. We need more Lestrade anyway.
I'm going to have to disagree with that. There are people with unbelievable memories and mathematical abilities, yes. But in a fictional world I don't think that someone who can do surgery with a gun is much more unbelievable than some of the deductions Sherlock makes.
Well, then if we've established she can't monitor him all the time, we just return to the question of what did she acomplish by shooting Holmes? If the goal is to speak to him before he can speak to the police or John, what did she gain by shooting Sherlock, considering that he could have done either any time she wasn't monitoring him once he came to? Again, she knows Sherlock loves a mystery, so why is shooting him a better solution for getting a conversation with him than just saying she'll explain everything to him if he just doesn't tell the police or John?
Well, I'm only counting the things he explained. To break those observations, you have to find some kind of alternate conclusion that is as likely or moreso of happening than the ones he choose. But I personally can't ever remember seeing hearing one of his explanations and coming up with another explanation that is equally likely. The deductions that he doesn't explain are difficult to buy, but we can't be sure he didn't make a mistake since we don't have an explanation to examine. But just saying "he can't REALLY do that" seems unfair to the writers when they go out of their way to explain his line of reasoning. It's one of the greatest strengths of the show.
Buying more time, for the upteenth time. The possibility of catching him later on, isolated, for a discussion is preferable to the near certainty of her being caught by John in the immediate situation. You have a 92% chance of things not working out your way at the moment with John downstairs, but you have a 50% chance of them working if you manage to catch sherlock in the hospital when he wakes up. Still not great odds, but better than what you have now.
I wish I could remember specific examples, but I can't at the moment, but I do remember several moments when I did not believe certain deductions would be possible. I mean within the internal logic of the fictional world yes, but in the real world, no. I'd like to say I'd return to this once I've had time to review, but honestly, I'm tired of this conversation as is. Suffice to say the core of my point is that I don't have a problem with things occurring within a fictional world that couldn't occur in the real world, as long as the internal logic is consistent, and I don't think someone being able to do surgery with a gun in and of itself is unbelievable within the world of Sherlock.
We can argue this a million different ways, but ultimately every way I consider the situation, I just don't see how shooting Sherlock is her best option when a terse sentence could achieve the same end of having an opportunity to speak with him after. It just doesn't make logical sense to me and I don't think estimating fake probabilities is helping the situation.
There are very few unrealistic devices in the sherlock world though. Even the fictional elements mostly have real life basis. Almost all the logic he presents in the show would have equal application if the props were real objects.
The answer to that is very simple: She would be giving up control. She would be placing herself in Sherlock's mercy, to damn or save her as he pleased. This is a big risk to normal people, but if she is a sociopath like I suspect, then this kind of surrender is unthinkable. She doesn't want to kill him, but she wants the greatest guarantee of his silence possible and as much control as possible. Incapacitating him is the best she can do then. But letting sherlock decide her fate when she can still have a shape in making it herself? Nu-uh.