Thanks for writing it! Well, I imagine that every one of us would have another answer to that question, but I’ve been finding the meta discussions based around the character of Mary Morstan very interesting personally.
Mary Morstan is all sweetness and light on the classic Victorian model in the original stories, so I was really interested in how they were going to try to make her a shredding metal guitarist, you know? The way they kinda succeeded/failed to do with Irene Adler. (The fact that the original 19th century story is a more feminist text in several ways than both the BBC and Warner Brothers versions kinda irks, right? Can we pull it together, people?)
I’ve been following notmydate's meta discussions about Mary with considerable interest (here and here), and I think this person makes some stellar points. I agree with them on multiple counts, and when I say that of course I mean that I do personally (lyndsayfaye here) and not everyone on the podcast would agree with me. We welcome healthful, courteous, ass-kicking debate.
I like when notmydate brings up the fact that it’s fine to dislike that Mary is an assassin, but what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and Sherlock and John are both very willing to pop a cold cap in your ass for justice or in defense of each other. (This is completely canonical, by the way—I’m 90% sure that Holmes was thinking of more specific things than just London when he killed Professor Moriarty, and Watson very likely killed Tonga the Islander.) Mary being in these men’s league as a capable (read: deadly) person is quite the hardcore twist, and I enjoy it on many levels. Particularly when I imagine John and Mary in SWAT gear coming to Sherlock’s rescue in Baron Gruner’s underground torture lair in season four. (I mean, how epic would that be?)
Granted, I mentioned in my review of His Last Vow for CriminalElement.com that I think our moral compass here is going magnetically haywire a bit. John used to be the conscience, and now he’s sort of vacillating between adoring a man who insists he’s a sociopath (they really need to stop saying that) and loving a ruthless ex-CIA operative. But since they do what they do for loyalty and love, it’s always completely OK, right? Well, try again, chums. Sherlock especially has these moments of tool-i-tude. I’m pretty sure Sherlock torturing the cabbie in the very first episode was sub-par behavior, drugging a PTSD-suffering war veteran at Baskerville with a hallucinogen blew my mind, die for your friends all you like but do you have to be such a dillweed about it, etc.
But this is the guy we’re meant to admire as the hero of the series, fuck, his name is on the show, so notmydate's point that Mary should be held to the same standard is pretty damn convincing to me.
Then folks were arguing that they didn’t object to Mary killing Magnussen, it was Mary killing SHERLOCK they took issue with, and that was all good and jiggy baby and made sense, but again, I come down in notmydate's camp that this is an issue of unconvincing writing rather than a nasty character, and here's why…this is the way I picture the first His Last Vow production meeting:
MOFFAT: We have to do something so completely Swedish metal that everyone is just as impressed with Episode Six as Episode Three.
GATISS: Word, bro. Much metal, very hair band. But what? We already killed him. How do we top that shit? That shit was gold. That shit was pure gold metal.
MOFFAT: What about we kill him again, but no, get this, bro, we really kill him this time, and it’ll be so metal we’ll tour Scandinavia forever.
GATISS: You are a fucking genius.
MOFFAT: We really kill him, we kill him to DEATH, right, but he deduces his way out of being dead, but it’s all in his mind palace, see, and he logics back to life again like a fucking phoenix.
GATISS: OMFG getthefuckout I love it. That is so metal, it goes to an eleven. Can we get Andrew Scott back because he was so metal in The Reichenbach Fall?
MOFFAT: Sure. But he can’t kill Sherlock, he already killed Sherlock. The LEAST likely person to kill Sherlock has to do it.
MOFFAT AND GATISS: Mary!!!!!!! (bro slap hi fives)
GATISS: We are really metal.
MOFFAT: Why does she kill him, though?
GATISS: Because she’s trying to SAVE HIM. By killing him.
MOFFAT: I love it. It shreds. It needs a little something.
GATISS: Mary kills Sherlock to save Sherlock AND John!
MOFFAT: I love you, man. I’mma go write that shit right now. Stay metal.