holmesillusion:
Someone sent me this. At first I thought it was just a Bible thing, you know, spam, but it’s not. It’s a skip-code.
There’s something absolutely heartbreaking about Sherlock’s expression in that last GIF. It’s the first time we’ve seen Sherlock’s “John Watson is definitely in danger” face, I think, when Sherlock hasn’t had to impress or morph it into some element of the game being played. This is Sherlock scared, even a little panicky, but also Sherlock moving definitively into action.
I mean, compare it to TGG, where another phone message and another criminal code promised death if Sherlock didn’t solve the puzzle. Even at the end, when John Watson’s life is clearly on the line, Sherlock doesn’t react like this.
I also find it fascinating what they do with Mary in the cinematography here. Just based on that, who would you say is the other half of the most important relationship in John’s life. Mary is literally backgrounded, and it seems an odd way of establishing her concern for him, her centrality to his character’s arc. Somehow it’s even more pointed than the way Mary stands back while Sherlock dives into the bonfire.
Frankly, I don’t know what to make of all this. If Sherlock isn’t romantic competition and they’re treating John and Mary’s relationship like this, in a way that isn’t the center of each other’s lives… well. It strikes me as a very pale imitation of what I would expect out of romantic love. Out of what my society has programmed me to expect it, at least: the two people most devoted to each other’s well-being, and the most intimate support in their life.
I’m not trying to bash Mary here, honestly. It’s just that it seems rather insulting to her and to hers and John’s marriage to think that their love is compatible with such a focus and devotion to someone else. There’s just no emotional monogamy in this situation, which I think most modern western women expect from their mates these days - even in polygamy I’d imagine this kind of devotion to another person that excluded you (as opposed to a similar devotion shared between all three) could be… problematic, to put it mildly. They can’t all of them dance, after all.
