shadowfireflame | Reaction Post: The Sign of Three (Reply)

Okay, I’m feeling much, much better about the prospects for His Last Vow now and am ready for the squeefest of The Sign of Three. Thanks to those of you who held my hand and assured me that none of the characters have to die. :)

So, in short: I loved it.

I’m having a hard time writing anything coherent because I just loved this episode to pieces. I literally can’t think of any complaints (which is why I call this a “reaction post” instead of a review). All my observations are just kind of random. But it was a stroke of brilliance to have all three writers work together on this one because it finally broke the streak of having the second episodes be less amazing than the first and third ones.

I feel totally spoiled as a fan of this show. There is truly nothing like this on television. There’s not even anything I can compare it to because it’s in a whole other league from everything else I’ve seen. Sherlock episodes have such a high re-watching quality that it’s basically mandatory to watch them lots of times because there’s just so much in there to unpack. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

It’s true the cases are taking a bit of a backseat in this series. But that’s nothing new—this is not a procedural. It’s a show, after all, called Sherlock, not The Adventures of Sherlock, and no case could ever be as spellbinding as trying to deduce this detective. The cases are not and have never been the point of this show. It’s a drama about all the members of a little family, with the most precious and unusual person at its heart.

Sherlock himself is so fascinating because he is such a mix of contradictions. He can be a callous sociopathic asshole, but also the sweet and loving person who hugs his landlady and finds himself tearing up with empathy (while drunk) at the pain of one of his clients. He both understands and does not understand people. He is so strong but so very fragile. He is both fearless and utterly terrified. Sherlock has always been all of these things, it’s just that now he’s beginning to be a bit more honest and open about the people and things he loves, letting his protective mask slip a bit more. He’s found that there are people out there who love him for being himself, and the chance of finding those people might make the pain of possible rejection worth it.

I know many Johnlock shippers want a world in which it is always 1895, just the two of us against the rest of the world, but the writers of this show are not content with (in Moriarty’s words) “just staying...” And we would not love them as much as we do if they were content with stagnation. We need Sherlock’s little adopted family to grow and change and strengthen.

Anyway, so here are some random reactions:

Sherlock in this episode is heartbreaking. He doesn’t want John to leave him, he’s terrified of that happening, but since he feels it’s inevitable, he’s going to make it the absolute best leaving party he can. Even if party planning is not something he ever thought he would be doing and the thought of fucking up the wedding itself terrifies him. And who knows, maybe John and Mary will be able to make it work as a threesome (with or without actual sex). They both seem very determined to do it, and Sherlock has essentially already married them both in vowing to always protect them.

We saw Sherlock interacting with a child. We saw Sherlock interacting with a child. We saw Sherlock interacting with a child. (My head is going to explode.) And it was just as sweet as I had anticipated. Foreshadowing to John and Mary’s eventual child? Will that happen? Or showing us what could have been a possibility and then snatching it away? That’s exactly the kind of thing that the writers would do to us, wouldn’t they.

I thought it was a brilliant case because at the front, Sherlock didn’t know the identity of the murderer or the victim. He solves the murder before it happens. I’d like to point out that the way Sherlock figures out the murderer’s identity and method in the end are through the suggestions of other people. Tom’s suggestion of a “meat stick,” while wrong, helped Sherlock to visualize the actual meat stick he’d seen towards the beginning of the reception, and thus that the murder weapon performed a similar function. Archie’s suggestion of the “invisible man” being able to get into the shower to kill the guardsman, while not entirely accurate, helped Sherlock figure out that they’re one and the same. See, Mycroft? Caring is an advantage.

We also got to see Sherlock and John drunk (hee!), and I’d like to give a special shout-out to Sherlock’s drunk deductions. “He’s clueing for looks” is going to go down in history as one of the funniest lines ever. I’ve watched this scene over and over now, and it just keeps getting better. On my last viewing I actually screamed with laughter. But there’s also a ton of shipping potential and unanswered questions about both men’s sexuality that are hinted at when their inhibitions are down.

Things that are now canon: Sherlock loves to dance. (I did not expect balletlock AUs to be so strengthened by this episode. Wow.) Sherlock is a quick study at origami. Sherlock takes his duties as Best Man so seriously that he lets his cases pile up and replaces his Wall of Crime with a Wall of Wedding Stuff. (Nobody saw that one coming.) Sherlock is much more of a lightweight than John (assuming they drank the same or proportional to their body types). Or maybe it’s just that Sherlock probably hadn’t eaten.

Both Sherlock and John canonically drug each other and don’t seem to feel bad about it. Sherlock for experiments (in Hounds, losing a Wednesday, etc.), and John to get Sherlock more drunk than he had anticipated. Both suffer for it (John through fear and Sherlock through actually getting ill, which he had not intended and which he felt would actually “spoil” the night). But Sherlock dabbing so daintily at his lip after vomiting, oh my God...

Best line for me was “But not at John’s wedding. We wouldn’t do that, would we.” Though I fear its implications for Sherlock’s mental state that he’s considered suicide so thoroughly, and apparently the major thing preventing him is the thought of hurting John (and Mary). That’s…more than a bit not good. I will have to think some more about this one.

Everyone in this episode—everyone—thinks that John marrying Mary will mean less time and fewer quality interactions for John with Sherlock. Everyone seems to sense that except John, and Mary seems determined to prevent that. I suppose only time will tell who’s right.

Loved Janine. That scene where she’s dancing was the saddest one for me because she’s similar to Molly in this respect, just a more condensed version. She likes Sherlock, she would have given him a chance, but he’s not into her, so she moves on. Except she appears to genuinely move on, while with Molly it’s not so clear. I thought Sherlock’s halfhearted move toward Janine (before he realizes she’s with someone else) was so telling. He’s actually starting to try to come out and give a physical relationship a try. That’s such a huge moment.

“If someone could move Mrs. Hudson’s glass just slightly out of reach, that would be lovely.” I know this is funny, but it also shows that Sherlock’s willing to devote some precious time toward deducing Mrs. Hudson’s state and gently taking care of her, even while in the midst of a potentially disastrous murder scene.

Donovan! Glad she still seems to be working with Lestrade and that she wasn’t karmically punished for her role in the Fall in the way that, say, Anderson was by becoming obsessed and losing his job. (I’d kind of been dreading that Donovan’s arc would be similar to that.) I’d love to see a scene with her and Sherlock together. I mean, she was set up by Moriarty...and working with the available evidence against Sherlock, she wasn’t terribly wrong. There was some weird shit going down with him, and I’m sure Mycroft and Sherlock counted on her response in their scheming. Also, notice that in the first newspaper article, Lestrade is now DCI Lestrade. (Detective Chief Inspector—he was promoted?) So perhaps Donovan was also promoted?

Backstory about Mr. Hudson with some BAMF!Mrs. Hudson (yeah, bet you didn’t think you’d be seeing that particular tag, did you! And yet there it is). I’d still like more canon info on why Sherlock was in Florida, though. Until then, I’m sticking with thecutteralicia’s headcanon that the Holmes parents are residing in Florida, and Sherlock met Mrs. Hudson while visiting them.

Sherlock leaping over the table instead of walking around it like an ordinary person = genius.

Sherlock calls Mycroft to find out if he’s coming to the reception. I read a brilliant His Last Vow speculation theory (towards the bottom) that speculates that Mary may have originally been working for Mycroft, which is why Mycroft doesn’t want to attend the wedding (because Sherlock will immediately put it together if he sees them interact). But there are other theories as to why Mycroft doesn’t want to be there, the simplest of which is that he just hates noise and people.

Speaking of Mary: “Who else hates me?” And Sherlock hands her a list. *chortles*

Bainbridge was of course played by Dean Thomas from the Harry Potter series (Alfie Enoch) and has grown into quite the super hot young man! I was quite pleased when he wasn’t actually dead.

Everyone in the episode compared Sholto to Sherlock, but I find his comparison to John more compelling because you could totally see that this is what John could have so easily become without Sherlock (and Mary now): bitter, cut off from where he belongs, unable to picture himself out of the uniform, suicidal. That moment when the commander says John’s “retired,” John’s face is so expressive and offended and hurt and angry.

Again, allow the lovely

ivyblossom to beautifully sum up my creys.

You can also see Sherlock’s hysterical write-up on the event on John’s blog if you’re interested.

God, I really need for it to be Sunday now please.