CHERRYBATCHED

Neither of us were the first, you know.

So know this: today you sit between the woman you have made your wife and the man you have saved – in short, the two people who love you most in all this world.

But, for the record, over the last few years there are two people who have done that.

So here’s a few things you need to know about the man we both love.

I am still amazed how they do not make the slightest distinction between Sherlock’s and Mary’s love for John. Not ever. 

Combine this with  

I know you two; and if I’m gone, I know what you could become.

Hmm, I’m actually not so sure about that. Because I never got this joke (and no, that’s not a generation thing. I’m round about the same age as the show creators). Honestly, to me, two blokes sharing a flat in central London in the 21st century are just two blokes sharing a flat because it’s fucking expensive. I’d never assume anything else.

Even if one of the man was depicted as obviously gay (Girlfriend? Nor really my area. - Boyfriend? I know it’s fine.) - I wouldn’t assume any kind of romatic interest between them. I can’t see a joke there either.

But when their flat sharing gets laden with innuendo? For example, their landlady asking them if they share a bedroom. Another acquaintance taking them for being on a date. Those two blokes gazing at each other as if they were about to eat each other alive. One of the man killing for the other, who, in return, protects him from being prosecuted… Well, then I’d start to assume something’s going on - because it is shown to me and hammered home.

Only, I can’t see a joke there either…

So, what Gatiss described in the above interview wasn’t what happened. They were not just showing us two blokes living together. Because then no one in the 21st century would think of them as a couple. Moffat and Gatiss had to actively insert innuendo for their viewers to catch up on their ‘joke’ in the first place. They encouraged this on many levels: text, acting choices, casting, costume, music, lighting, cinematography.

They actively implemented homoerotic (sub)text in their show - only to lament at the same time that people cought up on it? That some viewers expected something to come out of it. Because, in the 21st century, no one thought it possible that it could just be a lame joke! Because there just is no joke to it.

The viewers took the positive attitude Gatiis desrcibes a step further and expected positive representation from the writers after playing with the inherent homoeroticism of the original stories. The fandom was far more advanced than the show runners, it seems.

And why play with the  homoeroticism it in the first place? I really can’t see where the fun might be in there, apart from cracking some cheap gay jokes that feed an outdated no-homo attitude?

The Battersea conversation between John and Irene is one example of relationship implications being directly in the writing, despite some posts I’ve seen attributing Johnlock to some manifestation of acting and editing. We all know the scene by heart. John says they’re not a couple; Irene says that they are. John says he’s not infatuated with Sherlock because John is not gay, and Irene counters that she is gay, and “Look at us both [being infatuated?].”

What are we looking at, Moffat? Genuinely, I would like that answered and am confused about Moffat and Gatiss’s hostility towards discussing romantic interpretations of their writing. What was that line supposed to do if not invite us to examine the nature of both John’s and Irene’s feelings towards Sherlock and perhaps the immutability (or lack thereof) of romantic attraction? I know that script page floated around ages ago that said that John then laughs at the absurdity of the situation in response to Irene’s comment, but whether he laughs or gives that rueful huff that we get in the final version, John has no spoken answer to Irene’s comment. Was she right? Was she wrong? What was Moffat trying to convey? Was it only about Irene in that moment? Is she the only one with a bendable sexuality? That’s an ugly implication.

And then someone on their team wrote a scene episodes later where John and Sherlock are the only people at a bachelor party (when there certainly would have been comedic value in Lestrade or Anderson or relatives we’ve never met or Mycroft (like the Ritchie movies, right?) being in on this little celebration). But instead we’ve got no explanation for why there are no guests other than our assumption that Sherlock and John wanted a night alone together, and John saying he doesn’t mind touching Sherlock’s leg. Why is that line there if it doesn’t mean something? That’s 15 seconds of screen real estate that could have been spent elsewhere. I want to hear what Moffat and Gatiss say about this scene, the dialogue, the setup, etc.

These are two examples. We all could pull out at least one bit of written dialogue per episode where something in the writing itself implied “couple” or “attraction” that was not a joke made by a third party. And I really just want to ask them what they were trying to do in any of these types of scenes, because these were not jokes made by third party characters. But no interviewer will ever go beyond asking the question of whether John and Sherlock are a couple with Gatiss pulling out that stock reply about how in the 21st century, it’s cheeky to say that everyone will assume that they are together. Maybe Gatiss’s real answer is that they delighted in the ambiguity, never settling on one thing, raising issues and questions about character motivations without any definitive answers in a way that gives their writing (an illusion of) depth (a show like Mad Men played with raising different questions and not always answering them), and they never thought that anyone would seek to insert answers to these little questions that they toyed with.

It’s a strange day at the office when one moment Paul Weller is sitting next to you, dressed as a Viking and the next you’re playing the violin in a mental asylum opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. Strange, but brilliant.

I had bumped into Mark Gatiss months earlier whilst walking the dogs, and he had gleefully forewarned me that season four, episode three would involve a LOT of violining. He wasn’t wrong. I mean he wouldn’t be - he should know.

A few weeks passed and a voice message came up on my phone. BC. Benedict. He had left a lovely message, asking after my wellbeing, my family and whether I’d be able to coach him in Ealing today. On the set of Doctor Strange. I like to think I played it cool, and I’m going to keep telling myself that. I was out with the dogs at the time. I should point out that I had been home in between these events, I don’t just wander the local parks, hoping for some work on Sherlock, (although that tactic has proved quite fruitful of late). Time was of the essence so I skipped home, swapped the dogs for my violin and headed to Ealing, in my muddy paw mark adorned jeans. Yeah. Super cool and not at all like a swamp creature.

Benedict needed to learn three pieces, one of which wasn’t yet written. He swished off set and called me into his dressing room to recap on all things violin. “Don’t touch the beard!” pleaded his makeup artist, “he’s back on set any minute”. His hands were covered in scars, which he insisted they sprayed with fixative away from me, what a gent. We just got started and he was called back on set. He offered me his dressing room while he was on set and to make myself at home. Tilda Swinton appeared In the doorway asking if I knew where Benedict was. This is always happening to me at home. Over the next few hours of grabbed moments, as well as in Cardiff on the set of Sherlock, and once at his house, we managed to work out 1) what he needed to play 2) that there was one hell of a lot to play and memorise whilst also delivering lines in some intensely emotionally charged scenes and 3)that he is a perfectionist and holds himself to the highest standards at all times.

But we knew #3 already.

Meanwhile David Arnold had met up with Ben Caron, the director to discuss the best way to approach the filming of this sequence. It would take some doing but it could be done.

I was coaching Benedict in his Sherlock trailer, with Ben Caron and David Arnold. We tried out timings to see how to fit the music with the dialogue to make sure we hit the right point in the music at the right time for the script.

For the first time on Sherlock there were to be two people playing the violin. Sherlock, and his sister, Eurus.

I was called by the lovely Siân Brooke, for some coaching at RADA. Benedict and Siân were both equally trepidatious of the huge task ahead of them, and concerned to find out how the other one was faring. Siân had played the cello on a film before, so had some experience of playing a stringed instrument.

Despite Benedict and Siân being exceptionally fast learners, coaching was hard at first because the final big duet hadn’t yet been written- this scene was scheduled to be filmed near the beginning of the whole shoot, so David Arnold and Michael Price, the composers on Sherlock had only just discovered they needed to write this epic duet at the same time as I was meant to be coaching. But there was a lot to be done anyway- recapping on stance and how to hold the bow, what angle to hold the arms and wrists etc. As with previous screen coaching, I’d say it’s 70% choreography, 30% actual playing and 10% bad maths.

Once the duet was written I picked some small ‘key’ passages of the music for them to learn. Learning the whole duet as well as the other two themes, ‘Irene’s theme’ and ‘Eurus’s Theme’ would be a huge ask, what with having to learn the violin from scratch and everything. I recorded video clips for both Siân and Benedict to help them practice in between lessons. Because they had LOADS of time to do that. (None).

The final scene of the series was to be a 360 shot of the two duetting together, tentatively at first, in a question and answer conversation of sorts, then beginning to build. It’s a beautiful piece of music, perfectly conveying all the shifting emotions of the series, gathering strength until the full orchestra joins for the rousing Sherlock Theme

Filming

The atmosphere around the sets was very warm and familial, people bringing in kids and swapping baby photos, handing around biscuits, that sort of thing.

But when I was taken onto the actual set for the first time, Eurus’s cell- I felt a cold shudder. That Arwel Wyn Jones certainly knows how to design a set. All cold, grey surfaces, no windows or door handles and 360 degree security cameras really created a chilling atmosphere. I was fitted with a radio in-ear monitor so that I could hear the cues from Ben, the director.

The first thing to to be filmed was Sherlock’s reaction to Eurus’s playing. Benedict asked that I play the theme there live in order to help him cry. Sweet revenge for last time when he made me cry: previously on A Scandal in Belgravia, his tearing up when playing Irene’s theme had made me tear up - which was good because the alternative would be bricking myself. I could get quite nervous in these situations - there are a LOT of people involved on set, and they all fall silent before the director calls “set, and… action” - but he is an utterly captivating actor, he draws you in so that everything else drops away. You forget yourself and all that’s left is the moment. Ben Caron helped create this warm atmosphere on set, by being incredibly calm and friendly whilst being clear about what he wanted. I was grateful given the pressure everyone was under that he wasn’t one for barking orders or steamrollering anyone. When I didn’t know what a particular visual cue was (I didn’t have a script- but there’s a scene in Eurus’s cell when Sherlock enters for the first time. She is playing a tune- Sherlock steps forward, the lights change, Eurus plays angrily, he steps back and she resumes playing the tune) Ben patiently and calmly explained those cues and we carried on- it felt like no biggy despite the massive time constraints he was under. It makes for a good working atmosphere and I’m sure it means that things get done more quickly and to a higher standard because people aren’t loaded with any unnecessary extra stress.

We all rushed off with an early end that day because Wales was playing Belgium in the quarter finals. We won 3-1 and there was rainbow over Cardiff (my second favourite type of bow.)

On the second day we were shooting close-ups for the big duet. Depending on the shot, Either Sherlock or Eurus would play the theme alone, following my movements. The final day of violining was the final duet scene again in 360, but this time they were filming full-length shots. The biggy. After all the planning and rehearsals and coaching and memorising and camera rehearsals this was it. I’d play in the eyeline of Sherlock and Eurus, because I had the track in my in-ear monitor, so they could keep in time with that. As the camera spun through its 360 movement I sometimes had to move to avoid being in shot. To their huge credit- and despite the considerable stress of the task, let alone of the scenes and plot line and all the acting- they were so patient and diligent and just totally on it. Of the violin scenes- this was the one everyone was most worried about. Once it was in the can, cheers and whoops were let out (but in a Welsh way, ŴP! ) Benedict and Siân had done an amazing job. The cast and crew then erupted into a big chorus of Happy Birthday for Ben Caron’s 40th. The relief. And the cake. He said that successfully completing that scene was the best birthday present he could have hoped for.

Recording the music

Once all the filming and editing is completed- the music is recorded. We knew we’d need someone other than me to record Eurus’s violin parts to the picture, as she had a Stradivarius and had taught Sherlock how to play, so their sounds would naturally be quite different from one another. I knew that my long time band-mate, Tania Davis would be perfect, so David Arnold asked her and she gladly accepted. Tania and I have been playing together for 17 years *cough* ( www.bondquartet.com ) and we have a natural rapport. She is a stunning player and has a beautiful violin too. Set up with two music stands and a screen in our own little space ship in Air Studios, we were set to record to the picture. We do this for a clean recording with no distracting, or unwanted background noises and because during the edit things can change synch and be slightly out of time with the picture. For example they might choose a shot because the actor’s performance is the perfect one- but the violin isn’t quite in time. Indeed, a childhood folk song was added after filming had ended, which we had to match to existing shots of a different theme being played. All fun and games!

(ETA: This post is causing trouble on mobile…sorry!? Many of the images are cut from mobile for some reason, and apparently it’s crashing the app. I’m wondering if it’s just too long. In any case, view on a computer for a more complete experience; reblog to avoid the inevitable Mofftiss curse. If I have time in the next little while, I’ll publish it in shorter segments.) 

TFP had a number of different intertexts–mainly, specific movies–which it drew upon for its motifs, themes, moment-to-moment imagery, and plot points. As approximately a million people noticed in the TFP aftermath, many of the movies referenced in this episode are horror films. Predominant among them was The Ring.

(For the purpose of this post, I’m going to focus on Gore Verbinski’s 2002 film, rather than the Japanese source film Ringu / Ring, because the former is much better known in the West, and I think it’s more likely that it’s The Ring, and not Ringu, that Moffat is talking about in this interview, where he mentions watching it. However, since the broad strokes plot outline of both The Ring and Ringu are very similar / the same wrt the idea of the false climax, the argument I’m making holds either way.)

The Ring is well known for being a really beautifully done horror film. It looks incredible, for one thing–it’s visually gorgeous and thematically dense. But mostly, it does something with the concept of hauntings, ghostly origin stories, and the standard horror plot that, at the time of its release, was incredibly stunning and exciting.

In short, The Ring fakes out its audience by presenting a false climax that appears to resolve the story, in a way that is emotionally nice, if a little unsatisfying, before pulling the rug out from under its own plot.

Because The Ring is such a standout intertext for TFP, i.e., TFP not only draws on it, but resonates with it in multiple ways, via names, repeated motifs, the framing of certain shots, as well as relying on it for nearly its entire climax, I really think the story of s4 and the series as a whole is not over. Even if you think there aren’t any further episodes coming down the pipe, I’m hoping this discussion might help people understand why the story feels incomplete. (Because it is).

If you’ve been trying to sit with the idea that the Redbeard reveal / presentation of Eurus’ backstory / resolution of Sherlock’s story is real / supposed to be taken at face value, but that reading isn’t working for you, maybe this will help.

Basic premises: the reading I’m doing here is a mind bungalow reading. The rationale for The Ring as a major intertext of TFP is that John has been shot, and TFP is the content of his hallucination as he’s bleeding out, which offers an understanding of why it’s so bizarre and tonally shifted from everything else we’ve seen in Sherlock. This reading pulls on the newly revealed information, in TST, that John is a horror movie buff–enough so that he feels the need to correct Mary on the difference between The Omen and The Exorcist. John’s proclivity for horror films offers one justification for why they not only seem to inform TFP, but practically take it over.

I’m hoping to show, for people who aren’t familiar with The Ring, exactly how wildly it dominates TFP, and to talk about how we can use this fact to make some sense of the episode, and possibly the future of the show.

Ridiculous levels of detail under the cut:

In no particular order, I present the list of things that are particulary infuriating to me about S4 that I’ve been keeping on post-its by my bedside table the last month in case I lose hope. They are, for me, enough proof for The Lost Special. Today being 8th of March it seems fitting to keep them in mind.

(Disclaimer: this is a compound of theories developed by hundreds of people over a long time and I cannot possibly credit everyone or explain them at this point, so I’ll just list them.)

The Importance Of Being Ernest, by Oscar Wilde being quoted in TFP

Mycroft-> Lady Bracknell, the baby in the handbag = gun in the handbag (Euros and Vivian Norbury). The baby gets thrown in the Thames?

Queen’s I Want To Break Free in TFP stoping at “I’ve fallen in…” (love)

Elephant Glass Shock Proof in Euros’s cell

The elephant in the Thai menu in Mycroft’s frige

Rosie’s elephant toy

The elephant in John’s living room

The endless horror film references in TFP (many of them being hyper meta, especially Shutter Island)

John/Culverton mirror

Una Stubbs’ voice in TFP “Softer, Sherlock” intead of Euros’

Russian and Turkish leaks with no reaction

Over reaction with the promo chess pictures being leaked

Promo pictures being very similar to Clue’s movie poster -> Clue’s different endings and the similar final paused shot in TFP

The bulding up to Moriarty not making any sense (especially if we take into account M Theory, because he IS alive)

TLD having the gun shown multiple times, a smoking gun that is definitely not a tranquiliser gun. The last shot fading with red, like in Bond movies

The enormous red carpet under John in the therapist that resembles the blood pool in the market

HLV/TLD paralels

Martin breaking the 4th wall in T6T noding to the camera while holding the wine glass

SHERLOCK: Romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for other people … JOHN (interrupting): … would complete you as a human being. NO PAY OFF FOR THIS. This mirrors the greenhouse conversation in TAB

Why was Molly upset when Euros called in TFP?

John/Molly mirror (Molly wearing the same jumper she wore in TEH while taking John’s place, the framing of that hellish shot with John and the coffin cover “I love you”)

“John is clearly standing behind him in the trailer, so unless he’s talking to a mirror for some very bizarre reason, I should think not.” -Mark

Sumatra/Samarra pointing out to TEH which lead us to The Lost Special and MINDING THE FREAKING GAP->Moriarty

“It’s never twins”

The camera shown in the hotel in T6T

Season 4 DVD not having “complete” like the other DVD’s had

Mark’s picture with the 4 fingers raised in Twitter

“Has it just occurred to you you’ve been played for an ad campaign” hello Apple Tree Yard  

Moriarty at the end of S4 DVD “You didn’t think I would just disappear, did you?”

The whole promotion about S4 and the season itself being about hacking

Skull Hell

Sherlock saving the tea cup and the boy in the hotel in T6T dropping the tea

Tea code being confirmed

“Is this a new person? I’m against new people.”

“You’d be better off with clown outfits. At least they’d be satirically relevant.”

Cake=violent death John and Sherlock going to get cake

Lady Smallwood’s name

Vatican cameos ignored

“And boop, they are fine”

Sherlock breaks the 4th wall (like in Queen’s I Want To Break Free videoclip)

WHERE IS JOHN’S LETTER

The Garridebs literally cliff-hanging

Chekhov’s gun on the promo picture and literally hanging on the wall in the Garridebs scene

“People always give up after three” 

Blue Power Ranger gay subtext

T6T being an old case about a gay couple -> Margaret Thatcher getting smashed, Sherlock not knowing who she is despite the fact that he knew in THoB

“Fresh paint to disguise another smell”

Mycroft watching his own romantic movie turning into an horror film

T6T starting with doctored footage

“That’s not what happened at all”

“Why does anyone do anything” Norbury/Moriarty

“Sherlock, the dragon slayer” (Mycroft, Moriarty and kinda Magnussen have all alluded to this and now Mary does)

Shark hell

Sherlock’s recurrent dream (?)

“Oh, good, I love an acronym. All the best secret societies have them.”

“It is what it is” either being followed by “says love” or being a quote by John Locke

MARCH 8. THE SECRET WILL BE UNLEASHED

"I don’t like loose ends. Not on my watch” says Mycroft/Mark, as he holds a pen and looks at the camera

#Ohwhatabeautifulmorning tying in with Oklahoma! and consequently with  Green Grow the Lilacs, a play with gay subtext all over that got misunderstood and very famous

Steven starting TLS rumors

TD-12 being memory corrupting

The freaking guy from the official Sherlock Youtube channel teasing TLS and saying “The greatest love story never told”

The girl on the plane being the same one from ASiB

The TAB-like transition when John faints in TFP

The S1 scripts being released for no reason

“Childhood trauma masked by an invented memory. Boring!” THoB (person=dog)  

Mary’s death not being realistic as pointed in HLV (thank you for reminding me, @antisocial-otaku)

The explosion in 221B not having the consequences in the building that   Mycroft foreshadowed and them being perfectly ok afterwards.

Where is Ben’s 26 pages scene?

What was Ben’s kissy gesture while saying “Very well. It’s going very well” in SDCC all about?

TFP as a whole. Too much to analyze there

Bonus:

“Love conquers all” 

“Groundbreaking”

“History making”

“Rug pull”

Derren Brown

Tags under the cut

This little non-Sherlockian, paranormal gem, published in Harper’s Weekly starting in November 1894–that’s right, a little less than a year after Doyle published The Final Problem (November / December 1893)–deserves our attention. When @longsnowsmoon5 pointed it out a week or two ago, a few of us shouted about it a bit, but we didn’t really dig deep with it. Since then, I’ve re-read it twice, and boy howdy. 

In case you’re not familiar, here are some plot elements to whet your interest: 

a skeptical physiologist (Austin Gilroy) who allows himself to become a subject in a mesmerism / mind control experiment

a woman with mind control abilities (Miss Penclosa) who is generally unimpressive and walks with a crutch, but is surprisingly powerful

two people about whom Gilroy cares–his fiancée Agatha and his colleague, Charles Sadler–who are also both mesmerised (to offer some comfort to more tender readers of this meta, I read both Agatha and Charles as Sherlock equivalents when translated into the BBC Sherlock narrative)

obsession–specifically, Miss Penclosa’s desire to seduce Gilroy

supernatural mind control abilities that cause Gilroy to behave erratically, cause missing time, and, eventually, make him do things he would never otherwise do, some of them criminal

narrative bonus feature: the story is told from Gilroy’s perspective, in the form of his journal entries

(I recommend reading it at Gutenberg because there is much more to it of interest than I’ve been able to cover in this meta.)

Sound like it might, maybe, have some relevance to s4? I think it does, especially in terms of figuring out what the fuck is happening to both John and Sherlock. 

Reading s4 through the code of The Parasite may help explain Sherlock’s sudden propensity for intuition / premonition, and John’s erratic behaviour. Ultimately, including The Parasite as one of the many intertexts of s4 offers a great deal of support to readings like @jenna221b‘s theory about Mary manipulating John using TD12, which in turn adds support to the ever growing pile of evidence that Mary is a villain (thanks to @teaandqueerbaiting for that monster post). It also informs readings of Mary as femme fatale and the Woman in Green (femme fatale thread by @inevitably-johnlocked, Woman in Green addition by @deducingbbcsherlock​). Although I’m not sure mofftiss should ever be let off any hooks for s4, this reading might offer John fans (myself included) a much needed opportunity for a more positive reading of John in this series. 

Details under the cut.