#blessington

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Love & Friendship Whit Stillman. 2016

DeCourcy Manor Russborough House, Blessington, Co. Wicklow, Ireland See in map

I have 8 screencaps to share with you that I think might contain some potentially interesting information.

So, we first see, ‘creepy Mary’, behind John when Sherlock says, ‘the solution’. So, possibly this is a hint that this double Mary is somehow the solution to something.  Possibly the strange things that happen in Series 4.  This may be a reminder not to forget that while we see a sweet and supportive Mary in front of John, we can still see a creepy, nebulous Mary behind him.  This could mean we must not forget that she is a morally grey character and not purely a good one like the end of TST seems to imply.

Also to have the word, ‘affair’, here is possibly of interest to us if we see Mary, John and Sherlock as a sort of love triangle.  The most remarkable part of this love triangle might be that Mary is still someone whose intentions we have not understood.  Someone truly as mysterious and as dangerous as she has seemed all along.  

At the same time, ‘the only feature of interest’, in the case of the Mayfly Man (mid-wedding speech) was, ‘John Watson’.  So, maybe John is the solution.  That’d be nice.  Sherlock’s love problems will be solved by John.  Also, this could point to the idea that Sherlock only cares about John (in this triangle) and not about Mary.

Now, we have this killer who poisons and is called, ‘Blessington’.  This is a very saintly-sounding name, someone who sounds good but isn’t.  Mary is also a very, ‘good’, sounding name, reminiscent of the Virgin Mary in Christianity.  Now, if we go with the theory (I think it’s @jenna221b‘s but I can't remember.  Please correct me doctors if you know better) that Mary is dosing our protagonists with TD12 to mess with their heads then this idea of Mary being, ‘a poisoner’, fits in really well.

By saying these words and showing us, ‘scary Mary’, maybe Sherlock (the show) could be giving something away.  Maybe the, ‘ending’, will involve us seeing that Mary is truly, ‘the poisoner’.  

So, five main suspects.  Could this be a reference to the number of villains we’ve encountered on Sherlock?  No idea, I’ve never counted.  Let’s do it now.

ASiP ~ Hope/Moriarty

TBB ~ Shan/M

TGG ~ Moriarty

ASiB ~ The Woman/Moriarty

THoB ~ Frankland/science

TRF ~ Moriarty

TEH ~ Moran

TSoT ~ Mayfly Man (subtextual John)

HLV ~ Magnussen/Mary

TAB ~ uhm, men?

TST ~ Norbury

TLD ~ Culverton

TFP ~ Eurus

Now, neither m-theory nor villains are my forte so I can’t say with certainty to whom this number might be a reference.  I feel like the, ‘villains’, on the most symbolic level are just the 5 main characters: Sherlock, John, Mary, Mycroft and Moriarty.  Moriarty being the obvious villain, Mycroft being always suggested as a person who is behind the scenes orchestrating things, Mary who straight up shoots Sherlock, Sherlock as his own worst enemy and John as the reason his heart is always broken.    

Whoever the other four may be, one thing is true here, it does not matter because it’s Blessington/Mary who was/is the poisoner.

Added emphasis on the poisoning.

One murder, this could be about John since well, he’s right there in the foreground while his potential killer lurks in the background.  If we go with the theory that John’s been hurt and having a dream, then we could see him as the, ‘murder victim’.  He seems to get shot in the face at the end of TLD, so there’s that, too.

Now here we switch to 10 suspects, all of them guilty.  Then meaningfully John says, ‘Sherlock’.  He is trying to interrupt him to keep him from giving away the end of the story which is interesting as a meta concept if Sherlock, the show, really is giving something away with this dialogue and images.  But, anyway, this juxtaposition of guilty people + Sherlock is interesting in that it may be implying that something here is also Sherlock’s fault.  Is this about Mary’s presence in John’s life being due to Sherlock leaving John?  Is this about Sherlock’s own crushing guilt not at Mary’s fake AF death but about the fact that leaving John for two years left him open to marrying a villain?

I think it’s interesting that, ‘good Mary’, begins to speak before she is shown.  She begins to speak as, ‘scary Mary’, is still present.  This could be showing us that we cannot trust, ‘good Mary’, because her true identity is that of, ‘scary Mary’.  ‘Good Mary’, is just the façade (as always) and scary, hidden Mary is the true Mary that we’ve been dealing with this whole time.

Now, this brings us into the meaning of the hat.  For a lot of people the hat is Sherlock’s straight façade, for others it’s about Sherlock’s love of John, whichever way we go with hat symbolism it’s worth noting that Mary is trying to tell John something about how Sherlock ought to present himself.  Why is Mary concerned with Sherlock’s appearance in the context of this conversation?  We are discussing poisonings, one poisoner, 10 people who are all guilty (how many people were with real Faith at their TD12 meeting?  No, wait, there were six guests.  And one nurse per guest, making them 12.  Hmmm...  reminds me of D12: six dudes, each with an alter ego), and possibly Sherlock being guilty.  Does the hat represent Sherlock’s, ‘guilt’, here?  Like, if the hat fits wear it?  Maybe this is John processing the idea that, ‘everything/Mary’s death’, is Sherlock’s fault and maybe here’s Mary egging him on.  Maybe this is John thinking, ‘you know who’s guilty?  Sherlock’, and Mary saying, ‘yeah, he should assume that role/wear that hat’.  This could be Scary Mary trying to cement this idea in John’s mind.  

Welcome to Visit Blessington

Blessington is a beautiful village nestled within the Wicklow mountains which overlooks the stunning Blessington Lakes and is just 30km away from Dublin.

Through this blog we want to showcase some of activities that this small town has to offer. We believe that Blessington has something for everyone and we hope through our posts you will discover what Blessington has for you!