#predicting the unpredictable

And then he married Mary and it was two-fold:

He is in a Heterosexual relationship with someone Normal.

He has managed to actually have a relationship long enough to even get married.

And now he knows the first one is false because Mary is far from normal - She wasn’t supposed to be like that.

JOHN: People don’t have arch-enemies. SHERLOCK: I’m sorry? JOHN: In real life. There are no arch-enemies in real life. Doesn’t happen. SHERLOCK: Doesn’t it? Sounds a bit dull. JOHN: So who did I meet? SHERLOCK: What do real people have, then, in their ‘real lives’? JOHN: Friends; people they know; people they like; people they don’t like. (x)

Well, this is true. People don’t have arch-enemies in real life. So the bad stuff that happens to you, in general, you do to yourself and the people you care about most do to you. But that hadn’t happened between Sherlock and John: even Reichenbach was easy to blame on Jim. The story implied that Sherlock and John would be together forever, but - I’m a very skeptical person - I said “How do we know? It hasn’t been tested in the way real relationships are tested.” Every time they started to have a terrible argument, the plot happened (John got strapped to a bomb vest, Sherlock jumped off a roof, etc). Obviously, it had to be written like that because they couldn’t have that argument yet, but until they did, I felt like it could have been a superficial relationship.

When the crappy stuff came from inside their relationship - from emotion and bitterness and stuff they did to each other deliberately; the stuff that tears apart real relationships - and pushed them apart but they still stayed together, then it was real. And that’s exactly what happens in the Watsons Have A Domestic.

Sherlock says all the things John is most afraid of about himself - crosses what was definitely an unspoken boundary of Things We Do Not Talk About - and they’re both devastated, but it doesn’t break their relationship. If anything, it just makes them love each other more: season three ends with Sherlock and John as far apart as they’ve ever been but also more in love than they’ve ever been, and I think a lot of both comes from this scene.

“You’re a failure doomed to only love psychopaths who can never love you back. This entire thing - Mary being an assassin; Mary shooting me - is your fault. Even when you specifically try to escape people like that, it doesn’t work because that’s just who you are. It’s been happening your whole life; time to give up. You’re always going to be alone.”

Now, of course, Sherlock says all John’s worst fears because he’s forced to because of the situation with Mary, but - to me - it’s a vastly different situation from Reichenbach. It’s pretty clear Sherlock didn’t really realize how much his death would hurt John:

SHERLOCK: Okay, John, I’m suddenly realizing I probably owe you some sort of an apology.

So Sherlock didn’t fully realize faking his own death would even hurt John enough to require an apology until he saw John again. But I think it’s quite clear in the Watsons Have A Domestic that Sherlock knows just how much he’s hurting John. This is when he says the “because” of “Because… you chose her”:

He can’t even look at John. To me, this is Sherlock deciding whether or not he can really go through with it, with saying this to John. He does because he needs to, and he knows exactly how much it’s going to destroy John.

Unlike Reichenbach, he knows.

I don’t think the real emotional devastation for John comes from Mary herself - being an assassin; shooting Sherlock; lying to him - because those are crisis situations, which John is good at, and after all, he never really liked Mary that much anyway. The real emotional devastation for John comes from what Sherlock says about him. How awful and miserable he is confirmed by the person he loves, and that it’s never going to get any better.

Obviously, Sherlock’s not hurting John because he likes it, but the fact that he’s doing it consciously - whatever the reason - puts a different sort of pressure on their relationship than Reichenbach did. While not a worse hurt than Reichenbach, it’s a different, more complicated, more realistic sort of hurt. It comes from inside their relationship. And they weather it; despite the fact that Sherlock just said all the worst things he could think of to John, John still says “Your way; always your way” - John’s Last Vow.

What we’re referencing is “big squishy cuddles” from this meta.

Yeah, I actually think this is a definite possibility - the Waters Family toss him in this room and the ceiling will squish him in 30 mins or something but of course he escapes at the last minute. John has been kidnapped twice in connection with Jim - things come in threes, so I think he’ll be kidnapped once more, and this time, he’ll escape.

However, I also think this threat to John in 4x3 will have to do with burning - and this is not really compatible with the coin press theory lol. John’s been kidnapped pretty often, but whenever it’s in association with Jim, the danger involves burning: the bomb vest in TGG and the bonfire in TEH. This makes sense - I’ll burn the heart out of you, and John is Sherlock’s heart. (The other times John has been kidnapped (ASiP and TBB) had to do with Mycroft and didn’t involve burning.)

Anyway, I think the coin press thing will show up sometime in S4, possibly when John’s kidnapped, possibly some other time.

You’re right; Mary’s definitely not happy to have Jim back in the game full time. Jim coming back into the open means her whole life - that she almost lost when John walked out for six months and now just got back - is about to go to shit. Once Jim is back in the open, it’s only a matter of time before he tells John that she works for him, and that she knew the whole time that Sherlock was alive and didn’t tell John, and then John’s going to leave her. Her relationship has an expiration date, and it’s whenever Jim decides. After shooting Sherlock, she probably also knows her life has an expiration date - that’s also whenever Jim decides.

However, I don’t think hiding would do Mary much good - I’m sure Jim could find her, and I’m sure Mary knows that. I think she’s still with John because:

She loves John (albeit selfishly) and wants to keep him/this life

Jim would be even more pissed at her if she left John now (the fact that Jim thinks John took Mary back is probably the only thing keeping Jim from killing her right now)

Hiding from Jim won’t do her much good because he’ll find her

She can’t get John to hide with her while Sherlock is alive because John won’t leave Sherlock

However, if Mary stays in London where the action is, she has an opportunity to get everything she wants - albeit a risky one:

The only way that Mary can stay alive and out of jail and keep John is to kill both Sherlock and Jim (and probably Jim’s other assassins, since I’d bet that Jim has them ready to take a hit on Mary if she tries anything, and possibly Mycroft, depending on how powerful she thinks Mycroft is). Killing Sherlock and Jim is not exactly an easy task, particularly because now John is going to be very suspicious if Sherlock suddenly gets sniped. So Mary’s best option is probably to make it look like Jim and Sherlock killed each other, meaning she’ll have to kill them at pretty much the exact same time, which again makes it more difficult. She probably also has to kill at least Jim from a close range, not with a riffle, since I doubt Sherlock is great with a sniper riffle. Definitely not easy - but her only option to get out of her current situation alive and out of jail.

I think this is basically going to be Mary’s plan in 4x3. As soon as Jim decides to let the people who want to hurt Mary off the leash, Mary needs to put this plan into action: kill Sherlock, kill Jim, kill as many of the people after her as she can, and get out of London with John. Unfortunately for Mary - though fortunately for us - most of that isn’t going to work. The only part that I think will go well for Mary is killing the people after her. I think Mary will shoot at Sherlock - and John will take the bullet - and this is how we’ll get the The Three Garridebs.

However, I think it’s at least possible that Mary disappears in 4x1, even if I don’t think it’s that likely. If she were to disappear, I think it would be at the end of 4x1, as a cliffhanger, and it wouldn’t be clear if she left voluntarily or was kidnapped (AKA it’s still not clear if she’s a good guy or a villain). I don’t think Mary will be very involved in 4x1, so basically Sherlock and John would just return to the house/hospital/somewhere at the end to find out that Mary’s gone. However, this does raise some problems:

1) Why does Mary come back in 4x3? If she disappears in 4x1, then we still have to deal with her as a villain eventually. Either she comes back voluntarily; or someone brings her back; or Sherlock and John find her. If she’s brought back, the person doing the bringing is either Mycroft or Jim, both of whom would’ve just killed her/sent her to jail instead of bringing her back to cause more damage. If she left, why would she come back voluntarily?

2) Baby Watson - who has it, where is it? If Mary has already given birth at this point, then presumably the baby would live with John and Sherlock in Baker Street while they were looking for Mary, which I don’t think Mofftisson will do because I think they want to get rid of Baby Watson, and so no one (audience or characters) can be very attached to it. If Mary has not given birth when she disappears, when she returns, who has Baby Watson? Did she bring it back with her, and if so, why? Because it needs to return and be involved in the plot; Sherlock and John won’t just forget about it. So did Jim take it? Did Mary take it with her? Is it fake in this situation? Because then Sherlock and John spent a whole season looking for a baby … that turns out not to be real. I think Mofftisson probably can’t write the baby out (David’s, fake, dead, etc) if Sherlock and John have to spend the whole season looking for it, because then it’s a real character that the audience and the characters are invested in. Then we have a connection between John and Baby Watson, which makes it difficult to get rid of the baby. Which would lead to parentlock, which mild-lunacy has outlined as very unlikely.

3) One would like to think that once Mary disappeared, Sherlock and John would finally tell each other that they both hate her, which would ruin a lot of emotional drama later on in the season. “Okay, well, now that she’s gone, I suppose I should probably tell you that I was lying about the surgery bit?” “Yeah, I actually read the flash drive and never forgave her. Well, done with that!”

4) Is it reasonable to think that John wouldn’t work out that Mary works/worked for Jim if she disappears immediately after Jim returns? Because I don’t think John or the audience can figure that out yet, because again, that takes a lot of drama and excitement away from later in the season.

5) What are they doing in 4x2? I don’t think Mary leaving at the end of 4x1 would change much of anything about 4x1 or 4x3, but what are Sherlock and John doing in 4x2? Presumably they’re looking for Mary - and possibly the baby - so they go on some kind of case that they think leads to Mary but doesn’t. What is the point of this case - not the “case,” obviously, but the whole episode/case should tell you something about Sherlock and John - but what? If Mary’s still around in 4x2, then I think 4x2 will be a very painful example of just how much Johnlockary doesn’t work. I think it’ll be a fun crime-solving threesome team with everyone being pals on the surface - but with infinite sniping and tension beneath, to tell you how much John and Sherlock both hate Mary. So if Mary’s not there, then there’s a different point. What is it?

Oscar Wilde’s response to Barrister Carson’s direct question of whether Wilde had ever kissed a certain servant boy (x)

Hopefully I understand your question. I have said that I don’t think Johnlock is going to be undeniable to many/most people until they kiss on the mouth. Not even if they say the words “I love you” or “I’m never going to date again” or “I’m going to live in Baker Street with you for the rest of my life” - I think many people will still regard that as platonic. I don’t think that without a kiss on the mouth most people will believe they’re in love.

If you’re asking about the sort of physical intimacy on screen, I honestly think pretty much. I mean, I do think it’ll still be pre-watershed but:

The BBC understands that “landmark content” entails visuals of LGB intimacy.

And also:

The BBC has consciously chosen to portray LGB intimacy despite the reaction of uncomfortable heterosexuals.

Those are both from the 2009 LGB Research Commission. And I recall that the BBC has made a commitment not to rate higher for homosexual intimacy than for heterosexual intimacy.

So TBH I feel like the Kiss itself is going to be pretty Serious And Heated, more so than I bet a lot of people will expect. They’ve put in a lot of extremely sexual symbolism and references to not get pretty explicitly sexual literally. They really haven’t built up for a chaste kiss. I’m American, so I’m not sure I understand how sexual things are rated in Britain (because TBH I was surprised by how sexual ASiB and the stag night were and weren’t those both rated 12+ in Britain?), but I guess I’d say certainly:

Serious kiss

With TBH a lot of groping

Some amount of clothes start coming off, probably at least shirtless

See them lying in bed together, sans clothes but avec sheets and clearly having just had sex

Sherlock’s epiphany O-face - which is technically about an epiphany about Jim but let’s get real here

In fact, since they constantly do Sherlock’s epiphanies like orgasms, I expect there’ll be a scene where they’re technically figuring out the case but it’s extremely sexualized, with the end being Sherlock solving it complete with O-face, probably when they’re lying in bed together, and John “triggers the epiphany” - you see where I’m going with this

Assorted canoodling (some chaste some not) later after they defeat Jim

Plus after the stag night and John’s wet dream I have complete faith in Mofftisson’s abilities and desires to tell us every little thing that happened in their bedroom, so I think there’s going to be an avalanche of metaphorical porn (sharing food, etc).