Somebody Loves You

Sherlock and John’s first meeting and the flashback to his deduction on John are certainly two of the most important scenes in the first episode in terms of subtext and it’s definitively worth examining those scenes in detail. Quite a lot has been covered by LSiT in her fantastic meta on “Subversion and Sherlock – a Study in Pink”, but I hope I may be able to add a detail or two. Because – what I didn’t notice at first sight – what we see in the flashback wasn’t there in the first place.

Let me try to explain. What do we see in the flashback? Sherlock and John are staring at one another. They seem to be locked in an intense gaze, completely oblivious to their surroundings.

The camera moves forth and back between John and Sherlock, over and over again, for more than ten seconds. But in the original scene of their first meeting, there’s no such shot, not even a much shorter one.

To start with Sherlock: This is his position in the flashback:

It must be something that happened between these two shots:

(9:23)

and

(9:28)

To be more exact, it must happen between 9:25 and 9:27, when we see John and Mike Stamford enter the lab. It could be this moment:

(9:26)

But at that time, we don’t see Sherlock (not even his back).

So, the first intriguing point: Sherlock’s very first view of John – which can’t last more than a second – is only revealed in retrospect.

Now let’s look at John in the flashback. We haven’t seen that shot before either. Again, it’s similar to some shots in the original scene, but not exactly identical. This is John in the flashback:

During the first meeting, we see some similar shots, but not exactly the same. The moment John first notices Sherlock is probably this:

(9:37)

This happens about ten seconds after Sherlock’s first view of John (or I should say, ten seconds after the moment I suppose to be the moment of Sherlock’s first noticing John).

We’ll get some shots similar to the flashback later, but never exactly the same as in the flashback. The most similar one is this (but you’ll notice that in this shot, John’s head is tilted to the left, not to the right, and his look is less intense).

(10:35)

So, why is this all so important?

During the flashback scene, the camera pretends to show something that didn’t exist in the first place. The shots of Sherlock and John that are combined in the flashback never happened simultaneously.

The audience is lead to believe it’s watching Sherlock making a deduction about John, whereas, in fact, the flashback isn’t about the deduction at all. Nor is it about finding out as much as possible about a flatmate-to-be. That all happened in an instant in the original scene. The flashback, on the contrary, shows us how Sherlock sees John and vice versa. Sherlock is mesmerized by John the moment John enters the room, and so is John by Sherlock, just a bit later.

Thus, the flashback deliberately combines two shots originally distant in time to show Sherlock’s and John’s respective moments of being instantly fascinated by each other, as if those moments took place at the same time.

In HLV, when Sherlock is shot, we see several people reflected three times in Magnussen’s mirrors.  Clearly, this can be seen as a reference to the love triangle of series 3: John, Sherlock and Mary.

But, watching Magnussen walk into Baker St, I developed an additional theory.

Sherlock’s Mirror

We have seen 2 mirrors similar to Sherlock’s living room mirror. Both have been owned by gay people.

Irene Adler,

Connie/Kenny Prince,

[With helpful comment from John.  Being gay: it’s more common than people think.  :)]

OOOOO  OOOOOOO

The first time we see Magnussen

“..if you know who I am then you know who he is…”

We see him in relation to Sherlock’s gay mirror and John, while Sherlock comments that he and John are basically inseparable.  Next time we see him in relation to the mirror is two takes later and he appears tripled on the edge of Sherlock’s mirror.  Triple Magnussen = Magnussen knows.  This is Magnussen reflected in Sherlock’s mirror of gayness (that just had John in it, in the first shot).

Magnussen knows Sherlock’s most important secret: he is gay and he’s in love with John.

OOOOO  OOOOOOO

When Sherlock finds Mary threatening Magnussen

Triple Mary = Mary knows.

Even when Molly comes around, we still see Mary’s face, there, lingering,

Sherlock ponders if the bullet is still inside him.  Sherlock knows,

Mycroft knows,

Magnussen knows so Mary is pointing a gun at him,  

My own feelings that John knows aside, he is being shown specifically in relation to these mirrors that reflect everything but him.  This would be symbolic of John not knowing, unlike so many others,

These shots also include Magnussen in the foreground.  He sees Johns reaction to Sherlock being hurt.  He sees John’s love.  But, does he also see that John doesn’t know that Sherlock loves him?  He sees John is not reflected in the mirror.  Now, I’m sure Magnussen can’t see the show’s symbolism, unless he’s breaking the fourth wall all over the place but in the show, the symbolism still is: Magnussen sees that John doesn’t see.

OOOOO  OOOOOOO

Later

Triple Lestrade = Lestrade knows,

This is after making a comment that he’s going to film Sherlock babbling incoherently at the hospital,

Scenes without background music: Sherlock sees John for the first time after the fall. 

Sherlock + Emojis

Legit Johnlock Scenes

Wisteria Lodge

Holmes had received a telegram whilst we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“Seen anything you like?”

“I’d rather buy chocolates some other day, John, than paying inflated prices because of some made-up, overly commercialised, sorry excuse for a holiday.”

“Haha, you never actually buy chocolates, Sherlock. You either nick them from Mrs. Hudson or me, or you receive them as gifts from people you’ve solved cases for – or who hate you for some reason.”

“Ah, yes. The box laced with arsenic. Now that was an interesting gift.”

“Interesting? It could have been lethal had we eaten them – or given them to somebody else.”

“But we didn’t, and the contents of the box greatly improved an afternoon that would otherwise have been excruciatingly boring. Win/win, I’d say.”

“Anyway, would you like some chocolates?”

“Do they contain strychnine?”

“No, you berk, they contain nougat, several kinds of chocolate, almonds, marzipan ... some alcohol, too, I think.”

“You didn’t buy them because of that ‘holiday’, did you?”

“What if I did?”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

“Or simply a romantic – like you.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Exciting chase through Soho, dinner at Angelo’s?”

“Coincidence.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Those chocolates you bought ... there wouldn’t be any with pistachio marzipan, would there?”

“How about we head home and you try them?”

“Good idea.”