History Fridge / Sherlock

* In ''The Sign of Three, Mrs Hudson tells John she was more upset about her husband cheating with other women (a lot of them, apparently) than about him [[spoiler: running a ''drug cartel.'']] She said she had no idea he was cheating. Sherlock must have known this, which makes his outing Mr Chatterjee as a cheater as simultaneously a bit heartwarming (he's trying to warn her before she gets in too deep) and horrible (he's such a dick about it, to a woman he knows has suffered deeply from being cheated on before.)

* The two answers in the "Who am I?" are actually a huge hint to the character arcs of Sherlock and John in Series 3. First is Sherlock who is, simply, himself. Or rather he's 'Sherlock Holmes' as John sees and describes him. However Sherlock isn't able to work it out, meaning he doesn't know himself, just as he said at the end of The Empty Hearse when John remarks that he loves being Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock replies he doesn't even know what that means. Sherlock has changed and grown a lot from the man we knew him as in the past two series. A lot of this series is about him trying to find out who he wants to be and what his place is in the world which, at this point in the episode, is still clearly a mystery to him. Now what on earth links John to Madonna? Well Madonna calls up two images. One is a religious figure of devotion, purity and motherhood. Not too far from a loyal and good doctor as well as a soon-to-be father. The other Madonna is pop icon who made herself famous by pushing the line of indecency; a rather diverse person that to some is a hero and others scandalous. This is John's other persona; the side he's trying to repress in order to lead a happily married life - the adrenaline junkie who hungers for violence. The doctor who 'had bad days' and killed people. Neither him nor Sherlock know which 'Madonna' is being referred to here, Sherlock just says he picked it from some papers - were the papers about the pop star or the Virgin Mother? Is John a loving, a kind doctor and father or a danger addict?

* Okay, I'm not really sure what to call this, but just a funny observation that I, as an American, nearly missed. In the beginning, when John is getting in the car to go to the drugs den, he keeps telling Mary that she shouldn't come. She ends up coming anyway. Watch the scene- he's standing next to the PASSENGER DOOR (which I, the stupid American, nearly confused with the driver's door) and when Mary insists on coming, he just gets in AT THAT DOOR, like he'd been expecting it, and Mary goes over very naturally to the driver's seat. In-story, probably shows that John knew deep down that he'd never be able to convince Mary not to come and that he was expecting her along. Real (meta) reason? MARTIN FREEMAN CAN'T DRIVE.
** Not true (well, the part about Freeman not having a license is true and that's probably why he's never shown actually driving. Being ex-Army, it was always likely that ''John'' can drive.) During the "you can't come" scene John is definitely standing next to the driver's side door, located on the right-hand side of the car. When they arrive at the smack den and John goes to get the tyre lever, you can clearly see the steering wheel on the right and Mary seated on the left (kerbside door), the one she originally got in. By the time he comes back out with Isaac and Sherlock, Mary has switched and is now in the driver's seat.
** I think I can explain why you were confused. (I was too - also American!) Brits have their steering wheels on the wrong side, but they also drive on the wrong side of the road. So, in both America and England, you have to walk off the curb and around to the driver's side. :)
*** Okay, you guys are both right- I watched it again, and he did go to the driver's side first :). I'll leave this up for a bit for a bit of humble pie and then take it down :).

** or it could be snarking at Mrs H, and possibly an example that he is quite fond of his mother - only you are allowed to slag off your parents

*** The only time we see John outright lie is in "Scandal" when he tells Sherlock Irene Adler is with a witness protection scheme in America, after Mycroft told John she was beheaded in Pakistan. He lies very ''very'' badly, small wonder he's mastered the art of twisting the truth. However, the fact that he hangs onto the hope that Sherlock (who can probably read him better than anyone) won't notice his lie shows how desperate he is for Sherlock to avoid dealing with Irene's death all over again.

-->'''Sherlock''': ''[mimicking]'' "Don't be smart, Sherlock, ''I'm'' the smart one".\\

'''Sherlock''': I used to think I was stupid.\\
'''Mycroft''': We both did.

* Just after Mycroft looses Operation we get the below exchange. This could (in part) explain why at the beginning of the series Sherlock is so desperate, and goes to such rediculous lengths, to proove he's clever; ''because he spent his young childhood thinking he was stupid''.
--->'''Sherlock''': ''[mimicking]'' "Don't be smart, Sherlock, ''I'm'' the smart one".\\

--->'''Sherlock''': Where is it?\\

--->'''SHERLOCK''': Where is it?
--->'''MYCROFT''': Where's what?
--->'''SHERLOCK''': You ''know'' what.

* Sherlock's conversation with Sholto and his demeanor implies quite a bit about Sherlock's actions at the end of The Reichenbach Fall. He identifies with this man, who is held responsible for all these deaths because of who he was (a soldier), who is essentially letting himself be killed, because he once stood there and did the same thing. Sherlock felt responsible for the danger that Moriarty put his friends in, and for all the death and pain that Moriarty had caused because he saw Sherlock as a worthy adversary. ("I created Moriarty.) Sherlock didn't realize at that point that John cares about him for more than his cleverness, and so he tries to break John's faith in him, to protect him and so that the loss would hurt less, saying basically as Major Sholto says "I really don't believe in collateral damage. Please leave me." Sherlock didn't believe he mattered to anyone, and so he really did all but commit suicide. He goes along with Moriarty's story, like Sholto is going along with his murderer's. He sees Major Sholto about to make the same choice he did, and because he now knows how much his actions cost, and he knows how much John cares about him and what that means, he's able to talk Major Sholto down, by saying "We would never do that to John Watson." Sherlock steps back, knowing that it will work, because he knows that he would also never do that to John (At least not anymore.)

* One of Sherlock's great failures was not getting anyone to listen to him when he was young and knew that Carl Powers had been murdered, because no one listens to children. Compare to Archie, who not only is very much like Sherlock (right down to the curls and the distaste for social norms), but who also has ideas about who's trying to kill Sholto. And Sherlock listens! He asks for his opinion and takes him seriously, and in the end, Archie is ''right.''

** John had answered "no." The answer, in this case anyway, is ''yes.'' Sherlock doesn't really know or particularly care about Sholto, perhaps, but he identifies with him and shows empathy with him. And he certainly cares about John; the idea of someone John obviously cares about a lot committing suicide ''at his wedding,'' is enough impetus for Sherlock to step up and solve the crime.

-->'''Sherock:''' This is your ''heart'' and you should never let it control your head.
* Both Sherlock and Mary insist that John subconsciously (or perhaps even consciously) knew that Mary was more than she seemed, and Mary even says [[spoiler: he saw that she was a former assassin and married her anyway.]] It seems news to John, but one important action at the beginning of the ep sort of confirms it. John very weakly protests that Mary can't come with him to fetch Isaac because she's pregnant, but doesn't really mind when she gets in the car anyway. Afterwards, he apparently is fine with his pregnant wife (unarmed and still dressed only in a nightie, dressing gown and slippers!) taking home two very high smackheads, one of whom had ''already shown he was violent by threatening John with a knife.'' John had confiscated the knife by then, but it was still an abnormally reckless thing to be okay with Mary doing... unless he subconsciously realised she could definitely take care of herself if any trouble arose.

+

* When Sherlock escapes from hospital, Mycroft is briefly seen trying to track him down via GPS. The mission code name (which he no doubt thought up himself): Ugly Duckling. Since this is Mycroft, it could refer to Sherlock, the ugly duckling, being the little boy who thought he was stupid but who was actually brilliant. More likely, given their conversation in Hearse, Mycroft considered it an appropriate code-name because Sherlock, in the last couple of years, still considered himself a friendless sociopath, an "ugly duckling." But now he has gone on the run while seriously injured in order to protect John and [[spoiler: reconcile him to his wife,]] and now has a number of real, honest-to-God friends frantically scouring London looking for him. Transformation into beautiful swan: near complete.
* Despite having had a rough deal for almost the entirety of his marriage, John agrees to spend an awkward Christmas with Mary and with the Holmes family. He's still wearing his wedding ring, and later complains that he mows the lawn "loads", hinting that if he and Mary were actually living under separate roofs, he was still keeping up appearances and fulfilling what he felt were his household duties. Now think back to what Sherlock said about Harry and John in ''A Study in Pink.'' He deduced that John's primary rift with Harry was ''not'' about her drinking, but because she walked out on her wife. For whatever reason, John apparently feels very strongly about people abandoning their marriages. It may have influenced his decision to try to reconcile to Mary.

** Then, when he is reunited with Sherlock two years later, one of the very first things he says is:

* When Sherlock tells Mary to [[spoiler:do a pregnancy test]] he also starts rabbiting about "the statistics" for the [[spoiler:first trimester]], and John tells him quite strongly to shut up. The statistics Sherlock was about to blurt out could refer to [[spoiler:the proportions of pregnancies ending in miscarriage in the first trimester or to the unreliability of shop bought tests.]]

*** Yes. To clarify: WordOfGod and the show itself have shown that Sherlock is ''not'' asexual. But something about the idea of having ordinary, consensual sex scares him (see comments made by Mycroft and Irene in ''A Scandal in Belgravia''). It can't be a religious or a moral reservation, either, since he has no problems lying, cheating, stealing, hurting/killing others in the course of his work, and taking drugs (i.e. hurting himself). The horror is wondering why the man who pragmatically and casually drugged his parents is too scared to have sex with his "girlfriend."

*** The other ways he took advantage of her were necessary for his plan, having sex with her was not. She told him afterwards that it would have been nice but there is no guarantee she would have felt that way. At the wedding she actually told Sherlock "No sex, ok?" (practically the first thing she said to him) and Sherlock is the kind of person who could easily assume that meant she (while not being tricked into thinking they were a couple) didn't want to have sex with him.

* The more you think about it, the more there's a case for John being more like Mary than he thinks. He is initially horrified to find out [[spoiler: she is a former assassin for the CIA]], but like her, he was also [[spoiler: in a government-sanctioned profession where, amongst other things, killing people was part of the job description. Sherlock identifies Mary as a former intelligence agent, which encompasses far more than being 'an assassin', just as being a soldier involved far more for John than just shooting at the Taliban.]] They even left their respective professions at around the same time, five years before. ** Then we have this exchange in ''His Last Vow''-

* The more you think about it, the more there's a case for John being more like Mary than he thinks. He is initially horrified to find out [[spoiler: she is a former assassin for the CIA]], but like her, he was also [[spoiler: in a government-sanctioned profession where, amongst other things, killing people was part of the job description. Sherlock identifies Mary as a former intelligence agent, which encompasses far more than being 'an assassin', just as being a soldier involved far more for John than just shooting at the Taliban.]] They even left their respective professions at around the same time, five years before. Then we have this exchange in ''His Last Vow''-

John seems disgusted at this, but think back to this in ''A Study in Pink:''

One suspects John did a lot of thinking about this kind of thing [[spoiler: prior to the Christmas reconciliation, where the emphasis is ''not'' about any moral issues John might have about Mary's former profession, but the fact that she lied to him about it.]]