221B Recs

Title: Sherlock's Dreamwork: The Client Chair
Author: plaidadder
Pairing: Gen
Length: 1,051
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC

Author's summary: None. A meta on TAB as Sherlock's dreamworld, specifically looking at how Mary is treated in contrast to the other women in the episode and what that might say about Sherlock's state of mind regarding Mary in the wake of HLV.

Reccer's comments: Although TAB is just one episode and a "special" at that, it is such a structurally and symbolically rich work that it is inspiring some interesting, thoughtful meta.

As TAB is not historical fiction, but rather a Mind Palace episode powerfully influenced by an overdose of drugs and interrupted only once or twice by the show’s waking “reality”, it makes sense to analyze it as a dream. Although I don't think this meta’s central argument represents the key to the entire episode as claimed, I certainly agree that it helps us understand one of the two central stories that are interwoven in this brilliant bit of television: 1) Sherlock’s fantasy remixing of HLV and 2) the mystery tied to Moriarty’s seeming return and its link to Sherlock's struggle to acknowledge the legitimacy of his emotions and embodiment.

The story that is explored so well in this meta is a re-working-out of HLV in a way that allows Sherlock to give John who he thinks John wants: "Mary", someone who Sherlock believes is better than himself, “an unprincipled drug addict”. Plaidadder notes that Mary is set apart from the “brides” and their conspiracy, who, as demonstrated by the mystery’s solution, “can be endlessly substituted for each other”. Moreover, unlike them Mary is doubled: she is the inverse of the brides in her black veil and dress, but she is also the spy who finds the brides before “Holmes” does. Sherlock, plaidadder argues, “quarantines” Mary’s real-life recklessness, propensity for violence, and remorselessness by assigning them to the brides, giving her instead the roles of a clever and selflessly patriotic spy and loyal, if put-upon, wife. Such a woman should be an ideal spouse for John, yet the fractured narrative and symbolism of the dream/Mind Palace hint that however competent and selfless Mary is in this dream world, she still may be a terrible denger to John and Sherlock in the show’s reality. As plaidadder points out, Mary in a widow’s attire suggests that she has lost her husband. On the surface it’s a passive-aggressive protest over John’s lack of interest in married life and her; but the choice of black is also the same color as her assassin’s gear the night she mortally wounded Sherlock. Mary is not just a dissatisfied woman just dressed like a widow, she is also an expert assassin who almost certainly has been a widow-maker and seems quite capable of making herself a widow for real if she felt it necessary. No amount of ret-conning by Sherlock can erase this. Because of her dangerous past actions and lack of repentance, at least part of Sherlock’s mind seems to question to whether she is truly refomed. Remember what Lestrade asked her: “Are you for or against?” It may be only a moment of pro-feminist humour, but I suspect it may also be Sherlock—remember the characters are of Sherlock’s constructing and represent at certain times his perception of them and at others different aspects of his own psyche—wondering if she can truly be trusted, even as he also tries to sell himself on the idea that Mary is the worthy partner of John.

In the end, Sherlock appears to have solved the Moriarty-related mystery and even made a bit of progress regarding his emotions and embodiment, but Mary remains, for now, a unsolved mystery.