[Spoiler alert: We’re going to talk about the ending of His Last Vow. (Well, not the ending ending. All I will say about that is that I don’t think it’s a trick: go re-watch John’s abduction in The Empty Hearse.) Properly speaking, we’re going to talk about the climax of His Last Vow. You know, the part where Sherlock makes sure he has plenty of witnesses before shooting an unarmed man in the head. (I’ve never been very good at spoiler alerts.)]
[Note to family and friends: Should I ever need morphine, and should you not have it, I fully intend to bellow, “Then what is the point of you?!?” in the best public-school accent I can muster. You have been warned. Now on with the post.]
“The point I'm trying to make is that I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all-round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy. So if I didn't understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody's best friend. And certainly not the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing. John, I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship.”
- Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Three
Are there people who identify with John Watson? For me, it’s always been Sherlock. Not that I think I’m a genius, but that I would happily divide the world into “people” (defined as those I care about) and -- to borrow from the smarter Holmes brother -- “goldfish”.
So I guess what I’m saying is, I’m Sherlock with less excuse.
Great.
It’s been widely said that we’ve seen a more human Sherlock in Series Three, and I think that’s true, but not because he learns to love. The fact is, Sherlock has always been willing to love: remember what happened to the CIA agent who roughed up Mrs. Hudson? He is just extremely careful about whom he chooses to love. And how. And isn’t that the temptation for all of us? “To love” is an active verb. It’s something that we decide to do, and something that can be done on our terms.
To BE loved? Now that’s scary.
Being loved requires humility. It requires a willingness to surrender control and accept a gift freely given -- and often undeserved. The Sherlock of A Study in Pink does not deserve John Watson’s friendship, but it is given, and Sherlock doesn’t understand why. Even by the end of Series Two, he still thinks love should be earned, should somehow be based on merit. In The Reichenbach Fall, he asks faithful lab assistant Molly Hooper, “Molly, if I weren’t everything you think I am -- everything I think I am -- would you still want to help me?” She replies simply, “What do you need?” Molly doesn’t love Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective. She loves Sherlock.
And two and a half years later, it is Molly who snaps when she sees the results of his Dr.-Watson-ordered drug test in the opening of His Last Vow:
The language here, a language of gift and obligation, is breathtaking. A gift places us under an obligation to the giver: an obligation of gratitude, but also an obligation not to abuse the gift. By abusing himself, Sherlock has abused his friends’ love -- not least, as John points out, by refusing to acknowledge that love and ask for their help.
But the episode’s most stunning scene is yet to come. Christmas with the Holmes family. Mycroft and Sherlock pretending to put up with their parents’ confounded...normality (and Mycroft not really even bothering to pretend: “Am I glad, too? I haven’t checked.”). The brothers sneak outside for a forbidden smoke break, and Mycroft warns Sherlock not to pursue Charles Augustus Magnussen, calling him a necessary evil, “not a dragon for you to slay.” Mycroft says he has been authorized to offer Sherlock a job, but that he hopes Sherlock will decline it. Sherlock promptly declines, then asks what the job is. MI-6 wants him to go back undercover in Europe (capitalizing on his work destroying Moriarty’s network during the [interminable!] two-year gap between Series Two and Three), but Mycroft has estimated that he will last only six months before being discovered and killed.
Then this happens:
And here’s a question: As the scene concludes, Sherlock asks, “What the hell am I supposed to say to that?” and Mycroft suggests, “Merry Christmas.” Recall that Magnussen’s ultimate plan is to ensnare Mycroft, and recall Sherlock’s last two words before shooting him. Sherlock is primarily thinking of John and Mary in that scene, but is he also answering his brother? It is certainly not the answer his brother wanted: “Oh, Sherlock, what have you done?” *
We have grown accustomed to seeing Sherlock use people. His relationship with Janine is perhaps the most egregious example, ending in her unexpected and brilliant parting shot: “We could have been friends.” For just a moment, Sherlock looks at someone he had placed firmly in the “goldfish” category...and discovers that she is a person. (I. Love. Steven. Moffat.)
Anyway. What we don’t notice so easily is that Sherlock also uses himself. The heroin, after all, was for a case. And in A Study in Pink, he risks suicide for a point of pride. Irene Adler sums him up when she takes away his clergyman’s collar in A Scandal in Belgravia:
Irene: Disguise is always a self-portrait.
Sherlock: You think I’m a vicar with a broken face?
Irene: I think you’re damaged, delusional, and believe in a higher power -- in your case, it’s yourself.
Irene: I think you’re damaged, delusional, and believe in a higher power -- in your case, it’s yourself.
Sherlock believes that he is completely his own master: to preserve, or to destroy. When he kills Magnussen, he is once again using himself. It’s not that he thinks it’s right. He thinks it’s a necessary evil, and he takes that evil upon himself. But in doing so, he also takes that evil into himself, betraying the people who love him by making himself something that he was not before. “My brother is a murderer,” says Mycroft, and for once there is no quip to disguise the simple truth.
But Sherlock has betrayed more than his friends, and at least one person in the series does hint at a higher power. Go back and look at the Molly scene again. His friends are not the only, or the first, thing she thinks of: “How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with?” There is more being given here than John’s, or Molly’s, or Mycroft’s love.
A gift places us under an obligation to the Giver.
*Dear Mr. Gatiss: After the empty house/Mary as client sequence, I didn’t think my heart could be broken again. You re-made it and re-broke it, right here.
