Theorising before the facts about His Last Vow

[marysutherland]

Since there have been lots of suggestions about what might happen in the last episode of Sherlock tomorrow, here are mine, based on nothing more than a brief re-reading of "Charles Augustus Milverton", rather too much time on Tumblr in the last few days seeing other people's theories, and then mixing them up together in my head to produce shiny new patterns.

In ACD's Sign of Four, when Dr Watson is rhapsodizing about Mary Morstan, Holmes scolds him for his biased judgement, and says:

"I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor. "

Meanwhile, at the end of "Charles Augustus Milverton", Milverton being shot by a woman whom he has ruined after a failed blackmail attempt (a killing which takes place while Holmes and Watson have broken into his house to try and help another of Milverton's victims). The unnamed woman is a widow, whose husband has died of grief after hearing about his wife's past.

Several people have pointed out that one of the things Sherlock sees when looking at Mary is the word "liar". We also know that she's an orphan. My wild guess therefore is that Mary is a repentant and reformed criminal, who was in some way culpable for the death of her parents. Sherlock, who can consider a garrotter to be the best man he knows, wouldn't have a problem with that if he found out, and I suspect John would be prepared to forgive her past in practice.

But Mary isn't necessarily going to realise quite what unusual moral standards the two men have, and if it leaked to the papers that John Watson was married to a criminal it'd make a devastating scandal. Mary also strikes me as a woman with enough nerve to kill someone if she was desperate enough, and she's also potentially got access to John's gun. So I think a possible plot is that Mary kills Milverton while Sherlock and John are trying to retrieve blackmail material on someone else and that they then have to help her escape, possibly taking the blame themselves.  (This being Sherlock, there will probably be another three twists in the last five minutes, but it might be one of the plot points).

What I don't believe, meanwhile, is that Mycroft is going to get killed, as some of my friends are worrying. One, because Stephen Moffat is notoriously averse to killing off any of the heroes, as Doctor Who fans have been known to complain. And secondly, because Mark Gatiss is obviously enjoying playing Mycroft and presumably gets a say in the matter.
 

Comments

[marysutherland.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of the Waters gang link - interesting idea. Mary's father as a crook would work well as a secret she's keeping from John, but I'm not convinced it would be enough to get her involved in the blackmail plot that HLV obviously has. As opposed to the Victorian era, ideas about the sins of the fathers don't have so much resonance. It would be humiliating to be the child of a vicious bank robber, but I can't see it as social disgrace for either her or John. I think if Mary's being blackmailed it has to be about something that she's done personally. And there may be particular pressure on her internally from the fact that she's pregnant and therefore that if her secret comes out her child will grow up knowing her mother is a former IRA gun-runner/killed someone aged sixteen/betrayed her country etc.

So I would be disappointed if Mary turns out either to be simply a victim (or an out and out baddie): but we'll soon find and then we can write our much better ideas as AUs.

[grassle.livejournal.com]

It's probably too obvious, but in the trailer when Mycroft says something about 'If you go against Milverton, you're going against me,' I thought that some politician / establishment figure was being blackmailed (Mycroft *is* the government), and Sherlock thinks it's Mycroft personally, so gets involved. Which is when he discovers Mary isn't as squeaky clean as portrayed (but not that she was being blackmailed herself.)

I think she's being set up as the (unwitting) victim of her past / family and tries to redeem herself by helping Sherlock. And yes, no fanfic writer could write worse scenarios than we've been seeing.