Hmmm. Never thought about it… Anybody?
Right quick: I think a lot of this season’s about embodiment. While it’s obvious that Sherlock’s coming to terms with his need for emotional connection, he’s also learning about the vulnerability of his body. “..can this man who’s all mind, pure logic, exist in a vulnerable body? (He begins under torture, he ends as a weeping child.)” (x) “He wants to live by logic, but he can’t escape his chemistry” (x). All the excretions, piss and shit and blood and tears, are evidence of our gross materiality, the inescapable body. (Psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva calls such “effluvia” signs of “the abject,” the filth and waste that society rejects and is freaked out by.) Most importantly here, they’re means of contamination. Sherlock’s piss will provide evidence that he’s contaminated himself mind and body; Magnussen’s piss is a symbolic contamination of Sherlock’s home. (I wrote earlier about Magnussen as a mirror of Sherlock, only with a disgusting physicality. “To every superego its abject,” as Kristeva would say.)
the saliva left on one’s cheek after unwanted licking, perhaps?
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