In The Sign of Four, Dr Watson falls in love with Mary Morstan, a client who seeks out the aid of Sherlock Holmes. Watson remarks on her attractiveness, her kindly disposition. By the end of the case they are engaged to be married, much to the disappointment of Holmes. Keeping in mind Mofftiss sticks relatively close to ACD canon when updating Sherlock, why do you think they chose to introduce Mary into John’s life at a time when Sherlock was gone? Why didn’t they introduce her when Sherlock was alive? Because this John Watson wouldn’t have picked her. He announced on his blog in episode 4 that his life with Sherlock didn’t involve him dating other women. John gave that part of his life up because his life with Sherlock – whatever you want to call it – was what he preferred. This divergence from ACD canon is incredibly important. Mary came at a time when John was mourning. In order to propose to her, he had to go back to Baker Street to “move on” and say his final goodbye. He hates doing that, you can tell by how horrible he looks and the fact Mrs Hudson suspects him to be gravely ill, but he needs to put one part of his life to rest in order to continue with a new chapter. Mofftiss diverged from canon to emphasize the similarities between Mary and Sherlock. They are rivals. It’s spelled out in the way the camera groups them together in TAB with John on the outside, or the way John has to choose between continuing his proposal or addressing Sherlock when he returns unexpectedly. John groups them together in TSOT when talking about “the two people” he loves most and who have turned his life around. “You two should’ve got married”. Even Sherlock groups himself with Mary in his best man speech and when discussing John’s weight gain and mustache. Mary and Sherlock are meant to be seen as two people fighting over John’s affection. This would never have happened had Sherlock not lied to John about faking his death (what the climax of TAB was all about, btw). In this version, everything about Mary is meant to be seen as a rival and obstacle to our title hero. It is incredibly convenient that Mofftiss wrote her with a few huge character flaws. As much as i love her character, she will not win out against Sherlock. There cannot be two winners here. John will choose once he has all the information out in front of him, and he will choose Sherlock, just as he always has.
Similar to the ways in which John is not the John Watson we know, she is not the Mary Morstan we know, either. You could go one step further and argue that, because Mary Morstan is not her name, and actual Mary Morstan is long dead, there is no Mary Morstan in this version. She’s someone else in a Mary Morstan skinsuit. She’s Moran. She’s the empty AGRA treasure box. She’s a cog in the Moriarty network.
This John Watson is uniquely characterized to be Sherlock’s equal. This Mary Morstan is uniquely characterized to be Sherlock’s rival. (Pro tip: Sherlock always admires his rivals, as much as he knows he has to defeat them. The fact that he likes her is as strong a piece of evidence of their enmity as it is of friendship. He admired Moriarty too.)
This gave me a thought–one that’s probably been explored before, but here goes.
The empty AGRA treasure box got me thinking about John’s Christmas speech. Here’s the thing. John’s speech is full of flat statements that could be taken as good or bad, which is what leaves people coming away with opposite conclusions (which I fully believe is intentional, you-were-told-but-didn’t-listen stuff, but I digress).
So, if the AGRA thumb drive is empty like the treasure box, John could have plugged it into his computer and seen it was empty, but he could still truthfully say that he hadn’t read it.
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