It’s interesting to note that, in series 3′s grand rule of three, we are introduced to three engagement rings. Three engagement rings for three doomed couples, in which, arguably, at least one person is “faking”: Mary & John, Molly & Tom, Janine & Sherlock.
We can also argue that in these 3 relationships, there is one person from the “good” side (John, Molly, Sherlock) getting engaged/proposing to someone most likely working with Moriarty. My belief is that Mary, Tom and Janine have all been deliberately placed on John/Molly/Sherlock to seduce and hurt them, also keeping them from developping an happy relationship with the person they have feelings for (Sherlock, Lestrade, John).
Love and committed relationships seem to be Moriary’s weapon of choice against his ennemies. Then again, his biggest threat consists in “burning the heart out of you”. It is interesting to note Jim knows how much love can hurt and destroy a person. An event from his own past?
Anyway, in series 3, we know of three engagements with people who have ties with Moriarty to hurt their significant other. We also get to see the three engagement rings, quite different from each other: three engagement rings telling us three different stories.
Could this be a point about Maslow’s hierarchy? Sherlock only goes out with John when he isn’t hungry, because food or the act around eating is purely utilitarian for him so otherwise he may see it as indulgent. But it seems he maintains agency with Magnussen by satisfying his bodily needs first before dealing with him. Is this the only time we see him eat?
warning: this is disturbing & uncomfortable
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I think that this emphasises Magnussen’s sexually threatening interactions with Sherlock. His threats in the deleted scene, in the hospital, have shown us this dynamic and I think that here we see a type of strategic, “flirting”, from Sherlock. I think he’s trying to play Magnussen’s game on his turf and just like he, “flirts”, with The Woman because that’s what her game requires I think he does this here with CAM, too. (I see Irene as reverse Magnussen, well benign Magnussen, anyway).
He says, ‘I’ve been thinking about you…’, and CAM’s like, ‘I’ve been thinking about you, too’, and like this is like mock up of flirting. They’re threatening each other but there’s a veneer of sexual innuendo there,
Sherlock is eating because he’s making himself sexually vulnerable and because he’s also being threatened in a vulnerable place: with blackmail about his sexuality and his love of John. Like, he’s accepting/acknowledging that he’s sexually vulnerable in relation to Magnussen.
Magnussen eating his food and putting his fingers in his glass just further cement his boundary-crushing insidious personal aggression, I think.
I think the use of bokeh in this scene also shows us that this scene is about feelings (I think that circles/spheres on the show represent feelings because of their connection to the solar system, something that Sherlock claims to not have any use for and know nothing about, just like sentiment). I mean we know CAM knows, ‘things’, about people and most people’s weak spots have to do with their feelings, their lovers, their relationships, etc. Here we see Sherlock admit that he wants to see into Appledore, he wants to see all the secrets,
I think on a more surface level Sherlock is playing Magnussen’s creepy game and one a deeper level Sherlock is becoming emotional/sexually vulnerable and admitting he wants to know what the secrets are: his own and those of others.
The idea that food = sex on the show is very well accepted (probably originated with LSiT like so many others) so that would go back to the idea that this is a sexually vulnerable position for Sherlock to be in. Maybe he’s becoming vulnerable on purpose to seem weak and try to lull CAM into a false sense of security. He’s literally, ‘showing his neck’, here (a behaviour animals will do when they’re under threat to show their surrender). So, I do think it’s a power play for Sherlock to appear, ‘weak’, to CAM. The latter will even add, ‘morphine’, to the list of Sherlock’s pressure points but for all we know Sherlock showed him this side of him on purpose: he gives himself more morphine in front of CAM specifically. Maybe to cope with him or maybe to emphasise his, ‘weakened’, position against Magnussen.
I’ve speculated that food is actually romance esp because of the Woman and his conclusion that she’s romantically interested in him, not just sexually attracted to him. But, like, either way, what CAM knows goes to the heart of Sherlock’s vulnerability in both a sexual and romantic way.
I agree with this, but my focus is more on the fact that Sherlock is eating by himself before Magnussen comes in, and then Magnussen, who doesn’t have his own food, takes the food off of Sherlock’s plate. This is, IMO, a clear rape metaphor. With the deleted scene, this serves much the same purpose, but more thinly veiled.
I also question whether this scene actually exists in the “real world”..it is odd. It may be a Mindpalace occurrence, as sherlock dragging himself to a restaurant with IV pole et all is a bit much. ( I’ve fic’d it this way, and I still haven’t decided if it is real or MP yet).
It’s literally devastating how much a point of view change can do. In the first two series the story is focalized through John and we see how very lonely and hurt he is and therefore Sherlock seems like this…almost cruel yet positively luminous genius who darts in and out of the frame with verve and brilliance and lightens everything just a bit and he maaay be hiding behind an armour, we know, but we can’t always see…
And all it takes is for the point of view to slowly swerve around and back on Sherlock to see that he’s trembling in the corner, clutching at straws, losing everything and that John is an endless reserve of strength.
There are lots of people in happy marriages who turn out to have terrible secrets or to have done some awful deed in the past that must be paid for in the present. In Doyle’s stories, those are the ghosts you need to worry about.
