Henry V. We had been told in the promo pic it was coming:
It features one of the most famous Shakespearean speeches, delivered in beautifully mad ranting glory by Sherlock in TLD as he waves a gun, surrounded by a truly astonishing array photos and articles of Culverton Smith, aka our dark!John mirror. The speech contains the classic Sherlockian line, “The game’s afoot!” but there is much more to the use of this speech in this context than just a canon reference.
Shakespeare first introduces the character of Henry V in the play Henry IV Part 1, where the to-be king is still just Prince Harry, aka “Hal”, who spends his time faffing about with his pal Sir John Falstaff, a disreputable knight, and generally acting like a lawless, wild juvenile brat. Sound familiar?
I’ve been going back over old s4 meta, and I realised I never revisited this after TFP aired. And that’s a shame, because I think it still holds up!
Where we were left after TLD: we had gotten the Once More speech, but as mentioned in the above meta, that is a rallying cry to the troops from a place of power and remove, in the same way Sherlock was still manipulating his soldiers John, with a convoluted plan to get John to save him by keeping him at a distance and not letting him in on his plans, not including him as a peer.
After TLD, after both Sherlock and John hit rock bottom in different ways, after the reconciliation of the hug, Sherlock has finally accepted John as an equal. He’s family, on par with Mycroft. They are at last a “band of brothers” and are ready to face the final battle problem together.
And so we are ready for Saint Crispin’s Day and the
Battle of Agincourt. Henry Sherlock is the first to give the call to arms:
But it isn’t an order. The band of brothers are now on equal footing, and the three must work together to win the day. There are times when John, Mycroft, and Sherlock all lose their composure, and have bolster each other to focus on the battle at hand. We get this beautiful mirroring of roles here:
John is in the position of power here, we get an upshot of him looking stoic with resolve, and then he helps Sherlock to his feet. They are truly brothers in arms.
And what of the ending? Well, as much as it pains me to say it, I must here revise my earlier meta, which had hopefully recast John as Princess Catherine. But no, John is locked into a fraternal role – first as bumbling pal Falstaff, then as a fellow brother in arms – firmly cemented as Sherlock’s family, but as blood brothers, not by marriage.
Instead, we’re left with Molly. As noted earlier, Henry tries to woo the princess, but communication issues complicate the matter:
Yeah, I’d say Sherlock experienced some serious communication issues in the course of trying to get her to say she loves him. Whatever you think of this scene (and trust me I have a lot of thoughts) in the end they both said it, after she insisted that he mean it before she’d say it in return.
In Henry V, Princess Catherine pops in out of nowhere in the final act, eventually giving the happily ever after wedding ending that Shakespeare often used to resolve his plays. In TFP, Molly pops in for this emotional “wooing” scene, and then again at the very end in a cheery glow, implying all is well between them:
Her smile cross-dissolves into his smile. Happily ever after? The show seems to imply that, at the very least, they’ve reconciled. It’s an abrupt button to tack on after the angst of their previous encounter, but not dissimilar to the way everything wrapped up with a bow in Henry V.
If you’d told me 2 years ago I’d be writing sherlolly meta for s4, I’d have laughed in your face, but here we are. What else can I say; it is what it is.
The idea of this video is to show the whole arc of Sherlock and John’s relationship chronologically only with eye contact – the initial curiosity and suprise, the growing attraction and happiness, the annoyance and the jealousy, the anger and the fear, the pining and the restraint, the pain and the love. I wanted to see if the progression of their relationship could be seen with absolutely no words, just from the way they look at each other. I think it is quite apparent, let me know what you think! In the end I needed 2 songs because they goddamn stare at each other too much.
iamjohnlocked4life 