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Metafictional Imagery in BBC Sherlock

Sometimes what you think is a simple image post turns into a many-part meta series. Oh well, who am I to argue?

This meta series is going to be about metafictional imagery in BBC Sherlock. Because the conceit is based on 9-image sets, it’s a bit constrained. I’ll do my best to mention elements that aren’t easily captured in an image, and relevant images that didn’t make the cut, but I’ll probably still leave things out. Feel free to respond with your own images/meta as the spirit moves you.

The six themes I have planned for this meta are: ‘watching’, ‘decoding’, ‘the press’, ‘disguise’, ‘surveillance’, and ‘hats’.

If I have the stamina, I may follow this up with an episode-by-episode version of the meta, in the hope of tying some of the themes together more directly, but I make no promises. ;)

Okay, let’s get started.

Part I: Watching

It’s no surprise that a television show as firmly committed to metafictionality as BBC Sherlock has a lot of imagery around, well, imagery.

Let me begin by explaining what I mean by ‘watching’. There’s a lot of different kinds of watching, of course - one can go bird watching, or people watching. I’m talking here about watching performances, especially recorded performances. This helps to distinguish ‘watching’ from some of the other themes I’ll be talking about, like ‘surveillance’. Generally speaking, ‘surveillance’ imagery occurs when the watched person is unwilling and/or unaware of being watched, while ‘watching’ imagery involves an intentional performance. I’ll come back to this definition soon.

First: the pictures in this set are my favorites, but there are plenty of others that could be taken from the show, including a boatload from The Great Game. You may have noticed that all the ones I picked are from Series 2 or later. This particular theme is used in more sophisticated ways as the show goes on, so I’m focusing on the later episodes. Still, it’s worth briefly summarizing all of the ‘watching’ imagery in TGG:

John learns that there was an explosion on Baker Street via the tv news

television personality Connie Prince is among the victims in the episode, which John recognizes, telling Sherlock “Lucky for you Mrs. Hudson and I watch far too much telly”

John and Sherlock watch the tv news coverage of the second bombing (third pip) together

another victim, Professor Cairns, is killed while watching a planetarium show

yet another victim, Westie, is watching a movie with his fiancee shortly before his death

Sherlock pretends to be interested in the television so that John will leave and he can go meet Moriarty

If we extend our ‘imagery’ theme to include photographs and paintings as well as moving images, we can add that one of the puzzles in this episodes involves critically viewing an artwork, that Moriarty sends Sherlock clues via pictures, and also that Sherlock impersonates a photographer as part of solving Prince’s murder. But even if we exclude these moments, there’s still too much ‘watching’ imagery in TGG to be a mere coincidence. The writers are introducing a theme here - playing with it a bit, without developing it too seriously.

Enter Series 2.

As I’ve said, we get plenty of ‘watching’ imagery in the first four episodes of BBC Sherlock, but it’s fairly mundane: characters watch tv, critique it, even meet tv personalities. It’s all the sort of stuff you could find in a not-particularly-postmodern show. Series 2 introduces two powerful new elements: the concept of ‘watching oneself’, and Moriarty’s role as Sherlock’s storyteller.

The first element is introduced by Henry Knight in The Hound of Baskerville:

At the beginning of THOB we see a news segment on Baskerville and in particular, about Henry. Sherlock stops the tape:

SHERLOCK (to Henry): What did you see? HENRY: Oh. (He points to the television.) I … I was just about to say. SHERLOCK: Yes, in a TV interview. I prefer to do my own editing.

Henry is a Sherlock mirror, and his story is fundamentally one of misinterpretation. Fearful and confused, he misremembers a traumatic thing that happened to him. But this is only the beginning of Henry’s distress: the people around him take his misinterpretation and run with it, for their own reasons and their own benefit. In this image, we see the crucial role that the press plays in this process. They’re influencing not just how others interpret what happened to Henry, but how Henry himself interprets it, reinforcing and perhaps even extending Henry’s faulty memory. The result is depicted very negatively: Henry feels dissociated, self-loathing, and attempts violence against himself and others. It is only once Sherlock helps him ‘stop the tape’ of his false memories and see the real truth that Henry can move on with his life.

If I can get even more metafictional for a moment - and of course I can! - Henry’s story is a metaphor not just for Sherlock but for ‘the collective Sherlock Holmes stories and fandom’ and perhaps even for all stories with significant fan communities. The production of fan texts is itself quite self-referential. We interpret and make new adaptations, and those things influence not just future interpretations and adaptations but past stories as well. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes didn’t just influence BBC Sherlock - it influences the Arthur Conan Doyle originals through the new interpretive lens it gives to fans. This recontextualization is beautifully captured by John’s line in the greenhouse in The Abominable Bride: “I wrote all that. You’re quoting yourself from the Strand Magazine. Those are my words, not yours.” John interprets Sherlock, and Sherlock himself is changed by the act of John interpreting. The press interprets Henry, and Henry himself is changed by their editing and reinforcement.

Moving on - Henry’s story is foreshadowing for what follows next: The Reichenbach Fall. There’s so much metafictional content in TRF we can’t possibly touch on it all, so I’ll limit myself to the elements surrounding this image:

TRF is explicitly about Moriarty, Sherlock’s “fan” and “the storyteller”, forcing Sherlock to play along with his malicious misinterpretation. This reaches a climax on the roof of Bart’s, where Sherlock realizes he must die to ‘complete [Moriarty’s] story” but it is first spelled out and set up here, in this scene.

Think about what’s actually happening in this image: Moriarty may be the person on screen but he’s telling Sherlock’s story. And not just Sherlock’s story, but a twisted interpretation of it - one where Sherlock really is a sociopath, a murderer with no feelings or conscience.

Unlike Henry Knight, Sherlock knows that the interpretation he’s watching is wrong - but while he may protest the plot, there are other moments where he seems to agree with the characterization. He’s a high-functioning sociopath, after all. Sherlock has forced John to take another cab, so there’s no one here to “stop the tape” for Sherlock - no one except Moriarty, who is watching him through the rearview mirror.

Let’s move on to Many Happy Returns & Series 3, where the ‘watching’ imagery is developed beautifully through mirroring. I’m going to talk about three mirrored moments in particular.

In the mini episode Many Happy Returns, we see John watching Sherlock on television for the first time. That is itself inescapably metafictional. John also repeats his “don’t be dead” plea, echoing the pleas of the original Sherlock Holmes fans and further cementing his role as symbolic fan (though that’s a different meta, mostly). But if that’s not metafictional enough for you, take a look at the actual content of Sherlock’s video. In it, he talks about two key things: the way he knowingly performs the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ persona, and how to lie:

SHERLOCK: Shall I, um …? Smile and wink. I do that sometimes. I’ve no idea why. People seem to like it – humanises me. (He turns away.) LESTRADE: Fine. Whatever.

[…]

SHERLOCK: What was my excuse again? LESTRADE: You said you had a thing. SHERLOCK: Ah, right, yes! That’s right. A thing. LESTRADE: You might wanna elaborate. SHERLOCK: No, no, no. Only lies have detail.

John is not just watching Sherlock on TV. He is watching Sherlock on TV explaining how he lies and performs.

This is not in itself a lie or misinterpretation, but it fits very well with the two previous images we’ve discussed, where Moriarty misinterprets Sherlock and Henry misinterprets himself. The writers are telling us over and over again, through these metafictional mechanisms, that not all stories and not all interpretations can be trusted. Sherlock is not telling the truth about himself, and the writers are not telling the truth about Sherlock. But why?

Sherlock and Moriarty are mirrored constantly, so it’s no surprise that their ‘watching’ imagery is mirrored too. We see both of them via pre-recorded images while they’re ostensibly dead. There’s a mirroring in the stark reversal of the viewers’ reactions. Mrs. Hudson, a frequent John mirror, sees Moriarty and reacts with fear. John sees Sherlock and reacts with sorrow and longing. There’s no doubt how John would answer if Sherlock asked, “Missed me?” And there’s no doubt that Mrs. Hudson, rather than wanting Moriarty to “stop being dead”, very much hopes he will stop being alive.

The next ‘mirror moment’ to talk about comes near the end of His Last Vow:

(gif by @hobbitbilbo)

Now, this isn’t a knowing performance by Sherlock and should rightfully be categorized as ‘surveillance’ and yet, the watching imagery is so, so powerful. As I’ve said elsewhere, John is literally watching BBC Sherlock here. It’s been quite the progression - first he watches tv, then he watches Sherlock on tv, then he watches BBC Sherlock on tv, I mean really writers, really.

This moment can stand on its own quite well, but comparing it to the ‘Sir Boast a Lot’ scene in TRF is illuminating both for the similarities and the differences. First, the similarities: just as Moriarty must be watching Sherlock through the rearview mirror in the cab in TRF, both Sherlock the unwitting performer and Magnussen the knowing recorder are present, watching John take in the scene.

Both ‘shows’ are meant to provide an interpretation of Sherlock’s character. Moriarty’s is a misinterpretation, a casting of Sherlock’s actions in the worst possible light. He knows that it’s all a lie, for a number of reasons but most crucially because he uses Sherlock’s love for John to ensure Sherlock goes along with it. Magnussen also tries to manipulate Sherlock by threatening John, and both threats to John result in: a) the death of the threat-maker by a gunshot wound to the head, b) Sherlock risking his life, and c) Sherlock being forced to leave John for an indefinite period in dangerous environs from which he might never return.

Beyond these similarities, though, the threat Magnussen represents is an inversion. Moriarty works by spreading lies, Magnussen works by offering to keep truths a secret. Moriarty’s end goal is to see Sherlock destroyed by the press, Magnussen uses the threat of disclosure as a means to an end. Magnussen is not threatening Sherlock with a misinterpretation, but with the truth, with how Sherlock cares for John Watson.

There’s one more mirroring I’d like to discuss:

This may very well be unintentional mirroring, given the gap in time between these episodes, but I’ll compare them anyway.

I talked before about how Henry is misinterpreting his past. But Henry is not participating in this misinterpretation willingly. Mary, on the other hand, is in disguise - she knows very well that the things she says about her past are untrue. Sherlock “stops the tape” for Henry, preventing him from internalizing his own false performance. Conversely, he confronts Mary with her performance, making her acknowledge its falseness and forcing her to act to protect it. Henry will do nearly anything to know the truth about his past, though he is horrified to discover he has nearly shot someone and becomes suicidal in his regret. Conversely, Mary will do nearly anything to hide the truth about her past, including shooting someone, and displays little to no horror or regret.

It’s worth noting that these metafictional elements are unnecessary for the surface narrative. Henry could have just told John and Sherlock the story of the hound without showing them the video. Sherlock could have found some other way to ensure Mary wouldn’t shoot him again. But the writers aren’t just Sherlock Holmes geeks, they’re postmodernism geeks too, so here we are. ;)

There’s one more image I’d like to talk about:

Unsatisfied with previous levels of self-reference, here the writers have placed Sherlock in the apartment of Anderson, a symbolic fan and mirror for John – down to the prominent white-floral-on-pale-pink patterns in their respective apartments:

(Although John is dressed and positioned more like Sherlock here. Anyway!)

Anderson is not just making a recording of Sherlock, he is recording Sherlock’s interpretation/retelling of his own past. You could say that Anderson-the-fan is helping create a new adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story.

Of course, Anderson rejects Sherlock’s story almost immediately, going into a frenzy as he begins to spot contradictions and poke holes. His behavior is a bit over the top, which has been seen as a metafictional ‘fuck you’ to the fans. But Anderson’s behavior is only truly silly if you believe that Sherlock’s interpretation is correct, and furthermore that Sherlock always tells the truth, so Anderson would never have a reason to mistrust him. If Anderson ought to just believe what Sherlock says, and we ought to just believe what the writers say.

Given that nearly all of our other ‘watching’ imagery centers around false performances and misinterpretations, I doubt that’s what they’re going for.

Okay, that’s all for now! I hope to have the next ‘metafictional imagery’ meta out sometime this week.

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