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Amanda Abbington: When I was filming Episodes 1 and 2, I didn’t know what her story was gonna be. I hadn’t been told.
Martin Freeman: Amanda certainly wasn’t imbuing it with ‘spirit of assassin’.
Amanda: I’m playing it all very innocently which is … which kind of helped. I would have played her differently had I known her story, her back story.
Martin: Retrospectively, people will see Episode 3 and go, “Yeah, there was that bit in Episode 1 that she was …” but, trust me, we weren’t filming it like that, d’you know what I mean? We weren’t playing it like that.
(From “Shooting Sherlock”, Series 3 special feature [x])
Since His Last Vow (HLV) aired, the fandom has been trying to do one of two things regarding the character of Mary Morstan: (a) defend her, or (b) vilify her. In order to support whatever argument is being made, we’ve been using all three episodes in which she appears, and most often in the case of the first two episodes, The Empty Hearse (TEH) and The Sign of Three (TSoT), we’ve been using screenshots of Amanda Abbington’s facial expressions, the times she’s hesitated, the way she leans, the direction she’s looking, and so on, to support whatever we’re claiming.
However, in light of the information that Amanda Abbington, when filming those scenes, didn’t actually know Mary’s background as an assassin, means that most of those things we’ve been reading into for the first two episodes, in terms of Amanda’s acting choices, aren’t actually valid reads of the character we saw in HLV. In a sense, because Amanda essentially admits that she played Mary two different ways, what we are looking at are two different Mary Morstans.
In short, if anyone is going to attempt to interpret Mary’s character through Amanda Abbington’s portrayal alone, you need to take it with a hefty grain of salt. In this essay, I’m going to make three arguments. Because Amanda didn’t know Mary’s full backstory during the filming of TEH and TSoT, her performance in those episodes can’t be compared to her performance in HLV. Why the fact that she didn’t know about Mary’s backstory was unfair not only to us, but primarily to her as an actress. And why any analysis of Mary’s character that includes all three episodes is, in a way, always going to be flawed.
But first, we have to understand that we are looking at what is essentially two slightly different characters, both named Mary Morstan.
1. The Two Marys.
The first Mary is in TEH and TSoT. She’s sweet, innocent, funny, loving, and friendly. She is supportive of John and his friendship with Sherlock; she teases Sherlock and worries about him. She is basically everything any of us wanted in a Mary Morstan – a Mary who would complement the boys, not divide them. Even her pregnancy didn’t seem to be that worrisome – because this Mary? This Mary wouldn’t let fatherhood stop John from joining Sherlock in his mad escapades. And yeah, we all realize she’s got a bit of a secret – skip codes and that telegram from CAM at the wedding – but it’s nothing that the three of them can’t handle. And yes, she has a past; we know she’s a liar, she’s disillusioned, she’s got something she wants to be kept from John, possibly involving her parents.
The second Mary, from HLV, is similar at first glance, but much, much darker when you get to know her. She seems the same: supportive of John, willing to follow him wherever (even if it’s dangerous); she’s caring toward Sherlock. She’s funny and a bit snarky, and stands up to John when he’s being ridiculous.
But she’s also a trained assassin who can shoot a coin in the air, she’s capable of covert entry and exit, she’s done things that would keep her behind bars for the rest of her life, if not cause her death by the people she wronged, as well as the deaths of her loved ones. She changed her name and nationality, left her past behind, and has been living a lie for five years running. She coolly shoots Sherlock, doesn’t appear to regret it, and the love she has for John, which previously seemed to be the sort to welcome Sherlock with open arms, is now possessive and manipulative.
No wonder the fandom went haywire. No one thought the first Mary’s secret was quitethat dark. And looking at the second Mary, no one would ever think that she would be capable of joking with Sherlock at her wedding reception.
Talk about whiplash. It kind of reminds me of another moment when everything you thought you knew about a person turns out not to be true.
The problem is, it’s not just us who were fooled. It’s the actors, too. And this disturbs me more than I can actually say, because it means that everything we saw in Amanda’s portrayal of Mary is inaccurate to the character as a whole.
2. Amanda didn’t know Mary’s backstory during the filming of TEH and TSoT; therefore, we cannot compare her performance in those episodes with her performance in HLV. In a way, you could even say that because she didn’t have that information about Mary, her portrayal of the character in TEH and TSoT is incomplete. Mary might be all those things we saw in Eps 1 and 2 – kind and caring and intensely in love with John, amused by Sherlock and worried about his welfare. Friendly and cheerful and funny. After all, as I’ve said before, she’s human, and humans are multi-faceted. You can be an Evil Mastermind and still wear fuzzy pajamas to bed.
The thing is: Amanda didn’t know about the darker side of Mary. I’m sure she suspected – she’s a clever woman, after all, and she probably read the same cues we did with the skip code and CAM’s telegram at the wedding. But she didn’t know what they meant – and we all assumed she did. We all assumed what we were watching was the nuanced performance of an actress who knew more than we did.
But that wasn’t the case. Amanda was just as much in the dark when she filmed those scenes as we were watching them.
To switch fandoms for a moment. There’s various stories about Alan Rickman’s portrayal of Severus Snape, and how much he know about what would happen to his character at the conclusion of the series. One thing that has been confirmed is that Rickman knew, from the beginning, that Snape was in love with Lily Potter. [x] And for Snape’s character, that information is key to his motivations concerning Harry throughout the series.
The stories go on that when he filmed his scenes, every so often, he’d make a choice with Snape, and the story is that the director would question that choice. At which point Rickman would say (and I’m paraphrasing here, I obviously wasn’t there), “I know something you don’t.”
Because Rickman knew that Snape had loved Lily Potter, he was able to make the artistic leap to believe that Snape was saving Harry because he had loved Lily Potter. It is absolutely possible to go back to those early films and see things Rickman did that support that fact. (Heck, it’s possible to find gifsets on Tumblr that talk about those scenes.)
Imagine now if Rickman hadn’t known that information. Would he have played Snape as a straight-up villain for those early films? Would he have decided that Snape was an arsehole to Harry and that was the end of it? At any rate, I think it’s highly likely that we would have lost a lot of the nuance of his end performance. We wouldn’t have been able to go back to those films and watched him and said, “Yup. Loves Lily. Right there, you can tell.”
It was because Rickman knew even part of Snape’s backstory that he was able to give such a fantastic performance of an extremely multi-faceted character. Information was key. Information was everything.
And by choosing to not tell Amanda Abbington the most key element of Mary Morstan’s character –namely, ex-assassin – Gatiss and Moffat were essentially robbing her of the ability to do the same thing. We don’t get a nuanced performance. We get a performance of a character who doesn’t actually exist. Because here’s the thing:
3. The fact that Amanda didn’t know Mary’s full backstory was unfair to her as an actress.
Amanda herself admits that she would have played Mary differently if she’d known what would happen in HLV. And honestly? As much as I love Mary in the first two episodes, that’s the performance I would rather have seen, the one where Amanda was making informed choices, not best-guesses.
It’s not that I have a problem with Amanda’s performance in the first two episodes. I think she did a wonderful job of creating a character whom we could all love. (And I think most of the fandom did love her, after TSoT.) The problem was that in retrospect, we can’t trust anything we saw of that performance, because even to Amanda, that’s not the real Mary.
Now, one easy way out is to say, “Oh, well, the character of Mary herself must be such a good actress, that’s just the show she was putting on.” Okay, that’s one interpretation, sure, and I’m positive that’s what’s going to come out in several dozen fanfics. The thing is – it’s not accurate. We see Mary reacting to things, and it’s very likely that those are the exactly performances that Amanda herself would alter.
What Amanda is essentially telling us is that she thinks her portrayal of Mary in Eps 1 and 2 is incomplete – or even incorrect, with what she knows now. She’d change it. She’d do something differently. Martin himself says we can’t look at Mary in Ep 1 and see it as foreshadowing of what Mary does in Ep 3 – at least, not anything other than dialog. The grimaces, the smiles, the bitten lips…all of that is a Mary without the assassin background.
(I wouldn’t usually take a spouse’s word as an indicator of their partner’s opinion, but I have a feeling this was probably a topic of conversation in the Freeman/Abbington household, so I’m fairly confident that Martin knows what he’s talking about here. And besides, he’s right.)
And that’s what makes it incomplete as a performance. This is not a strike against Amanda – she portrayed Mary in Eps 1 and 2 with as much information as she’d been given. We can’t fault her for what she didn’t know. But when the actress herself says she’s play it differently – well, we have to take note of that.
And don’t you want to know how she’d have done them? I know I do. Because what Amanda would have done differently in Eps 1 and 2 greatly impacts how we perceive and interpret her character as a whole.
In fact, the only reliable source of information about Mary from the first two episodes isn’t based on anything to do with Amanda herself – but the words that Moffat and Gatiss and Thompson have given her to say.
There doesn’t seem to be any information online about how far in advance Moffat and/or Gatiss knew how Series 3 was going to end. (I’m assuming they discussed the major plot points together before Moffat went off to write the episode himself, so I’m including Gatiss in this analysis. We know that they’ve already discussed Series 4 and 5 together, so I think it’s sensible to believe they discussed S3.) The only thing that’s been referenced online is that Moffat didn’t even write HLV until after TEH and TSoT had been filmed, in that time while Martin was off filming The Hobbit. But I can’t believe that Moffat and Gatiss hadn’t already decided the major plot points of what was going to happen – and no one can argue that Mary’s past and the shooting of Sherlock was a fairly major plot point.
And certainly, they had an idea, or they wouldn’t have left us the two major clues into Mary’s backstory: the fact that she knew about skip codes and CAM’s telegram at the wedding.
(Incidentally, I don’t count the fact that she remembered Sholto’s room number. I always assumed that while John and Sherlock were arguing on the stairs, she was charming the front desk to get the information. People are pretty willing to bend over backwards for a woman in a wedding dress. And even if she had known it before for whatever reason (and you can fill in the blank as you like) – look, I have a really good short-term memory for numbers, I just remember them. I’m not an ex-CIA assassin. I don’t think Mary knowing the room number is indicative of anything except for Mary knowing the room number.)
I like Moffat and Gatiss. I think they’re extremely good story-tellers, even if I don’t always like what they’re telling me or the way they choose to tell it. But I’m angry with them for denying Amanda the chance to really give us the nuanced performance of Mary that I think she could have given – and to a lesser extent, give us the portrayal of a character that we deserve to have seen. The moment they decided not to tell Amanda the truth about Mary, whenever it was they figured it out, they denied her an opportunity to shine as an actress. In fact, I’d almost go so far as to say they manipulated her in order to get a specific performance from her.
Which is…well, fine, I suppose, if that’s the performance they wanted. Their show, their rules. But in not telling Amanda about Mary, and in not allowing her the ability to create a more accurate portrayal of a very nuanced character, they’ve undermined what they were trying to do. I can’t look at the Mary in Eps 1 and 2 and reconcile her with the Mary in Ep 3 because to me, those are two different characters.
And I can’t help but be intensely sorry that neither of them were willing to trust Amanda Abbington – who they both claim is a wonderful actress – with information that would have given her the ability to create a nuanced performance we’d be analyzing for the next two years. By not telling her Mary’s backstory as they knew it, they were essentially saying that they didn’t trust her, either with the information, or to create something richer than they anticipated.
And if they have that level of distrust in an actress they both claim to admire – well, what’s that say about the level of trust they have in anyone else connected to the show?
Moffat and Gatiss both have played this particular game before: making us believe one thing about a character before their reveal of something completely different. (See Mycroft’s introduction. See John and Sherlock in the pool scene. There’s probably a case to be made for Anderson here. And, of course, the whole “No, Really, Moriarty is Dead, We Promise!”)
They made us love Mary – and then they turned her into someone we could love to hate. (Some of us more than others, admittedly.) What’s worse, they deliberately kept information from the actress playing her which would have allowed her to make more informed choices about her character.
I can understand that it’s not always feasible to know what’s going to happen in subsequent series of a show. And certainly there’s been some cases where probably NO ONE expected certain characters introduced in early seasons to do certain things/people in later ones.
(Seriously, did anyone see that coming while Season 2 aired? Nope. Not overtly, anyway – remember, Joss had always intended to kill Spike off at the conclusion of his storyline. Does anyone expect the actors to have known how close their characters would become? Nope. Not until Season 4, at least.)
But I’m not talking about subsequent seasons. I’m talking about current seasons, when Moffat and Gatiss had already planned out their endgame, and it was a major, major twist.
Everyone saw Reichenbach coming a mile away. That’s ACD canon. It wasn’t a big leap. (Pun partially intended.)
But Mary being an assassin? That’s not ACD canon. The only ACD canon thing about Mary is her name and her marriage to John Watson. No one really expected much else because we had no idea what to expect. And because no one expected much else – it’s why I think that Amanda deserved to know. She should have had the chance to say, “Why, yes, I would like to know Mary’s backstory, so that I can make informed choices about my character, and provide the sort of nuanced performance that will delight audiences, no matter if they love or hate me.”
A whisper in her ear. “Psst, Amanda – Mary was an assassin. Shh, don’t tell.”
And OMG, that would have given her so. Much.
Amanda didn’t get that choice. We don’t get the nuance. Everyone loses.
4. Any analysis of Mary’s character that includes all three episodes is, in a way, always going to be flawed.
Going back: the reason we can believe that Snape loves Lily in the movies is because Alan Rickman made sure to lay the groundwork in the early films.
The reason we can believe that Buffy and Spike have a sexual relationship (no matter how twisted) is because Joss gave both characters a couple of seasons to grow into it. James Marsters and Sarah Michelle Geller might not have known where their characters were headed when they initially sparred off in Season 2, but they knew as the seasons went on that Spike was gaining a conscience (and an unhealthy obsession with Buffy), and that Buffy was growing darker. The fact that the relationship went sexual in Season 6 probably did not take them by surprise.
(I admit I’ve only seen the shows, I’m not part of the fandom, so I may be somewhat off-base about what they knew about their characters when. But I seriously doubt that Marsters was introduced at the first read-through of his character as, “Hey, here’s the bloke that Buffy’s going to boink in a few seasons down the road.”)
We don’t get a slow burn with Mary’s character development, though. We get a smack in the face.
Hopefully by now I’ve convinced you that the Mary we see in TEH and TSoT is not the same as the Mary in HLV, or at least that there are certain things she ought to have done differently, and would, if the actress playing her had the chance to do it over. The two Marys don’t have the same backstory, nor do we see the evolution of the character from cold-blooded killer to sweet and funny fiancée and back again.
If the two Marys are two interpretations of the same character, it follows that it would be incorrect for us to use one Mary to help interpret the actions of the other, particularly since we don’t know what Amanda would change about her performance. It’s not that her performance in TEH and TSoT is invalid; it’s that it’s not a complete picture of the character.
The only reason we can look at the early HP movies and read into Alan Rickman’s performance for clues that he loved Lily is because he was able to put them there. You don’t need Snape-loves-Lily goggles [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShippingGoggles] in order to find the proof, because the proof was always intended to be there.
That’s not necessarily true of BtVS and Buffy/Spike – at least not without knowing that you’re wearing some pretty heavy Spuffy goggles. If there are any Spuffy indicators in Series 2 – they’re either not meant to be serious, or they weren’t put there with the intent to actually act on them. (Particularly since Spike was meant to die, and was saved only because everyone liked both the character and the actor.)
That doesn’t mean Marsters’ or Geller’s performances are invalid – they’re not. It just means that if you’re going to watch those S2 episodes for instances where Buffy and Spike are making eyes at each other, you need to be aware that you’re wearing your Spuffy goggles and those little moments weren’t intended in the way you’re interpreting them. It all comes down to knowing your goggles.
It’s the same with Mary. If we’re trying to read into TEH or TSoT to get insights into Mary’s character, based off her actions and facial expressions – anything but the words themselves – then it goes without saying that the reader is wearing goggles in order to do it. They’re looking for things that the actress didn’t intend.
This is why I make the distinction between words and acting – because Moffat and Gatiss give us verbal clues to Mary’s identity. It’s just that it would be impossible for Amanda to have given us visual clues. This is reversed in the case of Snape loving Lily – Rickman knew this piece of information about Snape, and thus he left us visual clues. The scriptwriters, however, didn’t know this information, and were unable to give us verbal clues. We can look at Alan Rickman’s performance and see that Snape loves Lily. We can’t look at the movie transcripts. (But then, we don’t need to – we have the books.)
I’m not saying we shouldn’t look at T EH or TSoT for clues into Mary’s character as shown in HLV. I’m saying that if we do that, we have to be careful of the source, and aware that what we’re seeing isn’t necessarily what was intended by the actress. And while we have the ability to take what she’s given us and interpret in any way we like – we have to be aware that in reading into Mary’s initial character, we are wearing those goggles that allow us to see her as an assassin.
That’s true of everyone, by the way – not just the Mary defenders, but the Mary vilifiers. We’re all wearing goggles when we look at Amanda’s early performances. They’re just shaded a little bit differently.
*
No matter how you slice is, the Mary in Eps 1 and 2 is not the same Mary as in Ep 3. It’s partially why the reveal of Mary’s backstory is jarring; it doesn’t fit.
This is, of course, where fandom comes in: in a lot of ways, that’s why we’re all here. We’re trying to take what doesn’t make sense, and fill in the blanks in order to complete the story to our own satisfactions. With Mary’s character, however, it’s more difficult because – through no fault of her own – Amanda’s performance is showing us two different Marys. It’s almost impossible to reconcile the two without some pretty hefty leaps and some very shaded goggles.
And oh, the symbolism of it all: what we saw of Mary in TEH and TSoT was not what we got in HLV. The pretty façade hiding the lies. The empty house, the picture of a woman thrown up on a wall. Yeah, yeah, I got it, thank you, you can put away the 2x4 now.
The problem is that the façade Mary presents in TEH and TSoT doesn’t quite match what it’s covering, which is the Mary we meet in HLV. There’s something missing, something that would blend the two Marys together, and give us the ability to see both sides of the character within the same person. Instead, we have two Marys, not one…and thus two wildly different interpretations of her within the fandom.
I have to wonder: if Amanda had been given the chance to make her own, informed choices about the character – would fandom be as split as it is on the interpretation of that character? We’ll never know.
So if you’re going to analyze Mary…here. have some salt. It’ll help.
