Something Borrowed, Something Blue

What Colors in Sherlock S4 tell us about John’s Writing Process

After a few months thinking about it, and finally being convinced thanks to BBC telling us explicitly that John Watson wouldn't upload his blog but that more Sherlock content would be on the BBC website (thanks for that I guess) and the framing of this particular series, I came onto the conclusion that Season 4 was now John’s blog. As Amy toxicsemicolon said brilliantly in her own meta on S4, the frame has been moved. Repeated dialogues, scenes and characters were treated as characters in a fiction when in the previous seasons they were living their own lives. Costume design is truly an art in medias. Every piece counts, and has been carefully chosen to highlight a mood, a secret, a need that a character can’t express clearly or some symbolism that the creators or the director wants to make the audience understand.

Already back in January I was quite surprised at the choice in colors in this season. I realised that not only was John wearing a lot of blue, but many, many of the other characters were wearing blue as well. Which was surprising, considering how carefully planned and meticulous the show had been in the past about costume choices.

Let’s start with some examples and by doing so, using my favourite technique the showrunners love using too: Mirroring

1. The Reflections in the previous seasons

I wont go into the details of Mirrors on this show, we have been analysing them for years now. We know this: Mirrors are secondary characters are designed to reflect John and Sherlock, to highlight some of their traits, the struggles in their relationship, to show us their repressed feelings etc. It’s the Sherlock and John show; the other characters have no other narrative purpose. I’m not the one who said that, the writers did.

Here, I want to focus on Sherlock and John’s mirrors. Not on what they actually tell us but how the show, by using visual clues and most importantly costume choices, connect them for us:

Let’s start with a very easy one: one piece of clothing. This one piece of clothing will travel a certain number of scenes and will be worn by a secondary character, then by either Sherlock or John, to make sure we know that both character are supposed to be one and the same for a specific purpose.

Example, the security guard in TGG. We see him dead on the beach. We know he’s not all about work, his real passion is studying space and stars.

Next we see Sherlock wearing an actual security guard outfit.

Then we have him later appreciating stars’ beauty even though he doesn’t understand it before having a scene of John with stars superimposed on his face. Subtle.

It is a very purposeful pattern that is dictated by the script.

Another one: John’s Christmas jumper in ASIB. What purpose does this jumper serve in this scene? Well John wears it when he expresses jealousy over Irene’s texts to Sherlock.

After Sherlock learns about Irene’s death, we go to the mortuary. Molly, John’s Mirror has changed her clothes and what does she wear when she feels jealousy over Sherlock recognizing Irene from… not her face?

A Christmas jumper.

The famous hat in TEH. This one is quite easy. To be sure we understood quite well that the train guy alone obsessed with trains was Sherlock, we got not only an entire deduction scene about him but we also had Sherlock LITERALLY putting the hat one, making clear to everyone that he was like the train guy. I give the writers 1 point for trying and I’m being generous.

Let’s not forget our favourite Sherlock mirror:

Just in case we didn't get it the first time.

No but really did we get it? Sure? Really?

And even when they can’t make the mirrors talk, they will make them visible anyway. One of my favourites is the couple that Sherlock bumps into in TBB. Look at the man with black hair and the woman with short blonde hair.

So we all know how mirrors work on the show. What about Season 4, what is different about it?

2 .The Complexities of the Blue Ink

a) Style Evolution: Everyone is John

Costume design is crucial for a character. This is what makes them what they are. A costume can become iconic, even with simple pieces of clothing. For example, we all know that Sherlock’s costume design is simple but very memorable: the coat, the blue scarf. Done. We know who he is. A character will get a specific fashion style and will either stick to it, or slowly change it if the plot or the character development needs it.

Each character will have a specific color. Sherlock’s wardrobe is mainly blue and black, with some white and black shirts with sometimes the occasional maroon or purple one. John’s wardrobe from S1 to S3 was black, beige, blue, some red and green. Molly prioritizes patterns that don’t go together, feminine and soft clothes, showing us she’s a shy woman, whose fashion style is a bit clueless but cute otherwise. Mrs Hudson’s wardrobe is mainly dresses, with a focus on purple and mauve shades and pale blue. Mycroft’s is silver and blue and black, with the occasional red ties. Beige/Light grey seems to be the color of vulnerability for him, since we see him wear beige a few times in scenes where he couldn’t protect Sherlock.

The show’s costume design is quite realistic: most of the characters have a small but diverse wardrobe and the clothes will be reappear from scenes to scenes and episodes to episodes. The only character we have seen in three seasons have a varied wardrobe is John. He actually wears clothes we will only see once, maybe twice, the rest only being re-used to highlight how he feels or what the scene implies about his mental and emotional state.

In any case, we have seen in the first part that we could still have mirroring through clothing even when the character’s wardrobe diversified. So, what about S4?

We will notice first that some of the characters who had a distinct style changed for S4. Let’s start with John.

John’s style did change in S3, just like I wrote about in my meta. Conflicted between his doctor persona and his soldier persona, the ‘I’m moving on from Sherlock’ outfit and the ‘I cant get enough of Sherlock’ outfit.

In s4 we are in a mixup between S3 and S2. John doesn’t wear his long ‘doctor’ coat anymore except for a few scenes in TST and at the end in TFP, but he has spent more money on new shirts and jackets.

The only spots of color I’ve really noticed in TST are the red patterned shirt John wore in HLV during the Christmas scene with Mary and another one at the end of the episode when he drinks wine and finally the pink shirt at the end of TFP (that we briefly see also in TST).

The rest is mainly blue, grey and black. He looks more stylish, especially in TLD, even though the main point is there to highlight his connection to Culverton. His hairstyle is also very different from all previous seasons. Here again, to prove a point. Just to be sure we get most of the mirrors. Like Charlie, even when he doesn’t wear blue (I will talk more about it later).

We know that John’s clothes reflect something about him. So his wearing this much blue this season must mean something, right?

Another example of style evolution is Mary, whose style changed drastically from S3 to S4.

Season 3: she wore bold colors, patterns, accessories and most importantly makeup. She was always wearing lipstick, no matter what scene, except of course in HLV when she just wakes up and when she goes to the hospital after shooting Sherlock.

Feminine clothes, makeup, she had a very constant style. Her colors were mostly bright red, green/blue and of course purple and black. Conflicting colors, which fits her conflicting personality and past. Just like the patterns of her shirts, including the infamous thumbs up and down from TSOT. It’s all about the bold and confusing signals of a liar.

Season 4? No lipstick.

Notice also her hair, longer and curly. While she still wears some patterned shirts (one with butterflies and the other with flowers), her style switched from feminine to more masculine and casual. Gone are the reds, the pinks and greens. She is all about blue, black, white and grey. Sure, she had a baby (according to the narrative) but even when she was pregnant she was still wearing makeup including this bright red lip to fit with her green top with red patterns during the Christmas scene in HLV.

This is the only piece of clothing she kept in S4 by the way, the rest being all new. Notice how in S4 the green piece looks a bit blue in the light.

She will wear lipstick only at Rosie’s baptism, and during the scenes where she’s undercover. The bright colors are here to show us she’s not acting like herself.

She looks uncannily like Sherlock, if the promotional pictures weren’t clear enough.

Mrs Hudson:

We know her color is purple. Not cerise, it drains her. Now look at her in Season 4 and the promotional pictures.

See how different she looks? TLD is the most noticeable because this is where she wears the outfit from the promotional pictures. Notice the dark blue and black colors, which she doesn’t wear that often in the previous seasons, unless it’s to represent how she’s feeling. For example: this black dress with flower patterns she wears in HLV or earlier in THOB to show her distress.

Oh she does still wear purple. After all, it is her color. But notice how the blouses are still patterned and filled with blue and black. They are busy with information. Loud, even. Even while wearing her color, the Blue of this season keeps invading the screen.

Again, Mrs Hudson fits a more pro-active, masculine style. Which also fits the change in her characterization, especially in TLD and TFP. Snarky, aggressive, she breaks rules, kidnaps Sherlock, insults Mycroft. She plays up the ‘cartel leader’s ex wife’ role. And look at that black jacket and those trousers… Looks a lot like Sherlock, doesn’t it?

But I’m sure Molly didn’t get the Blue Makeover…

Oh, my mistake. This blue cardigan will reappear multiple times, in TST and TLD and even the promotional pictures. They really wanted to make sure we noticed this blue cardigan. Looks like a match with this blue jumper John is wearing in TST.

What about Sherlock?

Well, Sherlock’s style has been pretty much consistent in the show.We have seen him wear some purple, black, white and blue shirts also. In Season 3, he ditched the purple shirt for a maroon one that he wears in TEH and the promotional pictures of Season 3.

In Season 4, there’s only one scene he wears this shirt and it’s during the fight against Ajay, another blatant John’s mirror.

The rest of the season, Sherlock mainly wears black, blue and white. We actually see him sharing the same shade of greyish blue shirts that John wears.

Everyone is wearing blue. And when I say everyone, I do mean (almost) everyone.

Quite hard to discern who’s whose mirror when everyone is wearing blue.

So let’s take the problem and approach it another way. If John’s wearing blue and all the characters are wearing blue, does that mean that all the characters are John? Well, yes and no. It means that the Writer is the characters. In other words, blue is the color that means through the blog’s lens that John, as the Writer, is manipulating the characters and make them say what they say.

b. Monochromatic Blue: The Writer is Here

The show tells us this in The Six Thatchers, the most overt episode about John’s blog. We can see that John as the Writer tries really, really hard to establish a narrative for this season and stick to it. We have two references to John’s blog, all coming from Sherlock and about crediting the right person for resolving the case. Again, the matter of this episode and this season is ‘who is the one responsible for this fiction’. We will go back to this later.

The Six Thatchers is the most Blue of the episodes because, like I said, it’s the foundation of what is going to be the story of Season 4. It has to be solid, or solid enough that it would get a proper ending by the end of the final episode.

John, through his writing, is all of the characters. He is in every scene, and tries to maintain the veil of fiction as tightly as possible. We see him referencing the blog, what titles, why ‘people like the titles’. He even puts words in Sherlock’s mouth, predicting what he would say in a situation.

While John is not present in the introduction scene of The Six Thatchers (that tells us it’s going to an official version of what happened because of course the writers like to be a bit too much on the nose for everyone’s sake), the scene is filled with blue tones.

Norbury is not supposed to record anything happening in the room, but is still present and is revealed to be the mastermind behind the whole case of Amo. The Writer hides himself, but the color blue is clear sign he’s here, manipulating the events and the characters.

Culverton, as John’s mirror, changes his outfit to an entirely blue one for the infamous scene in the hospital bedroom. John, while not present, dictates the narrative.

We have another mirror, down to John’s hairstyle, present while Mary tries to run away. He’s annoyed by her act. John as the Writer knows that Mary is playing a role and is here to witness it.

We have the Governor in TFP, wearing a blue tie, admitting he doesn’t trust his wife. The same governor who also talks about a doctor who killed his family and then himself. He kills himself but that doesn’t change the fate of his wife, killed by Eurus, another John mirror.

This one man wearing blue, named Ivan (another version of the name John) talking about using TD-12, a substance able to corrupt memories that can be subtextually linked it to alcohol abuse.

Let’s not forget Mycroft wearing blue and holding a pen in TST… just like John in TFP when Eurus’ backstory is about to begin.

In terms of sets, we have the Watson’s house that got renovated to the point where it has a new door and blue curtains replacing the red ones from Season 3.

The Watson’s bedroom is entirely in blue, from the towels, to the walls to the bedsheets and of course Mary’s clothes. This gets repeated in TLD when John is all alone in his room, drinking. John now doesn’t sleep on the left side but the right side, mirrored by an actual mirror, because of course the writers would. Do that.

The hospital bedroom in TLD is also extremely blue. Notice the wallpaper that is actually a set of giant eyeballs. The room is filled with eyes, the eyes of John controlling the narrative (and also Sherlock being able to get Culverton’s confession because the writers know how to work multiple subtexts in their episodes). They go even to build a secret door that looks like a stage curtain.

Mary’s coffin being engulfed in blue flames, after a transition from Norbury and the sharks.

Let’s not forget the swimming pool fight scene.

Why so much blue?

We know it’s John’s color. We know all the important characters wear it this season. We know it means something. It means that the bluer the scene is, the more the Writer tries to stick with a narrative. It’s where we can most feel the Writer’s presence in the scene. The narrative, in blue, has to be the most Official and Clean possible. This is John trying to stay as faithful as possible to what he wants to sell to the audience on a surface level, even when the subtextual level is packed with unsaid truths.

Blue is a Lie. Blue is Fiction of the highest level. It’s John’s imagination running wild in the context of establishing a story.

3. Red and Pink: A Narrator’s Substitute

a) Red: John as himself

Now that we have established how Blue the season is, where are the spots of bold colors? Where will we see some green, some red and some yellow to counterbalance the blue tone of this season? They are here, but so rare you can count them on your two hands. For an entire season, that’s not a lot.

But John told us after all.

The red balloon. Striking touch of red in a season full of cold and blue tones. John the Writer tells the audience that Red is a Me substitute. In others words, if Blue is the color of John’s Fiction, Red is the color of John’s Truth. Which means we can have both blue and red in one scene; as John the writer presents a scene, John as himself appears through the subtext and the narrative.

Let’s see how much red there is.

Look, Charlie’s back. With a very loud red patterned shirt with stripes. A John’s substitute.

Who’s wearing red again? Well Eurus does. Twice.

Exx/Eurus wears bold colors and stripes. A bold red lip, red hair, a red leather jacket. She’s here to be noticed. And the stripes, again? We will see someone else wearing stripes soon.

Faith is the most overt John Substitute. TLD recreates to a T the first night Sherlock and John spent together. Notice how even though Sherlock wears black, through the lighting it looks like he’s entirely in blue. John through Sherlock describes himself wearing Red.

Even the Real Faith does wear red, with a patterned blouse with red and blue. And then when she appears again it’s with a black blouse with a loud floral and bird pattern. She’s here to dissimulate what the other Faith was, as a symbol for John and to show us through the subtext that Real Faith is not Faith/John. How could Sherlock possibly think he had the chance to meet Faith/John before? No confession will happen here!

Let’s not forget the most important John’s Mirror, Molly, actually wearing bright red twice in TST. We are supposed to notice her too, being the only one wearing this red. You don’t make her this visually important without a reason.

And let me bring this promotional picture of Molly again:

Look at that! A patterned red dress… with a blue jumper. She’s the only one wearing this bright red in the promotional pictures by the way.

Those are the most striking bits. But these are not the only one. We will see other characters wear a red piece of clothing. Mycroft for example: just like the other characters, his style this season is pretty much a mix of silver, blue, white and black. We will see him wear a red tie during his interrogation of Lady Smallwood, codename Love. The John’s Substitute, furious because of Love’s betrayal, wants to know the truth.

A red tie during Mary’s death scene. The Substitute observes the alibi.

This one is really interesting, the pattern is bigger than the others, with a mix of blue and red. The Substitute wants to know about Sherrinford, John’s emotional prison locked deep inside. Notice the stripes on his suit.

He also wears a red tie in TFP when he is confronted with John’s ‘joke’. John, the Writer, makes fun of his Substitute, telling him that scaring him will make him tell the truth. Again the stripes make an appearance.

Red is here also during Ajay’s scenes. Blood and pain through this John’s Substitute who got hurt for years by Amo/Love.

Victor Trevor wears also a red patterned shirt in TFP, linked to Redbeard and John through also his red bandana. The Substitute is always here in the narrative.

We have also Molly wearing the rainbow jumper during the coffin scene. Note all the stripes and the bold colors. The jumper she wore in TEH when she was pretending to be John.

And while it’s not a person, let’s all focus on the bright red car that appears for a moment in TLD. Because they really wanted us to notice the red car that goes around in this episode. John drives it at the end to save Sherlock from Culverton.

Spots of bright red appear also in TFP, though through the set. The Garridebs case (which we all know is the one moment in the canon where John Watson finally realises how much Sherlock Holmes cares about him) is in a red room, and Eurus plays on and off with the red lights with a Moriarty counting down and saying ‘tick tock’.

While there’s not a person wearing red in these scenes, if we accept the theory that the whole prison is John himself, the red is here to show us where he is.

b) Pink: John as a Prisoner

This one is subtle. I didn’t notice it at first, but pink is the other color that keeps popping up this season. It’s not as blatant as red but everytime it appears, it shows us a good symbol. It is still John, but a John who can’t escape.

Rosie wearing the pink rabbit outfit. This pink is very pale but contrasted to all the blue tones in this scene, she’s here to make an impression. And where does she end up? Strapped on John’s chest. John is forced by Mary to take their daughter and hold her for the entirety of the chase. He has no say in this. It is meant to be important.

Pink appears again at the end of TST. Spot the pink. A teddy bear. While John is obviously distraught and doesn’t know what to do. He’s a prisoner in his own house, unable to answer Sherlock’s call.

Someone else wearing pink? Molly. Combined with the blue jumper.

This is a double: Molly as the Writer tells Sherlock John can’t see him and hands him a note, while wearing under the jumper a white shirt with pink stripes. This season is filled with suicidal tones through Faith, alcohol and drug abuse and the leitmotiv of saving John Watson. The John Prisoner through the Writer is begging for help.

Which brings me to this other pink item. It was featured in a promotional picture for TLD.

This is Mary holding a pink elephant plushie. We have seen the patterns now. Pink is John not being able to escape. Here, it means that John can’t escape Mary. Call it self-loathing.

Pink does appear again in TLD, this time through the most blatant John’s mirror: Culverton.

We have Culverton wearing a pink shirt while calling John. Culverton is a John’s mirror who can’t escape the cycle of wanting to confess his crimes and then making everyone forget about the confession. Culverton is a serial killer, but as a John’s mirror, it means that Culverton can’t escape his true nature, until Sherlock forces the confession out of him.

The scene of Culverton hypothetically admitting his crimes while wearing his pink shirt is very important. He can’t be set free yet but that’s why he will change his outfit to a blue one for the hospital bedroom scene. The Substitute, unable to confess, will let the Writer write the ending of the story later.

We still have one more pink spot to find. This one happens in TFP, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it one.

The little girl, wearing a blue ribbon, has also pink socks with black stripes. Again, stripes are relevant. Stripes mean John. It’s barely noticeable but it fits the pattern of a John Mirror not being able to escape. Remember when John was chained to the bottom of the well by his feet? The little girl is all alone in the sky, in a plane that can’t land on its own, and asks desperately Sherlock for help. Save John Watson, save the prisoner.

So we have established now the color code of this season. Blue is John the Writer, Red is John the Substitute, Pink is John the Prisoner.

4. The color shift in Season 4: “I give in”, said the merchant to Death, “I’m yours.”

Can Samarra be avoided? That’s the Final Problem. Through this season the question is repeated over and over: how to stay alive? How to avoid death? How to be saved from your own demons?

If we look at this season through the lens of John’s blog and we know that the heart of the problem is to save John Watson (most likely from himself), how does the season progress in terms of colors? Sherlock has always been a gorgeous show, cinematography and lighting-wise. The tone of a scene through the lights and the colors is always here to bring more informations on what’s happening. The famous purple and pink lights of ASIP, the blue and green tone of the Battersea Station to highlight John’s feelings for Sherlock, the bright green for jealousy in HLV in 221B etc. But the tone of each season wasn’t uniform, it was vivid and every time brought something different.

For Season 4, the show can be cut in four major colors: Blue with a touch of Gold, Black and White. We will have some exceptions to this rule, but they also follow a predictable pattern.

Let’s start with Blue, because this is easy: it’s everywhere, as I said, in TST. Blue for the official narrative, it’s John working and doing his best to sell a story.

We of course have outdoor scenes, but the relevant ones are all in a cool, blue toned lighting. Here and there white and blue, and some grey.

This is a narrative presented to us.

Gold appears in all the scenes where there’s a confession or a revelation about a character.

If you watch closely, most of the scenes in the gold lights are about revealing information about Ajay and Mary. Notice in the scene between Mary and Sherlock how there’s still some blue undertones and blue lights in the background. The truth about Mary is not actually honest. Not completely. Which is why it sounds so forced.

And then the episode ends on a very blue tone, just like it started. Beginning and end must have the same color. The narrative stays strong and linear.

Now TLD is a bit different, even though it is shot the same way. The blue is still here, but fragmented, notably in the scene of Culverton at the beginning, the hospital room and John’s house.

The rest of the episode goes between a flat white light and then a very harsh one, especially in the mortuary.

We still have here and there some reddish and golden tones, but the most important ones are all fixed in one place until the last scene of the episode:

Baker Street.

Baker Street during Faith’s scene and the last scene between Sherlock and John are shot in golden warm colors. Baker Street is the safe place where Faith and Sherlock can talk to each other. The living room is a place for confession and deductions, most of them intimate.

Compare it to the kitchen where Sherlock goes. Blue and dark and grim. A lie is being written in the story.

The sunset scene, tainted with blue undertones, is all soft lights. It’s a time for a confession again, before the sun goes up and Sherlock realises something about Culverton.

Baker Street when John goes back to see Mycroft and his team is in a more dark orange light, but it is still home and a place of confession once again. Notice how blue the screen is when they all watch Mary’s video.

Contrast between safety and the lie of the color blue. The same blue screen reappears at the end of TFP when Eurus as John’s mirror admits she killed Redbeard. A lie again.

Now the scene between Sherlock and John at the end. Intimate, gold and warm lights. The colors red and orange and gold are here to make us feel close to them, to feel what’s happening emotionally. This is the last scene shot this way in the entire season.

TLD ends up on the very bold red shot of the gun. And here ends a linear palette. We proceed from a very continuous blue to a fragmented pattern of blue scenes here and there to finally a red shot.

This is where the narrative, or at least the one John wanted to present ends. It makes sense, from beginning to end. And after that, whatever happened to John, it’s bad. And the narrative is dropped. The story written by John becomes a nightmare he can’t escape and gets twisted. The Writer wants to get out but Samarra cannot be avoided.

TFP has been criticized for many things, especially for its cinematography and photography. It’s not as beautifully shot as the rest of the season. The contrast between TFP and the rest of the season is clear, especially in terms of lighting.

The blue appears again at the beginning, but filled with dark undertones. There is a narrative but it’s grim. The scene at Mycroft’s house, a very pointed reference to horror movies, is set in obscurity. Even when the light is on, the colors keep being dark and subdued.

Many of the scenes are shot in a very flat white light with grey undertones. There’s a harsh contrast the longer Eurus’ game goes, and the main colors are black and grey. The deeper we go, the darker it gets until Sherlock literally drowns in black.

By the end, it’s nighttime and John as the little girl tells us: the lights are approaching. Death is coming. The nightmare comes to an end.

However the Writer tries one last time to re-establish the narrative he so desperately created for two episodes and a half. And the gold light appears again when Sherlock saves Eurus, presumably from herself. This is what the Writer wants: for Sherlock to help him get out of this nightmare.

We still have some blue tones, and they are flagrant in the scene of the Holmes Family. Mrs and Mr Holmes wear very noticeable blues. The lighting makes Sherlock’s and Mycroft’s black suits look blue.

A quick note on Mr Holmes’ tie: it’s a crackling pattern. It’s the conclusion of Eurus’ story; the Fiction has to be set strongly even though it has flaws and inconsistencies.

The epilogue is now back on the foundations of the previous episodes. Mary and her video appear again, in the flat light of the blue Watson house.

Notice anything about the epilogue?

The characters wear different colors again. Look at John wearing his red cardigan again. Look at Molly wearing her old patterned shirts. Look at Mrs Hudson in purple. Eurus is now bathed in warm light.

It is supposed to be a happy ending. The colors are back again. The story is alive and upbeat. Finally there’s no more blue undertones anywhere.

Until the last shot, where Sherlock and John are still wearing blue. The narrative has come to an end. The story the Writer wanted to publish is over. And that’s the best ending John will get.

For now.

Notes:

A summary of the costume designer’s job

An analysis on Breaking Bad and the use of colors

Tom and Lorenzo, a fashion blog, has been doing many analyses on characters’ clothes in tv shows. Here are the articles about Mad Men’s fashion style and what they could mean for the characters.

A Video about Color in Storytelling (thank you Ashleigh!)

Most of the screenshots were taken by myself. However, some were taken from kissthemgoodbye and this website.

Huge thanks to Amy for making me this color graph for this meta.