Series 4 and The John Problem 

 (Sherlock meta by mild-lunacy)

[...] Previously, we had thought that John was going to have to have an arc that was resolved in Series 4, in part because of the arc framework we had of the whole narrative, and in part because Sherlock changed in Series 3 and John kinda regressed, at least in his relationship to Sherlock. Specifically, we expected some movement, and ideally a resolution or major development of John’s sexuality. So, all that… did not really happen. If it did, it did not happen the way we expected. In my opinion, before casting judgment, this means one has to reevaluate one’s analysis to some degree, and this is my attempt at a start of that process.

My initial impressions of the first two episodes were that John’s response to Mary’s death was closer to rage than grief. I still think comparing it to Reichenbach too closely (let alone with the implication that Mary’s death had more of an impact, since he didn’t hallucinate Sherlock as far as we know) seems counterproductive. Further, I thought that this was John’s belief that Sherlock’s superhuman coming to bite him and Sherlock on the ass, big-time. It seems completely irrational because it was completely irrational, as he implicitly acknowledged by telling Sherlock Mary’s death wasn’t his fault in The Lying Detective. In any case, clearly John always thinks Sherlock can ‘solve it’ and/or is the master of any situation, or at least that’s the attitude he normally develops under stress. See: The Sign of Three and his demand that Sherlock just ‘solve it’. And, of course, John’s guilt over his behavior toward Mary is no minor factor.

John was also kinda drifting further away from Sherlock in The Six Thatchers, which is what I thought when Sherlock chose Mary as the better or more useful partner early on in the episode. Sure, that’s correct on the merits, but it’s not suggesting any sort of understanding or valuing of their dynamic as partners and/or John’s value (to John, anyway). At no point in The Six Thatchers does Sherlock directly demonstrate to John he values and trusts him, even though you could argue everything he does is for John. This is a continuation of the issue he had in His Last Vow (where he continued to help Mary because of John, or even instead of John). So John clearly felt pretty alone and even isolated.

As I said, I liked how subtly the infidelity and John’s continuing unhappy life with Mary was handled: it continued the tendencies we saw in His Last Vow and developed them by having John have the emotional affair with Eurus (yikes!), though it’s unclear how much of that was manipulated. Of course, he still chose to follow up, so clearly it’s a sign that John continued to feel trapped. The ‘Antichrist Rosie’ conversation in The Six Thatchers did show a certain ease and some bantery dynamic with Mary, but the intimacy was a sham, since he just started texting and flirting with someone else right after. However, we do see that the surface His Last Vow narrative was more or less intact. There was no ‘secret plan’ to deceive Mary, and John really did his best to follow through on Sherlock’s insistence that he forgive Mary. (This doesn’t mean that there’s no subtext, by the way, just that they don’t make a habit of returning to and/or redoing the plot of previous episodes.) As of the beginning of The Six Thatchers, it seems that John was, just barely, coping with his new role as a husband and father, but not very well. However, he blames himself and (by extension) Sherlock, rather than Mary or perhaps the situation he’s (partly manipulated to be) in.

Anyway, as I’ve said, given that John believes that it’s his and particularly Sherlock’s fault for allowing Mary to die, his complete (semi-psychotic?) mental break in The Lying Detective makes sense. We never do get an explanation, so we’re left with John’s Mary hallucination being apparently unrelated to the other hallucinations and/or unusual mental phenomena in The Lying Detective. I have to run with the assumption that it’s more or less a contrast or mirror plotline than something causally related to Eurus or Culverton Smith. Since there’s no ‘plot thing’ to mitigate this as I had initially supposed, it’s just that John is struggling with seeing himself (and Sherlock) as monstrous. There’s definitely some projection going on, if you go by the last conversation in The Lying Detective, where John talks of Mary idealizing him. Anyway, he definitely has Sherlock’s Otherness on his mind (Sherlock as a ‘monster’ tying in with the ‘superhuman’ thing). Sherlock’s a monster, but his Mary avatar says it’s ‘our’ monster (in other words, John’s initially repressing the idea that Sherlock’s his monster).

My thought process was that clearly John doesn’t think he’s Mary’s John (as he tells Sherlock), but he’s also not Sherlock’s John. And we see that quite clearly: he acts quite differently and/or ‘OOC’. He’s not acting like our John, because he doesn’t see himself that way. John’s having a significant identity crisis as well as a crisis of faith in The Lying Detective, essentially. Faith in himself as well as faith in Sherlock, as these two seem to be connected. We know that Sherlock knows him– he predicted John’s behavior 2 weeks out! he demonstrably knows him much better than Mary– but then, from John’s pov, Sherlock’s just that good. He could do that with anyone. Yes, it’s surprising, but it’s not really proof he’s known by Sherlock to John. Certainly, it doesn’t go both ways at that point.

As I said in my review of The Final Problem, S4 has John moving toward his own version of Sherlock’s claim that he’s ‘not a saint, not a hero’ in His Last Vow. Obviously, John’s not even pretending to be a ‘high-functioning sociopath’, which is probably (in part) why people would say this is somehow character assassination and/or OOC for John. However, in The Lying Detective, John was focusing on Mary’s idealization of him, much like the sociopath persona is Sherlock’s idealization of himself, more or less. These personas (both of Sherlock and of himself) were haunting him– sort of literally, given Mary’s hallucination. John being haunted is perhaps a better description of what was going on than John having a ‘semi-psychotic break’, since there were no other symptoms of an altered mental state except for being a lot more stressed (and angry– at Sherlock, at himself). You can take ‘haunted’ as a metaphor that is being made literal: John is haunted by unresolved issues, more than he ever had been. We’ve heard before that he’s ‘haunted’ by the war (because he misses it). And now he’s literally haunted by all the things he can’t accept about himself, about Mary and about Sherlock, which helps explain why Mary tends to say stuff about Sherlock that John denies or won’t admit. One benefit of this reading is that the Mary hallucination isn’t automatically a sign John cared more in some absolute sense about Mary’s death than he had about Sherlock’s. The fact is, John simply– literally!– cannot be with Sherlock anymore as long as he has these mental blocks and idealizations in place.

So anyway, apparently Mary predicted John’s mental state after her death, and told Sherlock to ‘go to hell’ so that John could rescue him. In retrospect, her claim in His Last Vow that John can’t know that she’s lied because that would “break” him and she’d “lose him forever” wasn’t simply self-serving bullshit as many people have thought. In other words, it always pays to pay attention to surface narrative, or it bites you on the ass. It was still primarily selfish, but Mary’s power over John (born of manipulation as it may be) is real. Regardless, it’s clear that Mary’s solution for John’s predictable issues was a further sign of her not understanding John. I was struggling with this initially– isn’t it a given that they rescue each other, save each other, as Sherlock said in his wedding speech in The Sign of Three? If the show is making us question this, surely something is wrong, and we cannot take the ep at face value. But no, we’re supposed to question this, I think, at least insofar as assuming John’s always ‘the hero’ is also more idealizing John, which John says outright that Mary’s always done. So, Mary’s theory that John needs to save Sherlock was born of that idealization, even though (of course) in the end John did rush to save Sherlock in the hospital.

Of course, this brings us to the extremity of John’s violence in the morgue, which people have apparently flagged as OOC. Initially, as in my post on Johnlock in S4, this hadn’t really struck me as starkly as it did others. My John has never been super-fluffy, and as I said, I agree with @thecutteralicia’s point that this is consistent with John’s adrenaline-driven desire to keep hitting Sherlock after the one time in ASiB (and in TLD, he’s obviously under a lot more stress, as well). For many people, it seems that John’s physical assault is a dealbreaker for Johnlock (given that no plot-based or other extenuating circumstances appear). That’s fine: that’s always the viewer’s prerogative. For me, it’s enough that I see the characterization as being consistent and a believable progression from past behavior, and I believe this fits that criteria.

It may seem like more of a (temporary) regression, of course. This hasn’t been unusual so far in the show– in fact, we’ve had multiple regressions coupled with any progress for the characters (The Hounds of Baskerville regressing after A Scandal in Belgravia, His Last Vow regressing after The Sign of Three, etc). However, here we come back to the issue of John’s arc (or the lack thereof). In retrospect, I agree with @birdymary that Series 4 confirms that BBC Sherlock has primarily been concerned with an arc for Sherlock Holmes, showing his progression from ‘great man’ in A Study in Pink to a ‘good man’ in The Final Problem, as proclaimed by Lestrade, and it should be judged on those merits. Sherlock’s journey to forgiveness has often been seen as having gone too far (as in, he forgives too much, is too self-sacrificing, has too much of a ’heart’, even), but I think those concerns all ignore the whole point (and existence) of the humanization arc in the first place. John, on the other hand, does not have an arc so much as character development. That is, his characterization involves periods of growth and regression, but it is not formally structured as an arc. The Johnlock arc does still exist even in S4, in my opinion, and it remains tied to John– but it is an indirect thing, largely tied to the subtext and interstitial places in the narrative. John’s growth and his relationship to and with Sherlock still drives the story but isn’t the primary focus. Further, in my current analysis, that joint growth in John’s characterization and in Johnlock culminates in The Lying Detective, rather than the final episode of Series 4. I believe this fits in with the expected point for the climax as suggested by the arc meta narrative, but I’m not sure and would appreciate further input on this point.

To reiterate, the lack of an explicit arc for John is due to the primary focus being on Sherlock’s growth, and his adventures with John as his partner, as Mary’s narration and/or the framing monologue at the end of The Final Problem tells us. John’s own development– being tied to the subtext– is thus also shown indirectly.

Initially, my main problem with The Lying Detective was that the purpose of John and Sherlock’s conversation at the end was unclear to me. It seemed vaguely like hetero-baiting. After all, John pushes Sherlock to pursue a romance (with Irene) and insists on its importance. John’s role in the show has often been to be the voice in support of human (including romantic) feeling, which is one reason for the tie between John and Johnlock in the narrative. Anyway, my conclusion so far has been suggested by Ivy’s reading of the gap between The Lying Detective and The Final Problem: that Moffat and Gatiss intended the viewers to fill in the blanks, and for the act of understanding the narrative to be highly collaborative. Thus, I’ve said in my Johnlock-focused meta that I feel that the The Lying Detective conversation was meant to be suggestive of the kind of subjects John and Sherlock covered, and the kind of emotional release and resolution that’s suggested by John finally crying, Sherlock finally hugging him, and so on. John admitted, painfully, that he wasn’t perfect, and he was haunted by Mary’s idealization and her putting him on a pedestal. By his final acquiescence to Sherlock’s gentle touch, John accepted that both he and Sherlock were only human, and he saw that Sherlock accepted that as well: “it is what it is”. In the end, that was all that John needed to start to resolve the main issue he was struggling with.

My initial read of the last scene of The Lying Detective was that John was ‘still breaking’ and needed to be saved; I presumed that this would somehow be the focus of The Final Probelem. Instead, The Final Problem resolved Sherlock’s arc, with both John and Johnlock being resolved in The Lying Detective. Basically, I’m leaning toward the idea that John was firmly on the road to healing both himself and his relationship to Sherlock as of their final conversation in The Lying Detective. 

I agree with @ivyblossom‘s interpretation in that they’ve clearly turned a corner in The Lying Detective (as indirectly evidenced by The Final Problem), mostly due to John’s development. That is, yeah, it doesn’t have to be seen as a corner turned in a romantic direction, but there are multiple cues in The Final Problem that it has been. I find John’s calm response to Sherlock’s calling him ‘family’ and Mary saying they ‘could become’ something more than they are, as well as his unusual use of casual touch at Sherrinford to be particularly telling. One can certainly argue about whether this is ‘enough’ or good representation, as I’ve said, but that’s beside the point when evaluating the best reading that would fit and explain all the facts, as presented in the narrative. Basically, what I’m saying is that a newly romantic relationship between John and Sherlock does best fit and explain all the facts, particularly what Ivy called the ‘rifle on the wall’ presented by Sherlock and John explicitly being stated as needing a romantic connection at the end of The Lying Detective. The rest of it is left for the viewer to figure out, but I believe it’s mainly heteronormativity preventing that. Otherwise, that’s the main obstacle to John and Sherlock’s relationship (implicitly) resolved.

[...] It is not within the scope of this meta to critique the way that all this was portrayed and accomplished, so much as to outline my reading of John’s characterization and his progression in Series 4. It’s indisputable that a critique can always be made, and further, that it certainly already has been and will be made by enough people that I need not weigh in on the subject. I’m left with an increased appreciation and an ongoing interest in the subtlety and the nuanced nature of John’s growth in Series 4. I would be thrilled to see fandom explore this further, but I am also satisfied with the canon as it stands.

Romantic Entanglement

 (Sherlock meta by celticmoonbeam)

SHERLOCK: As I think I have explained to you many times before, romantic entanglement, while fulfilling for other people … 
JOHN: … would complete you as a human being. 

This line in The Lying Detective hit me so hard. Because, it’s true! Over 4 seasons, we’ve seen Sherlock learn to let friends into his life. We’ve seen him improve his family relationships, particularly with Mycroft.

But, he’s never really opened himself up to romance. He seemed to have some feelings for the Woman, but as he says, he hardly texts her back. His relationship with Janine was a lie to get access to Magnussen.

To complete his character development arc, to become complete as a human being, this is the last hurdle Sherlock has to cross. He has to open himself up to romance. This line resonates because of its truth. And why plant that idea and then do nothing with it in the narrative?

In my mind, this line helps set up Sherlock’s character arc–and it’s evidence that Sherlock meant it when he admitted his love for Molly Hooper. It takes that idea to a conclusion. We see Sherlock become more complete as a human being. When he finally says, “I love you,” he’s opening himself up to romantic entanglement. He’s admitting he can have those feelings, and he DOES have those feelings. Eurus’s vivisection rips him open and shows his heart… and this new side of him can fill that last gap and complete his character development arc.

Yes, he admits it under duress… but that’s part of the beauty of the scene! At times in the past, he’s taken Molly for granted (although I would argue that changed in season 2). But now he’s faced with the possibility of her death–of losing her forever. He’s absolutely frantic and panicked. I think facing her impending demise, imagining what life would be like without her, makes him realize more than ever how much he cares. You can see in his eyes that her loss would destroy him.

For me, this scene fits best into the narrative if Sherlock does love Molly. He’s cleared that last hurdle and he’s about to become more complete as a human being.

What was going through Sherlock's mind during TLD?

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

Q: [...] I was just curious as to what you think was going through Sherlock's mind during TLD. How do you think he understood John deserting him? Like, why do you think Sherlock never seems to doubt John, or lose faith, as John himself did? What must he have thought of John to assume or calculate that John would seriously hurt him? Why would he think that? And yet, how did he still imagine John could or would return? Was he always actually able to predict John all along, or....

A: I’m not sure it’s clear that Sherlock was planning for John to seriously hurt him in The Lying Detective; his plan doesn’t require that. Sherlock doesn’t end up in Culverton Smith’s hospital room because of John’s violence. He’s there because he’s drugged himself to within weeks of his own demise.

That said, I don’t think Sherlock is especially surprised that John hit him. John has a well-known tendency towards violence, particularly when coupled with strong emotions he can’t process. When that incident occurs, John is already sideways coping with the sudden death of his wife by blaming Sherlock and pushing him away, so I don’t think it’s a huge deductive leap for Sherlock to suspect that some level of violence against him might ensue.

When John hits Sherlock in The Lying Detective, it isn’t even the first time John’s deliberately hurt Sherlock: Sherlock incited him to it in A Scandal in Belgravia, and John hit him in anger multiple times at the beginning of The Empty Hearse. Sherlock has every reason to expect a violent reaction from John, but to be honest I don’t think he was factoring it in as part of his over all plan in The Lying Detective. It wasn’t required.

It’s interesting to consider the premise of your question: what do you think Sherlock never doubts? That if he needs John enough, John will definitely be there to save him?

I’m not sure Sherlock is convinced of that. While John is riddled with self-loathing through The Lying Detective, I think Sherlock is, too. The Norbury reference tells us that Sherlock considers Mary’s death to be his greatest failure and miscalculation. He clearly believes that he deserves to be blamed for it.

It’s not clear to me that Sherlock is so confident that John will run to his side. But he’s prepared to pull out all the stops anyway. The plan isn’t for John to save Sherlock; Sherlock is trying to save John.

I think Sherlock is very much aware that he might fail in that task, and that if he does, it will probably cost him his life. He is in the middle of this potential suicide mission even while telling Eurus-as-Faith that suicide isn’t an option. Sherlock has decided to save John, or die. His very last plan, his own death recorded via the device in John’s cane, wouldn’t have saved him. It would only have been evidence to solve his last case.

When Culverton Smith is about to kill him, Sherlock says he doesn’t want to die, and he means it. He can only mean it in that moment because he thinks it’s imminent. He isn’t expecting John to break through the door, is he? Does that mean he lost faith in John?

Sherlock’s constructed crisis wasn’t a test of John’s heroism, which is frankly never in question. When Sherlock looks at Culverton Smith and realizes there’s no way out, it’s not John who failed. It’s Sherlock’s rescue mission that failed.

Could Sherlock predict all of John’s actions? He knows John very well, and he can predict many of his choices. But not all of them, as he admits. Sherlock thinks he’s about to die, but John makes a choice Sherlock didn’t count on: he saves Sherlock in spite of everything.

“The last person you think of”

 (Sherlock meta by skydiver8)

Everyone is talking about John admitting that Molly is the one person who has learned to see through Sherlock’s bullshit, the one who knows Sherlock best, but no one has mentioned this line. This is the line that got me. John is accusing Sherlock of ignoring Molly. You can totally hear it in his tone. John thinks that Sherlock still dismisses/ignores Molly. But Sherlock hasn’t…he already thought of her. If he planned the entire thing, he knew John would want a second opinion, so he called Molly.

My shipper heart sees a parallel in the “omg text Irene back” tirade from John later. I don’t really think John assumes Molly doesn’t matter, but I am damned sure he thinks SHERLOCK thinks Molly doesn’t matter…and if it IS a parallel…then Sherlock, of course, has already thought of Molly in the context of this whole conversation about being human. Sherlock has obviously thought about how to be human, because he tells us that he doesn’t know how to spend the currency Mary gave him (his life).

Basically, John is wrong about how Sherlock sees Molly…hopefully he’s wrong both times.

Why did they have John beat up Sherlock in TLD?

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

Q: [...] Why do you think Mofftiss chose to have John beat up Sherlock in The Lying Detective? They didn't have to go there, right? What was the point of going that far, and then not even showing us the emotional 'pay-off' we assume happened before The Final Problem? Why do this if the point of the show is to portray the devotion between Sherlock and John and their journey to a legendary partnership?

A: Perhaps we can come at this by considering what narrative function John’s violence serves in the story.

First things first: an important part of John’s characterization is that he cannot express his most intense feelings in words. He doesn’t say the things he needs to say.

I don’t think you can overestimate just how much John hates himself in The Lying Detective. He has failed in every way that matters to him: he cheated on his wife (as far as he’s concerned), he’s abandoned his daughter. He’s drowning his sorrows in alcohol. He’s hallucinating. John is broken. He says nothing, which means he’s not yet completely broken.

The slow breakdown of John Watson isn’t just about Mary’s death, but that does bring it to a head. It’s also about the still-steaming revelation of Mary’s past and how she lied to him from tip to tail. He placed all of his faith and trust in Sherlock, and he failed to deliver. He feels betrayed, but unable to express that. He must accept things as they are because it’s the right thing to do, but he can’t do it. He hates himself for failing everyone he knows, and he hates everyone he loves for failing him. He is rudderless. Still: he says nothing. He hasn’t quite hit rock bottom yet.

And then he finally does.

When John breaks completely and hits and kicks Sherlock, he has been dragged into a case after forcefully pushing Sherlock out of his life, repeatedly reminded that he’s a failure even at the one thing he’s valued for (writing about Sherlock), and has to face that fact while waiting outside a loo while Sherlock gets high, literally on his way to killing himself again. Then he watches Sherlock apparently falsely accuse a man of being a serial killer and then threaten him with a scalpel. Sherlock is out of control too. It’s John’s job to keep Sherlock in line, isn’t it? But what good is he at that?

John is angry with Sherlock for letting Mary die, for betraying him, for failing to be the man John believes him to be. John hates himself for failing to live up [to] even a single one of his own standards. Hurting someone he loves, something he also did to Mary without her knowing it, is, I think, the ultimate expression of how broken he has become. He is there to protect Sherlock, but he does the opposite. It is his final and ultimate low. John is now utterly broken.

He does not apologize for his actions. Or at least, we don’t hear him apologize. He stands at the foot of Sherlock’s hospital bed and bears witness to the evidence of his rage, the damage he caused to someone he loves. How long does he stand there? We don’t know. How does he feel? Does he regret what he’s done? Is he ashamed of himself? He comes to say goodbye, but he can’t face a conscious Sherlock. He still can’t say any of the things that matter.

He walks out of the room expecting to never see Sherlock again. Mary forces John to admit that he can’t stop thinking about him. And that he hates himself. Is he sorry? I think he’s beyond sorry, but he says nothing.

Until he finally does.

I think the violence, the balled up emotions that never get expressed, are there to underscore the moment when they finally are. Finally, finally, when Sherlock asks John if he’s okay, he is truthful: no. He is not okay, and he will never be okay.

And then the floodgate is open. John says the things he never said. He asks the questions he always wanted to ask. Having reached the ultimate rock bottom, John is finally cracked entirely open. He is talking, and he is honest. And 221b blows up so that they can rebuild it and start over.

I think John hurts Sherlock in order to explode the part of him that holds him back. It is Sherlock’s guilt made flesh and blood, and it’s the action that pushes John to finally be brave to open his mouth.

"You're suicidal, you're allowed chips"

 (Sherlock meta by anarfea and notagarroter)

anarfea:

Also consider that we see Sherlock eating chips by himself in The Empty Hearse when Mary comes to him with the skip code.

notagarroter:

True, but I’m hesitant to read *too* much into that.

I mean, there’s a lot of exciting stuff one could draw from it, if so inclined – that sherlock is suicidal because John isn’t speaking to him, for one. Or, since the previous scene was Sherlock and Molly coming to some understanding about her engagement, maybe Sherlock is suicidal about that! Or, since he invited Molly out for chips in the first place, maybe he thought she was suicidal.

None of those possibilities particularly rings true for me in that scene. And I think, in the grand scheme of things, even if you generally avoid chips because they are bad for you/you’re watching your figure, everyone is entitled to indulge now and then without being put on suicide watch. ;)

Just my personal read on it, ymmv.

anarfea:

I agree that Sherlock asking Molly for chips is unlikely to mean he thinks she’s suicidal. But it does suggest that he was maybe feeling down. I’ve always seen Sherlock’s day solving cases with Molly during The Empty Hearse as one of the saddest sequences in the show. It’s not just that John isn’t speaking to him. It’s that when he makes his deductions, he hears John’s voice in his head making fun of him. It’s a real turning point in John and Sherlock’s relationship, IMO. John goes from being the one person who thinks his deductions make him brilliant instead of a freak to just another one of the chorus of voices saying he’s an arsehole.

As for Molly, she tries to do her part and be John. And Sherlock doesn’t want her to feel like a John substitute and tries to tell Molly that she isn’t John, she’s herself. But he fucks up and calls her John anyway, which hurts her feelings. And then he asks her out for chips, she turns him down, and they agree that Molly isn’t going to go out solving cases with him again because she’s engaged. And I’m not arguing that Sherlock is suicidal about Molly’s engagement in and of itself. But John’s engagement, Molly’s engagement, these are both reminders that his friends moved on while he was away, and he’s not the most important person in their lives (or possibly he doesn’t even have a place in their lives) anymore.

Anyway, I’m just saying that Sherlock’s comment to Faith had me re-think the scene where he’s eating chips when Mary comes looking for him, because I read that as a point in his life where he was probably especially low. It would not surprise me at all if he were contemplating suicide at that point. Especially because people who have had long term depression/suicidal ideation (which I think Sherlock absolutely does; that’s established in A Study in Pink when he considers taking Jefferson Hope’s pill because he’s bored), tend to think about suicide a lot. So yeah, I absolutely think that Guy Fawkes night was a Danger Night for Sherlock. And I’m happy to know that sometimes he got chips instead of taking drugs.

On John’s violence to Sherlock in TLD

 (Sherlock meta by materialofonebeing and mild-lunacy)

The scene of John’s battery of Sherlock was plausible but disappointing.

Before S4 I praised the update of John as a badass because it adjusted the old sidekick-to-hero power difference. What we got in The Lying Detective was the reduction to absurdity of that stance. Seconds before we witnessed John’s violence, John told Greg about Sherlock – and not about Sherlock – “We did see it coming. We always saw it coming, but it was fun.” We saw John’s violence coming; he shot a man in the first episode. Except for the head butt in The Empty Hearse, I, for one, didn’t bat an eye.

The violence expressed John’s rudderless distress but was not the only way to show us this; he already was hallucinating. It was, though, a conventional choice. Given both the prevalence of intimate partner violence and our acculturation, my need to explain John’s crime with PTSD, or in any way, might seem even a bit naïve.

Can we consider any Watson beating Holmes? I respect that others find it beyond the pale. I, however, can imagine a violent crisis between the men – one high and skilled in boxing and baritsu and one otherwise mentally faltering – which could have resulted in the rift Watson described in "The Final Problem" and Watson’s leaving 221B for the second time, as some interpret. I’ll think of this when reading Watson, about a year later, tended to the bloody fist of a frightened Holmes in the same story.

So, John’s battery of Sherlock existed within the realm of possibility. Still, there were other possibilities, and the creators’ choice was disappointing. First, the scene of John’s violence screwed up something beautiful, maybe motivated by a modern, jaded impulse about what’s smart. (x) Intelligent earnestness, characteristic of the relationship in S1-3 (and not warm paste), is what I expected instead.

Second, making love too difficult to work echoed a sad tradition. In treating John’s crime seriously, The Lying Detective left us with a version of John and Sherlock who should not have gotten together as things stood. Graham Robb, on literature of the 1800s and early 1900s, wrote of the “wretched end of most homosexual heroes,” attributing this to writers’ moralizing, self-censorship, and suffering. A happy ending today still would be (will be?) subversive.

In the end, my mulling over all this fails. I irrationally love the characters of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes and want them to be happy.

mild-lunacy:

[...] My own view is probably closest to Ivy’s, in that I can’t think they’re ‘making love too difficult to work’ because even in this, John and Sherlock parallel each other. In their difficulty, their brokenness, their painfully sharp edges. I mean, we definitely love their idealized selves in fandom, and create new legends around them as much as we psychoanalyze and decide when something is 'too much’. But it’s the characters who could really tell you when it’s too much, and I think that finally, in The Lying Detective we see that Sherlock and John see and accept all of one another. You could say that *theoretically* this should break them, but in fact it makes them stronger. If nothing else, by the end of The Final Problem, it seems they’re happy. It’s not a tragedy, after all. It’s just a brutal thing to watch, they’re definitely both traumatized, by this and many other things. Their brokenness is supposed to be something they can use, though. As Ivy said, John’s flaws are part of what Sherlock needs and can use. The violence is part and parcel of how it works, because Sherlock knows how to help John channel it, how to make London into John’s warzone. And sometimes it’s all too much, but that’s been true for Sherlock, too. Sometimes Sherlock himself is way, way too much. But somehow they’re exactly what the other needs and can handle. That’s the secret of their dynamic.

Of course, I agree, it didn’t have to explore this possibility, even if it always existed in the realm of the possible for this or any Holmes and Watson. But at the same time, this started in Series 3, 'cause they kept not dealing with the old traumas enough, ever since Reichenbach, and then piling on complications. John was set on a collision course with himself as soon as he married Mary and she turned out to be the worst possible option. It was a bad decision compounded by her pregnancy and further exacerbated by the ensuing series of events– that unfortunate vow, the shooting, Sherlock back on drugs and saying he killed Magnussen 'cause he’s a sociopath, Sherlock pushing them back together and John choosing to do it without dealing with any of their problems. Everything kept being swept under the rug, with the only explanation being that John 'chose her’ and he should just deal with it. So he let it go, and let it go, and controlled himself and held back. And then (as Martin Freeman said), he just needed an excuse when he failed again (this time to protect Mary). In John’s mind, someone has to be in control: usually that’s Sherlock 'cause as Ivy said earlier, Sherlock can do anything. Sherlock is his superhero; his 'commander’. Alternatively, of course, John *himself* expects to be in control, or it’s a personal failure. Remember how he took it in His Last Vow, with Sherlock telling him (ruthlessly, from John’s perspective) that he chose Mary: it’s his 'fault’. John automatically jumps to the question of whose *fault* it was that Mary was the way she was, and he wasn’t ready to take responsibility and accept this, but Sherlock pushed and so he did. Then, when another traumatic event happens, John doesn’t have any reserve left, I guess.

What I’m saying is, I think many of us knew that some kind of reckoning had to be coming for John in S4. But all the talk about John’s arc was mostly supposed to be about John getting better, not worse. And if he got worse, we expected to see him recover, step by step. And that didn’t happen. We got a hint, a first step, and I understand why that’s not enough for many people. At the very least, though, I don’t think it’s the same as the 'tragic gays’ trope would have it. In The Lying Detective, even if they didn’t show us everything, they showed enough that it’s clear they do always save each other, even if it’s not in the ways that Mary or anyone else would expect. Even if John can’t see it anymore, or thinks he’s not that person, he’s still the person who makes Sherlock better. And when John stumbles, Sherlock would believe it enough for the both of them. And I do think, in the end, that it is enough.

Sherlock at John's therapist's house

 (Sherlock meta by half-past-chaffinch)

"How did you know?! How? On Monday, I decided to get a new therapist. Tuesday afternoon, I chose her. Wednesday morning, I booked today’s session. Now, today is Friday. So two weeks ago, two weeks before you were abducted at gunpoint and brought here against your will, over a week before I even thought of coming here, you knew exactly where you’d need to be picked up for lunch?!" 

The 6th gif, though. Eurus is warily looking on as Sherlock says “I correctly anticipated the responses of people I know well to scenarios I devised. Can’t everyone do that?” Well, she can. She’s studied them long enough, she set her plan in motion, and here they are. She’s (supposedly) a Holmes after all.

Yet she’s nervous… she’s trying to make herself tiny, insignificant, unnoticeable. She’s a tiny bit afraid of being caught in the act.

But I suspect that if Mrs Hudson hadn’t had Sherlock thrown in the boot, throwing him a bit off his game (further than the lack of sleep and drugs already had), he might have caught on that something was off about the therapist. Maybe recognized her as “Faith”, maybe not. But he would have noticed that something was up.

Note that when he comes into the therapist’s house, he asks “who is this one? Is she new?” He had already researched the therapist when he figured out which one John would visit. He knew who the therapist was. So why did he ask “who’s this one? Is she new?” Sherlock recognized on some level that this was not the therapist. But he was too distracted (enjoying his scheme playing out) and rattled (from being drug addled and tossed in the boot) to pick up on things consciously.

John really cares about Sherlock in s4

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

Q: [...] are there any particular moments in Series 4 that suggest or demonstrate to you that John really loves and/or genuinely cares about Sherlock? I guess secondarily, how do you read Sherlock putting off rescuing John from that well until after he dealt with Eurus In TFP?

A: Any particular moments? It’s hard to pick, it’s kind of infused through the whole thing, but okay, I’ll do my best.

In The Six Thatchers, John should be deliriously happy. He’s got what he wanted: the normal life with a job, a wife, and a new daughter, but he’s also got Sherlock, who is as committed to maintaining this careful and potentially awkward balance as he is. They still solve crimes together, and Mary and Rosie aren’t an obstruction. In fact, sometimes they join in! John’s devotion to Sherlock is pretty obvious from that alone, but Sherlock’s special place in John’s life is underscored by John asking him to be Rosie’s godfather.

John should be happy, but he’s not. He’s never managed to get over what Mary did and who she really is. His happy life with wife and baby is a lie. As his trust in Mary continues to decline, his trust in Sherlock never waivers. John and Sherlock confront threats together as a team while Mary lies, drugs Sherlock, and scarpers. Sherlock, weird, rude, and difficult, is John’s stable rock, and Mary does not look good in comparison.

After Mary dies, John blames Sherlock and cuts him off. I’d suggest that this is more indicative of how much John cares about Sherlock than otherwise. Not only because he thought Sherlock was a superhero who could could genuinely protect Mary and Rosie from everything forever, but because, as we later learn, the reason why John pushes Sherlock away stems primarily from his own self-loathing. John betrayed Mary, and his guilt and despair at not being able to live up to Mary’s, Sherlock’s, and his own expectations leads him to push away the things he loves most, including his daughter and his life with Sherlock. This is underscored by his goodbye scene in the hospital, where he leaves his cane as a silent final message: you saved me, I didn’t deserve it, and here I betray you. 

We’ve had Sherlock’s mind palace for a while, which is a wonderful way to see what’s actually going on in his head. In The Lying Detective, we finally get the equivalent for John: Mary. Hallucinated Mary isn’t a ghost or even a memory, she’s the honest part of John. And she adores Sherlock. She talks about him constantly. She watches him mid-deduction with love and delight. She recognizes that Sherlock knows John, understands him completely, but John disagrees. Sherlock can’t possibly know how worthless John is; like Mary, Sherlock believes he is a good, moral man, and John knows that they’re both wrong. The voice in his head says: Sherlock may be a monster, but he’s my monster. 

The most dramatic indicator of how John feels about Sherlock is his confession and breakdown at the end of The Lying Detective. This is the first time John has been completely honest in this entire story. John hides his feelings constantly, he lies about them, even to himself. And in this scene he nearly does it again, he nearly walks away. Had he done so, I believe his relationship with Sherlock would have been essentially over. He would have grown more and more distant and dishonest until their connection was entirely lost. But out of love and faith, he finally, finally makes a different choice. He chooses to be brutally honest and vulnerable. He cries, but does not turn away. He lets Sherlock hold him. No one has or ever will be this close to John.

Sherlock does not put off rescuing John in The Final Problem. From the moment he realizes that John is in danger, all Sherlock does is try to save him. The problem is that the solution is Eurus. We know that he can’t rescue John without her intervention because he was unable to the first time; the puzzle is too complex for him, it will always be too complex for him. The mistake he made all his life was thinking that intelligence was the answer. When he was a boy he didn’t have the resources to do what he does now: he recognizes that it’s sentiment that will save John, not brainpower. He’s got sentiment in his tool belt now, and that’s because of John. John made him feel and taught him to be a loving and feeling person, and that’s what allows him to triumph over his much more brilliant sister in the end.

How did Molly have Sherlock's coat?

 (Sherlock metaby writingwife-83)

Q: So, I have one question. in The Lying Detective, Sherlock told Molly that he hoped that she didn't forget his coat. How did she even have his coat in the first place? Does he leave his clothes at her flat because her bedroom is one of his bolt holes? I. NEED. TO. KNOW.

A: Mm, I like this ask! I think there’s a couple easy explanations for this, and frankly, I like both of them.

First, yes I think it’s super likely that Sherlock keeps clothes at Molly’s since it’s one of his bolt holes. He probably keeps a couple changes of clothes, maybe a couple of coats, maybe even some disguise pieces depending on the circumstances. And we know he’s “got lots of coats,” so he could certainly choose to stash them wherever needed so that he can always have one in a pinch. I will always like the idea of Sherlock keeping important things at Molly’s, so that’s a nice explanation.

Here’s another though! I also would like to think that Molly has a key to Sherlock’s flat. Granted, it could absolutely have been one of those things that he did selfishly back in the day, because we all know how he likes to demand that his friends run errands for him. But still, I like the idea that she would have access to his flat, seeing as he clearly has access to hers. What are the chances she doesn’t have a key? There’s likely only a handful of people that Sherlock would trust to have access to his flat and go in to get something for him, and what do we know about Molly? He has always trusted her! 

And in reviewing both options (and realizing how much I like them both) I’d have to conclude that both are true. I’d say that Molly has a key to Sherlock’s and he also stashes clothes at her place. Case closed!

Sherlock and John at the end of TLD

 (Sherlock meta by unreconstructedfangirl)

[In TLD] John completely lost his mind and acted like the world’s biggest gold medal dickhead, and then admitted that he doesn’t know how to be the man they all think he is, but he wants to be that man. Meanwhile, Sherlock continued his campaign of ridiculous self-abnegation in an effort to save John, showing that he is not only heroically selfless, but also completely stupid and desperately needy. He really, really can’t do it alone. He will do anything.

Then get this! These two massive fuck ups hugged, and went out to have some cake. 

I feel like so many of us around here are over-leaping this massive development to demand something more definitive, but this was John Hamish Watson ugly snot crying into the front of Sherlock’s pretty, pretty shirt, and Sherlock (!!) physically comforting him with his big beautiful hands. It was huge! It was beautiful! It moved me! It was love and tenderness, and actual inyimacy, and real change in these two characters who, let’s face it, are seriously emotionally challenged, but who love each other despite it all. [...]

Personally, this kind of painful, incremental movement and understated cataclysm is what, the more I think about it, I want! I’ve watched it three times now, and it slays me. Oh my god, they are [...] idiots, and I love them. I am getting what I want from this story. I hope they all manage to continue to make it very clear what this relationship is in a fundamental way, and at the same time letting it simply have it’s own, deeply affecting nature, even if that is undefined and unlabeled and open to interpretation and full of problems. All I want is for them to be together.

I don’t need more proof. I can see a church by daylight.

On John leaving his cane

 (Sherlock meta by doctornerdington, workfornow and unreconstructedfangirl)

doctornerdington:

Does anyone have a reading of this that is not just… deliberate cruelty? Because we’ve not seen John being premeditatedly cruel before, and I find this more chilling than the beating, honestly.

workfornow:

Once he goes in to “say good-bye” (and I am not going to try to parse that, there are several readings I’d accept), it’s all just enormously sad at the very best. But I read it [leaving the cane] as a reminder of better days, even as a thank-you, an acknowledgement of how their friendship pulled John back from an edge, once.

(It makes no sense to have a recording device in it unless Sherlock thought he might bring it with him though. And I thought it would make perfect sense if John knew it had such a device, but we were told later that he did not know.)

doctornerdington:

It is desperately sad. But a reminder of better days is – a positive way to read it, at least, and I hadn’t even thought of it. I hope it is that. I read it more as, “hey, remember when I needed a cane and you healed me? Well fuck you, now you need the cane, and I’m not sticking around to heal you.” Fucking OUCH. And possibly Sherlock anticipated this (although, haha, this doesn’t really make sense, does it?)?? Jesus.

unreconstructedfangirl:

I read this as a rueful “thank you” and as a kind of apology for the fact that he is checking out. It’s horribly sad, I agree, but I didn’t see it as 100% cruel. What gets me is the idea that Sherlock predicted, I guess, that John would do this, and that means that even if John is a guy who would leave him alone in the condition he’s in, in Culverton Smith’s murder hospital with his cane, Sherlock loves him and wants him back. That idea hurts me.

Regarding Sherlock's look after leaving the ambulance 

scene in TLD

 (Sherlock meta by mychakk)

Q: Regarding the look Sherlock gave to Molly after leaving the ambulance scene, was he looking at her or John? I hope it's her, but I rewatched the scene and I'm not sure. I hope they release this season's scripts soon.

A: [...] I think that the editing of that scene actually supports Sherlock looking at Molly. When someone looks backwards and you want to show what they look at, you simply make a shot of say thong/person. And what we see rights after Sherlock gives that hit, piercing, meaningful look behind him? Molly. And where is John in all that? He’s the background. He’s blurry, unfocused, fading. The camera shots and focus clearly makes this scene between Sherlock and Molly. She even reacts to his look - she seems to take a step forward but stops herself, she even looks like she wants to say something but stops herself right after.

There are three parallels in the show to this scene. First that came to my mind was The Empty Hearse and the looks Sherlolly exchange as he leaves post the (in)famous majestic kiss. It doesn’t matter if it’s happening in Anderson’s (not so) crazy theory. The editing stays the same, we get a shot of Sherlock backwards leaving Molly post-kiss, a shot of Molly staring back at him [...] , then of Sherlock as he still looks backwards. Camera shots shows the look is between those two.

Ok, but there is no one else, so there is no other option for them, right?

Right, so let’s move to The Sign of Three, when Sherlock leaves the wedding reception. We get camera shot of Molly clearly seeing him. But this time he doesn’t look back, once more he’s unaware she can see him. The editing supports this interpretation by showing Sherlock when he’s already outside. There is no exchange of gazes between them.

The final scene of similar editing is once again in The Empty Hearse, after the hallway dialogue in the train guy house. Although they don’t look backwards to exchange any look or just to gaze at each other, the camera gives us a shot of Sherlock’s face as he leaves and a shot if Molly’s face as she leaves. They go separate ways without a glance at each other, yet the editing clearly makes it a scene between them.

So to sum up, in The Lying Detective Sherlock looks backwards and it’s unclear to whom his gaze is directed, but the next camera shot clears it up. He exchanges a look with Molly. And John with the rest of the world fades away, blurs out of focus ‘cause this look is only between the two of them.

On a side note, because if Molly’s reaction to Sherlock’s look, I’m positive she has been on Sherlock’s plan if not all along, then definitely post the ambulance.

So, that’s what came up this time. [...]
.

On the confession scene

 (Sherlock meta by berlynn-wohl, cumbercougars, marykk1990 and isabeau221b)

berlynn-wohl:

JOHN: Every time Mary left the room to take care of our baby, I was texting with another woman. SHERLOCK: Don’t sweat it, bro, that’s not really cheating...

cumbercougars:

Oh you who live such pure lives…

Both men know it is cheating. John is being consumed alive by the guilt of it, we just watched him beat Sherlock to a pulp because of it, while Sherlock was consumed by the guilt of Mary’s death. Sherlock is attempting to comfort John, to assuage his guilt a little as a good friend would. What would be the point of grinding him down even more at that point. John needs to move beyond his guilt into healthy grief so that he can then get better and be the father Rosie needs and deserves. A man eaten up by guilt who sees his dead wife’s phantom dissaprovibg everywhere he goes does not make a good dad.

marykk1990:

Thank you @cumbercougars, I’m sick of people raking John over the coals. He’s obviously devastated by what he did and he knows it was wrong. He’s sobbing in pure grief over cheating on Mary and over losing Mary. And what else is Sherlock supposed to do? He’s going to comfort and support his friend. (And no, that is not a Johnlock hug to all the Pushy Jlockers out there.) They both loved Mary. This is a scene where John admits his guilt and begins to redeem himself.

isabeau221b:

Oh, thank God, some sanity at last! Sorry, it’s just that I started to get offended that so many people could not even fathom a man comforting another man without throwing them in bed. This was such an important scene for the character development of both Sherlock and John, that has multiple valid interpretations. The problem isn’t those who ship them, but those who insisted there was only one meaning behind the hug.

"I think she liked me" (I was so alone and I owe you so much)

 (Sherlock meta by likes-timelords)

The “I think she liked me” line has been destroying me a little bit every time it shows up. Because some people have been reading it as “I think she liked me, wink wink, nudge nudge, I’ve called her here so we can bang.”

But looking at her this way as a mirror for John, the way it seems she was intended, makes it hurt. Because here’s this person Sherlock thinks he can save in an evening, the way he saved John when they first met. He’s reminded of John, this person he loves dearly (however we want to read the word “love”), who is currently not speaking to him; who has basically told him to fuck off and leave him alone. Sherlock, who has reached the lowest of lows and feels so alone that he, only a few minutes later, believes he hallucinated the entire thing to give himself some company.

“I think she liked me” is him, for a second, thinking he’s met someone who liked him while he was at his lowest point within our canonical memory. He was rude, abrasive, and ultimately himself with this woman–and yet she called him “nice.” She appealed to his emotions. At a time when he’s desperate to fix John Watson and get back the man he knew, here was this mirror who showed up on his doorstep begging him to help her.

And then she liked him.

This poor, sweet, emotional idiot really just wants anyone to like him right now, because the one person he truly loves (again, read that how you want to) has outright stated that he’d literally prefer anyone else.

“I think she liked me.”

Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. 

 (Sherlock meta by ablack-reblogs)

Taking your own life. Interesting expression, taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who’ll miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own. Keep your hands off it. 

As a person with depression who is constantly grappling my worth in the world - whether suicide would make the lives of those around me easier - this was such an important bit of the episode. Hearing Sherlock Holmes, a character I truly admire in every single way, speak and address suicide (suicidal tendencies) was phenomenally powerful.

He makes it clear that taking one’s life is not a proper resolution. Sherlock, a man who is a threat to himself, is the embodiment of every suicidal person in the world. He would quickly let himself die in any of his crazy stunts, studies, or cases - knowing that it could happen, maybe even hoping for it occasionally. But he would never let another person commit suicide, which he proves by telling her to pay with the gun in her purse.

We know he’s genuine about stopping this woman from killing herself simply because he has no idea that it’s a hoax - that this is just a moment within a larger game. At the time he wants to help her solve a case but also save her from herself. She liked him, and that surprises him later, but he had to care first.

Sherlock had to care about her well-being before she could like him, before she could keep him company. That’s how it was in his mind. Sherlock cares so much more than he gets credit for most of the time. Mrs. Hudson tells us that this season - “it’s more emotional than that.”

I cried watching these small moments. As someone who wants to write and get into screenwriting eventually, this felt like a specific message to the audience. It felt personal. In that 90 minutes I was watching, those scenes captured me and felt directed at me.

I felt represented and noticed. And that is so important to have that, especially with mental illness. It wasn’t profound or overbearing but it was there and it matters.

It matters so much.

John's talk with Sherlock in The Lying Detective

 (Sherlock meta by Ivy Blossom)

Q: You've said that John's marriage is 'heading down a pretty dark path' and disintegrating in TST, and sometimes he's probably even hated her. So firstly, was his talk with Sherlock in TLD actually meant to suggest he wishes he could've saved the marriage and genuinely wants Sherlock to be in a relationship with someone else?

A: John’s talk with Sherlock was about John’s own failures. It’s odd to me to look at it as “wishing he could’ve saved the marriage”, because John’s not exactly talking about his marriage. He’s talking about how he failed to be the person he hoped he would be, the one everyone assumes he is. I mean, he wishes he had been a faithful, trusting and loving husband, is that “saving the marriage”? I suppose it is. He hadn’t ended his marriage though. John knew what he was doing to Mary and hated himself for it.

At this point John won’t ever know what would have happened if Mary hadn’t died. Would he have confessed his sins, been more honest, found his way back to loving her, saved his marriage? Perhaps he believes that he would have continued to betray and hurt her instead. That must be how he sees himself; he has grown terrible and cannot recover. With Mary dead, it seems he doesn’t have a chance to.

Does John genuinely want Sherlock to be in a relationship with someone else? In that moment, yes. He certainly does.

At a couple of points in The Lying Detective, John turns his back on his life with Sherlock; he says goodbye when he leaves the cane in Sherlock’s hospital room, and I’m 100% sure that was meant to be a final goodbye. When John is waiting with Sherlock in 221b for Molly to arrive, he nearly leaves 20 minutes early. Those 20 minutes, I think, are pretty critical. They represent a major life decision: either he’s in Sherlock’s life with both feet, or he’s essentially out. He tries to leave early, he tries to bail entirely. He’s resigning from the role of Sherlock’s one true companion for a second time in the episode.

John doesn’t leave Sherlock because he doesn’t love him or doesn’t want to go on adventures with him. He does it because he’s painfully aware of what a terrible partner and companion he actually is. John’s seeming rejection of Sherlock are expressions his own self-loathing and self-punishment.

When John tells Sherlock to find someone who makes him want to be better, he is, as we well know, describing his own impact on Sherlock’s life. But John has lost faith in his ability to be that person. So he wants Sherlock to find himself someone who is actually good enough.

But John is good enough. It doesn’t matter that he has the capacity to fail so spectacularly. It’s allowed. He is exactly what Sherlock needs, not in spite of, but with his flaws. He’s not the perfect moral compass and hero that he wants to be, and that everyone expects him to be, but it doesn’t matter. He still is what he is; Sherlock’s perfect partner.

John doesn’t leave 20 minutes early. Instead, he stays with Sherlock well past that. And as we see in The Final Problem, John is back in his role, not just as a trusted companion, but as family. And he has happily accepted that.

TLD!John… or, just John.

 (Sherlock meta by wssh-watson)

So after I’ve had some time to think about this, I want to say some more words about TLD!John. Or, just John. Just John Watson.

Before TLD, I was begging for more John. That was the one thing I wanted most of all: to have John Watson back. You don’t always like things when they are given to you, even though you asked.

I asked for John Watson. I wanted John Watson to develop. I wanted more of him.

I got it. I was appalled. Naturally. I thought it was horrid, still do. Horrid, scary, and problematic.

But guess what? John and Sherlock both have done horrid, scary, and problematic things right from the start. 

Sherlock drugged John and locked him in a lab to have the shit scared out of him as experiment. For proof? He did that, fully knowing that John has a war history. Then he jumped from a roof, condemning John to two years of extreme grief and mourning. How is that, any of that, okay? It isn’t. Why do we gloss that over? Oh, right, because John forgave him. Because the Sherlock we see in seasons one and two are the Sherlock John sees, and that colours our—the audience’s—perception. Sure, Sherlock is clever as fuck, and he’s scary, but he’s also very weird and maybe even oddly sweet. But we forgive him: it’s Sherlock.

We forgive Sherlock for three reasons. One: John forgives him. This is his POV, so the audience is likely to adopt his perception. So, John forgives him, and we forgive him. Two: that’s the first thing Sherlock is introduced as: a freak. We’re led to believe Sherlock may get off on crimes, he doesn’t do emotions in any capacity, he’s a social outcast, he’s a sociopath. Three: he developed. We got season three and we saw what was always there, just underneath the surface. We had time to adjust since then.

The sort of behaviour like drugging and locking John up and then jumping from a roof and damning John to two years of intense grief isn’t really contrary to the character as he was introduced to us, so we can get behind that. It isn’t stellar, it isn’t okay, actually isn’t okay at all, but to an extent we understand that. It’s still within the realm of that character’s world… and John forgives him. So we move on. And anyway, we have Sherlock realising his errors and striving to be a better man for John in season three. Isn’t it beautiful?

But why do we condemn John for the very same? Now I know that when I asked for more John Watson, what I was really asking for was this: can I have the one-dimensional John back from seasons one and two that called Sherlock amazing and looked at him as if he’d hung the moon? Can I have the John back who is always to a fault trying to be morally upright? Because that’s the John I wanted back.

I didn’t want a real John back. I didn’t want John to be like this. I didn’t want his messier side. I liked the messier side of him that likes a drink or two too much, the side that’s emotionally constipated. I didn’t like the rest.

But that’s the point the show makes. John himself even says so: “that’s the point. That’s the whole point.” We condemn John for the very same that we have seen Sherlock do because we don’t want to see it. Or at least I didn’t. Sherlock has become human and has progressed, and we’ve forgive him that. Hell, we’ve welcomed it, we’ve craved it, and now we look at him and think, yeah, obviously he can’t be anything but this underneath.

We saw Sherlock became human. Now John became human, too.

I think that’s what TLD is mostly about: for the audience not to forget that John isn’t just an army doctor with a danger boner. He’s also problematic and flawed. He shot a man in the first episode, and if that wasn’t a red flag for most of us I don’t know what else is. The John beating Sherlock to a pulp, as little as I like it, is still the John from season one and two and three. They’re the very same John—only this John has finally allowed himself to become human, after all these years.

Sherlock’s humanity is his softer side, his heart.

John’s humanity is this: his violent streak, a certain kind of monstrosity. We liked it when he shot a man for Sherlock in the first episode because that revealed a strong moral character, his “nerves of steel,” and because he saved Sherlock. Why do we stop liking it when we see the other side of that violence that necessarily must exist? Because it appals us. Because we don’t want to believe that this is something John is capable of. But he is.

Just as Sherlock is capable of the softer, warmer emotions, John is capable of the more monstrous, terrible ones. We shouldn’t forget that. John is human too. We take Sherlock’s humanity in stride because that’s what we wanted, but we see John’s humanity as fallibility, as horrible and wrong. It is horrible and wrong, just like Sherlock’s actions were, but it is still John. That’s the point of the show. They were both fucked up from the start, and we knew that. This could never be anything but a problematic and fucked up relationship, too.

But do you know what’s beautiful about it? Do you know the saving grace of this relationship? They’re two:

One, that when John became human, he did it in front of Sherlock. That humanity included beating Sherlock bloody, and it included crying and sobbing. Both in front of Sherlock.

Do you know how fucking monumental that is? That is a HUGE moment. This is the John whose grief we saw reflected only in Sherlock’s grave. Now we see John’s grief, as real as ever, and it is right in front of Sherlock. When we saw the world through John’s eyes, we got blinded to a certain extent: John included us in his grief but kept us at a distance. He allowed us to see that yes, he mourned Sherlock, yes, his entire world changed, but he didn’t allow us the details, didn’t allow us close. He didn’t allow us to see his face, his eyes, the tears on his cheeks.

And TLD? In TLD, he allowed Sherlock that.

Saving grace two is: they make each other better. Just like John unlocks love and affection in Sherlock and brings him down the sociopathic and superhuman pedestal and renders him blinking, stuttering, and in love, that’s what Sherlock does for John. Sherlock makes John loosen the tight grip he has on his own control, makes him lose it. Sherlock makes John let go, in more ways than one: he makes John laugh, but he also makes John angry and indulge in those violent impulses, and he also makes John cry and sob. He makes John human.

They make each other human. We’ve had a long time to adjust to Sherlock being human, and now it’s our turn to adjust to John being human and to welcome that: because it’s real.

But you know the best thing about it? Nobody gives a fuck if we can or want to adjust to that, because that isn’t the point. The point is for John and Sherlock to reach their human sides, to reach them with each other and accept them about each other. And just like they are fucked up and messy, their relationship is fucked up and messy. But that’s something they know, and still they are better together than without each other, always. And they know this. 

Maybe we, the audience, forgot John is human. Lucky for us, Sherlock didn’t. He tells John that unfortunately he believes they may all be human from time to time, “even you,” John. Sherlock knows John, and what he ends up doing is welcoming John into his arms. When he embraces John, he doesn’t just embrace the John that cries. He embraces the John that kicked him while he was lying on the floor until he was bleeding, because he knows this is who John is, too.

And how does he do it? He does it looking overcome and overwhelmed that John would grant him this, finally grant him this. His mouth goes a bit slack, and he blinks rapidly. His hand may just be trembling a bit. This is a big moment for him, this is huge, and he feels overwhelmed. He feels grateful. He feels like this is everything he wanted.

Like John’s subconscious in the form of Mary agreed: yeah, Sherlock knows you. He knows you better than anyone else. And, knowing this, John stays in Sherlock’s arms. He allows Sherlock to see those damned tears on his cheek, dripping down his chin. He allows Sherlock to hear his sobbing, to see his shaking shoulders—

just like he allowed Sherlock to see and feel the rage in his face and fists and feet.

And here we are, having them at the end of the episode, embracing one another with all that they have become: human.

It is what it is.