In John's defence 

(Sherlock Meta, unknown source)

Q: Hello, I just wanted to take a moment to say I really appreciate what you're saying in John's defense over the last episode (and season 3 in general) and how it seems his own mental stability appears to be suffering, perhaps the most and THAT is why he is reacting the way he does. Not because he is a jerk or dense or an idiot (and even if he is, thats ok, cause even the best, perfect character needs some flaws--especially considering what he's facing). So thank you for defending him!

A:

Thanks dear!!

I really don’t understand the accusations.  Jerk - is it because he’s so angry that Mary has lied to him the entire time he’s known her? Is it because he gets rightfully emotional at being lied to and manipulated - yet again - and yells at Mary and Sherlock? Is idiot because he doesn’t know exactly how much Sherlock cares about him because Sherlock actually never lets him see it? If someone explains their anger at John then I can address it, because right now I’m genuinely not getting it.

Series 3 is mainly from Sherlock’s POV. We get a look at the inner workings of his mind (literally) in a way that we never have before. But did people forget series 1 and 2? Did they forget the two years we spent crying over John’s pain? It’s mind-boggling.

To recap, briefly: John lost his best friend to a suicide for completely unknown reasons. Sherlock left him, abruptly and without explanation. He spends two years mourning Sherlock; he goes back to therapy. He takes antidepressants. When we see him in “Many Happy Returns” - two years later - the pain is still so fresh and real that he quits talking about it all over again, just when he thought that he was ready to move on with his life.

He meets a wonderful woman, Mary. He falls in love. She helps him heal. He tells Mrs. Hudson that he’s finally “moving on” from Sherlock; equating (although not intentionally) his new relationship, and getting married, to the relationship he had with Sherlock.

And then it turns out that Sherlock isn’t dead, and he shows up to interrupt John’s proposal dinner without so much as an apology. Sherlock let John grieve over him for two years, let him go to therapy, let him wallow in the deepest depression he’s been in ever since he came home from the war. When John asks why he couldn’t have been told, Sherlock tells him that he would have given him away. Essentially, Sherlock is saying that he couldn’t trust John, of all people, and that it’s John’s failing. He could trust Molly and 25 or so homeless people, he could tell his parents, but he couldn’t tell John.

John never gets closure on this, but he forgives Sherlock anyway. He doesn’t need it. He’s just happy that Sherlock is alive. He writes that he feels like he’s alive again, too, because Sherlock is.

skip ahead 8 months (Sherlock comes back in November, the wedding is in July), who knows what the hell went down in the interim, and everything is happy for John Watson. He has the two people he loves the most in the world by his side, and they tell him they love him too. The peasants rejoice, weddings are great, John doesn’t see Sherlock leaving early (surely he would have noticed it later but everything else, like those missing 8 months, is just speculation)

skip ahead again who knows how long (Sherlock and John are still texting each other/commenting to each other on John’s honeymoon, then in His Last Vow Mary says John and Sherlock haven’t seen each other in a month, which John considers way too long ) and then: Sherlock is back on drugs, but he says it’s for a case. And then: Sherlock gets shot, but he’s going to make it. Before John can even process the whole Sherlock getting shot thing, Sherlock escapes the hospital (thank god he’s okay, oh god where did he run off to now) and then shortly thereafter he finds out that his wife is an assassin. Mary, the person who helped him heal after Sherlock’s death. Finding out that everything he thought he knew about her was likely a lie. Wondering if her love is genuine, or is that a lie too?  Mary and Sherlock, the two people who he loves most in all the world, the two people who are meant to love him most, have both deceived him, manipulated him, and lied to him for the majority of their relationships with him.

And Sherlock tells him that it’s his own fault.

And John just accepts it.

He accepts both of them, exactly as they are.

And this is what I mean about how a character’s POV skews things.  This stuff we all see through Sherlock’s eyes, and he’s busy paying attention to other stuff, so it doesn’t get strung together for us.  But this is John’s POV on the season.