The Sign of the Three: A Study in Sherlock

 (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

I just had to get this out. Because it was moving, and beautiful, and surprising, frankly. For me, anyway. I didn’t expect to see all this tonight.

I can see the set up (all the musing on friendships going astray, the end of an era, marriage changing a person, etc.), I know we’re probably in for some serious hurting in the next ep. I hate trying to predict anything, but I wonder if they aren’t exposing Sherlock’s soft underbelly in order to take a knife to it.
But I’m not going to worry about that for the moment. Right now, I’m just thrilled to see it! I’m transfixed!

And how soft that underbelly is! It’s all pink and fragile and new! This is the Sherlock I always liked to imagine was underneath all that brilliance and hatred of peaceful nights and the countryside. We always knew he cared about John, but now he’s announced his love in front of a room full of people, ranking the quality and volume of his love for John up with Mary’s. Sherlock doesn’t get the hint that he shouldn’t be in the photo of the bride and the groom because in his mind he is marrying them, too. Mostly John, though. He’s marrying John. He vows to be there for him, to never let him down, forever. They might as well exchange rings. Sherlock has committed himself.

Those are genuine emotions, and he’s genuinely feeling them, accepting them, and expressing them. Amazing!

John and Sherlock’s night out was epic and spectacular. I loved it. The party game with the two of them guessing who they each are is as close to flirting as I think we’re going to get between them, and it was glorious. John grabbing Sherlock’s knee when he’s falling out of his chair, and then letting go, like he’s just remembered he needs to not do that, then he says, “I don’t mind.” You don’t, do you, John. Sherlock certainly doesn’t.

I sort of feel like Sherlock’s come full circle. He used to completely ignore assumptions about them being a couple, but now he seems to be…I’m debating whether to say comfortably or uncomfortably aware of the tension between them, and actually accepting what that means.

Uncomfortably because of how he quickly takes his arm off the back of the sofa and shifts away from John when the client says, “I wish things had gone further.” I guess you can read that two ways, but I can’t help but read it as an admission that he does. He does wish that. He knows, when she’s talking, that she’s also talking about him and John. Normally he would be tone deaf and not even consider making the connection, but not this time. He reacts to it because the thought has most certainly crossed his mind, finally. It probably was in the process of crossing his mind when the client came in. When she talks about a dreamy guy she met, Sherlock is most certainly thinking about John, and now the innuendos actually land somewhere in him rather than just glancing off him into the realm of the irrelevant. John is thinking about Sherlock, too, very obviously. He glances over at him when she says: “such interesting conversation, it was lovely,” with that smile that says, yeah, that’s how it was with you too, mate, the conversation is always interesting. And for once both of them straighten up a little awkwardly when they realize what they’re comparing themselves to. John finally has some company with that one. Things had just started going down a sort of different road there, it seems like.

I also feel like Sherlock’s become comfortably aware of that tension between them, too. He’s not in agony over it. It’s not an uncomfortable tension really, it’s a happy one, a really joyous one. A loving one. He knows that their relationship isn’t like any other, that it’s precious to both of them, that they love each other forever, and that is a really good end result to him. Here, finally, it’s all fine.
In this episode, Sherlock genuinely acknowledges his feelings. He quietly accepts them and makes room for them in his head and his life. It’s lovely that he expresses them and makes John cry, but it’s the self-awareness I found so moving. It’s like he’s finally looked in the mirror and recognizes who he sees looking back at him.

When the bridesmaid tells him she wishes he weren’t…(pause)…(the word you’re reaching for is gay) ”whatever you are,” he isn’t offended. She doesn’t wish he isn’t brilliant, or rude, or brusque, or whatever else. She wishes he weren’t unavailable in the way he clearly is. And he says, “I know.” He knows what she means, and he knows it’s true. He accepts it.

There is a melancholy in it all, of course. Summed up by the ending: we learn in this episode that Sherlock loves to dance. But once the dancing starts, he looks around, sees he doesn’t really belong anywhere, and leaves. There are things he can’t join John in doing, so he just…won’t do them. He loves to dance, and he loves John, and tonight he can’t have either of them.

It makes you want to see the alternative version, doesn’t it, where John dances with him. Imagine how happy he would have been. But that’s not his lot in life. He’ll always be on the outside looking in.