Sherlock, John, and the Elephant in the Room

 (Sherlock Meta by stephisanerd)

“The damsel in distress. In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption…” Mycroft Holmes in A Scandal in Belgravia

Sherlock: I imagine John Watson thinks love’s a mystery to me but the chemistry is incredibly simple, and very destructive. When we first met, you told me that disguise is always a self-portrait. How true of you: the combination to your safe – your measurements; but this is far more intimate.This is your heart and you should never let it rule your head. You could have chosen any random number and walked out of here today with everything you’ve worked for but you just couldn’t resist it, could you? I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.
Irene: Everything I said: it’s not real.I was just playing the game.
Sherlock: I know. And this is just losing.
—Sherlock and Irene in A Scandal in Belgravia

“Sherlock Holmes has made one enormous mistake which will destroy the lives of everyone he loves and everything he holds dear.” Charles Augustus Magnussen in His Last Vow.

* * *

This is your heart and you should never let it rule your head. And Sherlock Holmes has spent almost every moment of this series letting his heart rule his head. Even when it hurts him. Even when it puts everything he’s worked for in jeopardy. It’s what leads to the trap that he finds himself in at the end of His Last Vow, and it is textbook. It’s been the elephant in the room all series long, and it’s not until Magnussen lays it out for Sherlock and John that either of them sees it.

We’ve known all along that John is willing to do anything for Sherlock. He killed a man to save him and he was willing to sacrifice himself for Sherlock at the pool—an act that leaves Sherlock speechless. We’ve always known that John considers Sherlock his best friend. But Sherlock didn’t. He didn’t know it until John told it to him flat out, and it floors him. Again, he’s left unable to speak. But it’s hard to believe he missed it, really. Sherlock, who can deduce who’s sleeping with who  because of the deodorant they’re wearing, missed it. Why? Because he never expected to have a best friend. Because he never expected to find himself with real connections to other people.

Sherlock, before his return, was always portrayed as somewhat self-serving, manipulative, and selfish. It’s something John and everyone else accepts about him. He puts up with all manner of bullshit from Sherlock, as a matter of course. Sherlock lowers people’s expectations, especially when it comes to his ability or desire to care. “Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did I wouldn’t be one of them.” It’s not until the end of The Reichenbach Fall that we really believe that Sherlock might be willing to do something purely for another human being. *

But by the beginning of The Empty Hearse, we find out that it’s all a bit of a magic trick. He went off that roof, yes, and he let his name and everything that he considers himself to be get smeared. But it was only a temporary thing, and Sherlock knew that.  He expected to come back two years later and find that nothing had changed. He didn’t see the loss or the grief that would result from his actions. He didn’t anticipate the consequences and the first episode is almost entirely focused on Sherlock trying desperately to come to grips with that and make amends. He is fully focused on it, to such an extent that he makes several very human mistakes. As funny as the scene where Sherlock reunites with John is (Sherlock, you idiot.), it’s painfully clear that Sherlock has grossly miscalculated John’s reaction. In his mind, he should be able to waltz back into his life and pick up where he left off. He breezes in, trying to be clever, and when that fails, he tries to make John laugh in an attempt to diffuse the tension. Presumably, given what we’ve seen of their interactions, that usually works, but it doesn’t here. Sherlock begins to comprehend the weight of what he’s done as he continually tries every tactic he can think of to make it okay. Mustache joke? Down on the floor. Flippant comment about who knew? Bloody lip. Appealing to John’s love of danger? Bloody nose. And he lets John do it.

He’s out of his depth, and he wants to make things right, but he can’t begin to figure out how to do that. “I said I’m sorry. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?” he says to Mary. Mary tells Sherlock that she’ll talk John around, at which point, Sherlock takes a closer look at her. We all saw “Liar” in his list of deductions because we were looking for it, we were detached, but Sherlock somehow doesn’t register that information as important. Might that be because more than anything, he wanted to believe that Mary would help him reconnect with John? In that moment, that was more important to him than anything else, so he let it go.

Later in the episode, he doesn’t register the fact that Mary had recognized a skip code on sight. Why? Because his only concern was saving John. He jumps into the fire and pulls him out out, again discarding potentially important information. In The Sign of Three, he discards or misinterprets the evidence again. John loves Mary, and Sherlock, as John’s best friend is going to make sure that they have the perfect day. He thinks well of her, because he knows that John loves her. Even when he should be questioning why exactly she can tell he’s lying. Why she has so few friends.He could have seen it, maybe should have seen it, but he doesn’t. Again and again, he misses it. Human error. Sentiment. Do you see it yet?

He’ll do things for John just because John asks—John even plays on it on occasion.

JOHN: A case. Your inbox is bursting. Just … get me out of here.
SHERLOCK: You want to go out on a case? N-now?
JOHN: Please, Sherlock, for me.
SHERLOCK: Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll get you out of this.

He plans a wedding and makes a speech—a beautiful, touching one that surprises everyone. He composes a waltz for John and Mary, and plays it. He vows that he will always be there for them, a startling departure for someone who once implied that any expectation that he care about people was simply too high. And for all the ways he has been shown to be jealous of John’s connections with other people in the past, he doesn’t act on it here. He accepts that John loves Mary, even though it means losing him in some ways. He insists that John getting married won’t change anything, but it’s an empty, hollow objection, and when the weight of the thing finally hits him, he only turns and sadly walks away. It’s the end of an era.

Sherlock fights his way back from death, because he believes John to be in danger.  Nothing else in his mind-palace did it-not the thought of his mom and dad, or his brother, or The Woman.  It was the thought of how much danger John was still in.  He forgives Mary for shooting and nearly killing him, maybe because on some level, he recognizes that she would do anything to protect John, just as he would. He lets John work out his feelings, and doesn’t intervene, simply giving him space, but invites both John and Mary to dinner at his parents’ house, hoping that they’ll find some hope in his parents’ relationship.

But do either of them notice it? Sherlock keeps plotting, attempting to outwit Magnussen, trying to save Mary and therefore John, even as it should have been clear to him that he was missing something big. He assumes he has the upper hand, and so he wheels and deals, falling right into the trap of human emotions all over again. It’s not until Magnussen shows them the video of the fire and spells it out that either of them seems to recognize it at all.

“Very hard to find a pressure point on you, Mr. Holmes…the drugs thing I never believed for a moment, anyway, you wouldn’t care if it was exposed, would you? But look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.”

In the end, are you really so obvious?

And it was obvious. In the end, it was just a man pushed into a corner, watching the person he loves most in the world being bullied. “Sherlock, do we have a plan? Sherlock?” “Sherlock, what do we do?”

There’s no clever scheme, no magic trick to get them out of this one. ** It’s a gut reaction, and you can’t help wondering how you didn’t it see coming, even as it surprises you. Watching that moment, watching Sherlock murder Magnussen, watching him turn to John,  who is standing there shocked and horrified, watching Sherlock tell him “Give my love to Mary.  Tell her she’s safe now,” as it dawns on John why exactly it is Sherlock has done this, before giving himself up to what at the moment could only be death, be it actual or the loss of everything he believes himself to be…could this series have ended any other way?

Sherlock miscalculated every move that Magnussen made— trying to convince him that a drug habit was his downfall, trying to steal the letters, taking him the laptop, believing that the glasses were the solution, believing the vaults were a physical place, —he should have seen it, but he didn’t.  He’s only human after all, and it’s painful to watch. But Magnussen fatally miscalculated Sherlock’s move as well. Even though he recognizes that John is Sherlock’s pressure point, he failed to recognize just how far Sherlock would go to protect and save him. I’m not sure I would have believed it, if not for this series. Sherlock, who was willing to jump into a fire for John, who was willing to put himself massively out of his comfort zone to be Best Man, who was willing to gracefully step aside, knowing that in many ways he was losing John to Mary, even as it was obviously hurting him. Sherlock who has been out of his depth since his return, trying to find his place in a world that has changed. Of course he would go that far. Bitterness is a paralytic, love is a much more vicious motivator, as Sherlock once said. And now both he, and John, see it.  John, in that moment, has to be aware that Sherlock is doing this for him. And Sherlock doesn’t try to deny that Magnussen was right about him, he doesn’t try to play it off, or make it mean something else, he proves it.

The one person that Sherlock is willing to do anything for is John. It all  comes back to him, over and over again. Sherlock holds reason above all things, and believes it to be completely antithetical to all emotions, and especially love. Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side, he once said. And yet. He’s finally figured it out. He loves John, and that’s more important than winning, more important than being clever, or being the hero. It’s more important than his work, or even his life. So he gives up, and he loses the game, fully aware of what exactly it is he’s sacrificing and why.

Did either of them recognize it before this? I’d guess not, who knows, but it’s staring them in the face now, and neither one of them knows how to deal with it. Their goodbye, as Sherlock is sent off on his suicide mission is stilted and awkward. Sherlock offers John his hand, they shake. He nearly says something, and chickens out. He makes John laugh, one last time, knowing that this will be it, and he walks away. It feels awkward, like there’s something they’re not saying, like there’s something missing. It’s the elephant in the room***, they can see it, hell, WE CAN SEE IT, but Sherlock can’t find the words, and so he walks away, for good, he thinks. It doesn’t matter, he can leave it unsaid, because he doesn’t expect to ever have to face this down again.

And then, there’s a voice, a phone call, and the plane turns around. And the question, the one I find more more intriguing than whether Moriarty is back, is this: How the hell do you deal with that elephant in the room now?

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All quotes taken from here. 

My other Sherlock analysis posts can be found here.

(DISCLAIMER: I’m not a Johnlock shipper, even as I’m realizing that I’ve basically written a several thousand word manifesto on the subject. Not because I don’t see the subtext, but it just doesn’t tend to be how I analyze or relate to fictional content. I’m not coming down here on one side or the other of that debate, and I really just don’t care about it? Ship or don’t ship to your heart’s content, but please don’t flame me or flood my inbox. Edits made 1/22, including moving this disclaimer to the end of the post, adding an oxford comma to the title because it was driving me crazy and minor changes to the piece itself.)

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*I’d actually argue that Sherlock’s capacity for that was greater than he probably realized all along, and that Sherlock really was attempting to protect John when he jumped (thoughts on that here) but I’m simplifying so this doesn’t end up roughly the length of a novel.

**If they retcon that, I will be so horrifically pissed.

***They managed to get an inordinate number of elephant mentions into this series. The idea that something important is hiding in plain sight is touched on over and over again, and I’ll probably write other posts on the subject.