Janine, reconsidered 

 (Sherlock Meta by mild-lunacy)

I was rewatching HLV in preparation for The Reckoning (aka Series 4), and I noticed something off about the Janine scene at Baker Street. As we know, Sherlock was acting weird, but then, he was *acting*. People have various explanations of how/why Janine was acting weird. Most people point to her willingness to forgo sex with Sherlock as the odd thing, or alternatively her willingness to believe he was really proposing. The usual point is, how could a savvy, smart woman go for that?

Well, that’s what I’d call an example of an ‘argument from real life’, which is almost always a dead end when analyzing genre fiction. I realize it’s really, really popular for a reason, and that is that it comes really naturally and is part of how most people process and relate to stories. That being said, I’m inclined to dismiss it. If you think these points suggest Janine isn’t believable or coherent as a character, fine. That simply means you’re not satisfied with the show, but that’s not offering a useful critique for further analysis. Nor is it a good reason to go against explicit canon and insist she did have oral sex with Sherlock at least. Anyway, the oddness in Janine that I’m speaking of is the stuff John canonically found weird himself, based on his scandalized, weirded out look: coming out without her bottoms, calling Mycroft ‘Mike’ and blatantly helping herself (staking a claim) in the kitchen. In other words, she was both forward and rude, in context: not acting very British. Then she was super-demonstrative, sitting in Sherlock’s lap later; people have theorized that this is because she knows about Sherlock’s plans, but there’s a simpler explanation. One that doesn’t require breaking a plot point in HLV (always important).

Janine’s inappropriate behavior fits if she was actually *trying* to make John uncomfortable, hoping to rub it in with her new relationship to Sherlock. Not to help Sherlock for whatever reason, but because *she* was jealous. Remember, she knows how important John is to Sherlock because of their conversation at the wedding. Sherlock made his fixation on John clear by his behavior there, and in fact Sherlock rejected her at the time (both sexually and as a candidate for the position John’s marriage represented an end to). The walking around half-dressed makes sense if you essentially want your lover’s ex to suffer. It really is that simple sometimes, and it also makes sense as a mirror with Mary’s dynamic with Sherlock and John in HLV, as well. Mary was starting to resent Sherlock’s role in John’s life as well, sniping at him earlier in the episode about some people not having heard of Sherlock.

The whole performance being directed at discomfiting John becomes truly obvious when she tells Sherlock right in front of John, “I’m the only one who really knows what you’re like, remember?”

That’s just *blatantly* a reference to John as well as John’s (presumably former) role in Sherlock’s life. It’s the sort of thing you don’t say in front of someone’s questionably-ex 'partner’ if you don’t have to, or you’re being friendly. If you’re not trying to score emotional points, you don’t say that sort of thing even to 'play along’ (assuming she’s doing that, rather than Sherlock, which I think is the actual reality of the situation). We know that Janine is canonically nasty and vengeful (from her going to the newspapers about her sex life with Sherlock), so this behavior is totally understandable. Further, if she was taunting John right then, it makes sense she’d been in that mode the entire time.

Not to say that this is somehow an anti-Janine post, but I’m guessing that one reason fandom hasn’t really talked about this before is that it’s not particularly flattering to Janine. We tend to be a bit protective about female characters in the show. In Series 3, however, every female character– Molly, Janine, Mary, even Mrs Hudson– repeatedly acted somewhat insensitively, and everyone except maybe Mrs Hudson was also manipulative and even emotionally abusive to various degrees. With Molly, I’m referring to the contentious yelling episode at the lab, and with Mrs Hudson, I’m mainly referring to the multiple times in TSoT where she mysteriously stomped over Sherlock’s apparent anxiety about John’s impending nuptials. Mary, on the other hand, exemplified every single aspect of this sort of insensitive, manipulative behavior throughout the Series, of course.

The other reason I haven’t seen anyone mention this interpretation before in the Johnlocker circles I travel in is probably because it treats Janine’s canonical heterosexual/heteroromantic feelings seriously. There’s not much I can say about that except that it’s my best judgment that they were indeed real.