In fact, the picture here was an illustration that ran with "The Illustrious Client" when that story was first published in The Strand magazine. Which is why I'm posting here...it's more or less canon.

As the story tells us at the beginning, Holmes and Watson are attending a turkish bath house. (And those in fact had a reputation as a meeting place for gay men.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_the_Illustrious_Client

But no matter which (if any) "ship" you tend to board, that picture looks like they're in bed together.

It has occurred to me how REALLY bad Sherlock's timing was. Not just in interrupting the dinner, but the particular day/moment he picked to come back. 

Now, obviously he wasn't going to reveal himself before he'd finished with Moriarty's network.

BUT it does seem like John stayed in the "denial," phase of grief for a long time, and maybe even had (what he thought were) fantasies about Sherlock not being dead. He really seemed, at the beginning of TEH, to be at the very beginning of moving on. So just a little sooner and he would have more readily picked up where they left off.

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

belis wrote:

I'm not convinsed that John has PTSD. From what we see on screen there is not enough there for him to meet the diagnostic criteria. He might have been much worse before though and we first see him when he is already partially recovered. So I'm not going to question his diagnosis to much. 

In fact, John seems addicted to excitement...which is the main reason he puts up with Sherlock...you would think someone with PTSD would shy away from working with Sherlock because it would bring back fear, etc.

John does have a quick temper and a tendency to resort to violence at the drop of a hat.(In canon, he THREATENS to beat up someone who hires a hit on Holmes (or perhaps "offers to" because he says it to Holmes)...in this series, he punches out someone who calls Sherlock "weird." I don't know if the medical profession would call that psychopathy, but it would be scary if you LIVED with that person.
 

That would be anger management issues. :-)  I always think it's interesting how often we tend to gloss over John's violent tendencies. And his very close to the surface, ever present anger. 

"Gloss over," is a very good phrase... in most other adaptations we're led to see Watson as very normal except for his willingness to live with and love Holmes despite Holmes' eccentricities. They try to convey a sense of "How do you put up with Sherlock Holmes."

In fact, there are adaptations, and fan fics, particularly by Johnlockers, that idealize Watson and present Holmes loving Watson for saving or normalizing him, but here, we have to wonder how many people would put up with JOHN. Maybe Sherlock's Asperger's (or whatever) helps him not be freaked out or offended by John.

Here, it seems to be more Sherlock saving or humanizing John than the other way around. John lacked an interest in life before he met Sherlock, whereas Sherlock already had the interest, because he already had his work. He didn

Both as originally conceived in canon and here, that makes people like John Watson, and other fans, in and out of universe get so...into him?

In Victorian England, his disregard for social convention and tendency to snark at authority figures were genuine novelties, but don't we see a lot of that today? Certainly there are a lot of characters in crime shows who have dysfunctional relationships, are loners,are traumatized, are arrogant, break the rules, (or are those characters that way because they're taking off on Holmes...such as House?) And we always hear that arrogance and bad social skills are common among real-life young people.

And I feel his meanness is racheted up from canon. There are insults to those around him in canon, but he doesn't seem to be constantly mouthing off and putting people down the way he does in this series.

The tube scene in TEH is the best concerete example I can think of: the original Holmes insulted Watson's deductive and writing skills, but he would NEVER have led Watson into danger and laughed about it. He could genuinely freak out over the thought of any harm to his Watson.

And although he played dead for a couple of years, he claims it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, that he went to the Falls expecting to die. He didn't have a whole gambit that he concealed from John.

Or maybe I'm feeling that he's meaner because this John minds it more than the original did?

And I while understand that Moffit and Gattis wanted to give Sherlock villains who could genuinely challenge him, it seems like he has many encounters with people who approach being as smart as he is, so his brilliance does seem to stand out as much?

It seems like Mycroft directs a lot of what he does, making Mycroft the main genius, in a way.

Are Sherlock's methods still "cutting edge?"

Didn't John refer to him once as a "charasmatic madman?"

What is it that makes THIS Sherlock  "the best and wisest man [ John has] ever known" (and that he still feels that way

And how does Sherlock try to win back John's trust? By staging ANOTHER semi-fake near-death-stunt (which John believes is real.)

I started out wanting John to forgive Sherlock faster...but by the end I was wondering why John didn't take longer to forgive for the train incident. That was evidence that Sherlock was just going to continue to mess with him.

But what is it that you wondered if it was real?

I just posted about this on another thread: the whole thing of, "Moriarty's plan was always all part of my plan," makes Sherlock seem almost as super-human as he did when he suddenly turned up in Pakistan to save Irene.

I would prefer to believe he trapped Moriarty to stop other bad things Moriarty was doing, not just to save his own reputation.

But on the other hand, it seems like Mycroft is responsible for a lot of the "brilliance" that is Sherlock's operations. Sherlock is not the main genius anymore, if that makes any sense.

I felt like, John was trying to "break up" with Sherlock, staying mad at him for faking his death, Sherlock needed someone to replace John. And everything going through his head indicating that he couldn't let go of John.

And Sherlock and Molly's conversation when it's revealed she's engaged plays like either a couple breaking up or a couple who HAVE broken up discussing how they're moving on. For Sherlock it's like, "I'm sorry,I tried, but you can't take John's place."

Or, if we want to be more innuendo-y about it, "It's just not as good with you as it is with John." 

But he's rather nice about it.

But I agree that the "the person who mattered most" line teases Sherlolly. Because it does sound like Holmes is saying Molly is the person who matters most to him and the world. And I think that's at the heart of what John's really so mad about concerning the faked death: Sherlock picked someone ELSE to confide in. The person he was most emotionally intimate with (for Sherlock) was not John. And nicer to someone else.

Search on Facebook sometime for John Watson and Sherlock Holmes. There are profiles for several versions of both...and check out the relationship status!

I have ONLY seen the TEH, but the revelations about The Fall  -  Moriarty's plan to destroy Sherlock's reputation was all part of Sherlock's plan - really does make it seem like more of a heroic sacrifice, in a way. 

In other words: he allowed his reputation to be damaged to trap Moriarty - as opposed to trapping Moriarty to save his reputation.

There is a fascinating essay by Michael Walsh, included in the Sherlock Holmes in America anthology, about how everyone in canon with "Mor" in their name (representing a particularly ethnicity, Irish, I think), in canon, is evil: Moriarty and Moran, of course, but he also includes....

MORSTAN: and he makes the following statements:

Mary Morstan is"the good side of Colonel Moran"

When Watson marries Mary, Holmes' world is shattered.

Mary is Holmes' most deadly enemy, against whom he is most powerless

Mary's death brings Holmes back to life. He's not saying Mary is meant to be an evil or unsympathetic character, just that she is Holmes' enemy. (Again, this is from canon - Watson has been married in canon for about two years before Holmes disappears, and Mary passes away during the Hiatus.)

Walsh never uses a word like "homoerotic," but what can he be saying, besides, that the worst thing an enemy can do to Sherlock Holmes is to deprive him of Watson?

The use of the word "shattered" echos the Decoding the Subtext blog on Holmes' reaction when Mary agrees to marry Watson: his heart is broken. It's like Walsh knows Holmes is in love with Watson - without knowing he knows that!