Did you forget to add one or did you add the same?

Well, perhaps in S4 Lestrade will have moved in with Sherlock. His wife was leaving him anyway, so ...

1. ASiP: Not Really My Area

2. TBB: MASSIVE INTELLECT!

3. TGG: Call Me, Maybe

4. ASiB: Hamish

5. THoB: Henry

6. TRF: Jim

7. TEH: Mary

8. TSoT: Let's Talk About John

9. HLV: Mike
 

It's difficult to make predictions. I tried to do this analysis in an objective way (as far as that's even possible), based only on what is really there in the episodes. Sherlock and John refer to each other as "friends", so I kept that. What you can read between the lines is extremely emotional, although physically almost nothing happens. There are very strong symbols and metaphors like death, romance or sexual things, saving lifes, dying and killing for each other. That could be a way to make it clear that the relationship between the two is really meaningful and passionate. Otherwise it would be "just friends", and that would automatically appear rather insignificant. But I have no idea, of course, what will happen in the future. Could be anything. I like Johnlock in fan fiction and so on. In the series I'd rather see them as friends, although I'd also be okay with actual Johnlock in the series. Or whatever - if Sherlock decides to get married to some girl in the next series, I could probably even get used to that. From what I've seen so far I didn't get the Impression that this would happen, but you never know.

1. ASiP: The Adventure of the Riding Crop in the Mortuary.

2. TBB: The Origami Murders

3. TGG: Olympics

4. ASiB: The Sheet Adventures

5. THoB: The Curious Case of the Dog in the Nighttime

6. TRF: The Murderous Case of the Flying Detective and his Grounded Friend

7. TEH: Did You Miss Me?

8. TSoT: Three's A Crowd.

9. We missed you, but not that much.
 

The Adventure of the Riding Crop in the Mortuary.

2. TBB:

It’s actually fun to go through the episodes scene by scene and take the imagery, symbolism etc into account. The meaning of everything suddenly appears much deeper, and you can find some little gems.
The Tube scene in TEH, for example, is presented like a classic scene from a romance movie.
Imagine Person A and Person B have a wonderful romantic love story, but then Person A disappears and is believed to be dead. Person B grieves for a while, but then gets on with his life and finds somebody new. And then Person A suddenly comes back and is very much alive.

It would of course lead to a more or less clichéd scene where Person A finally confronts Person B with his feelings. Person A would bring a present, a romantic gesture, probably roses. Or, if Person B is an ex-soldier and abnormally attracted to danger, a ticking time bomb will do.


There would be some arguing – “why do you never call the police” and so on and so forth. Person A would then say something along the lines of “you can leave me if you want to”. In this case: “Go, John. Go now.” But Person B decides to stay.

Person A would get on his knees and beg. (“Sorry. Forgive me, John.”)


Person B would eventually say, “Of course I still love you!” (“Yes, of course I forgive you.”)

Person A would swear that he has always been true and never cheated on Person B. (This is reflected in the explanation of the fall to Anderson. The difference between this and the false explanations we saw in the beginning is that Sherlock only leaves John behind because he has a job to do, not because he has a love affair with somebody else. And he was very sad.)

And then they would kiss!


Isn’t that adorable?

No, probably Sherlock and John don't like each other at all. They're basically robots, and Sherlock is programmed to start an automatic process of self-destruction whenever he loses a game.
Luckily Mycroft knows where the off-switch is.

[Yes, that was sarcasm, in case anyone didn't get it. I just got a bit angry. And I'm also fed up with the insinuations that I have to ask every single actor and creator of the show before I can draw any kind of conclusion, and that I have to change my point of view if theirs is different.]

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

Do you know what the problem is, why it doesn't feel right: we got the reunion (where John certainly showed some anger); then the love-fest that was TSoT, and NOW this. While in TSoT, we see evidence of Sherlock's insecurity about John's marriage affecting their relationship, it looks overall like things are generally ok between them. We don't see much sign (in TSoT) that John is still upset over Sherlock's deception.

And then in HLV that comes back. It seems like a big shift in mood (and in characters' feelings) from TEH, to the relative lightness of TSoT, and then back to HLV.

TSOT only seems to be light and funny. If you really look at it, the whole episode is full of dark symbols and foreshadowings of HLV.
This little dialogue, for example (Mrs Hudson and John in the kitchen after the stag night):
“Did you think you had found the right one when you married Mr Hudson?”
“No, it was just a whirlwind thing for us. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I just got sort of swept along.”
“Right.”
“And then we moved to Florida. We had a fantastic time, but of course I didn’t know what he was up to. The drugs.”
“Drugs?”
“He was running (…) a cartel. Got in with a really bad crowd.”
“Right.”
“And then I found out about all the other women. I didn’t have a clue! So when he was actually arrested for blowing someone’s head off, it was quite a relief, to be honest.”
“Right.”
“It was purely physical between me and Frank. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I know, there was one night …”
“Hang on, was that Sherlock?”
“Is it?”
“That’s Sherlock.”

Tinks wrote:

Sherlock is the one who is now traumatised - he's given up two years of his life, we don't know exactly what happened to him during this time, and he comes back to find everyone's lives have gone on without him.

In the metaphorical sense I think it doesn't even matter what happened to him. He was "dead". Like John says in the final scene of TEH, "When you were dead, I went to your grave." He doesn't say, "When I thought you were dead, I went to the place that was supposed to be your grave." Because literally, there is no Holmes without Watson. John is the one who writes Sherlock's story. If they're separated, or if John stops writing down his thoughts about him, Sherlock dies. Maybe other people will try to continue his story, but then he'll turn into a stranger, like "Shezza" or "Sherl" in the beginning of HLV, or the unfamiliar looking person we see at the beginning of TEH. Or at the very beginning of PINK, where we see Sherlock in a mortuary and his only friend is a skull. John brought him to life, or saved his life, and he needs to understand that and continue doing it.