"He didn't have any way of knowing that the following Christmas would find him alone...." 

Awww, don't make me cry...again.

Fetchinketch wrote:

"He didn't have any way of knowing that the following Christmas would find him alone...." 

Awww, don't make me cry...again.

I'm working my way through Belgravia tonight, only, I think, the 3rd or 4th time I've seen it. You know, I never picked up on the thing about Sherlock being suicidal when he learns that The Woman is dead-- not only dead but made unrecognizable facially by whatever or whoever killed her, which would be upsetting to any man who thought he had feelings for her. So, back before that, at the flat-- maybe Sherlock was just plain flat-out depressed. I never thought of him as being prone to suicidal tendencies, but Mycroft was *very* worried about him, apparently it was a bad sign when Sherlock took that cigarette, and I don't know what Mrs. H and John were searching for in his room and in the flat before Sherlock got home-- drugs? a gun? what?--- but it wasn't good.

And then in TRF he jumped off a roof. John was already concerned about him, about how he gets those hurt-myself thoughts when he's down. So jumping like that, huh.....  I just never made the Belgravia connection to what happened in the TRF before. Knowing his history, John would be even more apt to take the fall and the lies he was told at face value, I suppose. Maybe. Sort of.

I've been saying all along that I'm not smart enough for the Sherlock room. Good grief--- how many times do I have to watch these episodes to even start getting a gleaning about what's going on? It certainly is a challenge.

KeepersPrice wrote:

ancientsgate wrote:

No, no! Don't shut up! A forum made up of people who have all shut up would be boring indeed. Boring! Tedious! Stupid!

He didn't have any way of knowing that the following Christmas would find him alone....

Well, since you insist Ancientsgate I will add at least one more observation  :

Delving down even deeper into the depths (and subtext) of our Sherlock in this scene, I also see a man who is just beginning to 'unthaw' a bit emotionally. He has John now and has started sharing a friendship and special simpatico that's erasing a loneliness he never acknowledges. I'm sure he would never own up to any dependency on John - but we can see it. Any sense of 'losing' John now would be quite difficult for him.

He's also has a very brainy and alluring woman flirting with him via text - something all together new to him - but he's working hard not to show interest by not responding and she's not been invited for 'drinkies' either.  So he looks around at this cozy party at his house and sees 'attached' people. John is with Jeanette (bad) and is going away (oh doubly bad), Lestrade is going home to his wife in Dorset, Mrs. Hudson probably has family she's visiting for Christmas, and he assumes Molly has a new love interest based on The Gift.  That leaves Sherlock the odd man out. I don't think he even has a clue he's bothered by this type of nonsense.  If you tried to pin it on him and he would say that you were completely insane. He and Mycroft don't give a shit.  But I think he is feeling loneliness and I think it bubbles up unbidden at the party. Mass destruction ensues.

If John will be alone next Christmas, sadly I think Sherlock is feeling alone this Christmas - and maybe being bothered by it for the first time in his life.

According to Molly,  Sherlock has been complaining about John leaving him for Christmas:

MOLLY: And John. I hear you’re off to your sister’s, is that right?
JOHN: Yeah.
MOLLY: Sherlock was complaining...saying...

JaneCo wrote:

Love this scene although it makes me cringe at the same time. I always feel for Molly as he launches his attack, although strangely I feel for him too when he realises the truth. Lestrade's face when Molly takes off her coat is wonderful, so funny, he's a real scene stealer here. John's expression too when he hears Sherlock's apology.

I couldn't agree more KeepersPrice (but wouldn't have expressed it so well) Sherlock is certainly a 'work in progress'

I hope he truly *is* a work in progress and that the show-runners give us more of his humanity, at least an inkling of a struggle to want to be "normal", because I think that's absolutely fascinating. I love the case-solving, the fast-talking, the racing around the streets, the Bad Guys, helping Lestrade and his team, etc, the give and take with John about who is smarter than whom, all the snark about BORING!  DULL! TEDIOUS!  IDIOT!  MORON!  SHUT UP!  GO AWAY! ANDERSON, TURN YOUR BACK! But the more peaceful at-home glimpses we've been given are the gravy on my potatoes-- a head on a plate on the top shelf of the fridge, a baggie full of thumbs in the crisper, test tubes and Bunsen burner and microscope on the kitchen table, a skull on the mantel, a framed periodic table in Sherlock's bedroom (who does that?), bullet holes surrounded with a yellow smiley face on the LR wall, a doorbell that doesn't work because Sherlock shot it (lololol), violin tunes played while staring out the window, Mrs. Hudson in and out, John typing away working on the blog or sitting around reading the daily gossip rags. Lovely, all of it. Love the total package of this show.

John is a piece of work all throughout the Christmas thing, all of it-- he's so embarrassed by Sherlock, feeling helpless to make things go more smoothly in the face of all the negativity rolling off the Man In Black. Love it when he tells Sherlock, soto voce, "Take a day off, will ya?"  And then later, when he's trying to appease the current GF, the same one she herself called "Nobody", lololol, he's just inept to the max-- inept, so used to being in that position, resigned to it, but focused on Sherlock, as always. As Irene told John later, when he denied that they were a couple, she said, "Yes, you are."  Stop fighting it, baby. Maybe you and he haven't merged in the Biblical sense, but you are old marrieds in every other way. Poor John, he's "married" to a man most of the world would think is odd at best, and Sherlock is "married" to his work. What a pair.

Last edited by ancientsgate (July 18, 2012 7:00 pm)

I love to read your thoughts. So many clever people around here who manage to analyse the films offering new insights without spoiling the fun. Hats off to you all  .

Mattlocked wrote:

Lovely, these threads... Reading your opinions and feelings about the show just leads me right back into it quite deeply. While reading here I'm all of a sudden right back in the middle of ASiB - so just go on like this and I can sell my DVDs!! lol
Another thing just struck my mind - the scene with John and his GF when he apologizes to her and promises her to walk her dog - but seems to have forgotten that not his actual but his previous GF owned a dog.. (hope you understand, don't know where my dictionary is right now).
What does that mean? She's not that important to him. IF she was the love of his life he would know.
Or maybe his growing relationship to Sherlock. Starting to get married to his "job", too?

You know how fire is so wonderful, shedding its warmth to those who draw near, helping us cook our food, warming our bath water? Nice, huh? Now get a little closer.... no, closer than that. Feel the burning heat? Feel how the hairs on the back of your fingers are starting to singe? I think John has that kind of relationship with this strange Creature that fate brought into his life. He loves The Creature for the excitement he brings him, and he loves him for the validation he brings to his otherwise dull, boring life (everyone wants to feel they matter and that they're making a difference in this world), and he feels special that The Creature, who is normally so standoffish and prickly with everyone has actually deigned to include him in his Very Special Life, maybe even need him more than a little. But then when John starts feeling comfortable, he gets too close, and BAM! Ouch! He gets burned.

That metaphor works for me. John needs Sherlock, but to get too close is to risk a painful encounter of some kind, one that is sure to put him back in his place.

I read a S/J slash story the other day where the person (actually it was a house) decided to call Sherlock The Badger.  Fits him, don't you think? Sherlock came into the empty house, which was for sale, with his coat swirling and billowing, red-cheeked, wild-haired, strode all around the empty rooms, made proclamations about the previous owners (they had a yellow lab, don't you know, and they were married and two....no, three... children, and they had to move because the house wasn't large enough anymore, etc etc etc), and acted all imperious with the poor, hapless real estate broker who had never met anyone like Sherlock before (who the hell has?)  The house didn't know Sherlock's name, so called him The Badger. Then the guys moved in,  and the house "met" sweet, gentle John, and there was so much love and caring between the two men (it was quite lovely, the way it was written), the house came to call John The Badger Whisperer....  I thought that was a fantastic bit of characterization. John, who smooths Sherlock's rough edges, who is almost literally the wind beneath Sherlock's ruffled wings.

My apologies to those who are not into Johnlock and who are gagging reading this.... but you have to admit, even if you never "go there" to ship them, there is still a lot of chemistry there.

SusiGo wrote:

I'd never be gagging at the Johnlock idea, Ancientsgate. I've read some really good fanfic stories that fall into this category and it's quite fascinating that so many people are drawn to the idea of John and Sherlock having a sexual relationship. I guess it's not in the canon and we've discussed this more than once in this forum. But there are other things we love that are not in canon either. And it is fact that they have a very special relationship and I love the many interpretations that the films offer to us. And apart from all this I like your fire metaphor  .

Yes, we cannot expect the slash aspect of this to be in original canon. The close friendship and trust was there, the fascination S/J had with each other, but no whiff of a sexual relationship. In fact, I believe John was married somewhere along in the canonical timeline. It was the 19th century, and two bachelors living together would not be cause for people's gossip about what possibly was going on behind the bedroom drapes. People mostly didn't think that way back in the day.  But in modern day Britain, and as Mrs. H says, her neighbor has "two married ones" living in her house, when same-gender civil unions are legal and accepted, hey, why not? Why not indeed.

I have led this thread so far off the tracks now, it'll probably never recover. Oh, well.

Back to the part where John forgets that his present girlfriend does not actually have a dog. Clearly it tells us a few things: firstly he probably had a disagreement with the girlfriend who did have the dog about walking it, hence,  'I'll walk the dog. There I've said it.' Secondly, he has forgotten which girlfriend he is with, so clearly the 'boring teacher' is not the love of his life. Thirdly, it is used by the scriptwriter(s) to show his incompetence but also because it is a cringingly awful mistake to make isn't it. Do you not feel the urge to groan slightly and and suck in your breath?

It is, in a way, a mirror of Sherlock's blunder with poor Molly over the present.

You're right. I get the impression that at this stage John isn't ready for a serious relationship with any woman. He's too fascinated by Sherlock as a character and by their joint adventures. The fact that he has so many GF in such a short time and that he isn't able to tell one from the other proves this. I think with Sarah in TBB it was a bit different, they seemed to get on quite well, but then of course Sherlock and his Chinese circus came in their way  .

All the girlfriends is a nod to the canon as Dr. Watson was something of a ladies' man. Getting the names wrong and the people muddled may also be a bit of an 'in joke' as ACD did that sometimes in his stories.

John forgetting that the GF did not have a dog is an insult and is just the final straw. She says about her friends saying what a great boyfriend he is, perhaps they have been praising him to her or maybe they have been criticising him and his relationship with Sherlock. He was prepared to go away and spend Christmas with her though wasn't he.

Personally I think that Sherlock knows exactly who she is but by going through the list of John's 'conquests' and then adding the 'boring teacher' as the icing on the cake he must be hoping that this will cause trouble between her and John. It certainly makes John seem like a right womaniser. We know Sherlock is manipulative when he wants to get something. He doesn't want John to go away at Christmas and he is deliberately trying to make life difficult for him. Note he hasn't been moaning at John about his plans to go away but he has been moaning about it to Molly.