belis wrote:

 I wouldn't be too harsh on him. Aside for the fact that he was preoccupied by the whole thing with Mary I don't think it was particularly obvious that there was something seriously wrong with Sherlock. It's not that uncommon for fit, young people to carry on the verge of circulatory collapse for quite a while not looking to bad and than suddenly collapse in a heap when they finaly decompensate. This sort of mistake is made quite commonly in hospitals.

 But Sherlock LOOKED bad, so bad in fact that even mrs Hudson said "you look terrible" as soon as she saw him. And John is not only a doctor, but a military doctor, as was reminded here, so he knows more than an average med about wounds. Even if in the first moment he could be too shocked and grieved by his "domestic problem", when Sherlock sits down, he is barely able to talk and it is obvious that he is on the verge of collapsing.

belis wrote:

In hinsight he probably wished that he have kept a bit of a closer eye though considering that Sherlock just went AWAOL from hospital after major abdominal surgery.

 Indeed . Although, to be fair, I don't think Moftiss intended to create this impression of Watson here: it is probably just one of this situations when script acquires different implications that those intended.

Cleanshaven Doctor wrote:

To give an example, there is this scene when Sherlock and John are sitting on that benche waiting for Bainbridge to come off duty. Sherlock sits perfectly still, hands folded (...)  When John starts to talk about his forthcoming wedding and that won't alter anything Sherlock shifts in his seat and moves his hands

 I love this scene and I think BC acting in it is superb: he is such a master in conveying emotions thanks to subtle body language. However, it is just one more motive for my being pissed with our dear doctor in HLV. "nothing will change"? And at the beginning of the next episodes he declares that he hasn't seen Sherlock "for ages" (=a month). Really? He didn't even bother to pay one occasional visit to Bakerstreet in a MONTH? And then he gets angry at Sherlock at Barths and says that SHERLOCK could have called if he had problems?

mrshouse wrote:

I see a lot of hints here in various threads that the development of the series is most welcome. But in this thread I have a bit of a feeling that this is not so very welcome concerning John, on whose moral guidelines we could rely for eight episodes. He has a lot to sort out and in my opinion this is more complex than being the good-balanced buddy all the time, making right decisions just out of thin air.

I agree completely. To me at least John's moral compass seems to be way off balance in episode nine.

But John was thinking about quite different things; he was wrapping his head around Sherlock replacing his chair, fascinated by the perfume, and oblivious to Mrs Hudson who was obviously freaked out by the fact that he didn't respond to her telling him that Sherlock was calling him.

And doctors do not conduct diagnoses by asking patients whether they feel all right, or whether they are OK; they observe. If they are good doctors they observe very, very carefully; Conan Doyle based Sherlock Holmes on a real doctor who was noted for his remarkable diagnostic skills based on his very, very careful observations.

Of course most GPs are not familiar with gunshot wounds and ensuing complications, but Dr Watson has no such excuse; he spent quite a lot of his life in places where it was only too frequent. So there has to be something powerful enough to completely switch off all of the trained responses; about the only way I can think of is that John's personality is close to disintegration. He has been deceived by Sherlock, and now he is discovering that he has been deceived by Mary; he is losing the self-esteem which he built up slowly over the course of the first season.

His marriage is a fake and he doesn't even know whether the baby is his; it's probably just as well that there isn't an all powerful ring in his pocket because he's in danger of going Gollum. It should be fascinating to watch him rebuild himself in the next season...

mrshouse wrote:

I see a lot of hints here in various threads that the development of the series is most welcome. But in this thread I have a bit of a feeling that this is not so very welcome concerning John, on whose moral guidelines we could rely for eight episodes. He has a lot to sort out and in my opinion this is more complex than being the good-balanced buddy all the time, making right decisions just out of thin air.

Good point. We see Sherlock show so many facets of his character and much development and at the same time want John to stay the same throughout the episodes? We should accept that Sherlock's absence and Mary have changed the dynamics between them which does not mean that they will not get closer sometime in the future.

Mattlocked wrote:

Willow wrote:

His marriage is a fake and he doesn't even know whether the baby is his; ...

 
This seems a bit over the top to me. Of course he is disappointed, angry, desperate. He feels betrayed. AGAIN.
But the marriage a fake and the baby not his? No.

Well, as a question of law, the marriage is a fake; there are legal requirements for both parties to disclose their true legal identities. John has disclosed truthfully but Mary has lied about herself. The law of England and Wales does not provide an exception to that requirement for the benefit of putatively retired foreign assassins with fake identities.

You may be convinced that the baby is John's; I have no view either way. But John must have asked himself that question; if she has lied about everything else why should he trust her on this?
 

But it's a difference if you think you've been betrayed regarding past, name and things - or love.
I understand that "lying is lying" and one may assume that everything was a big lie. But still....

Swanpride wrote:

Since the pregnancy was not planned, is not just a matter of believe, but also of likelihood. After all, they certainly did take the usual measures. If they failed, it is way more likely that they failed when they were together - even if John were inclined to believe that Mary cheated on him. And I don't think that he is.

The truth is, Mary has nothing to gain from marrying John, quite the opposite because the act puts her on the radar of Sherlock and in extension Mycroft. The only thing she gets is John himself - and apparently she considers the risk worth it.

 
On the contrary; Mary used her marriage to John to snuggle up to CAM's PA. All of those hours schmoozing together with her chief bridesmaid were presumably designed to give her access to CAM so she could kill him.

If all that Mary wanted was to marry John then a quick trip to the Registry Office would have done the job; instead she used it quite coldbloodedly to get her access to something she wanted, and what she wanted was the death of another human being...

I just don't think everything is so complicated. She loves John like any other loving wife in the world loves her husband, nothing more nothing less. Thinking about it, maybe she loves him even more because he represents stability, a new future, the possibility of a normal life. The only problematic thing there is that she's an ex-assassin who's worked hard for years to erase her past. But her relationship with John - I think it's completely ordinary in the best possible way.

Ah, dunno.

The way I see it, the moment she assumed Mary Morstan's identity, Mary relegated her whole past to the memory stick. She started an ordinary life, found a job as a part-time nurse, got an account on Twitter and had at least one other relationship before she met John, who, without Sherlock's influence, was a quite ordinary doctor in his late thirties. Things progress, their bond intensifies and at some point both of them realise that there's simply no one else who could replace the other, because at some instinctual level they both sense there's more than meets the eye behind their ordinary personas. Then John decides to propose and it's all going very normally, ordinarily, until Sherlock - tada - reappears.

Had Sherlock not returned, Mary's secret would have been safe - there was literally no reason for re-opening that stinky can of worms in front of John. You have a perfect life, a secret that could potentially ruin it and absolutely no reason for taking that risk apart from some dubious "ethic" obligation. She probably did wonder a lot of times if she should tell John, maybe even wish she could, but she was clearly not ready to risk losing everything that was dear to her, and can you blame her?

Then Sherlock returned and everything went to hell in a handbasket.
 

Probably the pregnancy only strengthened her resolve to kill Magnussen but I think she had been planning it since the events in TEH.