I agree.

I am confused by all the analysis of his behavior and the theories trying to explain it.

I think it's simple- wife (pregnant wife)  shoots best friend  in an office she broke into, best friend leaves hospital to set up an elaborate reveal for wife's secrets, wife isn't who he thought she was, wife has done terrible as yet u ndisclosed things...

So yeah, he's flying off the handle.

I GET IT!

These are supposed to be normal humans. It's not a super hero film.

Just the normal day to day that is sherlock and Watsons life would make the best of us act batty due to the death defying situations that is commonplace to their adventures.

And now this time it's personal.

Those are extreme circumstances.

Heck some men would act out from just the stress of new marriage and pregnant wife.

He's fine.

Swanpride wrote:

Who said that Sherlock did anything wrong (aside from faking his suicide in front of John and pretending to be dead for two years)? That doesn't make John's anger less justified. He is just lashing out. It happens. He wouldn't be human otherwise.

 
The faking of the suicide has been brought up by a few people as if he deliberately didn't bother telling John because he was thoughtless and selfish.
When in fact, John had to believe Sherlock was dead, because if he gave any clue to thinking he was alive, there were people ready to kill him.
However, Sherlock has done things before that have appalled John in their apparent cruelty (like not going to Mrs Hudson when she was supposed to have been shot) and John has later realised that the apparant cruelty was an act; that there was a reason for it.
Therefore, I would expect, by now, for John to have found out or worked out, why he had to be kept in the dark about Sherlock's fake death.
So I don't accept his apparent coolness to Sherlock, while he is now being warm and loving to Mary, is what I'm saying.
If he's forgiven Mary, then he should equally forgive Sherlock.
And to go back to a point I keep making, Sherlock acted as he did from selflessness, Mary from selfishness.

Tinks wrote:

Swanpride wrote:

Who said that Sherlock did anything wrong (aside from faking his suicide in front of John and pretending to be dead for two years)? That doesn't make John's anger less justified. He is just lashing out. It happens. He wouldn't be human otherwise.

 
The faking of the suicide has been brought up by a few people as if he deliberately didn't bother telling John because he was thoughtless and selfish.
When in fact, John had to believe Sherlock was dead, because if he gave any clue to thinking he was alive, there were people ready to kill him.
However, Sherlock has done things before that have appalled John in their apparent cruelty (like not going to Mrs Hudson when she was supposed to have been shot) and John has later realised that the apparant cruelty was an act; that there was a reason for it.
Therefore, I would expect, by now, for John to have found out or worked out, why he had to be kept in the dark about Sherlock's fake death.
So I don't accept his apparent coolness to Sherlock, while he is now being warm and loving to Mary, is what I'm saying.
If he's forgiven Mary, then he should equally forgive Sherlock.
And to go back to a point I keep making, Sherlock acted as he did from selflessness, Mary from selfishness.

Sherlocks motives don't erase johns pain. He was clearly devestated at TRF at the grave scene. Lets not forget either he witnessed Sherlocks fall. His best friends death. That is disturbing!

Moftiss went to the trouble of showing us that he didnt deal well with it in TEH opening talking with the therapist and he and mrs Hudson discussing his complete lack of contact with her.

Then Sherlock sashays back in his life with all the reverence of a circus clown. Surprise I'm not dead I'm pretending to be a waiter- totally making a mockery of johns grief.

Yes he's mad. Yes he's still hurt. It makes sense.

He accepted Sherlock back in his life. Just like he did Mary. But like he said to Mary- I'm still pissed it's going to come out at times.

It's the same with Sherlock. He forgives ,he loves but his grace is about run out so he's going to lash out at times when before he'd have more tolerance for the behavior.


I really think too much is being read into what is just the use of dramatics for the sake of entertainment.

I agree with the above. Sherlock's motives don't change the fact that he did allow John to grieve for best part of 2 years. The way he broke the news to John that he is actually not dead could be interpreted in the heat of the moment that this was all one big joke to him. It's quite understandable why John would become angry in this situation. I don't necessary apploud the beeting that followed but I can understand why John would react in that way.

I think that the fact that he missed signs of Sherlock's deterioration is again quite realistic. He doesn't have a magic switch in his head to automatically flip into doctors mode when needs arises. It's quite hard to do the job properly when your mind is alsewhere.

Willow wrote:

belis wrote:

I agree with the above. Sherlock's motives don't change the fact that he did allow John to grieve for best part of 2 years. The way he broke the news to John that he is actually not dead could be interpreted in the heat of the moment that this was all one big joke to him. It's quite understandable why John would become angry in this situation. I don't necessary apploud the beeting that followed but I can understand why John would react in that way.

I think that the fact that he missed signs of Sherlock's deterioration is again quite realistic. He doesn't have a magic switch in his head to automatically flip into doctors mode when needs arises. It's quite hard to do the job properly when your mind is alsewhere.

I agree that the magic switch doesn't exist; that's why Tinks' observation that you really don't have to be a doctor to realise that Sherlock was exceedingly poorly is important. I do not dispute the fact that John suffered pain, but John's behaviour makes it crystal clear why he had to be excluded from the plan. They wouldn't have lasted five minutes if they had to rely on John's ability to engage his brain before opening his mouth; John's inability to admit that fact is a profound problem because now that the plane has turned back he is, once again, a loose cannon.

If he had shown signs of growing up and recognising it then one could envisage him playing him an important role in tackling whatever villain lies behind the apparent return of Moriarty, but he hasn't. Mycroft, who doesn't love John, is well aware of that fact, and Mycroft has already almost lost his brother because of John's (fake) wife, which means that John must be excluded from the inner circle.

I don't think I could face another season of John angsting over the fact that Sherlock doesn't trust him; my only hope is that Moftiss find some way of making him grow up fast. Otherwise, within the logic of the show, he will be endangering Sherlock at every turn and I prefer it to be the villains who do that.

Incidentally, at the beginning of the season Sherlock has just been extracted from a lengthy and very dangerous mission; John, who has PTSD, really should realise that people in those circumstances have difficulties in adjusting back into normal life. This is, after all, his own justification for the psychosomatic limp he possessed when we first met him....


 

And there's the most disapointing thing about John this season for me: John simply doesn't care-- he's so focused on *his* pain, *his* hurt, and *his* anger--- he doesn't see anyone else's. And it's worse when he's worked himself into a self-righteous lather. 

Maybe part of the problem is that during the hiatus, really, John could do no wrong in the eyes of the fandom. He was practically made out to be a saint, and the constant refrain was, "Bad Sherlock! How could you hurt John this way?" 

Well, things have changed, and I'm not sure fans headcanon's are able to accomodate such a huge shift. 

I could deal with the out of control rage monster dude; but this person who is so oblivious to anyone else's pain other than his own--- I can't cope!

Last edited by RavenMorganLeigh (February 15, 2014 8:39 pm)

SherlocklivesinOH wrote:

Willow wrote:

Incidentally, at the beginning of the season Sherlock has just been extracted from a lengthy and very dangerous mission; John, who has PTSD, really should realise that people in those circumstances have difficulties in adjusting back into normal life. This is, after all, his own justification for the psychosomatic limp he possessed when we first met him.... 

Yes, and we still haven't heard much about Sherlock's mission during the Hiatus, and whether he's traumatized by it. We saw what he went through after being shot, but it was all related to that shooting. I don't think we've seen trauma symptoms or memories connected to the mission?

What bothered me was at the moment when Mary was responsible for Sherlock's condition and near-death, John screamed at Sherlock as though it was Sherlock's fault that he (John) had ended up with a former assassin. And I think Mary would have been better off letting Sherlock help her. Her putting him out of action gave CAM time for more dirty work (Lord Smallwood is dead by Christmas.)

It would make sense for him to still be mad at Sherlock over the faked death...in that regard part of the problem is that we had TSoT in between the two episodes, with a much lighter tone to their relationship. So when John's anger surfaces again in HLV, it seems out of the blue, disconnected from the original source.

 

One of the striking aspects of Sherlock's return is that he does display the sort of 'fish out of water' mismatch between him and his memories, and current reality. I see him very much as the rather naive returning warrior who has sustained himself by an idealised view of what he was fighting for, only to discover that the world has changed, and that nobody cares anyway. Actually, that's not true; Mrs Hudson, Lestrade and his brother obviously do care, along with Molly, but John seems entirely uninterested in what he was actually doing.

Everything is viewed through the prism of John's feelings; it comes dangerously close to caricature in that respect, and the reason we do not get to find out what Sherlock was actually doing is because John doesn't want to know. We see Sherlock being beaten to a pulp before he is hauled out by Mycroft because of a major terrorist plot, which suggests that he has not been on a long, fun holiday, and that the plot is rather more important than John's hurt feelings, but John doesn't see it that way.

I think you are right in noting that the change in tone is so stark that we are a bit at sea; about the only clue we get to John still being not OK is Sholto's question about the psychiatrist in the Sign of Three, and John's somewhat equivocal response. HLV opens with evidence that John is not OK; his nightmares are back and after that it's the slide until we reach the point you highlight where John is screaming at Sherlock rather than Mary.
 
And yes, it's hard to see Lord Smallwood dying, and the implicit grief of Lady Smallwood, because Sherlock was out of action for so long; it's easy to forget that Lady Smallwood must have blamed herself when Sherlock was found almost dead in CAM's office. In her mind she had sent a young man into the dragons den, and the dragon had won...

I have to say that I would defend both of them, Sherlock and John, because I understand both their reactions in HLV - and not only in this episode, also in TEH.

John has every right to be pissed at Sherlock when he turns up in TEH - especially because of the way in which Sherlock "jumps out of the cake". I can't begin to imagine how I would react and feel if anything like that were to happen to me, so I can understand that he is shocked and that he is 'overreacting', as Mary puts it. At the same time I also understand why Sherlock acts the way he acts - he's nervous, helpless and probably pretty freaked out the moment he stands before John.

In HLV I completely understand John, and when people criticize him for just focusing on his feelings, his anger, his hurt and his pain, then my answer is: I totally understand him. He has just learned that his wife isn't the person that he thought she was, and when they go back to 221B it even seems a bit as if he has Mary as well as Sherlock sort of against him. Sherlock seems to defend Mary instead of showing some understanding for John, so yes, I understand that John gets the impression that everything is always his fault.
Granted, maybe he was blind, maybe he didn't want to see who Mary really is... but somehow I still don't fully agree with this idea that she is the way she is because John choose her. But even if that were the case: I get why he is shocked, I get why he is hurt and I get why in this situation he cares so much about himself and so little about Sherlock's condition.
At the same time I also understand why Sherlock tells John the things he's telling him and why he wants John to listen to what Mary has to say in order to sort things out. He does it because he cares about John (and Mary), and it doesn't seem fair that in return John shouts at him and asks him to shut up and even threatens him by saying "One more word and you won't need morphine". But again, I also understand John and I can't really resent John's reaction in this situation.

TeeJay wrote:

You know, interestingly, up until now, I actually never read the "One more word and you won't need morphine" line as a death threat.

Well, me neither. In my opinion John would never, ever even think about killing Sherlock... I mean, come on...! I'm not even sure he would have been able to inflict any more physical pain on Sherlock in that situation... yes, he says what he says, but... I hear the words and I still don't really believe that he would punch Sherlock in the face or whatever.
What it comes down to for me in that scene is: neither John nor Sherlock react in a way that is easy to take for one another. Sherlock doesn't seem to want to listen and to understand John, even worse, it seems as if he's taking Mary's side - John shouts at him, doesn't see that Sherlock is in need of medical attention.
It's anything but ideal, but especially when it comes to John I am far from saying that he's acting out of character or that he'd better get his act together. To be honest, I don't even know what his character really is anymore after those two years without Sherlock, after Sherlock's return and after learning that his wife isn't who he thought she was.

Tinks wrote:

@Willow "everything is viewed through the prism of John's feelings'
I think this is so true - I think because MF is so good at playing hurt and angry, the writing and directing slants a little too much towards that at times so that Sherlock becomes almost a bystander.
This is a shame, because there are so many subtleties in his behaviour that give a clue to what's going on with him, but so much of the time we see things only as they affect John first, and are left to draw our own conclusions about how they affect Sherlock.
I don't know what the answer to this is, because he's the one writing the blog, and I don't want to get too critical here; one of the problems of the hiatus is that you're left with a lot of time to overanalyse what you've seen.
But if people have watched the Baker Street scene and picked up only on John's feelings (and yes MF was brilliant) and not Sherlock's hurt and pain too, then maybe the direction or writing needs to be a tiny bit more balanced so that people take in the whole scene, because BC was great in that scene too, and it's a shame for him if people weren't taking in what he was trying to convey.
Just a thought that's struck me today, but I'm going to lurk without posting for the remainder if the day, because I'm aware that I'm posting too much and maybe not expressing myself very well.
I'll bid you all a goodnight for now !

I really didnt see sherlock fading in that scene at first.

Obviously I saw him struggle which I assumed was pain- he did ask mrs Hudson for morphie rrather loudly after all.

Admittedly I was enthralled in Johns drama but I've come to realize I really like him lol so maybe that's why?  And MF did such a great job in that scene.

I loved sherlock in it too though. He was blunt and not playing into the drama bc be needed to get things resolved. Before the ambulance came.

I always assumed he'd go back to hospital bc he escaped and clearly wasn't well enough- I just didnt think it would involve him almost dying in his flat.

Even upon rewatch I don't see anything so shockingly alarming that Watson  in his current state would have noticed that the man was fading fast.

Sherlock hid it.

I also don't doubt that it would've been Watson taking him back to the hospital when they finished their business there has sherlock not needed an ambulance.

I will agree though Sherlocks alone in this world status in this episode is heart breaking to me- just like when he leaves the wedding after his big scene talking about loving to dance. I think that one still hits me harder for some reason. Sob

I have never considered the "One more word and you won't need morphine" line to be a death threat. My interpretation was more along the lines 'You better shut up now or I'm going to punch the lights out'. Sherlock didn't stop talking and John didn't hit him. He was obviously very angry but I don't think there was any intention there to actualy hurt Sherlock.

I don't think that he had any intention of seriously harming Sherlock at any point. If he really wanted to strangle him I don't think he would have failed. He knows how to do it properly.