@Willow, as always I agree with much of what you say, but I do hold onto the hope, as I've said before, that the viewers were deliberately excluded from some of what went on while Sherlock was in Hospital.
I'm not saying season 4 will descend into flashbacks, but I do think we'll be shown one or two key scenes that happened between either Sherlock and Mycroft, Mycroft and John, or all three.
That's my hope anyway, because I like to think there was something going on underneath the actual conversation that took place before Sherlock boarded the plane, and that it wasn't just written off-key.
I mean, apart from Sherlock and John's weird discussion on Baby names, Mycroft and Sherlock didn't even say goodbye to each other!

You know, for me the most fascinating thing about this whole John-situation is the question whether Moffat realized the implication of John's behaviour when writing this scene and indeed the whole episode. This is a TV show and some things happen because the plot needs them to happen or because an emotional impact is to be created or for whatever other reason. Also, some audience's reactions may stem from not being observant enough (for example the restaurant scene in TEH when some people did not notice that Sherlock's disastrous jokes were in fact a ill judged attempt to cover his nervousness). =13pxNevertheless, it is an intelligent show written by very intelligent people and I am curious whether Moffat was aware of the implications of John's behaviour and his apparent lack of care & lack of professional judgement or rather he was so keen on creating a dramatic moment that he didn't realized what the "collateral effects" would be.

miriel68 wrote:

You know, for me the most fascinating thing about this whole John-situation is the question whether Moffat realized the implication of John's behaviour when writing this scene and indeed the whole episode. This is a TV show and some things happen because the plot needs them to happen or because an emotional impact is to be created or for whatever other reason. Also, some audience's reactions may stem from not being observant enough (for example the restaurant scene in TEH when some people did not notice that Sherlock's disastrous jokes were in fact a ill judged attempt to cover his nervousness). =13pxNevertheless, it is an intelligent show written by very intelligent people and I am curious whether Moffat was aware of the implications of John's behaviour and his apparent lack of care & lack of professional judgement or rather he was so keen on creating a dramatic moment that he didn't realized what the "collateral effects" would be.

 
This is my opinion only and I'll be in a very small minority.
But someone posted on one of these threads that Moffat said in an interview that the show is about John and not Sherlock, and this bothered me slightly because if this is where he's coming from that it would seem that all the John angst was, in fact, deliberate and may well carry on in that way - and I'm not all that keen on it as a long running thing, to be honest.
On the other hand, it could just me one of those things that Moffat says but doesn't necessarily mean and, as I said earlier, something has been hidden from us that will explain some of John's behaviour.

Tinks wrote:

@Willow, as always I agree with much of what you say, but I do hold onto the hope, as I've said before, that the viewers were deliberately excluded from some of what went on while Sherlock was in Hospital.
I'm not saying season 4 will descend into flashbacks, but I do think we'll be shown one or two key scenes that happened between either Sherlock and Mycroft, Mycroft and John, or all three.
That's my hope anyway, because I like to think there was something going on underneath the actual conversation that took place before Sherlock boarded the plane, and that it wasn't just written off-key.
I mean, apart from Sherlock and John's weird discussion on Baby names, Mycroft and Sherlock didn't even say goodbye to each other!

I'm sure that there were conversations, just as I am sure that there will be some sort of references to the conversations; whether they would take the time to flesh it out in formal flashbacks is more dubious because they have a lot of work to do in walking John back into being the Dr John Watson whom Mycroft trusted to guard Sherlock's back.
 
Of course, those conversations could be one of the ways in which they walk John back; I speculated a while back that one possible explanation for John's behaviour at the airfield is that he had come to realise that Mary and he really couldn't make a go of it, but felt that Sherlock had sacrificed so much that he couldn't actually tell him that.

It's a tad implausible but it's a possibility 

LOL! Thanks, high praise.

Willow wrote:

Perhaps another way to look at is that the writers don't write for fandom, they don't read fanfic, and unsurprisingly did not anticipate the extent to which one portion of fandom had elevated, or possibly demoted, John to the status of suffering martyr. They placed heavy emphasis on showing us why John had been excluded from the Reichenbach plan, they're showing not telling, which is why they showed us Mrs Hudson looking horrified by Sherlock's appearance and saying so, whilst John seems unaware of it. And now they have shown us the apparent return of the man who precipitated the Reichenbach plan, and John has, at best, made no progress in learning to control himself, which is why he was excluded from the plan in the first place.

So, if you think about it from the perspective of an outsider with no emotional investment in John&Mary, like Mycroft, or M, would you trust the Watsons anywhere near the paroled Sherlock?

A fascinating dilemma for the writers for S4, but thank you for your story. I do wish that Moffat had written it that way

You are exactly right, Willow---

It almost has become a cliche in the fandom; 90% of Post Reichencach fic had John always, always, always punching Sherlock at least once, sometimes beating him up, refusing to listen to Sherlock's explanation; most fic were about Sherlock's need to make it up to John, who was absolutley portrayed as (a) the Damsel in Distress, (b) unable to maintain an existence without Sherlock, (c) endllessly angry at Sherlock for leaving him,and (d) a sainted and mistreated parent/scorned and maltreated lover/wife.

Maybe the writers took their cues from the Fandom?

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

I gotta say-- I like your version much more than the original. 

That's the John we know and love, and the writers on the show have done the fans a real disservice in the way they wrote the original scene. The two John's are very different in just the amount of empathy shown. 

Unfortunatley for us the original writers chose to make John self centered and callous. OUCH.

Loved your story, though. :-)

Thank you! I also saw your comment on AO3. Really glad you're all enjoying my little piece.

clareiow wrote:

Teejay you're a talented so-and-so aren't you? Are you going to continue it? Fill in the gaps to Christmas?

A talented so-and-so? Is that a compliment?

I wasn't really planning on continuing that story as such, but I've been working on a Sherlock & Mary piece that deals with filling a few gaps of the time between Sherlock's second hospitalisation and the end of HLV.

However, it's only coming along very slowly, because it's so hard to figure out the dynamic between Sherlock and Mary after she shot him. But it's also fascinating to explore, because we don't really have much to go on in canon. Let's see if that goes anywhere, so I'm not making any promises, but I'm definitely intrigued.

Last edited by TeeJay (February 18, 2014 10:55 am)

TeeJay wrote:

I stumbled across another fanfic that deals with the "bleeding internally" scene, but it's not quite canon-compliant. I thought maybe some of you might be interested in reading it, though, so here's the link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1274881/chapters/2637085

Just a little warning: This one is a death fic and should be tagged "Major Character Death".

Thanks, Clare. Sadly, I've not been inspired much lately...