Be wrote:

Willow wrote:

And that quintessentially Moffat line, with lots and lots of meanings:

'You can't go; I'm pregnant.'

That wasn't an accident.

Right. And it is in fact a variant form of Doyle's line in canon (Charles Augustus Milverton) when Dr. Watson tells Holmes that Sherlock won't go when he (Watson) can't come with him.

Indeed so; Watson threatens Holmes with going to the police if Sherlock insists on going without him. Milverton has already shown the revolver he carries, and Watson insists on going with Sherlock into the lions den.
 

Willow wrote:

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Willow wrote:

 
Indeed so; there are friends, and then there are best friends. Sherlock and John have been remarkably close, have endured, and enjoyed, an extraordinary array of adventures, and everything we saw up to HLV suggested that Mary recognised the strength of the bond between them and went out of her way to encourage them to be together.

The stuff about 'it's only been a month' might seem normal if it hadn't been such a dramatic change from the previous 2 episodes, but it sticks out like a sore thumb in HLV.

A month actually goes by relatively quickly. They've only just got married; first instinct is to want to settle down with your loved one into married life and enjoy a bit of that before you start going hanging out with your mates again and running round doing mad stuff like he and Sherlock do. John really doesn't seem that bothered by the fact that he hasn't seen Sherlock for a month....he says it casually, almost with a shrug of his shoulders, it's no big deal. Mary isn't forcing him to stop seeing his friends.

 
And John has just had a nightmare about his time in Afghanistan, which moves into a flashback of his first invitation from Sherlock, finishing with Sherlock smiling at him and saying 'The game is on' which propels him out of sleep to answer the banging on the door. He is, therefore, somewhat disgruntled to discover that it's not Sherlock; I really do not think you can interpret that sequence as anything other than John wanting it to be Sherlock.

He isn't bothered? Really? We get the lines from Mary 'I dunno. What's the matter with you?' which seems to suggest that there is, indeed, something the matter with John, and since it comes after the nightmare/dream sequence we know what it is. He hasn't seen Sherlock for ages, and he thinks a month is ages, and he wants to see Sherlock smiling at him and telling him that the game is on.

It's actually rather heart breaking

The reason he's in a weird and slightly aggressive mood is because he's been stuck at home for a month and misses his old dangerous lifestyle. That's why he dreamt of Afghanistan AND Sherlock. They both represent the thrill and excitement he craves and needs in his life. That's why he so promptly decided that he was going to go and storm the crack den...because he needed his fix of danger. That was why he was in a mood, nothing to do with him wanting to see Sherlock's smiling face or any romantic nonsense.
 

Willow wrote:

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Willow wrote:

 
And John has just had a nightmare about his time in Afghanistan, which moves into a flashback of his first invitation from Sherlock, finishing with Sherlock smiling at him and saying 'The game is on' which propels him out of sleep to answer the banging on the door. He is, therefore, somewhat disgruntled to discover that it's not Sherlock; I really do not think you can interpret that sequence as anything other than John wanting it to be Sherlock.

He isn't bothered? Really? We get the lines from Mary 'I dunno. What's the matter with you?' which seems to suggest that there is, indeed, something the matter with John, and since it comes after the nightmare/dream sequence we know what it is. He hasn't seen Sherlock for ages, and he thinks a month is ages, and he wants to see Sherlock smiling at him and telling him that the game is on.

It's actually rather heart breaking

The reason he's in a weird and slightly aggressive mood is because he's been stuck at home for a month and misses his old dangerous lifestyle. That's why he dreamt of Afghanistan AND Sherlock. They both represent the thrill and excitement he craves and needs in his life. That's why he so promptly decided that he was going to go and storm the crack den...because he needed his fix of danger. That was why he was in a mood, nothing to do with him wanting to see Sherlock's smiling face or any romantic nonsense.
 

But you have just said that it was all perfectly normal for early married life and that he didn't want to do mad stuff like running around with Sherlock. Now you say that he's in a weird and slightly aggressive mood because he does want to do mad stuff. You said that a month actually goes by pretty quickly, and now you say that he's been stuck at home for a month.

This is somewhat contradictory.

I do not imagine for one moment that there is 'romantic nonsense' as you put it; John is, however, accustomed to the banging on the door being Sherlock, and is disgruntled because it's not. A junkie in a crack house is distinctly inferior to the sort of stuff he and Sherlock tackled together; he's come down in the world and he doesn't have Sherlock. At least until he's gone into the crack house, of course
 

Yeah, but a month is probably long enough, that's what I'm saying. He's been perfectly happy at first just relaxing at home with Mary, but he will always have that need for excitement that drives him towards people like Sherlock and at the end of that month he's beginning to get edgy for it again.

I don't think it's anything to do with missing Sherlock as his best friend and feeling the need to hang out with him, it's more to do with missing the situations they find themselves in.

Think the dream scene is a definite call back to Johns boring beige life at the very start of everything....something is missing for John...danger for sure, but he associates that with Sherlock in the dream now, so Sherlock too.I notice he even has the stiff limplike walk back.
Which gives rise to the lie...that even subliminally he finds his life with Mary risky or dangerous.

Last edited by lil (March 3, 2014 1:17 pm)

Willow wrote:

Swanpride wrote:

It's also notable that he stops being grouchy as soon as she gives him the opportunity to storm a drug den....

 
But he's not polite to her; he demands to know where the crack house is, snaps at her that he wants the address.

As I said. He is playing "Sherlock Holmes".
 

Morton wrote:

I don't think he was playing "Sherlock Holmes" I think John is a lot more like Sherlock than he's credited with. The contention that John's a sheep doesn't hold water since he made it up the career ladder to Captain, you can still see him pull rank in quiet ways. It'd be entirely in character for John to stop Kate and repeat the question to get the house address since John knows Sherlock's methods. The reason for that assertion that he's not playing at being Sherlock is I did a bit of research into the ACD canon for similarities and differences between Watson and Holmes and had it peer reviewed by someone very knowledgeable about both the canon and the show. They have a lot in common but John is less showy about it.

I'm not my best when woke up by someone braying on my door but he is the one who made and fetched Kate a cup of tea and practical help is more efficient at quickly extracting a lad from a drug den than being sympathetic and letting Kate ramble incoherently.


 

Oh, I didn't say that he was a sheep; I said he's a follower, not a leader. And doctors in the Army move up in ranks incredibly quickly; they have to spend a whole 10 weeks at Sandhurst, as opposed to 44 weeks for other officers, and John, like any officer with a degree, would be a Captain within 3 years of joining up. And he's still a captain when he's invalided out in his late thirties, early forties, which makes him something of a failure when it comes to the career ladder.

That's why, incidentally, they have to cede command to officers junior to them; they are not trained to command. The world needs followers as well as leaders; it's not a criticism to say that someone is a follower. But John isn't suited to the role of leader; storming a crack den singlehanded is the sort of thing that someone trained in military command skills would immediately perceive as idiotic, because it is idiotic. Fun, perhaps, but not the sort of thing that someone who has been trained to think it through before committing lives to it would do...


 

belis wrote:

I think the dangers of crack dens are a bit over-rated. I have done 'house calls' to quite a few, knowingly and unknowingly, and came out in one piece somehow on each occasion.

Storming is where the problem is though. You wouldn't storm into person's house. The fact that it's a squat doesn’t make it any more OK. I think some pleasantries would have gone a long way will Billy and there would be no need for spraining him.

 

I thought it was interesting that even Sherlock looked at John and asked him, "Was that really neccesary?", implying that spraining Billy's arm was overkill. John was looking for a fight. 

But again, that whole sequence bugs me because it smacks of the US War On Drugs mentality that's permeated Hollywood for the past three decades... we've ah, kinda demonized users, so they aren't seen to deserve *any* rights, ever.  

RavenMorganLeigh wrote:

belis wrote:

I think the dangers of crack dens are a bit over-rated. I have done 'house calls' to quite a few, knowingly and unknowingly, and came out in one piece somehow on each occasion.

Storming is where the problem is though. You wouldn't storm into person's house. The fact that it's a squat doesn’t make it any more OK. I think some pleasantries would have gone a long way will Billy and there would be no need for spraining him.

 

I thought it was interesting that even Sherlock looked at John and asked him, "Was that really neccesary?", implying that spraining Billy's arm was overkill. John was looking for a fight. 

But again, that whole sequence bugs me because it smacks of the US War On Drugs mentality that's permeated Hollywood for the past three decades... we've ah, kinda demonized users, so they aren't seen to deserve *any* rights, ever.  

 
I agree. I don't think we were supposed to admire John, however; the writers were making a point about John, not the addicts.

I have been disheartened to see so many initially promising fan fics disappearing into War on Drugs discourse; it's one of the more subtle flags for 'the writer doesn't know England', along with 'the writer wants to avoid mentioning John beating up Sherlock'.

Every so often I reread SusiGo's 'Choices' to cheer myself up

This time I am referring to my having rewatched the Pilot(and I have only watched it twice ever)the other night.
I had completely forgotten just how much that pushed the fact that John is a total adrenalin junkie and a man of action.
This macho rescue of Isaac fron the drug den, to impress his little lady...is so in character.
To be fair, he only bashes the door in...it's Sherlock who kicks the bloody door right off!

I have no information on army rules about health and engagement etc.  My husband's nephew was invalided out of the arny, he was a lot younger than John and only a lorry driver.
Where on Earth do you get the idea that the adrenalin junkie is not in aired BBC Sherlock?
That's the whole thrust of Sherlock's discussion wirh John ' back at 221b', once Mary has been exposed.
John is addicted to danger and dangerous people.