Sherlock Holmes wrote:

John doesn't know that Sherlock is about to go off on this death mission. He knows it's a six month mission etc, but then he probably assumes that Mycroft will sort things out and Sherlock will come back. He has complete faith in his friend to always overcome these situations and return. That's why he doesn't react as emotionally as people perhaps expected him to in the goodbye moment, also because Sherlock completely lightened it with a joke, which was typical of him.

The difficulty with this is that Sherlock has just said that this is the last time they will ever meet. If we argue that John doesn't believe him, then what does it say about John?

After all, John knows perfectly well that without Sherlock he would have spent the rest of his life allowing CAM to do whatever he liked to him because otherwise CAM would have let one or more of the people with good reason to hate Mary know where to get her.

John knows that the person who saved him has just told him they will never meet again. And yet John decides that Sherlock was exaggerating and there's no need to worry, because everything will turn out fine because nobody is, say, going to shoot him as his (fake) wife did.

If John is so sure that nothing can possibly happen to Sherlock then he is being wilfully obtuse; no reasonable person, looking at a guy who has spent months in hospital as a result of crossing one killer, could conclude that it can't possibly happen again. Admittedly, Mary isn't getting on the plane, which is a plus point in the Sherlock survival stakes, but the John who didn't even notice that Sherlock was bleeding to death in front of him is suddenly sure that he knows so much about what is likely to happen that he knows better than Sherlock what the risks of the mission are.

Given that he didn't notice that his (fake) wife was, in reality, a hired killer who was prepared to murder his best friend, and, indeed, anyone who got in her way, I would have thought that perhaps John might have learned some humility about his own judgement. And yet John knows best.

No; I really don't think so...


 

besleybean wrote:

I'm still not certain if John actually was in ear shot of Sherlock asking Mycroft for a moment...or does John honestly just think Sherlock will be sent from mission to mission?

 
Yes, John heard him; we hear John sighing when Sherlock says it. Then the others walk away from the two of them...

Sherlock didn't give John a reason to suspect that he was going to die, at least not that I remember. He says he's going to be on a six month mission and then 'who knows', that's deliberately not telling the truth in order to spare John's feelings. Only Sherlock knows the significance of the baby name remark and the eastern wind story. John thinks he's going in exile, they may never see each other again and that's it. 

People say John isn't emotional in this scene. Are we watching the same show??? It's one of his most emotional scenes ever and it's beautifully subtle. He's trying with all his might not to cry, we never saw him so close to tears before, apart from Reichenbach, which was more about shock. Honestly if you missed the emotion watch it again. 

About the bleeding to death thing. Sherlock was bleeding INTERNALLY, you can't see that from outside and he wasn't telling John or giving any other signs. If he was bleeding, because I immediately suspected that he was exaggarating his symptoms for morphine. 

besleybean wrote:

Oh right.
Will have to listen out for that when my DVD arrives...or if I watch it on catch up, whchever happens first!
It's not a: 'God he's being a drama queen again' sigh, is it?

In the circumstances, given the screaming tantrum John threw in Baker St I don't think he's in any position to criticise...
 

besleybean wrote:

No, he was clearly trying to cope until the paramedics arrived.

Well, he was obviously in pain. But John couldn't really judge how serious because he wasn't telling. 
 

I would have thought so.

Willow wrote:

silverblaze wrote:

Sherlock didn't give John a reason to suspect that he was going to die, at least not that I remember. He says he's going to be on a six month mission and then 'who knows', that's deliberately not telling the truth in order to spare John's feelings. Only Sherlock knows the significance of the baby name remark and the eastern wind story. John thinks he's going in exile, they may never see each other again and that's it. 

People say John isn't emotional in this scene. Are we watching the same show??? It's one of his most emotional scenes ever and it's beautifully subtle. He's trying with all his might not to cry, we never saw him so close to tears before, apart from Reichenbach, which was more about shock. Honestly if you missed the emotion watch it again. 

About the bleeding to death thing. Sherlock was bleeding INTERNALLY, you can't see that from outside and he wasn't telling John or giving any other signs. If he was bleeding, because I immediately suspected that he was exaggarating his symptoms for morphine. 

 
John stated that 'The game is over', in acknowledgement of Sherlock's comment; I think that sounds pretty final.

And, about the bleeding to death thing; there are straightforward and obvious signs of the loss of blood pressure etc when someone is bleeding internally; it's first year medical school stuff. The actor and the make up team did a great job, but then they actually use actors, and make up teams, in medical schools to simulate such situations; for obvious reasons you don't let students loose on people with life threatening conditions like internal bleeding. I appreciate that you do not realise this, since you believe that someone can walk around a couple of days after taking a bullet into a lung with no ill effects, but it was textbook stuff.

And they do not keep people in hospital for the fun of it all; Sherlock had died on the operating table. John knew that, but ignored it because he was throwing a tantrum. I imagine that as far as Sherlock was concerned he left the hospital because he did not believe that Mary would be satisfied by the threats she made to him in the hospital, and that if he wanted to live he was going to have to expose her. So he did, but it nearly killed him anyway...

You're losing me here, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. You saying that John was basically being a dick? Or that he's a crap doctor? Or....what?

silverblaze wrote:

Sherlock didn't give John a reason to suspect that he was going to die, at least not that I remember.  

 He didn't tell it to him explicitely. It was in the subtext. But the subtext was screaming here, IMO
 

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Willow wrote:

silverblaze wrote:

Sherlock didn't give John a reason to suspect that he was going to die, at least not that I remember. He says he's going to be on a six month mission and then 'who knows', that's deliberately not telling the truth in order to spare John's feelings. Only Sherlock knows the significance of the baby name remark and the eastern wind story. John thinks he's going in exile, they may never see each other again and that's it. 

People say John isn't emotional in this scene. Are we watching the same show??? It's one of his most emotional scenes ever and it's beautifully subtle. He's trying with all his might not to cry, we never saw him so close to tears before, apart from Reichenbach, which was more about shock. Honestly if you missed the emotion watch it again. 

About the bleeding to death thing. Sherlock was bleeding INTERNALLY, you can't see that from outside and he wasn't telling John or giving any other signs. If he was bleeding, because I immediately suspected that he was exaggarating his symptoms for morphine. 

 
John stated that 'The game is over', in acknowledgement of Sherlock's comment; I think that sounds pretty final.

And, about the bleeding to death thing; there are straightforward and obvious signs of the loss of blood pressure etc when someone is bleeding internally; it's first year medical school stuff. The actor and the make up team did a great job, but then they actually use actors, and make up teams, in medical schools to simulate such situations; for obvious reasons you don't let students loose on people with life threatening conditions like internal bleeding. I appreciate that you do not realise this, since you believe that someone can walk around a couple of days after taking a bullet into a lung with no ill effects, but it was textbook stuff.

And they do not keep people in hospital for the fun of it all; Sherlock had died on the operating table. John knew that, but ignored it because he was throwing a tantrum. I imagine that as far as Sherlock was concerned he left the hospital because he did not believe that Mary would be satisfied by the threats she made to him in the hospital, and that if he wanted to live he was going to have to expose her. So he did, but it nearly killed him anyway...

You're losing me here, I don't understand the point you're trying to make. You saying that John was basically being a dick? Or that he's a crap doctor? Or....what?

 
I was pointing out that John came very close to failing absolutely both as a doctor and as a friend in that scene at Baker St; I can certainly find reasons to explain it, and clearly Sherlock forgave him for it, but nevertheless it was just as well that Sherlock had called the ambulance himself because if he had relied on his best friend the doctor he would have died. It makes Sherlock's best man speech all the more poignant because it turned out that Sherlock would catch a murderer -Mary- but John Watson was not the person who would save someone's life.

And all of that was before Sherlock saved him from a lifetime of torture by shooting CAM; that was certainly not Sherlock's sole motive but nevertheless it ranks as a remarkable act of friendship. Given the proximity of a lot of weapons Sherlock risked his life in so doing, hence Mycroft's frantic shouts to the phalanx of armed officers not to shoot him.

One would have expected John to have at least acknowledged it in what they both thought was their last conversation; something along the lines of 'thanks, mate' would appear to be not an unreasonable expectation. Yet John didn't; I find it hard to believe that John has turned into someone so lacking in a moral compass that he doesn't recognise where thanks are due.

Which brings me back to my starting point at the very beginning of the thread where I speculated that a possible explanation for his behaviour in their last conversation was that he had come to recognise that Mary was a true psychopath, but could not say so to Sherlock since it would make it appear that Sherlock's sacrifice had been for nothing...

miriel68 wrote:

silverblaze wrote:

Sherlock didn't give John a reason to suspect that he was going to die, at least not that I remember.  

 He didn't tell it to him explicitely. It was in the subtext. But the subtext was screaming here, IMO
 

The subtext was indeed screaming here. To us. Not to John. Dramatic irony is what they call that, I believe.