I give you TWO reasons, Sherlock:
1) He is a bloody doctor
2) He is his bloody best friend!

The reasons swanpride mentioned are to be considered, no doubt. But the two posts following mine show this: John is completely out of balance this season. I feel we don't outsmart each other in reasoning but give them different importance. John mentioned in the first eason that he is a very good doctor.
When I am on call during night shifts I am definetly not allowed to be preoccupied by my private domestics.
And Sherlock hiding the true nature of his blessures show that he sees John a bit unbalanced, too, and not being able to handle more in that scene.

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

mrshouse wrote:

I think willow wanted to point out that it took him to long to realize Sherlock was seriously injured as he was too occupied with his domestic.

Oh, the part in Baker Street?

Well, Sherlock purposely hid his symptoms from both of them until right at the last minute when the paramedics burst in. I don't see any reason why John would notice there was anything wrong with him up until that point, as he was coming across as perfectly normal.

 
Er, no. Sherlock was most definitely not coming across as normal and he kept telling them to hurry up. We have had screeds on this, starting with the events in Leinster Gardens where Sherlock was very obviously in severe respiratory distress, culminating in his collapse in Baker St, where, incidentally, John threatened him with violence.

It helps if you bear in mind the fact that doctors don't solely rely on patients telling them their symptoms since otherwise, confronted with an unconscious patient, they wouldn't have a clue what to do. They observe, and Sherlock showed the signs of internal bleeding very obviously; beautiful piece of acting by Benedict, and great work by the make up artists, which, sadly, appears not to have been noticed by some viewers

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Willow wrote:

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

Oh, the part in Baker Street?

Well, Sherlock purposely hid his symptoms from both of them until right at the last minute when the paramedics burst in. I don't see any reason why John would notice there was anything wrong with him up until that point, as he was coming across as perfectly normal.

 
Er, no. Sherlock was most definitely not coming across as normal and he kept telling them to hurry up. We have had screeds on this, starting with the events in Leinster Gardens where Sherlock was very obviously in severe respiratory distress, culminating in his collapse in Baker St, where, incidentally, John threatened him with violence.

It helps if you bear in mind the fact that doctors don't solely rely on patients telling them their symptoms since otherwise, confronted with an unconscious patient, they wouldn't have a clue what to do. They observe, and Sherlock showed the signs of internal bleeding very obviously; beautiful piece of acting by Benedict, and great work by the make up artists, which, sadly, appears not to have been noticed by some viewers

I mean normal for someone who's recently had a gunshot wound to the chest. I mean, he's obviously going to be in pain (ie. asking Mrs H for morphine), and he's obviously going to be having some breathing difficulties. He has just basically escaped from hospital much earlier than he would have been discharged. But at the end of the day, he is Sherlock, and John trusts him to know what he's doing. And he's not exactly clutching at his chest gasping for breath and staggering about all over the place. He's displaying signs of discomfort, sure, but what else is to be expected? Sherlock can take care of himself. Sherlock just managed to trick the incredibly smart ex-assassin Mary and reveal to John the truth about his sham marriage. He's still doing alright, considering the wounds, so I don't think he gives John any actual reason to be worried.

 
No. I'm sorry, but they went to a lot of trouble to get it right, and they did get it right, starting at Leinster Gardens when his breathing demonstrates respiratory distress, which rapidly deteriorates. When he straightens up from picking the coin up you can not only hear the gasp but also see he is sweating; it wasn't because they'd turned the heating up.

Uncontrolled pain in the chest area certainly does things to the way you breathe, but it doesn't make you sound like Sherlock does; instead it makes you breathe very shallowly. The reason he is gasping and sighing is because he is fighting to get oxygen in, and the oxygen isn't coming. The reason the oxygen isn't coming is that you need blood to transport oxygen and if your blood is accumulating inside your body it cannot transport oxygen. The reason his complexion goes grey is also because of lack of oxygen.

There are a couple of other possibilities which could explain the rapidity of the onset of respiratory distress; post operative pulmonary thrombosis or pneumothorax. Either of those kills as well, and we are still left with Dr John Watson ignoring obvious clinical signs that Sherlock is in very deep trouble; even Mrs Hudson can see that.

Indeed, he not only ignores them, he threatens Sherlock as well. It is nonsensical to imagine that threatening a person who has been seriously injured already with yet more violence is in some mysterious fashion OK; it isn't OK, and I am pretty sure that if it had been anyone other than John the fan boards would have erupted with righteous indignation.

Incidentally, on the whole when you are in really severe pain you do not stagger about all over the place; it hurts more if you do that, which is why people in really severe pain don't do that. Benedict got that right as well. John is supposed to know that, since he's a doctor, though I grant you that a tv viewer from Mars could be forgiven for not realising that John is supposed to be a doctor. However, you do not have to be a doctor to realise that Sherlock is very ill indeed, and you do not have to be a doctor to realise that threatening a seriously injured man with more violence is disgraceful behaviour, particularly by someone supposedly an officer and a gentleman. The Dr Watson of canon would not have done so, which is why I cheer myself up reading canon

That′s exactly what bothered me about the scene.
 
Initially, I thought they just dumbed down John as a doctor for the sake of having a dramatic kind of confrontation between him, Sherlock and Mary.
 
But I don′t think so now. Because the writers started that scene with Mrs. Hudson exclaiming „oh, Sherlock, you look awful!“ immediately upon seeing Sherlock. If Mrs. Hudson, a complete layman, can see something is not right with Sherlock the moment she lays her eyes on him, then so can John. And John was in Sherlock′s presence longer than her, being in Leinster Gardens with him and taking a cab ride with him. There′s no way he wouldn′t notice Sherlock′s predicament.
 
And it just doesn′t add to the previous scene, in which Lestrade and John tried desperately to find Sherlock to put him back into hospital. They were both aware even then that Sherlock was in no condition to run around with such kind of injury so soon.
 
Similarly, no doctor in his right mind would allow Sherlock to loiter around just for the sake of him having a domestic with his wife.
 
The scene was therefore deliberately written that way. And it shows John at his nastiest. I am really puzzled as to why would they want to show him as such a disturbed individual, yet it′s certainly not a coincidence.
 
Maybe John lied and he is actually no doctor at all?

Just joking. I have really no idea. 
 

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

I don't really take John's threat to Sherlock particularly seriously. It's just the way they are with each other. He would never have actually done anything to harm him.

Really? He was perfectly happy to beat him up in TEH, notwithstanding the fact that Sherlock wasn't hitting him back. That too is not the conduct of an officer and a gentleman; you don't keep on hitting someone who isn't hitting you back. And since Sherlock had, only a few hours before, been beaten up by the Serbian torturer, John's blows must have really hurt.

I really don't think the writer accidentally chose the 'one more' phrase for both John and Mary in HLV; in both cases it was a threat to kill.

Also, the case wasn't Mary; Sherlock already had a case, Lady Smallwood. Mary shooting Sherlock ensured that he was hospitalised and therefore out of action when he might have been able to help his client.
 

Sherlock Holmes wrote:

I honestly think you guys are reading too much into it. This is just the way Sherlock and John work together. It's always business first; it's the case that's the most important. And in this instance, the case was Mary. Finding out that the woman he fell for was an ex assassin who had lied to him throughout their entire relationship and then shot his best friend is single handedly THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENT OF JOHN'S LIFE. I'm not kidding. More important than the day he met Sherlock (sorry Johnlockers). He had every right to react the way he did and be caught up in that moment and I don't think it's out of character at all.

I can see your point, but....
 
No, it′s not business first, if somebody is dying in front of you and you are a doctor. Because, exactly, what is the point of you being angry at the person who shot your best friend if you don′t lift a finger to save said best friend yourself? John has months to speak to Mary but he has just a few minutes before it will be too late for Sherlock, pemanently. What business is more important than human life? Even a stranger′s life?
 
I love John but no, I just can′t see that, sorry.

I am maybe willing to believe Sherlock himself refused to return to hospital before that thing was settled, but again, it was Johns duty to send him back immediately, not having a quarrel in his presence like nothing was happening.
 

Here's what I think people are forgetting:

Sherlock called John to tell him where he was.  Obviously, the first thing that John is going to say to Sherlock in that situation is "Hey, you need to go back to the hospital"...HOWEVER, Sherlock probably says to him, "Well, I will, as long as we can do this thing first."  To me, it was very obvious that John and Sherlock had made this 'deal' before setting Mary up.

Last edited by sj4iy (February 24, 2014 7:12 pm)

sj4iy wrote:

Here's what I think people are forgetting:

Sherlock called John to tell him where he was.  Obviously, the first thing that John is going to say to Sherlock in that situation is "Hey, you need to go back to the hospital"...HOWEVER, Sherlock probably says to him, "Well, I will, as long as we can do this thing first."  To me, it was very obvious that John and Sherlock had made this 'deal' before setting Mary up.

 
Well, of course you also are forgetting the fact that John completely ignored Mrs Hudson who was trying to get him to answer Sherlock's call; no sign there of him being so concerned that he would immediately tell Sherlock he must go back to hospital immediately.

I do not think that we can sensibly ignore what the writers show us happening in favour of some dialogue we have invented which the writers didn't show us.

I would buy that if only Sherlock didn′t call an ambulance for himself later that day.
He certainly deemed that necessary to stop Mary that night – otherwise he would not run away from hospital. But Mary was effectively stopped at the time they were speaking together at 221B. If Sherlock was so sick and scared for his own life that he called an ambulance for himself (him being so stubborn to acknowledge any weakness in public), why didn′t John do it first?
And wasn′t John a bit distracted when Sherlock rang him? Because at that very second he recognised from Mary′s perfume that it was her who shot Sherlock.
If that was me sitting in his chair I would forget everything about hospitals (and stuff) immediately.