Liberty wrote:

But when he suspects Sherlock does have feelings for Irene, John is concerned, not jealous.  I think John comes out very well in this episode. 

After all, if he did have those sort of feeling towards Sherlock, it would be beyond creepy for him to act openly jealous here.   He blatantly dates other women in front of Sherlock, and the first time Sherlock shows a flicker of interest he is possessive?

And why not? He thought he has Sherlock safely for himself since Sherlock didn´t show his interest towards anyone else until that moment and suddenly he realised he isn´t the only one. That can make you jealous. 

But honestly, I think the relationship between John and Irene was full of mutual distrust and dislike from the very start. John usually flirts with every female in his sight, yet after he first saw Irene (and she was very alluring, naked and provocative like that), he immediatelly projected certain displeasure (as his remark: "Haha! Can you dress into something, please? A napkin?" clearly indicates) and that feeling only deepened when she further teased him. Plus, he had plenty of reasons to be wary of her after she drugged Sherlock and beaten him and after things he heard from Mycroft about her. So his behaviour can also be simply very protective of Sherlock who was already humiliated by her and who, in his inexperience, could be hurt by her again.

And yet, it is Irene, intelligent Irene, who immediatelly sees John and Sherlock as a couple. She who saw plenty of human interactions and is quite an expert in reading people genuinely thinks this. Interesting.

http://loudest-subtext-in-television.tumblr.com/post/105701483129/bbcatemysoul-there-was-a-sound-upon-the

 

Lovely find, nakahara. And it fits so well with the deleted scene from HoB. 

"Sherlock Chronicles", p. 163. 
Takes place in Baskerville. John asks good-looking young Corp. Lyons: 
"Get out much, do you? From Baskerville, I mean?"
Echoes his earlier attempt at hitting on Anthea. 
 

Not a cop, a corporal. And I do not have to read it in a book, I have eyes. He is in the show and young and quite good-looking. 

Last edited by SusiGo (December 30, 2014 4:35 pm)

But John is not exactly a straight female, is he? 


John to Anthea in ASiP: Hey, um ... do you ever get any free time?

John to Corp. Lyons in HoB: Get out much, do you? 

Last edited by SusiGo (December 30, 2014 4:38 pm)

I have to admit, it didn't take me long to spot that Corporal Lyons was good looking.  I was on IMDB looking him up right after the episode (seems like he's a talented guy).  But if that scene was going to look like flirting then that may have been why it was cut - we don't see John flirting with men - not in four years.  (Although I think whether it would look like flirting or not would depend entirely on how it was said).

About Benedict getting things wrong - yes, it's not the first time it's happened!  I seem to have watched tons of interviews with him and he's very eloquent, a natural speaker, but sometimes his words seem to get away with him.  But I think that usually the gist of what he's saying is obvious.  I think the writer of the piece you linked to is being quite rude and sarcastic about him - he's not "lying".  He explains what he means.  It just seems confusing because he uses two different meanings of "asexual" (which was a bad idea on his part, but you'd think that people could get the meaning).

 

Yes.

nakahara wrote:

Liberty wrote:

This is a bit late, but Nakahara posted this over on the Johnlock thread and I thought it was such a great illustration of making jealousy obvious - we'd talked about the scene between John and Janine and how Moftiss had said clearly that they refilmed to make John less jealous, and we talked about how John could have appeared more jealous ... well, here it is .  (Not John, but Sherlock, but I think Benedict does a great job here, even without the writing to back it up).  (Although, in my case, I don't think the jealousy is sexual here, as Sholto isn't presented as a lover - it seems to be about him having had a similar position to Sherlock in John's life.  I suppose he was a kind of trial run!) 

And that´s exactly why I think John is jealous in "Janine scene". Even if you see him and Sherlock as purely platonic friends, John can´t be happy that Janine established herself in a position that to that time belonged solely to him and that she replaced him in Sherlock´s life, thrown out his things out of the flat etc.

Yes, I agree - he could be jealous of Janine's position in Sherlock's life and 221B (in 221B in particular - she's clearly not taking John's place in Sherlock's affections and is nothing like John, but she is quite a presence in the flat).   But that would be a little petty, considering John has moved out, and Sherlock has made efforts to get him back into his life.  Anyway, I thought some jealousy was possible after reading the "green = jealousy" post ages back - but the commentary makes it clear that it's not.

nakahara wrote:

Liberty wrote:

I've been thinking a lot about the Guardian article Susigo posted about the "gay jokes" being a reference to The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes and what that meant.  I think they do highlight the difference in reactions between now and then - Watson in Private Life was worried about public disgrace, losing his army pension, etc. if they were thought to be a gay couple.  There was a genuine risk.  Whereas now, it's just not an issue, and the scenes reflect that. 

I have a few friends who are gay and when they were speaking about their "coming out" I didn´t have an impession that it´s such a non-issue now. It was quite unpleasant experience for most of them, althrough they could not be criminally prosecuted anymore for their difference.

That's in real life, but in the TV Sherlock universe, we're shown quite clearly that it isn't an issue.   We never see anybody disapproving of them being a gay couple - just people happily making assumptions.   Mrs Hudson even WANTS them to be gay. 

(In real life things do seem to have moved on a lot too, thankfully.  Look at the coverage of Elton John's wedding, for instance - people celebrate gay relationships in a way that they didn't in the past.   My son's friends seemed to "come out" very young, as their sexuality was developing, so were never in the closet the way people used to be.).

Your post about Irene - I can never quite work out John's feelings towards her.  I agree that he's probably suspicious of her - but he also seems very concerned that she doesn't hurt Sherlock.  Yes, she sees them as a couple, but don't we all?  I don't think she means that they actually are in a sexual relationship.  But yes, she does recognise that John has a special bond with Sherlock. 

It's one of my favourite episodes, and I love Sherlock in it, but it still bothers me that he leaves John to worry so much.  Especially at the end, when he seems to make it clear that he's grieving and devastated (asking for the phone), but later quite smugly (OK, it's not really smugly at all, but in the context of letting John infer grief, it kind of is) putting it in a drawer, knowing that Irene's alive and well.   Of course he can't tell John (as usual!), but it makes me a little uncomfortable, after John's concern and devotion throughout the episode.

Last edited by Liberty (December 30, 2014 5:38 pm)

I hope we're  all aware of the issue..
What has this to do with BBC Sherlock?