Look at us both
Every time I watch this scene I think “Is this it? Is this the moment for John? Is this his epiphany about his feelings for Sherlock?” 4th episode of the show and John consciously realizes he’s in love with Sherlock. 4 episodes later, Sherlock realizes he’s in love with John in TSOT. I wonder what we’ll see in the 12th episode of the show…
But really, this scene and this entire episode make me think of how and when John fell in love with Sherlock. He was obviously attracted to him the first day he met him, and consciously tried to chat him up (You can try all you want to convince me John wasn’t aware of his attraction or repressed, I won’t believe you for the sole reason that John tried this on his flatmate he moved in with this very day; a straight or bi-curious man wouldn’t risk it with his new flatmate, maybe a one-night-stand, a stranger in a bar, not his flatmate: too much to lose)
And Sherlock rejected him in ASIP. “Well”, thought John, “That’s okay, I tried. I’m just attracted to him anyway. He’s brilliant and weird and amazing but this is just a crush. It will pass.”
Except it didn’t. After the Pool, I think John started to realize he was feeling more than friendship and a-bit-of-a-crush. Not at first, and I think the montage we get at the beginning of ASIB is a hint: John is happy with his life with Sherlock, likes living with him, writing about him and his cases. Yeah, sure, he fancies Sherlock but it will pass and he has a (several) girlfriend(s) if he needs a romantic/sexual connection with someone. But then Irene appears and John re-examines his feelings. It’s more than just a crush, it’s more than just “my best friend is handsome and I can’t help but look at him every time I see him naked”.
And Irene tells him right here: “Stop deluding yourself. Stop making excuses.”
And John just… laughs and accepts it. Because just like Sherlock in TSOT, he has now nowhere to hide. His feelings are real. And Irene is the one who, by saying them out loud, makes them real. It’s not just some fantasies or “what if”. He’s in love. He has to deal with it now.
And that’s why I think there’s so much unresolved tension in the rest of Series 2. Because Sherlock overhears the conversation and rejects John a second time when John tries to talk about it. Because Sherlock thinks love (romantic love) is dangerous. Because Sherlock doesn’t think he is ready for it, because he doesn’t truly understand it. Maybe he avoids the subject and prefers not to think about it later. Maybe he prefers to think: “No, John can’t be in love with me, it’s no possible, why would he be in love with me?” But the tension is there.
That’s why John is so hurt by Sherlock’s rejection in THB. It’s too much for him. Being rejected as a lover hurts, but being rejected even as a friend? That’s why John’s behaviour with Sherlock is so more open and yet so cautious for the rest of Series 2, why he can make comments on Sherlock’s body yet can’t confess his feelings, why we don’t see him date anyone else for the rest of the season but be more at ease with his attraction to Sherlock. There’s this awkwardness of the person in love who got rejected and yet can’t stop feeling. And Sherlock, I think, feels it too (even just partially).
That’s why the scene with Kitty Riley is so important. When Kitty threatens Sherlock with her “You and John Watson? Just platonic?”, she’s touching a nerve here because the relationship between Sherlock and John at this point is full of tension, of want and need but neither of them can act on them (John because he got rejected twice, Sherlock because he doesn’t know how to deal with it). And Kitty wants to present their relationship as something dirty, something to be ashamed about and Sherlock knows that would hurt John to read that in the newspapers. And he can’t have that. Because when people usually mistake them for a couple, they are not doing this by malice or to be mean. But here, it’s to hurt him and John. And then Sherlock growls at Kitty’s face, humiliates her.
Series 2 was about Sherlock learning to accept emotions and concepts: love/sex, fear/doubt, death/loss. It was also for John to admit his feelings and deal with them while living with Sherlock. It was accepting his love as unrequited but still hoping that one day, maybe Sherlock would want to, maybe, maybe…
and then Sherlock died.