Just one thing…
Holy shit.
Look at Sherlock’s face in that last gif. Look at Benedict Cumberbatch’s very intentional acting choices.
That familiar frown of being, as Sherlock would put it, “almost moved”. The release of that frown, the blinking, as if something new has been illuminated. Most importantly, the faintest quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
We could have been friends.
Is this more of an important moment for Sherlock than we’ve at all given it credit for? John Watson made Sherlock realize that it was possible for him to be someone’s friend, but I think Sherlock viewed John as an anomaly. This is a moment when he received an even more expanded view of his humanity. He realizes that the thing that makes him capable of being someone’s friend is not something that exists inside John, but something that exists inside himself. That he is, in fact, capable of being not just someone’s friend, but anybody’s.
If he feels a connection with somebody—and he did, blatantly, state that he felt a connection with Janine—he doesn’t have to resort to lies and manipulation to get nearness from that person. He doesn’t have to “use them up” and accept that they all, eventually, flee. (Because yes, Sherlock is practiced at this. Look at his intimate first-name basis with Sally [“Always, Sally”], the implication that he used to work with Anderson, the seeming heartlessness with which he was simply willing to accept that John was “not in the picture anymore” because he had “made his position quite clear.”)
As Mofftiss has said many times, this is not a detective show—it’s a show about a detective. Every single one of the cases they solve are metaphors or tools that explore Sherlock’s personal development. Everything—absolutely everything—exists on these two layers of meaning. So if the plot layer to Janine’s role was that he seduced her to gain access to Magnussen’s office, then the personal layer is that Sherlock A) doesn’t believe he can receive the gift of intimacy if people know “what he’s really like”, and B) consequently feels that he must “play a role” to benefit from those connections, but it must always end.
If John was the exception that proved the rule, then Janine—with this one statement—is the second exception that makes Sherlock question whether his self-deprecating assumptions are true at all.
This is Sherlock’s arc, people. This is the entire bloody show. Sherlock: sociopath or human being? It’s Sherlock himself who is struggling with this question.
Standing applause for Benedict’s acting. He squeezed all that into those minutest of facial expressions.