There has been much discussion about the modern scenes in TAB, mostly centering on scene 1 and 3 since their connection to reality is more debatable than that of scene 2 which is clearly not real, mainly because of the bizarre events at the cemetery. However, I think that we may have missed the importance of the beginning of scene 2 which IMO is a key scene.
We see Sherlock seemingly waking up from his drugged MP for the second time, with John and Mycroft by his bed and Mary in the background. It clearly does not take place on the plane. Sherlock imagines himself in a hospital. You can even see a nurse passing behind Mycroft.
But there is more. I would like to argue that this is a slightly distorted version of Sherlock’s hospital room in HLV.
Because of the Sherlock blog posts floating around we now have a good inclination that Sherlock loves life and allows himself to have those happy feelings when he’s high. Keep in mind he only takes when John is out of the picture. Because he loved life and was slowly allowing himself to have those happy feelings when John was by his side. He needs to feel, he needs to love. So it’s going to be the drugs or it’s going to be John that gives it to him.
He’s always needed one or the other.
We know which fix he’ll be craving in S4:
*Mycroft holds up the list of drugs Sherlock took in TAB*
I was watching T.E.H the other day and I noticed that when Mr and Mrs Holmes are in 221B, discussing his father losing his lottery ticket and glasses, Mrs Holmes says this…
“I said, why don’t you get a chain and wear them round your neck. He says what, like Larry Grayson?”
This conversation gives the impression that Mr Holmes would find looking like Larry Grayson funny or a bad thing doesn’t it?
Oh well, just simple filler conversation right? Wrong! This is BBC Sherlock we’re talking about, and we all know EVERYTHING is planned. So…
I researched Larry Grayson, as I knew that name was familiar. He worked for the BBC, becoming most popular in the 70s. He was noted for being one of the first openly gay presenters in that field, and it was a shock for the BBC and their viewers. “But no one is openly gay in any field!” and “He’s just waiting for the right woman” were thrown around phrases with the ‘scandal’.
Now, it is a already a theory that perhaps the parents of Sherlock Holmes are not the best they could be… but ignoring that for the time being, is Mr Holmes making a homophobic joke? That he doesn’t to look like an openly gay man?
It is here that Sherlock goes from probably having his parents on mute…
… to slamming his hands down onto the arms of his chair and storming between them, putting their story to a sudden close with
“So did you find it eventually? Your lottery ticket?” looking and sounding definitely annoyed, understandably I presume.
Not only is this Moftiss addressing past sexuality scandals of the BBC, which we know by the BBC’s survey in order to include more LGBT content in its shows, which happened in 2009 (just before they did Sherlock), matters to them (and Mark is a member of the LGBT+ community anyway)… this also shows Sherlock getting pissed off with his parents because they have made a homophobic ‘slur’ (A.K.A a commonly thrown around homophobic joke, in this context – finding it a problem/funny to look like a gay man)
Obviously you don’t have to be a member to of the LGBT+ community to get annoyed at these jokes, but come on, this is telling of our little Sherlock, as this is the point he clocked back into the conversation, and that John arrives back into Baker Street minutes after this conversation, to which Sherlock makes sure his parents leave.
Seeing as Larry Grayson worked for the BBC, which owns Sherlock, I find this name detail very specific, and something the writers intended to further some aspect of the plot, especially as this moment with his parents does nothing to it otherwise (except that they are dressed like John and Sherlock… naww)
I’m just praying that Mr and Mrs Holmes making homophobic slurs isn’t going to be a recurring thing…
Just something I picked up on… Sorry if someone has done this little meta before!!!
There’s a meta going around that argues that Sherlock must have remembered the conversation about the lost glasses and (considerately) bought this glasses chain for Dad. Perhaps he did buy it (spitefully).
I’ve been reading through “Between Each Beat Are Words Unsaid” and when I read chapters 10 & 11 it reminded me of how my interpretation of that scene is often a bit different than the rest of the fandom.
Ok so I know the scene in “The Blind Banker” where John corrects Sherlock about being his “Colleague” instead of his “Friend” gets a lot of mileage, and this idea has probably been posted before, but most of the time I see it from the “Poor Sherlock” standpoint.
I feel sad for BOTH of them in this scene. They are still trying to figure each other out, and as the show will establish, they are both absolute SHIT at feelings. Remember what happened right before this scene, John ran out of money at the market, and had to ask Sherlock for money. He’s embarrassed and wrong-footed.
They hardly know each other at this point. A month, maybe two. (Just checked John’s blog, only two months.) They haven’t “worked” together much if you go with the assumption that John would have blogged about it. (He had only blogged about “A Study in Pink” and a few other random things at this point)
One interesting thing I noticed is that during his write-up of ASiP he says:
“We arrived in ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ where, to my surprise, he introduced me as his colleague. The police seemed surprised by this as well I get the impression he’d not had ‘colleagues’ before.”
That is such a loaded statement. John is surprised that Sherlock views him as a colleague and that is important to John. We know this now because John skips so many details when writing up the cases, and the ones that make it are the ones that stick in HIS mind.
I created gifs of the scene and let me tell you, when you are advancing frame by frame to get the clips correct, these scenes are PAINFUL.
This introduction as “colleague” showed John that Sherlock wanted John to be viewed as an equal from the start. That would be VERY important to someone like John. (He hasn’t yet secured the job at the clinic at this point in the show, and he is very low on money, he is an injured army doctor…he has no PLACE, but he wants it desperately to be with Sherlock)
Also, something I never noticed before, Sherlock introduces Sally as his friend. And John observes how Sherlock treats his “friends” at this crime scene.
BUT given Sally’s reaction to the introduction John can’t help but notice that Sherlock catches the police off-guard with the use of “colleague” so he assumes it means he doesn’t have any/many.
In John’s mind I think he makes the connection that “colleague” is an important word to Sherlock, and “friend” is not, so he choses to use it from then on. He wants to show Sherlock that he is paying attention.
We have to remember that everyone who had met John up to the scene with Sebastian has assumed that he is sleeping with Sherlock, and it’s OBVIOUSLY a sensitive subject for John, so if you look at Sebastian’s creepy/knowing glance at Sherlock after “friend” you can understand why John reinforces it with “colleague.”
I think part of it is to counter the look Sebastian gave Sherlock and reinforce the whole “it’s all fine” vibe he is trying to solidify, and also to show he was paying attention on the last case, and using the word Sherlock picked for them.
See how he smiles at Sebastian in the gif above, and then glances at Sherlock for approval in the gif below. (It happens so fast that I didn’t see it until I was going frame by frame for these gifs.
John can IMMEDIATELY tell he has done the wrong thing, and you can see if on both their faces in the gif below.
This is why my heart breaks for both of them in this scene. They are both trying so hard to figure each other out and prove that they can be what the other needs, but they just aren’t quite there yet.
So I don’t think John was being deliberately mean, I think he was just caught off-guard that Sherlock had friends in uni, (because he determined he didn’t have a lot of friends in ASiP) and as he was processing that, he belatedly heard the intro and corrected Sherlock to show he was paying attention on the last case and that he is WORKING with Sherlock.
(We’ve all done it in our lives. Those cringe-worthy moments where you had the best of intentions but fell embarrassingly flat…)
I think he realizes his mistake in the last gif, but it’s too late to recover because Sherlock and Sebastian have moved on.
The whole scene reminds me of the scene at Angelo’s. John is trying SO hard to make a good impression on Sherlock that it makes him awkward at times.
I feel bad for both of them in this scene. Mostly Sherlock, because he had more to lose, but John also because he isn’t sure of his place by Sherlock’s side yet.
I really dig this interpretation of the scene. I’ve never seen John’s use of “colleague” as mean-spirited in any way–it’s a knee-jerk reaction for sure, but it’s not like he was trying to put Sherlock down by calling himself a colleague rather than a friend–and I like this explanation for why he does that. When you try to assimilate into a new culture, which is essentially what John is doing here as he tries to find his place in Sherlock’s world, you pick up and use the language that already exists there, and along the way, you’re bound to make some mistakes. It’s like learning a foreign language or even like joining a fandom. You try to copy the things you see others doing, use the words they’re using, and sometimes you might not get it quite right because you don’t have the full context and history and connotation associated with it, but at least you’re trying. And I agree with you that I think that’s what John is doing here.
This also fits so well thematically with tbb anyway. The episode is about them finding their groove, figuring out how they work together, how they live together, and how those two halves of their relationship fit with each other. At home, we’ve got Sherlock telling John they’re going out in the evening when John already has plans and Sherlock showing up on John’s date and John not knowing how he’s going to pay his half of the bills. And then for the work, we’ve got John leaving Soo Lin’s side in the museum and Sherlock sneaking into Soo Lin’s flat without John
and John not knowing to run when the cops come for Raz
and Sherlock not realizing John was smart enough to have taken a photo of the cipher. There’s conflict and miscommunication and a sense of feeling each other out in every aspect of their lives because they aren’t in sync yet. And this is another of those places. Sherlock considers them friends, and he wants to show that off to Sebastian. And John doesn’t realize the significance of that term being applied to him here–for all the reasons you mention above. Essentially, he hasn’t learned yet to play along with Sherlock in front of others. He’s learned this by the next episode–he doesn’t call Sherlock out about not having a case in front of Mycroft, waiting instead until Mycroft leaves to say anything about it–but here he doesn’t know yet that part of his role is to play along with what Sherlock says. That’s not to say that he never disagrees with Sherlock, obviously, but that is part of their dynamic that is shown repeatedly throughout the series. Later, John recognizes when Sherlock is either trying to save face or is playing a role for a case and therefore knows to keep his mouth shut, but in tbb he hasn’t learned that yet.
(I just had a conversation with Katie @therealmartinsgrrrl that is fucking me up so hard right now.)
John Watson is a man who is a study in contradictions. He’s a soldier and a doctor, yes, we all know that. But he’s so much more complex than that shorthand lets on.
He’s a man who has a deep seated compulsion to care for and nurture others, yet has studiously avoid forming deep personal connections well into his forties. He’s pleasant and polite on the surface, but scratch past that and he’s a bit difficult, a bit salty and surly and not always a very nice person. He’s a friendly person that doesn’t have any friends. Not real ones.
The caretaking bit is an ingenious move. It’s a control thing, it’s a way of being in charge of every situation, of never being at anyone else’s mercy, of never being the vulnerable or needy one. I know this because I do this. I literally have made a career out of it, of never ever revealing myself yet focusing my attention and caretaking on many others. People like me, we like to see ourselves as the good ones, as the tireless givers, maybe even sometimes as martyrs.
We’re not always good people, though. Not necessarily. What we are, are people deathly afraid of being vulnerable, of being on the other end of that equation. Because needing others is a surefire way of getting hurt, and hurt badly.
Somewhere along the line, probably early in life, John Watson got badly let down by someone he depended on. Fanon often lays the blame at the feet of alcoholism running through the Watson clan (and as the adult child and grandchild of alcoholics, I personally tend towards this view.) Perhaps is was poverty, not of the grinding sort but the everyday, not-enough-money, working-two-jobs sort that tends to let kids’s needs slip through the cracks. Perhaps it was just a combination of a sensitive temperament and a home life that just didn’t have room for those kinds of needs.
Whatever happened, it made John Watson shut down the parts of him that needed, made him sublimate that basic desire for connection into caretaking, into doctoring, into healing the wounded, and in a war theater, no less, an arena that cranked the stakes up to do-or-die and left no room for emotions or vulnerability.
(Insert “And whatever the hell happened with John and Sholto” somewhere in here.)
But then…Sherlock. Why Sherlock? Why anyone, honestly? Whatever the reason, something about this strange, strange man awakens something so long dormant in John that he probably thought it didn’t even exist anymore. A feeling of needing. Of wanting. Of a desire for connection so deep and terrifying it hurts to much to contemplate.
John dates all these women in the interim. He probably sleeps with most of them at some point. But none of them are Sherlock. None of them reach that deep place of needing, of wanting to be understood. Not even close.
(And then Sherlock goes and does the worst possible thing and leaves him behind. Good God. No wonder John is traumatized and wounded and still angry as fuck three years later. Just think of the magnitude of that betrayal, of the one person you allow yourself to need wholeheartedly leaving you behind. It’s hard to even think about for too long.)
And even after all that, John’s need for connection to Sherlock is so great he doesn’t even hold out a week before he’s back in his orbit.
And that, I think, is what John is running from, what he can’t yet deal with, why he marries Mary even after Sherlock’s return. He’s not hiding from his sexual attractions. Well, maybe he is, just a little, but much more than that he’s hiding from the enormity of his own confusing and overwhelming emotional need, and the power it gives Sherlock over him, the way it takes away John’s control and ability to keep another at remove.
At the end of it all it’s not his orientation, but his desire for love and acceptance and true companionship from Sherlock Holmes, that are the actual skeletons in John’s closet.
(Am I projecting? God yes. It’s late and it’s tumblr and I’ll ramble if I want to.)
I think there is some duality in the fact that Mary could be Moriarty, and Molly is Hooper. It’s like the rabbit hole. The mirror image. Sherlock is trying to tell himself something. And maybe…….maybe Sherlock subconsciously thinks that John knows about Mary. Hence John working out Hooper is a female behind Sherlock’s back. It would tie in with the John has his own plan theory, or the Mycroft/John against Mary theory. John worked out on his own that Mary worked for Moriarty, Sherlock knows Mary has stepped into Jim’s role or instigated a coup d’état, and in the MP Sherlock sees John deduce Hooper and doing so without telling Sherlock.
OF COURSE I DID. I CRY EVERY TIME. OH GOSH. THE DANCING LESSONS ARE STILL FOREVER ENGRAINED IN SHERLOCK’S BRAIN. HE THOUGHT THEY SPENT A LOT OF TIME ON IT, BUT NOT ENOUGH TIME TALKING.
OMG. Mini meta time:
Since this sequence is in Sherlock’s head, can we presume that Sherlock thinks they spend too much time DANCING AROUND EACH OTHER instead of TALKING TO UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER?? Sherlock doesn’t think John understands the things Sherlock is trying to say to him. Because what does Watson do in this scene?
John’s confused at the whole conversation that transpired. The same one where Sherlock told Wilder that he and John were ‘together’. Yeah, Sherlock wants to talk about them being together for real, and he thinks John won’t understand when Sherlock will eventually bring it up.
Imagine Molly having a sinking feeling of dread throughout John and Mary’s wedding. And, after the Mayfly Man has been arrested, she sees John and Mary enter the reception, arm in arm. Mary whispers something into John’s ear and he gives a half chuckle as they make their way onto the dance floor. And then, out come Sherlock and Janine. And, it just looks so painfully forced that Molly can’t stand it anymore; she has to say something.
She marches over to the pair, takes a deep breath. Despite her stomach twisting itself into knots, she says, “Sherlock,” with all the authority she can muster.
Janine raises her eyebrows. There’s something familiar about her that makes Molly’s skin crawl, but she can’t quite place it.
Sherlock’s mouth thins. “I need to get my violin,” he replies, ice cold. He turns to Janine and nods. “Excuse me.”
And, he about turns and leaves the room, alone. Molly scoffs and follows him. He doesn’t look at her.
“Sherlock,” she calls. “Sherlock!”
He stops in the corridor, where his violin case is propped up against the wall. He bends down, opens the case, and gingerly takes out the violin and bow.
“What was that?” Molly asks to his back.
“A wedding.” He still does not turn around. “I’m sure you’ll have heard of them before, they’re quite a cultural-”
“No. You know exactly what I’m talking about, Sherlock Holmes.”
Sherlock merely holds the violin up to his ear, feigning to tune it. “If you were referring to my speech, it was the truth. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Don’t patronize me. I know what this is.”
Sherlock sets the violin down, and slams the case lid shut. He stands, and finally faces Molly. “Oh, and do tell me what stunning conclusion you came to,” he spits out through gritted teeth. “Or perhaps I should leave that to your fiance, he does seem to have the knack for it.”
There. Molly has had enough. “Don’t be so cruel. I know what you must be feeling, but don’t take it out on me.” And, she could pass the rest off as Dutch courage, but perhaps she would have said it anyway: “I was in love with you, you know. So, I know… I know, Sherlock.”
Sherlock rubs his face with his hand. He stares at Molly, and really sees her. “I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is rough. “I’m so sorry, Molly. You didn’t deserve that.”
Molly forces herself to smile. “I forgive you.”
Sherlock actually smiles back. He picks up the violin and bow.
But, Sherlock shakes his head, cutting her off without words. “No. The moment’s passed, Molly. It’s too- I was too late.”
And, he hurries away. Molly follows once more. “Sherlock,” she pleads. “Sherlock, please, you don’t have to-”
But, by the time they have returned to the reception, the lighting has been dimmed. It’s time for John and Mary’s first dance.
And, Molly hears Sherlock play that damned waltz. One last love letter, one last goodbye. And, her heart breaks for him.
Considering that Sherlock uses his violin to woo John, this is his goodbye to hope that John could love him. One last serenade…
He didn’t even take his violin home from the reception. John has gone to another, so the violin is left behind. There is no more music in Sherlock’s life.
OH MY GOD, I’ve never noticed that before!
So, who notices the violin is still there? Molly? Greg? Mrs Hudson? John?
What if Mrs Hudson takes it home, and chaps on Sherlock’s door in the wee hours of the morning, still tipsy, calling, “Sherlock, love? You left something at the-”
Sherlock opens the door abruptly. He is still in his starched, uncomfortable suit. “Did you ever see her again?”
“Who?”
Sherlock swallows, then sighs. “Margaret, your… your friend.”
Mrs Hudson blinks, caught off guard. “Oh! W-well, I still saw her at, um, other weddings, birthdays, christenings-big things, you know. But then, we just sort of drifted apa-”
And, Sherlock winces, and shuts the door, leaving Mrs Hudson and the violin alone.
EXCUSE
That morning his secret stash, perfectly hidden before in every single drugs bust sits innocently on the coffee table. He knows no one will stop him because they all are either too drunk or have moved on and away from him. Or both. The golden rays caress the old but cared for wooden case, ebony shining with the siren call of oblivion. Pale hands lift the lid slowly while a myriad of memories pre-John and post-John assault him. you’ve always been, and always will be here… right old friend?
💔
He does try to fight it, though. Honestly. He endures the thought that John will never live at 221B again. He endures playing bloody cluedo with Mrs Hudson. Mycroft calls a few times, and he relishes stabbing his phone’s ‘ignore’ button.
It’s only when Lady Smallwood arrives with her sad tale that Sherlock spots his opportunity. He promises her that he will do everything in his power to stop Magnussen.
When she has gone, he spends the rest of the night thinking of what he was like before John. I’m a high-functioning sociopath. And they believed him. People always were so stupid. He slips back into the persona like it’s an old friend. Life is always so much easier when you convince others that you have never cared, and never will.
He speaks to his Homeless Network, and they recommend some man named Wiggins. Sherlock knows what needs to be done.
It has to be realistic. After all, it’s for a case.
Sniffle…
Fine. You made my morning. Sad.
But about the violin – we do not see it once in HLV, do we? So the wedding is the last time he …
To your rooms.
So well observed and so fucked up, you guys. You can come out of your rooms later on for ice cream.
