John is “people” even in The Lying Detective
Sherlock becomes a weird, crazy version of his former self and John beats him to a bloody pulp out of resentment. And Sherlock lets him! Then, Greg asks John if they should have seen it coming. “It” being Sherlock’s spiral out of control. John says “we did see it coming” but they didn’t care to heed the warning signs because back then it was “fun” to watch Sherlock in distress and reach farther and farther away from who they thought he was. Greg knows about Magnussen somehow, which doesn’t fit the story at all, so that stands out as a red flag. They didn’t need to include that line about Magnussen, the audience still would have made the inference. Then John blatantly hears Smith wants to take Sherlock to his “favorite room”, which he KNOWS is the morgue, yet he IGNORES THAT (“What the fuck is that about” you say? I’ll tell you in a bit). Smith used subtext to tell the world he was going to kill Sherlock Holmes and EVERYONE in the audience understood but John “Pretty Damn Smart” Watson did not. How???
John Watson stands for something larger here. He is the global audience, he is “people”, just like he has been through every other episode in this show. Seriously, take the word “people” out of every line in BBC Sherlock and replace it with “John Watson”.
“What do people have in their ordinary lives?”
“People want to know you’re human.”
BBC Sherlock turned into a weird, crazy version of its former self and the audience beat it to a bloody pulp out of resentment. And the cast and crew let them! The audience wonders if they should have seen it coming. They realize they should have, that BBC Sherlock started to diverge at the end of His Last Vow but nobody made a fuss because back then it was fun! However, the subtext of what’s happening is staring them directly in the face, they are being told directly what’s happening, that BBC Sherlock is about to be murdered and the audience DOESN’T NOTICE. The audience doesn’t care anymore. What they once loved is gone, what they expected to come never came, the show has spiraled out of control, and they’re leaving. Forever.
But BBC Sherlock knew that. They knew that weeks ahead of time. They counted on losing their audience. They can’t save the audience that desperately needs it, they need to put themselves in harms way and watch what happens. On the show, Sherlock knows John won’t return on his own choosing. Same with this. It’ll take more footage from a seemingly deceased person/franchise to revive the audience’s trust in BBC Sherlock. The show knows its audience has abandoned it.
“It’s not a trick, it’s a plan.” – a plan Sherlock can’t tell John because he won’t like it.
Sherlock didn’t fake the drugs, he actually took them. BBC Sherlock actually sacrificed itself. The audience abandoned it at the final hour and that’s been accounted for. Subtext was used and ignored.
Series 4 is a commentary. The characters are not *just* characters anymore. When Sherlock can see into the future and know how his friends are going to act, when Sherlock throws himself into harm’s way even though he knows his friends are going to abandon him, he completes his mission anyway because it’s the right thing to do. BBC Sherlock is doing the exact same thing and they tried desperately to show the audience ahead of time that they aren’t wrong about this and that we should still trust them. They knew it wouldn’t work. And that’s okay.
The audience will come rushing back once the extra DVD tells them to, and BBC Sherlock will be waiting there. We’ll call it names and be mad that they were clever. BBC Sherlock will be like “yeah, we’re monsters, but you love us” and we’ll be frustrated but we’ll get over it.
And to think ALL of this hassle could have been avoided if John Watson understood Smith’s “favorite room” subtext.
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