I took Ava for a short walk, so I had some time to ruminate on a thing that’s come up a few times now over the course of the show.
John Watson as an abusive partner.
It’s awful to contemplate, I know. Not John Watson, not our lovely Doctor, not someone who doesn’t accept help but gives it, someone who, in the course of saving one man’s life, beat another until he spit blood.
His friend. Someone he’d killed for. Someone he’s almost died for. Abusive, toward Sherlock? Impossible. Except he has been, and Sherlock knows this and has used it to his advantage.
Uck. Nauseating. But think about it: In S2, Sherlock wants John to hit him, to provide the verisimilitude that Sherlock’s a poor priest beaten up in the street by a mugger. John won’t do it, until Sherlock attacks him first, and in John’s shock and anger he lets go of his self control; he ends up choking Sherlock on the street. Unneccessary, and, as John put it, sometimes he hears “punch me in the face,” but it’s usually subtext. He’s got violent tendencies toward Sherlock in many ways, as much as he loves him, he’s helpless in the face of Sherlock’s cleverness and Sherlock *triggers that helplessness* to get what he wants.
And when Sherlock comes back in S3, right in the middle of his planned proposal to Mary - in John’s emotional shock that he’s alive, what does he do first?
Makes that subtext, text. Not once, not twice, but three times. Takes his emotional turmoil at Sherlock’s resurrection and channels it into a violent outburst because he’s helpless otherwise - he was played, and Sherlock deserves to feel as badly as John does for doing it.
Ah, but then, Sherlock twigs to an idea: Use John’s emotional/violent outbursts to shake him out of his trauma. So at the end, he lies to John to trigger his emotional outburst by thinking they’re going to die: but this time, John manages to physically keep himself together when he discovers Sherlock’s deciet, though it looked pretty dicey for a moment. Emotionally, though, he’s been terrible the entire episode: he locks Sherlock out, he won’t talk to him, refuses to listen to Sherlock’s explanations. It’s all about John, and maybe for a bit it should be. But for months? No. That’s hideously awful to your friend who suffered on your behalf, who left his life for years to save yours. It’s manipulative and selfish. But John blames Sherlock so Sherlock blames himself, and sets up a situation where John has to confront him about it.
And now, we’ve got the worst situation: Sherlock is dying by his own hand, on purpose, after the emotional turmoil of Mary’s death. He’s using John’s emotions for his advantage, again. We know Sherlock has learned to calculate everyone’s actions and reactions; we’re told so the entire episode. When he “lost it” in the Morgue and tried to stab Smith, Sherlock was counting on John’s reaction. John blames Sherlock so Sherlock blames Sherlock for Mary’s death. So once again, Sherlock sets up a situation where John has to confront him. He must. Not just because Sherlock needs the pretext to be in the hospital, but because in his brain, John needs to beat the shit out of Sherlock to “get even.” He “deserves to.”
Oh holy hell, Sherlock. Those are the words of an abuse victim.
John has, by his emotional and physical abuse, convinced Sherlock Holmes that he deserves all the blame, all the abuse he’s suffering, all the abuse heaped on him by his best friend. The Best Friend who’s been utterly incapable of watching out for the emotional needs of someone we all know to be almost incapable of fully comprehending how he feels.
John Goddamn Watson. Doctor John H. Watson. Selfish, frustrated, conflicted, PTSD suffering, emotionally constipated and emotionally and physically abusive John H. Watson.
And what’s worse, I think he knows it. “Why should everything be understandable?”
Goddammit, I hated writing this. It may not be completely comprehensible; who knows. But I feel like I’m seeing a fully developed abusive relationship being shoved at me when I look more deeply at it, past the comforting hugs and cases and conscience hallucinations, and it breaks my heart.
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