John’s fear of water
I think we can all agree that Martin Freeman is an acting god, yes? Several times throughout the course of the whole series, he’s given me serious meta / plot bunnies from a TOTALLY SILENT reaction to something that another character is saying.
Just a shift in body language, or a facial expression, that makes you think, “wow…there’s a HUGE story here that we’re not being told in the episode.”
And in The Final Problem, he has done it to me again, bless his bastardy boots.
It’s in the scene where John gets tired of all the hot air in the office, and steps outside for some sea air instead:
Now, this could have just been a reminder shot for the audience: they’re alone; they’re isolated; miles and hours from any help.
But look at John’s face.
That’s a really strong reaction. It’s not just discomfort...it’s verging on terror. He flinches away, tries to control his breathing, and all but runs back inside…it’s almost like he’s having a panic attack.
Why would John Watson be so afraid of water?
At first I thought there must have been some childhood trauma that gave him a phobia of water, and that’s why Euros put him in the well. Which would have been great if we’d ever been given any backstory on John Watson at all thanks Mofftiss. (Ahem. Sorry. Personal sore point there.)
(gif by @constantlyfreemaned)
But that wasn’t it - or at least if it was, we weren’t shown that ‘emotional context’ within the episode. So, what could it be instead?
I think two other scenes give us a clue. First, from later on in the episode:
(gifs by the brilliant @sherlockspeare)
This was such an odd line to me... Maybe it was something John said to his patients in Afghanistan who’d suffered interrogations. Maybe he said it to a fellow soldier when they were captured…or maybe it was something he said to himself, over and over, after he was taken prisoner.
The second clue comes from The Six Thatchers:
Again, that’s a really strong reaction. It’s not just ‘oh shit’ or ‘well that’s it, we’re screwed now’…that’s a nearly full fetal position. It’s a duck-and-cover protect-your-head movement, and very uncharacteristic of Captain John Watson, Fifth Northumberland Fuiliers, BAMF ex-army doctor.
And he did it when AJ mentioned being tortured. For fun.
As an army doctor, I have no idea if John would have been given RTI training. But would he have needed it? Would he have had any privileged military knowledge at all, ie, what troops were stationed where, or what their next moves were?
In other words: would he have had the kind of information that would be tactically useful to the enemy?
I doubt it.
True, he was an officer, but he was a surgeon...probably stationed at a single military hospital, treating patients who came in from all over the map. The military operates on a pretty strict need-to-know basis, and I don’t imagine a surgeon would need to know anything about the combat units’ inner workings.
So if he was captured and tortured, they wouldn’t have gotten much out of him. And I think they probably knew that: they just wanted to torture someone. For fun.
And how was he probably tortured?
My conclusion: John was a POW in Afghanistan, where he was subjected to some sort of water torture - probably waterboarding - by his captors. And since he didn’t have any sensitive military intelligence, they didn’t do it for information…they just did it for fun.
tl;dr - Damn you, Martin “I can do that with a look” Freeman, and your amazing plot-bunny-giving “acting is reacting, lovey” talent.
