watching thob right now and forgot how funny it is, some underrated lines. āA RABBIT JOHN ššš”š¤ā and ābluebell the case of the vanishing glow in the dark rabbit. natoās in uproar!ā god heās so funny šāš»
Deciphering the Romance Arc: The Hounds of Baskerville
This is part of my meta project Deciphering the Romance Arc, which offers my current reading of the romance between Sherlock and John on BBC Sherlock up through TAB. Find the table of contents and the introduction here.
~
The Hounds of Baskerville has a few scenes that show incredible chemistry and romantic tension between Sherlock and John. By this point in the story, Sherlock and John are both in love and aware of how they themselves feel, but theyāre both unwilling to make a move, and theyāre dancing around each other as a result. THOB also has some of the cleverest queer subtext in the entire show, at least to my eye. Letās go!
After the intro that shows Henry as a child in Dartmoor, THOB starts off with a scene between Sherlock and John in the sitting room at 221B. After showing up at the flat covered in pigās blood sometime early in the morning on a Monday, Sherlock waves around a harpoon while basically crawling out of his skin, desperate for cigarettes or a case. John gives Sherlock some tough love when it comes to the smoking, but he also acts very supportive and encouraging of Sherlockās efforts to quit.
John later writes up his blog post about the Dartmoor case on March 16, just four days after he posted his final notes on Irene after talking to Mycroft and giving Sherlock the camera phone on March 12. The events of THOB span three days, including Sherlock and Johnās breakfast together at the inn in Dartmoor before they leave to return to London. This means that the first THOB scene with John and Sherlock in 221B takes place on either March 13 or March 14āthe very next day after John talked to Mycroft and gave Sherlock Ireneās phone, or just two days later.
(Side note: I got the timing of this opening scene wrong in the S2 fic that I wrote, so unfortunately I feel a need to awkwardly correct myself here, just in case anyone reading this has also read my ficāa hilarious thought, lol. Anyway, based on this meta, I used to think that the writers intentionally placed this first scene from THOB out of order, as a sort of playful nod to the ACD canon timeline being a complete catastrophe. @loudest-subtext-in-tv disabused me of that notion, however, by pointing out several points of continuity between the first scene with Sherlock and John and the scene with Sherlock, John, and Henry that follows right after. So the opening scenes of THOB do occur in order on a single Monday morning in March, just as we should expect them to.)
At this point, itās been almost two and a half months since Battersea. And as we see from this opening scene between Sherlock and John, Sherlock is absolutely losing it. Itās been almost two and a half months since he learned that John might return his feelings, and Sherlock is losing his mind over his inability to tell John how he feels. Heās desperate for distractions, and it seems that he and John havenāt had any really good cases since the conclusion of Ireneās case in early Januaryānone that John felt were worthy enough for him to write up on the blog, anyway. Sherlock took on the harpoon case (based on the ACD story āThe Adventure of Black Peterā), even though apparently it wasnāt interesting enough to warrant including John, and even though he found the conclusion ātedious.ā (And hey, thatās fair. I can imagine that harpooning a dead pig in order to prove a murder method could get a bit tedious, yeah.)
Otherwise, though, the tone of the first scene between Sherlock and John matches the tone of the springāsummer montage from the opening of ASIB very well. The banter, friendship, and domesticity that Sherlock and John share in this scene feels very similar to what we saw unfolding between the two of them several months ago, before Irene. I think itās beautiful to see that Sherlock and John retained their unique dynamic together as friends, even after Battersea, and even just one or two days after that incredibly tense scene in the kitchen where John gave Sherlock Ireneās phone and held back everything else that he so clearly wanted to ask or say.
Itās especially wonderful to see that just one or two days after that tense scene in the kitchen, John slipped back into his usual role as Sherlockās best friend: snarky and ready to call Sherlock out on his bullshit, but also very supportive. These are some of the very qualities that Sherlock first saw in John in ASIP and fell in love with him for.
Henry arrives with his case, and Sherlock decides that he and John will go to Dartmoor to investigate. After that, the rest of THOB shows that even though Sherlock and John have still retained their unique dynamic together, there are also real moments of tension between them as they both struggle with their feelings for each other. Their inability to open up to each other also leads to misunderstandings between them.
As always, thereās plenty of evidence of Sherlockās feelings for John scattered throughout the first half of the episode. Here are a few (certainly non-exhaustive) examples.
When Sherlock and John are interviewing Henry, we learn that Sherlock used to read Johnās emails to his girlfriends. Jealous much, Sherlock? I say āused toā because it doesnāt seem like John has tried to date anyone else since Jeanette, who broke up with him almost three months ago. More on that in just a minute, because youād better bet itās significant.
Then in this lovely shot that I absolutely adore (itās my profile pic on here!), Sherlock holds the cab door open for John as they leave for the train station together to go to Dartmoor:
(gif from here)
I just love their body language in this moment. They look so united together as a couple.
And I know that no one in the fandom ever forgot Sherlockās side-eye and smile at John after John pulls rank at Baskerville.
(gif from here)
Gay.
When Sherlock and John first go over to Henryās house and John looks impressed that Henry is rich, Sherlock is visibly annoyed by Johnās reaction and almost rolls his eyes. Again, jealous. (Later, Sherlock gleefully points out to Henry that part of his house has damp, lol.)
We also get lots of evidence of Johnās attraction to Sherlock. When Sherlock and John first get to Dartmoor and get out of the car together, John totally checks Sherlock out as heās adjusting his coat. I mean, look at John staring at him. Sherlock even notices John watching him and says āItās coldā defensively. When Sherlock and John go inside the Cross Keys Inn a few moments later, it looks like they both check each other out pretty conspicuously.
Thereās also a very important scene for John when John checks the two of them into the inn. @ivyblossom has a wonderful meta about this here. When John checks in, the innkeeper assumes that Sherlock and John are a couple, and this is the first time weāve seen this happen after Battersea. John starts to correct the innkeeper, but then he changes his mind almost immediately and just breaks off. This is the first time weāve ever seen John consciously make the decision not to correct someone who assumed that he and Sherlock are a couple, and itās such an important development in his struggle to come to terms with his feelings for Sherlock. We never hear about John trying to date anyone else in S2 after Jeanette. It seems that after his disastrous breakup with Jeanette and his all-important confrontation with Irene at Battersea, John finally had to admit to himself that there is something important between him and Sherlock: that Sherlock is the single most important person in his life, that his relationship with Sherlock is the one long-term relationship that heās truly committed to and that he will always choose to prioritize, and that dating other people isnāt compatible with what he has with Sherlock. John is still nervous about saying something to Sherlock, especially after Irene, but it seems that heās getting closer to being ready to open up to Sherlock about how he feels.
Just a few scenes later, we have Johnās famous āOh, please, can we not do this, this time? You being all mysterious with your cheekbones and turning your coat collar up so you look cool.ā John is looking, and he pretty much openly admits to Sherlock in this scene that he finds him attractive. Just look at the frustration and longing in Johnās expression, which heās not even trying to hide from Sherlock. Like, they make eye contact at the start of this gif!
(gif from here)
Sherlock seems a bit taken aback and silently pleased after John compliments his appearanceāhe pauses and looks a bit startled before replying with a surprised āI donāt do that.ā
Right after this exchange, thereās a moment in the car where Sherlock and John spontaneously lock eyes and then quickly turn away again, as if theyāre both embarrassed that they were caught looking at each other.
(gif from here)
@bbcjohnlock has a great little write-up about this scene. As they explain, John is really coming into his feelings for Sherlock in S2, and the tension between the two of them in this scene is just so palpable. It seems to me that John is barely trying to hide his feelings from Sherlock anymore, almost as if heās hoping against hope that Sherlock might make a move. But then thereās the sadness and worry on his face after he and Sherlock turn away from each other, as if John is also convinced that Sherlock will never fall in love with him in return.
So we have all this great chemistry and simmering tension between Sherlock and John in THOB. But we also have their fight in front of the fireplace at the Cross Keys Inn after Sherlock, John, and Henry go out to the moor for the first time, and then the aftermath of that fight the next morning. These two scenes are significant because of what they reveal about what Sherlock and John each want and expect from each other at this point in their relationship. And as per usual for these two, these scenes are rife with miscommunication and misunderstandings that lead to Sherlock and John both getting hurt.
In the scene in front of the fireplace, Sherlock tells John that he saw the hound and then basically has an emotional meltdown over it. Sherlock probably has been āpretty wired lately,ā as John says, because after the Irene disaster, heās scared as shit about Moriarty and whatever he has planned next. In this scene, Sherlock thought it would finally be okay for him to let down a bit more of his faƧade around John, and to show him that he gets scared and anxious in ways that he canāt control, just like everyone else does. But instead of comforting Sherlock and telling him that his emotions make sense, John attempts to rationalize the situation in a way that dismisses Sherlockās feelings. The conversation finally ends when Sherlock frustratedly spits out āI donāt have friendsā and John replies with a detached āNo. Wonder whyā before getting up and leaving Sherlock sitting by the fire alone. @asherlockstudy has a great meta that breaks down this scene.
In this scene, Sherlock tries to open up to John by showing him more of his emotional side: and not just his emotional side, but specifically the part of him that can feel scared and vulnerable. But John feels that he doesnāt know how to handle this side of Sherlock, so he tries to get out of dealing with it by dismissing what Sherlock says. This really hurts Sherlockās feelings.
Most of the time, John is able to see through Sherlockās tough-guy mask and mysterious-detective persona to see him as he truly is: a flawed and sensitive human being who can often be impatient and abrasive on the outside, but who truly cares about other people and who follows his own moral compass and sense of justice. John loves Sherlock for all of this, and in all of these respects, Sherlock and John are very similar and well-suited to one another. John chose to become a doctor, so he clearly cares about helping other people. We learned in ASIP that John and Sherlock share a similar moral compass, and Johnās total dedication to their shared cases since then has borne that out. John is also flawed and sensitive, but heās rather rude on the outside and doesnāt have a lot of friends because he, ah, tends āto rub people the wrong way.ā It makes perfect sense that Sherlock gets the two of them confused during the stag night forehead-detectives game in TSOT!
But even though John understands all of this about Sherlock, in the scene in front of the fireplace he becomes a bit overwhelmed by the intensity of Sherlockās emotional side, and he fails to see Sherlock the way that Sherlock needs him to in that moment. John doesnāt give Sherlock the acceptance that heās craving, and he doesnāt affirm for Sherlock that itās okay for him to show him his vulnerable side. As asherlockstudy points out, Johnās parting barb of āNo. Wonder whyā must have really hurt Sherlock. With that statement, John implies that even he still believes that Sherlock is so cold and callous that he doesnāt deserve to have real friends. Yikes.
John runs out of there, and heās so upset that he doesnāt even close the door to the inn behind himself. Then he gets distracted by the car lights in the distance and goes off to investigate. Just a few minutes later, though, Sherlock texts John to suggest that he interview Henryās therapist, Louise Mortimer. With that text, Sherlock tries to draw John back to him by pulling him back into the caseāitās the same strategy that Sherlock has been using ever since TBB whenever John starts to pull away from him.
This is so sad, because it shows that Sherlock worries that John only sticks around because he loves the casework and is impressed by Sherlock as a detective, not Sherlock as a person. After Battersea, Sherlock now suspects and hopes that John may be in love with him, but he seems to fear that John in just in love with his disguise, not with who he really is as a person. He doesnāt fully understand that John truly understands and loves him for who he is. Sherlock even sends John a picture of Louise Mortimer, implying that he thinks John will want to interview her because heāll think sheās pretty. With that text, Sherlock is basically saying to John, āYou donāt have to love me. I just want you to stay.ā (*screams internally while writing this*)
This is also the first time we see Sherlock sign off on a text to John with just āSā instead of āSH.ā Thatās yet another little detail in this episode thatās intended to show that Sherlock and Johnās relationship has grown much closer by this point in the show, even if theyāre still having huge misunderstandings. God, kill me now.
John goes to interview Louise Mortimer and flirts with her pretty determinedly, apparently very eager to take his mind off Sherlock. But that quickly goes south. As LSIT wrote at one point, Dr. Frankland shows up and āthe whole world floods the restaurant with a chorus of, āHey, arenāt you Sherlock Holmesās pathetically devoted live-in fucktoy?ā and John accepts he is not yet clear for dating.ā And interestingly, John is sort of resigned about it. Heās obviously disappointed when Louise assumes that heās gay and stalks off unhappily, but he doesnāt really try to make excuses for himself, as he once did with Jeanette. John seems to have accepted that heās thoroughly in love with Sherlock and that he canāt hide it anymore.
Before Frankland interrupts, though, even while John is still trying to chat up Louise, John mentions Sherlock to her and calls Sherlock his friend. So even though Sherlock and John just had this big fight where they both agreed that Sherlock doesnāt have friends, of course John still thinks of Sherlock as his friend. He doesnāt hesitate to describe him as such to someone else not even, like, an hour later. So John got upset at Sherlock in front of the fireplace, sure, but he brushed it off very quickly.
Letās say it again. Whenever John is feeling especially hopeless and conflicted about being in love with Sherlock, he tries to protect himself by repeating to himself that Sherlock is a cold, uncaring machine who will never love him back. But John doesnāt truly believe this and itās just a coping mechanism. A terrible coping mechanism, but, hey, John is a flawed person. When Sherlock tried to open up to John about his emotions, John pushed him away and tried to explain things rationally because John still isnāt ready to deal with the possibility that Sherlock might actually love him.
When Sherlock and John see each other in the graveyard the next morning, Sherlock seems nervous and tense. He was deeply hurt by what happened the night before, but heās desperate to get John back. His face is unguarded and pained when he calls after John, āI donāt have friends. Iāve just got one.ā
asherlockstudy makes some very good points about this scene in her meta. Although we see Sherlock looking nervous and pained as he apologizes to John, Sherlock deliberately puts on his mysterious-detective persona for John in an effort to win him back. He approaches John in his swirly, billowing coat and tries to take back what he said the night before by insisting that he didnāt feel fear on the moor, he just doubted his senses and intelligence. And of course, Sherlock insists to John, he shouldnāt have doubted those at all. Those are infallible, super impressive, and totally worth staying for! He did see a hound, so now they just need to figure out how.
John acts upset with Sherlock at first, but he actually forgives Sherlock incredibly quickly and easily. By the time Sherlock and John notice Greg a few minutes later, John has already slipped right back into helping Sherlock with the case. And when Sherlock gives him drugged-fake-apology-coffee, John even tells Sherlock that he doesnāt need to apologize more than once.
Still, Johnās conversation with Greg as they walk out of the inn together demonstrates that heās still not in the right headspace and heās still trying to tell himself that Sherlock doesnāt feel emotions in the same way that most people do. As John and Greg walk outside, Greg says that Sherlock ālikes having all the same faces back together,ā and John replies with an off-hand comment about Sherlock having Aspergerās syndrome. With that comment, John seems to be trying to rationalize Sherlockās behavior. He implies that Sherlock is incapable of relating to other people in a ātypicalā way, that this is something about Sherlock that isnāt about to change, and that this is why Sherlock likes having him and Greg around, not because he genuinely thinks of them as his friends. (To be clear, I think John uses the term āAspergerāsā pretty flippantly and insensitively here. Iām trying to analyze what John seems to mean when he does this, and this doesnāt reflect my own beliefs about what it does or doesnāt mean to have Aspergerās.)
Unfortunately, Sherlock comes out of the door behind them right at that moment. He obviously hears Johnās comment, because he gives John a hurt and bewildered look for a split second and then his eyes linger on John uncomfortably for a moment as he walks up to him and Greg. Sherlockās reaction shows that he doesnāt agree with Johnās assessment. Sherlock really does want to be able to open up to John more, but John keeps pushing him away because of his own conflicted feelings.
After Sherlock runs his experiment on John in the big lab at Baskerville and John thinks he heard and saw the hound, Sherlock, John, and Dr. Stapleton all hang out in one of the smaller labs so that Sherlock can analyze the sugar. In this scene, John has taken off his green field jacket, and we see that heās been wearing his āIām in love with Sherlock and feel hopeless about itā cardigan underneath it all day.
(screencap from here)
Apparently John put that on in the morning after he and Sherlock had their big fight, and we just didnāt see it until now because he was wearing the jacket over it. And as @thegildedbee recently pointed out to me (she stepped in for some extra beta-reading!), this means that John packed it to bring to Dartmoor. He thought he would need it.
Man, the writers and the costume department really knew what they were doing with this cardigan. And my hat is off to LSIT for pointing it out in her analysis of the hiker case in ASIB so that I knew to look for it in other episodes.
Still, THOB does give us one final piece of evidence that John truly does see Sherlock for the deeply caring and empathetic person that he is. When Sherlock, John, Greg, and Henry are out on the moor and encounter the dog again after Sherlock has solved the mystery, Sherlock is determined to explain to Henry what happened to him and his father, to make sure that Henry understands. Great gifs and meta about this here. Sherlock has already solved the mystery, but he cares about Henry as a person and wants to make sure that Henry understands the truth and knows that he doesnāt need to be frightened of the dog. John sees this and understands it. Later, he writes on his blog that this was āone of the most human things I think Iāve ever seen [Sherlock] do.ā He also notes that Sherlock ādidnāt need to, heād solved the case but it was as if he knew that the truly important thing was showing Henry what was real and what wasnāt.ā
But then, of course, John goes on to speculate that āmaybe his experiences with Irene Adler, had humanised him?ā Because, you know, canāt let things get too good for these two.Ā
Ugh, GOD, it must have hurt Sherlock so much to read that.
Before they leave Dartmoor, John realizes that Sherlock attempted to drug him and locked him in the lab to experiment on him. But John is such a little danger freak (affectionate) that heās not even that mad about itāhe seems much more interested in needling Sherlock for having been wrong about the sugar than in actually chewing him out for locking him in the lab. They really are perfect for each other, in such a messed-up (still affectionate) way.
During that conversation over breakfast, Sherlock decides that if heās going to continue trying to keep John romantically distant in the hopes of protecting him from Moriarty, then he might as well play into Johnās weird assumption that he doesnāt understand emotions. So while John is eating breakfast and Sherlock is sipping his coffee, Sherlock pretends to not understand why the innkeepers were reluctant to put down their dog. (LSIT pointed this out here.) Of course, HLV later rubs in our faces that Sherlock absolutely understands why someone wouldnāt want to put down their dog.
Related to this, I want to double back to the two scenes that take place on the moor, since they both give us more evidence that Sherlock is really freaked out about Moriarty.
Itās now been about two and a half months since Sherlock learned that Irene was working for Moriarty, and thus that Moriarty used her to mess up his relationship with John. At this point, Sherlock is probably getting pretty anxious about the fact that they havenāt heard anything new from Moriarty since thenāthatās probably part of why he was crawling out of his skin at the start of the episode. Sherlock is terrified for Johnās safety and doesnāt know what Moriarty is going to do next.
When Sherlock, John, and Henry go out onto the moor together for the first time, Sherlock and Henry get separated from John and the two of them start talking. Sherlock tries to ask Henry more about his fatherās friendship with Dr. Frankland.
Sherlock: But he works at Baskerville. Didnāt your dad have a problem with that?
Henry: Well, mates are mates, arenāt they? I mean, look at you and John.
Sherlock: What about us?
Henry: Well, I mean, heās a pretty straightforward bloke, and youā¦. They agreed never to talk about work, Uncle Bob and my dad.
Sherlock says āWhat about us?ā quickly and rather aggressively, as if heās very anxious, and he continues to look uncomfortable as Henry keeps speaking. I think there are two ways to read this, and both make sense. Sherlock might react this way simply because heās offended by the idea that he and John are dissimilar and shouldnāt get along. But Sherlock might also react this way because heās nervous about how other people perceive his and Johnās relationship. Heās nervous that Henry might have seen too much, and that itās obvious to everyone who sees them together that thereās something deeper between him and John. Sherlock doesnāt want that, because he fears that it will put John in even more danger from Moriarty.
Towards the end of the episode, in the scene where Sherlock, John, Greg, and Henry go to the hollow and find Dr. Frankland and the dog, thereās an extended moment when Sherlock thinks that he sees Moriartyās face behind Franklandās mask. And when he sees that, Sherlock totally loses his shit. When primed by the drug in the fog to see something terrifying, Sherlock sees Moriarty, because Moriarty is what heās most afraid of.
That wraps up my main analysis of THOB! But before moving on, I want to pause to talk about some incredibly clever subtext embedded into the central mystery in this episode.
@heimishtheidealhusband explains this in a totally wild meta called Ghost Stories Are Gay Stories, which they wrote in preparation for the airing of TAB. You should definitely go read the whole thing, but Iāll try to recap some of the most important parts of it as it relates to THOB.
In Victorian gothic literature, authors sometimes make use of a literary device called āhomospectrality,ā which is where queerness is represented through monsters and ghosts. Mark Gatiss is a huge fan of this device, and in THOB he does something really, really cool by inverting it.
In THOB, Sherlock decides to take Henryās case only after Henry uses the āarchaicā (as Sherlock calls it) word āhoundā to describe the monstrous dog that he believes killed his father. Throughout the rest of the episode, Sherlockās job in solving the central mystery is to prove to everyone else that the dog that has been roaming the moor is just an ordinary dog: something that is perfectly natural and nothing to be frightened of. When Sherlock solves the case, he discovers that Henry, John, and even he himself had all been conditioned by an external and artificial agentāthe drug that Frankland put into the fogāto see something monstrous and terrifying when they looked at the dog. As Sherlock explains to Henry on the moor:
Sherlock: Yeah, but there was a dog, Henry, leaving footprints, scaring witnesses, but it was nothing more than an ordinary dog. We both saw itāsaw it as our drugged minds wanted us to see it. Fear and stimulus, thatās how it works. But there never was any monster.
Just as Victorian gothic literature would often use ghosts and monsters to represent homosexuality, in THOB the dog is a metaphor for homosexuality. Sherlock, as the protagonist in our love story and as a character who is fully comfortable with his own homosexuality, has to prove to all the other characters that homosexuality is nothing to be frightened of. The dog is just an ordinary dog, something entirely natural and unsurprising. Itās not a monster, but many people have been conditioned by something artificial and unnatural to believe that the dog is terrifying and dangerous. The drug is a metaphor for heteronormativity! Itās only because of heteronormativity, something artificial and pernicious, that the dog appears terrifying. This!! Is!! So!! Good!!
And it gets even better, because of how well all of this fits for our characters. At first, Sherlock thinks that Henryās story about a monstrous dog roaming the moor and killing his father is absolutely ridiculous. He knows that thereās something else going on here, since there canāt be a monster. But once he goes out on the moor for the first time with Henry, Sherlock has a moment of total panic and then suffers an emotional breakdown back at the Cross Keys because he believes that heās seen the monster. Sherlock later tells John that heās always been able to trust his own senses, and he was upset because he experienced doubt. So, Sherlock, who has always been perfectly comfortable with his own homosexuality, experiences a terrifying moment of doubt, and his immediate reaction is to be shocked that he of all people could have seen the hound. In the lab, though, John sincerely believes that the monster dog exists. The general idea here is that Sherlock is someone who has always been comfortable with his own sexuality and who doesnāt see himself as susceptible to homophobia, but John may be slightly more susceptible. Through his relationship with Sherlock, however, John will overcome whatever fears he may have.
We could also read this another way. Sherlockās moment of doubt in THOB could be a nod to the way that Sherlock fears the consequences of his love for John and doesnāt know what to do about it. Even though Sherlock is very comfortable with same-sex desire, heās terrified that his love for John will put John in danger. If this is also whatās going on in the subtext, then we can read Johnās fear in the lab similarlyāJohn is frightened of the consequences of his love for Sherlock, and heās not yet ready to fully embrace that love. In other words, I think the broader metaphor of the fear-triggering gas in THOB is about heteronormativity and homophobia, but perhaps Sherlockās and Johnās moments of fear are also meant to indicate that theyāre scared of or nervous about their love for each other for other reasons, too.
Either way, Sherlock and John both recover from their temporary fear of the dog in THOB. Sherlock solves the mystery and realizes that the gas was the agent that was terrifying everyone, and John confidently shoots the dog in the hollow. This can be read as foreshadowing: as the show progresses, Sherlock and John will realize that their love for each other is not something that they need to be frightened of and will pursue a romantic relationship together. After all, THOB ends on a light note, with order and normality restored to the town after Sherlock and John have solved the mystery and eliminated the threat from Frankland and the fear gas. As heimishtheidealhusband writes, āhere, ānormalā is a world where queerness is just part of the fabric of everyday life, and nothing to be afraid of.ā Victorian gothic stories do not have happy endings for their queer-coded characters, but THOB does, which hints at the broader intentions of the show.
This is just. So clever. The inversion of the homospectrality metaphor is such a brilliant way to adapt the original ACD story in a modern context while also giving us a beautiful metaphor that explains where Sherlock and John each are in their relationships to same-sex desire at this point in the show.
So, to close: in THOB, weāve seen that Sherlock and John are both in love, but theyāre both dancing around this for their own reasons. Sherlock is comfortable with his own homosexuality, but heās trying to keep his romantic distance from John because heās worried about Moriarty. John has faced the fact that heās in love with Sherlock and has accepted that this is something that isnāt about to change, but heās also still struggling with his fear that Sherlock doesnāt love him, and he isnāt prepared for Sherlock to open up to him emotionally. As a result, John tries to convince himself that Sherlock doesnāt understand emotions and will never love him back, and he should just accept this about Sherlock so they can stay friends. But John isnāt very good at fooling himself, and deep down he really does know that Sherlock understands emotions and feels them deeply.
Throughout all of this, Sherlock and John both show that they can be spectacularly bad at discerning what the other person needs and wants from them, and their misunderstandings lead them to hurt each other. This certainly wonāt be the last time that happens, and in future episodes it only gets more serious and more devastating.
Denim jacket featuring upcycled tatreez from a vintage Palestinian thob. Souk Samara is a Palestinian brand which gives fraying vintage thobs (traditional dresses) a second life. $348
BBC Sherlock Season 2 behind the scenes documentary with cast and creators interviews
thanks to a lovely user who suggested archive.org I was able to upload the s2 extra (it's available in other websites but this one has subtitles!) enjoy<3
So I was on IMDB looking at the information listed for THOB thanks to being in a meta-writing mood, and it had several promotional shots for the episode. Interesting, interesting, I wonder what poses they put Russel Tovey in as Henry-
When Sherlock enters the military base in Baskerville using his brother's card, we see him swipe it and then check the time (I don't know how to make gifs, so just a screen shot). For a little moment, he looks into the camera, which makes you feel like he is swiping the door to our 'lab'--our room, to our world. *We* are the 'lab rats experiencing the science', or perhaps the glow-in-the-dark rabbits. ;-) Sherlock (the character and the show), is 'the scientist,' so to speak, who is experimenting on us (as he does on John). Or a detective who helps us figure out who has been experimenting on us and how.
I love those tiny fourth-wall breaks, which expand the theatre space to include us. They are those mini meditations on the role of art. We are deep down at the bottom of the lab, and we have twenty minutes (time is limited) to figure out why we are here.
And--if we are lucky or smart--maybe even a way to get out... How 'childhood trauma masked by an invented memory', or by an invented narrative, keeps us stuck, in deep waters perhaps. Henry Knight got out after twenty years, when the toxic fumes were identified as a poisonous gas--not a fantastical tale about the devil. The episode may seem quite dark, but it is actually hopeful--for the characters, and for us, too. :-)
