#I'd have to rewatch all of Sherlock BBC and soldier through a ton of interviews and

[cushfuddled]

I saw your Sherlock post from a couple of weeks ago just now and lol greetings from the other direction. The show died for me in season 3 when Sherlock tricked his only friend into thinking they're about to die in an explosion so John HAS to forgive Sherlock for... what is ultimately another mean trick against that friend (Reichenbach), which Sherlock didn't do to save John/Mrs. Hudson/Lestrade since Mycroft had that covered, but only because he thought John would blab. AauuuGGGHHHH.

DUDE I am passing you an "I survived Sherlock BBC" T-shirt through the screen.

Also.

YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY "SHERLOCK BBC IS A TOXIC YAOI SIMULATOR" TRAP CARD! WOE, A SHERLOCK BBC VENT BE UPON YE!

What pisses me off is that, like, Moftis could've leaned into the bullshit at least. They could've made it a CHOICE.

IMO Sherlock BBC was a horror story about homophobia and codependency. Moftis made it very clear that John is "addicted" to conflict; to danger; to Sherlock. Throughout the show John furiously stresses his heterosexuality to anyone who'll listen. He breaks himself to conform to a "normal life" with a woman and a child and a steady job. But he can only play pretend for so long. I'll never recover from that wildly on-the-nose scene where John goes to sleep next to his wife and dreams about Afghanistan (a parallel to the first scene of episode one) and his life with Sherlock.

SHERLOCK (in the dream): Seen a lot of injuries, then? Violent deaths? JOHN (in the dream): Enough for a lifetime. (In the Watsons’ bedroom there’s a pounding sound nearby, as if someone is knocking on the front door.) SHERLOCK (in the dream): Want to see some more? JOHN (in the dream): Oh, God, yes. (The banging sound comes again and John jolts and sits up in bed. Half asleep, in his mind’s eye he can see Sherlock looking intensely at him.) SHERLOCK: The game is on. (He smiles.) (John wakes up properly and throws back the covers.)

This transcript neglects to mention the shot of John ripping his hand from his wife's as he races out of the bedroom. He throws the front door open, and expresses clear disappointment when it's not Sherlock on the other side.

John DESPERATELY wants to be a normal heterosexual dude with a normal heterosexual marriage, but he can't escape his nature.

SHERLOCK (louder, talking over her): John, you are addicted to a certain lifestyle. You’re abnormally attracted to dangerous situations and people … (his voice becomes quieter again) … so is it truly such a surprise that the woman you’ve fallen in love with conforms to that pattern? (John grimaces briefly and then, with his eyes still fixed on Sherlock, he points towards his wife at the other side of the room.) JOHN (his voice full of suppressed tears): But she wasn’t supposed to be like that. (Mrs. Hudson looks across to Mary in shock. Mary lowers her head.) JOHN (to Sherlock, pointing again across the room, his voice a little stronger): Why is SHE** like that? (Sherlock looks away towards the sofa wall for several seconds and then turns to look directly into John’s eyes.) SHERLOCK: Because you chose her. (John stares back at him, his face unreadable. Sherlock holds his gaze. Finally John turns away, speaking conversationally.) JOHN: Why is everything … (he walks towards the dining table, holding up a questioning hand and shrugging) … always … (his voice raises to a loud shout) … MY FAULT?! (He furiously kicks one of the dining chairs across the floor. Mrs Hudson jumps and flails. Even Sherlock jumps a little, but Mary remains still.)

**The unspoken sentiment here is "I did all this to get away from you/what you represent. Mary was supposed to be normal. She was supposed to make ME normal. So why did she turn out to be just like you?" And of course Sherlock goes, "Because you are YOU, and YOU chose her." No matter how hard John tries to be a different person with different needs, at the end of the day he's still John Watson, and John Watson can't help but want what he wants. As furious as he is at Sherlock and Mary, John is ultimately more furious with himself for his inability to shapeshift into a "normal" man who doesn't need the war/Sherlock.

As the series went on, it got harder and harder for me not to read John's outbursts as him taking out his self-hatred/internalized homophobia on Sherlock. John fucking HATES how much he loves Sherlock. He HATES that he needs Sherlock in his life. He HATES that he couldn't find happiness with a normal life and a normal wife. Sherlock tore John's shot at normalcy away from him. He is the face of everything John can't stand about himself. And so we end up with this:

And then...holy fuck, Sherlock's not exactly a ray of sunshine either. Like you pointed out, a part of Sherlock enjoys putting John through these cruel, elaborate life or death simulations. It would've been easy to construe a scenario wherein Sherlock HAD to keep John out of the loop post-Reichenbach, but Moftis opted for a much more fucked up timeline where Sherlock let John believe he'd committed suicide for years because he...kinda wanted to fuck around Europe on his own for a while? Or didn't trust John to put on a good show?

I can massage the story enough to like, come up with a kinder excuse. If John were to find out about Moriarty's web he'd bite and claw his way to Sherlock's side like he always does, and that would put John's life (even more) at risk (a la Sherlock's eventual capture). Maybe on some level Sherlock understood John's desire to escape, too, and thus opted to "free" John from his leash.

It's more difficult to soften Sherlock's decision to reenter John's life when/how he did.

If memory serves...since the show premiered, Sherlock seemed like he was always on the lookout for new and creative ways to hurt himself (whether on John's behalf, for the sake of "the game," or as a kind of release valve for his pain).

Sherlock's constant need to sacrifice (or punish) himself conflicts with his hunger for John's approval. Sherlock would die for John's happiness...but he also needs John around to make him feel smart/loved. He likes to keep John in the dark until the last possible second—to put John in situations that leave him totally at Sherlock's mercy/dependent upon Sherlock's brilliance—to more or less blunt force engineer these moments of awe and intimacy. He's addicted to John as much as John is addicted to Sherlock, and sometimes that manifests in grand gestures of selfless devotion...and sometimes it manifests in fucked up manipulation games that reassert John's dependence on Sherlock/Sherlock's control over John's life.

So yeah. It's all very fucky IMO. And I wouldn't have suddenly loved the show if Moftis had leaned into that reality, but at the very least I'd have felt a lot less gaslit lmao. Sherlock BBC beat me over the head with the toxic yaoi paddle only to scream at me, "THEY'RE BEST FRIENDS AND THEY WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER AND YAY AREN'T YOU HAPPY THEY'RE SUCH A GREAT TEAM YAY IT'S ALL GOOD THEY MADE UP AND THEY'RE GOOD NOW IT'S GOOD FOREVER AND EVER YAY!"

Like I'm sorry, but that finale was not a happy one. It wasn't even bittersweet. It was tragic. Mary literally ends the show with, "Who you really are doesn't matter. It's all about the legend." Sherlock and John represent a refuge to people, Mary says. Their story represents hope. We're told the manipulative, miserable, codependent mess of Sherlock and John's reality "doesn't matter." What matters is the front they present to their audience. If I thought this doublespeak was intentional, I would've applauded Moftis for their commitment to the bit at least. It takes balls to look at a legendary package deal like Doyle's Holmes and Watson (I cannot stress enough how cottage-core soft these two are with each other) and say, "What if I made that relationship super fucked up?" But the whole show stinks of empty promises, like Moftis MEANT to tell a story about a fraught but ultimately beautiful (platonic) partnership. What we GOT was a gay horror story about two very traumatized guys who couldn't escape each other's gravitational pull. I mean...pick a lane. Don't TELL me these two love each other like a couple of pals and then SHOW me John catapult between yearnful dreams of Sherlock's face and like, punting Sherlock's broken body into a wall of metal lockers.

Okay, rant over HHHHHHH