#Yes. I am very well aware that this level of hurt is disproportionate to the actions that “Caused” it.

[asherlockstudy]

Rhett and Link’s problems with the Enneagram

I have now watched both Enneagram EBs and the second one actually set my gears to work (So Anon here it comes! I promise it was spontaneous).

After listening to Link and mostly Rhett talk about the Enneagram again and again, I realised I have a problem but I can not place its exact root. There is either something fundamentally wrong with the Enneagram itself or maybe it’s Rhett and consequently Link who talk about it in a way that made me feel a little uncomfortable.

My problem and cause of concern was that everything that was said during the two podcasts had a clear negative tone to it. I will have to bring in myself to it to give you an example so bear with me for a paragraph. I did the test and I am a 5 (Investigator - Observer, something like that) which suits me rather well, especially since it agrees perfectly with my Myers-Briggs INTP type. The results said I was a 5w6 (essentially an emotionless analytical robot) which is definitely wrong as I am clearly a 5w4 (a sad mess who analyses the world and searches pointlessly for the true meanings in life and wants to come up with the ultimate all-encompassing philosophy). I mean, OK, they are not described exactly like that but trust me, that’s the point. But despite all the flaws associated with it, especially in the fields of socialising and tremendous procrastination due to an insane fear of failure, I am actually very much in touch with it. I revel in analysing, in trying to see the bigger picture, to make up my own theory about life and the world. It gives me fuel to go on, it fills me with excitement, it gives me a purpose.

Now, what I kept hearing from Rhett and Link are the things they would hope to run away from. I can’t seem to remember a single positive thing they said about their personalities. All traits they mentioned ( which were all pretty one-dimensional for both I dare say) were presented in the context of torturing them and having to confront them. With these insights in their personalities and the spiritual deconstructions earlier, their old (surprising back then) statement that they are “fundamentally sad people” makes more and more sense. Some of their traits, like Link’s care for perfection to the smallest detail and his moral concerns could have been neutral or positive but, no, they are almost all given as clear negatives or at least as things that have an emotional toll on them.

This gives me the impression that Link and especially Rhett have found comfort in studying the Enneagram and try to find an explanation for what they are like, to feel part of a group, represented in their misery. In short, they focus on the analysis of the flaws of their personalities as a part of who they are and avoid dealing with the root that caused said flaws. Link is more self aware while Rhett still struggles to reach the root of it, which is his childhood. Not that he doesn’t know it but he can’t just deal with the people and the situations that impacted him enough to make him a three. For instance, Rhett seems to believe that he is a natural three that his parents made manifest even more strongly. It could be the case or the threeness we observe in him is the direct product of his parents’ constant judgement. By keeping chanting he needs to “be” instead of “do”, I am not sure Rhett will achieve much. Honestly, the one impactful step he needs to take is to stop caring about what his father thinks and I am sorry to say he is still not near achieving this. Especially when I take into account how scared he was during his videocall with his dad in GMM and how relieved he looked after the call was over without drama. In short, my problem with their take in the Enneagram is that it seems that Three is Rhett’s pack of unresolved issues rather than his complete personality type.

Furthermore, Rhett speaks knowingly about all numbers / personality types which proves he consumes passionately all Enneagram information that is available. For a man of his level of active lifestyle, hectic schedule and impatience, this shows that he indeed seeks comfort in finding a detailed description and an explanation for his personality, for the way he feels and acts. What does this mean? Well, that he does not like the way he feels about himself a lot. Not only that, but he is actually in a search of self. At this point, he is no longer cryptic about it but it is more serious than he lets on. He tries to make sense of himself and he tries desperately to find something in himself to love. I hope there are people in his life who let him know that he is worthy of their love, friendship and appreciation even though he is so deep inside his head that even the affectionate feedback can only help so much. Rhett will start finding some peace only if he takes the one step I mentioned above.

And then it seems that Link’s personality type is also exclusively a byproduct of his childhood and is aggravated by his relationship with Rhett. Link’s perfectionism doesn’t cause him enthusiasm - he just dreads the disturbance of his supposedly perfectly stable world. In all honesty, Link doesn’t strike me as an ambitious person. Link would just love to have his dear routine and a loyal person to share it with. Link needs stability and companionship. He is fine with just one person as long as this person contributes to the stability of their bond. Who that one person is in Link’s life is another story…

Link doesn’t care that much about the creative process and, frankly, he doesn’t care all that much about the comedy. Link cares to keep the environment Rhett and he work stable and safe. For Link, judgement from the audience is not as alarming as Rhett’s frustration because of it. Link cares to ensure that Rhett’s idea will be successful enough to keep working and to keep working together. So Link’s entire self-identification as a one seems to stem from his fear of abandonment and worthlessness only. Link fears he has not much to contribute to Mythical and he tries to counteract that by becoming the ultimate source of management and control. Because if he didn’t even manage the company, then what would Rhett need him for? Hence, Link’s obsession for control is a consequence of his fear, he doesn’t necessarily love to be in control for the sake of it. This is proven by his plane example, which shows that he finally relaxes when he does NOT need to be in control.

Link has been working hard most of his life to ensure his position next to Rhett. This brings even more insight in his resentment for Rhett that explodes from time to time. Link resents Rhett because he tries so hard to be always by his side but due to Rhett’s opportunitism, he can’t tell whether Rhett wants his companionship or he simply needs it for their brand. Even worse, Link dreads that the reason Rhett is his friend is because Link feeds his ego with his loyalty and admiration, because he takes Link for granted and not because he loves Link for who he is.

“Do you care for me or do you revel in the fact that I care for you?”

Now, I can’t get inside Rhett’s head but I doubt he uses people. I believe his genuine care for Link can be found in the weirdest examples - those from which Rhett has nothing to gain i.e getting frustrated when Link doesn’t enjoy food as much. Yes, this is a sign of love. Rhett enjoys food so much that he wants to share that enjoyment with Link. He can’t realise Link’s tongue works differently - he thinks Link is missing out and it frustrates him. Another silly example is Rhett buying Apocalypse equipment for a clearly disinterested Link and probably never getting its money’s worth back. This is important to Rhett for some reason and he is concerned enough to protect careless Link as well despite having no personal gain from it.

The truth is that these two men feed off each other; Rhett keeps Link attached to him to always feel worthy and Link keeps Rhett attached to him to always feel safe. However, the fact that Rhett is almost his entire source of safety and that Link is Rhett’s biggest calibrator of worth is indicative of the levels of love and need. Nevertheless, Rhett and Link are not independent people. They were constantly in search of support from one another and they lost themselves in the process of satisfying others or being safe. This is something they are realising only now.

Link’s fear of abandonment is so big that it frequently leads him to an almost paranoid behaviour. It is crazy that he felt left out when Rhett communicated with the audience during a podcast whose key purpose is to… communicate with the audience. His fear here has two sides: 1) that Rhett didn’t consider him an equally important business partner so he preferred to speak directly to the audience and 2) that Rhett isn’t emotionally invested in him in order to open up to him. And by saying he can deceive people if he needs, Rhett doesn’t help Link overcome his huge insecurities. This is why Link begs Rhett to talk to him about his feelings more. He does not understand whether Rhett loves him or uses him. The notion that Rhett doesn’t truly love or appreciate him is one of his biggest fears in life.

As for Rhett, it is certainly huge growth that he starts opening up and being vulnerable to a few thousand strangers yet it all still derives from his need to be accepted by said strangers as I am afraid that the late disproportionate criticism he gets for silly stuff on Twitter and Tumblr surely don’t help him deal with his issues, no matter how hard he tries. Therefore, Rhett is trapped in a vicious circle. Besides, Rhett was overly sensitive to be hurt when Link stated the obvious; that he was being vulnerable in hopes to be understood and accepted, because that was clearly what Rhett was openly doing. However, having someone discussing openly his vulnerability immediately made Rhett retreat back to his shell because no matter how hard he tries, Rhett hasn’t managed to separate vulnerability from weakness in his mind yet.

Long story short, Rhett and Link might be Three and One respectively but I am not sure they have a good understanding of themselves anyway. They may have figured out their types correctly but they certainly narrow their entire sense of being to their unresolved issues and phobias. They entirely lack a sense of self-worth and they probably have not realised the extent of the traumas in their youth. In the Enneagram language, the nine personality types have nine levels of development. I believe Rhett and Link are either in the average levels or the mildest unhealthy level. They are certainly not in the healthy top three levels.

Their obsession with the Ennegram helps only superficially but they seem to have based an illogically huge part of their self exploration on it. The Enneagram might offer some insight but won’t offer the resolutions they long for and badly need in order to find some relief. The ones that come when you confront your environment instead of overanalysing yourself and beating yourself up because of it.

[anotherkindofmindpod]

I just read both interviews, Part 1 and 2 of Jann Wenner's Rolling Stone Interview of 1971. It sounds as though John and the other Beatles DID have a realistic gripe about Paul taking over, directly projects, handing out musical assignments, etc., etc. and I'm sure he had the ego by this point to match! I would probably have become irritated by Paul as well. And no hints or even reading between the lines of John being emotionally hurt by Paul with regard to loss of intimate relationship.

Hello and thanks for writing in, Listener!First, I’d like to point out that we haven’t reached the Lennon Remembers portion of our Break-up Series, and will dig into it much more thoroughly in a future episode (stay tuned!).  

Presumably this ask isn’t in response to anything we’ve actually discussed on the podcast, in which case I feel that I should explain that what we do on our show is reevaluate conventional wisdom and contextualize public statements within the realities of actual behaviors. In other words, not taking things like Lennon Remembers at face value is AKOM 101.

If what we were doing on this podcast was as easy as simply reading the most infamous interview John Lennon ever gave (the one upon which the conventional story of the Beatles break-up is founded), it wouldn’t be much of a podcast or a very groundbreaking analysis, would it?

Second, I’d like to mention that listeners/readers can hear the entire (3.5 hours!) interview on You Tube.  Very evocative with audio!  Wenner’s editing in the print versions often make John sound more coherent and less vitriolic towards everyone but Paul than the audio reveals (i.e. the shitty comments about Paul are always printed but the ones about George, Brian, etc often aren’t).

Next, we’d like to state the usual disclaimer (which everyone is probably already aware of but is a good reminder anyway!):  John later disavowed this interview.  In fact, he was so angry at Jann Wenner for publishing it as a book, it apparently created a permanent rift between the two.  You may choose to view/value this interview as John being super honest, but please consider that in this allegedly “truthful” book/interview, John:

claims George is musically/creatively inferior to John

declares the McCartney album “rubbish”

reveals his belief that he and Paul’s confidence levels are intrinsically, inversely related to one another

says George was so aggressively rude to Yoko that John wished he would’ve punched him over it

proudly admits that he “maneuvered” the other Beatles to get Klein in as manager

bemoans the fact that everyone says Brian Epstein was so great “just because he’s dead” and that Brian cheated and robbed the Beatles

makes derisive comments about “fags” at least five times in the printed version alone and calls Lee Eastman “a wasp Jew, man, that’s the worst kind of person on earth.”

admits to lying in interviews and deflects accountability on the basis of being “just a guy” who mouths off about stuff

As for Paul, John is admittedly all over the place, swinging fairly wildly from nostalgic (reminiscing about having “a good mind like Paul’s” on his side and co-writing with their “fingers in each others’ pies”) to bitter (”Paul thought he was the Beatles,” etc).

As for the accusations that Paul was tyrannical, we’ve addressed these before (particularly in Break-Up Episode 2).  Just as Geoff Emerick, Michael Lindsay Hogg and Doug Sulpy (and even John, when he was feeling more generous) have articulated, we too feel that Paul stepped up and led the band in a time of need and deserves unequivocal credit for that.  We believe much of the subsequent complaining from the other Beatles is akin to the kind of griping one directs at a colleague who gets promoted (“who died and made you king!?”) and while some of it was likely based in genuine irritation at Paul’s communication style, much of it was probably petty.  This is why we are looking at the situation from all angles, to get a better sense of what is reality v. spin.  In any case, we don’t dispute that there were power struggles within the band.Any reader is free to choose John’s side in any/all of these battles.  But our overall takeaway from this particular interview is that John was unloading a lot of pent-up rage; against teachers, fans, Aunt Mimi, his mum, critics, Paul and anyone else who didn’t properly recognize his genius and praise him for it.

“That’s what makes me what I am. It comes out, the people I meet have to say it themselves, because we get fuckin’ kicked. Nobody says it, so you scream it: look at me, a genius, for fuck’s sake! What do I have to do to prove to you son-of-a-bitches what I can do, and who I am? Don’t dare, don’t you dare fuckin’ dare criticize my work like that. You, who don’t know anything about it.”

Based solely on Lennon Remembers, one could reasonably believe John didn’t like anyone but Yoko and Allen Klein (of whom he also speaks with reverence).  Fortunately, John gave a million other interviews in his lifetime, so even though this one is given a disproportionate amount of weight (probably b/c it is the most inflammatory and “raw”) we can compare John’s comments, behavior and art over a broad spectrum of time.  We feel this gives us a better, more thorough and more authentic portrait of John’s POV.  This is a good idea with ANY public figure, but especially important in John’s case, since, by his own admission he has a tendency to say what he feels in the moment and doesn’t necessarily stand by his own statements afterwards.

John in 1976:  “I get a bit absolute in my statements. [laughs] Which sometimes get me into deep water, and sometimes into the shallow.”

To your other point, our overall impressions about John’s feelings regarding  “loss of an intimate relationship” with Paul certainly do not hinge on Lennon Remembers, nor have we ever suggested they do.  In fact, LR is commonly used as the primary proof-point by McCartney detractors and Lennon/McCartney deniers (those who willfully and sometimes passionately  ignore and/or deny the deep love between John and Paul, as described by John and Paul themselves and everyone in their lives) that Paul was a tyrant who destroyed the Beatles with his massive ego.  

We have never disputed the existence of Paul’s ego.  But consider this: John refers to himself as an egomaniac REPEATEDLY throughout this interview.  Why is there a loud faction of people who consider John being an avowed egomaniac perfectly reasonable (sexy even!), but find it unforgivable that Paul is the same way?  Consider these excerpts from Lennon Remembers:

Do you think you will record together again?

I record with Yoko, but I’m not going to record with another egomaniac. There is only room for one on an album nowadays.

How would you assess George’s talents?

[…] Maybe it was hard for him sometimes, because Paul and I are such egomaniacs, but that’s the game.

Who do you think is good today? In any arts…

The unfortunate thing about egomaniacs is that they don’t take much attention of other people’s work. I only assess people on whether they are a danger to me or my work or not.

[Tangential]

But the Beatles were artists, and all artists have fucking’ big egos, whether they like to admit it or not […]

Yes, John rants repeatedly about Paul’s ego during this interview- while he simultaneously declares his own genius and artistic superiority over others. We find it mind-boggling how this irony continues to evade some people, but there it is.  

George Harrison has repeatedly complained about BOTH John & Paul’s egos (and their shared ego IRT “Lennon/McCartney”), but again, this is often ignored in favor of singling out Paul as the villain.  

Furthermore, it’s helpful to bear in mind when consuming Lennon Remembers that John and Yoko had received training in media-messaging by this point and were very savvy at Public Relations.  We know from people close to them that they drafted their stories in advance before offering them to the public. This fact, combined with Lennon’s tendency to “mouth off” means we have the right and responsibility to question and examine John’s claims rather than simply  parrot them mindlessly.

If you are genuinely interested in our take, we recommend our Break-Up Series. We think you will find it well-researched and thoughtful, even if you disagree with some of our conclusions.

Or if you simply dislike McCartney and find him “irritating,” that’s fine too.  Not everyone has to like everyone!

For additional discussion/analysis of Lennon Remembers, I recommend any of several threads on Erin Torkelson Weber’s site, the Historian and the Beatles.

the flawed lens of Lennon v. McCartney

Jann Wenner’s bio

how Rolling Stone shaped the breakup

discussing a podcast appearance

Thank you so much for this ask!  It is always a pleasure to share information.  Have a wonderful day.-The AKOM crew

[the-signs-of-two]

Families, TFP and Representation p. 2

In which I’ll be talking about Eurus. If you haven’t read the first part of this meta series, the point of it was to establish the main message of the fourth season. In my reading, season 4 is about the hurt suffered by LGBT people in cases where their families don’t accept them. It’s about saying that it’s never your fault if your family rejects you based on your sexuality and that it’s never okay for them to reject you because of something like this. But it’s also about moving on and forgiving each other and, most importantly, finding a family that makes you happy and accepts you as you are.

In this part, I will be focusing on how to analyze the Eurus plotline.

Be aware that some parts of this meta can be triggering for some. Thankfully, I’m blessed with a most loving and supportive family, but I know that not everyone in this community have been as lucky as I am and this may be really difficult to read if you belong to that group. I know it was difficult for me to write even though I haven’t personally been affected by these things.

There’s no way I can cover everything about Eurus now, both because it would be very long and because I haven’t had time to analyze everything in depth. So this is just a quick introduction to how I read the whole Eurus plotline.

First of all, it’s important to establish who Eurus is subtextually. Before the events of TFP, we know of three key things she has done.

1. Killing Sherlock’s childhood best friend. 2. Meeting with Moriarty and discussing Sherlock’s downfall. 3. Introducing herself to John as the woman on the bus and the therapist and introducing herself to Sherlock as Faith.

Based on these three actions, I believe that the point of the whole Eurus plotline is this: Eurus is meant to represent the unaccepting family of an LGBT-person (Sherlock). Eurus’ purpose is to create landmark representation for LGBT people by having Sherlock Holmes face one of the ultimate problems facing LGBT people: dealing with your family, the people you love, being unaccepting of who you really are.

Here are those three actions seen in that light:

1. Eurus damaged Sherlock horrendously when he was still very young by killing his best friend. This had a profound effect on who Sherlock would become as a grown-up. His reluctance to acknowledge how much he cared about his new “best friend” stood between Sherlock and John until TAB. Subtextually, Eurus (the family) damages Sherlock’s (the LGBT person’s) capacity to become happy with someone they love by reacting negatively and/or violently to the first time Sherlock (the LGBT person) fell in love with someone of their same sex. 2. Eurus met with Moriarty to make preparations for Sherlock’s downfall. Moriarty has already been established as a subtextual stand-in for the powers keeping Sherlock and John apart. He’s in control of the media and he’s the Sherlock Holmes fan who wants Sherlock to be an unemotional machine completely focused on the cases. Subtextually, Eurus (the family) is in alliance with Moriarty (the heteronormative mindset) and she uses this to bring Sherlock (the LGBT person) down. 3. Eurus introduces herself to John in two ways: as a woman flirting with him on the bus and as his new therapist. She also introduces herself to Sherlock as Faith, who praises him and pretends to have fun with him. Subtextually, this demonstrates that Eurus (the family) is willing to go to great lengths to ensure that Sherlock (the LGBT person) does not end up with the one they love. Think about it. What purpose is there in Eurus doing these things if not to underline that Eurus is trying to prove to Sherlock and John that they don’t need each other? Trying to prove to John that he doesn’t need Sherlock to get sex and romance. Trying to prove to John that he doesn’t need Sherlock to have someone to talk to. Trying to prove to Sherlock that he doesn’t need John to have a friend. And just so we know that it doesn’t work, we’re told that the woman on the bus reminds John of Sherlock and that “Faith” reminds Sherlock of John.

Going through TFP with the mindset that Eurus represents unaccepting families helps explain A LOT. I will now try to go through the main highlights of the episode and explain their meaning according to my reading, but please keep in mind that I believe this to be strictly subtextual. It doesn’t have a meaning to the characters on a textual level, it only has a meaning to the audience on a subtextual level. That is to say, of course Eurus isn’t literally locked up for being unaccepting of Sherlock’s homosexuality.

Everybody on board with this? Then let me give a couple of examples of this theory applied to the episode.

1. Sherlock has blocked Eurus from his memory. Textually, over the top. Subtextually, Sherlock (the LGBT person) has blocked the memory of the hurt he suffered because of Eurus (the family). It’s common. You convince yourself that you were the one in the wrong when it was your family who didn’t treat you as they should have done. 2. Sherlock continuously wants to reconcile with Eurus. Textually, disproportionate to what she has done. Subtextully, Sherlock (the LGBT person) just wants to be close to Eurus (the family) again. That’s also common. Your family is your family and you ultimately seek their approval. If we look at Sherlock throughout the episode, we see that he wants to meet her, then he wants to understand her, then he wants to forgive her and finally he wants to mend her. Apply this to the relation between an LGBT person and an unaccepting family and it’s quite the exact parallel. 3. Eurus straps a bomb to a drone and makes it fly right into the heart of Baker Street. The bomb is activated by movement. Textually, over the top. Subtextually… Need I say more? Drones are typically associated with spying on someone, especially after Mycroft’s camera drones stalking Sherlock through the streets of London in TLD. This is a symbolic parallel to families keeping a close eye on LGBT people, waiting to explode if they should make one wrong move to confirm their sexuality.

Now let’s talk about the actual “cases” Eurus puts Sherlock through.

In the first case, Sherlock has to choose either John or Mycroft to shoot the governor or else Eurus will shoot the governor’s wife. Eurus is asking Sherlock to choose either John (love interest) or Mycroft (family) to shoot a man. Notice her wording:

Eurus: You can’t do it, Sherlock. If you do it, it won’t count. I’ll kill her anyway. It has to be your brother or your friend.

Sherlock chooses Mycroft first, but Mycroft backs down from taking responsibility, so Sherlock has to choose John instead. John is close to going through with it, but backs down at the last moment because he is a good man and the whole thing ends in a tragedy that causes John to blame himself either way.

Subtextually, Sherlock is asked to place the blame on either Mycroft (family) or John (love interest). He chooses to place the blame on his family, but his family doesn’t take responsibility, so the blame has to shift to the love interest instead.

Notice that, subtextually, both Sherlock and John do all the right things and they still lose. Sherlock doesn’t blame John, but then he’s forced to do it anyway. John accepts responsibility (the right thing to do), but then also reveals that he is emotionally comprised by that (also the right thing to do). And he still ends up blaming himself in the end. Eurus (unaccepting family) gives Sherlock and John (gay couple) no chance of winning. The gay couple cannot win. Is it truly John’s fault that it ends in a tragedy? No, of course it isn’t. The only one to blame here is Eurus. But John considers it his fault. This is very, very common. If you love someone and their family rejects them because you love them, you blame yourself despite the fact that the family are the real ones to blame.

In the second case, Sherlock has to figure out which of the three Garrideb brothers was the one to kill Evans, but the real point of this case is for Mycroft and John to prove their usefulness to Sherlock. This is what Mycroft says after John has examined the gun:

Mycroft: Well done, Doctor Watson! How useful you are. Do you have a suspicion we’re being made to compete?

Both Mycroft and John help Sherlock in his deductions, a fine example of family and love interest being of equal importance to an LGBT person, and Sherlock gets it right. But does it help? Not in any way. The two innocents are killed first and then the guilty is killed when John tries to protest.

Again we see the same pattern. Sherlock (the LGBT person) cannot win. It doesn’t matter that he does everything right, he’s still going to lose. In this particular instance, he listens to both family and love interest, proving that he is capable of maintaining a balance between family and love, but Eurus doesn’t accept that. It’s the same as the first case: Sherlock does everything right, but he still loses. And it’s still actually Eurus’ fault, even though it’s made to look like it’s Sherlock and/or John making a mistake.

In the third case, Sherlock is forced to convince Molly to say “I love you” and, while trying to get her to say it, he’s also forced to say it himself. By the end of this problem, Molly is left heartbroken and Sherlock breaks down.

Subtextually, this case shows what actually happens when unaccepting families force an LGBT person to enter a relationship with someone they don’t love all for the sake of appearances. Yes, Molly and Sherlock say “I love you” to each other and Molly actually means it. But does that make them happy? Does it make her happy? No. Because both Sherlock and Molly know that it’s not genuine. This is a love confession being forced on Sherlock, so it’s insincere and it makes both of them miserable.

A lot of people are upset at this scene because it seems to make Molly’s feelings irrelevant. In fact, I’d argue that this is a powerful scene because it shows the futility of forcing a straight relationship on a gay man. This is Mark and Steven writing in big fat marker across the screen that yes, it does matter who Sherlock is. You can force Sherlock to confess his love to a woman, but that won’t magically make their love any more real. That won’t magically make them into a happy couple. They never will be. Not because Sherlock doesn’t care about Molly, because he obviously does. He gives his everything to save her life and he tries to spare her heartbreak by quite firmly saying that they’re friends, she just has to say this, it’s meaningless, it’s just a little favor. But they’ll never be happy together because Sherlock is a gay man and he loves someone else. And by having Molly react in this way, I actually think it proves that the creators very much care about both Sherlock and Molly’s feelings. They aren’t irrelevant. They’re complex.

And again, same pattern.

Sherlock: Eurus, I won. I won. Come on, play fair. The girl on the plane, I need to talk to her. I won. I saved Molly Hooper.

Eurus: Saved her? From what? Oh, do be sensible. There were no explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy? You didn’t win. You lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself. All those complicated little emotions. I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time.

And Sherlock breaks down. He did everything right and he still lost. He did as Eurus wanted him to and all he ended up doing was hurting everyone.

Now it’s time for the fourth and final case. Sherlock has to either shoot John or Mycroft. And I don’t think I can be much more clear than Eurus about what this means:

Eurus: You have to choose. Family or friend. Mycroft or John Watson.

This is the ultimate choice. If, as we saw in case two, having both family and love is not an option, do you cut off your family or your love?

It never was much choice. Mycroft, who has always wanted the best for Sherlock, tries to make it easier for Sherlock to choose love over family by repeating what every unaccepting family has told their gay son:

Mycroft: You shame us all. You shame the family name. Now, for once in your life, do the right thing.

Sherlock sees through it and still aims the gun at Mycroft, but he can’t go through with it. He’s being made to choose between his family and the love of his life and he can’t do it. So he chooses what too many homosexuals in his place have chosen before him. He chooses to commit suicide.

And even this respite, this way out, is denied when Eurus tranquilizes them.

In short, the cases at Sherrinford shows Eurus (unaccepting family) putting the following choices to Sherlock (the LGBT person):

1. Make either your family or your love interest into the bad guy. 2. Work with either your family or your love interest. 3. Enter into a relationship with someone of the other sex. 4. Choose either your family or your love interest.

Throughout the cases, we see Sherlock repeatedly proving it doesn’t have to be a choice between Mycroft and John, family and love, that the two can coexist. We see Sherlock (and John) repeatedly making the right choices and doing the right things. And yet we also see them losing repeatedly. The whole point is that they’re trapped and that nothing they do will ever convince Eurus to play fair, subtextually to let them get their happy ending.

In the end, Eurus makes sure that the only way to save John’s life is to make it all about her. The only way Sherlock can save John is if he decides to prioritize saving Eurus over saving John. That’s why the episode does not end with them together romantically. Eurus has still won this round. The episode ends with Sherlock being reunited with his family in every way, but not united with John romantically, only as a friend. Again, he has done everything right and he has still lost.

And this is why we need episode four.