A moment of silence for heart attacks caused by the smile of John Watson.
I’m going to babble at you. I also love this whole scene between john and mycroft and he keeps not meeting Mycroft’s eyes. That soldiers way of looking just over a shoulder. Not submissive in any way, more of a “I don’t know who the hell you are or what you want but I am listening.” Pretty much the opposite of his introduction to Sherlock, then again, flair for the dramatic and all
The Mycroft scene is one of my favourites. Not only because the first time you see the episode you think it’s Moriarty, but John is at maximum BAMF level. Mycroft’s intimidating, but John’s the scary one. That determined look in his eyes, his rigid stance, the way he doesn’t want Mycroft touching him, how angry he gets when he realises Mycroft knows his most private secrets.
That scene is about five minutes long and is nothing but dialogue, but it is so tense and so well played and you are learning so much about who John really is (because a John under pressure is the real John) that it may as well be a car chase for the way is holds you.
And you’re right, it’s completely different from when he met Sherlock. With Sherlock, he was solid but not rigid, he wasn’t afraid of close proximity, he avoided his eye and ducked his head in a more submissive way. You can see that trust immediately.
So I find the Blind Baker problematic to some extent as an episode and I feel bad that Sherlock abandoned John to the cops with the spray paint, but John’s the one that kicks the crossbow to the side while Sherlock’s all tied up (hah). And watching him in that interrogation scene is interesting. He’s pretty calm, considering, other then insisting he’s not Sherlock. And he does fight back once Sarah is in danger.
The Blind Banker definitely has issues and I have issues with it. It’s by far my least favourite episode for several reasons.
There are things I like, like the growing domesticity between John and Sherlock, the glimpse into Sherlock’s uni days, John getting the job at the surgery and us getting to see a bit more of his womanising side.
But as a whole, it falls a bit flat. The scene in the tunnels always irritates me slightly because I don’t think that is quite how John would react. He seems to flip between calm and panicky a bit too much (though I do like it when he smiles and says ‘Did I really say that?’ when General Shan is relaying what he said outside Soo Lin’s flat). The thing is, in Pink it was established that John is calmest when he’s in danger or others are, but we don’t see that in Banker. When Sarah is threatened he becomes frantic. True, he is tied down and can’t do much, but I still don’t think he’d react quite like that. I don’t know if that’s a fault with the writing or if Martin just didn’t quite know how to play it there.
The thing is, if this episode were in any other detective/cop show, it would probably be really good, but in Sherlock it just doesn’t live up to the standards of the others. It gets sidetracked by the case, which may sound silly because it is a crime drama, but Sherlock is really about the many relationships within it. And although we are introduced to Sarah and we get a glimpse of how John and Sherlock are living together, I don’t feel like it adds all that much to their relationship. I also don’t feel like what we see of John in Banker is a natural progression of a few weeks from what we saw of him in Pink.
Yeah, he does flip a bit from calm to panicky. Maybe we can all jut pretend this episode mostly doesn’t exist?
Last one. the way he goes immediately tense when Mycroft shows up at the end, clearly protective, then the relief when he realizes they’re brothers. And this is after giggling about a crime scene and how John’s just killed a man (well he was a bad cabbie)
Yeah, you can see that adrenaline still pumping when he’s see Mycroft. He’s still itching for a bit of a fight and still willing to do more for Sherlock even though he’s already saved his life that night.
I could write dissertations on John Watson. He’s so far from the simple guy he appears. So willing to protect some people no matter what, and yet so willing to let others, to quote Moriarty, burn.
“John is still, he’s stoical, he’s very watchful, he’s very very strong-willed, a strong-minded person, he’s not easily flappable.
You know he’s an alpha male, he saves lives and can kill people; like if it wasn’t for Sherlock he’d be the most impressive man in the room, you know because he’s knocking about with someone who’s even more fucking alpha than he is. All of which is interesting to play because you’re playing someone who is very much their own man, they’re very strong.
He doesn’t do a lot of vocal flourishes, he doesn’t do a lot of showing off, it’s just he’s still in a way that I envy about some men. He’s got a real strength to him.”