Somebody Loves You

Scenes without background music: Sherlock sees John for the first time after the fall. 

Sherlock + Emojis

Legit Johnlock Scenes

Wisteria Lodge

Holmes had received a telegram whilst we sat at our lunch, and he had scribbled a reply. He made no remark, but the matter remained in his thoughts, for he stood in front of the fire afterwards with a thoughtful face, smoking his pipe, and casting an occasional glance at the message. Suddenly he turned upon me with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“Seen anything you like?”

“I’d rather buy chocolates some other day, John, than paying inflated prices because of some made-up, overly commercialised, sorry excuse for a holiday.”

“Haha, you never actually buy chocolates, Sherlock. You either nick them from Mrs. Hudson or me, or you receive them as gifts from people you’ve solved cases for – or who hate you for some reason.”

“Ah, yes. The box laced with arsenic. Now that was an interesting gift.”

“Interesting? It could have been lethal had we eaten them – or given them to somebody else.”

“But we didn’t, and the contents of the box greatly improved an afternoon that would otherwise have been excruciatingly boring. Win/win, I’d say.”

“Anyway, would you like some chocolates?”

“Do they contain strychnine?”

“No, you berk, they contain nougat, several kinds of chocolate, almonds, marzipan ... some alcohol, too, I think.”

“You didn’t buy them because of that ‘holiday’, did you?”

“What if I did?”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

“Or simply a romantic – like you.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Exciting chase through Soho, dinner at Angelo’s?”

“Coincidence.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Those chocolates you bought ... there wouldn’t be any with pistachio marzipan, would there?”

“How about we head home and you try them?”

“Good idea.”

the nurse’s lines + the accompanying shots of sherlock/john to the lines

(actually, two) 

to explicitly show us that Sherlock uses humour to defuse emotional situations.

He has trouble showing emotions, and knows John struggles as well, so he tries to make jokes to break the tension, to give them an out for having to deal with their emotions. This doesn’t always work—

—but it’s the only way he knows how to protect them both against too much intimacy. 

It gives them both an emotional release, sometimes through anger, sometimes through laughter, but either way, lets them avoid the true underlying emotion, the one neither of them can voice.

By comparing these scenes, it’s painfully clear how much of “a joke” this is to Sherlock. He doesn’t have the emotional release of laughter or adrenaline in this scene. He’ll seek his release with other, more dangerous methods on the plane. It’s telling that in TAB, when he’s in his own mind, he is unable to diffuse the intimacy confrontation in the greenhouse. MP!John doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t relent when he ‘jokes’ about revolvers or murderous ghosts. Sherlock desperately wants this intimacy with John, but is still so afraid of opening himself up to it. I hope that TAB is a turning point, an MP dry run, and in S4 we’ll see him confront his emotions with John head-on, rather than retreating with humour.