The unresolved issues that bothered me the most in The Final Problem

[fandomnumbergenerator]

I was never a TJLCer, but I realized, when TPTB made an announcement a few months ago saying it was never going to happen (http://www.withanaccent.com/2016/07/27/sherlock-a-case-of-sexual-identity/), that I had been holding out hope for an unambiguously romantic relationship.

I’ve written a bunch about why, to me, “Their relationship has always been romantic,” is a non-answer (http://buffer-overrun.tumblr.com/tagged/romantic+friendship) I think it confuses two different meanings of romantic, one which is about the tropes of romance (its meaning in bromance) and one of which is a Hollywood euphemism for sexual.

As a side note, people have been talking about the Three Garidebs being used up, and though I loved the idea of a childhood friend, but I wish it hadn’t taken Victor Trevor off the table as a past romantic relationship.

After series 3, I was totally convinced that Sherlock was in love with John (as opposed to loving him like a brother), and for me the beat down scene in The Lying Detective showed that Sherlock would sacrifice everything for John, in a totally unhealthy and self destructive way.

Last week, I read some discussion (http://anarfea.tumblr.com/post/155750559888/ive-seen-a-lot-of-posts-lately-about-john-beating) about whether John beats up Sherlock because he thinks he can, and the crux of the argument boiled down to whether John felt justified in punishing Sherlock. But for me, that wasn’t the issue. In the manner of abusive relationships, John hurt Sherlock because he could, even if he felt guilty about it later. (The beat-down scene also really soured me on the idea of canon Johnlock.).

And this was left totally unresolved. Are we supposed to believe that this simmering, apparently unrequited crush, just keeps going? The next time John is furious with himself, is he going to beat Sherlock up again?

Also, Sherlock’s drug use. In both His Last Vow and The Lying Detective, the drug uses is “for a case”. But I think that it’s interesting that this is his best plan for self-destructive behavior. It is also clearly a way to avoid his feelings, even if there is some ambiguity about the exact nature of those feelings.

I didn’t see any indication that there was any improvement in the way Sherlock was dealing with drugs, so it is all too easy to see the dynamic of His Last Vow and The Lying Detective (where Sherlock ruins himself for and about John and John is furious) playing out again and again.

I also hated Mary’s voice over. She basically says they would be better off without her. It seems to prove that she had been nothing but a plot device all along.

But I did like how Sherlock and Mycroft’s relationship seemed to come to a more stable and equal place.