10 Moments When Sherlock Was A Complete Jerk

WHAT CULTURE
by Mark White



He’s the most fascinating presence on television: he’s a mercurial man with an otherworldly aura, a fiery turn of wit and an answer for everything. He’s so many people’s hero, and so many are in love with him. But my god, can Sherlock Holmes be a total ass sometimes.

When Sherlock claimed that he just because he was on the side of the angels, it didn’t mean he was a nice bloke, he wasn’t joking; Sherlock’s a liar and a manipulator, and that’s just to the people he calls friends. A lot of the time, John’s only part of the case to apologise for his friend; Sherlock doesn’t exactly make himself likeable, does he?

Nobody’s saying he’s an insufferable character, though. We love Sherlock: he’s a great man. But he’s certainly not a good one. Here are ten embarrassing, funny and just plain badass examples of the great detective being a complete jerk in the show.

10. Missing The Emotional Context Behind Cases

It helps Sherlock to keep a calm head if he distances himself from cases. It’s advantageous to be detached, and as he so rightly points out, there are so many people dying in St. Bart’s hospital alone; it’s no good to cry over the bedside of a victim. But does he have to be quite so cold? We’re shown that Sherlock loves a mystery in ‘A Study In Pink’, when he actually engages in a murderer’s game of wits, but ‘The Great Game’ shows quick-paced plots that he openly revels in. Is it not just the little bit inappropriate to get so excited over a murder? Sure, he might not be able to help it – as he keeps telling us, he’s sociopathic – but he has to be told not to smile at a crime scene where children have been kidnapped, and he asks the woman in charge of criminal welfare, “What are you? An idiot, a drunk or a criminal?”

With just a bit more tact, maybe Lestrade’s division might not hate him so much; telling a child that her granddad had been “taken to a special room and burned” isn’t utterly necessary. We love him for complete lack of self-awareness, but nobody in the show does.


9. Investigating The Hound By Terrorising John

When Henry came to Sherlock telling him about a gigantic hound wandering around Dartmoor, he was hooked on the case. He realised someway in the story that this hound was in actual fact a hallucination, and so John went into the lab, alone, armed only with a torch, to hallucinate and feed back to Sherlock what he was seeing.

Except Sherlock told none of this to John: he couldn’t. He merely locked him in a lab, scared for his life, and phoned him, asking to describe what he thought was about to brutally murder him. There might not have been another way to solve the case, but do you think your best friend would forgive you for doing a thing like that to them?

When Sherlock found John, he was understandably furious. “It’s okay,” Sherlock comforted, as John shouted, “Nooo, it’s NOT!” It’s not okay!” It was another hilariously tactless move from Sherlock, and one that left John questioning their friendship.

 8. Humiliating Sally Donovan In Front Of Her Colleagues

A lot of Sherlock fans hate Sally Donovan, mainly because she calls Sherlock, “freak”. They see her as an often bitchy, snide member of Lestrade’s division, and when Sherlock gave her a dressing down at a crime scene, it seemed like revenge. See things from Donovan’s point of view though; this is a man who waltzed into her office, assumed authority over her, and started doing her job for her, working close with her boss – she’s implied to be Lestrade’s deputy – and putting pay to any chance of her getting a promotion.

On top of this, he constantly ridicules her lover, Anderson. What reason does she have to like him, exactly? Taking everything into account, it was pretty nasty of Sherlock to expose their affair and make reference to the things that they’d been doing. They might have had it coming by being nasty to him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t horrible back.  

7. Telling John He Doesn’t Have Friends



John and Sherlock have been through a lot together, even by the halfway point of Series 2. And though John vehemently denies that the pair of them are gay, they’re no strangers to fighting like a married couple.

One of the most marriage-like rows that the pair endure happens when Sherlock’s frightened of the hound and questioning everything he believes to be true. John offers a hand to calm him down, but Sherlock refuses his help. “Now why would you listen to me. I’m just your friend,” John snorts. ”I don’t have friends!”
Sherlock says, haughtily. It’s a totally avoidable argument, and one where that Sherlock’s clearly in the wrong; taking a step back for a second to remember all the danger John gets himself into, just for his mate, would certainly cool proceedings down.

They later make up when Sherlock tells him that he just has the one friend: good save. Still, there was no need be such an ass to John, was there? Sherlock would go on to lock him in the lab that episode; it was a tempestuous time for their friendship.

Read more (Molly, Irene, Janene, allowing John to think they'd die, plus the #1 awful Sherlock moment) at http://whatculture.com/tv/10-moments-sherlock-complete-jerk.php/4#tGqbvoiEmQuGdgHh.99