But why can we never see things like this?? Never! I know that this show is not always what it seems like and we are supposed to think about it with our own little brains and realise stuff and come to conclusions and it’s good, it keeps us busy and means that showmakers do not underestimate the audience’s intelligence but please, once in two years, even for a minute or two: Could we actually see in our own eyes these moments that matter and how the characters react to them???
All playing around and headcanon and fandom aside, there are two possible reasons, and they’re not mutually exclusive.
1: This season was mostly from Sherlock’s POV. When Sherlock is paying attention to something else, we don’t see what he’s not paying attention to.
Of course, in this scene Sherlock isn’t even in the same room, which brings us to
2: Someone(s) involved in the storytelling got too caught up in the drama, flashiness and focus on Sherlock to remember to include the bits of John Watson they needed to really thread the whole thing together.
Honestly, I’m not sure who that was—writers, directors, some combination thereof… Probably the latter. I see signs here and there that make me think a lot of the weirdness and unevenness of this season has to do with the loss of Paul McGuigan as director.