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.