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And when he gets a job at a clinic? He gets hired before his references are even checked, and the one time we see him at work he's asleep, forcing the other doctor to see "five or six" of his patients. Was John really just tired, or trying to get out of a job he can't do?

Then there's his sister, Harriet. She's suspiciously missing when John gets married in "The Sign Of Three." When his bride asks about Harry at the reception, John just replies with, "No show," and moves on absolutely fine. Sure, he said before that they "don't get on," but according to his story she must have been one of the first people he saw when he got back from the war -- when she gave him a phone to use -- and he mentioned planning to see her on at least one Christmas. Besides, not getting on with a close family member has rarely worked as an excuse not to attend their wedding.

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As for his time in Afghanistan, we do see footage of warfare in the show's very first scene, before John wakes from a dream. However, note how the footage doesn't have John in it anywhere. In fact, it's just stock footage of a war without a single Martin Freeman in sight. It seems John has been preparing for his role as an ex-soldier so much that he's given himself nightmares, probably by watching Full Metal Jacket too many times.

By now, true Sherlockians and Cumberbitches are down in the comments saying that this theory is blown out of the water half an hour into the first episode, when John originally meets Mycroft. The scene plays like this: After John is abandoned at a crime scene by Sherlock, he goes looking for a cab. Instead, he gets a mysterious phone call and is invited/seemingly threatened into the back of a car and driven to an abandoned warehouse. Once there, Mycroft offers him money to spy on Sherlock, which John turns down.