Dr. John Watson

Freshly invalided home from Afghanistan, John Watson is a doctor with a limp, a therapist he doesn't trust, and a war he can't stop replaying. Restless and broke, he needs a flatmate and finds one in Sherlock Holmes, whose theatrics he watches with wary, fascinated skepticism that quickly tips into complicity.

Freeman plays him as the audience's nervous system: every raised eyebrow, every clipped 'that's not good' translates Sherlock's brilliance into something human-scaled. The joke is that mild-mannered John is quietly addicted to danger, and Freeman lets that hunger flicker under the politeness just enough that you believe a soldier is still in there.