What you do is amazing
May. 26th, 2015 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI did more Elementary season 1 rewatching, until and including M. Rewatch thoughts, containing spoilers for all three broadcast seasons:
In most of their early arguments, Joan tends to be right and Sherlock wrong, so I think it's significant that the first time the reverse is the case (imo, of course), it's about a boundary violation - when Joan has found out about Irene Adler's existence from Alistair and keeps pressing Sherlock to talk about her, despite the fact he clearly doesn't want to and refuses to. There's an interesting parallel that I hadn't noticed to Kitty later in s3; the Joan and Sherlock argument stalemate is remedied when after having gotten Irene's letters she doesn't read the, hands them back to him (who promptly destroys them) and accepts his silence on the subject, and they get back to trust building again. Later, he says (or rather affirms what she had already deduced) that Irene was someone he had loved, that she'd died and that he took it badly (and no more than that; it's not until M the Irene subject is raised again).Fast forward to the early Kitty episodes, and Joan - who at this point doesn't know more about Kitty than she did about Sherlock back in the day - gets Kitty's file from Gregson but ends up not reading it, handing it to Kitty instead, who later tells her she wants Joan to read it, and they start to build trust. This is in the same episode where Marcus Bell voices concerns about Kitty to Joan, pointing out her temper and saying that Joan had a calming influence on Sherlock which Kitty couldn't have, and even then I thought what Marcus was missing here is that Kitty's not playing the Watson role in Holmes' life - if she's one of the two in addition to being herself, she's a younger Sherlock, and he's in the Joan role towards her. More about this later when I get to M.
When we meet Joan's mother, the cliché of the ambitious stage mother is toyed with only to be reversed - Mary Watson's objection to Joan going from surgeon to sober companion turns out not to be due to the loss of status but because she doesn't see being a sober companion making Joan happy,whereas being a detective does. This is an episode after we've met Liam, Joan's ex the addict, the experience with whom had given Joan the idea of becoming a sober companion after losing her patient during operation. Now since Liam isn't an addict who managed to remain on the wagon but one who kept going back to the drugs, I can understand why Mary Watson concludes there's a bit of self punishment in Joan's choice of being a sober companion, but I think it's also a need to use something painful and transform it into something that helps others, especially coming directly after patient losing trauma. The Liam episode is also the one after the big "tell me about Irene" argument episode - from a Doylist (ahem) pov, this serves to restore balance since here Sherlock learns something intimate and painful about Joan's past - and the first time Joan does some detecting on her own (this is why she gets back in contact with Liam in the first place, he needs her to prove his innocence) while Sherlock is on another case in the same plot. If there is one particular moment (as opposed to many) which you can fingerpoint as the one where they start to go from sober companion and client to becoming friends, it's the end of this episode, when Sherlock waits with Joan for a Liam whom they both know won't show up, and is simply there for her without the show needing to spell out that's why he's come.
(This first of several "companiable quietness together" Holmes and Watson scene on Elementary, signifying growing intimacy, makes the contrast to the final scene of the s3 finale all the more painful because that's the first time when they're alone and quiet together and it spells not intimacy but the complete opposite, as he's back in his old hell again.)
Joan finishes her time as sober companion with Sherlock in M - there will be a transition period, but the second half of the season has her instead (consciously, after she already started in the first half but not deliberately) in the apprentice detective role -, and as it will turn out her time as a sober companion, full stop, so I think it's great that the show not only lets Sherlock sum up an episode earlier in the scene with her family why what a sober companion does is so important but also in M wraps this era of Joan's life up with the scene between them at the police station where he repeats to her what she told him about his work as a detective early in the episode. This, btw, is also a great pay off for something that's a bit of a running gang since the pilot, Sherlock's ability to repeat dialogue verbatim which he usually does with tv scenes. The first thing he ever says to Joan is a dialogue repeat from tv and he clearly wants to baffle and alienate her since he doesn't want a sober companion. In what he thinks will be the end of their time together, and which is the end note on her being his sober companion, he again repeats something exactly, only this time it's something she said, her own words, and he doesn't do it to mock but to thank her for what she's done for him. The two "I think what you do is amazing" scenes are still among my favourites.
M changes far more than Joan's job description, of course. It's also Sherlock's trip to the dark side, and whereas on first watching I was on tenterhooks about how far they'd let him go (I really didn't want him to kill Moran and get away with it, as I assumed he would due to being the show lead), upon rewatch my main attention was on comparing it both with The One Who Got Away (aka Kitty's farewell episode where she's the revenge planing one) and A Controlled Descent, the s3 finale. Not least because I was struck by the nihilistic, self-destructive nature of Sherlock's attempted revenge act this time around. He tells Joan exactly what he's planning to do and as she herself points out, he must know she will tell Gregson and they'll go after him. I don't think Sherlock, at this point, is underestimating Joan's (or the NYPD's) skills in tracking him down. Nor, I hasten to add, do I think it's as simple as him wanting to be stopped by them - I have no doubt that if Moran hadn't convinced him of Moriarty's existence, he would have gone through with the killing before Team Joan, Gregson et all arrived -, but once he had crossed that line, he wouldn't have been able to continue as a detective, and I think he wanted to be caught and punished once it was done.
This episode is also the first time we see Sherlock use a baton - later the weapon he gives Kitty, which becomes her trademark - , and it's one of the very few times he gets physically violent. (He sometimes has temper tantrums that involve destruction of inanimate objects, of course, but he doesn't go about punching people.) In fact, the only other time that immediately comes to mind is in the s3 finale, first when he uses force to question the sexual predator about Olivia and later, after Alfredo has been found, when he beats Oscar up, as a prelude to using heroin. To me, Elementary connects the use of physical violence by Sherlock directly with self annihilation. I still would like to know how much of what he told Adam in episode 1.03 about his time at school (to recapitulate: getting beaten up on a regular basis and finally feeling gratitude for the man beater-up) was invented and how much was true. (Young Sherlock: writes fan letters to radio actors like Alistair when they play the Yorkshire Ripper and to the equivalent of Lizzie Borden who got abused by her father.)
It's somewhat different with Kitty, for all that she's placed in a similar position with Del Gruner in The One Who Got Away as Sherlock was with Moran in M, and that Sherlock is placed in a similar position to Joan in M (he figures out that Kitty faked her departure, like Joan finds out Sherlock already has identified M, he then finds out where Kitty has brought Gruner just like Joan finds out where Sherlock has brought Moran, and in both cases, there's a conversation after the respective other party has realised vengeful vigilantism is about to take place. The big difference isn't so much, as Kitty says to Sherlock, that Moran was innocent (of killing Irene Adler, not in general) and that Gruner is guilty, but that she was Gruner's victim, whereas Sherlock wasn't Moran's. What happened to Kitty was exactly Gruner's intention (minus her survival), and it was certainly Gruner's choice. That Sherlock after Irene's supposed death self destructed was a consequence of that "death", but it was by his own choice. (The deaths of Moran's victims, otoh, are entirely Moran's fault - and that of this employer, of course - but at no point does the show suggest all the other dead people are why Sherlock wants to hurt and kill him. He wants to do so because of Irene, and because of her "death" did to him.)
In both cases, the show doesn't create a scenario where the law can't deal with Moran or Gruner (so there's no "I have to do this because otherwise he gets away to victimize more people" excuse). On the contrary, in both cases, the law is about to close in. For Kitty in The One Who Got Away, this eventually does make a difference - this and Sherlock telling her (that they've now hard evidence against Gruner) but leaving the choice entirely to her. (The opposite of the utter powerlessness she went through while being Gruner's victim.) She still feels the need to hurt Gruner, but she does ensure he survives and is dealt with by the law. For Sherlock in M, it's not the law closing in that does make the difference but Moran proving to him that he couldn't have killed Irene Adler, and that the person who did (Moran having no idea about the truth re: Moriarty as we'll later find out) is still out there. (He still feels the need to hurt Moran.) It's arguable what's the stronger motive here - not being able to kill someone for something the other person didn't do, or being given an alternate, out of current reach target. Either way, Sherlock stops.
Lastly: Elementary's Sebastian Moran, devoted Arsenal-Fan and contract killer, is still my favourite Moran. It's so refreshing to come across an evil overlord's minion who is not only smart enough to figure out he's been set up but also smart enough to immediately draw consequences and save his life (for now) by logical reasoning with the hero.
In most of their early arguments, Joan tends to be right and Sherlock wrong, so I think it's significant that the first time the reverse is the case (imo, of course), it's about a boundary violation - when Joan has found out about Irene Adler's existence from Alistair and keeps pressing Sherlock to talk about her, despite the fact he clearly doesn't want to and refuses to. There's an interesting parallel that I hadn't noticed to Kitty later in s3; the Joan and Sherlock argument stalemate is remedied when after having gotten Irene's letters she doesn't read the, hands them back to him (who promptly destroys them) and accepts his silence on the subject, and they get back to trust building again. Later, he says (or rather affirms what she had already deduced) that Irene was someone he had loved, that she'd died and that he took it badly (and no more than that; it's not until M the Irene subject is raised again).Fast forward to the early Kitty episodes, and Joan - who at this point doesn't know more about Kitty than she did about Sherlock back in the day - gets Kitty's file from Gregson but ends up not reading it, handing it to Kitty instead, who later tells her she wants Joan to read it, and they start to build trust. This is in the same episode where Marcus Bell voices concerns about Kitty to Joan, pointing out her temper and saying that Joan had a calming influence on Sherlock which Kitty couldn't have, and even then I thought what Marcus was missing here is that Kitty's not playing the Watson role in Holmes' life - if she's one of the two in addition to being herself, she's a younger Sherlock, and he's in the Joan role towards her. More about this later when I get to M.
When we meet Joan's mother, the cliché of the ambitious stage mother is toyed with only to be reversed - Mary Watson's objection to Joan going from surgeon to sober companion turns out not to be due to the loss of status but because she doesn't see being a sober companion making Joan happy,whereas being a detective does. This is an episode after we've met Liam, Joan's ex the addict, the experience with whom had given Joan the idea of becoming a sober companion after losing her patient during operation. Now since Liam isn't an addict who managed to remain on the wagon but one who kept going back to the drugs, I can understand why Mary Watson concludes there's a bit of self punishment in Joan's choice of being a sober companion, but I think it's also a need to use something painful and transform it into something that helps others, especially coming directly after patient losing trauma. The Liam episode is also the one after the big "tell me about Irene" argument episode - from a Doylist (ahem) pov, this serves to restore balance since here Sherlock learns something intimate and painful about Joan's past - and the first time Joan does some detecting on her own (this is why she gets back in contact with Liam in the first place, he needs her to prove his innocence) while Sherlock is on another case in the same plot. If there is one particular moment (as opposed to many) which you can fingerpoint as the one where they start to go from sober companion and client to becoming friends, it's the end of this episode, when Sherlock waits with Joan for a Liam whom they both know won't show up, and is simply there for her without the show needing to spell out that's why he's come.
(This first of several "companiable quietness together" Holmes and Watson scene on Elementary, signifying growing intimacy, makes the contrast to the final scene of the s3 finale all the more painful because that's the first time when they're alone and quiet together and it spells not intimacy but the complete opposite, as he's back in his old hell again.)
Joan finishes her time as sober companion with Sherlock in M - there will be a transition period, but the second half of the season has her instead (consciously, after she already started in the first half but not deliberately) in the apprentice detective role -, and as it will turn out her time as a sober companion, full stop, so I think it's great that the show not only lets Sherlock sum up an episode earlier in the scene with her family why what a sober companion does is so important but also in M wraps this era of Joan's life up with the scene between them at the police station where he repeats to her what she told him about his work as a detective early in the episode. This, btw, is also a great pay off for something that's a bit of a running gang since the pilot, Sherlock's ability to repeat dialogue verbatim which he usually does with tv scenes. The first thing he ever says to Joan is a dialogue repeat from tv and he clearly wants to baffle and alienate her since he doesn't want a sober companion. In what he thinks will be the end of their time together, and which is the end note on her being his sober companion, he again repeats something exactly, only this time it's something she said, her own words, and he doesn't do it to mock but to thank her for what she's done for him. The two "I think what you do is amazing" scenes are still among my favourites.
M changes far more than Joan's job description, of course. It's also Sherlock's trip to the dark side, and whereas on first watching I was on tenterhooks about how far they'd let him go (I really didn't want him to kill Moran and get away with it, as I assumed he would due to being the show lead), upon rewatch my main attention was on comparing it both with The One Who Got Away (aka Kitty's farewell episode where she's the revenge planing one) and A Controlled Descent, the s3 finale. Not least because I was struck by the nihilistic, self-destructive nature of Sherlock's attempted revenge act this time around. He tells Joan exactly what he's planning to do and as she herself points out, he must know she will tell Gregson and they'll go after him. I don't think Sherlock, at this point, is underestimating Joan's (or the NYPD's) skills in tracking him down. Nor, I hasten to add, do I think it's as simple as him wanting to be stopped by them - I have no doubt that if Moran hadn't convinced him of Moriarty's existence, he would have gone through with the killing before Team Joan, Gregson et all arrived -, but once he had crossed that line, he wouldn't have been able to continue as a detective, and I think he wanted to be caught and punished once it was done.
This episode is also the first time we see Sherlock use a baton - later the weapon he gives Kitty, which becomes her trademark - , and it's one of the very few times he gets physically violent. (He sometimes has temper tantrums that involve destruction of inanimate objects, of course, but he doesn't go about punching people.) In fact, the only other time that immediately comes to mind is in the s3 finale, first when he uses force to question the sexual predator about Olivia and later, after Alfredo has been found, when he beats Oscar up, as a prelude to using heroin. To me, Elementary connects the use of physical violence by Sherlock directly with self annihilation. I still would like to know how much of what he told Adam in episode 1.03 about his time at school (to recapitulate: getting beaten up on a regular basis and finally feeling gratitude for the man beater-up) was invented and how much was true. (Young Sherlock: writes fan letters to radio actors like Alistair when they play the Yorkshire Ripper and to the equivalent of Lizzie Borden who got abused by her father.)
It's somewhat different with Kitty, for all that she's placed in a similar position with Del Gruner in The One Who Got Away as Sherlock was with Moran in M, and that Sherlock is placed in a similar position to Joan in M (he figures out that Kitty faked her departure, like Joan finds out Sherlock already has identified M, he then finds out where Kitty has brought Gruner just like Joan finds out where Sherlock has brought Moran, and in both cases, there's a conversation after the respective other party has realised vengeful vigilantism is about to take place. The big difference isn't so much, as Kitty says to Sherlock, that Moran was innocent (of killing Irene Adler, not in general) and that Gruner is guilty, but that she was Gruner's victim, whereas Sherlock wasn't Moran's. What happened to Kitty was exactly Gruner's intention (minus her survival), and it was certainly Gruner's choice. That Sherlock after Irene's supposed death self destructed was a consequence of that "death", but it was by his own choice. (The deaths of Moran's victims, otoh, are entirely Moran's fault - and that of this employer, of course - but at no point does the show suggest all the other dead people are why Sherlock wants to hurt and kill him. He wants to do so because of Irene, and because of her "death" did to him.)
In both cases, the show doesn't create a scenario where the law can't deal with Moran or Gruner (so there's no "I have to do this because otherwise he gets away to victimize more people" excuse). On the contrary, in both cases, the law is about to close in. For Kitty in The One Who Got Away, this eventually does make a difference - this and Sherlock telling her (that they've now hard evidence against Gruner) but leaving the choice entirely to her. (The opposite of the utter powerlessness she went through while being Gruner's victim.) She still feels the need to hurt Gruner, but she does ensure he survives and is dealt with by the law. For Sherlock in M, it's not the law closing in that does make the difference but Moran proving to him that he couldn't have killed Irene Adler, and that the person who did (Moran having no idea about the truth re: Moriarty as we'll later find out) is still out there. (He still feels the need to hurt Moran.) It's arguable what's the stronger motive here - not being able to kill someone for something the other person didn't do, or being given an alternate, out of current reach target. Either way, Sherlock stops.
Lastly: Elementary's Sebastian Moran, devoted Arsenal-Fan and contract killer, is still my favourite Moran. It's so refreshing to come across an evil overlord's minion who is not only smart enough to figure out he's been set up but also smart enough to immediately draw consequences and save his life (for now) by logical reasoning with the hero.
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Date: 2015-05-27 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-05-27 11:46 am (UTC)