Elementary 4.24
May. 10th, 2016 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIn which the show proves it has the reverse of the TOS movies curse. For non-Star Trek fans, there used to be a joke that the uneven numbered movies were the bad and the even numbered movies the good ones. With Elementary's seasons, the opposite is the case so far: the uneven numbered seasons - 1 and 3 - are the superb ones, whereas the even numbered seasons, 2 and 4, while still having great individual episodes, fail at their overall narrative.
Not just because I knew from the moment Morland said on the phone "I've decided to accept your offer" that he wasn't speaking about letting Vickers kill him, he'd decided to go for the head position of Moriarty's global evil empire instead, that offer, and Sherlock didn't figure it out until his father told him so. Incidentally, as ways of wrapping up Morland's arc on the show go (and to provide a Watsonian, no pun intended, excuse for him not being around in season 5), this is less forced than Mycroft having to fake his death at the end of s2 (btw, appreciated the updated that Mycroft is currently on a Greek island; considering Sherlock knows that, are we to assume they are in secret email contact?), works with what's established about the character, and given the announced intention that he'll use the position to dismantle the evil empire from the inside, which nobody could ever do from the outside (this actually makes sense), maintains him as morally ambiguous. However, Morland isn't either of our two main characters, and if the show tried to give them something like an ongoing development this season once we were past Sherlock's initial recovery from his fall from the wagon, it doesn't feel so. Or rather, it feels like the occasional tease only to peter out.
Take Joan's flirtation with a more ruthless side. I suppose we could see her being okay and 100% behind Sherlock's idea to frame Vickers for a crime Vickers didn't commit since they can't prove the ones he did as part of an ongoing "is Joan Watson becoming a vigilante/going darkside?" question, but the way the episode treats this subplot doesn't feel like it's recognizing this tactic is somewhat beyond anything either Sherlock or Joan have done, always excepting Sherlock's behavior in the episode "M" during season 1 and his beating up Oscar at the end of the s3 finale before getting his fix. I mean: this is enormous. May I point back to the early s1 episode where Sherlock discovers there has been evidence falsification and Gregson might have done it (as it turns out, it was Gregson's former partner), doesn't want to believe it but nonetheless feels obliged to pursue this further precisely because this is what Gregson himself, as an honorable man, should want?
Friedrich Dürrematt's novel Der Richter und sein Henker has this as its key plot twist: the central murder turns out not to have been committed by the villain but by the hero, who has spent a life time trying in vain to stop or prove the crimes the villain has committed until at last having the idea that he'll only be able to get the villain with a crime the villain hasn't comitted and thus hasn't had the chance to provide himself an alibi for. Orson Welles' movie Touch of Evil has a corrupt sheriff who does have a great instinct for who is actually guilty, but part of his corruption is that he frames people with faked evidence according to what he believes. In either case, this action damms the one who did it.
Of course Sherlock and Joan don't commit murder, and the actual killer of the victim they frame Vickers for is already behind bars for another crime, so it's not like they let a killer escape who could murder others. But they still go directly against a core ethical standard of investigative work, and the only time this is brought up as something problematic is when Morland (!) asks why they won't involve team Gregson in the investigation and Sherlock says, no, he won't make Gregson a participant of falsifying evidence. There is no scene at all showing Joan has a problem with it. (She's not present when Morland and Sherlock have this dialogue.) Or is aware that there could be a problem. That this is exactly what in two or three episodes, they caught corrupt officers doing. And because Vickers ends up dead by Morland's new minions, there also won't be any long term consequences for our heroes as there might have been had Vickers actually gone to trial based on faked evidence.
Morland in his farewell scene warning Sherlock that "men like them" endanger all around them Sherlock should therefore distance himself from Joan, Sherlock considering that for a while until Joan makes nonesense of this and their last dialogue for the season being about being with their friends (Marcus, and now also Lien), could have been an emotionally satisfying rejection of the "must isolate myself in order not to doom others" idea - if not for a) the clumsy execution (Morland bringing it up in the first place) and b) the fact the show did these storybeats before, and far better, both with Sherlock and with Joan (remember her later season 3 arc, anyone?), instead of trying to shove it in the last few minutes in order to give our heroes some emotional stuff that's about them.
In conclusion: my hope for season 5 is that the reverse of the Star Trek curse holds, and the show produces at its seasons 1 and 3 levels of quality again.
Not just because I knew from the moment Morland said on the phone "I've decided to accept your offer" that he wasn't speaking about letting Vickers kill him, he'd decided to go for the head position of Moriarty's global evil empire instead, that offer, and Sherlock didn't figure it out until his father told him so. Incidentally, as ways of wrapping up Morland's arc on the show go (and to provide a Watsonian, no pun intended, excuse for him not being around in season 5), this is less forced than Mycroft having to fake his death at the end of s2 (btw, appreciated the updated that Mycroft is currently on a Greek island; considering Sherlock knows that, are we to assume they are in secret email contact?), works with what's established about the character, and given the announced intention that he'll use the position to dismantle the evil empire from the inside, which nobody could ever do from the outside (this actually makes sense), maintains him as morally ambiguous. However, Morland isn't either of our two main characters, and if the show tried to give them something like an ongoing development this season once we were past Sherlock's initial recovery from his fall from the wagon, it doesn't feel so. Or rather, it feels like the occasional tease only to peter out.
Take Joan's flirtation with a more ruthless side. I suppose we could see her being okay and 100% behind Sherlock's idea to frame Vickers for a crime Vickers didn't commit since they can't prove the ones he did as part of an ongoing "is Joan Watson becoming a vigilante/going darkside?" question, but the way the episode treats this subplot doesn't feel like it's recognizing this tactic is somewhat beyond anything either Sherlock or Joan have done, always excepting Sherlock's behavior in the episode "M" during season 1 and his beating up Oscar at the end of the s3 finale before getting his fix. I mean: this is enormous. May I point back to the early s1 episode where Sherlock discovers there has been evidence falsification and Gregson might have done it (as it turns out, it was Gregson's former partner), doesn't want to believe it but nonetheless feels obliged to pursue this further precisely because this is what Gregson himself, as an honorable man, should want?
Friedrich Dürrematt's novel Der Richter und sein Henker has this as its key plot twist: the central murder turns out not to have been committed by the villain but by the hero, who has spent a life time trying in vain to stop or prove the crimes the villain has committed until at last having the idea that he'll only be able to get the villain with a crime the villain hasn't comitted and thus hasn't had the chance to provide himself an alibi for. Orson Welles' movie Touch of Evil has a corrupt sheriff who does have a great instinct for who is actually guilty, but part of his corruption is that he frames people with faked evidence according to what he believes. In either case, this action damms the one who did it.
Of course Sherlock and Joan don't commit murder, and the actual killer of the victim they frame Vickers for is already behind bars for another crime, so it's not like they let a killer escape who could murder others. But they still go directly against a core ethical standard of investigative work, and the only time this is brought up as something problematic is when Morland (!) asks why they won't involve team Gregson in the investigation and Sherlock says, no, he won't make Gregson a participant of falsifying evidence. There is no scene at all showing Joan has a problem with it. (She's not present when Morland and Sherlock have this dialogue.) Or is aware that there could be a problem. That this is exactly what in two or three episodes, they caught corrupt officers doing. And because Vickers ends up dead by Morland's new minions, there also won't be any long term consequences for our heroes as there might have been had Vickers actually gone to trial based on faked evidence.
Morland in his farewell scene warning Sherlock that "men like them" endanger all around them Sherlock should therefore distance himself from Joan, Sherlock considering that for a while until Joan makes nonesense of this and their last dialogue for the season being about being with their friends (Marcus, and now also Lien), could have been an emotionally satisfying rejection of the "must isolate myself in order not to doom others" idea - if not for a) the clumsy execution (Morland bringing it up in the first place) and b) the fact the show did these storybeats before, and far better, both with Sherlock and with Joan (remember her later season 3 arc, anyone?), instead of trying to shove it in the last few minutes in order to give our heroes some emotional stuff that's about them.
In conclusion: my hope for season 5 is that the reverse of the Star Trek curse holds, and the show produces at its seasons 1 and 3 levels of quality again.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-10 04:31 pm (UTC)That's also how Agatha Christie wrapped up her Hercule Poirot character. He kills a man that he knows can't be convicted of murder, then commits suicide by moving his heart pills where he can't reach them when he has his next attack. He makes a big deal about how he had to do that because once he killed someone he was afraid that he would feel he could continue to kill when he thought it necessary. Considering Agatha Christie did not do much character development in her work, it's interesting that she gave the whole "going vigilante" this much thought, while Elementary really hasn't so far.
no subject
Date: 2016-05-11 10:41 am (UTC)And yes, Elementary really doesn't seem to have thought this through.