Elementary 2.04

[selenak]

Okay, show, that was fabulous. You're forgiven the gross propaganda exercise that was 2.03.



The episode picks up several elements that were in the first season - victim-becomes-killer, parallels between Holmes and said characters, hinted at backstory about teenage Sherlock - and not only pushed them further but did them better. Which was only possible because this is the second season, and this Holmes is one who's gone through the experience of friendship with Watson, sponsoring by Alfredo and the whole N.A. process.

Last season, there was an episode - the first one where Holmes mentions being bullied (and because he does so as part of an interrogation, the audience, like Watson, couldn't be sure whether he was telling the truth or using a story to get a confession) both striking and uneven because the moment it turned out the teenager who'd been kidnapped as a child was also masterminding serial killings nowadays, the episode lost all sympathy for him and he was henceforth an evil mastermind. Whereas here, both abused children turned patricides - Abigail in the past, Graham in the present - are presented sympathetically throughout.

The backstory part - Abigail as the first murderer Sherlock ever "met" (via being pen pals, but still), that he figured it out but also didn't say anything because he understood why she did it - really works with this Holmes and his particular loathing for any abuses of power/exploitation of people, and as a way to explain why he became a detective. At the same time, the present day past also adresses the show's ethics. I could see Abigail confessing to the murder she didn't do coming, but that doesn't mean it wasn't the right resolution. The tag scene, Holmes' conversation with Graham, as I said pin pointed a difference between s1 and s2 Holmes. S1 Holmes would only have left it at "I'll be watching you"; s2 Holmes offers himself as someone to talk to independently from the crime issue because he knows the help he in the pilot didn't want to believe he needed was necessary. I have no idea whether or not we'll ever see Graham again, but it could be good, because becoming someone else's sponsor, and what Holmes is offering isn't dissimilar, would be a logical step in his arc.

In other news: the writers clearly have fun with the recurring hints about Holmes' dabbling in the S/M scene as a submissive. I liked that it's never made a big deal of. Though fanfic could have fun with his other old pal the dominatrix. (For a man who supposedly had no friends pre Joan, he actually has a lot of those.) I also appreciated the show owner wasn't vilified; his desire not to readily hand over names of his clients to the cops was presented as understandable.

Comments

[jesuswasbatman]

I haven't seen any Elementary yet, but this sounds like a remarkable comparison with Sherlock. Because Sherlock seems more and more to me like a bullied nerd's bitter, misanthropic revenge fantasy, about what it would be like to live in a universe where intelligent people were given proper respect and they were the lords of school society and allowed to piss down on everyone else.

[selenak]

re: Sherlock, without claiming in any way expertise, since I watched each of the episodes only once and many months ago, so may have forgotten a lot, my own impression is that it at times is that show though at other times makes an effort not to be. Mind you, even one of those efforts - Lestrade's line that Sherlock is a great man, and that he hopes one day will be a good one - still go a bit in that direction involuntarily.

re: Elementary, that's one of the reasons why I like the show so much - it by no means devalues individuality, but forging connections and reaching out are treated as virtues (and not just in the Holmes-Watson relationship), and there is no either/or between intellect or emotion; you can see Watson learning the Holmesian method of deduction, in action, without losing her emotions, and Holmes doesn't become a lesser detective by reaching out to people. The young sociopath last season was a bit Sherlock-if-he-didn't-care-about-justice-or-victims but that episode was, as I mentioned, uneven in how it treated the character before and after the reveal that he's a killer now. Otoh, they did it well with their Moriarty; one card Moriarty plays is the "you and I are the only geniuses able to get each other and to understand" pitch, and that the whole narrative of the show rejects that - not only because Watson, Gregson and Bell all understand Holmes pretty well, but also because Moriarty's belief in the specialness of genius makes it possible for Watson so blindside and defeat her.

(Again, in fairness to Sherlock, their Moriarty evidently did not count on their Sherlock asking Molly for help, which is a bit similar.)

Here, in this episode, the experience of powerlessness, having been bullied as a child/teenager is shown to have influenced Elementary's Holmes to a degree, but in a different way; it founds his particular loathing for power abuse, and it allows him to connect to the two characters in the episode who were both driven to murder by physical abuse. Neither of whom is a genius.

[lilacsigil]

I really enjoyed this episode too, especially the scenes of Holmes reaching out as a boy to try to find escape in analysing a murderous penpal (who was herself horribly abused) and in the end, using both her and his own experiences to reach out to a boy who had been through something much worse. I think that the difference between Joan as his friend and his wider network of friends is that he has a particular persona with his wider circle, which he enjoys, but at the same time is not the same thing as letting his brain hang open for Joan.

Oh, and I *really* respected that they were careful to avoid saying school bullying is as bad as being sexually abused by your father while still pointing out the commonality of powerlessness.

[selenak]

Oh, good point about the persona and that being the difference to his relatonship with Joan.

In additon to appreciating all the things you name, I also thought that the episode did well by letting Abigail make her own decision. Both in the sense that she was the one deciding to make the fake confession in order to protect Graham, and in the sense that while tried at first to dissuade her, in the end Holmes respected that and didn't act against it. While, as you said, acting based on it in how he approached Graham afterwards.