Elementary 2.04
Oct. 27th, 2013 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOkay, 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.
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.
