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new sherlock
I think ... I may need to watch this one again before I have a considered reaction, because I spent too much of this viewing thinking, "If I have to watch two iterations of Irene die in the space of a week, I will be incoherent with rage." And -- I don't even know if she died! The final moment, in which Sherlock happens to be there to save her from beheading, seems quite unlikely, and could very well be happening in her mind; but then, it was a very Doctor Who moment, wasn't it, and Moffat might've meant it to be real. I'll accept that it was, for the sake of my continued equilibrium, but it feels slightly dishonest.
Actually a lot of my enjoyment of this episode may be born of things I want to have happened, and I'm unsure whether they were actually intended. Or not intended! It's a bit like those times when a show throws out lots of homoeroticism but can still pretend it didn't, only Sherlock doesn't just do that bit for Sherlock/John, but also for Sherlock's possible asexuality, and for whatever the hell was going on between Sherlock and Irene. I've already come across posts in which the general reaction was "But why the hell would you have Irene be in love with him?" but I don't think that's quite it! In the original Scandal in Bohemia, of course, Irene just brushes Holmes off and goes on her merry way with her new husband, but if you're going to have her about for an hour and a half you do need to do something more with her. And I really did love lots of it, the mirroring, their mutual obsession and one-upping. Actually, as a remix of the original, it doesn't quite have fandom sensibilities but it's still quite respectful of the source: because, while it's a bit annoying that Sherlock outsmarts her here, in the original she did give up her blackmail for love, and it holds. More than that, I loved that I didn't read their attraction as sexual; they're just fascinated, because no one else can quite keep up. (This isn't to say that I didn't find the bit where Irene asks Sherlock to dinner while he checks her pulse quite sexy, because wow.) So were they supposed to be sexytimes shipped? Did Irene fall prey to sexy rather than just fascinated emotions? Did she even survive? I have no idea, but it's an ambiguity I'm willing to live with.
(Parenthetically, I'm also really relieved that, despite the fact that Irene was a dominatrix, the episode never descended into shaming or pathologizing kink, which is actually quite impressive considering how Moffat can be about ladies and sexuality -- but then, his Irene is strangely like River cranked up and fit into another universe, and he was always pretty good about her too. I'm less sure what to do about Irene's stated lesbianism, because you can certainly make a case for [a] Sherlock making her magically less gay, [b] evil lesbians, and [c] dead lesbians, and I think those are all valid arguments, but -- man, I am so completely in love with the notion of a queer Irene who has a nonsexual fascination with Sherlock, actually gets him to care about her in return enough to come for her when she gets into trouble -- which is a fucking minor miracle -- and gets away to continue doing clever morally ambiguous things that I find myself not really minding.)
Okay, Irene aside, I also have some things I loved sans ambivalence. Like MYCROFT. Dear sweet lord I love the scene in the morgue, in which Mycroft gauges Sherlock's emotional state via cigarette and then they stand there, in the dark, watching a grieving family on the other side of the glass, until Sherlock murmurs, "Look at them, caring. Do you ever wonder if there's something wrong with us?" I just. And Mycroft and John and Mrs. Hudson have a system of dealing with Sherlock at his worst. It makes my chest go tight with FEELINGS.
I also particularly loved the way the floating text was used this episode, especially in Sherlock's deductions. Everything was nearly too fast to read, nearly, except the bit where the entire world slowed down so that Sherlock could crack that bit of code in the space of a second. My favorite bit, though, was when Irene turns up naked and Sherlock can't get a read. So he checks John. Deductive skills still in place. Irene. ?????? I just, oof, weak-kneed. (What would just about kill me would be a sequence like that in the 2009 Holmes film, in which Holmes notices everything, all of it slowly crowding in on him and becoming unbearable, until the moment John Watson arrives and the world goes still. How much would I love to see Freeman and Cumberbatch do that? But then, this is Moffat's Sherlock, not Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes: Gay Gay GAY.)
On that note, though, oh my goodness Sherlock/John. John's awful inability to keep girlfriends! Jeanette the poor latest girlfriend furiously telling John that he's a wonderful boyfriend to Sherlock! Irene's calm and total assurance that Sherlock and John are a couple, which I think was my favorite, because by the time she said it, I was already on board with the notion of Sherlock/Irene as a queer relationship, in the sense that it's outside the usual romantic sexual paradigm, and yes. I mean, let's be honest, I still really want a modern Holmes where someone fucking goes there and we get onscreen Holmes/Watson makeouts, but ... I also really love the notion of a Sherlock/John relationship in which Sherlock is asexual, and loves John as well as he can while having no interest in his body and only an intellectual understanding of how feelings are supposed to work; he appreciates John's occasional usefulness on cases, and John's willingness to laugh with him about things no one else finds funny, and give him cues for appropriate social behavior. And meanwhile John would be scarily head-over-heels for Sherlock except that obviously Sherlock's not that way, and even if he was John likes women, look, he's always liked women and never fancied blokes and he's not going to start with a man who keeps heads in the fridge and treats tact like a foreign language. I AM REALLY DOWN WITH THIS.
I also think I started accidentally writing fic there, so in conclusion, Sherlock gives me astonishing amounts of feelings and it's possible that I need to write fic in which John has lots of feelings and Sherlock kisses him for science. Yep.
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It's astonishing that Sherlock has so much family (Mycroft, Mrs Hudson, John, even Irene, after a fashion) given his utter social ineptness. I love both the explicitness of John's gf calling them boyfriends, and the ambiguity of the measurements - it doesn't have to be sexual that he noticed her dimensions, but it could be. I would love exploration about how Sherlock feels about 'failing', ie the codebreaking that sinks the plot.
/ramble
In short #allthefeelings and #omgmustrewatch!!!
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As for whether or not the episode is faily when it comes to Irene. I feel that this one is really a matter for interpretation. Personally I would have loved it if Irene had beaten the Holmes boys at the end. It would have been a bit truer to the original story and wouldn't have left us all wondering whether she fell prey to sexy or not. But then I also understand that, yes it is prime time telly, and it isn't really the done thing to let your genius be defeated in the end. (even if that was the sort of the point of the original short story, the original was also just that, a short story, which just doesn't quite have the same stakes.)
I find myself in the position where I really, really enjoyed the episode while I was watching it, but then actually thinking about it afterwards I find myself worrying about things like the portrayal of Irene and whether or not the stuff they are doing with Sherlock/John is just more teasing gay subtext for the fans or if they are actually doing some proper textual queer relationship stuff. At this point I just can't tell. Although, whatever it was I do think that it was handled better than the 'Ho ho, everyone thinks we're gay' thing in the first episode of the last season.
I think what I'm mainly worried about is that, I know what I saw and I pretty much loved what I saw, but I'm not sure if what I saw was what the writers intended for me to see.
As an aside, The exchange between Irene and Watson about their respective 'feelings' for Sherlock worked for me in a sort of 'Irene points out that not all sexuality is straight up binary' way. Though, again the possibility of Fail! Sherlock: He so sexy he turns all your lesbians straight, is definitely there. BUT, then it is pointed out several times that 'brains are the new sexy'. So I can definitely buy an attraction which have nothing to do with sexuality and everything to do with a 'meeting of the minds'.
Oh so confusing!
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As far as that fic, yes please. Kisses for Science are totally valid and should be repeated to ensure proper sample sizes. And then John would be all "But Sherlock, why do you keep doing this, they don't mean anything, I don't like you like that" and Sherlock would be all "No, really *snarkface* well aren't you lucky I don't like you like that either, John. We can all rest easy. Now tilt your head to the side and count to ten".
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I would happily read that fic over and over and over again.
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See, I am in love with that too, and I am in love with the idea of the power station scene being Irene pointing out to John that you can love someone, you can effectively be a couple, even if it goes against your stated sexuality. Because he's not gay. And she is. And Sherlock is a man, and look at how they both feel!
BUT given that the entire reveal revolves around physical markers of lust, I don't think Moffat intended that reading of the scene. Which makes me want to just punch everything.
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