yours_truly | Elementary Catch-Up: 1x20

1x20 "Dead Man's Switch"

This cold open just makes me wish tattoo shops could be open so I could get my next ink 😭
Just to get my one complaint out of the way, I’ll always be sad we got a CHAS adaptation but Holmes and Watson weren’t together holding hands during the murder.
This show does Holmes as an addict sooo well, and I know I always say it but JLM's performance is so great.
THE ROBERT FROST POEM IN A PICTURE FRAME DO U EVER CRY????

1x21 "A Landmark Story"

Thor Bridge reference!
“We are not having a moment.” So classic.
As is this conversation on the bench. I melt.
Moran is so effectively creepy.

1x22 "Risk Management"

“For what it’s worth, he’s not bringing his wife either.” Like HELLO??? You know, I completely understand that the implications would be Bad if they genderbent Watson and then had a proper H/W relationship in this (or any) adaptation, as if they had to manipulate it to be hetero in order to go through with it, but my god please let Holmes and Watson just be in love y’all!!!! Rômançé!!!
“I will not allow any harm to come to you. Not ever.” “You can’t promise that.” “And yet I have.” VOWS!!?!??!?
I am such a SUCKER for male characters trying to ditch their ladies for their protection during their quest, and the female character being like How About No. love that trope yes thank you more please.
Do I ever get tired of praising JLM’s acting? Negatory! He’s so great in this final scene with the Irene reveal.

1x23 "The Woman"

Why did Natalie Dormer have to blow up like she did, good for her but I missed her on the show. That said, try and tell me her American accent for Irene in the London scene doesn’t sound like Jessica Day doing an old timey newscaster in New Girl. You can’t.
“This is your home.”
Remember when I thought this was going to be the show's Reichenbach arc? Lolllll.
What a great Moriarty reveal. Truly an inspired piece of adaptation, probably one of the cleverest things anyone has done with the canon in a long time. Both of the other prominent recent adaptations of the last decade forced Irene to be a minion of Moriarty’s. I like that Elementary went whole hog, just made them the same person. There’s something about taking Holmes' two obsessions and combining them that I enjoy. And Elementary's approach still gives Irene agency. I don’t know how to say this without coming across all #girlboss 👏🏼MORE👏🏼FEMALE👏🏼MURDEROUS👏🏼CRIME👏🏼BOSSES👏🏼 So I don’t want to claim that this is a more Feminist approach, or a more faithful adaptation, it’s just that I genuinely think this idea took one or two more minutes of thought than the devastatingly boring approaches of the Ritchie movies and BBC Sherlock. It almost becomes a commentary on these other adaptations that use Irene mostly as a Holmes no homo love interest. Was Elementary free to do this because it didn’t need to no homo Holmes since it made Watson a woman? I just, I compare this all to Sherlock especially and I’m baffled at the prestige of the one and the CBS procedural-ness of the other. Part of me wishes the writers of Elementary could have had the budget and the format of Sherlock, but there’s something about Holmes stories that almost wants to be a long running episodic procedural, despite the fact that this means that along with the highs comes some real lows. It’s baked into the thing.

1x24 "Heroine"

“Too angry to be afraid.” Joooooooan!
You know what, I actually forgot about this whole fake-out plot until pretty late in the episode. Very nice. They do such a good job setting it up with the fight between Joan and Sherlock and then cutting away.
“Would you have preferred I just killed you?” “Yes.” Gutted!!
Omg this hospital scene is so House. Let’s just have characters read descriptions of one another to one another in an intense voice! Drama!! Now there’s a Holmes adaptation I haven’t thought about in a while. It barely counts tbh. But ohhhhh that House/Wilson hurt so good. Shout out to 2008 when I wore my tinhat proudly and 100% thought that was the actual direction they were going with the show.
Joan is the only other person who can surprise Moriarty. Love to see it.
And he names a bee after her!!! ROMANCE!!!!