easy to please -- difficult to impress

• ok they got an actual lol out of me with the gas mask helmet
• It feels really cheap to have Sherlock join MI6 and then have him leave between seasons. Like, this is a whole huge thing that just happens off-screen and ultimately appears to have virtually no effect on ANYTHING. Very sloppy storytelling. I get that apparently they wanted to have Sherlock and Joan be estranged for a while, but this is such a bizarre way to do it.
• This hilariously huge Manhattan apartment that is neither rent controlled nor courtesy of Sherlock's rich daddy!!! faaaaake

• Kitty is such a good addition to the cast <3

• Honestly this plot with Sherlock and Harlan is adorable.
• Love watching Kitty and Joan navigate their relationship.

• divided custody of Clyde oh my god.
• I remember this episode! Sherlock trying to figure out love by taking to an AI through a baby doll is classic.
• “Kind of feel like hugging you right now.”
• Am I misanthropic and miserable or is it totally weird that Joan surprised her boyfriend by joining him on an overseas business trip? I think I would not be happy if a significant other did it without talking to me about it. Like, I would probably love to have them come! But to have it sprung on me without my input makes my Myers Briggs-J want to absolutely lose it.

• The casebook! 474 pages!!
• I do not love this stuff with Gregson’s daughter?

• Does this early scene count as passing the bechdel test? They're talking about Holmes but they're also talking about their jobs... always a gray area.
• I’m not a survivor so I have no idea how well they’re handling everything with Kitty, but it seems very sweet???

• Ms Hudson!!! Now can we have some Alfredo?
• Omg Sherlock reading Joan about her dating life is just soooooo House MD.
• Kitty is such bangs/hair goals.
• I just want Joan to figure out what will make herself happy. The older I get the more I identify with and admire her. Trying multiple careers, starting over, still figuring out romance. I’m seeing her very differently as a 32 year old than I did as a 24 year old.

• I give zero shits for this “poor hunted cops” stuff, Ms. Hudson and Alfredo should be regulars that we see in every episode instead of the cops.

• Alfredo!!!
• “You have your work. You have me.”
• Again, I know very little about the addict experience but this is so affecting. What an interesting angle to lean into for an adaptation. They didn’t do it for titillation or for drama like on House, but for an honest look at how addiction affects life.

• Lord I am reallllly over-identifying with Joan.
• NEVER. TALK. TO. THE. COPS.

• “I feel that I have thrived here not because of who I am, but because of who I have come to know.” What a good line. I know I joked about when the show falls into House M.D. territory with dialogue just becoming characters aggressively describing one another, but when a character shows SELF AWARENESS and does this about themself, I swoon!
• Mycroft is such a fuckweasel!!!

• I appreciate still getting a Thor Bridge adaptation even though there was already a reference.
• “I consider you to be exceptional.” This whole final conversation is so much. You know, this really does feel like watching House did in a lot of ways. Spacing out during case related stuff I really don’t care about and then squeeing over two minutes in a final scene between two leads who are obviously in love but the show wants to pretend aren’t. Takes me right back to college.

• This cold open is literally the same as the beginning of The Knight Before Christmas 😂
• While I agree with Sherlock’s premise that morality and legality are not the same thing, I have issues with his application of this in his work, and this episode is really important for teaching him a lesson about letting the means be worthy of the desired ends.
• And I love this final conversation between him and Marcus, because we get to see the sweetness and insecurity of Sherlock trying his best to be a good friend and make amends, but we also get to see the totally valid anger directed at him for his failures.

• that was... fine?

• We love a purple prose voiceover!!!
• GOD this painting of Joan, I can’t even.
• I’m of two minds about the “give Moriarty a kid thing” but i think they handle it as well as you could, and tbh this episode slaps? JLM and Natalie have great chemistry, and like I said: episodes where characters you love actually have something at stake in the A-plot always hit different than your average case of the week.

• more character work and relationship development among the cast, yes show, thank you!

• “It’s not a collage. I don’t do crafts.” LOL
• Joan gets to give Sherlock a rude awakening!
• I find Holmes’ smutty pen pal thing so charming, in contrast to the girls the show often parades around his apartment. Is it stereotypical to make her older? IDK, but the fact that Sherlock is still sort of shy and in awe of her is sweet and feels less like titillation for the audience and more like a genuine expression of “here’s a character who is unconventional and whose taste is a little bit off the beaten track” than threesomes with hot twins.
• The fake 95 Theses ahahaaa. “Those who disagree shall be vigorously tickled!”

• 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????

• 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.

• “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.

• 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.

• “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!!!!

• I don't have any deep thoughts about this one, I just like the whole thing between Joan and Sherlock about the tea.
• Oh shoot I forgot about this ending scene. "If there's someplace else you have to be..." "Not tonight, Watson." I am such a sucker for characters silently supporting each other with their presence. He's not there 'cause he wants to meet the ex, he's there for her. ;___;

• ugh the sisters thing. did they tone down this stuff later in the show? it's so tedious.
• CASTERLY ROCK SECURITY. Is that an ASOIAF reference or is casterly rock something else too?
• Sherlock is so pushy but so sweet, and so sincere underneath the bluster!

• You know, I had forgotten about (or my memory underplayed) the show's penchant for letting Sherlock be a sexist dickhead but allowing Joan to comment on his misogyny, thereby having their cake and eating it too. My tolerance is not as great as it was in 2012.
• In general I find that I have less patience for cop procedurals now than I did in my early- and mid-20s. (Says the girl who got an X-Files tattoo last year...) Maybe I just OD'd on Bones and Criminal Minds? But even B99 exhausts me a little these days. As my politics have radicalized, I genuinely do have a harder time sitting through ~*copaganda*~. TXF is so far removed from any semblance of real-life criminal justice that it doesn't feel the same, but sometimes I watch all these police characters talking to each other and I just instinctively want to turn them off. IDK, it's a complicated feeling. 
• Crossover of this episode with The Americans, tbh. (Which I never did finish...)
• My dear Watson. <3

• "Reflection is for mirrors, can't you just hand me a report card?" Oh man I wish I had used this while working on my masters. 
• Random appearances from therapists is such a weird procedural staple. Well, actually lazy. "I need to have my main character verbalize or realize something, and I can't come up with an organic way to make it happen in the story. Time for a counseling scene!"
• "I'm gonna miss this. Working with you. I think what you do is amazing." His shocked face!!
• "I go where he goes, remember?" Wahhh!
• I have no attachment to the revenge thing for Holmes, but kudos as always for JLM's performance.
•  haaaaaands and the "I'm gonna miss this" callback, that's good tv!!!

Well, at this point I've been pretty thoroughly spoiled by gifsets on tumblr, but they've also really inspired me to commit to catching up. If I blog it, I know I'm more likely to actually accomplish this catch-up. So away we go:

 ~*~

From the very first scene with Joan jogging, I love this show’s commitment to a sense of place. You can tell they actually shoot in NYC unlike most shows that take place there. Building a strong sense of place is a way of staying true to the Holmes stories. The books are HEAVILY rooted in Victorian England (specially London most of the time). They are a mood. They are almost the quintessential example of the setting. To honor that, you don’t have to stay in Victorian London, but I think a good Holmes adaptation should place a high priority on really sinking the characters and the audience into wherever (and whenever) they are.

This intro between Holmes and Watson is unfortunately not very strong. Holmes is not making a deduction, he’s making a prediction, and it’s just… not realistic. Guessing a long line of a show's dialogue verbatim is not a matter of observation and logic. Plus, it's inconsequential. And they’re making their female lead, their POV character, uncomfortable via unexpected and unwanted romantic advances. By all means discomfit your lead! That's not a bad thing to do in a pilot! But it’s the male gaze that makes it take this particular form and I don’t like it! Thank god the show gets better.

(JLM looks hot tho. Sry not sry.)

I love how taking Holmes’ beekeeping hobby out of the context of his rural retirement turns it into just one of his weird idiosyncrasies. Like… “Urban beekeeping. Sure. Why not.”

HE IS SO ENCHANTED ALREADY BY HER INTELLIGENCE. HE LIIIIIKES HER.

“You’re done here. Go wait in the car.” Seriously, seeing a Watson who doesn’t fawn over their Holmes, making excuses for them, is so cool. Starting out with an antagonistic relationship is a unique take that I like. Their association is involuntary, also contrary to most adaptations. They move pretty quickly to getting along both personally and professionally, but this moment (and also the scene where Watson refuses to be charmed by Holmes’ deduction of her past) are important.

The fact that Watson thinks the car crash was all part of a plan is *chef’s kiss* humor. His abashed face!

This scene where Watson discovers a break in the case because a file happened to spill open is sloppy writing.

Alas and farewell, Detective Abreu. We hardly knew you.

Joan and her Mets hat <3333 Holmes puts her coat on for her <333333

Overall, if I’m being honest, this was kind of an uneven debut. There’s not much in the writing that brings it beyond most police procedurals. In my opinion, JLM and Lucy Liu’s performances are what elevate this. They both bring a fantastic vulnerability and yet... tartness? to Holmes and Watson. They are committed to making this a character study as much as a serial mystery show. And of course there’s the way they’re playing with the Holmes mythology by altering the setting and casting Lucy as Watson. I’m also remembering now how much I lamented the show’s decision not to have Watson be a practicing doctor. As I go through the re-watch I want to see how I feel about having her become a detective, because I don’t remember much about how that played into the show and her character, and it's another unique piece of this adaptation.