"you use me, yet you do not trust me." | a hounds of baskerville review.
So I got caught up in my semester finals and I have a paper to finish writing on Rear Window, but I'm taking a moment to post this review before Fall airs because HOLY SHIT, HOUNDS.
Mark Gatiss, you goddamn brilliant motherfucker. This is going to be nine parts flailing glee and one part actual criticism, because the entire episode was fabulous on a number of levels - the plot adaptation was gorgeous, the scenery absolutely beautiful, and dear god Sherlock and John's relationship has taken a notch or two upwards in every direction ever.
Gatiss' writing is dazzling, for one thing, and for another his adaptation of the original is incredibly creative - the frequent shout-outs to canon are utterly delightful (HARPOON), and there were possibly more in this episode than there were in any other before. I was especially interested in the ways in which he kept subtly subverting and altering the canon storyline - H.O.U.N.D., and Stapleton/Barrymore/Mortimer/Frankland, and the rather understated way the attempts on Henry's life were translated from physical danger to a slow gnawing at his sanity. I'm not sure I enjoy the change from Baskerville Manor to a military base; I quite liked the old legends and the mythology aspect of ACD's story, and this realistic setting stripped the story flat out of that, which is a shame. (On the other hand, the Grimpen mire being changed to the Grimpen minefield is a piece of sheer brilliance.)
I have a lot of love for the opening sequence - not so much Cumberbatch's manic, hammy acting at the very beginning, but the Cluedo reference and Sherlock Not Getting It, as well as their combined gleeful conclusion of Client! before we skip to Henry Knight, are rather delightful. Piece of new canon to work with, and a lovely little moment of joint deduction between the boys.
Interestingly, there's a parralel between Hounds and the last episode of Gatiss's I've seen and reviewed, which was Doctor Who's Night Terrors. Night Terrors wasn't just a frightening story; it was a story about fright on a creative, life-threatening level, about the way our imagination gives reality and physicality to our fears, challenges our regular perceptions. Hounds hinges around some of the same themes; in it, fear challenges reality, challenges known perceptions of reality, creates a disruption in the established rules. It creates a disruption in Sherlock. The real fear here is not that of concrete events - the hound - but of the mind: it is Sherlock being scared of losing himself, of losing his logic, of losing his mind. Applied to what we know of Sherlock Holmes as a concept - to the cliché of Sherlock Holmes, reasoning machine - this becomes unnaturally disturbing. It has the potential to alter him absolutely.
Which is doubly interesting, considering the way we are shown his mind in this - they've upped the writing-on-the-screen concept both in the 'mind palace' and in the 'hacking into the fucking CIA files' sequences, and it gives us an actual perspective into the ways his brain, his trails of thought, might function. (One of these days, I'm going to have to finish writing that android!Sherlock story - the passage in which we see him analysing the computer data at lightspeed plays right into that.)
The dichotomy between that, between this entirely analytical, mechanical passage and his brilliant scene by the fireplace, in which, as he says, his body betrays him - it gives us two versions of Sherlock, two extremes between which he constantly balances, between what he wants to be (as in, absolutely detached from human sentiment and human weakness) and what he fears being (becoming something controlled by what he has no power on). And we are also shown yet another extreme in Bob Frankland, whose amorality comes to the help of his scientific need for answers and results, much in the same way Sherlock's mind constantly aches for a case, and much in the same way he uses John plainly and frankly to come to his final conclusions. Frankland, like Irene and like Moriarty, is a mirror put up to Sherlock - to Sherlock's ethics, to Sherlock's mind - and a reflection of what he might become. Of course, in the course of this season, Sherlock has to find an equilibrium between these extremes, and what this presages for The Reichenbach Fall is absolutely tentalising.
And, man, if Scandal was an episode about Sherlock and love - about Sherlock as he learns to care - then Hound is an episode about Sherlock and John; it's the story of the two of them as an item, as a pair, as two halves of a whole, as two very flawed, very damaged people who endlessly misunderstand each other and endlessly recreate their relationship into something newer, something ever brighter. It's not even chemistry by this point, and it's not even subtext - it's not text either; it's something else entirely.
S1 was primarily about the ways they learn each other; in my Scandal review, I've mentioned that they have gotten past this stage, and that they now know each other very, very well. But in this, the two of them complete each other perfectly; they bounce off each other purely on instinct, as though they had become so very comfortable in their shared existence that it hadn't occured to them they might do differently. Specifically, one piece of dialogue with Fletcher struck me - they are then outside the village hostel they're staying in, while Sherlock attempts to convince the tour guide to provide them (and us) with evidence as to the hound's existence.
Sherlock's pretension that he and John have got a bet going on, in order to better influence Fletcher into answering his inquiries, is a lovely little nod to the Granada adaptation of The Blue Carbuncle, in which Holmes claims to have bet Watson a fiver (Gatiss is taking the change in money value into account, amusingly) that a certain type of geese is farm-bred. (This isn't quite what happened in ACD's short story - Holmes does mention a bet, but it isn't with Watson - so I would definitely assume that Gatiss took his inspiration from Granada; it's another meta reference in an episode that is already rife enough with them.)
Granada!Watson catches on rather slowly, but BBC!John takes the manoeuvre entirely in stride, without a hitch in step as he sits down at the table with his pint of beer, and he provides a reasonable explanation for it, which Sherlock had entirely disregarded. The two of them work together perfectly, in that moment. It would seem that they have truly become partners in Sherlock's consulting business - John speaks of them as a "we", as a matching set: without either of them, the machine would break down.
(Oh, Reichenbach is going to shatter that man's heart. Both of their hearts.)
As for their fight - well, we've been shown fights in fics, be they arguments, break-ups or physical fights - but in canon they pretty much never actually turn their backs onto each other, so it is rather fascinating to study how Gatiss shaped that. The fireplace sequence is the flip side to their relationship, really; Sherlock stuck in an overly-emotional state, John forced to take the reasonable position, to be the one who says Um, look, Sherlock, we have to be rational about this, okay? Just - that was brilliant, Gatiss, okay, can we have more scenes like that?
There's been a lot of ink written on Sherlock's sweetly absurd little quip of I don't have friends, John. I just have one. Because it's not true, of course it isn't: Sherlock does have people he cares for and who care for him outside of John, yet he finds it necessary to tell John that he is the most important person in his life. At the same time, he's filched some sugar from Henry's cupboards and is already planning on experimenting on John over at the labs - it's fascinating, the way he holds such affection for his friend and yet does not hesitate for a single second before manipulating him to the point of cruelty. It's a lovely little spin on Holmes' own manipulation of Watson in HOUN, and it gives stark significance to Watson's original You use me, yet you do not trust me. Whichever 'verse they're in, it seems they never really stop misunderstanding each other.
Nevertheless, the episode does a good job of confirming what the fandom had already sussed out: that John remains, through and through, Sherlock's heart - he's his morality, his conscience, his guide through the strange land of Emotions Sherlock Holmes finds himself stranded in. I can't have been the only one to be chuffed beyond reason when Sherlock asks him Not Good? after John groans at his waxing rhapsodic over the case, down in Dewer's Hollow - I imagine they have a rating system, some sort of chart, a spreadsheet divided between Good and Not So Good, Sherlock, Damnit, We Talked About This taped to the fridge. They would.
This was an episode truly worthy of TGG. Cheers, Mark.
tl;dr: Oh, boys.
Mark Gatiss, you goddamn brilliant motherfucker. This is going to be nine parts flailing glee and one part actual criticism, because the entire episode was fabulous on a number of levels - the plot adaptation was gorgeous, the scenery absolutely beautiful, and dear god Sherlock and John's relationship has taken a notch or two upwards in every direction ever.
Gatiss' writing is dazzling, for one thing, and for another his adaptation of the original is incredibly creative - the frequent shout-outs to canon are utterly delightful (HARPOON), and there were possibly more in this episode than there were in any other before. I was especially interested in the ways in which he kept subtly subverting and altering the canon storyline - H.O.U.N.D., and Stapleton/Barrymore/Mortimer/Frankland, and the rather understated way the attempts on Henry's life were translated from physical danger to a slow gnawing at his sanity. I'm not sure I enjoy the change from Baskerville Manor to a military base; I quite liked the old legends and the mythology aspect of ACD's story, and this realistic setting stripped the story flat out of that, which is a shame. (On the other hand, the Grimpen mire being changed to the Grimpen minefield is a piece of sheer brilliance.)
I have a lot of love for the opening sequence - not so much Cumberbatch's manic, hammy acting at the very beginning, but the Cluedo reference and Sherlock Not Getting It, as well as their combined gleeful conclusion of Client! before we skip to Henry Knight, are rather delightful. Piece of new canon to work with, and a lovely little moment of joint deduction between the boys.
Interestingly, there's a parralel between Hounds and the last episode of Gatiss's I've seen and reviewed, which was Doctor Who's Night Terrors. Night Terrors wasn't just a frightening story; it was a story about fright on a creative, life-threatening level, about the way our imagination gives reality and physicality to our fears, challenges our regular perceptions. Hounds hinges around some of the same themes; in it, fear challenges reality, challenges known perceptions of reality, creates a disruption in the established rules. It creates a disruption in Sherlock. The real fear here is not that of concrete events - the hound - but of the mind: it is Sherlock being scared of losing himself, of losing his logic, of losing his mind. Applied to what we know of Sherlock Holmes as a concept - to the cliché of Sherlock Holmes, reasoning machine - this becomes unnaturally disturbing. It has the potential to alter him absolutely.
Which is doubly interesting, considering the way we are shown his mind in this - they've upped the writing-on-the-screen concept both in the 'mind palace' and in the 'hacking into the fucking CIA files' sequences, and it gives us an actual perspective into the ways his brain, his trails of thought, might function. (One of these days, I'm going to have to finish writing that android!Sherlock story - the passage in which we see him analysing the computer data at lightspeed plays right into that.)
The dichotomy between that, between this entirely analytical, mechanical passage and his brilliant scene by the fireplace, in which, as he says, his body betrays him - it gives us two versions of Sherlock, two extremes between which he constantly balances, between what he wants to be (as in, absolutely detached from human sentiment and human weakness) and what he fears being (becoming something controlled by what he has no power on). And we are also shown yet another extreme in Bob Frankland, whose amorality comes to the help of his scientific need for answers and results, much in the same way Sherlock's mind constantly aches for a case, and much in the same way he uses John plainly and frankly to come to his final conclusions. Frankland, like Irene and like Moriarty, is a mirror put up to Sherlock - to Sherlock's ethics, to Sherlock's mind - and a reflection of what he might become. Of course, in the course of this season, Sherlock has to find an equilibrium between these extremes, and what this presages for The Reichenbach Fall is absolutely tentalising.
And, man, if Scandal was an episode about Sherlock and love - about Sherlock as he learns to care - then Hound is an episode about Sherlock and John; it's the story of the two of them as an item, as a pair, as two halves of a whole, as two very flawed, very damaged people who endlessly misunderstand each other and endlessly recreate their relationship into something newer, something ever brighter. It's not even chemistry by this point, and it's not even subtext - it's not text either; it's something else entirely.
S1 was primarily about the ways they learn each other; in my Scandal review, I've mentioned that they have gotten past this stage, and that they now know each other very, very well. But in this, the two of them complete each other perfectly; they bounce off each other purely on instinct, as though they had become so very comfortable in their shared existence that it hadn't occured to them they might do differently. Specifically, one piece of dialogue with Fletcher struck me - they are then outside the village hostel they're staying in, while Sherlock attempts to convince the tour guide to provide them (and us) with evidence as to the hound's existence.
Sherlock's pretension that he and John have got a bet going on, in order to better influence Fletcher into answering his inquiries, is a lovely little nod to the Granada adaptation of The Blue Carbuncle, in which Holmes claims to have bet Watson a fiver (Gatiss is taking the change in money value into account, amusingly) that a certain type of geese is farm-bred. (This isn't quite what happened in ACD's short story - Holmes does mention a bet, but it isn't with Watson - so I would definitely assume that Gatiss took his inspiration from Granada; it's another meta reference in an episode that is already rife enough with them.)
Granada!Watson catches on rather slowly, but BBC!John takes the manoeuvre entirely in stride, without a hitch in step as he sits down at the table with his pint of beer, and he provides a reasonable explanation for it, which Sherlock had entirely disregarded. The two of them work together perfectly, in that moment. It would seem that they have truly become partners in Sherlock's consulting business - John speaks of them as a "we", as a matching set: without either of them, the machine would break down.
(Oh, Reichenbach is going to shatter that man's heart. Both of their hearts.)
As for their fight - well, we've been shown fights in fics, be they arguments, break-ups or physical fights - but in canon they pretty much never actually turn their backs onto each other, so it is rather fascinating to study how Gatiss shaped that. The fireplace sequence is the flip side to their relationship, really; Sherlock stuck in an overly-emotional state, John forced to take the reasonable position, to be the one who says Um, look, Sherlock, we have to be rational about this, okay? Just - that was brilliant, Gatiss, okay, can we have more scenes like that?
There's been a lot of ink written on Sherlock's sweetly absurd little quip of I don't have friends, John. I just have one. Because it's not true, of course it isn't: Sherlock does have people he cares for and who care for him outside of John, yet he finds it necessary to tell John that he is the most important person in his life. At the same time, he's filched some sugar from Henry's cupboards and is already planning on experimenting on John over at the labs - it's fascinating, the way he holds such affection for his friend and yet does not hesitate for a single second before manipulating him to the point of cruelty. It's a lovely little spin on Holmes' own manipulation of Watson in HOUN, and it gives stark significance to Watson's original You use me, yet you do not trust me. Whichever 'verse they're in, it seems they never really stop misunderstanding each other.
Nevertheless, the episode does a good job of confirming what the fandom had already sussed out: that John remains, through and through, Sherlock's heart - he's his morality, his conscience, his guide through the strange land of Emotions Sherlock Holmes finds himself stranded in. I can't have been the only one to be chuffed beyond reason when Sherlock asks him Not Good? after John groans at his waxing rhapsodic over the case, down in Dewer's Hollow - I imagine they have a rating system, some sort of chart, a spreadsheet divided between Good and Not So Good, Sherlock, Damnit, We Talked About This taped to the fridge. They would.
This was an episode truly worthy of TGG. Cheers, Mark.
tl;dr: Oh, boys.