*smooshes Elementary*
Is anyone else watching Elementary? Cause my love for this show just keeps growing.
I am very sad to see Kitty go, though I respect them going someplace with her story arc that couldn't be patched over. Too many shows (NCIS) have the characters cross major boundaries, then pretend that nothing has happened and keep the status quo (NCISNCISNCIS). I liked the fact that Elementary didn't choose either to have Kitty back down and learn her lesson and abide by the law and therefore keep her place, or to give her the catharsis the show did and pretend like she could just go back to the way things were. But I am really sad to see her go. When they first introduced her, I had a horrible sinking feeling that they were going to do a platonic love triangle--Joan must fight for Sherlock's attention against her replacement. But instead they chose to have everyone involved act like mature adults, and to give Kitty growth and depth and make her someone I wanted to watch in her own right.
What I really want to talk about, though, are two things in the episode that I found absolutely remarkable. One, that Kitty says "I love you" to Sherlock and it does not, at all, feel romantic or like unresolved sexual tension, or like Sherlock's great epic lost love. Her declaration of love fits perfectly into what the show has shown us: the depth of their friendship, and how they have helped each other. It is unusual to hear one character in a TV show tell another they love them without it being romantic, and it is frickin' unheard of for that to happen between a man and a woman, especially with the way Kitty's whole character was set up to be a love triangle cliche. Instead of feeling manipulative, like the show trying to make me care about a character that was written to be a plot wrench as has happened on many other shows (looking at you, Lois and Clark), it felt genuine and moving.
What blew my mind, though, was the scene of Sherlock crying. Sherlock listening to music and crying. Why is he crying? Not made explicitly clear. It's a week since Kitty's rejection, some time since he was fired from MI6, and even more time since he ran away from Joan. Maybe he's thinking about Irene, even though he knows now she's not dead. There is no proximate cause for his crying, he's just crying. I find this stunning because so many tropes in storytelling exist to make it socially acceptable for a man to cry. You know, the whole fridging women thing. Have to rape and murder the guy's wife or daughter to make it allowable for him to cry on screen, and it has to be made explicitly clear that this is why he is crying, so the crying is justified. Sherlock's just crying because he's crying. WAS THAT SO HARD TELEVISION? TO SHOW A MAN CRYING BECAUSE HE IS UPSET? WITHOUT HAVING TO KILL A WOMAN FIRST? I just. Mind blown.
This show had some serious missteps in its first season, especially with its frankly sexist portrayal of Joan. But somewhere in that first season the writers managed to figure out what they were doing and wrench themselves back on track, and now it's one of the only places on television I can watch an adult heterosexual platonic relationship where people disagree but aren't required to be emotional idiots for the purpose of propelling the plot. I *heart* this show so hard I can't even tell you.
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I am very sad to see Kitty go, though I respect them going someplace with her story arc that couldn't be patched over. Too many shows (NCIS) have the characters cross major boundaries, then pretend that nothing has happened and keep the status quo (NCISNCISNCIS). I liked the fact that Elementary didn't choose either to have Kitty back down and learn her lesson and abide by the law and therefore keep her place, or to give her the catharsis the show did and pretend like she could just go back to the way things were. But I am really sad to see her go. When they first introduced her, I had a horrible sinking feeling that they were going to do a platonic love triangle--Joan must fight for Sherlock's attention against her replacement. But instead they chose to have everyone involved act like mature adults, and to give Kitty growth and depth and make her someone I wanted to watch in her own right.
What I really want to talk about, though, are two things in the episode that I found absolutely remarkable. One, that Kitty says "I love you" to Sherlock and it does not, at all, feel romantic or like unresolved sexual tension, or like Sherlock's great epic lost love. Her declaration of love fits perfectly into what the show has shown us: the depth of their friendship, and how they have helped each other. It is unusual to hear one character in a TV show tell another they love them without it being romantic, and it is frickin' unheard of for that to happen between a man and a woman, especially with the way Kitty's whole character was set up to be a love triangle cliche. Instead of feeling manipulative, like the show trying to make me care about a character that was written to be a plot wrench as has happened on many other shows (looking at you, Lois and Clark), it felt genuine and moving.
What blew my mind, though, was the scene of Sherlock crying. Sherlock listening to music and crying. Why is he crying? Not made explicitly clear. It's a week since Kitty's rejection, some time since he was fired from MI6, and even more time since he ran away from Joan. Maybe he's thinking about Irene, even though he knows now she's not dead. There is no proximate cause for his crying, he's just crying. I find this stunning because so many tropes in storytelling exist to make it socially acceptable for a man to cry. You know, the whole fridging women thing. Have to rape and murder the guy's wife or daughter to make it allowable for him to cry on screen, and it has to be made explicitly clear that this is why he is crying, so the crying is justified. Sherlock's just crying because he's crying. WAS THAT SO HARD TELEVISION? TO SHOW A MAN CRYING BECAUSE HE IS UPSET? WITHOUT HAVING TO KILL A WOMAN FIRST? I just. Mind blown.
This show had some serious missteps in its first season, especially with its frankly sexist portrayal of Joan. But somewhere in that first season the writers managed to figure out what they were doing and wrench themselves back on track, and now it's one of the only places on television I can watch an adult heterosexual platonic relationship where people disagree but aren't required to be emotional idiots for the purpose of propelling the plot. I *heart* this show so hard I can't even tell you.
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comments. Comment there or here.