so. I watched Scandal in Belgravia again last night.
ETA: Much thanks to boxed, who saved my bacon when I was an idiot and let LJ have its wicked way with this post. It probably wasn't worth all my anxiety over its loss, but that doesn't make me any less grateful to her for saving it. Big thanks also to phoenikxs and mylittlepwny for answering my call of pain and rage.
And now, back to our formerly scheduled post:
In some ways, I enjoyed Scandal even more the second time through; in others, things that hardly registered the first time through seemed much more problematic. I have a feeling I'll be writing more posts about this (because two certainly isn't enough, no sir) but here are my thoughts of the moment.
1. Moffat thinks women are fundamentally different animals from men. We know this; he has said it in interviews, and we have seen it time and time again in his writing. tricksterquinn linked me to this article from the Guardian which, while I don't agree with it on every point, is pretty perceptive on Moffat's limitations when it comes to writing women. But all this is old news; we all saw what happened to River Song, who was the Doctor's The Woman - his only equal. (Or so Moffat claimed.) River and Irene are the same character - ruthlessly clever, dramatic, aggressively sexual, and undone by sentiment. When River first appears in the Library episodes, her love of the Doctor is given the shape of strength and noble self-sacrifice; by the time of the Wedding of River Song, she's a psychopath who is willing to let time itself die because she can't bear the thought of being responsible for her love's death. Now, because of the backwards nature of her narrative, we can take from this that she grows into the woman who died in that Library, but our final image of The Woman contains only her weakness, and her incredible selfishness.
2. Irene is undone by sentiment as well. After she beat him so ruthlessly (and figuratively, and literally) at the end of the bit actually intended to be an adaption of Scandal in Bohemia, there was really no practical reason to continue the association. She'd won, he'd lost, and it was over. The episode could have ended there.
But it didn't.
Instead, Irene continues the flirtation. I imagine she told herself she was playing a long game, that she was preparing him for the moment when she'd show up in Baker Street vulnerable and asleep in his bed and then give him the one puzzle no one else could solve and let him dance. But she knows what people like and Sherlock fascinates her, and Sherlock's right about this - she enjoys herself too much. She indulges in the connection between them, a true connection that may be as rare for her as it is for Sherlock. And not a purely sexual connection, not for either of them - thus the very clear parallel between Irene and John that Irene herself draws: a gay woman and a straight man both bound emotionally to a man who pretends to want no part of emotion. How much sexual desire is a part of either of those relationships is debatable.
3. Irene struck me as the sort of person who is extremely open-minded in her sexual habits (to put it mildly) but prefers personal relationships with only women, which is why I didn't immediately jump to the interpretation of Sherlock manly manliness curing her horrible LESBIANISM. I see that interpretation now and am horrified, but I'm not entirely convinced that this a character for whom genuine sexual desire for a man is really that far out of the ordinary. Whether that's because she's a person for whom the gender of her partner(s) is not terribly important or because Moffat doesn't understand what a lesbian is depends on how broad a view of the text you decide to take. Irene seems a lot less bothered than John that she feels strongly about someone outside her usual gender of choice - if we think of her as a person in the world of the show and not as a female character written by Moffat (with all that implies), that suggests she's pretty flexible about these things, and Sherlock's gender doesn't particularly matter to her. If we think of her as a portrayal of a self-described gay TV character in our modern climate of bigotry and stupidity, Moffat is being a heteronormative dickface. As ever, these things are all about context.
4. Part of the reason why I'm so tempted to defend the legitimacy of Irene's characterization is because of Lara Pulver's performance, which was magnificent. Some actors are able to give a character complexity and an honest, internal life even when the writing is against them, or simply isn't there ("Anthea" from A Study in Pink comes to mind) and Pulver definitely did that here. She felt like a actual person to me the whole way through, and because actual people often fall for emotionally-constipated assholes and almost get their heads chopped off, it took me a little while to question these things. Well, no - the ending irritated me right away. Except -
5. Here's the thing I most disagreed with in the Guardian article - emotion is not truly treated as a weakness in either Conan Doyle's work or in Sherlock. Friendship is king in both, and thus far Sherlock is a show about one thing, and one thing only: Sherlock Holmes is a great man, but will he learn to be a good one? The Great Christmas Molly Debacle was horrifying (and really quite problematic in itself) but it also showed us just how much Sherlock has changed since we (and John) first met him. After he reads the label on the gift, he turns away, like he's just going to do what he always does and pretend it didn't happen. Then he turns back and sincerely apologizes. He really didn't know the gift was for him; he probably even thought he was 'teasing' her with his horrible deductions. That apology is almost unimaginable from the man John met at Bart nearly a year before. Sherlock is changing, and his fascination with Irene is part of that. What his relationship with John (and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and Molly and the whole ridiculous 221B family) has been revealing by increments, by companionship and Bond marathons and cups of tea, Irene Adler exposed with a detonation of plastic explosives. (They're more her.) Which is why, at the end, it's so significant that Sherlock swoops in and saves the day. He says sentiment is for losers, but what else but emotion and attachment and that oh so human drive for connection could inspire such a dramatic gesture? I think that's what Moffat meant for us to take away from that ending - that Sherlock doesn't even quite believe himself when he says love is weakness.
That doesn't make Irene's damsel in distress ending any less terrible, but it does complicate things. No one could watch this episode and not see that Sherlock loves Mrs. Hudson, that he is capable of loyalty and protectiveness and empathy, but it's typical of this wonderfully imperfect, irritating show that most of these moments hinge on a woman being hurt and vulnerable - Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Irene.
But then, last series women were either invisible or simple punchlines, so maybe this is a step forward. I don't know. Sometimes I hate this show and love it in equal measure, but I'll tell you one thing I know for sure --
I can't wait until Sunday.
And now, back to our formerly scheduled post:
In some ways, I enjoyed Scandal even more the second time through; in others, things that hardly registered the first time through seemed much more problematic. I have a feeling I'll be writing more posts about this (because two certainly isn't enough, no sir) but here are my thoughts of the moment.
1. Moffat thinks women are fundamentally different animals from men. We know this; he has said it in interviews, and we have seen it time and time again in his writing. tricksterquinn linked me to this article from the Guardian which, while I don't agree with it on every point, is pretty perceptive on Moffat's limitations when it comes to writing women. But all this is old news; we all saw what happened to River Song, who was the Doctor's The Woman - his only equal. (Or so Moffat claimed.) River and Irene are the same character - ruthlessly clever, dramatic, aggressively sexual, and undone by sentiment. When River first appears in the Library episodes, her love of the Doctor is given the shape of strength and noble self-sacrifice; by the time of the Wedding of River Song, she's a psychopath who is willing to let time itself die because she can't bear the thought of being responsible for her love's death. Now, because of the backwards nature of her narrative, we can take from this that she grows into the woman who died in that Library, but our final image of The Woman contains only her weakness, and her incredible selfishness.
2. Irene is undone by sentiment as well. After she beat him so ruthlessly (and figuratively, and literally) at the end of the bit actually intended to be an adaption of Scandal in Bohemia, there was really no practical reason to continue the association. She'd won, he'd lost, and it was over. The episode could have ended there.
But it didn't.
Instead, Irene continues the flirtation. I imagine she told herself she was playing a long game, that she was preparing him for the moment when she'd show up in Baker Street vulnerable and asleep in his bed and then give him the one puzzle no one else could solve and let him dance. But she knows what people like and Sherlock fascinates her, and Sherlock's right about this - she enjoys herself too much. She indulges in the connection between them, a true connection that may be as rare for her as it is for Sherlock. And not a purely sexual connection, not for either of them - thus the very clear parallel between Irene and John that Irene herself draws: a gay woman and a straight man both bound emotionally to a man who pretends to want no part of emotion. How much sexual desire is a part of either of those relationships is debatable.
3. Irene struck me as the sort of person who is extremely open-minded in her sexual habits (to put it mildly) but prefers personal relationships with only women, which is why I didn't immediately jump to the interpretation of Sherlock manly manliness curing her horrible LESBIANISM. I see that interpretation now and am horrified, but I'm not entirely convinced that this a character for whom genuine sexual desire for a man is really that far out of the ordinary. Whether that's because she's a person for whom the gender of her partner(s) is not terribly important or because Moffat doesn't understand what a lesbian is depends on how broad a view of the text you decide to take. Irene seems a lot less bothered than John that she feels strongly about someone outside her usual gender of choice - if we think of her as a person in the world of the show and not as a female character written by Moffat (with all that implies), that suggests she's pretty flexible about these things, and Sherlock's gender doesn't particularly matter to her. If we think of her as a portrayal of a self-described gay TV character in our modern climate of bigotry and stupidity, Moffat is being a heteronormative dickface. As ever, these things are all about context.
4. Part of the reason why I'm so tempted to defend the legitimacy of Irene's characterization is because of Lara Pulver's performance, which was magnificent. Some actors are able to give a character complexity and an honest, internal life even when the writing is against them, or simply isn't there ("Anthea" from A Study in Pink comes to mind) and Pulver definitely did that here. She felt like a actual person to me the whole way through, and because actual people often fall for emotionally-constipated assholes and almost get their heads chopped off, it took me a little while to question these things. Well, no - the ending irritated me right away. Except -
5. Here's the thing I most disagreed with in the Guardian article - emotion is not truly treated as a weakness in either Conan Doyle's work or in Sherlock. Friendship is king in both, and thus far Sherlock is a show about one thing, and one thing only: Sherlock Holmes is a great man, but will he learn to be a good one? The Great Christmas Molly Debacle was horrifying (and really quite problematic in itself) but it also showed us just how much Sherlock has changed since we (and John) first met him. After he reads the label on the gift, he turns away, like he's just going to do what he always does and pretend it didn't happen. Then he turns back and sincerely apologizes. He really didn't know the gift was for him; he probably even thought he was 'teasing' her with his horrible deductions. That apology is almost unimaginable from the man John met at Bart nearly a year before. Sherlock is changing, and his fascination with Irene is part of that. What his relationship with John (and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade and Molly and the whole ridiculous 221B family) has been revealing by increments, by companionship and Bond marathons and cups of tea, Irene Adler exposed with a detonation of plastic explosives. (They're more her.) Which is why, at the end, it's so significant that Sherlock swoops in and saves the day. He says sentiment is for losers, but what else but emotion and attachment and that oh so human drive for connection could inspire such a dramatic gesture? I think that's what Moffat meant for us to take away from that ending - that Sherlock doesn't even quite believe himself when he says love is weakness.
That doesn't make Irene's damsel in distress ending any less terrible, but it does complicate things. No one could watch this episode and not see that Sherlock loves Mrs. Hudson, that he is capable of loyalty and protectiveness and empathy, but it's typical of this wonderfully imperfect, irritating show that most of these moments hinge on a woman being hurt and vulnerable - Molly, Mrs. Hudson, Irene.
But then, last series women were either invisible or simple punchlines, so maybe this is a step forward. I don't know. Sometimes I hate this show and love it in equal measure, but I'll tell you one thing I know for sure --
I can't wait until Sunday.