A Scandal in Belgravia in my pants
Finished re-watching, here are my thoughts:
Overall, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I was very worried about being disappointed, because the fandom is so great and the fics were so amazing, and I was afraid the magic wouldn't be there, but god I was completely caught in the episode, it made me forget about everything, Moffat, Gatiss, Benedict, Martin, fanon, and that's how I know how good it was. I laughed, I held my breath, I was amazed, I was thrilled, I was awed, I was shocked, I was thoroughly entertained. Also very distracted on my first viewing by how pretty Benedict looked.
tl;dr IT MADE ME FEEL A LOT OF FEELINGS
There are pros and cons about Irene, I'm on Team "Overall okay but not quite there"; I thought Lara Pulver did an amazing job (the way her voice caught and slightly broke at the end of "Look at the poor man" is still giving me chills, it was just right) but I also think I don't understand the way Moffat writes women, and apparently I'm not alone in this. Nice of him to keep trying, though.
He has a bit of a hard time selling me his female characters; I don't really care about them because I don't find them likeable. The worst example was Jekyll's wife in Jekyll, who made me want to set myself on fire while simultaneously pushing her off a cliff.
Also, I would have preferred Irene beheaded by the end. Beheaded is cool, it's a good way to die, majestic even; magically saved by Ninja!lock... not so much. Here's how it went from my point of view:
MYCROFT: Only SHERLOCK HOLMES would be able to fool me.
ME: *spider Moffat sense tingling* Oh no. I hope there is not some stupid twist in the end where he actually saved her, because that would be really lame.
JOHN: *awkward, painfully transparent lie about witness protection in America*
SHERLOCK: You're adorable John, but she totally sent me a text to say she was dead.
JOHN: What did she write?
SHERLOCK: "Kthxbai".
JOHN: Huh. How mysterious and womanly.
SHERLOCK: IKR?
ME: Ah, that's good. She's dead, John knows it (btw, srsly Mycroft, sending JOHN to tell Sherlock a lie? You did it for the lulz, didn't you?), Sherlock knew even before John, they're awkward and affectionate towards each other, everybody's heart-broken, what a deliciously depressing episode. I lo-
SCENE WHERE IRENE GETS MAGICALLY SAVED BY NINJA!LOCK HAPPENS
ME: .... Lame.
Anyway, it didn't matter ultimately, because for me Irene wasn't the star of the show at all: I'm sorry, but Mycroft took the cake. And ate it.
So much from that scene inside the plane, anger, disappointment, worry, care, sadness, failure, fuck IDEK Gatiss you killed me there.
And then the exchange with Irene afterwards; you could see two very, very smart people trying to figure each other out; that's actually the scene where I saw for the first time that she was smart, because she was treading on thin ice with Mycroft. Yes she had the upper hand, but she knew she was still dealing with the most dangerous man on earth; during the whole exchange it was like she was weighing every single word and telling herself: "One slip, one mistake, and I'm fucking dead". I think you could sense that when Mycroft proposes to destroy the phone altogether, and there is some kind of game of chicken between them... the tension was palpable, and they were completely intent on each other; equal in a way that just never really happened when she was with Sherlock -- in my eyes, anyway.
GOD I'm really excited to see what's next GIMME NAO.
tl;dr
ETA: ALSO AFTER "HAPPY NEW YEAR" I EXPECTED THEM TO KISS WHY DIDN'T THEY KISS DAMMIT!!!
Overall, I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I was very worried about being disappointed, because the fandom is so great and the fics were so amazing, and I was afraid the magic wouldn't be there, but god I was completely caught in the episode, it made me forget about everything, Moffat, Gatiss, Benedict, Martin, fanon, and that's how I know how good it was. I laughed, I held my breath, I was amazed, I was thrilled, I was awed, I was shocked, I was thoroughly entertained. Also very distracted on my first viewing by how pretty Benedict looked.
tl;dr IT MADE ME FEEL A LOT OF FEELINGS
There are pros and cons about Irene, I'm on Team "Overall okay but not quite there"; I thought Lara Pulver did an amazing job (the way her voice caught and slightly broke at the end of "Look at the poor man" is still giving me chills, it was just right) but I also think I don't understand the way Moffat writes women, and apparently I'm not alone in this. Nice of him to keep trying, though.
He has a bit of a hard time selling me his female characters; I don't really care about them because I don't find them likeable. The worst example was Jekyll's wife in Jekyll, who made me want to set myself on fire while simultaneously pushing her off a cliff.
Also, I would have preferred Irene beheaded by the end. Beheaded is cool, it's a good way to die, majestic even; magically saved by Ninja!lock... not so much. Here's how it went from my point of view:
MYCROFT: Only SHERLOCK HOLMES would be able to fool me.
ME: *spider Moffat sense tingling* Oh no. I hope there is not some stupid twist in the end where he actually saved her, because that would be really lame.
JOHN: *awkward, painfully transparent lie about witness protection in America*
SHERLOCK: You're adorable John, but she totally sent me a text to say she was dead.
JOHN: What did she write?
SHERLOCK: "Kthxbai".
JOHN: Huh. How mysterious and womanly.
SHERLOCK: IKR?
ME: Ah, that's good. She's dead, John knows it (btw, srsly Mycroft, sending JOHN to tell Sherlock a lie? You did it for the lulz, didn't you?), Sherlock knew even before John, they're awkward and affectionate towards each other, everybody's heart-broken, what a deliciously depressing episode. I lo-
SCENE WHERE IRENE GETS MAGICALLY SAVED BY NINJA!LOCK HAPPENS
ME: .... Lame.
Anyway, it didn't matter ultimately, because for me Irene wasn't the star of the show at all: I'm sorry, but Mycroft took the cake. And ate it.
So much from that scene inside the plane, anger, disappointment, worry, care, sadness, failure, fuck IDEK Gatiss you killed me there.
And then the exchange with Irene afterwards; you could see two very, very smart people trying to figure each other out; that's actually the scene where I saw for the first time that she was smart, because she was treading on thin ice with Mycroft. Yes she had the upper hand, but she knew she was still dealing with the most dangerous man on earth; during the whole exchange it was like she was weighing every single word and telling herself: "One slip, one mistake, and I'm fucking dead". I think you could sense that when Mycroft proposes to destroy the phone altogether, and there is some kind of game of chicken between them... the tension was palpable, and they were completely intent on each other; equal in a way that just never really happened when she was with Sherlock -- in my eyes, anyway.
GOD I'm really excited to see what's next GIMME NAO.
tl;dr
ETA: ALSO AFTER "HAPPY NEW YEAR" I EXPECTED THEM TO KISS WHY DIDN'T THEY KISS DAMMIT!!!