Haptic
- Getting this out of the way first: I'm not thrilled by the Moriarty as serial killer/assassin thing, and I'm not thrilled by Irene being (apparently) fridged for the sake of Sherlock's manpain. I have my doubts that Irene's actually dead: maybe her body was one of the ones that was never recovered, and it's entirely possibly her death was faked via banked blood. But the story avenues left open by either option aren't tremendously interesting to me. If Irene is alive, it's extraordinarily cruel, and there better be a good reason for her fake death. If said reason is betrayal, again, that's not a story avenue I'm especially interested in because ugh, manpain.
- The thing is, I'm okay with Sherlock's manpain being addiction-focused, because that's a thing that's legitimately about him and the narrative has thus far not really made it All About Him in a manpain-y way. What I mean by that is, there wasn't much focus on Irene's death sending him spiraling into addiction, and I liked that. With this new direction, I'm much more wary of this turning into the Sherlock Holmes Manpain Hour with bonus tedious revenge quest against Moriarty. It's boring, because it's been done by so many other shows. I don't need Elementary to turn into the Mentalist 2.0 with an endless quest for revenge against Red John/Moriarty. The demands of network television inevitably leech all dramatic tension from such conflicts when they get dragged on for seasons and seasons.
- THAT SAID, what a terrific, tense hour of television. Jonny Lee Miller was really, really excellent. I loved how disquieting his preternatural calm was, and how it was evident from the moment he saw the crime scene. It made the moments where his calm cracked all the more intense, because his calm didn't crack into anger, it instead shattered into a quiet brokenness that was pretty difficult to see. I'm not surprised Joan made the choice she did, faced with that.
- Speaking of Joan, I tentatively like that this is how she's chosen to stay, because she made the choice, and she made the choice out of pure friendship. When she got Sherlock's dad's message that he didn't want to keep her on, she could have walked away. Her professional obligation had ended. She might justify it to herself as wanting to make sure Sherlock doesn't relapse again whether or not she's getting paid, but I think the moment at the police station shows that's not it.
- SPEAKING OF THAT MOMENT OH MY GOD. Auuughhh such gorgeous nuance. From the moment Sherlock said most of what humans have to say to each other is communicated haptically, I knew to pay attention to body language and touch. Which made Joan's decision to stand up, sit by Sherlock, and touch his arm gloriously, beautifully deliberate. One thing I love about Elementary is how much it relies on nuance and the skill of Lucy Liu and JLM to communicate character, and this moment was an excellent example. Sherlock deliberately echoed Watson's earlier words about "missing this," and Joan seemingly deliberately recalled Sherlock's earlier comment and decided to communicate without words, haptically. Joan started the scene at a professional distance, reminiscent of her therapist. She ended it sitting close to Sherlock. And too, it nicely echoed the moment when Sherlock chose to sit with her when she was waiting for Liam. I think that's a nicely subtle way of showing that their relationship is past companion/client.
- That said, I wonder how long Joan's lie will hold up. She has to know she can't keep it from Sherlock of all people for long. And, y'know, she's not getting paid. Presumably she will need cash flow eventually.
- I did note that on her phone, the message came from "M. Holmes." If Sherlock's father is Moriarty, I will be...I don't even know. It would be kind of hilarious, but also really terrible.
- I think Sherlock's turn to the dark side was meant to evoke a relapse without a relapse. The high of his clarity of purpose, the low of realizing it didn't fix anything and that he wasn't certain about his actions. In that context, Joan's actions make even more sense, because you can see she reacts to it like she would a relapse or threatened relapse rather than completely freaking out at Sherlock turning so quickly to murder.
- Idk, as tense as this foray into a Moriarty arc was, I don't think I'm ever going to be super happy about Moriarty as some grand overarching villain. Some variation of this has been done so often, and it's usually just so much manpain and contrived twistiness. I was kind of hoping Elementary's Moriarty would just be a more or less mundane crime lord who likes baiting Sherlock every so often. For this version of Sherlock and Joan though, I'm more than willing to stick with it.
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