A Scandal in Belgravia: The Review
I wasn’t going to do this, but a friend asked me where my review of “A Scandal in Belgravia” was. I do hate to let down friends, and it was a rather jam packed episode that contained so much to love and at the same time, so much to wince over. This, however, is not really a review. This is perhaps more of an analysis, or a defence, or just simply an attempt by me to put onto paper what I finally think this episode is all about, and what this episode is about is not what it might appear to be about.
So….
The Detective and The Woman: What’s love got to do with it?
Or… Why I don’t Hate this Episode
There is a lot in this episode, far more than perhaps initially meets the eye. Or, maybe - and actually, most probably - I could be reading too much into it. On the other hand, I must hand it to Moffat that there is - purposefully or otherwise - a lot to read into.
A lot has been said, ranted and complained about by and in the fandom in the past week, especially in regards to the ending - a strong woman on her knees needing to be rescued by the male protagonist. Is this just an example of Moffat’s usual stereotypical sexism? Was it just a bit of fun? Or was it more than that? And what is this episode really about? Is it Sherlock vs Irene? A man vs a woman? Or is it something else entirely?
Well, I think it is something else entirely. I don’t think it is about gender, or sexuality, or power, or Sherlock beating Irene, in fact I don’t think this episode is about Irene at all. This episode is all about Sherlock. Even the ending. Irene is a catalyst, a foil, a complication, but this story isn’t about her, or really even her relationship with Sherlock, this is about the dual character of human nature within Sherlock. This episode is quite simply, reason vs emotion in Sherlock. Other characters partly at least represent either reason or emotion or both, so it is easy to start thinking that the dual nature is external; Sherlock vs Irene, Sherlock vs Moriarty, Sherlock vs Mycroft, Irene vs John, but actually the nature is internal, and throughout the episode Sherlock wrestles with the two.
So what am I actually talking about? Let me start, hopefully, at the beginning, and pose the first significant question; why was Sherlock chosen to retrieve the photographs?
Sherlock vs Mycroft
Mycroft: I’ll be mother
Sherlock: And there is a whole childhood in a nutshell.
Mycroft starts by hiring Sherlock to retrieve the photographs. The question is why? Why Sherlock? The obvious answer is because it involves leg work (which Mycroft doesn’t do), by someone necessarily unattached to either the Royal Family or the British Government, who has a proven track record. Sherlock even asks why not the police or the Secret Service, which leads to a wonderful response by Mycroft:
Mycroft: This is a matter of the highest security, and therefore of trust.
John: You don’t trust your own Secret Service?
Mycroft: Natural not. They all spy on people for money.
So this is at least about trust and more. Bond Air gets leaked by an MOD man who took his clothes off. At the time of Mycroft engaging Sherlock his biggest issue was getting his baby brother to put his clothes on. Sherlock’s lack of concern over his lack of attire and the possibility of nudity is incredibly child-like and totally non sexual. In fact, much of his relationship and interaction with his brother is petty and child-like.
Mycroft: We are in Buckingham Palace, the very heart of the British nation. Sherlock Holmes, put your trousers on!
Sherlock: What for?
Mycroft: This is a matter of national importance. Grow up.
Sherlock: Get off my sheet!
Mycroft: Or what?
Sherlock: Or I’ll just walk away.
Mycroft: I’ll let you.
Mycroft: Don’t be alarmed. It’s to do with sex.
Sherlock: Sex doesn’t alarm me.
Mycroft: How would you know?
And that right there is the reason why Mycroft at least thought Sherlock would be the ideal person to investigate. Who would be the most likely person not to be blinded by Irene’s charms, looks and persona? How about a child-like, possibly autistic, rejecter of the body and emotions, king of the intellect, sociopathic, probable asexual or repressed homosexual? That is also Mycroft’s biggest mistake, because for everything Sherlock claims to be, he is as susceptible to praise, adoration and interest as the next person, especially if done intellectually. Just look at John Watson, the first person to say that his deductions were ‘amazing’ rather than ‘piss off’.
Mycroft: That’s all it takes: one lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special.
Mycroft: The damsel in distress. In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption; then give him a puzzle… and watch him dance.
For all his own intelligence, Sherlock is Mycroft’s blind spot. He trusts his brother enough to ask him to do this when he doesn’t trust the Secret Service and in the end he suffers the consequences.
Irene: On this phone I’ve got secrets, pictures and scandals that could topple your whole world. You have no idea how much havoc I can cause and exactly one way to stop me - unless you want to tell your masters that your biggest security leak is your own little brother.
When he gets that text from Moriarty he is shown to be physically broken. Why? Because his Coventry plans now lay in ruins? Or also because the trust he put in his brother turned out to be misplaced?
Mycroft: I drove you into her path. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.
Perhaps Mycroft’s mistake was not that he had trusted Sherlock, but that he hadn’t seen that Sherlock was just as human as the next man.
Sherlock: Look at them. They all care so much. Do you ever wonder if there’s something wrong with us?
Mycroft: All lives end. All hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock.
The Iceman and The Virgin. Mycroft’s cool facade cracks only when he’s around Sherlock, and Sherlock isn’t as immune to emotion as he likes to think. The scene at Battersea Power Station and the scene following showed it all. It started with a faceoff between two of the people Sherlock most cares about: Irene and John. It then goes on to show Sherlock’s reaction and then his response to Mrs Hudson being attacked. For someone who claims to not care there are three people right there that he cares about.
Sherlock vs Irene
So Sherlock and Irene, in what way does he care?
Moffat and Gatiss have been very clear that this is more a story of Sherlock and love than Sherlock in love. Seems rather fair as there are many types of love shown in this episode: brotherly love in the way Mycroft contacted John to look after Sherlock and then creates the lie that Irene is still alive; between John and Sherlock as once again John loses a relationship for the sake of Sherlock and then threatens Irene for the role she played in Sherlock’s emotional state; between Molly and Sherlock, unrequited and abused; and then between Irene and Sherlock, perhaps the most complicated one of all.
Sherlock and Irene are on one hand very similar people, and on the other hand are almost polar opposites. It is made very quickly apparent that Sherlock is set up to be the reason and Irene is set up to be the emotion. This is where a lot of the gender based complaints come in, as reason is most often seen as a male trait and emotion a female trait, but it’s actually far, far more complicated than that.
Let’s have a quick look at Irene first. She is a woman who knows how to play the game. She can make someone believe something that isn’t true. That’s her job. That’s her life. She’s a dominatrix. She figures out what people desire, physically, and then gives it to them. If necessary she then takes those physical, emotional needs and takes advantage of them, turning them into the other person’s weakness. She has made a career out of it. She’s more than just good at it, she’s also intelligent with and at it.
She is also someone who is not likely to back away from a challenge. And Sherlock Holmes is nothing if not a challenge.
Here is a man who is all reason. He has rejected his emotional and physical sides and concentrates on his rational side. To break Sherlock’s composure would be delicious to her. To know she was able to bring a man like Sherlock to his knees and beg, twice, would be the ultimate triumph. It has nothing to do with sex and nothing to do with power. This is about understanding people. Irene uses sex like a tool, a tool that Sherlock has discarded from his repertoire. She looks at a person, deduces their emotional needs and takes advantage. Her own personal sexuality doesn’t come into it. Her job involves seducing women and seducing men. The fact she self identifies as gay just adds a neat little circle to the conversation with John.
John: Who… who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but - for the record - if anyone out there still cares, I’m not actually gay.
Irene: Well, I am. Look at us both.
Yes, look at them. Two people bound to the same man not through sexual attraction, but through something else entirely. She flirted with Sherlock over text. He didn’t respond. If he had that would have finished the game. It’s the fact he doesn’t respond that has her coming back over and over again. He fascinates her, draws her in, just as John is drawn in. It’s not sexual, it’s more than that.
Irene: I like detective stories - and detectives. Brainy’s the new sexy.
Anyone could be attracted to Sherlock’s looks; he is an attractive, if unconventional, looking man. It takes something more to be attracted to his personality and intellect. Most people find him abrupt, rude, abrasive and threateningly clever. As John wrote on his blog; It's no use trying to hide what you are because Sherlock sees right through everyone and everything in seconds. John’s not threatened by this because he’s got nothing to hide. Irene’s fascinated by this because she has a lot to hide.
Irene: D’you know the big problem with a disguise, Mr Holmes? However hard you try, it’s always a self-portrait.
He becomes her new game, her challenge, her obsession. A meeting of two minds and in the end one of them has to lose. It was very almost Sherlock. She bested him once at her home, she bested him again when he couldn’t crack the code, and she bested him for a third time when she played him like a toy, and with that she took Mycroft down with him. Sherlock’s weakness is that genius needs an audience, Mycroft’s weakness is Sherlock.
Then Sherlock wins, and by winning he ultimately loses.
Reason vs Emotion
Sherlock cracks the password, and emotion and reason collide painfully with spectacular results.
In the face of emotion throughout the episode, Sherlock has clung firmly onto reason. The Christmas scene with Molly was painful because it showed Sherlock’s reason, lack of social skill and emotional connection laid starkly bare for all to see. There was nothing incorrect about his deductions regarding Molly’s present, but there was everything wrong with what he said. Everyone else knew instantly who the present was for. Everyone except him. Why, because they understood emotion. Emotion over reason. Sherlock’s reason was right, but at the same time so very, very wrong, because he was the only person in that room who didn’t know who that present was for without having to look at the label.
Molly: You always say such horrible things. Every time. Always. Always.
Sherlock: I am sorry. Forgive me.
Wait a moment, he apologised? APOLOGISED. Did you see John’s face in the background? Sherlock apologised? Because as much as he hates it, Sherlock is still human. And that is what this episode (and probably this season) is about, Sherlock becoming more human. For a man who claims not to care, he cares quite a bit.
So let’s compare with the moment of his final triumph. The moment when he cracks the password is a killer because he does it while sprouting the dangers and inefficiencies of emotions:
Sherlock: Oh, enjoying the thrill of the chase is fine, craving the distraction of the game - I sympathise entirely - but sentiment? Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side.
He wins, but only by embracing and rejoicing in his own monstrosity. He is cold, uncaring and brutal. He destroys her and doesn’t look back. In that moment he is less than human. But his victory is superficial at best because there can be no pleasure in destroying her other than on an intellectual basis. He reduces her to a woman who has lost everything and when she begs it can be nothing more than a futile effort. Reason beats emotion and they both lose.
Sherlock: If you’re feeling kind, lock her up; otherwise let her go. I doubt she’ll survive long without her protection.
Irene: Are you expecting me to beg?
Sherlock: Yes.
Irene. Please. You’re right. I won’t even last six months.
Sherlock: Sorry about dinner.
Which leads onto the last scenes of the episode.
A lot has been said and criticised by fans and critics alike. After a moment or two of thought I wasn’t too sure about it either; that a strong female character like Irene is reduced to having to be rescued from certain death by the main male protagonist. Yes, this does smack a lot of Moffat’s habit of returning to clichés and male fantasies, but then it slowly dawned on me that that scene (and the whole episode itself) has nothing to do with Irene and everything to do with Sherlock. The episode wasn’t about male vs female, although it certainly looks like it. It’s not even really Sherlock vs Irene. As I said at the beginning, it’s reason vs emotion… in Sherlock.
Throughout the episode Sherlock clings to reason while toying with and tiptoeing around emotion. Whether he likes it or not he has emotions; towards John, Irene, Mrs Hudson, even Molly, Lestrade and Mycroft. Irene takes advantage of his inexperience to be able to deal with his emotions, just as she takes advantage of everyone else’s emotions.
Irene: I know one of the policemen. Well, I know what he likes.
She knew that ultimately Sherlock wants recognition for his intellect. She gave him that. She gave him a challenge, the chance to show off, and he danced like a puppet on a string. He then cut himself off from those emotional responses and took solace in his intellect and reason, beating her at her own game and becoming less human in the process.
John: Why would he care? He despised her at the end. Won’t even mention her by name - just “The Woman”.
Mycroft: Is that loathing, or a salute? One of a kind; the one woman who matters.
John: He’s not like that. He doesn’t feel things that way… I don’t think.
Why would he care indeed? Why would the man who claims to never care, who is above emotion and sentiment, care? Irene found his weakness, used it and broke him. When she dropped the act - or at least part of the act - she became as cold as him.
Irene: Mr Holmes, I think we need to talk.
Sherlock: So do I. There are a number of aspects I’m still not quite clear on.
Irene: Not you, Junior. You’re done now.
She discarded the ‘emotional’ and took on his mantle of reason. But it was a mantle he was able to see through. It’s like that phrase; don’t argue with a fool because they will only drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. He fascinated her. She came back to him over and over again, not because she’s physically attracted to him, but because she’s attracted to him in other ways. Emotional ways, perhaps? Unfortunately for her, that attraction showed physically, and she lost. Reason triumphed over emotion. But like I said, in doing so Sherlock became far less human.
Which leads us back to the final; Irene Adler, on her knees, not begging, facing the consequences of both of hers’ and Sherlock’s rational decisions. Her claim that she wouldn’t last six months was neither hyperbole nor an attack on his conscience, it was the truth. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Sherlock Holmes took away Irene’s protection - far more than she was going to take away from him - and left her to her fate.
Or did he?
The last scene was all about Sherlock, and it was the scene where he finally regaining his humanity. Why did he go half way round the world to save her life? There was no rational reason for him to do so. The only reason was an emotional one, because after everything they had gone through, everything they had done together, everything they had said and done as part of the game, Sherlock did care. He had won using reason, but her fate was perhaps more terrible than she deserved. He finally embraced the emotional side he had rejected and in saving her, he saved himself.
Yes, the male protagonist saved the once strong woman. Yes, the dominatrix who had brought a nation to her knees was brought to her own knees. Yes, Steven Moffat might be a bit of a male chauvinist when it comes to his writing of women. But think on this, excluding for a moment the framing and detail of the final scene, where would it have left Sherlock as a man, as a character and as a human being, had he not acting purely on emotion right at the end?
Mycroft: My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?
John: I don’t know.
Mycroft: Neither do I… but initially he wanted to be a pirate.
For all of his denials, Sherlock Holmes - the boy who had wanted to be a pirate - still has a heart, and thank god for that, because the alternative is, well, Moriarty.
(These views do not necessarily mean I agree with everything else in the episode.)