BBC Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia: some thoughts
I've been working on this for a couple of days, and it's ridiculously long -- sorry about that. I don't remember the last time a television episode or a movie made me think this long and hard.
What follows is divided into three unequal parts. The first section is mostly a bullet-point list of stuff I really loved in the episode. Second is primarily about Irene Adler. Finally, some thoughts about John-and-Sherlock, and John/Sherlock in this episode.
Part the first: stuff I loved:
So okay, the first episode of series two has been broadcast and I have watched it three times (so far). I was extremely apprehensive about this particular episode, moreso than the other two, but mostly that was for naught. MOSTLY. The episode was far from perfect, and I have lots to say about that later. The performances were uniformly stunning, the set design gorgeous, the cinematography award winning. And if Martin Freeman doesn't win ALL THE AWARDS for his performance as John Watson, then the world will end.
» Wait, let me ask this first: why the hell does Sherlock shout "Vatican cameos!" to let John know he needs to duck to avoid the bullet? Thanks to Tumblr, I know the term is from the opening of The Hound of the Baskerville; I even found the pertinent section:
"I must thank you," said Sherlock Holmes, "for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases."
But why does John know to duck when Sherlock shouts those words? Google tells me that in 1986 an online interactive game was created about the Vatican cameos; did those perennial fanboys Moffat and/or Gatiss play that game? Or will this remain a mystery?
» I fucking loved the mock street fight between Sherlock and John. The look on John's face! And when he said he always hears "punch my face" when Sherlock talks, but it's usually subtext made me fall down laughing.
» Every single scene with Freeman. Wait, I already said that. Well, I'm saying it again and I'll probably continue to say it because he blew me away. If he's in a scene, I can't take my eyes off him.
» Sherlock and John's flat -- how much homier it's become in the intervening months since we last saw it, especially when it was decorated for the holidays. It has become a real home, not just a shared space. I would happily live there after John and Sherlock move to Sussex. I wish the production company would share its layout. I also want to see John's bedroom, but you probably guessed I'd want that.
» And along those same lines, I loved how much of a family has drawn around Sherlock in the intervening months. Not just John and Mrs. Hudson, though they in particular, but Molly and Lestrade and even Mycroft.
» How much Mycroft there was! THE QUEEN in Buckingham Palace. Oh my god. How naughtily John and Sherlock giggled at their circumstances and how disapproving he was, staring at them down his long nose. Yes, pride goeth before a fall, but it was funny at the time, though Mycroft was right; it wasn't at all funny in the end. Still: more Mycroft!
And speaking of Mycroft, how tender was the scene outside the morgue when he gave Sherlock a cigarette, and we learned he had conspired with John and Mrs. Hudson to protect Sherlock on this "danger night." I was so moved by them all and really happy to see such clear evidence of Mycroft's love for his brother.
» Mrs. Hudson was awesome. As I said elsewhere, speaking as a woman in her late fifties I found Mrs. Hudson inspiring. She was tough, quick thinking under terrifying circumstances, and able to stand up to Sherlock ("you clot!"). I loved how comfortable she and Sherlock are with each other, touching each other, rummaging around each other's flat, invading each other's spaces, something very very few people are privileged to do with Sherlock. Clearly John has been adopted as well; when they shouted at Mycroft for being rude to her, I loved the look on John's face.
» How appalling Sherlock can be -- but John and Molly called him on it and he actually apologized. Molly was so beautiful, wasn't she. Did you saw Lestrade's jaw literally drop when she took off her coat? She is so lovely and my heart ached for her. I couldn't really watch that scene. Talk about wanting to punch Sherlock in the face. But he heard her and begged forgiveness. He'll never be fully socialized, I know, but he isn't a puppy being trained; he's a grown man with a difficult past and, I think, is probably on one end of the autistic spectrum. People will always be hard for him.
(Personal canon: now that Lestrade is separated from his wife, Mycroft can swoop in. Maybe?)
Okay, I could go on and on, but let me get to what I want to say. I think the structure of this episode could be called something like "the literalization of the metaphorical." Even the notion that Irene Adler was the woman who beat Sherlock was literalized and she actually did beat him. Maybe I shouldn't, but I thought that was clever and funny. It's not that I approve of beating human beings (unless GGG, consensual, safe, etc., etc.), but I will say if anyone needs a good smack, it's this version of Sherlock.
I loved the parallels between A Scandal in Bohemia and the first Sherlock episode, A Study in Pink; even the acronyms are similar, ASiB and ASiP. Then there are the multiple parallels drawn between Irene and Sherlock: we first see both of them with riding crops (in the two eps) and within the episode we see both of their (very lovely) behinds. Both of them spend time nude in perhaps not the most appropriate situations and both use their nudity as a weapon by doing so. Both are very smart and very beautiful; both are addicted to technology, and in particular their smart phones and texting; both solve problems for others, though quite different kinds of problems. The consulting dominatrix vs. the consulting detective, yes? Both are approached by people with a problem that they then solve for them.
Sherlock's opening cases, most of which are dismissed as "boring" by Sherlock, all have something to do with the episode, most significantly the fellow mysterious killed on the riverbank. I thought it clever how it literalized what happened to Sherlock: he was looking one way, was distracted, and was metaphorically (and not so metaphorically) hit in the back of the head.
It also encapsulated what happened to the episode's viewers: we were looking in one direction, were intentionally distracted, and got metaphorically hit in the back of the head. At least, I did. It's taken me a few days to recover. More later.
Almost all those initial cases actually had something to do with the larger mystery (I'd like the Geek Interpreter to but can't figure out how that one does), and they all had to do with things not seeming to be what they were. Sherlock kept saying "boring," but he was wrong; he was doing what he accuses John of: seeing but not observing. He did that a lot in this episode. Like the backfire that distracted the hiker from the returning boomerang, Sherlock was distracted. And why? What is it about that case, about Irene that distracted him so much?
He was initially distracted of course by her brazen nudity (and by her beauty because my god, isn't Lara Pulver gorgeous? Jesus Christ). He was distracted by her behavior; it's clear he isn't good around people, for which I blame both his arrogance and what I think is mild autism. He's later distracted by the increasingly confusing case -- is it about compromising photos or not? Is there a potential for blackmail or is Adler seriously frightened for her life?
My suggestion is that to understand the episode we must follow Irene Adler, not Sherlock, and to remember that almost every word Adler speaks is a lie. She is, in internet parlance, a lying liar who lies a LOT. In this second section, let's follow her trajectory.
Irene Adler:
She saves John and Sherlock's lives by interrupting Moriarty to let him know she has information for him to sell to the terrorists but it needs to be decrypted. She believes that Sherlock can decrypt it, so how to get him involved? Every step from that point on is to get Sherlock to decrypt the code. Forget the young female royal with a penchant for "recreational scolding"; forget Adler's sexual advances on Sherlock; forget her fearing for her life: these are all lies and misdirection. Very skillful lies intended to distract Sherlock (and of course us, the audience).
Why does Adler need Moriarty? Remember when Sherlock and John were photographed wearing their funny hats? If you freeze-frame the images of the newspapers that those pictures appear in, you'll see reports that Moriarty might have ties to Al Qaeda. Adler needs Moriarty to introduce her to terrorists who will pay for her information.
Consider this: Adler isn't just a sex worker; she is an extremely successful businesswoman making profit enough for that gorgeous phone ($27K!), with a walk-in closet full of gorgeous clothes, able to live in a gorgeous home, and able to hire at least two employees. Her income from her sex work is significant, but there is the implication has also been selling some of her secrets. Now, perhaps due to chance, she has a different kind of secret that she needs a special buyer for. That does not make her a weak woman. That makes her experienced and successful and looking to expand her business. So do not tell me that she is weak, or passive, or that she doesn't have brains (as Jane Clare Jones in the Guardian says); that's bullshit; I find it offensive.
Furthermore, her expanding business model explains her interest in Mycroft. By now it's clear he is not a "minor official" in the British government but a man of wide-ranging interests with powerful friends and colleagues. He is a single man, perhaps gay, probably lonely, and she specializes in such cases. Perhaps she can interest him sexually, but definitely she can interest him intellectually.
But right now she needs Sherlock's skills, so how does she capture his attention? She waits, patiently and analytically, until the time is right to let Buckingham Palace know about the photos on her phone. She doesn't threaten to expose the photos, she doesn't blackmail; she simply informs them of their existence in her possession. The palace does the rest. From the "young female person of significance" to the Equerry's employer to the Equerry to Mycroft to Sherlock the arrow of interest flies. (IMDB.com just calls him "The Equerry"; was his name Harry or Eric??)
Another parallel between ASiB and ASiP to an earlier episode, The Blind Banker, is Sherlock's performance at Adler's door. He was successful in TBB; the neighbor let him into the building and then even into her flat so he could jump to Van Coon's balcony, but in ASiB his performance is in fact a command performance by Adler. She knew he was coming; she knew precisely when he would arrive. She was prepared for him and stunned him into the oral equivalent of keyboard mashing: zztkqlkdfjt, he said.
From the very beginning, then, Sherlock danced to her tune, to use Mycroft's metaphor. We didn't watch Sherlock solve a case; we watched Sherlock follow her plan.
Was it her plan, or was it Moriarty's? It is clear to me that this was her plan. He would facilitate getting the information to the terrorists, no doubt at a stellar price, but I can't see him, who loved kidnapping innocent people and strapping them in Semtex, going to the trouble of seducing Sherlock. That was, I insist, all Adler.
The Christmas gift of the priceless phone that led Sherlock to conclude Adler was dead was, we saw, also part of her plan. She didn't leave it to him for safekeeping, she didn't -- as she later told John -- make a mistake; she left it with Sherlock to see if he could break it. And he could not. Six months later when she magically returned from the dead (and I want to talk more about the scene between her and John in a minute), it was as a kind of sleeping beauty in Sherlock's bed. How could he resist her? The shock of her return from the dead, of her asleep and beautifully vulnerable in his bed, of her plea for assistance while wearing his lovely dressing gown, and her play to his arrogance was all part of her plan.
Remember: every word she says is a lie. Leaving the phone with Sherlock wasn't a mistake. She wasn't in danger. She doesn't need the phone for protection. There is one reason for all this misdirection: to get Sherlock to break the code. Which he does with breathtaking swiftness, because yes, he is that good. And once he does? She is instantly a very rich woman. She played him.
Moriarty? He just made a lot of money, too, but he now also has a hook into Mycroft and thus into the government.
She doesn't flee England after she's made the deal with the terrorists through Moriarty, though; no, she leverages her hold over Mycroft and capitalizes on her profit by successfully approaching him. I have no doubt if Sherlock hadn't realized what her phone's passcode was, Mycroft would also be dancing to her tune and for a very long time.
But the question seems to be: has she lost? I remind you again that her goal was to have Sherlock decrypt the code. Which he did, and which she instantly sent to Moriarty, who sent it to the terrorists for a great deal of money. So I say to you: Irene Adler is the woman who beat Sherlock Holmes, literally. She slapped and whipped him, she contrived for him to decrypt the code, and she successfully sent it off.
What has she to fear? Only the British government, possibly in the form of Mycroft, yet he is so dazzled and confused that he lets her go. He lets her go! She committed treason, he knows she did because he knows the terrorists know they can intercept their codes, yet he let her go. Who is the loser?
Tell me Irene Adler lost that encounter with the Holmes Brothers. Explain to me how she lost. Do you really think her sad pleas at the end were real? Almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.
At last, John and Sherlock and John/Sherlock:
John: I've repeatedly said how awed I was by Martin Freeman's performance in this, and his set piece was with Irene Adler in the Battersea power plant. We joke about Martin Freeman's rage, but John's fury at Adler was terrifying. When Adler walks out, the look on John's face moves from stunned to fury. "How come I can see you and I don't even want to?" She lies to John, almost every single word is a lie.
So much was said during that brief exchange. First, John talking to the woman he thought worked for Mycroft asked why couldn't Mycroft couldn't meet John in a cafe, and that Sherlock doesn't always follow him. Sherlock had, and later Mycroft did.
But the key exchange is, of course, when Adler tells John that he and Sherlock are a couple. John replies, "Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but for the record, if anyone out there still cares, I am not gay."
"Well, I am," she says. "Look at us both." Well, Adler finally said something at least partially true. John is certainly caught in Sherlock's orbit and unable to escape.
And Sherlock overheard this. He's a smart man; maybe not as smart as he thinks he is, but incredibly smart, and I have no doubt his mind was moving as quickly as a calculator figuring out who John is, trying to figure out Adler's words, and desperately trying to come to terms with the fact that she is alive.
But at the moment I'm more interested in what John thought. Just a week prior he'd been dumped by another girlfriend and for the same reason all his other girlfriends had dumped him: they couldn't compete with Sherlock Holmes. John said, "if anyone out there still cares." I think he knows no one cares, and that everyone who knows them perceives them as a couple.
Are they having sex? Well, in my head of course they are, but in the BBC Sherlock universe, I don't think so. I think they have a male equivalent to a Boston marriage: a loving, nurturing relationship between equals.
Could they have sex? John says he isn't gay, but sexuality doesn't really work like that; so much of our behavior, including sexual behavior, is situational. And the term "sex" is elastic and malleable. I wouldn't dare try to define it. So I think yes, I can conceive of a situation in which that John and that Sherlock could have sex of some variety.
Sherlock was accused of being a virgin several times during the episode. Here's what I wrote my friend the Lady of Asheru about that accusation:
I don't believe that he is literally a virgin, but I think his heart is untouched by the kind of love that includes sex, so in that sense he is virginal. It's clear he loves Mrs. Hudson, I know he loved his mother, despite his behavior he loves Mycroft, he loves John -- he is more than capable of love. And his desire to understand human behavior would lead him to experience sex, probably all kinds. But I don't think there are many people he would find attractive in all senses. Maybe John, because he knows John so well and trusts him utterly. Even Mycroft trusts John, telling him incredibly dangerous state secrets, and being rude to Sherlock in front of him ("now, boys"). So given the right set of circumstances, I can see not just their canonical Boston marriage but one that, occasionally, includes sex.
So yes, in some senses Sherlock is virginal, but no one with his stunning looks and passion for knowledge would not experiment with sex. He isn't interested in trivia, but he knows how vital and un-trivial sex is to the human experience.
Conclusion of a sort:
I think this was a very good episode. It was beautifully written, carefully tied to prior episodes, with few internal loose ends. We saw wonderful progression in John and Sherlock's friendship, their relationship with the other characters, and the depth of love among them all.
And then, there's the end. That was . . . inexplicable. Well, Moffatt wrote it, so I guess not inexplicable, but so fucking frustrating. It undermined what had gone before (I think). For one thing, I do not believe for one second that Sherlock could have left the country long enough to get to Pakistan without John knowing it, let alone Mycroft. Nor do I think he had any way to follow Adler without Mycroft knowing it. It simply isn't possible.
So I choose to read it as his fantasy. We know Sherlock knows when John lies to him; I was surprised that John even tried to. Frankly, I was surprised that Mycroft offered John that opportunity to lie to Sherlock, but could it be more evidence of how much he loves his little brother?
But let's ask ourselves why would Irene have gone to Karachi? Did she have more secrets to sell? Or perhaps was Mycroft manipulating John, to enlist him to manipulate Sherlock to leave Irene Adler alone forever? John would believe that Irene had been killed, and so Sherlock would see in John's face all the evidence that he needed to know that The Woman is dead.
But I don't think she is. I don't think she was in Karachi at all. I think the entire story was a lie, because this episode -- I'll say it again -- mirrors what happened at the river: our attention is diverted elsewhere, we get struck on the back of the head, and we don't know what hit us.
If Sherlock believed John thought Adler had died -- and he probably would -- then the end was Sherlock's fantasy of saving Irene in a manner straight out of my mother's bodice-rippers. It would never happen, it didn't happen, but it brought dear Sherlock comfort. He isn't, I don't think, a virgin, but he is most definitely emotionally and thus romantically stunted.
Wow. Did I have a lot to say.
What follows is divided into three unequal parts. The first section is mostly a bullet-point list of stuff I really loved in the episode. Second is primarily about Irene Adler. Finally, some thoughts about John-and-Sherlock, and John/Sherlock in this episode.
Part the first: stuff I loved:
So okay, the first episode of series two has been broadcast and I have watched it three times (so far). I was extremely apprehensive about this particular episode, moreso than the other two, but mostly that was for naught. MOSTLY. The episode was far from perfect, and I have lots to say about that later. The performances were uniformly stunning, the set design gorgeous, the cinematography award winning. And if Martin Freeman doesn't win ALL THE AWARDS for his performance as John Watson, then the world will end.
» Wait, let me ask this first: why the hell does Sherlock shout "Vatican cameos!" to let John know he needs to duck to avoid the bullet? Thanks to Tumblr, I know the term is from the opening of The Hound of the Baskerville; I even found the pertinent section:
"I must thank you," said Sherlock Holmes, "for calling my attention to a case which certainly presents some features of interest. I had observed some newspaper comment at the time, but I was exceedingly preoccupied by that little affair of the Vatican cameos, and in my anxiety to oblige the Pope I lost touch with several interesting English cases."
But why does John know to duck when Sherlock shouts those words? Google tells me that in 1986 an online interactive game was created about the Vatican cameos; did those perennial fanboys Moffat and/or Gatiss play that game? Or will this remain a mystery?
» I fucking loved the mock street fight between Sherlock and John. The look on John's face! And when he said he always hears "punch my face" when Sherlock talks, but it's usually subtext made me fall down laughing.
» Every single scene with Freeman. Wait, I already said that. Well, I'm saying it again and I'll probably continue to say it because he blew me away. If he's in a scene, I can't take my eyes off him.
» Sherlock and John's flat -- how much homier it's become in the intervening months since we last saw it, especially when it was decorated for the holidays. It has become a real home, not just a shared space. I would happily live there after John and Sherlock move to Sussex. I wish the production company would share its layout. I also want to see John's bedroom, but you probably guessed I'd want that.
» And along those same lines, I loved how much of a family has drawn around Sherlock in the intervening months. Not just John and Mrs. Hudson, though they in particular, but Molly and Lestrade and even Mycroft.
» How much Mycroft there was! THE QUEEN in Buckingham Palace. Oh my god. How naughtily John and Sherlock giggled at their circumstances and how disapproving he was, staring at them down his long nose. Yes, pride goeth before a fall, but it was funny at the time, though Mycroft was right; it wasn't at all funny in the end. Still: more Mycroft!
And speaking of Mycroft, how tender was the scene outside the morgue when he gave Sherlock a cigarette, and we learned he had conspired with John and Mrs. Hudson to protect Sherlock on this "danger night." I was so moved by them all and really happy to see such clear evidence of Mycroft's love for his brother.
» Mrs. Hudson was awesome. As I said elsewhere, speaking as a woman in her late fifties I found Mrs. Hudson inspiring. She was tough, quick thinking under terrifying circumstances, and able to stand up to Sherlock ("you clot!"). I loved how comfortable she and Sherlock are with each other, touching each other, rummaging around each other's flat, invading each other's spaces, something very very few people are privileged to do with Sherlock. Clearly John has been adopted as well; when they shouted at Mycroft for being rude to her, I loved the look on John's face.
» How appalling Sherlock can be -- but John and Molly called him on it and he actually apologized. Molly was so beautiful, wasn't she. Did you saw Lestrade's jaw literally drop when she took off her coat? She is so lovely and my heart ached for her. I couldn't really watch that scene. Talk about wanting to punch Sherlock in the face. But he heard her and begged forgiveness. He'll never be fully socialized, I know, but he isn't a puppy being trained; he's a grown man with a difficult past and, I think, is probably on one end of the autistic spectrum. People will always be hard for him.
(Personal canon: now that Lestrade is separated from his wife, Mycroft can swoop in. Maybe?)
Okay, I could go on and on, but let me get to what I want to say. I think the structure of this episode could be called something like "the literalization of the metaphorical." Even the notion that Irene Adler was the woman who beat Sherlock was literalized and she actually did beat him. Maybe I shouldn't, but I thought that was clever and funny. It's not that I approve of beating human beings (unless GGG, consensual, safe, etc., etc.), but I will say if anyone needs a good smack, it's this version of Sherlock.
I loved the parallels between A Scandal in Bohemia and the first Sherlock episode, A Study in Pink; even the acronyms are similar, ASiB and ASiP. Then there are the multiple parallels drawn between Irene and Sherlock: we first see both of them with riding crops (in the two eps) and within the episode we see both of their (very lovely) behinds. Both of them spend time nude in perhaps not the most appropriate situations and both use their nudity as a weapon by doing so. Both are very smart and very beautiful; both are addicted to technology, and in particular their smart phones and texting; both solve problems for others, though quite different kinds of problems. The consulting dominatrix vs. the consulting detective, yes? Both are approached by people with a problem that they then solve for them.
Sherlock's opening cases, most of which are dismissed as "boring" by Sherlock, all have something to do with the episode, most significantly the fellow mysterious killed on the riverbank. I thought it clever how it literalized what happened to Sherlock: he was looking one way, was distracted, and was metaphorically (and not so metaphorically) hit in the back of the head.
It also encapsulated what happened to the episode's viewers: we were looking in one direction, were intentionally distracted, and got metaphorically hit in the back of the head. At least, I did. It's taken me a few days to recover. More later.
Almost all those initial cases actually had something to do with the larger mystery (I'd like the Geek Interpreter to but can't figure out how that one does), and they all had to do with things not seeming to be what they were. Sherlock kept saying "boring," but he was wrong; he was doing what he accuses John of: seeing but not observing. He did that a lot in this episode. Like the backfire that distracted the hiker from the returning boomerang, Sherlock was distracted. And why? What is it about that case, about Irene that distracted him so much?
He was initially distracted of course by her brazen nudity (and by her beauty because my god, isn't Lara Pulver gorgeous? Jesus Christ). He was distracted by her behavior; it's clear he isn't good around people, for which I blame both his arrogance and what I think is mild autism. He's later distracted by the increasingly confusing case -- is it about compromising photos or not? Is there a potential for blackmail or is Adler seriously frightened for her life?
My suggestion is that to understand the episode we must follow Irene Adler, not Sherlock, and to remember that almost every word Adler speaks is a lie. She is, in internet parlance, a lying liar who lies a LOT. In this second section, let's follow her trajectory.
Irene Adler:
She saves John and Sherlock's lives by interrupting Moriarty to let him know she has information for him to sell to the terrorists but it needs to be decrypted. She believes that Sherlock can decrypt it, so how to get him involved? Every step from that point on is to get Sherlock to decrypt the code. Forget the young female royal with a penchant for "recreational scolding"; forget Adler's sexual advances on Sherlock; forget her fearing for her life: these are all lies and misdirection. Very skillful lies intended to distract Sherlock (and of course us, the audience).
Why does Adler need Moriarty? Remember when Sherlock and John were photographed wearing their funny hats? If you freeze-frame the images of the newspapers that those pictures appear in, you'll see reports that Moriarty might have ties to Al Qaeda. Adler needs Moriarty to introduce her to terrorists who will pay for her information.
Consider this: Adler isn't just a sex worker; she is an extremely successful businesswoman making profit enough for that gorgeous phone ($27K!), with a walk-in closet full of gorgeous clothes, able to live in a gorgeous home, and able to hire at least two employees. Her income from her sex work is significant, but there is the implication has also been selling some of her secrets. Now, perhaps due to chance, she has a different kind of secret that she needs a special buyer for. That does not make her a weak woman. That makes her experienced and successful and looking to expand her business. So do not tell me that she is weak, or passive, or that she doesn't have brains (as Jane Clare Jones in the Guardian says); that's bullshit; I find it offensive.
Furthermore, her expanding business model explains her interest in Mycroft. By now it's clear he is not a "minor official" in the British government but a man of wide-ranging interests with powerful friends and colleagues. He is a single man, perhaps gay, probably lonely, and she specializes in such cases. Perhaps she can interest him sexually, but definitely she can interest him intellectually.
But right now she needs Sherlock's skills, so how does she capture his attention? She waits, patiently and analytically, until the time is right to let Buckingham Palace know about the photos on her phone. She doesn't threaten to expose the photos, she doesn't blackmail; she simply informs them of their existence in her possession. The palace does the rest. From the "young female person of significance" to the Equerry's employer to the Equerry to Mycroft to Sherlock the arrow of interest flies. (IMDB.com just calls him "The Equerry"; was his name Harry or Eric??)
Another parallel between ASiB and ASiP to an earlier episode, The Blind Banker, is Sherlock's performance at Adler's door. He was successful in TBB; the neighbor let him into the building and then even into her flat so he could jump to Van Coon's balcony, but in ASiB his performance is in fact a command performance by Adler. She knew he was coming; she knew precisely when he would arrive. She was prepared for him and stunned him into the oral equivalent of keyboard mashing: zztkqlkdfjt, he said.
From the very beginning, then, Sherlock danced to her tune, to use Mycroft's metaphor. We didn't watch Sherlock solve a case; we watched Sherlock follow her plan.
Was it her plan, or was it Moriarty's? It is clear to me that this was her plan. He would facilitate getting the information to the terrorists, no doubt at a stellar price, but I can't see him, who loved kidnapping innocent people and strapping them in Semtex, going to the trouble of seducing Sherlock. That was, I insist, all Adler.
The Christmas gift of the priceless phone that led Sherlock to conclude Adler was dead was, we saw, also part of her plan. She didn't leave it to him for safekeeping, she didn't -- as she later told John -- make a mistake; she left it with Sherlock to see if he could break it. And he could not. Six months later when she magically returned from the dead (and I want to talk more about the scene between her and John in a minute), it was as a kind of sleeping beauty in Sherlock's bed. How could he resist her? The shock of her return from the dead, of her asleep and beautifully vulnerable in his bed, of her plea for assistance while wearing his lovely dressing gown, and her play to his arrogance was all part of her plan.
Remember: every word she says is a lie. Leaving the phone with Sherlock wasn't a mistake. She wasn't in danger. She doesn't need the phone for protection. There is one reason for all this misdirection: to get Sherlock to break the code. Which he does with breathtaking swiftness, because yes, he is that good. And once he does? She is instantly a very rich woman. She played him.
Moriarty? He just made a lot of money, too, but he now also has a hook into Mycroft and thus into the government.
She doesn't flee England after she's made the deal with the terrorists through Moriarty, though; no, she leverages her hold over Mycroft and capitalizes on her profit by successfully approaching him. I have no doubt if Sherlock hadn't realized what her phone's passcode was, Mycroft would also be dancing to her tune and for a very long time.
But the question seems to be: has she lost? I remind you again that her goal was to have Sherlock decrypt the code. Which he did, and which she instantly sent to Moriarty, who sent it to the terrorists for a great deal of money. So I say to you: Irene Adler is the woman who beat Sherlock Holmes, literally. She slapped and whipped him, she contrived for him to decrypt the code, and she successfully sent it off.
What has she to fear? Only the British government, possibly in the form of Mycroft, yet he is so dazzled and confused that he lets her go. He lets her go! She committed treason, he knows she did because he knows the terrorists know they can intercept their codes, yet he let her go. Who is the loser?
Tell me Irene Adler lost that encounter with the Holmes Brothers. Explain to me how she lost. Do you really think her sad pleas at the end were real? Almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.
At last, John and Sherlock and John/Sherlock:
John: I've repeatedly said how awed I was by Martin Freeman's performance in this, and his set piece was with Irene Adler in the Battersea power plant. We joke about Martin Freeman's rage, but John's fury at Adler was terrifying. When Adler walks out, the look on John's face moves from stunned to fury. "How come I can see you and I don't even want to?" She lies to John, almost every single word is a lie.
So much was said during that brief exchange. First, John talking to the woman he thought worked for Mycroft asked why couldn't Mycroft couldn't meet John in a cafe, and that Sherlock doesn't always follow him. Sherlock had, and later Mycroft did.
But the key exchange is, of course, when Adler tells John that he and Sherlock are a couple. John replies, "Who the hell knows about Sherlock Holmes, but for the record, if anyone out there still cares, I am not gay."
"Well, I am," she says. "Look at us both." Well, Adler finally said something at least partially true. John is certainly caught in Sherlock's orbit and unable to escape.
And Sherlock overheard this. He's a smart man; maybe not as smart as he thinks he is, but incredibly smart, and I have no doubt his mind was moving as quickly as a calculator figuring out who John is, trying to figure out Adler's words, and desperately trying to come to terms with the fact that she is alive.
But at the moment I'm more interested in what John thought. Just a week prior he'd been dumped by another girlfriend and for the same reason all his other girlfriends had dumped him: they couldn't compete with Sherlock Holmes. John said, "if anyone out there still cares." I think he knows no one cares, and that everyone who knows them perceives them as a couple.
Are they having sex? Well, in my head of course they are, but in the BBC Sherlock universe, I don't think so. I think they have a male equivalent to a Boston marriage: a loving, nurturing relationship between equals.
Could they have sex? John says he isn't gay, but sexuality doesn't really work like that; so much of our behavior, including sexual behavior, is situational. And the term "sex" is elastic and malleable. I wouldn't dare try to define it. So I think yes, I can conceive of a situation in which that John and that Sherlock could have sex of some variety.
Sherlock was accused of being a virgin several times during the episode. Here's what I wrote my friend the Lady of Asheru about that accusation:
I don't believe that he is literally a virgin, but I think his heart is untouched by the kind of love that includes sex, so in that sense he is virginal. It's clear he loves Mrs. Hudson, I know he loved his mother, despite his behavior he loves Mycroft, he loves John -- he is more than capable of love. And his desire to understand human behavior would lead him to experience sex, probably all kinds. But I don't think there are many people he would find attractive in all senses. Maybe John, because he knows John so well and trusts him utterly. Even Mycroft trusts John, telling him incredibly dangerous state secrets, and being rude to Sherlock in front of him ("now, boys"). So given the right set of circumstances, I can see not just their canonical Boston marriage but one that, occasionally, includes sex.
So yes, in some senses Sherlock is virginal, but no one with his stunning looks and passion for knowledge would not experiment with sex. He isn't interested in trivia, but he knows how vital and un-trivial sex is to the human experience.
Conclusion of a sort:
I think this was a very good episode. It was beautifully written, carefully tied to prior episodes, with few internal loose ends. We saw wonderful progression in John and Sherlock's friendship, their relationship with the other characters, and the depth of love among them all.
And then, there's the end. That was . . . inexplicable. Well, Moffatt wrote it, so I guess not inexplicable, but so fucking frustrating. It undermined what had gone before (I think). For one thing, I do not believe for one second that Sherlock could have left the country long enough to get to Pakistan without John knowing it, let alone Mycroft. Nor do I think he had any way to follow Adler without Mycroft knowing it. It simply isn't possible.
So I choose to read it as his fantasy. We know Sherlock knows when John lies to him; I was surprised that John even tried to. Frankly, I was surprised that Mycroft offered John that opportunity to lie to Sherlock, but could it be more evidence of how much he loves his little brother?
But let's ask ourselves why would Irene have gone to Karachi? Did she have more secrets to sell? Or perhaps was Mycroft manipulating John, to enlist him to manipulate Sherlock to leave Irene Adler alone forever? John would believe that Irene had been killed, and so Sherlock would see in John's face all the evidence that he needed to know that The Woman is dead.
But I don't think she is. I don't think she was in Karachi at all. I think the entire story was a lie, because this episode -- I'll say it again -- mirrors what happened at the river: our attention is diverted elsewhere, we get struck on the back of the head, and we don't know what hit us.
If Sherlock believed John thought Adler had died -- and he probably would -- then the end was Sherlock's fantasy of saving Irene in a manner straight out of my mother's bodice-rippers. It would never happen, it didn't happen, but it brought dear Sherlock comfort. He isn't, I don't think, a virgin, but he is most definitely emotionally and thus romantically stunted.
Wow. Did I have a lot to say.