I'm a fan of BBC Sherlock & the Holmes canon, that's what I post about here. My main is @sapphiclitstudent if you want to check it out. I'm in uni, studying (mainly) literature, dealing with, among other things, Sherlock Holmes.
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the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
every other case Watson is like "can I come along? unless I am nothing but dead weight to you. In which case I brought a hammer for you to beat me to death with." and Holmes always replies something along the lines of "You are my bestest friend and if you came along that would make me the happiest man in the world. Pack your gun." peace and love. also what is wrong with them.
A few months ago I wrote a review on the Sherlock Holmes Museum in London. And how the people who care the most about Sherlock Holmes may be disappointed.
Now I watched Enola Holmes 3, partly because of Sherlock Holmes and partly because of Helena Bonham Carter. And I was so disappointed. I feel like no one actually cared about this movie who was on this movie. And I don't just mean the actors. Everyone involved.
Say what you want about Mofftass but it was very clear that they cared so much about what they were doing. They were self proclaimed superfans.
Look, I know that Enola Holmes (movies) is all popcorn feminism, and I was prepared for a fun little marriage thing. Instead, they decided to do colonialism, which... is a challenging topic for a popcorn feminist movie.
But they didn't really do a story about colonialism. They did a revolutionary who wanted a free Malta as comedic relief, wtf. They did Moriarty as an angry black woman who's partly... just trying to get a rise out of Sherlock? Like is this a Batman-Joker thing? They did a few throwaway comments. And they did this bizarre plot where the English colonial forces feel guilty about stealing from Afghanistan. Apparently more guilty than the modern English.
They left Mycroft, the only person who might have been actually happy for Enola choosing to get married, out of the movie without any explanation at all, just a crossed out name. (I mean, they showed how time passed. They could have shown a reconciliation.)
The talks about marriage were off putting, and I'm not even someone who like marriage as an institution. The whole argument Sherlock and Enola have about it felt like it was pulled from bad fanfiction. The argument between Enola and Tewkes (I will admit to liking "Earnest" as a name for him, but the last name is shit) was weird.
So. She's late, gets in a carriage in her wedding dress. Along the way, the coachman thinks they're being chased by a bandit. She gets on top of the carriage, losing bits of her wedding dress along the way, and ends up falling off. I mean, okay, movie magic that she wasn't seriously injured but what exactly is the sequence after that? Because... coachman gets to the wedding, says "she fell off the carriage with a bandit chasing us!" at a noble's wedding where the godfather's a Brigadier or something, and honestly, I think the narrative would be the army being mobilized, not everyone returns to the house and whispers "how dare she miss her wedding." People would be fussing over her whether she liked it or not. They'd take it as an omen that the wedding isn't meant to be if they hated her, not whispering about how scandalous it was that she didn't get to the wedding.
The end the movie with Tewkesbury "giving up his title" to shack up with the Holmes daughter in sin after being "married" by Eudoria. His own mom was there, yeah? Holy shit that's unhinged for the upper class in the Victorian era. And where did his title go? Someone who won't be a reformer but gets his seat in the House? Nice, guess Grandma Tewkesbury won in the end.
If they'd really wanted to talk about colonialism, having Mycroft there as a counterbalance to Enola's outrage about the theft could have made for something interesting, but instead we had the poor godfather who felt guilty about it and wasn't told where the gold was because it was so shameful. To the British army. See? Because he's a good colonizer, he feels guilty that he stole things that they would have justified as spoils of war, and it's the Empire's fault they couldn't give it back!
And then there were the flashbacks. It felt like I was back in the 90s when the flashback filler episode was popular. I mean, I guess it wasn't quite that bad, but still, it was weird.
I can forgive the costuming. It was boring, the makeup was weird, but whatever. But I don't know. This was just so disappointing to me, and I probably haven't even really talked about everything I disliked. It was disjointed and I was very disappointed for something I was really looking forward to.
oh yes! every adapter has their own thing. i know it, you know it, everyone knows this.
hereās the thing. i have no idea what they were trying for in enola holmes.
what are they saying? was this made by 50 people? in an office? planned out the plot over a teams meeting? because it feels like it. Enola being late for the wedding. Tewkesbury giving up his title. the whole colonization spiel.
This scene has always been very important to me, and now that I'm getting more sentimental with age, it constantly brings tears to my eyes. The fact that John couldn't tell the therapist about Mary's hallucination, but started talking to her in front of Sherlock, killed me, tore my heart out, and continues to do so with every rewatch.š
is this a record? making them gay even though they probably only held about 3% of the franchiseās overall screentime. i mean establishing john and johnlock in (essentially) one movie with about 5 total minutes of screentime is just insane
HE MADE TEA. John Watson made tea for Sherlock every day since they started living together and asked him about his cases, and when he stopped, Sherlock came to him with tea. Sherlock Holmes made tea for him and then told him about a case.
No one will ever know how much I freaked out, I really did, hearing that. Sherlock Holmes doing something for another person to connect socially with them without receiving anything in return and without, apparently, any ulterior motives.
Also: John's Diaries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then Enola brought Tewkesbury a cup of something ( I don't care if it's tea or sewage water ) she, Enola Holmes, brought a cup of a drink to her love pair.
Fuck I love parallels. Holmes and their love language. The best? John was ready to give up on his tentative friendship and then Sherlock came with a cup of tea. Tewkesbury and Enola have a fight and he was, probably, ready to be abandoned and then she came with a cup of something.
