#elementary 3x05

[amindamazed]

sanguinarysanguinity replied to your post: 221b-recs is looking for June reviewer...

WRITE THE CASEBOOK. THE MISSING LOST DELETED CASEBOOK.

I nominated the casebook. not sure I want to write it. fairly sure I want to write about it, but that would have to wait until Invisible Ficathon next year.

[amindamazed]

Things I liked in "Rip Off"

conversations about Watson. Sherlock and Kitty talking about Watson and the fact that she has secrets and wondering why. People ON SCREEN discussing the topic of Joan Watson. Hallelujah!

Nadia Dajani as an M.E. who completely ignored Sherlock's attempt to take credit for her findings. Hope we see her again; a semi-regular female M.E. has been on my wishlist for a while.

Sherlock acknowledging Watson's rights to privacy & to tell her own stories

"That's not the sound it makes."

Eloquence of body language: Kitty and Sherlock accidentally brushing hands when he stops her from using the laptop; she flinches and he pulls back his hand, rubbing his fingers as if to remove the sensation

Similarly, Sherlock's reaction to Kitty destroying Watson's document.

Sherlock telling Kitty her voice is valuable. I didn't read the final scene as specifically suggesting Kitty should write about Sherlock and Joan but rather encouragement and appreciation for her perspective and input generally.

Things that are complicated and need further development that I don't trust the show to provide, but for now it's too soon to tell what they'll do

long-term psychological, social, and political aspects of intimate partner violence

erasure of Joan's words on several levels (her absence on screen; the lack of any mention of her writing over the previous 25 episodes; the character's decision to delete the file; the narrative not sharing her words; other characters re-erasing her words (good reason or no); the likelihood it will never be mentioned again; etc)

I assumed that if Joan wanted to keep the mss, she kept copies herself. I can also imagine her angrily deleting it in the immediate aftermath of Sherlock's abandonment and possibly regretting that decision some time later. Pretty sure we'll require fic to tell that story. (here's mine)

whether or not deleting Joan's text was a critical adaptation of ACDcanon to revise Watson's role and if it was, to what end? Up-ending the lone-genius trope worked because we were repeatedly shown the trope, its limitations, and the alternative. We've barely seen Watson as chronicler, we've seen nothing of the limitations of that trope, and no clear sense of what the alternative is intended to be.

Kitty's interactions with Gregson felt OOC, specifically for her to go out of her way to encourage him to confide in her. I don't know enough about her to judge whether her intervention for Hannah is in-character, but suddenly being Gregson's buddy didn't ring true to me.

Things that annoyed me

gratuitous screaming by the woman who found the hand. 

stereotyping of orthodox judaism (although the synagogue was a beautiful location)

Elephant in the room

Because I assume Joan's absence was 100% due to Lucy Liu wanting the time off, I wasn't bothered by it. I was intrigued that they not only didn't provide advance notice in promotion but apparently attempted to hide the fact with the inclusion of old clips of Joan in the promo. And then aired the episode on a day very likely to have low viewership. As previously noted, I was happy with how they brought her into the episode anyway. I hope we get an episode without Sherlock that's treated the same way, but since we have lots and lots of instances of people talking about Sherlock, I'd like to see them try not to mention him at all. They managed not to include Sherlock in any way in Gregson's story this week; maybe that was a practice run. (I will be shocked, shocked, if this actually happens.)

[amindamazed]

Kitty as an advocate for women controlling their own stories

told Gregson to do what his daughter wanted him to do

defended Watson's right to write about her experience

maneuvered Sherlock into admitting Watson did not intend to share her mss and then destroyed it, thereby ensuring his compliance

convinced Stotz to remove himself from Hannah Gregson's life (i.e. story)

At the same time, her intervention on others' behalf without their knowledge or consent (here more relevant to H. Gregson than to Joan) could eventually backfire; I expect this may come up again.

[coffeeandirony]

"Who knows...if you write a book [about me], someone might be interested to read it"

-Sherlock, Elementary 3x05