I already talked about Watson before in this post, but I’m on my millionth watch of Elementary and had to say something about Sherlock. I think, personally, this is the best iteration of modern Sherlock we could ever have for one reason and one reason only, his humanity. He’s so brilliant, so broken but so utterly human too. He makes mistakes, which is a luxury other versions of him are not allowed. He throws tantrums when cases don’t go the planned way and he gets emotionally overwhelmed. He bickers over things like knitted cozies for his pet. He cooks yorkshire pudding when he’s stressed. He breaks into Joans phone to set annoying ringtones as a competition. He’s curious about the song Who Let Da Dogs Out coz he wants to solve the mystery. He is arrogant, but they didn’t make it his whole personality.
I think JLM’s acting in the scene where he found Irene and where he broke down realizing he couldn’t trust his brain because of his concussion syndrome is so fucking powerful. You can FEEL the heartbreak when he almost breaks down in Joan’s arms in that studio. And he cares for his clients, and for people in general even though he pretends he doesn’t. He gives a homeless man money to find shelter and warmth in an upcoming snowstorm. Any other show this scene would either be overhighlighted or cut altogether, but it’s simply a throwaway scene tucked in that makes him multifaceted. He found a woman locked in a basement and his first instinct was to reassure her and hold her! And afterwards you can see him rattled, the rage on her behalf so loud on his face. The helplessness at the boredom of regularity in the program, the way he can’t cope and breaks down in his own solitude when Kitty finds him in London and Watson talks about Irene and May.
Over and over again you see him in cases involving addicts and he takes care to make sure the anonymity and sanctity of AA is not broken unless absolutely necessary. He cooks for Joan. He makes sure Marcus can afford to keep his mum comfortable. He makes arrangements so the woman Gregson loves won’t be left alone grappling with a terrifyingly lonely disease alone. He watches old movies with Alfredo and tries so hard to have a relationship with Fiona. He doesn’t judge off of people’s sexual or romantic preferences. He encourages Joan to be sexually and romantically free of societal pressure and actively follows his own advice, to the point his sexual partners absolutely adore him beyond simple lust.
And his relationships with his family, my god. Mycroft is his brother and Sherlock would do a lot for him, BUT when his decisions affect Joan, the one person he loves the most in the world, he goes ballistic. Morland has received not a single sentence without acerbic wit dripping off of it but his death causes a rift so deep Sherlock is left reeling from it. He hallucinates the ghost of his mother when he falls ill, at his most vulnerable. She is the part of him that cuts through the haze to tell him he is not well, that he needs help.
I think one of the distinct possible deviations they do from canon that absolutely fucking makes me insane is his relationship with Kitty. A girl so abused and violated beyond belief, and he made sure to give her the tools to survive, the tools to live. Gave her hope. Saved her, in her own words. He would’ve gladly let her destroy a monster, his only qualms were about whether she was okay. And he CARRIED Jamie down the stairs so she won’t bleed out. He writes to her because shes the only one who truly understands. He hears she told her entire criminal empire to mark him untouchable and took it for truth just because he knows she would. He respects her to the point he contradicts anyone who suspects her for a crime too simple.
And Joan. When he said we are two people who love each other very much. It would’ve been So. Damn. Easy. To make them a couple and be done with the nuances but they DIDNT!!! They said if there’s one thing these two don’t do it’s have to sex together. They’re not married they’re not friends but a very much not so secret third thing where they are soulmates. He eases her worries with her mother. She chewed out his dad for neglecting him without him ever knowing, and he risked jail, even the idea of never setting foot in america again for her. Because she is, as he says, his best friend. This depiction of Sherlock and Watson is the best possible dynamic in the Holmes universe and noone can change my mind. I could write entire essays on the character nuances and it still won’t be enough.
