Episode 2.1, "A Scandal In Belgravia"

[T.o.b.y]

Sorry if I am being obnoxious, but if Mycroft told Moriarty lies then why does John not recognize them as such when he reads them?

[Carol the Dabbler]

You're not being obnoxious.  It's called a discussion.

 

Because they're not obvious lies.  They must be fully plausible, so that Moriarty believes them (yet provable as false, to discredit Kitty's expose later on).  John thinks they're true not only because Mycroft and Sherlock act as though they are, but also because they appear to be the sort of obscure little tidbits that someone close to Sherlock might well know about.  John had never heard them before, but that doesn't surprise him, because Sherlock hardly ever talks about himself.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Carol, you are bright!

[Carol the Dabbler]

Aw, shucks! 

 

I've also been batting these ideas around with other people on this forum for a year and a half!

 

[T.o.b.y]

Aw, shucks! 

 

Don't tell me you read Pogo!

[T.o.b.y]

"If Moffat had called her Jane Smith, and given the episode a different name, I would probably have liked it fine, or at least much better.  I can see your points, but you're not necessarily talking about Irene Adler either."

 

Carol, I thought I'd take the Irene "discussion" (I love this as a new word for me being obnoxious!) here to the episode she belongs to. 

 

There is no way I can disagree with you about Irene not being the way you read her. That is a matter of opinion. I hate it when I see a character from a beloved book misrepresented in my eyes, that's why I usually don't watch literary adaptations at all.

 

You also mentioned Sherlock "gloating" over her in the end. I presume you mean what goes on in the airplane. I don't see that as gloating. Sure, he's not being kind and the way he exposes her in front of Mycroft is pretty cruel. But think how cruel she was to him! "Junior, you're finished" for example. And she told him she preferred Moriarty over him! Besides, why did she create that password if she did not want him to find it out? What would have been the point in that?

 

The real cruelty in her behavior is that she pretends to not care about Sherlock so she can torture him while actually leaving him a message via her password that she did have feelings for him. Now, I think "I love you and I'm going to hurt you on purpose all the same" is an even worse message to give another person than simply "I don't care about you".

 

No wonder Sherlock says some very bitter things about love, reduces it to "a chemical defect commonly found on the loosing side" (btw, one of my absolute favorite quotes from this show!) and speaks of it's being "destructive". I don't believe he's talking about her in that moment so much as about himself. He loved her, and so he lost. The very fact that he is so angry is a sign of her power over him.

 

In the end, she got away. Even if the whole Karachi thing is supposed to be literally true, that would score a big point for her, not for him.

 

I like that they showed Irene as another deeply damaged genius rather than just a representative of all women. That's not sexist at all. Sexist is a writer using a female character to show off his admirably progressive views on gender equality instead of treating her as an individual.

[T.o.b.y]

"I'm thinking maybe like one of those people who are famous for being on the tabloid covers.  Moffat's Irene is way beyond that!"

 

Yes, she is. But, um, can you really imagine Sherlock falling for somebody like Paris Hilton...?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Aw, shucks! 

 

Don't tell me you read Pogo!

 

Well, of course I do!  And I do use a number of Pogoisms in my speech (one favorite being "long molar" for that thing my husband cuts the grass with).  But "aw shucks" ain't one of 'em -- it's just the way I talk.  (Well, admittedly, it's something of a self-conscious expression, but not related, in my mind at least, to Pogo.)  After all, there's a reason why the Pogo characters talk the way they do, so just about any folksy semi-southern expression is bound to sound somewhat Pogoish.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Carol, I thought I'd take the Irene "discussion" (I love this as a new word for me being obnoxious!) here to the episode she belongs to.

 

Thank you!  (Though if you're going to use the term "obnoxious" for this, then most of the forum will be subject to the same description, I fear.)

 

I can't argue with any of the points you raise, but I still think (feel?) that Moffat was playing dirty pool.  Again, I simply don't see the character he wrote as being Irene Adler.  Come to think of it, Moftiss's Moriarty is a far cry from the Victorian professor as well -- but in that character's case, I like the adaptation a whole lot better than the original, so I don't mind.  So you can chalk my objections up to personal taste, I suppose (which you already have).

 

"I'm thinking maybe like one of those people who are famous for being on the tabloid covers.  Moffat's Irene is way beyond that!"

 

Yes, she is. But, um, can you really imagine Sherlock falling for somebody like Paris Hilton...?

 

In a word, no.  But can you really see Sherlock falling for an S&M professional?

 

If Moffat could make a convincing character from the latter, surely he could have done so from the former -- if he'd wanted to.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Yeah, I see him falling for a "dominatrix". He's attracted to danger, right? And since he would have huge trouble with just walking up to a woman and kissing her, he'd be secretly grateful if she took care of everything.

 

Besides, Irene is very alluring, very high class.

[T.o.b.y]

Wasn't it said in some interview or so that Sherlock is supposed to be more like Holmes before the stories than Holmes in the stories and that they're trying to explain how he developed?

 

Holmes has been accused of being misogynistic. Watson writes about him as "mistrusting" women and calls his ideas about them "preposterous". At the time those stories were written, many people still saw women as irrational creatures, so that alone would explain Holmes' attitude. Today, of course, not even Sherlock would be allowed to harbor such an idea. So if they're planning to include this side of the original figure into the show, they'd need a better reason. Like his experience with Irene. So maybe that's why they made her so much more "evil" or at least cruel than the mostly just playful character of Miss Adler seemed to call for.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Judging by the commentaries, Moftiss intended for Sherlock to start out somewhat as he's presented in "A Study in Scarlet."  After all, the Holmes stories were written over several decades, and even the canon Holmes matured (presumably in step with the author's own maturation).  What most people have in mind as the "real" Holmes seems to come from the later stories, and may actually owe more to the movies.

 

Speaking of the movies, someone pointed out earlier that Sherlock's Irene is basically the femme fatale Irene from the movies.  So we might well ask why the movies have presented her that way, and the answer may be simply that it sells tickets.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Speaking of the movies, someone pointed out earlier that Sherlock's Irene is basically the femme fatale Irene from the movies.  So we might well ask why the movies have presented her that way, and the answer may be simply that it sells tickets.

That is of course a very good reason...

 

But "Sherlock" does not need to sell tickets. The series is hugely popular already, and they don't need Irene for the "sex sells" angle - they've got Sherlock himself for that.

 

I haven't seen any of the movies you mention. But if Gatiss and Moffat want to include them in their "canon", then of course it makes sense that they would reference them like this, that they would see the femme fatale as what most viewers would be expecting from Irene. 

 

I just like to make sense of what I see, I guess, and sometimes I make a little too much sense of it...

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Don't we all? 

 

... "Sherlock" does not need to sell tickets. The series is hugely popular already, and they don't need Irene for the "sex sells" angle - they've got Sherlock himself for that.

 

I will merely point out that my husband thinks Lara Pulver is a hell of a lot sexier than Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

[T.o.b.y]

Think they should do a series on her for the guys? What would they call it I wonder?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Think I'll let the guys field that question!

 

[Alex the Dabbler]

That would be a good idea as long as they included Rosalind Halstead in it.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, right, he thinks that Irene's very-personal assistant Kate is even sexier than Irene.

 

[T.o.b.y]

In that case, we can have the female duo with a lot of sex and not much love for the boys as opposed to the male duo with maybe love and no sex for the girls. Sounds fair...

[Carol the Dabbler]

Just as long as they're not boring!

 

[T.o.b.y]

Isn't Watson a woman on "Elementary"? I wonder why they didn't change Holmes' gender while they were at it...

[T.o.b.y]

Been thinking about this episode again and whether it was really necessary to make Irene so very much of a "scarlet woman", as Carol put it. Well, I've come to the conclusion that yes, it was:

 

First of all, for the plot to work the way it does in the original story (Miss Adler having photographic evidence of a royal client being involved with her in a way that would cause a huge scandal), you need something really extreme in the context of today's sexually very desensitized society. (Which is another reason why I'm guessing they'll take Milverton / Magnussen away from that angle completely). Anything short of "young (possibly under 18) female member of the royal family had sex with a self-proclaimed dominatrix" would have made a lot of viewers respond with a shrug and a "so what?"

 

Then, this episode was not only about "Sherlock and love". They had to show he was capable of loving, but they wouldn't have needed Irene for that (it was obvious by the end of the first series, anyway). It was also a lot about "Sherlock and sex". About whether he finds women alluring ("knows where to look"), whether he's got any kind of sexuality at all. So they needed some sexual tension between them, and again, for today's audience a few remarks about her face and the holding on to a picture wouldn't have been quite enough. They could, of course, have just granted him a regular little affair with her. But that would have been pretty mundane and boring. So how do you introduce sex between two people who don't have sex? You need a lot of substitutes for the usual contact. Like her putting on his coat over her bare skin. Like his face when he's been drugged and she's drawing that riding crop over his mouth. Like her text alert noise (which he seems to like just as much as any man likes that kind of sound from the woman he's involved with). And it has to be blindingly obvious that Irene is sex personified, that she is, in that sense, The Woman.

 

So Irene proves that Sherlock is interested in women and he's not asexual. Then the question arises, why doesn't he indulge tastes that are obviously existent? To answer that, Irene also has to represent the dangerous and destructive potential of this kind of love. His interest in her has to lead him into trouble, she has to betray him and hurt him or we won't understand why he didn't get off with her and live happily ever after, or why he didn't at least find another girlfriend. So she has to be evil, or at least cruel, or we would never have gotten the explanation for Sherlock's "monkish" decision, the "thank you for the final proof".

 

Of course none of this happens in the original story. Doyle's Holmes meets Miss Adler at a much later stage in his development. He's already very sure of himself and she doesn't harm him at all, he just has a good laugh at his own expense and that of his pompous client. (If you want to go really deep into subtext territory, it is notable, though, that "A Scandal in Bohemia" is the first case we hear of after Holmes wakes up from the cocaine binge that followed Watson's wedding. It's as if that event brought up the question of "do I need a woman, too?", for him, and Miss Adler arrives opportunely to show him that he really doesn't, but he can understand his friend's need for one.)

 

[Bakerstreet Irregular]

  All so very insightful and well thought out, T.o.b.y!  Another comment that comes to mind from the commentary on "ASiB" was how the tension was so very "British" to think about a love affair but never saying it. Being chaste and sweet and lovely but only going that far. And of course in this version Irene is ever so much more hurtful as you pointed out so well.

 

 

 

It's as if that event brought up the question of "do I need a woman, too?", for him, and Miss Adler arrives opportunely to show him that he really doesn't, but he can understand his friend's need for one.)

 

 

  It'll be interesting to see how Gatiss and company interprets this in their modern version or if your clever and canny point of view crossed their mind at all?

[T.o.b.y]

 

It's as if that event brought up the question of "do I need a woman, too?", for him, and Miss Adler arrives opportunely to show him that he really doesn't, but he can understand his friend's need for one.)

 

  It'll be interesting to see how Gatiss and company interprets this in their modern version or if your clever and canny point of view crossed their mind at all?

 

Wow, thanks for the praise... I think I was merely trying to justify liking this Irene so much (when it's probably just a matter of attraction).

 

I don't think my interpretation of the significance of Miss Adler in the original will show up on "Sherlock", because the sequence of events there is changed. Sherlock has his encounter with desire before John gets married. The outcome is also totally different. My interpretation of the original is Holmes sort of going "okay - I kind of see what you mean, those creatures can be quite nice to have around, after all, just won't get one for myself, thank you very much." In the modern version, Irene turns Sherlock even more against romantic attachment. So he might be able to understand John's need for a mate a little better, having known her, but I don't think he'd approve of it more.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Very plausible analysis, T.o.b.y -- I'm not sure that I like the episode any better after reading it, and I personally still think they went too far -- but you do make some good points.