Mini-Thoughts on Elementary S6 E2-4

Four episodes I watched all at once after returning from our honeymoon, four thoughts.

First thought: Who is exposition for?

In the first episode I missed, “Once You’ve Ruled Out God,” Watson deals with the death of her estranged father. At the end of the episode, she goes to visit his grave. Sherlock helpfully points this out for the audience by loudly explaining that he knows she’s going to her dad’s grave because she’s picked up some oranges and therefore [ten-second explanation of Chinese graveside visit traditions].

That felt weird to me.

We’ve got a white character, from a script credited to a white writer, played by a white actor explaining Chinese customs to a Chinese-American character played by Chinese-American actress. But he’s not really explaining them to her, of course. He’s explaining them to the audience, who is assumed to be white.

I get it, OK? I get that somebody behind the scenes thought, “Our audience may not understand this! We should explain! Hey, Sherlock often explains things! And this Sherlock is open to and respectful of other cultures’ traditions! We can get him to say our exposition!”

But it still feels weird, because why not treat the audience like the diverse audience it is? Have Sherlock just say, “Ah, you’re carrying oranges. Going to your dad’s grave, I take it,” the way he would if she’d picked up a bouquet of flowers from Christian/Western traditions more commonly depicted in Western media. Then, if you’re still wringing your hands over audience understanding, let Watson establish her own traditions by showing her leaving oranges at the grave onscreen and/or showing other graves with oranges by them.

Otherwise, it feels like Sherlock is whitesplaining to us and to Watson. It feels like yet another way in which his white-dudity is made the default even in a show that is often about deconstructing how other Holmes adaptations centre his privilege.

Watching this scene also made me consider who I, as a writer, assume my audience to be when I introduce aspects of my own lived experience — as a woman, as person with non-conforming gender presentation, and most of all, as a Jew. If my Jewish character is shomer shabbes, for example, I struggle to balance explaining what that is in the character’s voice and the idea that maybe it’s okay not to explain. I mean, Steven Spielberg didn’t pop in any Sherlock-style exposition for the stones at the grave at the end of Schindler’s List. It turned out fine.

Second thought: Ugh, “No, how you really feel is…”

I hate this trope, which often happens in Sherlock Holmes adaptations/reimaginings (see: House, M.D.). One character expresses FEELINGS. Other character tells first character than first character is incorrect about said feelings–e.g. “No, you don’t. You don’t [feel way first character just said they felt]. You [feel other way that is more dramatic].”

And Other Character’s point is always framed to show that it’s right. In “Our Time Is Up,” Watson’s sister Lin tells her how she “actually” feels about a key plot point. And Watson winds up agreeing. In previous episodes, whenever Sherlock calls Watson out on her feelings not being what she says they are, he’s always right–for example, he insists in “Once You’ve Ruled Out God” that Watson really, really does want to open a letter from her late father despite her repeatedly saying she doesn’t. And of course, by the end of the episode, she fishes the letter out of the trash to open it.

Now, I don’t mind when characters point out that another character’s framing of a situation is incorrect or unhealthy and therefore leads them to an emotional revelation–see, for example, when Watson calls out Sherlock for fatalistically blaming his bad behaviour on being too smart instead of looking for solutions that might require his emotional labour. But point-blank correcting characters on their own emotions feels lazy and toxic.

Lazy, because that is the least intriguing, easiest way I can think of to infusing emotional revelations with trivial-stakes conflict and making sure the audience understands the first character’s “real” feelings. Can’t you show us in the actions and words of the character having the emotions that they are struggling to reconcile the different ways they feel?

Toxic because, in real life, telling other people how they feel is manipulative. Telling people how they feel can change how they actually feel, especially since a lot of the time, we’re feeling many different things at once. Re-framing situations can shift people’s perspectives on which of our many emotions are “valid” and “real” and which aren’t, which is why in real life, many mental-health professionals ask lots of questions and give lots of general information that empowers clients to frame their own experience instead of lecturing each client on that client’s emotional life.

I don’t like the way having the knowledgeable character “uncover” someone’s “real” feelings elides the way that emotions are more fluid, always in flux and responding to changes. It feels too much like allowing one character to define reality at the expense of another–giving one character the power to say what’s objective.

Third thought: Would you quit it with the motherhood obsession already???

I have still seen exactly zero episodes of similar shows where male characters struggle with wanting kids. Martin Freeman’s Watson never raises the subject, nobody sets poor James Wilson’s heart a-tormented by remarking that he’d be a good dad, and lord knows none of the male Sherlocks/Sherlock stand-ins mention future children even in passing.

Which is why I have had it up to here with every smart adult female who likes her job getting all mopey about maybe wanting to have motherf***ing kids. Whenever this plot point comes up as an ongoing THING for women in a mystery drama, it’s always the same narrative: my time is running out! What if I never have kids??? ACTIVATING CHILD-SEEKING MODE!

And, yes, this is an issue and/or societal pressure that many women encounter. I’m not saying that the feelings of all those women out there struggling to have kids are invalid or unworthy of inclusion — of course they’re important and real! But not every lady, not even those who want kids right now, is obsessed with babies 100% all the time! And for some ladies, the problem is not “how do I get/have a kid” but navigating the complex emotions that come with realizing they don’t actually want children. Can we… can we just have those stories too? And nuanced takes on both? For characters of all genders? Please?

Elementary, I was so, so close to being excited about the way you were dealing with it. Based on Watson’s conversation with her sister, Lin, I thought maybe — just maybe! — you would make this about Watson coming to terms with how to integrate the fact that she doesn’t want kids with her self-image as a caregiver and carving out a valid self-identify of someone who is nurturing and childless at the same time. Hahaha! Boy, was I naïve! You sure showed me with that last scene of her secretly researching the adoption process!

*sigh*

Fourth thought: Fanboy Michael

Now that I’ve seen the June 11 episode, I understand that this season’s recurring antagonist Michael (Desmond Harrington) is supposed to be a deconstruction of serial-killer tropes. But for me, he isn’t deconstructed enough. His appearances in these four episodes could’ve come out of the first seasons of Dexter, if Dexter wasn’t the main character of his own show.

Again, after June 11, I see the clichés are meant to trick us into being surprised by the actual conflict this Sherlock vs. the serial killer plot emphasizes — but we don’t know the deconstruction is coming. The “saying something innocuous on the phone while the camera pans out to show the creepy dude burying a dead woman” shot feels overdone and doesn’t add any tension.

Instead, I wish the focus were more heavily on what could work a lot better: how Michael is essentially an in-universe Marty Stu Sherlock fanboy.

He is writing a typical Sherlock Holmes fanfic (see: the bajillion traditionally published writers who’ve written Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper, nevermind the fanfic authors) with bad self-insertion (“… and I will be Sherlock’s SPECIAL FRIEND who is SO MYSTERIOUS and SMART and also the ONLY ONE who sees what he REALLY NEEDS because ONLY I TRULY UNDERSTAND HIM”), only he’s doing so within the universe of the story. And what drives a mystery? The antagonist. So he’s become the antagonist to plot out his little Holmesfic.

It makes me wish his motivations were more all-thrusters-activated “I want to be part of a Sherlock Holmes story” rather than an ambiguous mix of “Get Holmes’s attention!”, “Help Holmes!”, and “Murder! Because it’s fun!”. We’ve seen all three of the latter before, done better because they were the main focus of the entire story rather than a season-long arc.