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notagarroter · 8 years

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Still Processing

I know a lot of people are not interested in hearing negativity right now, and that’s fine, please feel free to skip this. That’s why I’m putting it behind a cut. (also because it’s dooper long, lol.)

Just to be clear, I am NOT saying at all that I hate Moftiss or that they fucked up or that I am better than them or anything. I’m just trying to work through the stuff that didn’t make sense to me, in hopes that I can find my way to some stuff that does. I really really want to keep loving this show, and I’m not giving up on it without a fight.

The other reason I’m posting is that I think my problems with the episode may be different from other people’s. So far, the hate I’ve seen has been divided into four main camps:

1) disappointed shippers 2) the people who have disliked everything since S3 began, and just wanted a nice cozy mystery 3) people with a specific theory or expectation that didn’t pan out 4) people who have always hated Moffat for various reasons

I don’t fit into any of these categories. So idk, but I thought it might be interesting or useful or something to share what is giving me pause right now.

This is all still after my first viewing -- I’m going to try a rewatch in a bit, and who knows? Maybe a lot will change. God knows I never fully grasp any of these episodes on a first viewing.

In no particular order:

1) okay, so first of all, on a very personal level... I think part of why I'm having trouble with it is I've always seen Sherlock as a story about an extraordinary person who grew out of relatively ordinary circumstances thanks to ambition and drive and hard work. And that's something I related to -- I felt like Sherlock represented my best self, the kind of figure I aspire to, the person I could almost kind of see myself being, given a perfect set of circumstances. but now I guess... Sherlock is the way he is because he experienced this terrible childhood trauma. And well, I never experienced any childhood trauma. my siblings are annoying like Mycroft, not psychopathic like Eurus. so I guess Sherlock doesn't feel like it's about me anymore. and I know that's dumb. I mean hi, I was never actually going to be a genius detective, and sherlock is a fictional character and has nothing to do with me or my ambitions. but I think I'm just slightly in mourning right now for the idea that Sherlock was a little like me.

2) What happened to Mycroft? it's so weird because all the Mycroft fans I know are like YAY this is EXACTLY what we wanted! and I'm just like... this is Mycroft? other people are happy to see how warm and cuddly he is, but I never wanted a warm and cuddly Mycroft. one of the things I always loved about him was his cool hauteur and moral ambiguity. of course I knew there was feeling underneath all that, but it felt a little embarrassing to see it all on the surface. and they told us in episode one that Mycroft "starts wars", so it seems a bit rich for him to be so squeamish about killing someone. I can kind of see him being like, "ew, I have people for that, I don't want to get my *hands dirty*." I would have been okay with that. but him acting like he has some kind of moral highground, and no one calling him on it? it felt like years of characterization down the drain. the knife in the umbrella thing... I guess I'm a bit weird about that, because I remember Moffat discussing it in an interiview. He said Gatiss wanted to do it, but he (Moffat) had told him absoluely not -- that it would make the character too cartoonish, and set the wrong tone for the kind of story they were telling. So when that happened so early in the episode, that was my first clue that they had basically given up. That they were no longer trying to maintain any control over the story, and they were just going to throw every kooky idea at us that they could think of, with no restraint.

3) why did this story need to take place on this island? Eurus was in London just last episode! She was wandering around freely, sharing chips with Sherlock and doing therapy with John. Why on earth would she then go BACK to her prison cell? Is the wifi there really good? How was she even getting back and forth? I know I know, this is a minor plothole. she was back on the island because that's where the writers wanted her. who cares about the logistics? but this isn't really a complaint about logistics. I think my real problem is, this Eurus seemed to have no connection whatsoever with the Eurus we met over the past two episodes. That Eurus was kind of interesting. I *loved* Eurus as Faith, spending all that time with Sherlock, telling him he was nicer than she imagined. And I was fascinated by her decision to seduce John -- what was she getting out of that? I wasn't sure, but it seemed likely to be very interesting, even if it was just a tool to get closer to Sherlock. there was a kernel of something really interesting there, and I was eager to see it play out. Eurus is dangerously crazy and obviously scary smart and cunning and manipulative, but at the same time, there seemed to be a part of her that was genuinely interested in how Sherlock turned out. Maybe there was even some affection there. And maybe she would be an interesting device for Sherlock to examine his own darkest impulses. and I guess that *sort of* happened? technically? I mean, that Eurus against all odds got a redemption arc and a hug from Sherlock. And I guess maybe all her stupid mind games in the fortress were her way of prodding at Sherlock's humanity -- a kooky way of exploring and testing her affection for him? it's just... I didn't recognize her. actually, a big part of the problem may be literally that. I know it's part of her character that she's a chameleon (although that's never explicitly discussed, but whatever), but I think it was really hard on me that she looked COMPLETELY different from last time I saw her. AND totally different from Faith, and from Bus Girl. So in a lot of ways, she felt like an entirely new character, which contributed to my sense that this episode was totally disconnected from anything we saw previously. Maybe now that I recognize that was a problem for me, I can re-approach this episode with that in mind, and really remind myself in each scene, "this is faith, this is bus girl, this is the therapist." maybe if I do that, her actions in this episode will make more sense to me.

4) another problem I had was with the violining. I think a big chunk of the emotional resonance of this episode was supposed to come from people playing the violin, but ugh... that's a little rough on me. in concept, I love Sherlock the violinist. but the fact is, Cumberbatch doesn't play, so his on-screen playing always looks incredibly awkward to me, and even in previous episodes it tends to take me out of the moment. it's a place where his performance of Sherlock always breaks down for me, because I can see that he has no idea how to hold a violin and bow properly. I always want to yell at him to hold his elbow differently, lol. I've gotten used to the idea in other episodes that I sort of look away when he starts playing, and focus on other details in the room. I tried to do that here, too, but I think in doing that, I may have missed a lot of the emotional work the episode was trying to do. so maybe that's something I can work on.

5) another thing I missed in this episode was London. maybe this is even part of why I've never liked THoB -- they're the only two episodes that basically don't feature London at all. I'm surprised at this reaction, tbh. I'm not really a big fan of London as a city, and I don't have the romantic image of it that many Americans do. Nor have I ever consciously thought of it as a crucial element of the show. I knew other people did, but I didn't think it mattered much to me. But there was just something so airless and artificial about this episode. I know Arwel said it's the episode he's proudest of, which I think means basically the whole thing was done on a sound stage, other than some establishing shots of the fortress. But for all his hard work, it didn't feel like a real place to me. Everything looked like it was made of cardboard. this is another thing that might be an effect of the shitty stream I was using. with everything murky and pixelated, it was hard to see *what* the backdrops were. but my sense was that it was a lot of the same fakey-looking concrete that they use for Mycroft's office, which has also never worked real well for me. I think the fact that it all took place on this island added to my sense that this was a goofy genre exercise, and very separate from the Sherlock-verse I've come to know.

6) also, it was tough to watch 221b be blown up so pointlessly. like, who even did that? presumably Eurus, but... why? was that necessary to the story in any way? I'm pretty sure it was not. which means they only included it for symbolic purposes. and I know they rebuilt at the end, but I didn't know that as I was watching, so that moment really felt like moftiss saying FUCK YOU to all the viewers and fans. like they were just out and out saying, it's gone, it's over, it's dead, we are sick of it and we never want to return here. which is... really sad, on a symbolic level. it was sad to think about the writers themselves so hating something that I have so loved. like, not only did they destroy it, they destroyed it in this totally off-hand way, as if they didn't even *care*. as if they didn't care enough to give it a powerful, narratively meaningful send off. so that was an awkward thing to sit with through the whole episode. I felt like they had already said good-bye to the whole concept of the show, and everything else we were watching was just killing time, basically. and obviously in retrospect they were seeding this idea that they were going to rebuild 221b, and everything would be okay again. but I still don't really get that, even on a symbolic level. and certainly not on a literal level -- it pisses me off at the end that they have the same lamps and everything, that surely would have been destroyed in the fire. so much of Sherlock's collection in that apartment was totally irreplaceable, so I don't see how they could recreate it perfectly, nor do I understand why they would want to. I mean, it's just not something normal humans would do, so it definitely felt hyper-symbolic and meta, rather than making any literal or emotional sense. so I guess on a symbolic level, the only reading I can manage is that they had no idea where to take the story they've been building, and they really didn't feel like figuring it out. so instead they just decided to blow everything to smithereens and start over again, tabula rasa. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not what I was expecting.

7) I really really WANT to like the scene of Sherlock busting up the coffin, because it looks like it was supposed to be really pretty. but... maybe I'm wrong here, but even in repeated gifs it still looks to me like there is some seriously wonky CGI in that scene, with the coffin jumping around in ways that totally defy the laws of physics. and this show has generally been SO AMAZING about not using CGI or only using it very sparingly. so between that moment and the totally awful cheeseball explosion, it felt like a very different show from what I've come to expect. but idk, maybe I'll watch the behind the scenes featurette and discover it's not CGI at all, that's just what wood really looks like as you bust it up.

8) that was another thing that was missing, which really broke my heart. there was no Sherlock-vision, as far as I recall. I mean, the cool, innovative ways this show has always illustrated Sherlock's thought processes. the only thing that even came close was Sherlock sinking into oil as he goes unconscious. and I guess this element was missing because there weren't really any deductions this episode. just very briefly the three garridebs, but there was nothing interesting or impressive about that one so they didn't bother with any mindpalace effects. and I get that this episode was supposed to be about Sherlock's emotional journey, and for once NOT relying on his intellectual faculties. but... sigh. that's a really risky thing to do with Sherlock Holmes.

9) okay so I was also, I have to admit, SUPER disappointed in Moriarty and Andrew Scott. I was very excited when he first showed up on screen, because it looked like the episode might take off in a different direction, which felt REALLY necessary to me at that point. but it really didn't. and while I enjoyed some of the queeniness, overall it felt hammy even by Andrew's normal standards on this show. but worst of all was that there didn't seem to be any relationship at all beteen Moriarty and Sherlock. I really missed that. yes, I'm a sheriarty shipper, but no, I didn't expect them to kiss and make babies or anything. but I did want them to interact in some way, even if it was only imaginary, like in TAB. but Moriarty here was just a tool for Eurus, and didn't seem to care about Sherlock at all. idk, maybe I missed something there that will be clearer on rewatch. and I've seen other Moriarty-fans are really happy with the conclusion that he just didn't care about being alive, and was perfectly happy to have some long game play out in his absence. but psychologically I am having trouble understanding that motivation. maybe that's on me. the idea of him creating all these super cheesy reaction shots or whatever for Eurus to use at some point way in the future just made no sense to me at all, and aesthetically I found them really grating. there was no interesting sexual tension there -- it was all just silly. I guess there was sexual tension maybe with Eurus, but since we barely know her, it didn't really click for me.

10) I'm still working through my feelings about what they did with Molly. partly it doesn't make sense to me on a logical level. it seems like a Sherlock at the top of his game, the Sherlock who easily seduced Janine, would have been able to solve this problem pretty easily. what if he'd just been like, "hey Molly, no time to explain, but I need a recording of a woman's voice saying "I love you". it's for a case." and just made it really clear that it had nothing to do with her, was NOT an attempt to humiliate her. then wouldn't she have just done it? I would have. I don't think I even would have found it strange. but fine, I can accept that maybe the point is he was NOT at the top of his game -- he was too stressed and unnerved by the situation to think clearly. still, it felt like a very weird thing for Eurus to request. more than anything, it felt like a pre-adolescent game of truth or dare. like I can see kids at a sleepover, being like, *giggle giggle*. "I dare you to call up that sad girl who has a crush on you and tell her you love her." what for? the only point was to humiliate Molly, and since Eurus doesn't know Molly, I wasn't sure why she'd bother. I guess the larger point was to force Sherlock to humiliate Molly, which of course he didn't want to do. But it still seems like an awfully bratty game to play. It makes Eurus seem like a stunted child-woman, which maybe is supposed to be true. But it didn't jive with the emotionally sophisticated Eurus we saw in the previous episodes. A person with that twelve-year-old mindset wouldn't have been able to seduce John or play a convincing therapist or spend a whole night being sweet with Sherlock. so... without any larger sense of what Eurus was trying to accomplish, I fall back on the writers just throwing it in to toy with the Sherlolly shippers. also I found it hard to believe that at this stage in his life, Sherlock would find it so difficult to tell Molly he loves her. Of course he loves Molly, just like he loves John and loved Mary. he had no trouble telling them that he loves them, so why was it so hard to tell Molly? It seemed inconsistent with his emotional maturity going back to S3. I feel like if he just said, "Molly, I want you to know how important you are to me, you've helped me in so many ways, and I really treasure your friendship." that would have been a nice and gentlemanly intro to saying "I love you" without implying that they were going to get married. but idk, it looks like that's how she took it, anyway, so maybe this is just a quibble about the details. idk.

11) I just didn't really get the coffin game in general. I mean, Sherlock was supposed to deduce stuff about the occupant based on the coffin, but... it wasn't *really* anyone's coffin. it was just a prop. so when Sherlock was like, don't be silly, Irene would never have a coffin like this, I was like... ? Um, why would Molly have a coffin prepared at all? she doesn't think she's going to die. and if Molly were preparing to die, would she really want a coffin that said I Love You on the front? To no one in particular? That's so bizarre. Who would do that? so again, I have to take the whole thing as symbolic, but is it Moftiss's symbolism or Eurus's? It felt more like Eurus's weird art-installation, than anything to do with the show as we know it.

12) the whole premise of trying to save the girl on the plane, or the manager's wife, didn't really work for me. it felt exploitative in a very typical Hollywood way, and exactly the kind of thing this show usually avoids. it made me miss Sherlock from TGG, who quite correctly observes that fixating on the sad stories of individual people is just a distraction, and prevents you from solving the bigger problem. but at least they didn't use Rosie as bait -- thank god for small favors. although, it seems like EXACTLY the sort of bullshit thing this incarnation of Eurus would have done, so in a way it's a bit strange they didn't go there. but I found it hard to care about this random little girl, and even harder to believe that Sherlock and Mycroft would. I mean, even Keanu Reeves in Speed knew that the answer to this kind of problem is to shoot the hostage and take them out of the equation. I think part of my problem with the whole "game" scenario that Eurus set up is that I knew right away what my answer would be. I've seen these "moral dilemma" scenarios before, in psych studies and logic problems and fanfic. for me, the only moral and logical answer is to refuse to play. I learned this from the Milgram experiment -- the only right answer is to say, "the scenario you've set up is absurd and inhuman, and I won't participate." and then the mad scientist or whatever says, "but if you refuse to play, I'll kill them/you/your family." and you say, "go ahead. let the blood be on your hands, not mine." there's just no point in playing along with a psycho. they don't follow their own rules, so there's nothing to be gained. and indeed, that's exactly what happened. they solved the Garridebs problem, and Eurus killed the innocent ones instead of the guilty. because why not? Sherlock jumped through her hoops for Molly, only to learn that she didn't have any explosives there anyway. and *finally* when he does get a clue and refuse to play, when he threatens to kill himself instead, she calls the whole game off. wouldn't it be nice if he'd thought of that earlier??? so yeah, I guess it was kind of a major problem for me personally that I was rolling my eyes through the whole "escape room" scenario. I didn't feel like there was anything at stake, and indeed we find out there was not.

13) generally, I consider "repressed traumatic memory" to be one of the MOST cliche and ineffective plot devices known to man. and I pretty much knew going in that this episode was going to hinge on that, because it was in the trailer, but that didn't make me like it any more.

14) even though a lot of fandom saw it coming and I wasn't exactly surprised, I am deeply saddened that Redbeard wasn't really a dog. dogs are great! I really loved Sherlock's relationship with his dog -- that was such a beautiful element of his childhood and I'm sorry to see that go. Why can't Sherlock just be allowed to love dogs?

15) I'm not even going to get into the coda at the end, with Mary and the happy family stuff. I think if I hadn't been so dragged down by everything else in the episode, maybe I would have appreciated stuff. as it is, I came to it in a REALLY bad mood, and it all came off as really cheesy and convenient and fake. So right now I can't even take comfort, as many others are doing, in the happy ending of everyone together solving cases in 221b.

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all right, that's it. I've gotten it out of my system. maybe a lot of my frustrations came from having SUPER high expectations for this episode. I'm going to rewatch now with uh... somewhat lowered expectations! and maybe I will see something different that I can hook on to and find the love again.

#original post #squee harshing #sorry #I'm working on it!#TFP

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