This episode was meatier than the first one of the night, but I also had a bigger complaint about it. Let's dive in.
Cons:
So, the case this week involves an old murder being brought back into the limelight, as the convicted murderer is actually innocent. It all gets tied up with a guy who does appropriation art by taking people's selfies and re-contextualizing them as works of art. That sounded interesting to me, but Sherlock took on the snobbish attitude that selfies are an uncouth and narcissistic practice that one should stick one's nose up at. I hate this attitude. Usually when Sherlock gets all morally superior about something, it's about a big corporation stealing money from the helpless, or a practice that upholds elitism and stomps on the little guy. This time, Sherlock's snobbishness was turned towards selfie culture. My mini-rant on the subject is this: selfies are confidence-boosters, and the only reason they get dragged so hard is because they are a type of social media most often engaged in by young teenage girls, and must therefore be cultural sludge. The rich and powerful have been sitting for portraits of themselves for centuries. Aren't such portraits merely a more expensive and time-consuming form of the selfie? Now that this type of self love and self portrayal is available to the masses, must we deride it as a study in narcissism? Usually I agree with Sherlock when he shows distaste for something. Here, I was disappointed in the show for taking the party line on selfies and not doing anything to complicate the status quo.
Also, much like last week, the interesting character stuff far out-shadowed my interest in the actual case. By the time we had gone through exonerating the wrongfully accused guy, figuring out about the forgeries, discovering that the guilty party was having an affair, finding a scientist who was falsifying DNA evidence, and finally landing at the solution, I felt disconnected from the reality of the murder we were trying to solve. That can often happen when the case gets too convoluted.
Pros:
I did like the fact that Joan discovered one of the key pieces to the case, directing them towards the killer before Sherlock had figured it out. This happens so rarely that I was happy to see an example of Joan's investigative skills on display.
Mainly, though, this episode rested on the plot thread that we started last episode, that of Joan and her newly revealed half-sister, Lin. Lin, it transpires, wants nothing to do with Joan or her family. She feels bitter and resentful about her father, who was sick and who left Lin and her mother when Lin was still quite young. Joan, for whom her birth father has always been a mystery, wants to connect with Lin and learn more about this man, but Lin won't have it. Lin is furious when Joan calls Lin's mother, and retaliates by telling lies about how their father absolutely hated Joan's mother and Joan and her brother. In the end, Lin comes by and apologizes. Joan calls Lin's mother again and is invited over for tea, but Joan says she'll wait until Lin is ready to join them... because she's her sister.
There were so many great things going on here. I think my favorite detail is the fact that Sherlock doesn't figure it out. He believes the lie that Lin and Mycroft used to be an item, and it's not until Joan tells him that Sherlock learns the truth. That's so rare - I was worried that Sherlock would figure it out before Joan, or at least have deduced it before being told, but no. It's rare to see Sherlock Holmes actually surprised by something, but he was! From that moment on, Sherlock was very supportive of Joan and what she must be going through. He made a few snippy comments about his own experience with a sibling, but he also let her make her own decisions and wanted to know how she was doing.
By the end, Joan and Lin had reached a place of equilibrium. Both of them are having a hard time with this new revelation, but for different reasons. And their responses are quite different as well. I can already see great chemistry between these two actors, and I hope we can follow up more with this plot thread and explore how these girls feel about their father, and about each other.
I'll stop there. I don't really understand the decision to make this a pseudo two-parter. Must be a scheduling thing. But I'm not going to complain about more Joan Watson!
8/10
I did like the fact that Joan discovered one of the key pieces to the case, directing them towards the killer before Sherlock had figured it out. This happens so rarely that I was happy to see an example of Joan's investigative skills on display.
Mainly, though, this episode rested on the plot thread that we started last episode, that of Joan and her newly revealed half-sister, Lin. Lin, it transpires, wants nothing to do with Joan or her family. She feels bitter and resentful about her father, who was sick and who left Lin and her mother when Lin was still quite young. Joan, for whom her birth father has always been a mystery, wants to connect with Lin and learn more about this man, but Lin won't have it. Lin is furious when Joan calls Lin's mother, and retaliates by telling lies about how their father absolutely hated Joan's mother and Joan and her brother. In the end, Lin comes by and apologizes. Joan calls Lin's mother again and is invited over for tea, but Joan says she'll wait until Lin is ready to join them... because she's her sister.
There were so many great things going on here. I think my favorite detail is the fact that Sherlock doesn't figure it out. He believes the lie that Lin and Mycroft used to be an item, and it's not until Joan tells him that Sherlock learns the truth. That's so rare - I was worried that Sherlock would figure it out before Joan, or at least have deduced it before being told, but no. It's rare to see Sherlock Holmes actually surprised by something, but he was! From that moment on, Sherlock was very supportive of Joan and what she must be going through. He made a few snippy comments about his own experience with a sibling, but he also let her make her own decisions and wanted to know how she was doing.
By the end, Joan and Lin had reached a place of equilibrium. Both of them are having a hard time with this new revelation, but for different reasons. And their responses are quite different as well. I can already see great chemistry between these two actors, and I hope we can follow up more with this plot thread and explore how these girls feel about their father, and about each other.
I'll stop there. I don't really understand the decision to make this a pseudo two-parter. Must be a scheduling thing. But I'm not going to complain about more Joan Watson!
8/10
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