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Scandal in Belgravia
For now, just one of my many thoughts on this episode--
I'm rewatching it trying to catalogue exactly what Irene Adler is responsible for. Since she is one of the biggest Mary Sues to ever roam through fandom, rampaging for over a century, I'm hyper sensitive to any portrayal of her. This one I like, but bears a worrying potential for her to pop up over and over, which would be grating to me. In particular, I've always hated the portrayals of Adler as a lovable rogue (see RDJ's Sherlock). In this, she is a lovable rogue--but not really. She is actually quite bad.
1. We can assume that it was her call to Moriarty at the pool, probably about the email she photographed. (Unless we find out what that phone call was in a future episode, that seems the most logical--Moffatt doesn't leave threads hanging.)
2. Since she reported it to Moriarty immediately, and since Moriarty was clearly giving her direction in the seduction of Sherlock, when she says later that she had one of the best cryptographers in the world look at it, and that he was upside down at the time, I'm going to assume that was Moriarty. Meaning she's probably, if not had sex with him, at least dominated him in a professional capacity.
3. Faking her death was part of the Moriarty directed plan. We aren't told how she could trick Sherlock so convincingly, but it would require the corpse to be a perfect body double. Those don't turn up by chance. Which means she either murdered someone or, more likely, was involved in the conspiracy that murdered someone. And she doesn't seem at all bothered by that.
Sherlock showed in the pilot that he's unreasonably attracted, intellectually, to killers, if they're smart. So I don't think the murder would give him pause.
What I think would, though, is what she says at the end--that she had all this information but didn't know what to do with it until Moriarty. That makes her Moriarty's subordinate. And, given the photos she received at the beginning, however well she played the game, it makes her Moriarty's pawn.
I think that it is that emotion--the sudden realization that she, as a subordinate, is inferior to him--that frees him up to solve the puzzle at the end. The very end of the episode was rather ludicrously over the top, more than a little Mary Sue, and clearly just to leave the writers the option of bringing her back. Which I will be annoyed if they do too often.
But I can't help feel that Sherlock must have lost some respect for her. Killing, that wouldn't turn him away. But allowing yourself to be someone else's pawn? That would. Look at how he reacts to Mycroft's attempts to use him as a pawn.
I'm rewatching it trying to catalogue exactly what Irene Adler is responsible for. Since she is one of the biggest Mary Sues to ever roam through fandom, rampaging for over a century, I'm hyper sensitive to any portrayal of her. This one I like, but bears a worrying potential for her to pop up over and over, which would be grating to me. In particular, I've always hated the portrayals of Adler as a lovable rogue (see RDJ's Sherlock). In this, she is a lovable rogue--but not really. She is actually quite bad.
1. We can assume that it was her call to Moriarty at the pool, probably about the email she photographed. (Unless we find out what that phone call was in a future episode, that seems the most logical--Moffatt doesn't leave threads hanging.)
2. Since she reported it to Moriarty immediately, and since Moriarty was clearly giving her direction in the seduction of Sherlock, when she says later that she had one of the best cryptographers in the world look at it, and that he was upside down at the time, I'm going to assume that was Moriarty. Meaning she's probably, if not had sex with him, at least dominated him in a professional capacity.
3. Faking her death was part of the Moriarty directed plan. We aren't told how she could trick Sherlock so convincingly, but it would require the corpse to be a perfect body double. Those don't turn up by chance. Which means she either murdered someone or, more likely, was involved in the conspiracy that murdered someone. And she doesn't seem at all bothered by that.
Sherlock showed in the pilot that he's unreasonably attracted, intellectually, to killers, if they're smart. So I don't think the murder would give him pause.
What I think would, though, is what she says at the end--that she had all this information but didn't know what to do with it until Moriarty. That makes her Moriarty's subordinate. And, given the photos she received at the beginning, however well she played the game, it makes her Moriarty's pawn.
I think that it is that emotion--the sudden realization that she, as a subordinate, is inferior to him--that frees him up to solve the puzzle at the end. The very end of the episode was rather ludicrously over the top, more than a little Mary Sue, and clearly just to leave the writers the option of bringing her back. Which I will be annoyed if they do too often.
But I can't help feel that Sherlock must have lost some respect for her. Killing, that wouldn't turn him away. But allowing yourself to be someone else's pawn? That would. Look at how he reacts to Mycroft's attempts to use him as a pawn.
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ACD!Irene is inherently selfish, acting on her own behalf and looking out for her own interests. She's not part of some wider plot to destroy European monarchy, whereas Sherlock and Guy Ritchie!Irenes are both catspaws for the actual Big Bad.
ACD!Irene also looks after an apparent injured clergyman with 'grace and kindliness', which I can't see either of the recent adaptations doing. (Even if BBC Sherlock had bothered with a better disguise.)
And I could believe that ACD!Irene would, possibly, murder in the heat of passion but she wouldn't go in for such a calculated, cold-blooded plot as Sherlock!Irene.
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Sarah T., feel free to continue at mine.
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