Elementary: The View From Olympus
April 3, 2015 5:54 AM - Season 3, Episode 18 - Subscribe
A city cab driver intentionally runs over a driver who works for a ridesharing company; one of Sherlock's casual romances becomes complicated.
You know, with a lot of other brilliant asshole characters, or even with other versions of Sherlock Holmes, I know I would have been rolling my eyes at Sherlock's whole self-loathing "my gifts are a burden" thing. Like, boo hoo, you're super smart and above the dull-minded normal folk, get over it. But with Jonny Lee Miller's performance, and with this particular Sherlock's background and experiences, Elementary really sells it.
I too laughed a bit at Sherlock being so baffled at Agatha's perception of his abilities, but man, it's really sad too. Sherlock doesn't often go on about how difficult he finds the way his mind works, but when he does, there's always a real pathos to it. In part, I think, because it's so closely entwined with his addiction and he has the self-awareness to know it, and the show has built that beautifully over the course of three seasons. The other particularly moving moment about that was in I think the second season when Sherlock confessed to his NA group that he wondered if he would have done better in a different time, or place, if he could have been spared the pain of the way his mind and addiction worked in a different world. Which was of course metacommentary on the "original" Sherlock Holmes, who was spared no such thing.
The thing is that both Agatha and Sherlock are right, in their own ways, and that's Sherlock Holmes in a nutshell. Agatha has a rosy view of Sherlock's ability and work, given that she doesn't know everything about him, but even if she did, she might still say the same thing. Because Sherlock is good and does do good work and his abilities are remarkable, maybe even more so for the pain and struggle that informs them. It's just that Sherlock's perspective living it, and Joan's perspective of intimately understanding Sherlock's demons, aren't wrong either. I thought it was deftly done, though I did agree with the AV Club that the A and B plots were kind of mismatched and not fully fledged this week.
posted by yasaman at 10:24 AM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I too laughed a bit at Sherlock being so baffled at Agatha's perception of his abilities, but man, it's really sad too. Sherlock doesn't often go on about how difficult he finds the way his mind works, but when he does, there's always a real pathos to it. In part, I think, because it's so closely entwined with his addiction and he has the self-awareness to know it, and the show has built that beautifully over the course of three seasons. The other particularly moving moment about that was in I think the second season when Sherlock confessed to his NA group that he wondered if he would have done better in a different time, or place, if he could have been spared the pain of the way his mind and addiction worked in a different world. Which was of course metacommentary on the "original" Sherlock Holmes, who was spared no such thing.
The thing is that both Agatha and Sherlock are right, in their own ways, and that's Sherlock Holmes in a nutshell. Agatha has a rosy view of Sherlock's ability and work, given that she doesn't know everything about him, but even if she did, she might still say the same thing. Because Sherlock is good and does do good work and his abilities are remarkable, maybe even more so for the pain and struggle that informs them. It's just that Sherlock's perspective living it, and Joan's perspective of intimately understanding Sherlock's demons, aren't wrong either. I thought it was deftly done, though I did agree with the AV Club that the A and B plots were kind of mismatched and not fully fledged this week.
posted by yasaman at 10:24 AM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think basically the only actor who could play Sherlock Senior is Jeremy Irons.
How delicious would that be?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:50 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
How delicious would that be?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:50 PM on April 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Is accept Charles Dance as the Sr Holmes but won't be holding my breath.
posted by fiercekitten at 12:24 AM on April 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by fiercekitten at 12:24 AM on April 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
This was an interesting jab at another element of taxi-like driver services like Uber - there is so much they can track, without any oversight. But then again, cellphone data is already used for vehicular traffic mapping and forecasting. Uber and others are only getting a slice of the data that is already collected and utilized.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:11 PM on April 10, 2015
posted by filthy light thief at 10:11 PM on April 10, 2015
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I think my favorite bit of this episode was the baffled expression on Sherlock's face when Agatha was telling him why she wanted him to father her child. Just utter incomprehension that someone could have such a positive impression of him, when he has such a depth of self-loathing. I had to laugh.
We've never seen Sherlock's father on-screen, right? Just the fake-out when he hired someone to impersonate him to Watson? The AV Club recapper suggested that we're building up to a Sherlock Sr. arc now that Kitty's is done, which seems reasonable. Hard part to pull off after 3 years of build-up though, wonder who they'd cast.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:11 AM on April 3, 2015 [2 favorites]